Forum Conduct.

Old and generally outdated discussions, with the rare hidden gem. Enter at your own risk.

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Morden
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Forum Conduct.

Post by Morden »

Call this spam, call it what you will. I've been here a long time, and only rarely will you see me post something like this, so please take the time to read it.

Am I alone in perceiving a major drop in the way people conduct themselves on these forums? Am I just sensitive to it, because I never used to read the Lounge?

I'll be honest. Its becoming a displeasure to read the forums. I see a lot of great things. I see great ideas, but such threads will, more often then not, become a messy affair, filled with foul language, spaming, sarcasm, and general lack of respect for your fellow modders.

Of course, its not everyone, in fact, it could probably be narrowed down to a small group of people. But its not my place to pull people out of a crowd. I've never been one to drop names, and i'm not about to start.

If you feel the need to swear, scold, or otherwise personally attack somebody's dignity in a thread, get off your computer and go outside. You'll be doing us, and yourself, a huge favour.

Thanks.
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Post by Negrodomous »

i think with the lounge gone it will get worse
...
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Post by Psyborg »

Thank you! Even though I'm the perpetrator of spam many of times (wow, that sentence was grammatically incorrect), I hate spam. I really don't like it at all. I hate it almost as much as I hate that my computer broke just in time for Half Life 2. Thank you, iBuyPower, for putting such a brilliant motherboard into my computer. It's like... a mind reader! And an evil creature of the night... (half life 2 has been out for forty one hours, and I still can't play it... I haven't shut up about it for two days)
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Post by Hermit »

Yes, Morden, I see what you mean. Even at the height of TR infighting, things weren't so ... low (or at least, I would hope we weren't as low hitting as some people try to be on TR). I dunno, we seem to have attracted some people who are just not as mature as TR's members used to be. It's sad, really.

Yeah, the lounge was a bit like this, but it has spread top other threads and forums, even before the lounge was closed down.

Negrodomus, is that suposed to be a threat? Really, the lounge may well stay closed, especially with certain people around considering TR to be a spamfest free-for-all.
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Post by Silvone Elestahr »

It has nothing to do with the lounge. It is a simple matter of maturity. Many of the members on this forum just don't have it. You can't give it to them by scolding them, or kicking them off. But you can try to work around it, maybe find a way to convince them to do it elsewhere. I see it all around, and a thread like this won't do a thing to change it (no offense Morden, just my opinion). I really can't stand immature people, having matured way earlier than I was supposed to, but I have learned to deal with them, or at least understand them. You just need to connect with those people, then find a way to make them understand that the way their are acting is completely unnaceptable. And it would be better to do that privately. Public embaressment is an anti-remedy.
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Morden
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Post by Morden »

Sorry, but I wouldn't consider my post to be an "anti-remedy".

I haven't identified anyone, and the way I see it, you'll only get results through open discussion, and bringing something like this to the forefront. You can try PMs, but the weight of popular opinion is better than a private message. Its also less confrontational.

I'm just putting it out as something to be observed. People should control themselves, as opposed to waiting for the mods to police the forums. Take heed.
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Post by kingfish »

unfortunately i have to agree with Morden's first post.
these forums are no more the cozy place, where the main concern was to make this mod and a place of respect and friendship.
instead of that, lot of posts are spam and yet another spam by those "wanna_be_spammer_killers".
not to even mention how the vocabulary has changed. don't get me wrong, i'm not offended by dirty-talk, it just doesn't seem right here.

the way our forum looks now, makes me consider if i still want to be part of TR...
by posting useless junk on these forums you WON'T become a modder, only a spammer...
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Post by Haplo »

Amen. While I have been growing excessively spammish on and off as of late, I have been taking pains to not spam nearly as much, and think of how my post will affect others before I click the submit button. Another reason for this is my extremely deep respect for Morden, and my reluctance to go against any advice he gives, personally or generally.
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Post by Vernon »

Dear Members,

I guess it is time for me to confess, as sheepish as it might sound. I am confident that I am one of the people involved in this. After some of the posts I made last night, I feel ashamed. I guess I kind of freaked out when I saw a number of strange posts that were made and thought I should put in my own two cents. This was wrong and I feel utterly foolish.

After reading your posts in this thread, especially Morden's, I see how this can affect a place such as TR. This will not happen again.

My sincerest apologies,

Vernon.
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Post by Majra »

I try as hard as I could to help find the ones who were actually members, and those who were immature brats whose parents should spank them. My conduct was seen as evil, and so I have stopped. And although policing wont stop every immature person who feels the need to bother us, it will stop those who have been around long enough to know if you put up anything offensive, or ruin a thread, or fill up a forum you are in deep shit.

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Post by Eraser »

I completely agree morden...I've been noticing it since shortly after our site/forum change gradually getting worse and worse.

I used to spend hours a day on the forums keeping up to date on absolutely *everything* going on, and recently I've been avoiding going through forums and threads I really didn't need to because its become so damn immature and not fun at all.
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Post by Hermit »

Vernon, everyone posts bad things every once in a while. I did, too (oh, and how I did!). Not spam, but fight. Whcih wasn't precisely better.

However, this time it's different, because some people who seemingly only have joined for spamming use TR to fulfill their spamming needs. To those of you who remember, Bladmand was apparently only the first of these "unwelcome members". There have been quite some who seemed to be eager to succeed them (and not one of them had danish IPs) lately. Which is really sad. TR's forum has become what we once didn't like about the ESF.

I don't know what to do about this though. Harsher enforcing policies will create resistance, and a general atmosphere where people may feel even a little bit of randomness will get them banned, warned, or whatever. It will divide core and members even further from one another. However, laissez-faire isn't possible either, as it'd cost us the old, very respected members, those who have already contributed tremendously to TR (Morden, Kingfish, vorrheis ...). I guess all we really can do is ask memmbers to be mroe considerate, and enforce rules without being overly harsh. A thin line to walk, I'm afraid.
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Post by Dexter »

I'm a dick, I admit it. But I have always been a big jerk, and that probably won't change. I noticed that when Majra gave up on his completely awesome spree of warnings, cuss-outs and reprimands, that spamming went through the roof. I got pissed off, real pissed off. Because I had a friend who was going to join, but looked over the forum and didn't like the maturity of some of the members. Another friend of mine who did join was not treated with a lot of kindness by a certain member when he demonstrated a misunderstanding of an interior design rule.
So, I went on the forum equivalent of a killing spree. For example, look at my responses in some of Rian's threads. I got into a very enjoyable argument with Haplo over AIM, which Stumpy got in on as well. He sent me the latter half of the conversation, if anyone wants to see it, send me a PM.
Fortunatly, I never showed Wooty the Angry Rejected Member Dance.
I never took much action against Negrodomous, although he is one of the biggest spammers on the board. So Negrodomous, stop spamming. Pretty please.
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Post by Haplo »

And BOY did I get killed. Never was much in the way of arguing. To tell you the truth, I feel much more relaxed, and much better, after that argument. Thanks for releasing my stress, dex.
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Post by Quill Rat »

Write this off as spam if youd like.

This is a shitty topic to be takling about - "forum conduct"

Hello, its a public forum. Stop acting like eight year olds out on a field day. I haven't been registered for long, but Ive see nthese forums much longer than that - and it held me back for a while. Then comes along the election - with all the flamewars in the lounge.

Pitiful.

I suggest off-site forums for bickering, or better, keep a lid on it. Period.

Edit: I suggest http://s3.invisionfree.com/Partisan_Politics for off site political bickering, or any invisionfree.com forum for shooting our cans off. Nuff said. Nite all.
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Post by Stumpytheguar »

<edited to remove 'spam' content>
Last edited by Stumpytheguar on Mon Nov 22, 2004 6:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Morden »

And thus, we come full circle. This thread is its own case-in-point. Observe and learn.





Goodbye.
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Post by Negrodomous »

Negrodomus, is that suposed to be a threat? Really, the lounge may well stay closed, especially with certain people around considering TR to be a spamfest free-for-all.
of course not! i mean that i thinkl ppl will get restless and board and decide to post more and more spam in our important threads instead of doing it in the lounge. i didn't mean me.
...
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Post by Timito »

I agree with Morden. I've been here for two weeks now, but I've already come across things of which I think the shouldn't be in the forums. Like spam for example, isn't that why the closed the lounge??? I once posted a question in the wrong forum, some people help me out really nice, but other people didn't. So, I think some things have to change a bit, but so far I've got a pretty good first impression of things here. :)
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Post by kingfish »

hermit wrote: I don't know what to do about this though. Harsher enforcing policies will create resistance...
...It will divide core and members even further from one another. However, laissez-faire isn't possible either...
...enforce rules without being overly harsh. A thin line to walk, I'm afraid.
true.
one thing i always liked about this forum was that there was no harsh moderating; you could afford to be a bit off-topic and nothing bad happened. on the other hand, lately these off-topic/spam posts got out of control and are flooding this board, so we imo have to do something about it.
but i don't think a reply, from a regular member, like: "...shut up, spammer..." will help. you know, imo the worst thing that may happen to a spammer is, that NOONE replies to his/her posts.

let's just pretend i'm a guy who just discovered this site. so i go and register and, of course, don't bother myself about reading FAQ. than i will start a few new threads, asking all sorts of stupid questions and "proposals for core", because i'm the only smart-one around here...
but a strange thing is going on: nobody aswered my questions/proposals, so i'll think that you ppl overlooked it and will bump 'em all...
still not a single reply...
this'd be the time for an admin/moderator to send me a PM [warning or ban].

this way a lot of ppl could learn that nobody is going to talk to them unless they behave mature, thus no reason for spammers to stay here.
after all, the main thing a spammer wants, is to start a flamewar or a yet another spam, which we can simply avoid by NOT replying.

what do you guys think, is it worth trying?
by posting useless junk on these forums you WON'T become a modder, only a spammer...
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Post by Stumpytheguar »

<edited to remove 'spam' content>
Last edited by Stumpytheguar on Mon Nov 22, 2004 6:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Eraser »

At this point anything different is worth trying.
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Post by Crowbar »

sadly, this is much the way these forums were when I left over a year ago. too bad we haven't learned anything.
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Post by Stumpytheguar »

<edited to remove 'spam' content>
Last edited by Stumpytheguar on Mon Nov 22, 2004 6:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by battle_bison »

This thread is a good idea. Morden I think has hit the nail on the head. Tragically, even the last message ( ^ ) posted by Stumpy seems realtively sarcastic and unproductive. Apologies to Stumpy, no offense meant to be taken and if it is, I apologize. Personally, I think members of the core should create some harsher guidelines for the forum and start taking more radical action, such as giving moderators permission to delete spam. I'm not sure if any moderator would be willing to do this and I'm sure this message in particular would be one of the ones deleted, but I think it might serve to clean things up a bit. I guess that's just my 2 cents.
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Post by Dexter »

Something I see, and I'm sure many others see as well, is that the more work someone does for this project, the less they post. Hell, look at Yinnie, she posts once a week, if that. Then there are others (Negrodomous) who aren't doing any work, but spam until their fingers bleed.
So I think that the Core should throw out warnings, and if the warned members spam again, ban them. And don't be secretive about it either, make it well-known why they were banned.
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Post by Timito »

Maybe the moderaters should to give away the claims of spamming members *mwaha* . Nah, I think that's a bit to harsh, but if it keeps people form spamming...
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Post by Nazz »

Well Dexter's point was that the people spamming aren't doing any work anyway. So taking their claims isn't going to help much.
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Post by Timito »

Nearly everybody here has already done something ( look at me: I've been here 15 days now and I've done 1 int. so far) Maybe you could just ignore the already finished claims, you know, by not reviewing them or just get them out of the map where it belongs in, so that al of his/her work has been for nothing. :twisted: (That is very, very harsh. But don't think I want to put up some kind of "Saddam Hussein" regime here, i'm just making suggestions.) I haven't done much yet, but i would be really p*ssed of if people simply ignored my work.
Last edited by Timito on Thu Nov 18, 2004 7:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Stalker »

I dunno. If I post a lot (I'm the third or forth in top ten posters list) that doesn't mean I spam or don't work. Or it does ? It' just a matter of person. Actually there's nothing we can do about spammers that just ban them. And that's not good. So ingore them. There are some people on the forums who freak me out but I prefer to shut up than to flame them with La Flamethrowere Grande.
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Post by Hermit »

Well, some of our hardcore spammers don't have a single claim done, and just hang here to spam. Nothing against lurkers or people who just want to give ideas, but it should be above one-sentence comments given in rapid succession.

Morden and Kingfish, please don't leave. Especially in such troubled times, TR needs people like you more than ever. Don't let this great project go to waste and end up being dominated by 13 year old geeks with a superiority complex. :(

I guess the core needs to become more of a "police", but I don't like this ne bit. there'll always be injust decisions - we're just people, too - and we'll, I'm afraid, generate more and more upheaval. Also, publishing a list of reasons for being banned crys for a flame war ... I dunno.
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Post by Haplo »

This brings up another question of mine...why does the core only lock threads, instead of delete them? Do they not have the power? I know administrators do, since Yinnie did spring cleaning by herself...and I know zephyr could if he had to, and garfield maybe, but they don't have the authority.

I think that the core should be given the ability to delete threads/posts at their discretion. If they already do have the ability, they should use it more often.
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Post by Kothloth »

They can. I think. I atleast remove useless threads from time to time, but for some reason, some of the others think it's more convinient to actually lock then. Bah :P
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Post by Stalker »

If the thread is locked we can still see it's content. Why it was locked, who provoked whom etc.
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Post by Cep »

Hey Hermit why not make me a local enforcer ;)

Well looks like TR is in strife once again but this time over spammers.

You can't really go around banning people for one liner comments and it should not be the decision of one person.

Personally I would have thought a simpler way of handling things is this. You add the option to the forums to report posts to admins/mods.

Then when you see a post you think is spam, hit the "report this post" button and if more then say three people have reported the same post, it gets deleted the author gets a warning, three warnings and they are banned entirely. Hows that? Harsh but fair.
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Post by Hermit »

You know, that sounds like a workable idea. I think we could try that, at least.
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Post by Haplo »

I think suspension should come before banning.
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Post by Colostriph »

I am not sure what Cep meant by local enforcer but it gave me an idea. Could we add a new member group? Local Enforcers? This would spare the core their time a lot more. Local enforcers would be the people that the complaints would go to, and then they would deal with it.

I think that local enforcers should have the power to delete threads or lock them and should also be able to suspend members. They'd have their own board that the reported posts go to. And then they deal with it. And I know someone is going to say "its the core's job" which it is, partially at least. But a Local enforcer would have only that job (aside from modding) like reviewers have theirs.

Does that work? Would that work?
Last edited by Colostriph on Fri Nov 19, 2004 7:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Vernon »

Colostriph wrote:Local enforcers
I really think this is the wrong way to go. TR should continue to run on the individual's self-control, or I can see people getting burnt. Having too many in a position of power in this community will not be a good thing.

BTW the term 'Enforcers' also invokes a hardcore authoritarian image. No thanks.

I also think the core is doing a good job, but TR seems to be in a bit of a trough this month. Inevitably, things will fix themselves if everyone can control themselves.
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Post by battle_bison »

I think enforcers are a bad idea. It would just leat to disagreement. However, Cep's idea anout reporting posts would be great.
3 Votes on a message would consider it spam
3 Spammed threads and you get a suspension
3 More spammes threads and you get banned.
That could work, although I think if it worked by the 3 votes on a message system, there might be devious dealings with people teaming up to band someone. I know there are a few members who have more than a couple people who would be willing to band them.
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