It's probably no secret for most regulars that quite a few of the older forum goers are having problems with Mjack. To keep things from escelation and maybe even losing another nice place to post in we have to come up with a solution to this. How can we resolve this? Because I can see this becoming a problem and it's not going away on it's own. This means I don't feel like this needs a banning for whoever. Don't forget the guy helped creature this place in the first place. On the other hand, most threads are either debats with Mjack at the middelpoint or talking about the guy, and how he fills up the place with his presence.
Maybe we can present a good case for the mods around here, or just let them give their own ruling, as long as we can all still have an enjoyable stay.
-Since Mjack has started a lot of threads maybe those can be renewed by others if he does not mind. That way everyone who wants to ignore him can do so freely and still see the decklists. I think this is probably the best option.
-It's a better option compared to creating two threads per subject, one being offlimits for Mjack. I know the haters would love this, but I'm looking at middle ground here.
-a post limit. If someone is allowed 2 post per thread per hour, or 5 posts per hour, is this a doable thing? This would mean a little more thought goes into a post, and the common triple posts are solved by this as well.
A mod is actively reading this thread and has given the following good points. I'll add more when I have time to review the thread.
Double / Triple / Etc Posting
This isn't specifically against the forum rules; there are times when doing so is OK. But, there is a rule against "forum disruption" and we have rules in the past that double/triple/etc posting can fall under that category in some situations. So here are some scenarios to consider, and how we feel about them from a rules perspective.
Poster X is creating a thread intended as a forum reference, for example a FAQ or guide or whatever. Poster X is worried that 60,000 characters (the current post limit) won't be enough, so she spreads her material over three posts. This is OK, and I think it's a category everybody can agree on.
Poster X is replying to a discussion. She makes a post, then immediately thinks of something new to add. She goes ahead and makes another new post with this information. This one is iffy. If it's a once in a while thing, I think everybody would just live with it and nobody would care. If it's frequent, that's when it becomes a nuisance and that is when we - the staff - care about it. The better action here would just be to edit your post with the new information.
Same as above, but Poster X thinks of something new to add an hour later, and nobody else has posted to the thread since then. Again, editing is probably better but the longer the amount of time between the initial post and the new information, the more acceptable a new post becomes.
Poster X is involved in a discussion and replies to give different people. Each in their own post. This one is not OK, at least generally speaking. Would I give you a warning for it? No, probably not. At least not the first time or two. However, once it becomes a recognized pattern, then yes - a mod will talk to you about this, because this is crossing into disruptive behavior. And if it gets to the point, frankly, where a thread gets created to talk about Poster X's penchant for doing so, it's gone on too long.
We're flexible on this, and we don't want to warn folks. It sucks to have to warn someobdy. The goal is to have a friendly place where we can all hang out and talk about games we like, whether it's Magic or Pathfinder or Tag or whatever. Hard and fast rules about double/triple/etc posting are difficult, because of the various scenarios above, where some are OK, some are iffy, and some are annoying. General rule of thumb: try to be courteous.
Moderation in General
It looks to me as though these issues have been festering for a while. And that's a shame, to be honest. Again, all everybody here wants to do is discuss games. As part of that, though, we do have some rules. (In fact, we're in the process of revising the site Code of Conduct to make it clearer. We invite everybody to read the draft copy before it goes "live" and offer their feedback. By all means, we want your feedback, so hop on over there and give it a look!) A lot of those rules are probably obvious, like no flaming, no trolling, no posting porn, and so on.
I know - from personal experience - that WotC moderation went to hell in a handbasket under the ORC system. (If anybody wants a history lesson of WotC's moderation, I can share that but for now I'll leave it out; but I think we can all agree that the ORC "drive by" method of modding left a lot to be desired.) Everybody on the staff was, at one time or another, an active poster on the WotC forums. I left there years ago, actually, rather than enduring the ORC system. Others stuck around and struggled through drive by moderation, no information, black box decision making, no community building, etc. And so that's why we're here now. We all have a really strong idea of what works - active, engaged moderators and admins who are part of the community and have a stake in how things go - and what doesn't - ORCs. Hopefully, we're doing more things right than wrong, and hopefully as time goes along here it gets even better.
But, part of that model relies on the community. The obvious part is we need the community to be active, to post productively, etc. But it's more than that. We really do need you guys to help us by reporting stuff you see that violates the Code of Conduct. As part of that, I promise you that we're going to do everything we can to not perform drive-by modding. We read the thread for context, we look around at the posts after it, we make continuity efforts so that the thread reads fluidly for somebody who sees it after an edit, we do as little as possible to make a post pass muster, and so on. Please, please, please: don't fan the flames and instead report problems so that we can work on them. We're not ORCs.
Open Questions
So I've typed too much now. I want to talk to you, not have a lecture. Lectures suck; conversations are interesting. Ask me anything about the site or moderation; there are, of course, going to be some things I can't answer due to privacy issues and such. But otherwise, the floor is open. Talk about what I typed in my wall of text; ask another question; offer a suggestion to improve your community. Whatever. The floor is yours; all I ask, of course, is that things remain civil.
And in the meantime, please do wander around the site. Join a play-by-post game, or wander into the RPG section if you play those games. Make a new thread in Other Games if there's another TCG/CCG you play, or a video game you want help with. Post up fiction or art in the new creative corner. Whatever. Stretch out and make the site your online home.
GobO_Fire wrote:
So here's what I'd like to see going forward. (And I'm actually seeing it already, to be fair, in some of these cases.)
In either of those cases, please recognize that the double post wasn't done to be malicious. As I said, the staff was able to reproduce the issue so it's not just an mjack thing (but I highly suspect his faulty mouse makes it more likely to happen for him). Since the poster wasn't being malicious, please just go about posting as though the double wasn't there. Eventually, it'll go away. Give the mods up to 48 hours to get to the maintenance task; if the double is still there after 48, please send me a PM.
That's the easy one. Double content posts are a bit trickier, but I think we can establish some guidelines here, too.
If somebody gets to a point where they regularly ignore the 5 minute rule, or they seem to be double posting content an awful lot, there are two things to do. The first is to attempt to politely talk to them about. PM is better, because it doesn't clutter the thread up. If you don't think you can be polite, or you aren't comfortable PMing somebody, or you have PMed but still don't see a change, then report one of the posts. You'll have to do some work on this one, because Ravenclaw or Furt - whoever gets the report - won't know the history. So give them the info they need to make a decision. The mod will then approach the double poster and have a discussion. No warnings, at least not at first. It's frankly not worthy of a warn (too much paperwork
). If the issue persists even after mod intervention, though, then we might get out of the "please don't do that" discussion and into the "this is forum disruption, so STOP" discussion.
So I think that will cover all the various double post scenarios; we give mjack the benefit of the doubt when his mouse acts up, we give others the benefit of the doubt if they manage to hit the timing just perfectly and double, and we cover establishing a community standard going forward for how you folks specifically want to handle content double posts as a group. We also, through all the above, remove all the thread derailment that occurs around this topic, which is also a win for the forum.
I have to run to a meeting. I'll address some more stuff in a bit. In the meantime, if anybody sees flaws in this, please let me know and we'll address that.
- If you accidentally double post, please go into one of the posts and delete the duplicate. If your ability to edit expires, please press the report post icon for the post you need deleted and one of us will get it.
- If you see somebody has double-posted by accident, give them a moment to see it and correct the mistake. If it's still there after 10 minutes or so, go ahead and report it. (Note: if somebody else has already reported it, you'll be told of that; so you can't create extra work for us - we only get one notification, no matter how many people try to report it.
In either of those cases, please recognize that the double post wasn't done to be malicious. As I said, the staff was able to reproduce the issue so it's not just an mjack thing (but I highly suspect his faulty mouse makes it more likely to happen for him). Since the poster wasn't being malicious, please just go about posting as though the double wasn't there. Eventually, it'll go away. Give the mods up to 48 hours to get to the maintenance task; if the double is still there after 48, please send me a PM.
That's the easy one. Double content posts are a bit trickier, but I think we can establish some guidelines here, too.
- Use the "5 minute rule." If you made a post, and nobody has yet replied to the thread, and you want to add new info, and less than 5 minutes has elapsed, please edit the new details into your existing post.
- After 5 minutes, or when making several replies, it's going to come down to poster judgment. As a general statement, I would suggest that individual posters try to conform to what seems to be the norm for the forum as a whole.
If somebody gets to a point where they regularly ignore the 5 minute rule, or they seem to be double posting content an awful lot, there are two things to do. The first is to attempt to politely talk to them about. PM is better, because it doesn't clutter the thread up. If you don't think you can be polite, or you aren't comfortable PMing somebody, or you have PMed but still don't see a change, then report one of the posts. You'll have to do some work on this one, because Ravenclaw or Furt - whoever gets the report - won't know the history. So give them the info they need to make a decision. The mod will then approach the double poster and have a discussion. No warnings, at least not at first. It's frankly not worthy of a warn (too much paperwork
). If the issue persists even after mod intervention, though, then we might get out of the "please don't do that" discussion and into the "this is forum disruption, so STOP" discussion.So I think that will cover all the various double post scenarios; we give mjack the benefit of the doubt when his mouse acts up, we give others the benefit of the doubt if they manage to hit the timing just perfectly and double, and we cover establishing a community standard going forward for how you folks specifically want to handle content double posts as a group. We also, through all the above, remove all the thread derailment that occurs around this topic, which is also a win for the forum.
I have to run to a meeting. I'll address some more stuff in a bit. In the meantime, if anybody sees flaws in this, please let me know and we'll address that.
I think we all agree this is bad, yes?