Feedback on today's announcement

Thompson_NCL said:
I'm not sure I see the value in prohibiting discussion on one of the biggest issues of the 21st century. It's in the news almost daily.
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Probably because they are immigrants/from immigrants themselves?

To be fair to mods its a thankless job and this thread is good to get everone to discuss the rules.
 
doofer said:
This happens often here. You have done it yourself on many occasions.

I can even remember you banning at least 15 Posters one time over a Thread involving the death of a baby in Korea(?) because the parents were playing WoW or something.

A lot of users started mocking the parents but because people were deemed by you to not be 'upset' enough at the death of the baby involved you decided to ban them, this was because you'd just had a baby yourself, you did realise the error of your ways and lift the bans after a few days, but that is a perfect example of what you are saying 'never' happens here.
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This place has changed, the mod team has changed, I have changed too. I am not infallible and have never been.

The changes we're trying to make here are intended to make sure that sort of thing doesn't happen, or if it does it is clear to see that it is wrong.

I'm glad that I saw the error of my ways, if that is what happened. I confess I don't recall the minutiae of that situation but I do recall the news item and the upsetting nature of it.

We had someone banned here recently for reveling in the deaths of the victims of the Russian plane crash. There are lines that should never be crossed and no matter what light touch we wish to have there are things that if posted should result in action, whether that be removal of the post, removal of the member for a short time or permanent removal of the poster.

I likened it to a referee earlier in the thread. If someone lunges in knee high with two feet it doesn't matter how good a ref you have, he has to send you off. You post very adult content here whether it be pornographic or gore, whatever, then we must respond.

I vehemently deny that it happens often and suggest that perhaps an agenda is in play here.
 
Personally, it seems your trying to ban banter, and also your moderation doesn't seem to work currently in curbing trolling so I can't see how this will work without just annoying people.

Regularly people will be allowed to post antagonistic or deliberately, and obviously trolling posts, and then those who pull the members up on it get the warnings or bans for abuse.

Moderation needs to be better for any of this to work. Some sub forums are almost abandoned because the trolls are allowed to roam free.

There also an unjustified tendency to protect certain members, but I can't stray down there or I'll be banned again.
 
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Ban banter? Not even slightly. How would I ever be able to contribute as a member without?!

If you have seen issues that have not been addressed and have ideas on how that can be achieved then post in the Forum Content Discussion forum and let's have a chat.
 
Cosimo said:
Almost any discussion on migration, the EU, the Middle East is bound to offend someone so does this mean you will be trying to stifle discussions on highly topical subjects we may have? I just wonder where we are heading with this?

We face a huge problem with EU migration and the thread we had was closed. Does that mean we now cannot have another because of the above?

I think the rules we have are fine and are just common sense. A little more clarity would be fine. This charter just sounds like a lot of corporate nonsense that I've heard and experienced before. A lot of overkill and a feeling that this place will lose it's open and free ranging identity.
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I think Cosimo has nailed it here.

I think that the charter is over the top and just feels like more red tape to me. It's this sort of thing that kills good forums/communities.

Troublemakers appear to be in the minority really, so why not just deal with them in isolation? Setting a charter is most likely going to be ignored by the people it is aimed towards anyway. The people who are going to read and take notice of it are already behaving that way.
 
Or more likely, nobody reads it. I expect 90% of the users on here are unaware of the rules.

The forums need better and more consistent moderation, rather than just expecting everyone to behave themselves based on aa charter nobody will read.
 
grimm said:
I think Cosimo has nailed it here.

I think that the charter is over the top and just feels like more red tape to me. It's this sort of thing that kills good forums/communities.

Troublemakers appear to be in the minority really, so why not just deal with them in isolation? Setting a charter is most likely going to be ignored by the people it is aimed towards anyway. The people who are going to read and take notice of it are already behaving that way.
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The charter and rules are not just for members, but to help inform decisions by the mod team.

Dealing with members in isolation and not making an effort to ensure everyone is aware of the rules and the intended spirit of the community leads to more people not understanding why decisions were made.
 
Those who find this awful or unnecessary, what would be your suggestions? What could you do better?

I'm not asking for a debate/fight, I'm genuinely interested in hearing what you don't like about the rules/charter that you think is unreasonable?

Afterall we want to make this a fun and inclusive place. Generally it is, and actually I love the banter here it's one of the best forums for it IMO. Most of the time I don't even post with my admin hat on and just enjoy getting into the thick of a debate or discussion or joke.

The problem is people push things too far - and yes possibly in the past, and maybe from time to time, a personal morality boundary gets blurred with moderator responsibility, but in general and I'd say the moderators get it right. The exception to the rule being when perhaps something was not actioned, or was actioned that should / should not have been.

That said we also have a responsibility to keep this place civil, with acceptable content, and people abuse that trust and benefit of doubt we give to you. It's not fair on other members and it is not fair to have a go at us for trying to keep this place a fun, safe and friendly place.

With such a large user base there is bound to be personality conflicts. You cannot get on with everyone all of the time, but as long as we can ensure that most people get on most of the time then we're winning.

The last thing we want to do is censorship (we're not suggesting that at all) and if ever that is brought in I can promise you now I would step down as a member of the admin/moderation team. However, we also cannot allow vitriolic, and hateful posting or posting that has the potential to discriminate or offend a large group of people. We want to remain inclusive.

I know we haven't always got it right, and we are often damned if we do and damned if we don't. There is no magic bullet, or perfect formula to managing a forum of this size. That is why we have a diverse moderating team which has grown recently. We want to make sure that we get more opinions and perspectives.

We've increased the tolerance on swearing in some situations (see the announcement), we've also introduced a space where you can direct but informal discussions with the moderating team to air your concerns. As a result of that new forum, it has helped us reflect a bit, and we have resolved issues that people have had. In fact in a way it has triggered us to try and be more open and fair with our rules.
 
FrenchTart said:
The charter and rules are not just for members, but to help inform decisions by the mod team.

Dealing with members in isolation and not making an effort to ensure everyone is aware of the rules and the intended spirit of the community leads to more people not understanding why decisions were made.
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Just put more detail in the description of why a post is removed, or a user banned/suspended, and be more consistent.

I don't really understand what difference it makes to type the rules out in a slightly different format and call it a "charter", when most users are behaving that way by default anyway. Just deal with the troublemakers and let everyone know what they did and why they have been dealt with.

99% of the time when I see a post deleted or that someone has been banned I have no idea what the issue was, because the post is gone and the explanation left behind is just something like "post deleted, inappropriate content" or something equally generic.

As has already been pointed out, the people that will read the rules or the charter are most likely already behaving in that way, and the troublemakers simply won't bother, or will choose to ignore them anyway. In both of those scenarios, the charter serves no purpose at all.
 
Freefaller said:
The problem is people push things too far - and yes possibly in the past, and maybe from time to time, a personal morality boundary gets blurred with moderator responsibility, but in general and I'd say the moderators get it right. The exception to the rule being when perhaps something was not actioned, or was actioned that should / should not have been.

That said we also have a responsibility to keep this place civil, with acceptable content, and people abuse that trust and benefit of doubt we give to you. It's not fair on other members and it is not fair to have a go at us for trying to keep this place a fun, safe and friendly place.
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Have you been asked by the owners to ‘tidy up’ this forum, in particular GD or is this just a local initiative?
 
Skeeter said:
Or more likely, nobody reads it. I expect 90% of the users on here are unaware of the rules.

The forums need better and more consistent moderation, rather than just expecting everyone to behave themselves based on aa charter nobody will read.
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That's the whole point of the charter - it gives us something to refer against to try and keep subjectivity out of it.

On the whole, I think the moderation team does a cracking job here - yes of course I may be biased - but I genuinely believe the team do their best and do so for the benefit and the good of the members and the forum. We are all doing this for nothing, because we like being part of this community and we were chosen because we were seen to uphold the values (charter perhaps?) of what was needed for the community. Furthermore, we were seen to be fair and reasonable with how we deal with people that are not behaving in a community-based way.

The forum has exploded in popularity, and the age range is increasing. Furthermore, the diversity of membership is also increasing. We have to cater for everyone as best we can. We are making steps towards doing this.

Please do offer suggestions and try and understand - this is not about trying to catch people out, it's about making this place more fun, safe and enjoyable by all our members.

In an ideal world the moderators should have very little to do.
 
A good suggestion from grimm. Not knowing why something has been deleted doesn't do anything to prevent it happening again. We can all see the reason something was removed, so use that as a method of education for members.

If your trying to cut down on derailments or trolling then do that. Quite often a whole thread is closed because it was allowed to go off topic, which is a shame. And trolls are often allowed to wander about unchecked, posting deliberately trolly posts to cause arguments and its the users who respond who get told off by the mods. I have a user on my ignore list who follows me about and quotes me with something designed to get me to bite, but I can't tell him to grow up because I get warnings for abusing members.
 
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anything I don't mind said:
Is it my fault? :(

Is there a list of topics we can't discuss? Or it more about just being pleasant to each other?
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We're not censoring subjects. We just want people to post in a non offensive manner, and be aware that the people you are interacting with may have different views on life/the subject at hand.

We don't want to stifle debate, or differing opinions - this place would be dull without it. You can have passionate debates without resorting to personal attacks or being demeaning to others or groups of people.

I guess to sum it up like others have said "use common sense".... but it's hard as everyone has different scales of what is common sense. We're just trying to add a little bit of rigour to it.

Ultimately, 99% of posters already behave in the way we've laid out the charter - so it won't affect people. It's just to ensure that the 1% are aware of what is and is not deemed sensible/acceptable.

Whilst it would be great to be black and white in terms of rules, it's never going to be that simple unfortunately. So we're giving this tack a go.
 
grimm said:
....

99% of the time when I see a post deleted or that someone has been banned I have no idea what the issue was, because the post is gone and the explanation left behind is just something like "post deleted, inappropriate content" or something equally generic.
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But surely, that level of generic explanation is all that's needed? Mods are there to moderate, and the rules seem pretty clear. If something's been moderated, it's because the mod team deemed it necessary.

I don't feel I need to know exactly why it was moderated in order to do my bit, which is just to follow the rules.

If I got a post deleted and didn't know why, I suspect a polite PM asking why, what I'd done, would elicit an explanation so I can avoid doing it again.
 
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