Recent approach to forum moderation has reduced thread quality + fun factor

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Freefaller said:
Indeed. Necro posts are just done by accident or by people who have no clue.
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I think most of the necros were because of the forum changing over to the new style, cant remember how exactly but found myself inadvertently reading posts from years ago.

Theres a random option somewhere that did this.
 
Actually you're probably right. Had forgotten about that.

Still it doesn't indicate a change in quality of content or moderation.
 
Forum content discussion forum is there for everyone to use for whatever reason. Please use it if there is anything you feel needs raising.

Not all mods frequent all forums and not all mods read all threads. It's everyone's chance to raise anything and potentially have anything looked at again.
 
I don't want to criticize this forum as I still think it's a great place, but things obviously have changed around here since the old 'Spie' days, I have always classed myself as someone that leaned quite heavily on the left side of the political spectrum but for some reason I really appreciated the right sided political nature of the forum in the old days, it had a certain satire about it, I just think 'liberalism' in general is starting to take over the internet, look at the recent General election exit poll on here, I think that says it all really, I wouldn't even call myself a lefty anymore, the landscape has changed so much.
 
i'm not going to question the moderation decisions themselves. but it would be handy if we went back to the older ways of instead of making posts up and vanish, leaving them with the old yellow text highlighting why it was removed, so it's more visible to those not involved.

that way at least people aren't getting confused when half a thread up and vanishes out of context.
 
adolf hamster said:
i'm not going to question the moderation decisions themselves. but it would be handy if we went back to the older ways of instead of making posts up and vanish, leaving them with the old yellow text highlighting why it was removed, so it's more visible to those not involved.

that way at least people aren't getting confused when half a thread up and vanishes out of context.
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I actually asked for that in the forum content discussion area recently.

I think seeing the "post deleted" text was a far better way of doing things rather than reading a thread one minute and the next half of it being missing and thinking you were imagining it!
 
NoobCannon said:
I actually asked for that in the forum content discussion area recently.

I think seeing the "post deleted" text was a far better way of doing things rather than reading a thread one minute and the next half of it being missing and thinking you were imagining it!
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I agree, but I also imagine that is more time consuming than just deleting a few spicy posts
 
I don't think mods change, by which I mean they don't get a load better or a lot worse in decision making - and I say that with respect and have never had to moderate things. Aren't they just trying their best to deal with whichever link we've posted - and this is where I do get a bit grumpy, GD has become a reddit and RSS overflow - and doing what they think is right?

Later this calendar year I'll be pumping some pretty huge funds to get mod status to help Make GD Great Again (MGDGA). I trust I can rely on your support. Yay!
 
I think all of us need to raise our game and post more interesting threads. Don't blame the mods, blame yourselves.

It's a shame so many interesting posters have been banned though.
 
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[FnG]magnolia said:
I don't think mods change, by which I mean they don't get a load better or a lot worse in decision making - and I say that with respect and have never had to moderate things. Aren't they just trying their best to deal with whichever link we've posted - and this is where I do get a bit grumpy, GD has become a reddit and RSS overflow - and doing what they think is right?

Later this calendar year I'll be pumping some pretty huge funds to get mod status to help Make GD Great Again (MGDGA). I trust I can rely on your support. Yay!
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Id vote for you.
 
Stumble Bum said:
The mods are just so trigger happy. Anything they remotely don't like = instant ban/suspension/deletion/locking.

Good moderation should barely be visible. That's certainly never been the case around here.
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Have you ever considered that if the moderators are frequently picking you up on posts you make that the issue might in fact be with your posting? There are thousands of other users who manage to post just fine.

You say that good moderation should barely be visible but you cannot possibly know the amount of moderation that goes on here and how much of it goes unnoticed by you so I'm not convinced that you're speaking from an informed position.

Moderation here isn't perfect but that's a function of the human condition rather than it being a failing of our moderators particularly - I'm not sure I'd fancy robot moderation either though, generally moderators will try to use their discretion and believe it or not a suspension is not what most moderators would like to use but sometimes posters leave little option. A hell of a lot of work goes into keeping these forums running as smoothly as they do and frequently in contentious subjects the moderators will get it in the neck from both sides who feel there is an unfair bias against their point of view - does that mean that they've got it right and there's a balance because both sides feel hard done by? Possibly not but I'm explaining this to try and point out that it isn't easy to keep people happy because we each have different views on what is right or necessary and the moderators try hard to only moderate where it is needed without stifling personal opinions provided those opinions are not gratuitously offensive or trolling. And for what it is worth the moderation here is significantly more open than it has been in the past e.g. we now have the Forum Content Discussion for people to post in and enquire about moderation decisions.

NoobCannon said:
I think most of the necros were because of the forum changing over to the new style, cant remember how exactly but found myself inadvertently reading posts from years ago.

Theres a random option somewhere that did this.
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The new software did appear to throw out the search function and cause some issues with older posts being prioritised over more recent ones although I think/hope this issue is receding somewhat.
 
Tosno said:
I'm trying to save GD and make it more Alpha again, but sometimes even when you call a duck a duck you get told off why you shouldn't assume a duck is a duck, even though you know it's a fact it's a duck.
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No duck talk outside of the duck sub-forum.
 
I won't quote it, but SPW has explained it very well ^.

Essentially, we are human and do actively discuss decisions before we take action. Sometimes we get called bias by BOTH sides of an argument, so it'll be a no-win situation whatever action is taken.

The new forum allows us to take more flexible action such as banning individuals from a single thread without dropping the hammer on them altogether, however many of the usual suspects with 20+ usernotes have used up their lives so to speak, which often means we're forced to be a bit stricter. Otherwise people start crying foul and saying we protect certain members, which isn't the case.

I think the problem is that we used to have a smaller mod team which meant the 1am lolthreads often gained traction until it got noticed, whereas now we have decidedly more coverage and we can close or hide the thread whilst it's cleaned. That's not to say we close any thread that doesn't fit our agenda but you'll see a pattern between a busy thread and a thread with lots of moderation.

You may think a single post which requires removal is a 2 second job, but in a busy thread that means:

  1. Editing the post to leave an advisory
  2. Removing or editing everyone's quotes
  3. Leaving a usernote for the offender
  4. Raising a discussion in the mod area about possible rule breaks
  5. Taking action to apply the ban/warning etc
  6. Responding to the FCD thread calling us unfair
This is just one example but you get the point. We've also had more spam accounts lately which flood the forum with threads... keeping on top of those is a task unto itself. I've moved literally 20 threads from whole sub forums where the bot has run riot.

I could go on... we do try to remain out of sight but if you knew the extent at which we get involved, you'd realise we do much more than is noticeable.
 
EVH said:
I won't quote it, but SPW has explained it very well ^.

Essentially, we are human and do actively discuss decisions before we take action. Sometimes we get called bias by BOTH sides of an argument, so it'll be a no-win situation whatever action is taken.

The new forum allows us to take more flexible action such as banning individuals from a single thread without dropping the hammer on them altogether, however many of the usual suspects with 20+ usernotes have used up their lives so to speak, which often means we're forced to be a bit stricter. Otherwise people start crying foul and saying we protect certain members, which isn't the case.

I think the problem is that we used to have a smaller mod team which meant the 1am lolthreads often gained traction until it got noticed, whereas now we have decidedly more coverage and we can close or hide the thread whilst it's cleaned. That's not to say we close any thread that doesn't fit our agenda but you'll see a pattern between a busy thread and a thread with lots of moderation.

You may think a single post which requires removal is a 2 second job, but in a busy thread that means:

  1. Editing the post to leave an advisory
  2. Removing or editing everyone's quotes
  3. Leaving a usernote for the offender
  4. Raising a discussion in the mod area about possible rule breaks
  5. Taking action to apply the ban/warning etc
  6. Responding to the FCD thread calling us unfair
This is just one example but you get the point. We've also had more spam accounts lately which flood the forum with threads... keeping on top of those is a task unto itself. I've moved literally 20 threads from whole sub forums where the bot has run riot.

I could go on... we do try to remain out of sight but if you knew the extent at which we get involved, you'd realise we do much more than is noticeable.
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And then there is the ones with 50+notes :)
 
Tunney said:
I think all of us need to raise our game and post more interesting threads. Don't blame the mods, blame yourselves.

It's hame so many interesting posters have been banned though.
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I'm completely with you on the first point and maybe 60% with you on the second point. The onus is on us to make interesting threads, or at the very least keep interesting threads alive and not necro some garbage from 2008 which wasn't even relevant then! That's not an unreasonable argument.

I think we've lost our sense of ... fun isn't quite the right word but it might be close. A lot of threads and positions seem to be THEM and US - and the differences barely matter to be honest. I can read the news myself without having to read someone else's politicised view of it and that probably begs the question of why is that even general discussion anyway?

I'm ranting but also a little bit sad that we're not at the top of our game. Because we should be.

#MGDGA
 
Glaucus said:
what utter nonsense the threads being necro are not religion based threads or even controversial, they are utterly mundane threads that you can quite happily post know.
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This. The most recent necros I remember are about boring things like contactless payment.

Nothing to do with moderation.
 
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