- Provide references or risk that your post will be deleted
I can see a couple of potential problems with this idea. The first is that giving references will not in itself prevent some of the kinds of nasty fights we’ve seen because several of those fights have been over the validity of the sources that people have quoted in the first place. Given that some people will never change their minds about what sources they consider valid and what sources they consider illegitimate, requiring people to always provide references won’t automatically convince the folks on the other side of a debate that the argument being presented is a sound one.
The second problem is that the reference requirement may do more harm than good, and in most cases may not be necessary. There have been plenty of military history discussions on this board in which unreferenced information has been provided without this causing any problems. Someone will ask a question about a subject, or bring up a topic for debate; various people will then contribute to the thread, offering facts or opinions, and the discussion will proceed in a perfectly cordial way without posters being challenged to back up their statements. Sometimes a person will ask politely where a particular bit of information came from, and the poster will just as politely provide the reference – which is entirely fine. I’m worried that if people are required to always cite their sources, this will stiffle discussion too much. I know that I don’t always remember where I got a particular bit of information when I post something on the board. Sometimes the information isn’t always from a single source, but rather is the result of many years of reading, which makes it hard to provide specific references. And sometimes what people are asked to contribute in these threads are opinions rather than facts – for instance, their views about what such-and-such a country could have done in such-and-such a battle to change the result in such-and-such a way. These kinds of opinions can be fun and valuable to read about, even thought they can’t be proved (though it helps when evidence is provided to back up the poster’s conclusions).
My preference would be to have a simpler system: people can provide references if they want, and should be willing to provide references on request if a contentious point comes up, but otherwise they should not be pressured into always citing sources under the threat of possible post deletion.
Providing references should be done as a matter of routine when required. I would prefer to think of references as a source of additional knowledge valued by everyone rather than a controversial piece of information that supports a controversial subject. Ah but that is in the eye of the beholder.
I try to cite sources when I can and I often do a google search to verify my memory is correct, then post what I think are valuable links.
But strictly requiring them, I have to agree with what others wrote.
Kurt, nice 14 point plan. I like the segue to history and Woodrow Wilson.
Providing references should be done as a matter of routine when required. I would prefer to think of references as a source of additional knowledge valued by everyone rather than a controversial piece of information that supports a controversial subject. Ah but that is in the eye of the beholder.
I try to cite sources when I can and I often do a google search to verify my memory is correct, then post what I think are valuable links.
But strictly requiring them, I have to agree with what others wrote.
Kurt, nice 14 point plan. I like the segue to history and Woodrow Wilson.
Thanks for the kind words.
On another matter, I’ve enjoyed the discussions about history on the WWII history forum. If in the future that forum is limited to strictly military history, most of its current value will be lost. I don’t see the harm in having a place where people can discuss WWII history like civilized adults; with moderators acting only when someone departs from the list’s standard of civility.
I’m starting to think that:
- WWII talk should be limited to military history
- No political WWII discussions
- Provide references or risk that your post will be deleted
My earlier post from this morning addressed djensen’s third point from this list. I’d just like to add a comment about the first two points. Drawing a distinction between the political and military aspects of WWII is potentially tricky, and would rule out many valid and interesting areas of discussion. Keep in mind that most A&A games cover either the entire globe, or one of the two main theatres of the war (the European-Mediterranean theatre and the Asia-Pacific theatre), and as such are strategic-level wargames. At that level, in which players represent the national command structure of entire nations, the political aspects of the war are a valid subject of discussion. In Global 1940, just to pick one example, player decisions about when Japan goes to war against the U.S. or about whether a neutral country should be attacked represent high-level political policy decisions in the real world, not operational-level or tactical-level decisions of a purely military nature.
Really looking forward to you opening this thread up to Garg & IL…. :-D
I keep coming back to see some action and nothing…sigh.
Kind of the same feeling when I check out the “general discussion” forum…nothing happening there either…
It’s a long process to get this right.
It’s a long process to get this right.
I understand and respect that.
I’ve been a participant in forums in which people are allowed to post whatever ideas they want, as long as they adhere to the list’s standards of civility. The civility bar is typically set fairly high. Like someone stamping out a spark before it turns into a fire, moderators will typically post public warnings whenever someone starts becoming uncivil. There are no exceptions. Violations of civility standards are not tolerated even if the moderator likes the poster in question, agrees with the viewpoint being expressed, and disagrees with the viewpoint of the person being attacked.
This model works extremely well. People who, in other forums, are unable to discuss controversial issues such as politics without getting into name-calling, are in these forums able to have civil, intelligent, informative discussions about those subjects. Once you get rid of incivility, the signal-to-noise ratio becomes much higher.
As I’ve mentioned in my earlier posts, I think civility should be a prime consideration, and I think that forum members should have a fair bit of latitude in terms of the subjects they discuss as long as those discussions remain civil. The problem, however, is that some subjects which have been raised here have a long track record of generating ill-tempered posts. Partly this is due to the fact that the subjects are controversial, and partly this is due to the fact that these subjects have popped up over and over again in the middle of threads which are about something else. This is the three-part combination that has caused the most trouble – the controversial nature of the subjects, the hijacking of threads to bring up these subjects, and the repeated occurence of this kind of annoying situation.
To go back to a suggestion I made earlier, my preference for dealing with this problem would be to set up a few threads dedicated to these specific subjects in a corner of the forum where people who insist on raising about these topics can argue about them without bothering the rest of us. Any posts on these subjects showing up elsewhere would be moved straightaway by the moderators to these dedicated threads. That would eliminate the annoyance factor for those of us who don’t give a flying buttress about these topics and who don’t want to keep running into them in threads dedicated to other subjects. It would make life easier for the moderators, who wouldn’t have to make easy-to-criticize decisions about closing hijacked threads or deleting posts that go off-topic into areas which are notorious for being provocative. And it would make it harder for those people who do insist on discussing this stuff from complaining that they are being censored, since their posts – rather than being deleted outright – would simply be moved to an area where would have the undivided attention of fellow controversy-debate enthusiasts.
To borrow an analogy that anyone who’s read Heinlein’s novel Tunnel in the Sky will recognize, this practice of moving known-controversy posts to a few dedicated threads would basically function like “stobor traps” : a wall pierced with narrow tunnels leading into deep pits where people who insist on raising provocative controversies can chew on each other like Kilkenny cats, while the rest of us can either watch in amusement or ignore the spectacle completely according to our individual preferences.
If you are crafting a new “forum rules” thread, may I start giving some actual substantial rules suggestions?
Specifically, since it appears to have pissed off a number of users, here is my suggestion for “Mod powers with regards to editing and/or deleting and/or moving posts”.
1. If a forum post breaks any of the rules of this forum, then the moderators will simply replace the ENTIRE content of the message with this line:
“This post was deleted by <moderator name=”“>due to violating the rules of this forum. <optionally list=”" which=“” rules=“” were=“” violated=“”><optionally include=“” a=“” link=“” to=“” the=“” forum=“” rules=“”>"
2. No moderator shall edit and change the wording of any post by anyone, regardless of the content of that post. The moderator will either delete the entire content of the post, replacing it with the line above from #1, or the mod will completely leave the entire post alone. No middle ground.
3. No moderator shall delete a posting in a way that makes the posting completely disappear like it never existed. Instead, the post will be replaced with the content from #1 above.
4. Any posts that are moved, either because they are off topic, or because they are in the wrong forum, shall leave behind a “ghost” posting/thread for a few days. The ghost posting simply says that "This reply by <username>was moved to ". I’ve seen this done on other forums, and moved threads even had their own icon (an arrow), and directly linked to the newly created threads.
IF this is not possible to have ghost threads/posts here, then simply move the thread then create a new post in its place saying that this post was moved.
Why should we do it this way? Actually I have some experience on this exact issue. Over at the TripleAWarClub forum, we had a moderator who had on an occasion or two, changed the words of a post. I had previously deleted several posts as well.
The result of this was that, in case of a mod changing the words, the author of the post became outraged. Quite simply, if what the user wrote was bad, it should be deleted wholesale.
In the case of deleting a post, the users also generally became mad at the admins in general, because it removed the evidence that there ever was a post. It is much better to have a post saying “this post was deleted” then to have no post at all.
After all of this, I created a similar policy at the war club forum, and got the mods to follow it.
I do not agree with people saying that posts should not be deleted, or that people should be allowed to talk about anything, and engage in or make flame wars at will, etc etc.
But I do think that moderators need follow very specific rules when there is a violation of the forum rules. If a post needs to be deleted, or some content in that post needs to be changed, then it is best to follow the rules I posted above.
thx,
veqryn</username></optionally></optionally></moderator>
Not sure about point number 4 being feasible, but when a thread is moved, there is a locked thread with the same title that has a link generated to the new location put in its place automatically.
As for 1, I generally send that information to the user in question. Broadcasting to the world that John.Smith is a flaming, trolling, jerk seems kind of mean - especially if John.Smith has a two year track record of being a generally nice guy, and a valuable member of the community. Those who go off rail and turn viscious for a couple of months should get banned (a time out for a week or two) and if that doesn’t work, asked to leave permanently (Djensen deleting his account.)
As for 2, I like how DM handles it. Replacing a vulgar word with F*** so you know it was changed, but it was sensored from underage eyes. Not everyone here is an adult (and some of the adults arn’t even adults!)
As for 3, well, a deleted post isn’t exactly “deleted” so much as “disappeared.” There’s a subtle difference.
I like Veqryn’s suggestions.
I’ve had one or two post’s deleted. I think the saying “Suck it up” comes to mind if one is upset that your post was deleted AND your name is ‘broadcasted’ to the world as being the author. In fact, I would posit that that most of the authors who have posts deleted would insist on having their name attached to the broadcast of it being deleted/authored by _______ so they would have an easy reference point to the fact.
As for vulgar words, I think we can all agree to what constitutes a bad word….for the most part. Around here, if you call a dude a “goof” you’re going to get punched out most likely, ‘g’ stands for GO in that case. I was shocked to have the word Jap pointed out to me as being a bad word, I actually googled it, I read an article on Jen’s favourite place to site from, Wikipedia (I did second source however). Silly me I thought it was a short form for a nationality. Rus infantry is fine, Brit fighter is good, Yankee go home is kinda like Canada is not a country. I can see how calling something a Jewish American Princess would hurt. I would certainly agree with Jen and DM on point #2 as well.
There should be a word filter or something. We should not be requiring admins to go in and edit user’s posts to remove bad words or turn them into stars (****)
If people go to lengths to get around the word filter, like with creative swear words, etc, then the posts can just be “deleted” (ie: replaced by the generic block of text saying that this post was deleted because….)
Perhaps we should adopt George Carlin’s list of 7 “bad” words. Start there with our auto filter?
If you are unsure what words these are you can check it out on youtube. I was going to post a link but thought it might offend someone if they clicked on the link and heard any of these words.
Yikes….we don’t want that.
[quote author=Veqryn link=topic=27387.msg969469#msg969469 date=1338904937]
There should be a word filter or something. We should not be requiring admins to go in and edit user’s posts to remove bad words or turn them into stars (****)
If people go to lengths to get around the word filter, like with creative swear words, etc, then the posts can just be “deleted” (ie: replaced by the generic block of text saying that this post was deleted because….)
[/quote]
No, just replace the swear words with those annoying ���� and people are sure to stop swearing.
I’ve added a few swear words to the censored list. And damn, that’s a good idea.
I’m going to start a thread where people will be free to post their suggestions for swear words.
A few things.
I updated the first post in this thread. Please re-read it.
I’ve invited IL and Garg to the conversation.
The rules of this forum will change. I will take some of your ideas, some of my ideas, and some ideas from other forums but not all of the ideas will be implemented.
I like the thumbs up and down, it should be useful for the citizens of this site to self police.
One problem with the swear word filter. There is game we play called Axis and Allied. It has 3 letter short forms printed on the map that players use as reference to their moves. Any guess as to what the short form for Japan is? I think perhaps we can take the short form of Japan off the swear word list……
Check out Japans moves in this thread…
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=27491.0;topicseen
1. I think there should be a “mostly anything goes” discussion area where anyone is free to bring up almost any topic they wish, including political ideas( I want PD back, sue me :-D), with the knowledge that it will be largely unmoderated. If anyone knows me, they know I enjoy a good heated argument now and then. And I don’t mind getting flamed, I just return the favor. No harm, no foul. You can keep the bad language filter, but short of threads devoted to ethnic or racial inferiority, including posts with slurs, or direct threats to other members, I think the moderators should be ghosts in that area.
2. I strongly disagree with deleting an entire post if it has some value, however small, to the discussion. I think we should implement something along the lines of what Veqryn suggested, but not quite. If a post is deemed by the moderators as violating one or more of the rules, they should edit it by highlighting the offending text in red or another color with a blurb saying something like:
“The highlighted text above is being investigated for violation of forum policy, another moderator is being asked to review it and, if consensus is reached, it and any reference to it (e.g. posts quoting it), will be removed.”
This will prevent moderators from handing down unilateral judgement and also gives the original poster or even other posters the opportunity to make their case for why it should remain.
3. My personal beef. Locked threads. We have lost so many interesting threads now and in the past because IL or another mod has chosen to lock them because of rule violators. I’m not saying he was wrong, he wasn’t. It was his job and right to do so. But the rules are vague enough to allow the mods a great deal of latitude when dealing with these situations and when it came down to either being firm but fair or being iron-fisted , he always seemed to choose the iron-fisted approach. Much like members and mods who violate the rules, I feel each individual thread deserves the chance to get back on track before permanent justice is handed down. I think an initial warning and a final warning to either get back on topic or stop the infighting would be sufficient before locking a thread should become an option. I’m even willing to go so far as to say that, after a final warning, if it comes down to either locking a thread or editing/deleting a post that would result in closing the thread, I personally would support the edit/delete option, using the procedure outlined in #2 above, just to keep the thread alive.
One problem with the swear word filter. There is game we play called Axis and Allied. It has 3 letter short forms printed on the map that players use as reference to their moves. Any guess as to what the short form for Japan is? I think perhaps we can take the short form of Japan off the swear word list……
Check out Japans moves in this thread…
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=27491.0;topicseen
I always type Japan because it makes me feel a little unclean to type J-a-p.
And then there’s the Chinese territory Fukien. I always chuckle a little to myself when I have to type something like: 1 inf FIC to Fuk.
Oh, yeah. The respect policy. I fully support it for the discussion areas, but it needs to be removed from the gaming area. I just had one of my non-combat move posts voted down and I doubt it was my opponent who did it. The last thing we need is for game posts to begin disappearing because people who don’t like a member start hunting them down in game threads to dish out negative respect.
