Moderation FAQ

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

You said that moderators are for the community, and for awhile i have been kicking around the idea of a Moderator nomination thread and i was wondering if that was against the forum rules?

Sassafrass pretty much hit the nail on the head for this one. It's going to be a lot of people voting for their friends, and a lot of people disagreeing. I can see it ending up a lot like the community spotlight comment threads, actually.

Sadly, the question is well out of my paygrade. That's a question that's better suited for for the Mountain God Nasrin.

 

[DigitalSushi]

You said that moderators are for the community, and for awhile i have been kicking around the idea of a Moderator nomination thread and i was wondering if that was against the forum rules?

Sassafrass pretty much hit the nail on the head for this one. It's going to be a lot of people voting for their friends, and a lot of people disagreeing. I can see it ending up a lot like the community spotlight comment threads, actually.

Sadly, the question is well out of my paygrade. That's a question that's better suited for for the Mountain God Nasrin.

Can I nominate you Nukey?

I've got the BanBow, LaCoil has her BanMop, but you have somehow managed to weaponize literature

weaponized... literature

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

weaponized... literature

Commander Markus hated how squat blast bunkers were. To keep the structure stable, they had to be, but that didn't make his neck hurt any less while he had to be in one. The soldier immediately to his left barked, "Haiku Bomb ready for demonstration, sir!"

Markus sounded bored, "Very well, fire."

"Preparing. Bomb dropping in three... Two..."

The missile made a hollow whumping sound as it launched from the base. The cylinder traveled the previously planned thousand yards, and began its descent. With small cracks, three unique bomb clusters flew through the air. The bombs hit ground in brief sequences. Five short explosions rocked the plain, dragging huge clouds of dust into the air in a tight grouping. Another seven explosions rattled the door of the blast shelter, now filling the width of the plain in an enormous dust plume. Inside, five flashes of light illuminated the interior of the dust cloud, followed swiftly by an indistinct crack of five more explosions. The entire procedure took less than a pair of seconds, but the plain outside was devastated.

After the dust started to settle outside, the solider spoke quietly. "The explosions. Patterned for destruction. Explosive haiku."

Markus thought to himself. That was four, six, five... "Excellent work, lieutenant. Anything else on demonstration today?"

"No sir. We normally would have a Shakespearian bomb prepared, but someone tabled that development until we could action a better set of sanctions."

"Very good. Carry on, lieutenant."

The lieutenant saluted, and opened the door for the commander. They both departed in silence.

 

[Steppin Razor]

I've noticed a number of posts recently that go along the lines of:

I prefer such-and-such.

These words here so I don't get hit with the low content rule.

I shouldn't have to tell you how asinine this is. It seems to me that a lot of users don't have a clear idea what would constitute a low content post, so they're operating under the assumption that it's a certain amount of words and are padding out their posts with pointless... shit, for lack of a better word.

I see that Caliostro has already mentioned the mod's stance on the rule, but the low content listing in the Code of Conduct and even in this FAQ still remains as vague as ever. People shouldn't have to dig through a thread to find out the stance taken on the actual rules, the rules should say that themselves. The fact that so many people misunderstand it means that the rule itself doesn't do a good job of that.

 

[Pearwood]

Can we start having megathreads for popular subjects like highly anticipated game releases? One big thread has to be better than a dozen others that do nothing but push other threads off the front couple of pages. Right now with Skyrim it's getting to the point where there are more threads on the front page of the Games forum about that one game than not. Sure it'll die down in a week or two but having a megathread will save us a lot of thread spam until then.

 

[GeorgW]

Can we start having megathreads for popular subjects like highly anticipated game releases? One big thread has to be better than a dozen others that do nothing but push other threads off the front couple of pages. Right now with Skyrim it's getting to the point where there are more threads on the front page of the Games forum about that one game than not. Sure it'll die down in a week or two but having a megathread will save us a lot of thread spam until then.

I can see the usefulness of it, but it's note entirely functional. Sometimes people will want to discuss things from different angles, or with people with similar experiences. Maybe some want a spoiler free thread and another wants to discuss the ending at length? If there are several threads on the same specific subject we'll merge them, but for something that's as big as Skyrim there are just too many things to discuss. That said, feel free to make a general discussion thread about Skyrim and see if it reduces the Skyrim threads.

 

[Caliostro]

Hi.

This is your friendly (or not), neighborhood Cali reminding you that if you don't like a topic, you don't have to post in it!

It's not a reportable offense to make a thread you, personally, don't like and if you make a "Don't care/who gives a shit" post in it, you will get hammered.

And I don't mean that in a good "Friday night with some friends, women/men and some nice booze" way.

That is all. You may return to your regularly scheduled program.

 

[b3nn3tt]

Hi.

This is your friendly (or not), neighborhood Cali reminding you that if you don't like a topic, you don't have to post in it!

It's not a reportable offense to make a thread you, personally, don't like and if you make a "Don't care/who gives a shit" post in it, you will get hammered.

And I don't mean that in a good "Friday night with some friends, women/men and some nice booze" way.

That is all. You may return to your regularly scheduled program.

Does this mean that people are going to get punished now for posts along the lines of 'This thread is stupid, I don't care about it at all, so I'm just going to waste everyone's time by posting in it'? Because that would be great!

 

[Caliostro]

Does this mean that people are going to get punished now for posts along the lines of 'This thread is stupid, I don't care about it at all, so I'm just going to waste everyone's time by posting in it'? Because that would be great!

They have always been punished for that AFAIK. It falls well under "low content/spam".

Just seen too many of those recently and felt like reminding people that you really don't have to post in EVERY thread you see.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Recalling the PROBATION titles that used to appear in the old system, what are the mod's opinions on axing that policy? Personally I would prefer to see the health bar set to private (only the user involved and the mods/staff being able to see them) and bringing back the probationary stamp. It would disappear after a few days (though its removal wouldn't change the health bar) and would only be applied when wrathing those with 4 warnings and up.

I dunno, it used to be a visible consequence of being put on probation for an offense. I know it won't deter those who don't give a fuck what other people think of them but it may discourage another user to re-offend after being branded around their friends for awhile. Maybe the length of time the title stays up could correlate to the number of incidents in the user's recent history. This number would go down with the forum health bar too. Just my musings on the difference between what probation used to mean and what it means today.

 

[Evil Smurf]

what is 'low content'? can I have an example?

 

[sky14kemea]

what is 'low content'? can I have an example?

Sometimes quoting people and then only saying "This."

One to two word answers.

Or really random things that have nothing to do with the topic being discussed.

Those are some examples I can think of anyway..

 

[Caliostro]

Stand by for a public service announcement:

Hi. Caliostro here. We here at Moderator Industries® would like to inform you that regardless of how much you disagree/dislike/consider stupid/ignorant/etc... a post, that is emphatically [n]not[/n] grounds for:

a) Punitive moderator action - no matter how much you report something, we'll only punish posts that break the Code of Conduct [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct];
or
b) Insulting the poster - which IS against the aforementioned Code of Conduct [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct].

So if you don't like someone's opinion on a topic, and otherwise feel reasonable discourse is not possible, remember you have the possibility of simply not fucking replying to them. They're not holding you hostage.

You may now go back to...

...Caroline what is it these people DO on their free time? Buy felt hats? Beard dirt?

...to whatever it is you do on your free time.

what is 'low content'? can I have an example?

Late as this may be: To expand on what Sky said, low content refers to making rather inane and null value posts for the sake of posting something / inflating post count when the post contributes in nothing towards the thread.

Things like "this", "+1", "what he said", and such, or things that are completely random/off topic (e.g.: "Thread is about your favorite shooter"; UserG: "I like bananas!").

 

[manic_depressive13]

I want clarification on coloured text and such. Back in my day the forum rules clearly stated that typing in colour, bolding or typing in CAPS was not considered acceptable. Since the annotated rules came in and erased this vital clause, I have seen two people who always post in a particular colour- one in red and one in a thoroughly unpleasant light blue, and a member likes to post in bold letters.

This has become an epidemic. I have encountered a total of three people with incredibly annoying posting habits and I won't stand for it. If we don't put our foot down there will be an influx of users who feel the need to differentiate themselves through the colour of their posts and the Escapist will become a technicolour shitfest. Please cleanse this scourge before it spreads. Thank you.

 

[GeorgW]

I want clarification on coloured text and such. Back in my day the forum rules clearly stated that typing in colour, bolding or typing in CAPS was not considered acceptable. Since the annotated rules came in and erased this vital clause, I have seen two people who always post in a particular colour- one in red and one in a thoroughly unpleasant light blue, and a member likes to post in bold letters.

This has become an epidemic. I have encountered a total of three people with incredibly annoying posting habits and I won't stand for it. If we don't put our foot down there will be an influx of users who feel the need to differentiate themselves through the colour of their posts and the Escapist will become a technicolour shitfest. Please cleanse this scourge before it spreads. Thank you.

It isn't completely gone from the rules, we do ask that people put effort into their posts and make sure they're readable. 3 people isn't really much of an epidemic, and you're the first one I've heard complain about it, but if it spreads perhaps the phrasing of the CoC will change.

 

[sky14kemea]

I want clarification on coloured text and such. Back in my day the forum rules clearly stated that typing in colour, bolding or typing in CAPS was not considered acceptable. Since the annotated rules came in and erased this vital clause, I have seen two people who always post in a particular colour- one in red and one in a thoroughly unpleasant light blue, and a member likes to post in bold letters.

This has become an epidemic. I have encountered a total of three people with incredibly annoying posting habits and I won't stand for it. If we don't put our foot down there will be an influx of users who feel the need to differentiate themselves through the colour of their posts and the Escapist will become a technicolour shitfest. Please cleanse this scourge before it spreads. Thank you.

It isn't completely gone from the rules, we do ask that people put effort into their posts and make sure they're readable. 3 people isn't really much of an epidemic, and you're the first one I've heard complain about it, but if it spreads perhaps the phrasing of the CoC will change.

I've seen it a few times as well. A few people have reported them for the colour in their post. I agree that it is painful on the eyes, but I don't see how we can punish people for it, 'cause it's not really doing anything wrong.

 

[manic_depressive13]

I've seen it a few times as well. A few people have reported them for the colour in their post. I agree that it is painful on the eyes, but I don't see how we can punish people for it, 'cause it's not really doing anything wrong.

But it used to be wrong. Please just re-insert the clause that clarifies typing in colour, bold or capitals is unnecessary and violates the "don't be inconsiderate to other users" rule. Then you can send a PM to those people asking them to type normally.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Except I use bold and colours for emphasis.
So I don't think it should be disallowed altogether. However if someone insists on doing their whole post, and every post they make, like this, then I can see your point.
Maybe just skip over their posts? If nobody reads them, they may stop doing it.

Bold or capitals to emphasise a single word is one thing, but doing it for entire posts is pointless and done solely for the purpose of attracting undeserved attention.

This sort of thing isn't necessary and it's annoying as hell.

I was under the impression that Esacapist moderators existed for the sake of discouraging and, when needed, punishing annoying nonsense like low content and offensive posts. Their diligence is what makes these forums somewhat enjoyable to browse.

We could easily just skip over the posts of people who like to write "first", but we punish it instead because it's stupid and irritating. I don't see why this obtuse, highlighted, cacochromatic nonsense should be an exception.

Although colouring posts pink to indicate sarcasm is really clever, it would appear that I'm not the only one who is annoyed by it. If the mods think I'm making a big deal out of nothing, I'll happily start a poll to see whether the community thinks this should be acceptable. If it turns out I'm just being contrary, I'll stop complaining and may even adopt it myself.

Please reply to tell me whether you'll amend the rules, or if I ought to hold this "referendum".

 

[Zombie_Fish]

I have a question:
What is the policy on external linking?
Linking to Wikipedia is allowed, but what about ad-supported sites like Wikia sites?
I can understand how the Escapist may not like being a referrer to such sites. (Free advertising?)

As long as it isn't done with the intention of providing ad revenue to the external site, linking to sites that support ads is fine.

For example, if I was making a thread and wanted to back up a statement in a post I made, then linking to an external site (including ad-supported ones) is acceptable.

If the link is unrelated to the post or the user can gain ad revenue from clicks on it (such as if it's their blog), then linking to it in the forums isn't allowed.

 

[JoJo]

I want clarification on coloured text and such. Back in my day the forum rules clearly stated that typing in colour, bolding or typing in CAPS was not considered acceptable. Since the annotated rules came in and erased this vital clause, I have seen two people who always post in a particular colour- one in red and one in a thoroughly unpleasant light blue, and a member likes to post in bold letters.

This has become an epidemic. I have encountered a total of three people with incredibly annoying posting habits and I won't stand for it. If we don't put our foot down there will be an influx of users who feel the need to differentiate themselves through the colour of their posts and the Escapist will become a technicolour shitfest. Please cleanse this scourge before it spreads. Thank you.

It isn't completely gone from the rules, we do ask that people put effort into their posts and make sure they're readable. 3 people isn't really much of an epidemic, and you're the first one I've heard complain about it, but if it spreads perhaps the phrasing of the CoC will change.

I would just like to add my voice to the complaints that I agree with manic depressive, the few people using colour constantly for every post have been bugging me too. I wouldn't want any of them punished without warning first, but I think it would be fair to warn them by PM first that they should stop before taking mod action, just my opinion anyway.