This sounds like one of those slippery slope things that someone with an agenda can take advantage of. Also, sarcasm doesn't convey that well in writing.
Poll: Open discussion on "rude" and other rules
- Thread starter runic knight
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The real problem stems from the fact that there is a very unclear and inconsistent application of the rule. For example, one user can accuse others of supporting the distribution of child pornography without any ambiguity as to the nature of what they are saying without repercussions, while someone stating that someone is being disingenuous will get a strike. That's not even a hypothetical, that actually happened here in the past 2 months.Aelinsaar said:
The rule needs a more clear line between what is and what is not acceptable, and desperately.
I suppose you would be unaware, given you are new here and all, but the rules issues have admittedly been a bone I have been chewing on for a while now, probably to the point of annoyance with the mods themselves. I appreciate that you merely skimmed the first post where I specifically state that no, this isn't so much a "I was modded, fight the system" thread so much as bringing to wider discussion the topic itself after noting, not for the first time, that there is really no official place to discuss this sort of thing. Granted that does make it hard to try to attack me as a poster for my motivations instead of my arguments, but I think the conversation is all the better for it.Aelinsaar said:
The problem is not so much people who can't communicate without insulting others, it is that the definition of what is an insult is vague and open to interpretation, which as many other posters have argued, is probably the real point of failure. There is no clear definition and as a result many posts that people thing are fine are punished, while others that people would assume were unacceptable go unopposed. Still, I think that if interpretation is the point of failure, rather then attack mods for that since people are flawed creatures, it would be better to just address the point of failure within the rules themselves and mitigate the possibility of interpretation confusion as much as possible, either by being more clear about things from the start or by removing the rule for something else entirely.
Also you do raise another aspect of concern, that of rules being enforced consistently. Probably a large cause of concern is that they are not. Specifically, rules such as the "Rude" rule are very inconsistently applied and has been the cause of numerous flare ups in the community for a while now. Indeed, this inconsistency in moderation has been an issue raised by people since the inception of the "rude" interpretation rule as there always seemed a correlation between those who were friends with mods and those who got away with far more hostile behavior. While that is by no means evidence I wish to use to make a claim here (Please do not try to argue that point, it will likely derail the thread, I am just mentioning for purpose of complete perspective, not to claim it or defend it), the appearance of that sort of impropriety has only harmed the mod's overall appearance and through that, community trust in them, and is yet another possible reason to address this issue sooner rather then later.
As for your last remark, I am know well there is no perfect solution. In fact, I believe I made that a point in a previous post in this very thread. I do however argue that the current rules can be made better, and that the least defined "personal interpretation" sort of rules are the ones in most need of change if not outright replacement.
Oh for heaven's sake, this thread annoys me. The mods appear to be so out of touch with the community here, it's staggering.
From my time lurking (and this point has been mentioned in this thread already), I've noticed there are quite a few users who have been banned, unbanned, re-banned, and unbanned again, often several times over. Which means either there's one or more mods who have no idea what they're doing and/or are making so many mistakes they shouldn't even BE a mod, or it means there's little to no agreement between the mods and the people handling the appeals. (Am I correct in understanding that they are separate people? ie: The mods aren't the ones handling the appeals?)
And since we, the community, cannot see which mod or mods are making these blunders, it means the entire mod staff faces the ire of users who have been wrongly banned, instead of only the mod(s) responsible.
That's a lack of transparency.
Furthermore, when an incorrect ban is overturned, there is no indication of what repercussions or reprimands (if any) the mod responsible will face.
That's a lack of transparency.
Semi-regularly, you will see a user suddenly gets randomly banned, with no link to an offending post and no other reason for the ban given. Often such users have many hundreds if not thousands of posts. And we have no way of knowing why these users have been banned all of a sudden.
That's a lack of transparency.
Going back to a few months ago, it wasn't uncommon to see certain threads get randomly locked, with no reason given, and no one seemed to have the faintest idea of which mod was responsible.
That's a lack of transparency.
Many of the mods (if not, all of them) are members of certain private on-site cliquey user groups. Many of these same user groups also contain users who oftentimes appear to get more leeway with the mods and rules. This naturally leads people (who are outside the group) to assume the worst, with regards to the happenings inside said group. (This assumption was even further vindicated by a recent moderator demotion.)
That's a lack of transparency.
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So when people complain about a lack of transparency, they're usually referring to one of the above points (or a combination of them). And frankly, the above points should be obvious to anyone who's visited this forum for any length of time.
Really? No one addressed this? Looks like it's going to have to fall to a long-time lurker from the dark lurking corner to answer this.sky14kemea said:
From my time lurking (and this point has been mentioned in this thread already), I've noticed there are quite a few users who have been banned, unbanned, re-banned, and unbanned again, often several times over. Which means either there's one or more mods who have no idea what they're doing and/or are making so many mistakes they shouldn't even BE a mod, or it means there's little to no agreement between the mods and the people handling the appeals. (Am I correct in understanding that they are separate people? ie: The mods aren't the ones handling the appeals?)
And since we, the community, cannot see which mod or mods are making these blunders, it means the entire mod staff faces the ire of users who have been wrongly banned, instead of only the mod(s) responsible.
That's a lack of transparency.
Furthermore, when an incorrect ban is overturned, there is no indication of what repercussions or reprimands (if any) the mod responsible will face.
That's a lack of transparency.
Semi-regularly, you will see a user suddenly gets randomly banned, with no link to an offending post and no other reason for the ban given. Often such users have many hundreds if not thousands of posts. And we have no way of knowing why these users have been banned all of a sudden.
That's a lack of transparency.
Going back to a few months ago, it wasn't uncommon to see certain threads get randomly locked, with no reason given, and no one seemed to have the faintest idea of which mod was responsible.
That's a lack of transparency.
Many of the mods (if not, all of them) are members of certain private on-site cliquey user groups. Many of these same user groups also contain users who oftentimes appear to get more leeway with the mods and rules. This naturally leads people (who are outside the group) to assume the worst, with regards to the happenings inside said group. (This assumption was even further vindicated by a recent moderator demotion.)
That's a lack of transparency.
///
So when people complain about a lack of transparency, they're usually referring to one of the above points (or a combination of them). And frankly, the above points should be obvious to anyone who's visited this forum for any length of time.
Yes, more transparency would be welcome.
I don't have any problems with this being a nanny forum and I can play any game, but I have wondered about what happened to some of the banned users.
(Of course I prefer total freedom with the only two exceptions being spam and actual harassment, but the escapist still allow more than most.)
I don't have any problems with this being a nanny forum and I can play any game, but I have wondered about what happened to some of the banned users.
(Of course I prefer total freedom with the only two exceptions being spam and actual harassment, but the escapist still allow more than most.)
You answered your own question. Calling the moderation "inconsistent" is enough to get you a warning here. I know because I've been warned in the past for exactly that.G.O.A.T. said:
It was in the Forum Games forum, no less, and I said in a post that I felt the moderation was a bit "inconsistent" (that's the exact word I used), and that was literally the only negative sentiment in my entire post.
I got slapped with a warning, and was told that "publicly airing" such "grievances" was against the rules.
And upon further inspection of the COC, they were right:
(I've crossed out the bit that's not applicable in this instance.)COC said:
I tried to appeal it. Got nowhere.
I was told that calling the moderation inconsistent counted as a "grievance", and posting this "grievance" in a thread counted as "publicly airing" it. So the warning stayed put.
This is why I'm still nervous about posting in THIS thread, because it's theoretically possible that a mod could come along and whack most of the posts in here, and there would nothing to stop them from doing so.
Hmmm, I just checked your account is totally clean right now. You can still break so many eggs you could start some real FUN if you wanted to and easily get away with it.IceForce said:
You have got absolutely nothing to worry about.
Heee as it happens I'm almost a pussy myself atm...
Forgive my cynicism, but how would you know?SolidState said:
Recently, other sites have started their own big threads griping about The Escapist-- its moderation, its user base, its content, its everything. These aren't driven by the Escapist's own community; they're primarily off-site campaigns (and often with a not insignificant ideological bent).
If you're a lurker, that's fine, and I'll apologise wholeheartedly. I have nothing at all against lurkers. But if this is another instance of someone following an another site's campaign to affect a change within this one, then just stopit.
A lot of the forums still seem very on edge after what happened with Topaz, it's not much surprise that those seemingly indifferent about the rules are those who find themselves with usergroups in common and even friends of the ex-moderator.
Topaz was also staunchly against any changes to moderation and would argue quite fervently against such changes in topics like this. Which, given what happened creates a very unfortunate image for the staff in question.
I think the staff really owes a lot of a lost faith to the community after what happened with Topaz, and a lot of bridges which were burnt need repairing.
Topaz was also staunchly against any changes to moderation and would argue quite fervently against such changes in topics like this. Which, given what happened creates a very unfortunate image for the staff in question.
I think the staff really owes a lot of a lost faith to the community after what happened with Topaz, and a lot of bridges which were burnt need repairing.
While I sometimes feel tempted to write rude comments I can always regocnise when I'm going too far, when I'm pushing boundaries and when I'm in safe territory. I have so far written thousands of posts on various boards, often about controversial subjects, often pissing people off, have never read any of their rules and have always managed to avoid warnings and bans altogether. To my knowledge I have only once been blocked from a youtube channel and that's it. How do I do this? Well, if you have a modicum of common sense and common decency and lurk around for a while before you make your first post to get a feel on the general tone and what is accepted somewhere avoiding problems is really not that hard. Whenever you are in doubt as to whether a specific post will get you warned, don't post it. If you feel like you cannot continue a discussion without making it about the people having the discussion rather than the subject matter, discontinue the discussion. Just steer clear from the grey area. There isn't anything of value there.
Forums like these are, to my knowledge, privately owned and if the owner wanted to kick 50% of all the users out for the lulz he would have that right. We aren't owed any consistent rules. I take rules to be pragmatic guidelines to make sure the discussions remains civil. The rules have to have some consistency to avoid too much salt towards the site itself.
That said, I think the advantage of somewhat vague rules is that you don't have to deal with the sleazy lawyer type of people who will look for loopholes to ruin the tone the site is going for. The mods can just warn them and tell them to behave themselves. If you are constantly pushing the boundaries of what is accepted and are having trouble finding out when you are warnable or bannable you are already doing something wrong.
Forums like these are, to my knowledge, privately owned and if the owner wanted to kick 50% of all the users out for the lulz he would have that right. We aren't owed any consistent rules. I take rules to be pragmatic guidelines to make sure the discussions remains civil. The rules have to have some consistency to avoid too much salt towards the site itself.
That said, I think the advantage of somewhat vague rules is that you don't have to deal with the sleazy lawyer type of people who will look for loopholes to ruin the tone the site is going for. The mods can just warn them and tell them to behave themselves. If you are constantly pushing the boundaries of what is accepted and are having trouble finding out when you are warnable or bannable you are already doing something wrong.
I've lurked for a little while, yes. But if you must know, I came across this thread by finding it linked here.Silvanus said:
I was addressing something in this thread that I felt hadn't been sufficiently addressed by anyone else yet. Take it or leave it. But I have just as much right to air my concerns here as you or anyone else.
Even moderators themselves have admitted issues with the system and think there's room for change.Silvanus said:
You're objecting to things even the staff in question are in favor of?
Topaz, whether he was aware of it or not, revealed just how exploitable and open to abuse the current system is.Passive Aggression said:
And from what I've read/heard, he did what he did for several months, before he was finally reprimanded for it.
The best way to restore faith in people, would be to introduce some clearly much-needed transparency. To reassure people that another Topaz incident cannot happen again.
Yeah, this is weird. People seem to be coming out of the woodwork just to gripe some more about Topaz (who isn't even a mod anymore, and isn't even HERE anymore).Silvanus said:
Like this:
How does someone who only joined two days ago know any of this? You wouldn't happen to be a ban-dodger, perchance?Passive Aggression said:
Not questioning your right. I just think it's shitty for other sites to consciously try to shift the politics of one they don't like, simply to make it less welcoming for viewpoints they don't want around.SolidState said:
Never said, and nor do I believe, that the system has no issues/ room for improvement.Passive Aggression said:
I said I object to "off-site efforts to change what this place is like", such as the recent thread encouraging people to sign up to this forum expressly to make the Mods' work less pleasant. It's deceptive, controlling, shitty behaviour.
I'm not accusing you of it, note, I have no reason to think you're individually guilty of it.