Cleaning Up The Community

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

An easy way to avoid warns is to review the Community Rules and be civil. Don't like somebody's post? Then don't bother replying if you're going to insult him/her. It's quite easy, really. It takes more effort to get a warning then it does not to get one.

This.

I have always said treat others as you yourself would expect to be treated and there really should not be any issues. Just because we all participate anonymously (so to speak) behind a monitor, that is neither a reason nor an excuse for bad behavior. So if you would not do it in public to someone's face, not sure why you feel it is okay to do it on here. I think if you conduct yourself with this in mind, really should never be an issue.

[Sethos]

This.

I have always said treat others as you yourself would expect to be treated and there really should not be any issues. Just because we all participate anonymously (so to speak) behind a monitor, that is neither a reason nor an excuse for bad behavior. So if you would not do it in public to someone's face, not sure why you feel it is okay to do it on here. I think if you conduct yourself with this in mind, really should never be an issue.

But it's rubbish advice because not all warnings are based on flaming, trolling or being an ass. Sometimes you just have the audacity to pretend this is a place where you can hang out, talk like you do in real life and make some bold jokes to guys you'd consider friends and end up with a warning. It's hard some time to restrain yourself and you end up sounding like a robot or a person you really aren't.

Also, I talk about downloading games and movies with my friends and collogues but I can't do that here - That's not being malicious or rude is it? Around here it's just to keep within the legal guidelines and talking about it will net you a warning. Not saying that's unfair but it seems like certain people think there's only one way to get warnings.

The "Stick to the rules" is also a bit weak because those guidelines, while very will outlined are still a grey area - What YOU might perceive as trolling or flaming, I might perceive is playful banter or just having fun with someone I know around here and that is all based on our views, opinions and personalities in real life.

Edited January 4, 2010 by Sethos

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

But it's rubbish advice because not all warnings are based on flaming, trolling or being an ass. Sometimes you just have the audacity to pretend this is a place where you can hang out, talk like you do in real life and make some bold jokes to guys you'd consider friends and end up with a warning. It's hard some time to restrain yourself and you end up sounding like a robot or a person you really aren't.

Also, I talk about downloading games and movies with my friends and collogues but I can't do that here - That's not being malicious or rude is it? Around here it's just to keep within the legal guidelines and talking about it will net you a warning. Not saying that's unfair but it seems like certain people think there's only one way to get warnings.

The "Stick to the rules" is also a bit weak because those guidelines, while very will outlined are still a grey area - What YOU might perceive as trolling or flaming, I might perceive is playful banter or just having fun with someone I know around here and that is all based on our views, opinions and personalities in real life.

<snipped>

But you do raise one point I agree with, I really like it when communities have personal mods for sections, DirtyLarry was a godsend to the GH, and I don't mean that as a disrespect to the other mods, nor do I mean I enjoyed him being a mod because he helped us stay away from bans so much. Although I do praise that he was so patient and tried his best to keep people he knew contributed around even with their bad sides doing damage, he's a big softie :p

I mean it because he was always around, you got to know him as "your" mod, he got to know you as "his" members. Unfortunately I'd agree with this, I think even Sethos and DM would agree, we ran him into the ground a bit, but we're way past those stages now it's just unfortunate DL stepped down before things got to as good as they are now.

However it's all his decisions I'm just trying to put my point across that one thing I really don't like at times is just Global Mods, I think the category should exist but I think the moderation team should be balanced well that certain mods have favoured sections.

Right now in the GH hardly any mods post, it doesn't seem like any of them have as great an interest in gaming as DL had, and honestly, that's something I think the staff need to think about for balancing out the moderating of a board this size - Combined with the size of the GH. For cleaning up the community you really need to have moderators that understand some of the larger members and sections of the board. You need to have mods that can step in and say "right guys, we know you're both joking as you're good friends, but don't say/do that again it's causing a ripple effect - okay?" not immediately hand out 2 week bans and 20% warning ratings.

GH whether this board wants to call itself a tech board/windows board or what not is one of the biggest sections and you guys need to embrace that as a plus to Neowin, it brings in a lot of traffic and it's the one and only reason I was so disappointed at the way the whole gaming news team issues got handled. Neowin will always be a tech board first, but the GH really needs more respect from the site itself to embrace just how popular gaming is first of all, and how active that section is on the board.

Edited January 4, 2010 by Audioboxer

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Some veterans need to come out of retirement imho.

/me eyes DirtyLarry and Radish?

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

But it's rubbish advice because not all warnings are based on flaming, trolling or being an ass. Sometimes you just have the audacity to pretend this is a place where you can hang out, talk like you do in real life and make some bold jokes to guys you'd consider friends and end up with a warning. It's hard some time to restrain yourself and you end up sounding like a robot or a person you really aren't.

Call it rubbish advice all you want, but it is how I chose to conduct myself the entire time I have been here, and although I am sure plenty would love to disagree with it just because I was a Mod, I do believe I have a pretty strong personality, I share my opinion quite often, etc., and I never once felt like a robot or a person I am not at all.

And perhaps you are that wiseass / funny guy in real life that always feels the need to crack jokes and be sarcastic. To that I would say more power to you, but I can tell you with the utmost of certainty that it does not translate well online at all. You can add all the emoticons you want, but without a tone of voice and lips saying them and eyes to look into while they are being spoken, words simply just typed out often are very easily misinterpreted.

And not for nothing, yeah I used to know in the GH who was being what, and I let PLENTY go because I did get to know you all and I also really did my best to talk to people and explain what they needed to do and why, but you should neither expect nor demand that I believe. What I did wound up burning me out and it is why I left on my own accord, so keep that in mind.

[Subject Delta]

I personally think these kinds of discussions about other members should not be allowed on this board.

I don't see it as being a problem.

Lets keep the thread on topic please, it wasn't created so that people could complain about staff or other forums. Anyone with grievances about a particular member of staff will do better to use the PM system to discuss it rather trying to bring it up in public.

The problem I see with this is that due to Frogboy's level of seniority it really isn't possible to achieve anything by going to another Admin, and whilst I don't want for one second to make it look like I am accusing Neowin of being a corporate mouthpiece, without the support from Stardock this site would go downhill fast, so getting anyone to actually do anything about his behaviour could be difficult, at least with this way it can be made known that members don't agree with the way he acts.

I don't see it as an issue to be fixed.

People should be able to create discussion topics without some guy coming on and insulting them. If you can't disagree with someone without getting insulting, then it's probably better not to participate in the discussion.

Personally, I would consider it a big win if every user on this site who thought the guy who got banned shouldn't have gotten banned would leave. It would save us a lot of effort.

Sure, but the problem is that I have seen you go to town on quiet a few people because they have posted criticisms of Stardock software, not all of it was trolling, in fact some of it was legitimate and to me that just seems like an unprofessional way to behave, I can truly understand that you would want to eradicate spam, insults, and trolling but if you get on people's case just because they have a non positive opinion of one of your products, it really does give users a bad impression, yes I appreciate what Stardock has done for Neowin but nobody regardless of seniority should be above showing users basic respect, and giving them fair treatment, after all it is the Administrators that most members look up to.

My point was that members have the option of involving a second staffer in the form of a Supervisor thus satisfying your requirements.

The problem is, if the warning has already been given out, you have a problem. If you where, for example only a couple of days away from an automatic warn reduction, and then got warned unfairly, yes the warning could get taken away again, but then the period for the automatic reduction would reset itself to 6 months again, which would be a bit unfair on the user.

An easy way to avoid warns is to review the Community Rules and be civil. Don't like somebody's post? Then don't bother replying if you're going to insult him/her. It's quite easy, really. It takes more effort to get a warning then it does not to get one.

That is easily said in practise, but in reality it isn't that easy, I know from experience that when you are the kind of person who likes to vigorously defend your own view point, that it is quiet possible to respond strongly (sometimes without even intending to flame anyone) and I sometimes get the impression that the staff here don't give users enough leeway when it comes to things like that.

[Sethos]

Call it rubbish advice all you want, but it is how I chose to conduct myself the entire time I have been here, and although I am sure plenty would love to disagree with it just because I was a Mod, I do believe I have a pretty strong personality, I share my opinion quite often, etc., and I never once felt like a robot or a person I am not at all.

Yes, because your personality happens to be that of an extremely positive one - I rarely ever see you say anything negative unless it's wrapped in sweet words to soften the blow. Now this isn't meant to be taken negatively but that's your personality and you can be you when posting then - Great! I have a quite different way of looking at things, I'm extremely pessimistic and have some extremely strong opinions and I'm always able to back up my opinions but that is always frowned upon but that's my personality and to please the people around me here I'd have to be someone I'm not.

And perhaps you are that wiseass / funny guy in real life that always feels the need to crack jokes and be sarcastic. To that I would say more power to you, but I can tell you with the utmost of certainty that it does not translate well online at all. You can add all the emoticons you want, but without a tone of voice and lips saying them and eyes to look into while they are being spoken, words simply just typed out often are very easily misinterpreted.

Depends on who you are, the people who don't get easily offended in real-life also tends to pick up on sarcasm and blatant jokes, like Gavin just called me a "360 fanboy" which was the most obvious joke because of our history in Gamer's Hangout and yet it was removed - See, a simple god damn joke gets removed because the mod in question aren't familiar with our history apparently? Because that couldn't possibly offend anyone else.

So the people who are easily offended or act extremely mature are always the first to go all pinky-offended when a bad word is used or sarcasm they don't understand. Again, it's a personality thing.

It's impossible to be yourself around here and joke around unless you are one of those extremely dry, mature persons. If you are a teenager or above who's used to the language of our generation and the jokes we use, then you really have to constantly restrain and moderate yourself and that's hard with grey-area rules. ( In my opinion ).

[tunafish]

Am i correct in still thinking that these warns stay with you for 6 months then it auto goes down still?

Also whats with the restrictions.

[The_Observer]

Am i correct in still thinking that these warns stay with you for 6 months then it auto goes down still?

Also whats with the restrictions.

yea i jsut got a msg saying that after six months it mine went down 20%, i just just laugh and move on...

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Am i correct in still thinking that these warns stay with you for 6 months then it auto goes down still?

Yes.

Also whats with the restrictions.

You can't post to the forums for the duration of the restriction.

[Island Dog]

It's almost amazing how a few select people can really put out a negative vibe on a site. It's also amazing how fast the community will grow once you eliminate those individuals.

[Glowstick]

Well, off to IRC exclusively then from now on.

Earlier in this thread, the "past" community was called toxic. That's lollertastic. If there's one thing that's toxic to a community, it's that cuddly do-good handholding this thread is promoting. A lot of really stupid no-effort **** gets posted across the forums, and just because the responsible people can do so without fearing any well deserved wrath for it. If you're being a moron in real life, you'll also be laughed or shouted at in some form.

Ah well, whatever.

[Fred Derf Veteran]

The problem is, if the warning has already been given out, you have a problem. If you where, for example only a couple of days away from an automatic warn reduction, and then got warned unfairly, yes the warning could get taken away again, but then the period for the automatic reduction would reset itself to 6 months again, which would be a bit unfair on the user.

In the past, I have given selected members manual reductions when it has been brought to my attention that something like that has "cheated" them out of an automatic reduction.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Depends on who you are, the people who don't get easily offended in real-life also tends to pick up on sarcasm and blatant jokes, like Gavin just called me a "360 fanboy" which was the most obvious joke because of our history in Gamer's Hangout and yet it was removed - See, a simple god damn joke gets removed because the mod in question aren't familiar with our history apparently? Because that couldn't possibly offend anyone else.

It wasn't really necessary for me to post that in here, but I will be honest I done it for one reason, it backs up my opinion that moderators really do need to try be assigned personalised sections. Not that they can't still be Gmods, but recruiting 20 Gmods only interested in Apple/OSX is a bit daft isn't it? So it's the same for every section on the board, balance is key.

Me running around saying "STFU 360 Fanboy" to you often IMO would easily be a warnable offence, but in some topic about Demons Souls where you say this game is boring without even playing it (as a joke in the first place), I might reply like that just as a joke, with a smiley of course.

It's playful personalities around the GH, but they are dangerous they can cause ripple effects, and I'd proven what I wanted to, moderators who don't have a close knit understanding of some of the larger members/sections may act irrationally which is what tends to cause 95% of the whining about how come he/she didn't get a warn but I did.

I only did the above for the Neowin staff to think about what I said, I really do think a large part of the cleanup of this board will be to focus on getting the GH more friendly, get some good mods following in that section that actively participate and get a good news team on the go. What I did above was completely unecessary and yeah I agree should of been removed as it marred the rest of my post, but let me ponder you this question, I do that as a one off with Sethos as a friendly joke as we know each other and some moderator from the Automobile section clocks it and bans me for 2 weeks?

I guess at the end of the day it's best to avoid sarcasm and jokes altogether and I'm trying to do that, it's the least important part of contributing as a member :yes: Posting worthwhile opinions/topics and everything else takes the lead, but there are times where it's okay to have the odd joke, we aren't in a jail cell here, going onto Neowin is like going down the pub with your mates, minus a lot of the carry on you may have in the pub, but it's still a social interaction of fun/helpfulness and human interaction.

I know Brad (was it Brad?), someone said they had plans for the gaming section with some help from Stardock, which I think is great, but it's not just the main page we need to focus on the forums are very popular as well.

Edited January 4, 2010 by Audioboxer

[Fred Derf Veteran]

Me running around saying "STFU 360 Fanboy" to you often IMO would easily be a warnable offence, but in some topic about Demons Souls where you say this game is boring without even playing it, I might reply like that just as a joke, with a smiley of course.

Yes. And that was why I snipped it earlier. It may be obvious to you both that it was part of normal joking around but to the hundred others readers it looks like a personal attack. If left unedited then it is proof to other newer members that personal attacks are allowed on Neowin and then they go out and do it seriously.

If you are joking about in this manner then it better be very obvious to everyone that reads it because otherwise you're risking getting warnings that will take some explaining to get out of. If you can't make it obvious to absolutely everyone then don't joke around with personal jibes because others won't understand what is happening and it sends a confusing message to our members.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Yes. And that was why I snipped it earlier. It may be obvious to you both that it was part of normal joking around but to the hundred others readers it looks like a personal attack. If left unedited then it is proof to other newer members that personal attacks are allowed on Neowin and then they go out and do it seriously.

If you are joking about in this manner then it better be very obvious to everyone that reads it because otherwise you're risking getting warnings that will take some explaining to get out of. If you can't make it obvious to absolutely everyone then don't joke around with personal jibes because others won't understand what is happening and it sends a confusing message to our members.

I knew it would be snipped, but as the rest of my post says it still shows exactly what I'm saying.

You guys want to cleanup the board, but it feels like there is huge disconnects in certain sections. When DL was about the GH he as a moderator knew us well, he knew when jokes were jokes and when they weren't. He just went through a terrible time of dealing with a lot of hassle from us that was real spiteful, community ruining garbage. Back then even the actual jokes went off the rails as we were all just being terrible members to each other, a lot of that has changed now.

The GH on the whole now knows when me/Sethos/DM/others are joking, this board has 237,205 members, everyone interpretates things differently, but if the community section in which the joke is made are all understanding and the moderation in "charge" of that section, in my shoes I don't deem that as anything other than being human and having a little laugh.

I think you'll find outside of the General sub section, most members on here settle in specific sections. For that reason alone to promote a good community I think moderators need to try and do the same - Help across the board as a Gmod, but it's not really much of a community when you don't see an idol or figure to look up to regularly posting in one of the most active sections of this board. The GH really misses DL, it's just a shame we damaged him as badly as we did.

And I have no problem in admitting I don't think you guys (not you specifically), but Neowin, did a good job of slashing apart that news team that DL and others from a members point of view tried hard to get up and running.

[MrChainsaw]

We should up the age limit tbh...

For those who think I was serious:

/s

Edited January 4, 2010 by -TV-

[Sethos]

We should up the age limit tbh...

Good luck enforcing that.

[Jimmy0]

We should up the age limit tbh...

There is no way to enforce that, though.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

The GH is definitely a community within a community, and that has always been my feelings towards it. Not that we put walls up against new members, but a lot of times now it seems the problems occur when two regulars have a bit of banter between one another and then an "outsider" new to the GH joins and starts causing trouble and the whole topic goes south.

Like AB/Sethos have already said, we know each other really well (as much as we can really over the net), so the arguments have died off and we know how to joke with one another. The only time it really occurs now is when one of us have a bad day and really shouldn't be browsing the forum in that frame of mind or over something stupid to begin with.

[RadishTM Veteran]

And not for nothing, yeah I used to know in the GH who was being what, and I let PLENTY go because I did get to know you all and I also really did my best to talk to people and explain what they needed to do and why, but you should neither expect nor demand that I believe. What I did wound up burning me out and it is why I left on my own accord, so keep that in mind.

Those threads in the staff area about dealing with the GH certainly brings back memories.

Radish?

[fix-this!]

so what if we already have lets say 40%, do we get restricted still after today? also id like to know when these warnings go away if you behave?

yea i jsut got a msg saying that after six months it mine went down 20%, i just just laugh and move on...

i think they need to review mine too then.

[Jimmy0]

so what if we already have lets say 40%, do we get restricted still after today? also id like to know when these warnings go away if you behave?

Well if you get a new warn making you at 60% then you receive whatever the 60% punishment is. And warns automatically decrease after 6 months.

[Growled Member]

But you do raise one point I agree with, I really like it when communities have personal mods for sections, DirtyLarry was a godsend to the GH, and I don't mean that as a disrespect to the other mods, nor do I mean I enjoyed him being a mod because he helped us stay away from bans so much. Although I do praise that he was so patient and tried his best to keep people he knew contributed around even with their bad sides doing damage, he's a big softie :p

I've always felt this same way about politics. No matter how hard anyone tries, if you have many moderators in that section you are asking for trouble. All will bring their own bias to the section and all will have completely different biases. There is no way you can get consistent moderation when you do that. Politics is such a tricky issue anyway. I've always felt it was best to have one good moderator that the main posters of that section can relate to and that he/she understands the issues.

[fix-this!]

Well if you get a new warn making you at 60% then you receive whatever the 60% punishment is. And warns automatically decrease after 6 months.

im sure im due for a decrease then.