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.
Actually that’s a REALLY good point U-505.
In a big game, if you got diced hard, and had made yourself 10 or so spam accounts, you could actually hide the dice result.
The thumbs up/down only serves to flag the posting, it does not from what I understand, reach a threshold # and automatically delete a posting. But then again I was wrong once before when I thought I was wrong once.
I’m impressed David got the thumbs up/down working so quickly. I would be a bit surprised if it could be offered on specific sub-forums, but if it can then I would agree it really has few uses in the game thread section.
I’m not sure that having your postings rated would serve to dissuade people from posting. If anything, it would be easier for me to just give a thumbs down rather than take the time to properly verbally eviscerate somebody for what I think is a silly posting.
I prefer the rules as Yanny originally laid out, with minor tweaks added to those rules:
Agreed. The thumbs should be used as a tool for the mods to see posts that are upsetting people without having to scour the forums.
The thumbs should be used as a tool for the mods to see posts that are upsetting people without having to scour the forums.
Thats an awesome idea! if a post gets say 6 or more negative votes, the Moderator should be notified by the system, so he can see what is going on. Good idea!!!
Alot of times we cant see all the new threads and posts, but this will help a great deal.
Hmm, that might be tough to implement on SMF but something I definitely want.
I’m not sure all of these is working anymore.
Obviously #5 stays. People just don’t like #2, I wish there were a way to do suggested edits. #1 should only be invoked in the cases of #3.
I also want a way to fold and hide posts. Folding is where the post is mostly hidden but anybody can unfold it to see what was in there. Hidden posts would only be viewable by moderators. This would happen in lieu of being moved to quarantine. The person who wrote the post would also be able to see folded and their own hidden posts. Other users would only see, “this post has been hidden because…” Then, moderators and users can have a private conversation about the rules violation or the moderator can suggest edits to make it compliant.
Regarding trolling. Unless it is blatant (breaking other rules), I think it’s up to the community to decide how tolerant they are of minor/moderate trolling. Heck, there are journalists (e.g. John Dvorak, IMO) who make a living being a troll. Just because Dvorak gets a strong reaction from some of his outlandish postulations, it doesn’t mean he should be censored.
@Imperious:
I prefer the rules as Yanny originally laid out, with minor tweaks added to those rules:
- Warning issued before thread is locked. Allow the discussion to continue and if it happens again, closed thread.
- Edits allowed for removal of flame/troll sentence WITH EXPLANATION.
- If the entire thread is a flame/troll it can be moved to quarantine.
- No political talk, no talk about Holocaust, or anything not related to Axis and Allies.
- Definitely no “free for all” flame fest. It leads to confrontations in other threads as people try to settle old scores.
- So really we already got what we need from Yanny, just have to tweak his words to make it perfect.
I think it’s up to the community to decide how tolerant they are of minor/moderate trolling.
I disagree on this. You got to be in the place of the ‘victim’ who gets trolled. It should never be up to a mob to decide if somebody should be the subject of cyber bully or crass commentary. This site is not a democracy, and nobody should be a put in a position of being attacked personally with no recourse. The other obvious issue is not everyone will see the attack because they may not read the thread so no votes will come fast enough to hide the post. Imagine a new “noob” type player who registers and somebody cuts him down in a game with a personal attack on his play and nobody sees it and this new player never comes back because somebody else thought it would be cool to be mean to him. We can’t allow that ever.
Folding is where the post is mostly hidden but anybody can unfold it to see what was in there.
I don’t see a need for this. Why even hide a post if you can view it? How can the software differentiate between a post that is folded or hidden?
Hidden posts would only be viewable by moderators.
This should be the only function of the arrow up and down thing. If a post gets a cumulative 6 negative hits, the post notifies Moderators so they can take action. Its just an alternate from of “report to Moderator”.
People just don’t like #2, I wish there were a way to do suggested edits.
So they would rather lose the entire post? What if this post was in a game, where poster said something crass…we just ruin the game because edits are not allowed?
Sometimes the language is terrible in these games but usually it is just a sentence or word. An edit of this type should be allowed again with explanation.
