Discussion for new forum policies

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 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.

@MrMalachiCrunch:

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:

1. Warning issued before thread is locked. Allow the discussion to continue and if it happens again, closed thread.
2. Edits allowed for removal of flame/troll sentence WITH EXPLANATION.
3. If the entire thread is a flame/troll it can be moved to quarantine.
4. No political talk, no talk about Holocaust, or anything not related to Axis and Allies.
5. Definitely no “free for all” flame fest. It leads to confrontations in other threads as people try to settle old scores.
6. So really we already got what we need from Yanny, just have to tweak his words to make it perfect.

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.

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.

** It should be noted, that certain sections of the forum, are much more likely to produce flame fests than others.

For example, when was the last time you read a flame fest in the “play boardgames” section?  Almost never, and player disputes are resolved by krieghund/players-themselves/or community.  Mods as a last resort - but I don’t think that’s ever happend.

Like the removal of the politial section, perhaps eliminating the WWII history section wouldn’t hurt. Any incredible WWII news, would just end up in the General Discussion section anyways.

Next ** I’m going to motion that option #2, NEVER be allowed, unless requested by the original poster/user.

There is no reason to edit anyones material - ever. If someone posts offensive (or otherwise) material, Simply MOVE it to the quarantine, if community voting hasn’t already hidden it.

That said,  IF/WHEN something is moved, THAT is the time to strike, and make largely public, to the mods, user, and administration, that the thread clearly violated the rules, intention of the site, and was an obscenity/concern for the public.

Too often I’ve seen posts/threads by myself, or others, that are just removed.  With no ensuing discussion.

You all have permission to call me an idiot, but how the hell are people supposed to learn whats appropriate/inappropriate behaviour, if there’s never a discussion between several parties and themselves as to what the issue is?  This process needs to be addressed.

Another concern is the -matter of opinion- factor.

A user posts something grey, which a mod in their opinion might think is off key…  but that the community and the original user don’t give a damn about.  Does it need to be moderated?

Perhaps the AUTHORITY to act, should be directly proportional, to the vote/value of the post or thread?

Of course, a community culture of “psst ok guys, stop the flame fest, I’m voting this gong show down” will have to develop, but I think it will naturally.

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.

Thinking outside the box.

Instead of arbitrarily editing a users post, Perhaps the moderator could “request” publically, that the user edit his own post.  Said user would likely fulfil the request. (or if he didn’t face the consequences of arbitration anyways).  At least they would learn the lesson subtly.

And in areas where users don’t have edit permissions, like the games section.  I have yet to see anyone care about language, because nobody reviews the game threads, except the gamers playing mostly.

Moderators DO monitor game threads and alot of people who are not involved in the game do hit “report to moderator”

This is due to horrible crass language of which i personally have had to edit.The request was made by others not even in the thread, but i guess followed the game and didn’t want that language  I wont repeat the sentence here, but it was edited out so the game can continue. You can’t simply quarantine game posts because it destroys the continuity of the game being played.

IN other threads, they may post a good idea, but flamed the other poster with You Fking CT you suck my **** in that same post.

Well their is a clear line that is easily crossed in that post and moderators have edited posts to remove that sentence or something like it many times. It could have been moved but for some part of it that offered something to the discussion. That is why it was edited because only part of it was not allowed. NO PERSONAL ATTACKS AGAINST ANYBODY EITHER DIRECT OR BY ROUSE OF A POST THAT ATTEMPTS TO RIDICULE ANY OTHER POSTER BY OTHER MEANS.

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.

I’m going to remain totally open, honest, and fair here, and hope that this discussion retains it’s ability to continue being adult.

There is a twisted Irony with the disagreement suggested, and we need to address the elephant in the room openly, and with succint thought.

You got to be in the place of the ‘victim’ who gets trolled

This site is not a democracy

nobody should be a put in a position of being attacked personally with no recourse

The reason we’re gathered here today, having this discussion, is because enough people put themselves in the place of the ‘victim’ who got trolled, that had no means of recourse, and spoke up about it.

The irony being, users harassed by moderators, who had no recourse…
(And no I’m not going to get into specifics about me).

I like to use examples, thus here is the clearest one:

Let’s talk about a recent member, who is NO LONGER WITH US.

-He wasn’t popular,
-He made long posts,
-He was tireless and could be annoying.

But he was one of us…
He never swore, cursed, name called, or broke any rules, as far as I can tell.

His only crime, was to have a disagreement, with not one, but two moderators, who trolled him and harassed him constatnly; And then banned him when his reactions/spam went too far. Nobody leant the kid an ear. And hence he was ejected from our community.

This link…
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=24768.30

Which we can no longer see, serves as the pinnacle of the example. The link is to a game that was made for “Mantlefan” and “Jennifer” to sort out their differences, all the while prodded and harassed by other users and moderators. (Probably including me, I do recall offering to play in his place). In terms of it’s social value, it’s rather disgusting.

Many of you saw it, and no one here can deny what they saw happen. Which is why we should ask, where was Mantlefan’s recourse? Incase you didn’t already know there wasn’t any…

There is/was no ability, for the common user to A. Disagree, B. Request to be left alone C. Expect anything more than belitting and frustrating moderation, for trying to express thier opinion.

And from these rules, as far as I can tell, 20 days from today, when my soft ban ends, and so does IL’s, there’s still no method of recourse for the common user, and no qaurter from the sentiment that input from the average user isn’t welcome in the “not a democracy”.

To make a short story shorter, there is a bit of history at AA.org of people being bullied, isolated, and harassed, by people they couldn’t speak out against.

As stupid as it is, that’s what all this fuss over the last month has been about.

Which is why I fundamentally support community based moderation, and an end to “not a democracy”.

YES - I do get this is 1 man’s site (Djensen), but it seems clear to me, that he’s put the effort into this place, for all of us, and it wasn’t done just so he could tell us what to do, and laugh as he bans us one at a time.

It was done, so that we could play axis and allies and have fun. How do we best do that, and empower people, or the community, to keep the streets clean here so to speak? Whilst closing the door to potential power trolling?