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King_LiOnZ wrote:

Oh I forgot to say +1.

Cause Mods shouldn't delete topics when they get owned by logic.

+5

Which way is Falacy's ?

Wait, wait just ONE minute.... BYOND has a staff!? This is news to me! I thought it was just one massive AI infrastructure bent on world domination via brainwash and minor torture.

I agree with Falacy. I've seen tons of my posts get deleted as well.. for pretty much no good reason.. yet there's tons of posts on my creation board alone of trolls and a few of the "moderators" themselves being negative and generally untoward.

+9001

Teka123 wrote:

I'll be the first mod to discuss this topic, and I say hello.

!

First off, let me starting by pointing out that in a single night this topic has received well over 20 respondents, and every single one of them has been in support of the cause. That basically leaves you with only 2 options. You can either admit the obvious, that something is very wrong with the current setup, and try to fix it. Or, you can admit the obvious, that you are all corrupt, and continue to do nothing about it.


Lummox JR wrote:

*Deathguard*

This is not a complaint about or an attack on a single moderator. Though some of them may be better than others, the entire system is what is broken and needs addressing.

Falacy could certainly have politely offered points to the contrary, in a customer support contact.

I have already explained here why I would not waste my time with that.

Three different moderators acted on these, not only consistently but entirely correctly.

An interesting claim, considering almost every time I re-posted the topic it was changed quite considerably, in an effort to fit your pathetic excuse for "rules" that the moderators kept applying. Yet every time, they would simply try a new rule, and by the end, they just got tired of attempting to defend their obviously wrong actions and kept deleting under the guise of "spam".

The posting guidelines clearly state that flame wars and injecting negative energy to a discussion are out of bounds

Practically every post in the feature request and bug report section are just this: BYOND SUCKS, FIX IT. This should be no more or less offensive than me requesting pixel movement, in fact, that discussion became a lot more flame wary than this one has.

Falacy's deliberately narrow choice of definition is just a way of trying to cheat at semantics.

Those semantics are the very problem, and what we are requesting a fix for here.

Well we have the posting guidelines that are right near every Save button

As I explained in that other topic which was deleted; Such user-based guidelines are not effective. For starters, most people aren't even going to read them, and there is even less chance they are going to follow them. On the other hand, some blatant moderator guidelines (If X happens, take THIS specific action). This will lead to competently consistent actions taken, which, contrary to your claims, the malicious attacks against this original post were not at all consistent, aside from them all being deletions (which was not the proper action to begin with).
A few basic concepts:
- Topics should NEVER be locked, that feature should not even exist
- Posts should almost never be deleted, unless they contribute absolutely nothing AND are generally offensive, or are just mindless spam
- If offensive language is used in a post, such words should be deleted from the post. (if not automatically)
- If a ban is placed, it should be for 3 days.
- There should be a consistent set of terms used as the reason for applying all moderation, not just general statements made up by the mods each time they take a similar action
- "Spam", as in repetitive posts, should only be deleted if it is just that; the same post existing multiple times, and at least one should be left.
- "Spam", as in malicious bot advertising, should be deleted and such bots should be perma-banned (oddly enough, such bots have targeted my hubs in the past?)
- Topic merging is a very important feature to handle most moderation, but was, like most other important content the site offered, removed in this conversion.

Also, having this mix of half topic-starter half admin-team moderation is idiotic, and makes the issue even worse. Now, we don't just have to deal with the incompetence and personal bias of "official" moderators, but of whoever started the topic. The loss of legitimate content around here is just ridiculous.

By giving guidelines to the moderators, instead of the user, you essentially give guidelines to the users, while instead enforcing competent actions among the part of community that should actually be expected to be competent instead of a random user-base that you should have no expectations for.

Again I don't know

Well, good. Now that we're all on the same page about you not knowing what is going on, lets get something done to fix it.

Lummox JR wrote:

*WE CHOOSE THE PATH OF CORRUPTION*

To be expected

But I will say this: Your idea that there should be a specific X -> Y list of reactions to every conceivable situation, or at least the majority of them, is the silliest of all.

That is exactly what should happen. Aside from the current rules being vague even with explanation, having a consistent set of rules that can (and probably should) be automatically enforced by an AI and/or paired with the community is vastly superior to: HERE ARE SOME GENERIC RULES, THAT YOU PROBABLY DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT, DEFINITELY WON'T FOLLOW, AND WE'LL REACT HOWEVER WE WANT WITH NO RULES OF OUR OWN!

In such a rigid legalistic system, moderation quickly breaks down completely and those who would seek to abuse it know exactly where the line is. Such systems offer less flexibility to deal with repeat offenders and those whose transgressions may simply be more accidental

That is exactly the point of such systems. To establish what is and is not acceptable behavior, and the proper reaction to such events. Accidental punishments will rarely be harmful, since the punishments in general are for the good of the community. The only "accidental" situation I can even think of would be spam posting. Which, if I'm not mistaken, is already handled automatically. If you want to deal with repeat offenders specially, then you just include such ruling (3 strikes = permaban) in your moderator guidelines.

and we have refused time and again to lock ourselves into such nonsense.

Indeed, you seem to be doing the exact opposite. Locking yourself into improper handling of EVERY situation, refusing to show even the slightest sense of consistency or competence.

but it seems to be working out for the most part.

I have had nothing but problems with it on my private hub forums as well as the public community forums.

In the end I just don't see how the user posting guidelines are any different from moderator guidelines.

I explained this pretty clearly in my previous post.

*I would add a rule that I think probably already exists*

Well, your own confusion of the rules just seems to be yet another nail in this coffin.
However, lets go over your rules:
- Don't be a jerk. OK, we're already off to a terrible start. Most specifically defined, this rule comes off as "don't personally attack other posters", which I would say rarely applies to any post, and especially not to mine, as I was the original poster, but this rule was applied anyway.
- Don't be vulgar. The only acceptable rule on your entire list, yay.
- Don't Troll. Another vague rule, and one that is entirely up to interpretation. Obviously, you moderators got upset over a topic stating how blatantly incompetent you are, but the rest of the community seems perfectly civil about it. If anything, your malicious attacks in deleting it were what should be considered trolling.
- Don't spam. Again, this isn't even the proper usage of the word spam. However, multi-posting is something that you should easily be able to control automatically, and should be able to deal with elegantly if it does occur.

On top of all these rules being vague and ineffective to begin with, they come with almost insulting assumptions/accusations/claims within their descriptions.
We are going to be very aggressive in dealing with "trolls" in this community. Liars
This isn't rocket science. Insulting
This is probably the easiest way to bring down a good community. Ridiculous
Don't follow them, and all that's going to happen is your posts will get deleted and you'll probably get banned. This doesn't even properly explain reactions that are only "probable" to begin with, and the BYOND mods seem more likely to lock topics (not to mention editing) than do anything in those pleasantly delivered threats

The problem with "rules" is that they are nonsensical principles that cannot be enforced. They should not exist in the first place, because regardless of their proposed method, they do not exist. Automatic logical processing of the same concepts, on the other hand, provides you with actual behavioral limitations. Don't want people spamming? Don't let them post the same thing twice. Don't want people using offensive language? Automatically filter out such words. When people intentionally and maliciously bypass such systems, that is when it may be acceptable for human moderation to come into play.

On top of all that failure. These rules are all arbitrary in any case, especially since topic starters have even less responsibility than the community moderators and can delete whatever they want.

Lummox JR wrote:

Ascribing someone a false quote isn't exactly a class move there.

Summarizing

(Other real life examples: The sick day policy at any job, zero-tolerance policies in schools leading to such moronic outcomes as a boy being suspended for bringing a Lego minifig with a tiny gun, and mandatory sentencing in criminal cases.) Flexibility produces better results than bureaucracy.

All of those are examples of how your implied flexibility fails at life. A Lego toy is not a gun, regardless of what it looks like, that was failed human interpretation. Society's current criminal system is even more of a joke than the policing that goes on around here. Sentences are rarely consistent, criminals are often let off the hook at random, or worse, through corrupt connections. Most of the time they aren't even caught to begin with. Criminal laws are just as foolish as rules, and do not truly exist in any meaningful way. Were you supposed to be giving those as examples in support of or against your opinion?

And I shouldn't have to remind you that flexibility has served you well.

How do you figure that?

You can think a rigid rule structure is better all you like, but I respectfully disagree.

My own use of these systems vs your use of yours, managing a subset of your same community, I have accomplished far better standards, consistency and generally accepted/enjoyable results.

The suggestion that most of this can be automated is simply not feasible; automation catches very little.

That depends entirely on how well you design it.

Yes, your posts got deleted, but calling those deletions malicious is inane; they were deleted for reasons that are clearly spelled out in the guidelines, namely being that you were injecting pointless drama into a situation you could have handled with a polite contact

Considering that the only thing "clearly spelled out" in the guidelines is "don't be vulgar", I think not.

and any moderator would have deleted those posts.

I wouldn't have. When my community files a complaint, I don't just maliciously attack them by deleting it. I consider how legitimate it may be, see how many other users share the same concern, and then consider ways it can be resolved.

You act as if the actions taken were capricious, but they were entirely within the realm of what you should have expected--not because of alleged corruption, but because of the content.

I hope I'm not acting like that. Our complaints against the incompetent moderation around here have been going on for years, but being suppressed by your undeniable corruption, just as this was. I have had to lead massive campaigns for every improvement around here in the last several years, welcome to my new one.

"This isn't rocket science" is only insulting to those who refuse to grasp the obvious, and the phrase bears repeating here.

Telling somebody that "this isn't rocket science" is talking down to them, telling them that they are a moron, and should already understand your material.

Lummox JR wrote:

On the contrary, it depends mostly on factors outside the designer's control. I've had significant experience with these kinds of systems

Have you? A simple voting system could prove more effective than the current mess of admins. Automatic detection of offensive posts, paired with a voting system almost definitely would. It depends exactly which aspect of moderation we're referring to.

the ones that perform best are overly paranoid and produce false positives, and most users can easily force a false negative.

If the systems can be easily tweaked, false positives should be easy to correct. Assuming the reaction isn't overly ridiculous to begin with, false positives shouldn't be too much of an issue anyway, and as long as the false positives happen multiple less often than accurate ones...

but such systems aren't really reliable enough to work on this scale and in this environment.

Small forums?

I welcome suggestions for clarifying whatever parts of the posting guidelines need further explanation.

All of it should be reworded, except maybe the "don't be vulgar" part. "Don't be a jerk" is uninformative, and makes it sound like a 5 year old wrote it. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". A ridiculous rule to have in the first place if you want any productive discussion to ever take place, which from the looks of it, you usually don't. The spam rule shouldn't even be listed, since that should be easy to control automatically, and not an issue otherwise. There is also a pointless blob of personal crap in the rules, just as their is in the official guide: "We stop trolls!", "We are rocket scientists!". The rules should also be also be more accessible, instead of in a plain text link below the post button. Considering admins don't seem to follow these rules, and the rules have no proper repercussions listed, the entire thing is somewhat pointless as is.

However, as I explained, and you didn't seem to understand, setting such rules for the community is not effective. Moreover, it is more about the actions taken in response to "broken rules" than it is about the rules themselves. Locking a topic is never the best solution, and deleting posts almost never is either.

I must say, I do like the idea of a voting system to determine a post's worth. The + and - votes has proved to work well in general areas of the interwebs. I'd say once you reach about -5 or so, then either have it removed, or acquire moderator attention.

Though I suppose there could be a small flaw. Not to offend or suggest this would happen but using Falacy as an examaple, say he were to rally 20 fans, and they were to + a negative post about a specific user in the community. That could definitely become an issue.

I agree the guidelines should be more clarified, and less insulting as well. "Don't be a jerk" alone is a bold statement, and offends at first sight. "Don't be a troll" is a rather silly statement as well, considering the fact that anything said opposing another person's ideas or statements can be considered "trolling".

Currently, I don't really have a problem with the moderators, but mostly just the guidelines in general. The idea previously mentioned to censor certain words would be fine, though instead if simply blocking words out just replaced them with less sensitive words. (F word becomes fruit-basket, a-hole becomes apple-tree, b word becomes banana) Granted my replacement words are silly, they'd definitely add enough humor to negate, the negativity of harmful words.