I devote a lot of energy into trying not to ban people. But that effort on my part comes with both a price and an obligation. The price is paid by me, because I have to spend a lot of time basically telling people to just play nice. The obligation is yours to do so.
My words are often accompanied by "please" because I respect people. However, that respect is often not reciprocal.
Originally posted by Storm
I devote a lot of energy into trying not to ban people. But that effort on my part comes with both a price and an obligation. The price is paid by me, because I have to spend a lot of time basically telling people to just play nice. The obligation is yours to do so.My words are often accompanied by "please" because I respect people. However, that respect is often not reciprocal.
Well, yes, many posters are very offensive, and I don't mean to say that no one deserves a ban. Many, many do, I'd just say, that, with your approach, there might be less bans of people who didn't really want to break rules, and just felt mistreated...
I absolutely disagree that the onus is upon us to take it to PM simply because a poster cannot follow very simple instructions and do so themselves if they have questions- and letting others always get the last word in again undermines authority; everyone has a tendency to see them go against what a mod has says with no comeback. No, absolutely not.
As for 'degrading'- that's just pointless pride.
No, sorry, this needs to be absolutely understood and enforced. If a mod says finish, it is finished- no arguments, no comments, no last words, nothing. Zero tolerance on this is the only way to stop much greater abuse that comes later.
If the patterns of the past had shown this was not necessary, we would not do it. But the p;atterns of the past have instead shpown an enormous propensity for people to take advantage of even the slightest opening left by a mod. So this is the way it has to be. As Storm says- all too often, absolutely no respect is shown.
If I say "You can take it to PM if you have any questions; now go back on topic", it is absurd for a poster to keep arguing it and then complain if I pull him up on that. It was not ambiguous, it was perfectly clear, and it is entirely the poster's fault for going against that.
You listen to the mods. You talk over issues by PM. This aching desire to make things public is not something that is going to be tolerated, because it has absolutely no purpose whatsoever other than to attack the mods and derail threads in the process. Too many threads have been killed stone dead by that aggravating habit.
And the people that get bans on this are people whose in-thread arguing with the mods is part of a much borader patttern of abuse, attack and flaming. It's very rare for someone to be banneed for just that in isolation.
In fact, it is very easy to exaggerate thos issue greatly. Only a tiny handful of posters have been affected, and they have been extremely aggressive and disruptive.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
I absolutely disagree that the onus is upon us to take it to PM simply because a poster cannot follow very simple instructions and do so themselves if they have questions- and letting others always get the last word in again undermines authority; everyone has a tendency to see them go against what a mod has says with no comeback. No, absolutely not.As for 'degrading'- that's just pointless pride.
No, sorry, this needs to be absolutely understood and enforced. If a mod says finish, it is finished- no arguments, no comments, no last words, nothing. Zero tolerance on this is the only way to stop much greater abuse that comes later.
If the patterns of the past had shown this was not necessary, we would not do it. But the p;atterns of the past have instead shpown an enormous propensity for people to take advantage of even the slightest opening left by a mod. So this is the way it has to be. As Storm says- all too often, absolutely no respect is shown.
If I say "You can take it to PM if you have any questions; now go back on topic", it is absurd for a poster to keep arguing it and then complain if I pull him up on that. It was not ambiguous, it was perfectly clear, and it is entirely the poster's fault for going against that.
You listen to the mods. You talk over issues by PM. This aching desire to make things public is not something that is going to be tolerated, because it has absolutely no purpose whatsoever other than to attack the mods and derail threads in the process. Too many threads have been killed stone dead by that aggravating habit.
And the people that get bans on this are people whose in-thread arguing with the mods is part of a much borader patttern of abuse, attack and flaming. It's very rare for someone to be banneed for just that in isolation.
In fact, it is very easy to exaggerate thos issue greatly. Only a tiny handful of posters have been affected, and they have been extremely aggressive and disruptive.
I agree that it is pointless pride. I just don't think that they should be banned for their pointless pride.
And again, I agree, it is not a Mods duty to take it to PMs, it is the Members, I am just saying, that some bannings might be avoided, if the Mod would take it to PM...I don't think it should be the rule that a Mod has to, I just think, like Storm said, maybe in some cases, where the Mod doesn't really mind, it could be averted, without negative consequences.
I'm not convinced that is what she said.
And heck, it's not as if I don't make an effort- the first time [name removed, in retrospect] got banned for insisting on making his mod arguments public, I must have given the same warning five times in a row, including me virtually begging for him to stop so I didn't have to press the ban button. But these people wear out our patience, and next time around there is no inclination to try any more. And when the ridiculous lies start... well, I think if anything some bans have been too slow.
I don't really believe this "undermining authority" argument because, in reality, it doesn't really matter what a member does or says or how they act on the board it can't take a way a moderators powers because they are set in stone by the very nature of the way the board works....a mod can simply ban the person attempting to cause dissent...but surely this is better done, as much as possible, out of the public view otherwise it simply exagerrates the bickering and thus the percieved "undermining"
i also do think the onus should be on the mod to take an argument out of the main board and into pm's...surely one of the tasks of the moderating team is to minimise and eliminate arguments on the board...they have far more control of the situation if it's between themselves and a member rather than between 2 members and thus would have more options available to them before leading to a ban.
i also think that, as with any "society", which is what KMC effectively is, that the people in power, i.e the moderators, should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. Yet too often, to the observer, they simply serve to compound the problems they are attempting to solve in the manner in which they act publicly when situations arrive.
now there's 2 ways in which this post (and this thread as a whole) can be concieved by the mods...1 is that they can see it as some constructive criticism and take on board some of the members points which are only being brought up to try and help the moderating team. or 2...due to the fact that some of the moderating team seem, alot of the time, on the defensive in regards to their actions, that they will again take it as an attack on their moderation style and thus start another cyclic and pointless argument.
"surely one of the tasks of the moderating team is to minimise and eliminate arguments on the board"
Yes it is, but what you are suggesting ultimately leads to the opposite. In fact, the admonition has to be public to make the point and stop it happening again in future. When people are apparently seen to be able to get the last word in etc. the perception is that if you push it, the mods will allow it. That kind of thinking was the root of many of the problems that ended in bans.
Fact is, we are seeing this way work a lot better than any suggestion you are making. So frankly I could not disagree with you more. I will simply repeat my position- if you have told someone to stop discussing/arguing something in a thread, there is absolutely no excuse for them to keep on doing so. if they do, the situation is not "Oh, the mod should have gone private", it is absolutely and 100% "The poster should not have kept it public". Simple as that. If a poster cannot follow such a straightforward rule and keeps on doing it after multiple warnings and straightforward, unambiguous requests for them to take the issue to PM if they want to discuss it, then they pretty much deserve action taken against them. No-one has any right to argue with a moderating decision in public; it is the mentality that you should be able to is what causes the most disruption to threads. And it is a mentality that is on the decline, by the way, which fairly much justifies the position.
And whether you believe undermining authority is an issue or not- it very definitely is. A lack of respect for moderators and a feeling that they can be pressured or bullied into changing their minds has been seen before, including recently.
That final paragraph of yours was entirely unnecessary, btw. Please keep that sort of passive-aggressive attack on the mods out of the thread and just stick to genuine suggestions. It certainly undermines your claims to be in a 'constructive' position.
working alot better in what way?...because i would say it's counter productive...unless the goal is to hand out more bans to long standing members, which i'd like to think isn't the case....and surely the fact that there are more bans is a sign of more conflict, not less
i also believe your reply to my last point proves that point quite well thus showing it not to be unnecessary and, in fact, quite valid
ironically though, if people are told to take it to the pm's...we've already had a mod admit on the last page that sometimes they don't even read pm's...
and out of curiousty...when someone uses the report post function...who gets the alert to deal with it?...that's just something i've always wondered
Working a lot better because such large problems like we had in some areas and with some posters have declined. The bans are simply a result of people actually being called out for infractions and not liking it. The lesson is that you simply must respect the mods in this area. The overwhelming majority of posters do that. That one or two found themselves so completely unable to do that that they got themselves into a banning position is very simply their own fault.
And you saying my reply to your last point proves anything is simple nonsense. All it did was draw attention to a completely unncessary and off-topic passive attack- simply a way to attack those in authority. Like I say, keep such things out of the Suggestion thread. It served no purpose whatsoever.
Reports are viewable by all mods.
we've already had a mod admit on the last page that sometimes they don't even read pm's...
Not really what I said. I read them. However, I get an overwhelming number of PMs that are things that should be handled via report, or from people that think I'm google or some sort of Photoshop help desk. Considering that I have it stated all over my forums that I do not like random PMs and will not respond to anything forum-related sent by PM unless it's something important that needs an immediate response...yeah.
And frankly, long-standing members should know better than anyone else that such arguing is not only frowned upon, but is not allowed. They should know better than anyone else what the rules are and what is and is not allowed. But Ush is right - there are a number of members here who seem to think they are entitled to break rules and get away with it, and then flip when they're called out on it. Bans aren't handed out for no reason - you earn them.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Working a lot better because such large problems like we had in some areas and with some posters have declined. The bans are simply a result of people actually being called out for infractions and not liking it. The lesson is that you simply must respect the mods in this area. The overwhelming majority of posters do that. That one or two found themselves so completely unable to do that that they got themselves into a banning position is very simply their own fault.And you saying my reply to your last point proves anything is simple nonsense. All it did was draw attention to a completely unncessary and off-topic passive attack- simply a way to attack those in authority. Like I say, keep such things out of the Suggestion thread. It served no purpose whatsoever.
Reports are viewable by all mods.
couldn't it be, though, that problems have went down simply because traffic on the board has decreased alot over the last couple of years...
my point was that you'd either see it as constructive...or as an attack...clearly you see it as the latter...thus my point was made that you'd see it as one of two ways...
thanks for clearing up the question though.
Not really what I said.
the PM thing doesn't work because people can just not read it or delete it or ignore it entirely. I know that's what I tend to do when I get random PMs from people I don't know
kind of is, really
things that should be handled via report
i use the report function for quite alot of spamming activity only to see it not be acted upon...usually "members" with spam links contained in their signatures...quite frustrating really...and also an indication that the report function, at least appears to be ineffective in some cases.
Err, last couple of years is nothing to do with anything; this is a much more recent issue. Sorry, but the fact is that I very mmuch se the current policy working exactly as planned.
And I saw it as an attack because it was one. You claiming otherwise is just weasling out of it; I'm not fooled by that sort of thing. People quite often like to make these attacks disguised as something else and then cry innocent. It's an old trick and won't wash. I am not going to discuss it any more- simply keep that sort of thing out of this thread, as I said.
Btw, that is absolutely nothing like what Lana said. You really are twisting things now. She was in no way saying she would not read PMs from people wanting to discuss issues-. She was saying disruptive posters often don't answer PMs sent to them. Regardless, she has clarified the issue now so your accusation that mods do not read relevant PMs can be entirely discounted.
Originally posted by jaden101
i use the report function for quite alot of spamming activity only to see it not be acted upon...usually "members" with spam links contained in their signatures...quite frustrating really...and also an indication that the report function, at least appears to be ineffective in some cases.
so i'm a weasel now?...despite being perfectly civil you're now throwing around insults...very professional moderating, i must say.
i never said she deliberately read pm's anyway...now who's twisting things?...my point is that her sometimes not reading posts or deleting them before reading them could mean something valid gets lost in the process....a valid concern when someone's dealing with their possible expulsion from the board...and i also think that if someone feels they need to contact a mod via pm regarding an issue...the very least they should expect that the mod will read it if not reply
regardless...i think she can make her own points without the need for your back-up
Originally posted by Storm
Links can be placed in signatures (excluding forums) as long as they are placed sensibly.
yes but some are quite blatently linked to commercial advertising and are the definition of spam...they usually come in the same format...3 links...all to different sections of the same website
the fake members also usually make pointless one line replies that are barely on-topic...very easy to notice
Good lord, saying someone is weasling out of something is hardly an insullt in the way you make out- are you actively looking to pick a fight? Is that it? I really do not understand such behaviour.
It's very poor, really. Anyway If you want to discuss anything related to that issue, you know what to do; please take it to PM. Don't use this thread to air your personal issues with mods. That goes for your comments about Alana also, seeing as you are determined to make the worst out of everything any mod says.
If you have an actual suggestion now, please make it. All other issues are not suitable for this thread.
Originally posted by jaden101
yes but some are quite blatently linked to commercial advertising and are the definition of spam...they usually come in the same format...3 links...all to different sections of the same websitethe fake members also usually make pointless one line replies that are barely on-topic...very easy to notice
It is not impossible that some genuine spam reports are missed. Feel free to PM me any ones that still irk you.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Good lord, saying someone is weasling out of something is hardly an insullt in the way you make out- are you actively looking to pick a fight? Is that it? I really do not understand such behaviour.It's very poor, really. Anyway If you want to discuss anything related to that issue, you know what to do; that it to PM. Don't use this thread to air your personal issues with mods. That goes for your comments about Alana also, seeing as you are determined to make the worst out of everything any mod says.
If you have an actual suggestion now, please make it. All other issues are not suitable for this thread.
fair enough
suggestion: get a new moderating team 😆
nah i'm only kidding boss...if i have an issue...believe me...i WILL pm the person i have an issue with.
but we all know what they say about internet arguments.