Oriphiel

I'll respond to you, but honestly I'd rather hear how you feel about the compromise I suggested (that if the users and mods agreed to your proposal, we could start it off by enacting the harsher enforcement only in The Lounge, moving it to the music forums only if necessary).

My point was that there have always been fights, and there always will be, as it's human nature. I was also pointing out that MB has gone through times much more hostile and strange than what it's going through now, and Boo Boo was just one example. Like I said, I just don't see the degradation that you're talking about. The threads from back then that were useful and good are still around, and we also have the good ones that occasionally pop up in the day to day, giving us the best of the past and present. I'd say we actually have more resources now then we did back then, and the only difference in terms of hostility is that the names of the handful of troublemakers have changed.

And I think that user participation is actually not that bad. We have plenty of people making songs in the "Bi-Weekly Song Off" (although I admit we could use more, and the thread is on a bit of a hiatus right now), people giving out awesome recs like candy (even a simple thread like Trollheart's "Love or Hate" racked up a huge amount of participation), a good variety of journals that are fun to read (whether you want to read about music, video games, comic books, life experiences, short stories, and more), a million survivor/war threads which actually don't get old as quickly as you'd think they would (mostly because the participants are awesome), and plenty more.

I don't think your proposal would have changed what happened. Boo Boo was a mod who couldn't take it when people disagreed with him, and the people that he banned weren't even saying anything that would have gone against your proposed regulations.

I can't speak for them, but i'm pretty sure the mods aren't against it because they don't want to work hard.

DwnWthVwls

I posted this in the midst of the shitstorm and it got ignored. Thoughts?

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Oriphiel

I wouldn't call this thread a shitstorm at all. Maybe i'm bad at gauging tore's feeling, but I was under the impression that neither of us was angry or offended. Tore, if I've overstepped my bounds, feel free to let me know. I have a habit of not knowing when i'm being too pushy.

As to your suggestion DwnWthVwls, I suppose I agree. There's nothing wrong with asking the mods to be more proactive when it comes to personal attacks and derailment. I just don't think an overhaul is necessary.

Exo

Here's how you fix this so called "problem" this board has.

1. Members have to stop making completely asinine posts that will ultimately lead to serious drama.
2. Members must distinguish posts as being okay to respond to and posts where they should just shut the f*ck up.

I don't think you can control either of those. Mods have to do their jobs. They DO do their jobs, pretty well I might add. Things have been tense lately, but I really don't feel the need to introduce a whole new system because everybody has sticks up their asses lately.

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Guybrush

Well, it's not optimal, but sure. I'd take whatever I could get.

Not a very good argument. There are more civil forums than this so it is obviously a possibility. Yes, disagreements will occur, perhaps even hostilities, but overall people can be better behaved. If a little force needs to be applied to achieve that, then a little force should be applied.

Compared to MB, various other boards achieve this and they generally do so by better and more consistent modding practices. We can too.

Also not a very good argument in my opinion. Why should we preserve errors of the past?

No, the people who fired him up did so rather sneakily with careful manipulation. He probably saw it, but couldn't resist taking the bait. Again, it wasn't one single event. Boo Boo was tempbanned before his final blowout got him permbanned. His modship was discussed in the mod cave, etc. But I think with my suggested system with infractions, Boo Boo would have been more consistently moderated (would've been tempbanned more often for shorter periods) and so would the people who were winding him up, at least when they made the odd slip up.

Of course I can't say for sure it would have prevented it, but I think it could have. The same goes for similar situations.

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Guybrush

I feel like I got those (and more) covered already

No worries. I don't really get emotional over discussions on forums.

I don't think so either. As I've mentioned before, my suggestion is now several years old. After I was modded, I saw there was no real consistent method to moderating rule breaking other than deleting spam. Then I saw this great system in place which we were not using, a system which seemed capable of fixing this problem (and others) if only we were prepared to work and actually use it.

You seem to be missing a lot of the thinking which has gone into this whole thing, and not just by me. I mean, the guys who designed the infractions system apparently had something similar in mind which is why they made it the way it is. Their idea was pretty good. All we need to do is use it.

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Exo

So what your saying is, that there is this machine that can eradicate the aliens from our planet once and for all. The men of the past built it, but they left it in the underground bunker. Some of us have to go down there, dust it off, see if it still runs, and then come back to the service to get rid of our alien problem.

I'll sign up guys. I've been working out lately and have nothing to live for anymore.

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Oriphiel

They were sneaky, and never outright attacked Boo Boo personally. Under your proposed regulations, the situation would have been the same, since they never outright broke the rules, and so couldn't have been infracted. This is a prime example of what happens when modding is rigid rather than fluid. The other mods tried to go purely by the books, punishing Boo Boo when he acted out and leaving the tormentors who technically didn't break any rules alone. Later in your post, you mentioned that we shouldn't preserve the errors of the past; you could learn from this situation. The story of Boo Boo is a prime example of the flaws of rigid modding. And if your proposition is enacted, in response to things becoming rigid, the trolls will just become sneakier, which time has shown ultimately makes them capable of creating worse problems than ever. The foolish loud mouth trolls that we have now can disrupt one or two threads, but sneaky trolls can get a huge portion of the forum banned without breaking a single rule.

Why isn't it optimal? It's a good compromise, is implemented in the part of the forum that needs it most, and it allows everyone to get a feel for the new circumstances before they really commit to them. Everybody wins. Of course, I'd rather have your proposition rejected outright, but if everyone else wants it, then I think this is the best way to go about doing it.

No offense, but maybe you should go hang out in those more civil forums. Around here, we have more freedoms at the cost of things being a bit more hectic. In other places, they sacrifice some of their freedoms in order to have more security. Neither forum is better than the other. They're both different, and appeal to different people. MB has always been this way, and i'm sorry that i'm not able to convince you that the people here are (mostly) compassionate, and participating throughout the forum.

Because no matter how strict this forum gets, we'll still have people hurting each other and abusing their power; the only difference is that under your vision, they'll become sneakier and more adept at it in order to survive (since you insisted on bringing survival of the fittest into this ). We'll be left with lazy mods, since they'll rely on automated infractions and filters to take care of things, who will either not know how to deal with complex situations (such as someone being harassed by another member who is always careful to never quite break the rules), or won't care to, since their social connection to the community will be weaker.

Exo

I think the idea of using this infraction system has been pretty much turned down. I don't think one person has been for it 100%

*cue JWB*

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SUPREME POO BAH MODERATOR EXTRAORDINAIRE

Oriphiel

Alright, i'm out of this one, and I mean it this time (). I really have said everything I have to say about this issue, and at this point i'm just making walls of text. Tore, feel free to respond to my points above, since it wouldn't be fair for me to just leave before you can get a chance to respond. And if you want to continue talking about things, I actually had a bit of fun with this debate, so I'd love to chat with you in PMs if you have more to say afterwards.

Where is JWB? I expected him to be all over this.