Fact is deleting posts in threads is stupid. It serves little to no purpose except to hide things that don't deserve to be hidden. Infractions are there for a reason. When someone decides to be abusive, derails a topic intentionally, and just all out disrupts a thread or conversation you should be infracting them; not deleting posts unless there is a seriously valid reason to do so.
Point taken (the whole leaving posts there instead of deleting/hiding).
Once you infract someone for a certain post you should then be editing the post to add that the person was infracted and why so people know that this is a no no. Deleting the post instead does nothing to educate the other posters here. That's one of the biggest issues with the moderation here, you don't educate the posters and you expect them all to read your rules and guidelines (as if anyone ever does). Anyone who has served as a forum moderator should know this. It is moderation 101.
Whenever we delete/hid a post we usually warn/infract the member as well, unless it's a really harmless comment/post. The reason we delete/hide is basically to prevent the fires from spreading. 1 guy trolling gets hidden, the thread continues on rails and people discuss what was supposed to be discussed. Now 1 guy trolling and 10 replying to his post, and then he replies to all 10, that's when a thread becomes a mess and we have to lock all of it. It has happened a lot before, we moderate the way we do based on past experiences.
As to you saying "Just because someone posted against D3". Do I expect moderation on all anti-D3 posts? Of course not. But do I expect moderation on the anti-D3 posts that are nothing but inflammatory bullshit? Yes. Lets take Bilge for example. Go into his past posts and read some of his conspiracy theory crap from several weeks ago. I am pretty sure you as a moderators can go back farther than I can. That is the kind of garbage that needs infractions galore. Uneducated drivel by people who lack the intelligence to understand how and why companies make certain business decisions serves no purpose other than to incite other people who do not understand. All that does is make other people think "OMG EVIL EMPIRE OMG OMG" and you get multiple people spreading that garbage like the plague.
Just as an fyi, I'm with you on this one that obvious trolls with conspiracy theories and who just flamebait others should be infracted and maybe even insta-banned, I'm actually probably the most trigger-happy moderator and have been criticized before for beeing too trigger-happy with infractions but sometimes we don't agree internally on who is a troll and who deserves bans. And if we can't even reach a consensus in between a few staff members, it's pretty obvious the user's case isn't as black and white as some of us thought to be. Again, that's preciselly when we are more careful.
And OMG, multiple threads galore on these forums. Seriously. How many topics about MF does one forum need? Reply to them, state they are repeat topics, link to the original topic, lock. GG.
Would you mind pointing which ones you believe are duplicates? We will definitely look into the issue.
They might have merits of their own as well, like one talking about how MF gear is going to become useless, the other talking about how MF is going to drop in price (AH-related), the other talking about how long will it take to get to Paragon lvl 100 (300% MF).
I'm sorry but have I done something to deeply upset you? You don't see us taking action because when we take action the post is hidden. You don't see us giving infractions because they're given via PM and only viewable by that member and the staff. So of course you don't see us doing anything. If we just yelled at people in public and left all the posts there it would be a complete mess. We remove the posts so other people don't keep responding to them and it's a chain of flaming and trolling. That's normal on any forum.
I don't know what forum you've been visiting where its common practice to openly chastise people who break rules but that's not how we do things here, never has been and never will be. I'm aware the majority of people don't read the rules, and most of them get along fine because they're fairly common sense in most cases. That's where the warning system comes in though, to educate posters who aren't aware of the rules. It's a reminder to check out the rules. If someone chooses to not read the rules or to knowingly break them, they'll eventually just be permanently banned.
Bilge has received infractions, not that it's really any of your concern, and your post was removed because it was directly addressing him when the situation had wrapped itself up already. I don't make it a habit of going through someones posting history and infracting them because that's a very messy and sloppy thing to do. People change. If I see someone presenting a problem and I notice they have a bad post history or previous warnings or infractions that's usually when they get more than one point infractions and start receiving automatic suspensions.
I guess your post is technically against the rules, publicly discussing moderation, I should take action against that also right? Sometimes the best answer is to address things with a little bit of transparency and tact so we're all on the same page. That was, is, my attempt in posting here. Don't make me regret asking for opinions.
Anyways, back to the topic, I'd like to had seen some actual feedback on the new rules and less derailment/off-topic, which is what the new rules are about.
Whenever we delete/hid a post we usually warn/infract the member as well, unless it's a really harmless comment/post. The reason we delete/hide is basically to prevent the fires from spreading. 1 guy trolling gets hidden, the thread continues on rails and people discuss what was supposed to be discussed. Now 1 guy trolling and 10 replying to his post, and then he replies to all 10, that's when a thread becomes a mess and we have to lock all of it. It has happened a lot before, we moderate the way we do based on past experiences.
This is the main problem. You delete/hide posts thus not letting people know you are doing anything. Yes, I agree with you that deleting the post can end a flame war before it begins. But so can editing the post, deleting his words, and adding yoru own saying "Infracted for _______ reason". Then you let people know the person was infracted and why. You let people know that you are doing something. You educate people at the same time.
I can understand why some forums would wanna do that. But as Daemaro pointed out, publicly criticizing people (in order for others to see and "learn" from it) is probably something we would never do, and it's a matter of preference in the end.
Personally I believe what we do currently is more civilized than openly criticizing someone, which is the same reason we don't allow "public discussion of moderation". Simply put, the others don't have to waste their time with that, specially those who abide by the rules and are pretty educated already.
On the TeamLiquid forums you can see red tags on someone's post that tells you that user was banned for that post (couldn't find any now, was more common back when SC2 launched), so I guess they prefer it that way.
(1)I'm sorry but have I done something to deeply upset you? You don't see us taking action because when we take action the post is hidden. You don't see us giving infractions because they're given via PM and only viewable by that member and the staff. So of course you don't see us doing anything. If we just yelled at people in public and left all the posts there it would be a complete mess. We remove the posts so other people don't keep responding to them and it's a chain of flaming and trolling. That's normal on any forum.
(2)I don't know what forum you've been visiting where its common practice to openly chastise people who break rules but that's not how we do things here, never has been and never will be. I'm aware the majority of people don't read the rules, and most of them get along fine because they're fairly common sense in most cases. That's where the warning system comes in though, to educate posters who aren't aware of the rules. It's a reminder to check out the rules. If someone chooses to not read the rules or to knowingly break them, they'll eventually just be permanently banned.
(3)Bilge has received infractions, not that it's really any of your concern, and your post was removed because it was directly addressing him when the situation had wrapped itself up already. I don't make it a habit of going through someones posting history and infracting them because that's a very messy and sloppy thing to do. People change. If I see someone presenting a problem and I notice they have a bad post history or previous warnings or infractions that's usually when they get more than one point infractions and start receiving automatic suspensions.
(4)I guess your post is technically against the rules, publicly discussing moderation, I should take action against that also right? Sometimes the best answer is to address things with a little bit of transparency and tact so we're all on the same page. That was, is, my attempt in posting here. Don't make me regret asking for opinions.
Anyways, back to the topic, I'd like to had seen some actual feedback on the new rules and less derailment/off-topic, which is what the new rules are about.
1: No, I have no problem with you besides you falsely accusing me of derailing when I obviously was not. Editing someone post to say that it was infracted and why is not yelling at them publicly, it is educating this community. Plus you don't leave the post there, you edit out his words then replace them with "Infracted for _______". Then you solve 2 problems. You educate the person and the community, and you remove unwanted posts from the forums. I don't quite know how to better explain this.
2: If you continue to delete and hide posts then your forums will continue to turn into the cesspool they are slowly becoming. This is the major topic of this thread, these forums are slowly turning to something a lot of people do not want them to turn into. You inspire no fear what so ever in anyone posting here because they do not see what you are doing. When you delete or hide an infracted post you don't effect the community at all besides the one single person. If someone posts something infractable, edit there post, delete their text, add your own to say the person was infracted and for what reason.
Sure, infracting a person and deleting his post educates him. But that is the problem, it only educates him. If you were able to educate everyone posting in the thread instead of the one person do you not understand how much better that would make these forums? This is common sense.
3: I don't care about Bilge's past posts and I agree going through someone past posts then infracting is a waste of time. That is not at all what I meant for you to do. I only used his posting history as an example of shit that should be like auto infracted.
4: Sure, infract me, then infract everyone else who has posted in this thread because ultimately this entire thread is about moderation of these forums. It is about time this forum community hears from you guys about moderation policy, but event hat isn't going to be enough. D3 is huge, people will be looking for fansites and the forums will continue to swell. That swelling along with your current method of "delete/hide" isn't going to work. And I do greatly appreciate you guys posting and being transparent in this thread. Please do not take my fanaticism over this topic as anything more than my desire for these forums to be the best they possibly can be.
Long story short, what your moderation team is doing right now is not what needs to be done. These forums will continue their slow decline until you start editing infracted posts instead of deleting/hiding them in order to educate everyone that not only are you watching, but you are serious about wielding your banhammer.
Edit: Also, I am a huge Games Workshop fanboy. I play 40k, Fantasy, Mordheim, Bloodbowl and Battle Fleet Gothic. I am a moderator on 3 major GW related forums as well as several other less well known boards. I am not talking out of my ass when I talk about moderation of forums. I am talking from more experience than I care to admit having.
I don't think I want to see public infraction warning stuff. I know the one infraction I have I am, in retrospect, glad that Daemaro deleted and infracted me. My behavior was pretty embarassing and much below what I expect of myself. I can say for certain that I *did* assimilate that infraction into how I behave on these boards.
However, I will admit that most of the people who are receiving repeated infractions are probably people who don't give a shit. I mean, I know I submitted a report and you guys will get around to it, but that one guy created two "MF Cap whine" posts in General with very similar titles and very similar contents within 30 minutes of each other. Now obviously we'll see a lock on that. But, to be honest, as we see in the Jay Wilson "fuck that loser" thread, there are people who are so adamant about hating things (and, although smaller in number, people who are so adamant that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the game) that they are completely ignorant of the rules even when the rules are levied against them.
For me that's a decent bit of the frustration. Even with the rules there are clearly people who abuse the fact that you guys definitely are not ban-happy (and I say that as a GOOD thing). It's just the obvious abuse of that courtesy that you've extended to the community which makes things hairy.
I don't think I want to see public infraction warning stuff. I know the one infraction I have I am, in retrospect, glad that Daemaro deleted and infracted me. My behavior was pretty embarassing and much below what I expect of myself. I can say for certain that I *did* assimilate that infraction into how I behave on these boards.
However, I will admit that most of the people who are receiving repeated infractions are probably people who don't give a shit. I mean, I know I submitted a report and you guys will get around to it, but that one guy created two "MF Cap whine" posts in General with very similar titles and very similar contents within 30 minutes of each other. Now obviously we'll see a lock on that. But, to be honest, as we see in the Jay Wilson "fuck that loser" thread, there are people who are so adamant about hating things (and, although smaller in number, people who are so adamant that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the game) that they are completely ignorant of the rules even when the rules are levied against them.
For me that's a decent bit of the frustration. Even with the rules there are clearly people who abuse the fact that you guys definitely are not ban-happy (and I say that as a GOOD thing). It's just the obvious abuse of that courtesy that you've extended to the community which makes things hairy.
You are misunderstanding my suggestions.
I am saying that upon infraction the EDIT your post, DELETE everything you typed, INSERT "Infracted for ______" then move on. I am not saying that they leave what you posted or go off on a tirade in your post.
If I see someone blatantly abusing the system thinking "Oh well I only have one infraction I can say what I want and only get one more point." I put them in their place. That's all covered in the rules. The rules are more so there to protect the staff and the users rights. IF they choose not to read them initially that's fine.
Usually the kind of person who responds in a extremely rude way, whether they've read the rules or not is going to act like that regardless for the most part.
Honestly though if we just left a note on edited posts saying "Infracted for trolling." etc that wouldn't do a ton of good. I mean I guess it would show the handful of people that initially saw the post what happened but everyone else wouldn't even get what that meant.
Right now we have the "hide" system which was implemented by the php team which does basically probably what you're used to seeing, you hide a post with a reason given, those reasons are usually made private for staff use, though some forums keep them as public.
I can sort of see your point about at least seeing that part, it just can get a little messy at times when there are literally pages of removed posts. It's not something I'm sure we'd adopt though because it's sort of a consensus among all the staff as well as the php team that hiding is a better option.
What I HAVE been pushing for and I think may have just been a oversight was changing a users title to "Banned" or "Suspended" when they receive one. Transparency is important to ensure people we are doing something but I'm not convinced that we need to go as far as to unhide removed posts.
Showing people we're not afraid to wield the banhammer though is part of what I'm getting at with this thread.
Anyways I appreciate the feedback.
Edit:Think of my input in this thread as not only a way to help me draw the line where it suits the regular users the most but also keeps people out of the way when I start swinging my infraction stick and ban hammer more frequently.
>_< ugh just noticed this thread so much to read... so if I hit on a point already brought up I do apologize.
The phenomenon of the internet and human interaction exposes poor understanding and etiquette of communication. This will never be a simple fix; people pour their heart into text and press send and don't realize the repercussions it can cause in the real world.
Many times trolling or negativity is caused from misunderstanding of wording or poor choice of word use. As an example I have a limited vocabulary and at times have difficulty converting thoughts/ideas into words and more often than not people misunderstand what I am trying to relate too. Overall I think helping explain why a post may seem trolltasic in PM would be more beneficial than anything, throwing in some emoticons and less use of caps can go a long way to understanding proper context.
I think the community its self has a large responsibility the PM's can only do so much if people don't help out. If you have an issue or valid concern Daemaro has made him accessible in times of need, let a MOD know if you have an issue. I've been guilty of trolling and derailing, letting people know to use the PM function for non-value added posts would be more constructive.
As Proletaria has stated, more transparency is an effective tool, I'm not use on the terms of use or privacy policies of this site but allowing others to view your infraction bar would likely deter some poor posting or people would at least ignore the high offenders more often. This is similar to reddit's voting system where if you don't have any/little infractions and a lot of posts chances are you have something to contribute whereas if you have lots of infractions = troll.
As for new posters you could put a comment cap on before being allowed to post but there are obvious draw backs as I've seen some amazing posts from 1st timers. Possibly allow the posts to be created on a pending a MOD review for all posters under "15" as an example.
This is all I have at the moment, there are just suggestions, and whether or not they are viable is another story.
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Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
Honestly though if we just left a note on edited posts saying "Infracted for trolling." etc that wouldn't do a ton of good.
What I HAVE been pushing for and I think may have just been a oversight was changing a users title to "Banned" or "Suspended" when they receive one. Transparency is important to ensure people we are doing something but I'm not convinced that we need to go as far as to unhide removed posts.
I have edited out all but 2 lines. First you say you don't think it would do a ton of good to do the edit thing. Then you say you have been pushing for a suspended/banned title. So.... What is the difference between publicly outing someone as being banned or suspended and editing posts stating they were infracted? Because quite frankly i see no difference at all.
Because a removed post doesn't always mean a infraction. Sometimes it's 90% harmless rambling but its off-topic to the thread so we remove it. It looks trashy to have a ton of deleted posts sitting around. Other times it's two people who got infractions but it's like a page of posts removed.
Showing when someone is suspended or banned just lets people know that we do take action against people who cause constant disruption, if you remember VladDracul or Adon, or a handful of others they ended up permanently banned and people just thought we were doing nothing. So changing their avatar/title to banned would let people know without people needing to scroll passed a bunch of removed posts.
Infractions are also a lot less of a big deal when it's one or two. Mistakes are made. When you hit four infractions and your first suspension kicks in though, yeah I'd say that's a little more reason to be ashamed. It also just keeps people from wondering what happened to someone or why they aren't responding while they're banned. There are lots of differences.
It's pretty much a consensus between all of the staff here, on other curse sites, and the php team, who would switch the removed posts to viewable if asked, that this is a better way for us to do things. I've never seen anyone else complain about it so it's not likely to change.
Anyways this subject is off-topic, the topic is about how people feel about the rant posts, and my question was how do people want to see them handled, now we're just talking about forum features, so if you really want to continue please just PM me instead.
Because a removed post doesn't always mean a infraction. Sometimes it's 90% harmless rambling but its off-topic to the thread so we remove it. It looks trashy to have a ton of deleted posts sitting around. Other times it's two people who got infractions but it's like a page of posts removed.
Showing when someone is suspended or banned just lets people know that we do take action against people who cause constant disruption, if you remember VladDracul or Adon, or a handful of others they ended up permanently banned and people just thought we were doing nothing. So changing their avatar/title to banned would let people know without people needing to scroll passed a bunch of removed posts.
Infractions are also a lot less of a big deal when it's one or two. Mistakes are made. When you hit four infractions and your first suspension kicks in though, yeah I'd say that's a little more reason to be ashamed. It also just keeps people from wondering what happened to someone or why they aren't responding while they're banned. There are lots of differences.
It's pretty much a consensus between all of the staff here, on other curse sites, and the php team, who would switch the removed posts to viewable if asked, that this is a better way for us to do things. I've never seen anyone else complain about it so it's not likely to change.
Anyways this subject is off-topic, the topic is about how people feel about the rant posts, and my question was how do people want to see them handled, now we're just talking about forum features, so if you really want to continue please just PM me instead.
How is this subject off topic? You wanna know how I feel about rant posts and how we think they should be handled. What part of any of my posts in this entire thread is off topic according to that? But w/e. I know when I am pounding my head into a concrete wall. There is just no point to bother with it any further. You don't understand the reasoning behind my suggestion at all and you do not care to even think about it because you are stuck on your tried and failed method of delete delete delete. Not meaning any disrespect, but it is painfully obvious that it does not work now nor has it worked in the past. All I can say is, "I tried".
It works very well here and on many other sites. Thanks for the concern though.
If it worked as well as you think it does then this thread probably never would have existed.
Or it works fine I just decided to involve the community more, because moderation is done for the community's happiness, which you've made me regret single handedly. You've made your opinion known, I've told you it's really unlikely to happen. There's no reason to keep discussing it in this thread.
Anything else PM me about, not going to allow this to spam up the thread more than it has.
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Point taken (the whole leaving posts there instead of deleting/hiding).
Whenever we delete/hid a post we usually warn/infract the member as well, unless it's a really harmless comment/post. The reason we delete/hide is basically to prevent the fires from spreading. 1 guy trolling gets hidden, the thread continues on rails and people discuss what was supposed to be discussed. Now 1 guy trolling and 10 replying to his post, and then he replies to all 10, that's when a thread becomes a mess and we have to lock all of it. It has happened a lot before, we moderate the way we do based on past experiences.
Just as an fyi, I'm with you on this one that obvious trolls with conspiracy theories and who just flamebait others should be infracted and maybe even insta-banned, I'm actually probably the most trigger-happy moderator and have been criticized before for beeing too trigger-happy with infractions but sometimes we don't agree internally on who is a troll and who deserves bans. And if we can't even reach a consensus in between a few staff members, it's pretty obvious the user's case isn't as black and white as some of us thought to be. Again, that's preciselly when we are more careful.
Would you mind pointing which ones you believe are duplicates? We will definitely look into the issue.
They might have merits of their own as well, like one talking about how MF gear is going to become useless, the other talking about how MF is going to drop in price (AH-related), the other talking about how long will it take to get to Paragon lvl 100 (300% MF).
I'm sorry but have I done something to deeply upset you? You don't see us taking action because when we take action the post is hidden. You don't see us giving infractions because they're given via PM and only viewable by that member and the staff. So of course you don't see us doing anything. If we just yelled at people in public and left all the posts there it would be a complete mess. We remove the posts so other people don't keep responding to them and it's a chain of flaming and trolling. That's normal on any forum.
I don't know what forum you've been visiting where its common practice to openly chastise people who break rules but that's not how we do things here, never has been and never will be. I'm aware the majority of people don't read the rules, and most of them get along fine because they're fairly common sense in most cases. That's where the warning system comes in though, to educate posters who aren't aware of the rules. It's a reminder to check out the rules. If someone chooses to not read the rules or to knowingly break them, they'll eventually just be permanently banned.
Bilge has received infractions, not that it's really any of your concern, and your post was removed because it was directly addressing him when the situation had wrapped itself up already. I don't make it a habit of going through someones posting history and infracting them because that's a very messy and sloppy thing to do. People change. If I see someone presenting a problem and I notice they have a bad post history or previous warnings or infractions that's usually when they get more than one point infractions and start receiving automatic suspensions.
I guess your post is technically against the rules, publicly discussing moderation, I should take action against that also right? Sometimes the best answer is to address things with a little bit of transparency and tact so we're all on the same page. That was, is, my attempt in posting here. Don't make me regret asking for opinions.
Anyways, back to the topic, I'd like to had seen some actual feedback on the new rules and less derailment/off-topic, which is what the new rules are about.
This is the main problem. You delete/hide posts thus not letting people know you are doing anything. Yes, I agree with you that deleting the post can end a flame war before it begins. But so can editing the post, deleting his words, and adding yoru own saying "Infracted for _______ reason". Then you let people know the person was infracted and why. You let people know that you are doing something. You educate people at the same time.
Personally I believe what we do currently is more civilized than openly criticizing someone, which is the same reason we don't allow "public discussion of moderation". Simply put, the others don't have to waste their time with that, specially those who abide by the rules and are pretty educated already.
On the TeamLiquid forums you can see red tags on someone's post that tells you that user was banned for that post (couldn't find any now, was more common back when SC2 launched), so I guess they prefer it that way.
1: No, I have no problem with you besides you falsely accusing me of derailing when I obviously was not. Editing someone post to say that it was infracted and why is not yelling at them publicly, it is educating this community. Plus you don't leave the post there, you edit out his words then replace them with "Infracted for _______". Then you solve 2 problems. You educate the person and the community, and you remove unwanted posts from the forums. I don't quite know how to better explain this.
2: If you continue to delete and hide posts then your forums will continue to turn into the cesspool they are slowly becoming. This is the major topic of this thread, these forums are slowly turning to something a lot of people do not want them to turn into. You inspire no fear what so ever in anyone posting here because they do not see what you are doing. When you delete or hide an infracted post you don't effect the community at all besides the one single person. If someone posts something infractable, edit there post, delete their text, add your own to say the person was infracted and for what reason.
Sure, infracting a person and deleting his post educates him. But that is the problem, it only educates him. If you were able to educate everyone posting in the thread instead of the one person do you not understand how much better that would make these forums? This is common sense.
3: I don't care about Bilge's past posts and I agree going through someone past posts then infracting is a waste of time. That is not at all what I meant for you to do. I only used his posting history as an example of shit that should be like auto infracted.
4: Sure, infract me, then infract everyone else who has posted in this thread because ultimately this entire thread is about moderation of these forums. It is about time this forum community hears from you guys about moderation policy, but event hat isn't going to be enough. D3 is huge, people will be looking for fansites and the forums will continue to swell. That swelling along with your current method of "delete/hide" isn't going to work. And I do greatly appreciate you guys posting and being transparent in this thread. Please do not take my fanaticism over this topic as anything more than my desire for these forums to be the best they possibly can be.
Long story short, what your moderation team is doing right now is not what needs to be done. These forums will continue their slow decline until you start editing infracted posts instead of deleting/hiding them in order to educate everyone that not only are you watching, but you are serious about wielding your banhammer.
Edit: Also, I am a huge Games Workshop fanboy. I play 40k, Fantasy, Mordheim, Bloodbowl and Battle Fleet Gothic. I am a moderator on 3 major GW related forums as well as several other less well known boards. I am not talking out of my ass when I talk about moderation of forums. I am talking from more experience than I care to admit having.
However, I will admit that most of the people who are receiving repeated infractions are probably people who don't give a shit. I mean, I know I submitted a report and you guys will get around to it, but that one guy created two "MF Cap whine" posts in General with very similar titles and very similar contents within 30 minutes of each other. Now obviously we'll see a lock on that. But, to be honest, as we see in the Jay Wilson "fuck that loser" thread, there are people who are so adamant about hating things (and, although smaller in number, people who are so adamant that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the game) that they are completely ignorant of the rules even when the rules are levied against them.
For me that's a decent bit of the frustration. Even with the rules there are clearly people who abuse the fact that you guys definitely are not ban-happy (and I say that as a GOOD thing). It's just the obvious abuse of that courtesy that you've extended to the community which makes things hairy.
You are misunderstanding my suggestions.
I am saying that upon infraction the EDIT your post, DELETE everything you typed, INSERT "Infracted for ______" then move on. I am not saying that they leave what you posted or go off on a tirade in your post.
Usually the kind of person who responds in a extremely rude way, whether they've read the rules or not is going to act like that regardless for the most part.
Honestly though if we just left a note on edited posts saying "Infracted for trolling." etc that wouldn't do a ton of good. I mean I guess it would show the handful of people that initially saw the post what happened but everyone else wouldn't even get what that meant.
Right now we have the "hide" system which was implemented by the php team which does basically probably what you're used to seeing, you hide a post with a reason given, those reasons are usually made private for staff use, though some forums keep them as public.
I can sort of see your point about at least seeing that part, it just can get a little messy at times when there are literally pages of removed posts. It's not something I'm sure we'd adopt though because it's sort of a consensus among all the staff as well as the php team that hiding is a better option.
What I HAVE been pushing for and I think may have just been a oversight was changing a users title to "Banned" or "Suspended" when they receive one. Transparency is important to ensure people we are doing something but I'm not convinced that we need to go as far as to unhide removed posts.
Showing people we're not afraid to wield the banhammer though is part of what I'm getting at with this thread.
Anyways I appreciate the feedback.
Edit:Think of my input in this thread as not only a way to help me draw the line where it suits the regular users the most but also keeps people out of the way when I start swinging my infraction stick and ban hammer more frequently.
The phenomenon of the internet and human interaction exposes poor understanding and etiquette of communication. This will never be a simple fix; people pour their heart into text and press send and don't realize the repercussions it can cause in the real world.
Many times trolling or negativity is caused from misunderstanding of wording or poor choice of word use. As an example I have a limited vocabulary and at times have difficulty converting thoughts/ideas into words and more often than not people misunderstand what I am trying to relate too. Overall I think helping explain why a post may seem trolltasic in PM would be more beneficial than anything, throwing in some emoticons and less use of caps can go a long way to understanding proper context.
I think the community its self has a large responsibility the PM's can only do so much if people don't help out. If you have an issue or valid concern Daemaro has made him accessible in times of need, let a MOD know if you have an issue. I've been guilty of trolling and derailing, letting people know to use the PM function for non-value added posts would be more constructive.
As Proletaria has stated, more transparency is an effective tool, I'm not use on the terms of use or privacy policies of this site but allowing others to view your infraction bar would likely deter some poor posting or people would at least ignore the high offenders more often. This is similar to reddit's voting system where if you don't have any/little infractions and a lot of posts chances are you have something to contribute whereas if you have lots of infractions = troll.
As for new posters you could put a comment cap on before being allowed to post but there are obvious draw backs as I've seen some amazing posts from 1st timers. Possibly allow the posts to be created on a pending a MOD review for all posters under "15" as an example.
This is all I have at the moment, there are just suggestions, and whether or not they are viable is another story.
It's not worth it for me to lash out at trolls anymore, all guilty parties get infractions and they are handled via PMs like Daemaro said.
Battle.net Profile / Diablo Progress Profile
Mine is stuck at 10%, infraction should have expired over a month ago. Yes, I was a bad boy. Shame on me!
I have edited out all but 2 lines. First you say you don't think it would do a ton of good to do the edit thing. Then you say you have been pushing for a suspended/banned title. So.... What is the difference between publicly outing someone as being banned or suspended and editing posts stating they were infracted? Because quite frankly i see no difference at all.
Showing when someone is suspended or banned just lets people know that we do take action against people who cause constant disruption, if you remember VladDracul or Adon, or a handful of others they ended up permanently banned and people just thought we were doing nothing. So changing their avatar/title to banned would let people know without people needing to scroll passed a bunch of removed posts.
Infractions are also a lot less of a big deal when it's one or two. Mistakes are made. When you hit four infractions and your first suspension kicks in though, yeah I'd say that's a little more reason to be ashamed. It also just keeps people from wondering what happened to someone or why they aren't responding while they're banned. There are lots of differences.
It's pretty much a consensus between all of the staff here, on other curse sites, and the php team, who would switch the removed posts to viewable if asked, that this is a better way for us to do things. I've never seen anyone else complain about it so it's not likely to change.
Anyways this subject is off-topic, the topic is about how people feel about the rant posts, and my question was how do people want to see them handled, now we're just talking about forum features, so if you really want to continue please just PM me instead.
How is this subject off topic? You wanna know how I feel about rant posts and how we think they should be handled. What part of any of my posts in this entire thread is off topic according to that? But w/e. I know when I am pounding my head into a concrete wall. There is just no point to bother with it any further. You don't understand the reasoning behind my suggestion at all and you do not care to even think about it because you are stuck on your tried and failed method of delete delete delete. Not meaning any disrespect, but it is painfully obvious that it does not work now nor has it worked in the past. All I can say is, "I tried".
Thanks!
Battle.net Profile / Diablo Progress Profile
If it worked as well as you think it does then this thread probably never would have existed.
Or it works fine I just decided to involve the community more, because moderation is done for the community's happiness, which you've made me regret single handedly. You've made your opinion known, I've told you it's really unlikely to happen. There's no reason to keep discussing it in this thread.
Anything else PM me about, not going to allow this to spam up the thread more than it has.