Moderators / Admin

[MadManMike]

Everyone seems to be getting mega bitchy on here now, every thread is turning into a flame war - even really sensitive subjects where people should have more respect.

I personally think more warn should be dished out, people arguing will rip the forum apart...

Anyone agree?

Edited September 30, 2008 by TheScientist

[Pashley26]

100%

People need to Chilax.

Fair enough it's "only the internet" so nobody gets physically hurt, but taking shit off people you don't even know can really grind you down

Edited September 30, 2008 by Pashley26

[Tom_]

Yea I agree.

I have 0% warn *awaits random warn*

[Papa Manual]

We'd do it in colour of course.

EDIT: I like the boat in the background too.

[JT!]

I agree.

20 lashes!

[Rich Pearson]

I'm finding it pretty hard at the moment to tell what is and isn't cool 'PC', and its pretty hard to dish out adequate warns to people without incuring a serious amount of 'general wrath' (I think pretty much every warning or suspension I've dished out has been challenged by someone or another) so its always hard to tell where exactly the line is that people need to cross to get warned.

Trials-forum has a pretty lax set of rules and moralistic guidelines: we encourage free speech and we genuinely want people to voice their own opinions without fear of persecution, so in going along with that, 99% of the time people can argue that an act of 'flaming' is actualy an act of expression and that in dishing out the warn's I and the other admin are stamping on peoples rights to the freedom of expression.

This is why we rely HEAVILY on the report system. If you look at it like this: there are over 10,000 members on trials forum to date (after you've scrubbed off the general quota of bots, spyware, advertising admin and the like....) and it has 10 mods/admins. That means that we account for 0.01% (I think thats right....) of the forum: 10 people should not tell 10,000 what they can and can't say, so we rely on you - the population of trials forum - to tell us who is out of line by using the report system, and so far, you've been doing pretty well, just please don't be afraid to use it - IT MAKES OUR JOBS A LOT EASIER IF WE KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS!

But I do know what you mean: I'm as guilty as anyone of stirring stuff up and having a good slag-match with others, but I see your point, everyone needs to chill out a little more.

Rich

[that NBR dude]

I'm not sure that dishing out warnings left right and centre is the way to go about it though. It will just get peoples backs up more because they were warned and someone else wasnt ect, and probably cause more arguments and divisions between people.

I think its down to the user to take a step back, and look at the way they are coming across to others. People need to think "how will this comment be taken". If its in a sarcastic manner, read it back to yourself and see if it comes across as sarcastic or not, or use a smiley face to show that its not a serious comment. If its in a general harsh manner, think "would I like to be spoken to like this", and if the answer is no (which I'm sure it would be) dont say it.

A lot of the problem is down to manners and people using the internet to hide their true identity and come across and "hard" or whatever. If people acted like themselves on here, I'm sure we'd have a lot less arguments.

[Pashley26]

I think warns do work, sometimes.

It can be quite confusing at times though, because what one person finds funny, Other people don't. I think it's as much the responsibility of the people who reply to the provocative posts to keep the camp happy.

[JT!]

The problem with the report system is that someone will report someone and then they'll never get to know the outcome. So it appears that nothings happened, or the report has been ignored.

What would help is making the report log public (but anonymous) so people can actually see the work that the mods put in. That way people will report more and more and get more of an idea of what should be reported and what shouldn't.

[Simpson]

Personally i think warns just f**k people off. I know when i warned by Rich for calling someone f**king stupid for making a topic about what dates to put on fake ID's it really pissed me off. And probably made me more agressive on my return.

I think its a bit of a fad atm and will wear down. Fattys taken a lot less abuse recently, as people have realised that dumber people are on the forum.

[JT!]

Do people get warned without a suspension?

[Muel]

I reckon the warns are used too much at the moment, but they arn't severe enough, no-one really cares if they get warned because it's only a 1 day ban per 10%. (I think).

Make it more like 3/4 days per 10% and people will be much less likely to start arguments or whatever.

[Papa Manual]

One warning and there's no suspension.

Warning Level Penalty

1 (min) 1 day posting suspension

2 2 day account suspension

3 3 day account suspension

4 4 day account suspension

5 (max) Lifetime ban

(above is copied badly from the guidelines tab).

Anyway, people should just be nice to each other. That doesn't mean that there can't be disagreements, but there's no need for below the belt bullshit.

Who cares anyway? This is an internet forum. Don't you guys have lives? Innnnnnteeerrrneeet foooorrrrum. I for one do not miss modding one bit. Those who are begging to become mods are blatently power-hungry/bullied at school.

J

P.s. I have an office job, that is my excuse for excessive use.

[JT!]

One warning and there's no suspension.

I've been warned once and i got suspended for 3 days.

[Luke Rainbird]

It's perfectly possible to be suspended by itself, so nothing to do with the warn level applied

[Papa Manual]

I think there's an adjustable ban if it's deemed suitable. To be fair, I can't remember and don't really care (not to sound offensive towards you).

EDIT: Yeah, as Luke said - beat me to it you snake

[Pashley26]

I found that the suspension was much worse than the warns. Not being able to look at the site, or post or anything.

The warns were just like "Meh', who cares"

Until I got to 80, now as everyone knows I'd do anything in the world to get rid of them

I do get really annoyed that I get warn for just saying something stupid, but I see 5/6 posts a day of people saying shit MUCH worse than all the things i've said put together and nothing appears to happen.

Edit - Same as JT for me, I'm not complaining. Just questioning the constancy.

Edited September 30, 2008 by Pashley26

[JT!]

I think there's an adjustable ban if it's deemed suitable. To be fair, I can't remember and don't really care (not to sound offensive towards you).

EDIT: Yeah, as Luke said - beat me to it you snake

Oh I wasn't complain about my warn / suspension, just questioning consistency.

[Revolver]

Yeah, the warn level and ban time are seperate. You can get warned and suspended, but you can also get warned and still use the forum.

[Papa Manual]

Oh I wasn't complain about my warn / suspension, just questioning consistency.

Yeah, I know you weren't.

Thing is with something like trials-forum (especially chit-chat) maintaining consistency between warnings and suspensions is difficult as the people who are monitoring posts are all different. There's only so far you can take it before it gets stupid. To be fair, I think this forum has gone through phases of under-regulation and over-regulation (and over complication). Personally, recently all the sub-forums have pissed me off and I think it's become like the bike-trials forum (which is why I started using TF all those years ago). Unless you're constantly on the search tool it can be very hard to find what you're looking for. It's not something I'd kick off about as it's not exactly the end of the world.

For those over-complicators; go and hire a lawyer (and pay the bill). We can have a water-tight trials-forum post regulatory system. Then there will be a million and one more hoops to jump through and posts to poke holes in.

[Ash-Kennard]

im somehow still on 0% haha. and im a fanny

[Pashley26]

im somehow still on 0% haha. and im a fanny

*Insert hard done by comment

[Ash-Kennard]

*Insert hard done by comment

before it was all updated and without removal i would have been on 160% lol

[Mark W]

The problem with the report system is that someone will report someone and then they'll never get to know the outcome. So it appears that nothings happened, or the report has been ignored.

What would help is making the report log public (but anonymous) so people can actually see the work that the mods put in. That way people will report more and more and get more of an idea of what should be reported and what shouldn't.

All you'd see then would be a green tick and a moderator's name, so you'd still be none the wiser about what had/hadn't happened.

This is all I see:

If you click those it comes up with the reporter's name, a link to the post and their report summary thing, but if you made it anonymous 'cos that's all one piece I'd imagine you would end up just seeing that screenshot above.

Do people get warned without a suspension?

Yes. If someone's just typing in text speak or whatever, I'd warn them without suspending them, or if they're generally alright but made one big f**k-up.

I reckon the warns are used too much at the moment, but they arn't severe enough, no-one really cares if they get warned because it's only a 1 day ban per 10%. (I think).

Make it more like 3/4 days per 10% and people will be much less likely to start arguments or whatever.

They don't go up by 10%, they go up by 20%, so 5 warns = you're gone. Hence people using them more, because when people get towards 60-80%, they tend to change the way they post.

It's perfectly possible to be suspended by itself, so nothing to do with the warn level applied

Yep. Like I said before, I'll warn some people without suspending them, but if someone properly f**ks up/is constantly a dick, I'll remove their posting ability/suspend them for a few days. It's generally either 3 days or 7 days, which I think is pretty much how Rich rolls too? That's just from seeing posts in SM chat though, so I may be wrong.

Oh I wasn't complain about my warn / suspension, just questioning consistency.

There is consistency, it's just that when you can only warn people up to twice in one day, it means that if you feel they deserve a suspension you have to suspend them whilst doing one warning, if you see what I mean? If I'm suspending anyone for any length of time, I usually do it on the first possible warn for that 24hrs, 'cos if I'm wrong it means I can get an e-mail from whoever, realise how I f**ked up, then use the 2nd warn for the 24hrs to take the warn off and reduce the suspension/remove it completely.

its pretty hard to dish out adequate warns to people without incuring a serious amount of 'general wrath' (I think pretty much every warning or suspension I've dished out has been challenged by someone or another)

I'd agree with that. However, for the most part, if I'm warning someone I generally don't give much of a shit if they're annoyed about it. It still gets tedious having the "YOU HAVE A NEW PM, CHECK IT OUT RIGHT NOW" box pop-up when you're lurking the forum.

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

Could this be the return of the OBM essay?

also, large amount of sandy vaginas around here, usual suspects as i supposed.

ho hum.