New Policy Regarding Advertising on the Forums

I seriously want to play 30 games of global but I do not want to crash the server lol.
~
I noticed that if I edit… then the dice will all reroll!

HMMM.

I was thinking maybe have moderators delete games long after they are completed.
~

Just delete everything inactive for more than 6 months. That is super quick. If you want to spend many hours you can save the last file of every single game and put the “title, date, and players”  and post an entire thread with just the last file and the result of who was who and who won.

If that does not clear enough space. Have mods delete games that are completed and recorded. That is it.

I win 3/4th of my games and I will never look at them again. There is no point to them.

Several thoughts:

1. The purpose of having moderators is to ensure that the rules are enforced predictably, 100% of the time. (Or as close to 100% as is practical.)

2. This means that above all, anyone chosen to be a moderator should be someone djensen can rely on to enforce the rules in a rigorous, impartial manner.

3. This means that the moderators should be level-headed, moderate people. The kind of people you’d trust, implicitly, to be fair to you, even when they strongly disagree with your position. Most people do not have the level of maturity, self-discipline, and impartiality necessary to be a good moderator.

4. I think djensen’s proposed tiered moderation system has merit. I’d suggest the following.

–--------------

Level 1: discussion facilitator.
Moderation power: can move posts to a new thread if an existing thread goes off topic.

Discussion facilitators are also expected to report violations of the list rules. If it becomes clear that a discussion facilitator isn’t reporting or otherwise acting on rules violations of those he likes or agrees with, it may be necessary to remove him from his position.

Level 2: Moderator
Moderation power: Level 1, plus can issue warnings, and can temporarily remove people from the list.

To issue a warning, a moderator will do the following:

1. Quote the offending post.
2. Highlight the offending portion of the post in red.
3. Copy and paste the rule which has been violated.
4. Include a link to the rules in their entirety
5. State that further violations of the list rules may result in a temporary or permanent suspension.

A moderator who repeatedly refused to follow the above procedures would be removed from his or her position. It is important moderators understand their job is to enforce the rules as written, not to make up new rules as they go along.

Level 3: List Manager
Moderation power: can overrule any decision made by a moderator.

Every decision made by a moderator will be reviewed by a list manager. In addition, if a moderator has become active in a thread, but without enforcing one or more list rules, that moderator can be reported to a list manager. There should be a “report moderation problem to list manager” button for people to use to report moderation problems.

If a moderator is not enforcing the provision against (for example) personal attacks, or is enforcing it unevenly, it’s the list manager’s job to become aware of the problem. The final decision about whether to remove the moderator will be David’s. But the list manager will alert David to the problem, and will provide him with the relevant raw data for him to examine.

Level 4: Administrator
Moderation power: everything

–-----------------

One item I specifically did not include in levels 1 - 3 is the ability to edit other people’s posts. Dealing with civility violations in this way is like trying to trim a weed. It’s too much work for too little reward. The correct solution is to pull the weed out by its roots! The first time someone violates the standards of civility, that person should be given a warning. The second time, it should be a temporary ban. The third time, it should be a longer ban. The fourth time, it should be a permanent ban.

But this must be done across the board. If X and Y don’t like each other, and constantly attack each other, and if the moderators prevent X’s attacks on Y, but not Y’s on X, the culture won’t change. Both X and Y must be dealt with with equal vigor, regardless of whether the moderators like or agree with one, or dislike or disagree with the other. Once this is done, the need for moderators to edit other people’s posts will largely disappear.

If the main list rule is “be civil to other posters”–as I think it should be–the right people to choose as moderators are those who are themselves civil. If a moderator does not expect civility from himself, he is unlikely to expect it from others.

Djensen:

I have been on other sites (namely DnD Online Games and the Star Wars Gaming Club) where a feature is installed on their SMF forums that allows you to go to your last post in a thread.

The feature is great in that it allows you to go to your last post and read all the replies from that point on cutting down on missed replies that might be saying the same thing you want to say or that you might want to rebut in your reply. (Sometimes you go to a thread and think “yea, I was on page 4 last time, so I’ll start there” but your reply was really on page 3 and one or more were posted under it that you don’t see when you go to page 4.)

Any chance of getting that installed here as well?

Jenny, the most humble one! (And Omni-Radiant, as always!!!)

Most other Message boards I belong to have an option to “Ignore” certain users, meaning you will see that that person has posted, but the text of his/her message is removed and replaced with something like “You have chosen to ignore <user>.  Click hereto see the text of the message”.

I’ve looked around and can not find such a function.  Is there one that I just haven’t seen, or is it not currently available?  It would be very handy if we had something like this to ignore serial offenders of off-topic discussion.  Who knows, maybe y’all want to ignore me too.  8-)</user>

I have finally deployed the new Axis & Allies.org website.

As always it is a work in progress but the new deployment will help that work move along more smoothly.

www.axisandallies.org

I have to agree – nice work DJ! :wink: