If you kindly take a look at this site. : http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=35037.0
Specifically observe these rules from that page, regarding inappropriate behavior.
- Creating a thread solely to call out another forum member. The thread will also be hidden immediately and depending on the contents of the thread, a ban may also be warranted.
- Repeated infractions or escalation of behavior that results in warnings could result in a temp ban.
- Calling anyone a racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic slur.
- Telling someone to kill themselves.
- Bringing drama from one thread to another, even if the original thread was locked.
- Being overly hostile or otherwise creating drama outside of General and Games, particularly as a non-contributor.
Also, a specific note on "drama".
Threads can sometimes get very heated in General and Games, particularly if they are about a controversial topic. It's understood that when people are emotionally invested in a subject, they may resort to provoking others or making personal attacks in anger. In situations such as this, moderators are expected to warn or temp ban attackers and provokers. If escalation continues, the thread may get hidden from low-level members.
Generally, those rules emphasize two things.
1)Be nice, or at least respectful, to others.
2)No Drama
It's generally expected that you deal with personal disputes, personally - in PM's ect. and not drag them into other threads.
They generally have strict enforcement of those rules - but also warnings and appeals. All in all, it's a fair system imo.
I'm pretty sure we have no clear way of appealing punishments here, I've never seen anything about warnings. I can say that moderation is somewhat peculiar here as well. I notice that at some points moderation is fairly strict and active and at other times it's like it doesn't exist. It's no wonder people question the validity of BYOND moderation!
Temp bans of 12-24 hours might help things as well- if an escalation is being provoked by a certain member that is usually cool headed - for example, he could be temp banned for about a day so he can cool off.
The general consensus I see is that these forums is basically a giant drama story. Maybe lummox and tom like the drama, idk. I can only assume this was not it's intended purpose.
All in all, I think these forums could stand some improvement in how it's ran. I don't mean this in an insulting way, but as honest, constructive criticism based on my experiences here.
The problems everyone seems to pin on these forums don't occur in other forums nearly as often - and I'm certain it's because of how they run them. So, what are your arguments, your opinions?
Also, before you post - read BYOND's current posting guidelines, and actually do read them. It's a post about rules after all.
Well, I for one tried to dial things down a while back, but all it did was severely reduce the amount of conversation that was actually happening, and severely increase the number of: "The moderators are Nazis, let's overthrow them" posts.
BYOND's forums go in these cycles where everything goes to complete crap for a little while, moderators ramp up their enforcement of standards, then the users scream about how they want freedumbz, then the moderators dial back for a while, and then everyone starts screaming at moderators for not doing anything.
We're a really tiny community that appeals to young folk and the socially inept. Frankly, we had a conversation on the moderator forums a while back regarding a certain user that was a veritable fountain of drama. Ultimately, half the moderators were in support of permanently banning them, and the other half were of the opinion that we'd just wind up working our way down to the next most annoying person on the list until we had nothing left. We decided to leave them be and try to gently prod them into improving their manner.
The mods do a fairly decent job letting flame wars die out before cleaning them up these days. I had a habit of moderation based on perceived effect of a post, rather than waiting for someone to bite the hook.
Largely, this resulted in four users being permanently removed from the community owing to their inability to recognize that their manner was hostile, and their posts contributed nothing but an oncoming flamewar.
Stopping these things before they happened wound up basically provoking these users into kicking things up a notch and becoming such a massive pain in my ass that I decided that moderation wasn't for me. Two of those users in question took to harassing and/or impersonating me off-site out of spite.
Honestly, hard and fast rules are great for communities with a lot of user churn, but with our numbers around these parts dwindling, it's only going to drive away what little we have left.
Sure, the toxicity of this community is also driving users away, but BYOND's always been in this state where everyone is talking about how we're dying, and nobody's talking about making games.
TL;DR: You guys scream at the mods when they do anything, you guys browbeat and yell at the mods when they do nothing. Why bother? We need more games, better software, more donations, and less meta drama. This post counts as meta drama. FFS, you made a Nazi reference in your first sentence.