Do we need moderators?

[Wilbefast]

First up, read this.

Not wishing to name any names, but we've been having a spate of spam and necromancy of late. Perpetrators invariably get crucified by the senior members, but attention is probably what they want, so all this will do is encourage them. Meanwhile those who are actually sincere get treated more roughly than perhaps they should (edit: because people are so used to dealing with trolls), and I see this scaring off the odd naive new members with bad language skills.
If certain threads were nipped in the bud or moved to the appropriate board, things might run a little more smoothly. Not for the randomness board of course. Obviously the devs have enough of their plate actually making the game, but moderators could always be members of the community.

Anyway - just reckoned the point should be brought up. Have fun voting.

William

[Endoperez]

This forum needs either an influx of polite members, or moderator(s). I doubt the first will happen, so...

If we get moderator(s), we also need a clear set of rules that's exhaustive enough that whenever the mod has to act, he can point at the rules and say "that's why". The rules would also have to be so clear that all threads breaking the rules could be locked. There shouldn't be a gray area.

If a thread looks like it might end up as inappopriate, a moderator (or a forum regular) will remind everyone of the rules before it gets too bad. If a thread breaks rules, the moderator writes a post that sums up where it broke the rules, and then locks the thread.

Locking is better than deleting. If inappopriate content is posted, moderators either tell the posters to remove it, or remove the content themselves. If a moderator removes or tells you to remove something, you're not allowed to repost it. If a moderator locks a thread, you're not allowed to start a thread where people would continue the locked discussion.

[Luporum]

There shouldn't be a gray area.

This is impossible. There are humans involved.

[Wilbefast]

We have rules already, but nobody ever seems to read them - these are the general rules, and these are a couple David added for the randomness board, where the usual rules don't apply.

Actually this means that threads like DEAR Renegade_Turner should be encouraged because they're posted in the right place: according to David's rules, flamewars should be held in the randomness forum, in dedicated, asbestos-coated threads.

However, if you post what is clearly a "randomness" thread in the Secret Preorder Forum and re-post the exact same thread in the Lugaru Forum and resurrect it 9 months later for no reason, all the while raping the English language from behind with a broom: well congratulations - you've broken rules 1, 5, 7 and 9, all in one thread. That's quite an achievement - I feel like shaking your hand!

I'm not attacking that particular guy though - aside from not being the only one he's clearly very young, and when I was his age I did my fair share of spam and flame. I was quickly reprimanded though - and learned because of it. Here on the Wolfire board however, this behaviour is not being discouraged: over the past year we have been rising to the bait rather than just turning our backs on spam and ignoring it out of existence (this thread and others like it can have about half a dozen pages of comments, if not more).

Random threads have their place - there's a whole board for them, but they need to be kept to the randomness forum, moved there, or deleted, if the community is not mature enough to ignore the ones the leak out onto the other boards. And, because we apparently don't have the restraint required, we need some kind of authoritative power. Probably get together some of the guys with 1000+ posts and pick the sensible ones. That's my view anyway, we'll see what the results say in a fortnight.

Actually I was curious to see who really had 1000+ posts, so here are our most senior members (looks like a job for REGULAR-EXPRESSION MAN):

• Renegade_Turner: 4466
  BunnyWithStick: 4297
  invertin: 3592
  Glabbit: 3067
  Colicedus: 2592
  Grayswandir: 2349
  Blorx: 2343
  Jeff: 2340
  Lotus Wolf: 1945
  Crill3: 1935
  Count Roland: 1877
  lugaruguruzip: 1819
  David: 1765
  rudel_ic: 1725
  Zantalos: 1587
  Chainsaw man: 1448
  Untadaike: 1231
  Viking Zippy: 1213
  Usagi: 1161
  Ozymandias: 1075
  Ragdollmaster: 1020

[Endoperez]

There shouldn't be a gray area.

This is impossible. There are humans involved.

Then the gray area should at least be minimized. As an example:

1. Please do not post spam, random comments.
- Nothing describes what is spam and what is a random comment. Is a joke or a pune - a play on words - too random?

9. Do not bump old posts if you have nothing to contribute to the thread.
- What is an old post? If it's on the second page of an active subforum, is it too old? What if the thread is three months old, but you DO have something to contribute to it?

The current rules are just loose guidelines, and even if the moderator tried to stay fair he'd have a hard time.

[Kompatriot]

In my defense (I double bumped the thread) I didn't realize that it was an old thread which had been bumped. That being said, flamers and trolls can be countered by a community which is organized enough to simply marginalize and ignore them. That also being said, it's a whole lot easier on everybody if there's a trustworthy moderator to slap down the banhammer once in a while.

[Armored Wolf]

• Renegade_Turner: 4466
  BunnyWithStick: 4297
  invertin: 3592
  Glabbit: 3067
  Colicedus: 2592
  Grayswandir: 2349
  Blorx: 2343
  Jeff: 2340
  Lotus Wolf: 1945
  Crill3: 1935
  Count Roland: 1877
  lugaruguruzip: 1819
  David: 1765
  rudel_ic: 1725
  Zantalos: 1587
  Chainsaw man: 1448
  Untadaike: 1231
  Viking Zippy: 1213
  Usagi: 1161
  Ozymandias: 1075
  Ragdollmaster: 1020

I have never one seen Usagi, Viking Zippy, Crill3, lugaruguruzip, online seen I joined here. (I browsed the forums long before I signed up, so I have read many of their posts.) I have never even heard of Colicedus.

Just to point all that out, even they aren't on, then they shouldn't be moderators.

[Ozymandias]

Ozymandias: 1075

plus 438 = 1513
I imagine most of those posts are rather useless though... I also try not to judge a person all too much based on their post count.

I also believe that for an indie game forum it's a bit silly for Wolfire to only have one section and five boards (It's been a -long- time since I've been a forum moderator/admin so I forget what the terms are for these). I think that a bit more organization would help a bit. Why throw any non-wolfire-related topic into one huge mess? I'll just give examples of forums that are more organized in my opinion.

Bay12 has 4 sections, 17 boards, and 3 sub-boards. That would probably be a bit too much for Wolfire but you can see how having separate boards for different things could potentially make things more organized.

Data Realms is being stubborn right now so...

Tale Worlds has 3 sections (I won't count the non-english sections) with 10 boards and 13 sub-boards

All I'm saying is perhaps split Randomness up into multiple boards and let it have its own section at the bottom of the forum, letting the Wolfire-related boards stay at the top in its own section.
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As for people bumping topics, does this forum have that feature where trying to post in an old topic will give you a warning? I would go test it but I don't feel like being a necromancer right now.

[Armored Wolf]

No bumping topics notification feature. I once resurrected an old topic by accident... it was REALLY old.

[Jeff]

Hmm, yeah some of this stuff could be solved with technology. I really like the idea of a bumping notification warning.

Also, I think it may be time to add an extra forum... perhaps "Random game discussion"

[Endoperez]

Hmm, yeah some of this stuff could be solved with technology. I really like the idea of a bumping notification warning.

Also, I think it may be time to add an extra forum... perhaps "Random game discussion"

But game discussions easily become Overgrowth discussions, and Overgrowth speculation and suggestions transform into generic game mechanic discussion. Perhaps the current Wolfire and Randomness could be divided into something like:

Wolfire general hub, Games and Game Development, Modding: the have-it-all game forum
Other media, serious discussion: youtube, art, 3d, real life problems, fitness, computer problems etc
Randomness: message board games and randomness

[Wilbefast]

edit: I'm not sure people know what the SPF is actually... well, for. I'm not entirely certain myself - I mostly use it for heckling, and sometimes stating the obvious (with a great deal of flair of course).


I just went into members and sorted by post count - obviously the day Renegade becomes a moderator there'll be blood in the streets. It'll be like "Man of the Year" only with Dylan Moran instead of Robin Williams. Actually - maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. What would the world be like if a cynical Irishman were president of the USA?

Probably the reason I'm so cheesed off at that thread - Kompatriot - is that I fell for it too (thought it was new) deleted the post though so nobody else would follow me into the trap. I have nothing against randomness, so long as it stays on the randomness forum.

Don't listen to me though - I'm biased - I'm losing a little bit more of my faith in humanity each time some incoherent tripe that was penned in half a minute and not even spell-checked stimulates immense discussion. Am I wasting my time trying to write things that actually read well?

I guess people just enjoy being angry - so maybe we should be thanking the trolls

[Ozymandias]

But game discussions easily become Overgrowth discussions-

What? I haven't payed much attention here but I'm pretty sure that if the topic is about... Iggy's Reckin' Balls (lawl) then there shouldn't be any reason to start talking about dismemberment in Overgrowth or some junk.

Overgrowth being an indie game I'm sure that gamers will come here, and gamers may want to discuss games other than Overgrowth with fellow Overgrowth players... from what I saw there's been plenty enough 'non-overgrowth' game discussion. Don't throw all games into the 'overgrowth discussion' section, that would just be confusing as hell.

On the Bay12 forums I barely even look at any of the other sections and go straight to 'other games' though that may be because I simply can't play DF knowing a better version is coming soon... but the point is that people do talk about other games believe it or not.

[Endoperez]

Overgrowth being an indie game I'm sure that gamers will come here, and gamers may want to discuss games other than Overgrowth with fellow Overgrowth players... from what I saw there's been plenty enough 'non-overgrowth' game discussion. Don't throw all games into the 'overgrowth discussion' section, that would just be confusing as hell.

But the "Overgrowth discussion section" is the SPF. The people posting about Overgrowth here aren't basing their posts on facts, but on their hopes for the game, usually by comparing it to a different game. In my opinion, all game-related discussion outside of Lugaru and SPF subforums should be in one place: this includes games in general, modding, game developing, Wolfire blog posts about game developing, discussions about Wolfire business model, and any Overgrowth speculation outside of SPF.

I'm not saying every discussion about a game turns into a discussion of Overgrowth, but I'll give you an example. Where do I post review of Assassin's Creed climbing system and my opinion on how Overgrowth could implement it? Obviously this will eventually be irrelevant once Overgrowth has a public forum, but at that time the community should have grown quite a bit.

This community is also small compared to Bay12Games. There's more action on b12 Other Games than in Wolfire and Randomness together. Also, if we had more moderators, they'd be telling us this is the wrong thread for this.

[TheBigCheese]

We do need one or two more moderators, but not really for much more than deleting spam or giving warnings.

Also, if we do, in my opinion, the names for moderators should stay the same color as regular users. There's no real reason to separate the two groups, and I never liked the idea that moderators were "better" than normal users, and regardless of what you do, many new users will take it that way when seeing the color differences.