Your comments regarding a reward system have been mentally noted. Considering all of you seem to feel that way, you must be onto something.
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Originally Posted by Freebase Dali
We don't need gimmicks to promote good behavior. We need members that want to behave well. The fact that you think we need motivation for people to not be a problem is pretty telling in that you, at least subconsciously, know that the people in question are not interested in being good because it's their nature. Me personally, I'd rather just weed out the bad to make room for the good. I'm not going to sit here and waste time trying to convert the problem people, I'm just going to punish the ones who cause problems. And you're completely right about us needing to be stricter. I think the main problem as of late is that we were far too lenient with the problem people, and that's how this whole mess started. Fortunately for your peace of mind, I don't think we'll be doing that anymore, but I think we might like some input on how to balance the gray areas a bit better. Sopsych has some input, some of which I agree with, but I think we're missing the mark when the primary stance is to reward good behavior with gimmicks, because we're then acknowledging that people are inherently not interested in making this place the kind of place they want to be a part of. And I think that's entirely cynical and insulting.
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You're misunderstanding my position somewhat again. The jist of it is this. Any poster reacts and adapts to his environment. In a certain environment, a poster may be productive and friendly. In a different environment, that same poster may be disruptive and hostile.
I'm not saying that people are not inherently interested in making this place the kind of place they want to be part of. That is a strawman argument. What I'm saying is that it is possible to change the environment of the site so that it discourages bad behaviour and encourages good behaviour. It is possible to change the environment so that people behave better. The mods becoming more strict is a means to that end.
If the environment discourages people being nice, it is hard to be the change. Imagine a forum full of bastards and you're the only one trying to be nice. You'd be eaten alive. If there are no mods, then perhaps taking the high road in a conflict only results in you not defending yourself while your opposition heckle you. You would be less inclined to do it because there is little reward on your part. If mods could protect you against such heckling, it would be easier.
Every forum feature, every member, every mod, every bit of layout and how things work can potentially add positively or negatively to the environment. Just to illustrate with a bizarre example, imagine the users of a forum getting ever so slightly nicer to eachother as a result of changing the background colour from red to green. You know, possibly that could be a miniscule effect - perhaps not even measurable - but it could be there.
In an environment which discourages or even punishes people rising above conflict and looking the other way, being nice and taking the high road will be done by conscious effort despite the negative consequences doing so will have for a member. If that environment doesn't change, how do you expect people to keep it up? But if the environment encourages niceness and taking the high road when conflict arises, people won't need to take the high road out of conscious effort. It's just the natural way to behave in that situation, in that environment.
To use another analogy, you should treat the disease rather than the symptoms. If someone has a fever, you can take a pill to get the temperature down, but it's better to remove the cause of the fever. I admit asking people to be the change is valid, but if it's the only thing done and the environment doesn't change sufficiently and the only real consequence is that they stop to defend themselves from heckling, then they won't keep it up. The forum will inevitably go back into its old shape.