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.

The fact that this is a thread bothers me.
I don't really like the idea of re-creating the threads so that someone else started them. We'd lose some good discussions.
Post limit, is not an option. That's a global setting (from what I can tell) and would impact some of the other forums in a very bad way.
Creating threads that one person cannot post in....really?

Personally, I really don't get the hate here...yeah, he posts a ton. Is that really a problem? If blocking him is not an option (due to the thread ownership issue) then just don't read what he has to say.

IMO - this is an open community, and we should not be trying to make rules around one person.

Also, personally, I wonder if things would be different if people just cut him a break from time to time. Disagree with what he says all you want, it can lead to some pretty good discussions. Just leave the personal stuff out of it.

Ignored posts can be unignored on a post by post basis, so him being the topic starter is no big deal so long as the first post in each decklist is just a decklist (which I believe it is).
The post limit would break the forums as most activity around here happens in bursts of conversational style back and forth, which would not work with a post limit.

And really, most people who find him to unbearable have blocked him, and those that havent are keeping things civil enough for a decent forum. Remember, not everyone has to get along, so long as they dont tear the place down around us, its fine for people to dislike each other.

So...yeah...a whole lot concern about nothing, in my opinion.


And jokingly, in the case of the forum vs Mjack, the forum would win. Mjack wouldn't believe it and constantly try and convince everyone he won, you're just not seeing it right to understand he won

I would advise you to create new threads. Heavily advise.

I really don't want this to be implemented

This is a great post. If anti-MJackpeople can use this, that's already half the battle.

Mjack, I don't want you leaving. We have our differences, but I do see you growing and becoming a better person, and I like some of your new ideas. The constant bickering between both groups is just wearing thin. We need a solution and that means both teams need to change their attitude against each other.

One last thing - mjack - you do really seem to be the only person who seems to have the "double-post" issue - I'm not sure how that happens, since you should not be able to post twice that quickly. Maybe if we can figure that out, it might get a few people off your back...

Just for fun, I'm going to try clicking submit a few times here, to see if I double post.

You cannot make another post so soon after your last.

That's what happened to me when I double-clicked, the first post came up as a "new one" and the 2nd copy was in the editor. When I clicked the new submit button, I got the above error.

So - I have no idea how you are able to doublepost...

Want to know what doesnt help both groups coming together and being more amiable? Making a 'vs the forums' thread and blowing things out of proportion.

I believe the goal there was to take an existing argument out of a deck thread post and put it elsewhere. It was going to happen anyway, better to have it in it's own place (not that I feel it needs to happen)

If you're gonna leave mjack, just do it, this vague threat about needing to create new threads isn't doing you any favors.

And if you wanna stay I think that's cool as well, but maybe you should realize that while some of the hate against you can go a little overboard, it exists because you tend to act and post in a ways that are very annoying to people. There is no reason, at all, to clog up the boards with triple posts for example, but you have still been doing since you came to these boards, even though people have told you constantly to just edit your posts.

Well, better to argue about this in here and maybe reach a compromise, compared to people derailing the other threads.

Though, the vs thing might not be the best name. I'll change it.

Hello,

I am not a moderator of NGA, but I would like to state that language that targets and attacks a specific user is against the code of conduct. If you have a problem with posts that a user makes, I suggest to everybody, to use the report function to alert moderators to posts that break the CoC. The purpose of this forum is for discussion of Duels of the Planeswalkers, not forum members that you do not like. Threads in these veins will not be tolerated.

I would also like to say that there is an ignore feature that is built into the forum. Rather than making posts attacking users you do not agree with or like, you can use this feature to filter their messages.

Most importantly, I would like to state the the function of Moderators is to enforce the Code of Conduct, not to dictate who gets to create content and being judges of whether content is quality or not. Moderators will not edit ideas, but they will take action for attacks on people. If you feel that a user is posting inferior content, I would suggest improving upon what they have posted or opening discussions to on how ideas can be improved. This can be done without attacking the creator of the content.

I'm going to lock this thread in this forum as an example and a moderator will be directed here to determine if additional action will need to be taken.

Thank you,
Slobad

Howdy, gang. I'm short on time, but didn't want to leave this completely hanging. I'm going to be making some edits to various posts here, and then I'm going to re-open the thread so we can all have a discussion. We're not going to discuss mjack in particular, though; instead, we're going to talk about ways to improve your community a bit - with the staff's help - so we can avoid this sort of thing happening going forward. There's actually some good discussion points here already, so I'll just be emphasizing those.

However, right now I'm late for a meeting. But as I said, I didn't want to leave the community in the learch while I find time to do the cleanup and get things back towards a general conversation.

-Fire

OK, so mod voice stuff first, because nobody likes it and so we can get it out of the way early...

I've removed some posts and edited others to remove flaming, baiting, and personal attacks. Please don't; that's not what we want in our community. If you have an issue with a specific post, please use the report post feature rather than replying. Give us details - even if you need to explain some background info, that helps us. If you have a larger issue and feel reporting a single post isn't acceptable, please feel free to send a PM to a mod. Furt and Ravenclaw and the mods for the Magic area, and myself and Althalus are the mod leads. Any of us will be happy to look into issues here and work to resolve them.

~~~~

OK, so... on to a conversation. One very quick ground rule: this is not a place to bash, belittle, attack, etc mjack or any other community member. I've updated the title of the thread, but I've left the original post as-is for reference. But that doesn't mean I want folks to take shots at mjack here. Instead, I'd like to have a conversation so we can work together to improve your piece of our community.

So let's start with some things that have come up, and we'll see where the conversation goes from there.

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.

I appreciate the time you took to explain your position. I am also very happy that we do not have a ORC system here and I would like to keep it that way.
Open communication with the forum base goes a long way in attracting new members and keeping old ones and I sincerely hope everyone here reads everything you had to say.
Thank you and keep up the good work.

Hopefully we can all work to make things a bit better and build up a stronger community.

*

So, some talking with mjack and this is an interesting example of double posting.

It's odd behavior, that's for sure.

From a few posts after that point:



It looks to me like a combination problem, to be honest. There's something on mjack's end - his mouse - that causes odd functionality from his side. But, the forum software is supposed to prevent it from happening. We have flood control turned on, so a user shouldn't be able to make more than one post every 15 seconds. So yes, it's possible that the example posts are 16 seconds apart but we can't tell because the site only shows hour and minute. Or, it's possible that some combination of mjack's broken mouse and the software interacts oddly to bypass the flood interval.

Me personally? I very much prefer to chalk this up to accident rather than malice. Whether the accident is caused by a software bug or those posts really are 16 seconds apart is immaterial. It's clear this isn't being done intentionally. Just because it can't be reproduced easily doesn't mean it's not a bug (says the software developer who sometimes has to chase down the craziest of bugs).

So... if this happens to you and you see it, please delete the double post (the "X" icon at the bottom right of your post). If you see somebody else do this, rather than chastising them, please go ahead and just report it to us. Use the "other" category and tell us it's a double post in the free-form text field. We'll be happy to do the cleanup when this happens.

Now, yes, this is only one example of double posting. We'll see if we can figure out how it happens as far as the bug goes. We can certainly have an open dialog about other double posts, too - such as the examples I mentioned, or any other examples folks can think about. Or we can discuss other issues. Whatever you guys want here - it's an open table to get the issues resolved.

Wow, if anything this is one of the best responces I've seen a mod give. I feel like this place can actually rise and become a strong community. I'll add the response to the OP tomorrow and see if we can all help make this place enjoyable for all parties involved.

I don't buy this "mouse" trouble excuse. Someone will have to help me dig, but I know for a fact that dude has said numerous times that he posts so much because "the forum is dead anyways" (or something to that effect).

Now I know it's happy pow wow time and we don't want to pile on, but seriously, annoying behavior/excessive posting from one individual CONTRIBUTES to the decay of a forum. It doesn't help.

Anyways, shout outs to the mods here. Who knew dudes in a position of internet authority could be so understanding and cool?

No, I think you're being fair Mobius. I'm not at all saying all the double posts are mouse trouble. Just that one specific example. Jack has already admitted to me that he does intentionally double post as well. So lets discuss it a bit, and see what your community standard will be going forward (because while NGA is one big community (we hope) we do also recognize that the one big one is made up of several unique smaller ones). Mjack, I would very much like your input too. I really believe we can have a constructive group dialog and get the piddly details worked out... (And I'll be clear, too. Discuss is what this is about. Part of that discussion is by necessity going to have to include at least a little bit of, "So-and-so sometimes does X and I find it annoying because blah blah blah." And from there, we can decide if it's annoying to one person or a lot of people, and if it's a lot of people can we easily change the behavior. That's all good. What I don't want is, "So-and-so sometimes does X and she's a real jerk because of it." That's not productive, and it's what I want to avoid.)

So, scenario one: I make a post, responding to somebody. I hit submit. Thirty second later I think of something new to say to the same user. I think everybody agrees this new information is best added as an edit, yes?

Scenario two: I make a post, responding to somebody. I hit submit. Three days later I think of something new to say and nobody else has responded yet. I think everybody (or at least, a large majority) would be OK with this being a double post, yes?

Scenario three: I make a post. A few hours later I post I think we all agree this is bad, yes?

Those, to me, seem to be the extremes. So hopefully there's a super-majority opinion on all of those.

Scenario four: A good debate is going on. Posters X and Y both made interesting points in the discussion, and I want to reply to both of them with some detail. Some people (including me, most of the time) will reply to both in the same post. Others will make two different posts, one for each reply, so that they don't post one giant wall of text.

Four, I think, is where there's the most room for debate as to which way is "right" and which is annoying. So what are thoughts here?

Scenario five: As with four, but my replies are really short one-liners. I think this is probably another scenario where most folks would agree one post is better, but I can certainly see an argument for two posts. What are thoughts here?