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On September 30 2010 01:24 Frigo wrote: You can't.
Best you can do is to make a separate subforum for chitchat, serving as a shitfilter to the entire forum, like /b/ to 4chan.
Welcome to most of the blog section. As most of the shit goes there. When sc2 was released however the level of random shit spewing to other areas of the site grew with the insanely large userbase that came here with it. Time + decent moderation will drop its levels down as the casual players will eventually leave the game/ be banned for being dumb and the hardcore players or viewers will stay.
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United States10328 Posts
On September 29 2010 18:34 MYM.Testie wrote: Totally works on this guys posts though.
LOL
but yeah I feel like people on the internet need to vent their crappy ideas somewhere, so a special "crap" section could help (and ban people hard on other serious subforums)
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With regards to the Report button, we have it but hardly anyone uses it. I've had EIGHT PMs connected to the Report button in ONE MONTH (the last 30 days). Tells me a lot abut the user quality (and LOL stupid moment, one of them was an idiot user reporting his own thread filled with ad spam)
Well true, I'd really make use of the transition opportunity to make people use OT forums more often... AND besides that, to actually force people to search before creating topics. Lots of redundant threads in the forums...
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While Blogs is supposed to be the "sort-of-anything-goes" section, I think sc2 general and sc2 strategy are much worse. I really do support a sort of "shit-section" (sort of like on 4chan as people described but I visit or used to visit other forums that have this and they seem to work fine).
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On September 29 2010 17:21 Ciryandor wrote: I am long-time community contributor and moderator for a large company in the Philippines, and I've been reading posts by people there recently. I now realize that the company is "damaged goods" on one level, but I am also ticked off that since there is already that existing image, that they can act like absolute dumb asses.
I've noticed that post quality has degraded abysmally since I started there around half a decade ago. Luckily, nobody knows or has the gall to turn it into a 4chan clone. *oh the horror*
Also, I am NOT a paid employee there; i.e. I am essentially the equivalent of a TL Banling, but I can wield considerable influence with regards to any forum changes that will happen.
Now to my question: How do you convert these people from being completely retarded posters who flame each other about lack of fairness at every opportunity to at least be semi constructive people? I cannot be there 24/7, and I have nearly no back-up on enforcement.
I hate being stuck in this, but I love laying the banhammer on an idiot. It's the best form of destressing. I was a moderator of a few large MMO websites for about 5 years before quitting due to difficulties with new admins. I will try to give some tips, but your situation is really, really hard.
The problem is moderation's ideal is to do no work because nobody is bad, not to keep the forum clean with mass banning. Therefore you have to instill a major culture change in the users, and that (good and bad) has a lot of momentum, meaning that it's a long-term goal on an established community. Let's talk about that. SPOILER FOR LENGTH
+ Show Spoiler +1) Quality examples.
There are two kinds of mods - the active posters who lead discussion, and those who do the shadowy punishment. You can't do both at the same time, because it looks bad if you're banning people that are being morons while arguing with you, so you ideally need multiple mods or very good discretion. This part is about the former.
When possible, create good topics, make good posts. Most forums, at any stage of decay, have good posters or people who would be good posters given the incentive, and they tend to stick together and be attracted to posts that aren't garbage. It's essential to have the forum 'veterans' (either mods or normal posters) presenting a good example of what proper posting is, so that newer posters take reference from that. This is why changing a bad forum into a good one is a damned nightmare because you've got the wrong examples in place - so get to work doing your part. You'll also, conversely, need to remove the negative examples of this, but I'll cover that later.
2) Forum presence.
The moderator can't effectively do things on the forum. The admins have the real power, you can only influence or advise them, as well as try to keep order with what abilities you have. As a result, 95% of a moderator's job is getting people to respect what he represents. Therefore, people need to know that the moderator is there. Make posts and announcements, make sure you show up (have a hot pink username if you want), let people know that the boss is around, because you need to build the image that you are authority. This can be done through either quality posting (see above) or mod actions (see below). If people don't keep moderation in their mind, it's easy for them to lose standards if they're not already ingrained.
3) Make examples.
One of the things I love about TL and hated about the forums I controlled was that TL mods actually have power. I assume you have it too. Use it. Warnings are good, but for most troublemakers, a warning is a reason to bitch and then 'get off free'. Ban.
The biggest weapons you have in enforcing a higher quality culture developing is coming down like a meteor on bad posts. 1-3 day bans can hurt if they're used to handle infractions - if people post like trash, ban them and let people know you did it and why. This ties in to the previous two points: when people see shit posts being hammered and that the mod is on the ball, it has an effect in encouraging people to post properly (and getting rid of the trash). Don't just play janitor and remove/edit posts (or if you do anyways, let people know you did it), leave 'USER WAS BANNED' as evidence, TL-style.
You need to direct physical force at the ability of people to post badly, because telling people 'don't post like this' only works if they're an aberration. If everyone posts like garbage, people aren't going to care or know what you mean, so warn with some force behind it to trim (or hew) away the worst examples.
4) Get staffing.
You said you don't have manpower, and that's a problem. You do need people to be available around the clock, as this matters for point 2. When people see bad threads/posts proliferating, they begin to accept that as standard, and thus the faster you react the less it can develop and the more people shy away from such behavior. You're also going to benefit from a group of visible moderators leading/contributing to discussion, as well as others (or the same group in rotation) handling the purges (see point 1). One person can make a difference in such a situation but it's extremely difficult and the results can be limited or temporary.
Draft what good forum veterans there are if they're willing to help (TL did this with banlings, etc), either to 'sub-mod' position or higher, as these members are already highly visible (as they likely have a lot of posts) and thus have good positioning to have an impact. You can bring in people you know to help mod, but be careful: people need to know who they are and that they're reasonable or they won't respect them (for example, I was contacted to mod a forum that I had minor relations with, and had to spend time developing a credible account to take the position).
5) Culture momentum
The last point I'll bring up is about how the forum works. Refer to Mondragon's TL-attack: he doesn't post on SC community sites because they're useless to him. Good posters don't go towards bad sites, bad posters can't maintain themselves on good sites. From what you've described, you're massively in the former (through no fault of your own, perhaps), and thus you need a lot of constant work to push it up, as well as a user transfusion. Remove bad users, get some quality control in, and better posters will be more willing to move in. We see the opposite with TL somewhat - with SC2, a huge wave of lower-quality posters arrive, and are able to lower the quality enough to survive (while before a single poster would have likely been eaten alive by Manifesto), because you can't simply ban half the forum. In your case, if you get a core of good posters in place, you can re-build up the community around it, and that should be your main focus.
What others have said about a 'trash' section is also good, there are posters in any community that have nothing to do with anything of value and just spam OT. Shunt 'em over there.
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On September 30 2010 12:11 Dfgj wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 17:21 Ciryandor wrote: I am long-time community contributor and moderator for a large company in the Philippines, and I've been reading posts by people there recently. I now realize that the company is "damaged goods" on one level, but I am also ticked off that since there is already that existing image, that they can act like absolute dumb asses.
I've noticed that post quality has degraded abysmally since I started there around half a decade ago. Luckily, nobody knows or has the gall to turn it into a 4chan clone. *oh the horror*
Also, I am NOT a paid employee there; i.e. I am essentially the equivalent of a TL Banling, but I can wield considerable influence with regards to any forum changes that will happen.
Now to my question: How do you convert these people from being completely retarded posters who flame each other about lack of fairness at every opportunity to at least be semi constructive people? I cannot be there 24/7, and I have nearly no back-up on enforcement.
I hate being stuck in this, but I love laying the banhammer on an idiot. It's the best form of destressing. I was a moderator of a few large MMO websites for about 5 years before quitting due to difficulties with new admins. I will try to give some tips, but your situation is really, really hard. The problem is moderation's ideal is to do no work because nobody is bad, not to keep the forum clean with mass banning. Therefore you have to instill a major culture change in the users, and that (good and bad) has a lot of momentum, meaning that it's a long-term goal on an established community. Let's talk about that. SPOILER FOR LENGTH + Show Spoiler +1) Quality examples.
There are two kinds of mods - the active posters who lead discussion, and those who do the shadowy punishment. You can't do both at the same time, because it looks bad if you're banning people that are being morons while arguing with you, so you ideally need multiple mods or very good discretion. This part is about the former.
When possible, create good topics, make good posts. Most forums, at any stage of decay, have good posters or people who would be good posters given the incentive, and they tend to stick together and be attracted to posts that aren't garbage. It's essential to have the forum 'veterans' (either mods or normal posters) presenting a good example of what proper posting is, so that newer posters take reference from that. This is why changing a bad forum into a good one is a damned nightmare because you've got the wrong examples in place - so get to work doing your part. You'll also, conversely, need to remove the negative examples of this, but I'll cover that later.
2) Forum presence.
The moderator can't effectively do things on the forum. The admins have the real power, you can only influence or advise them, as well as try to keep order with what abilities you have. As a result, 95% of a moderator's job is getting people to respect what he represents. Therefore, people need to know that the moderator is there. Make posts and announcements, make sure you show up (have a hot pink username if you want), let people know that the boss is around, because you need to build the image that you are authority. This can be done through either quality posting (see above) or mod actions (see below). If people don't keep moderation in their mind, it's easy for them to lose standards if they're not already ingrained.
3) Make examples.
One of the things I love about TL and hated about the forums I controlled was that TL mods actually have power. I assume you have it too. Use it. Warnings are good, but for most troublemakers, a warning is a reason to bitch and then 'get off free'. Ban.
The biggest weapons you have in enforcing a higher quality culture developing is coming down like a meteor on bad posts. 1-3 day bans can hurt if they're used to handle infractions - if people post like trash, ban them and let people know you did it and why. This ties in to the previous two points: when people see shit posts being hammered and that the mod is on the ball, it has an effect in encouraging people to post properly (and getting rid of the trash). Don't just play janitor and remove/edit posts (or if you do anyways, let people know you did it), leave 'USER WAS BANNED' as evidence, TL-style.
You need to direct physical force at the ability of people to post badly, because telling people 'don't post like this' only works if they're an aberration. If everyone posts like garbage, people aren't going to care or know what you mean, so warn with some force behind it to trim (or hew) away the worst examples.
4) Get staffing.
You said you don't have manpower, and that's a problem. You do need people to be available around the clock, as this matters for point 2. When people see bad threads/posts proliferating, they begin to accept that as standard, and thus the faster you react the less it can develop and the more people shy away from such behavior. You're also going to benefit from a group of visible moderators leading/contributing to discussion, as well as others (or the same group in rotation) handling the purges (see point 1). One person can make a difference in such a situation but it's extremely difficult and the results can be limited or temporary.
Draft what good forum veterans there are if they're willing to help (TL did this with banlings, etc), either to 'sub-mod' position or higher, as these members are already highly visible (as they likely have a lot of posts) and thus have good positioning to have an impact. You can bring in people you know to help mod, but be careful: people need to know who they are and that they're reasonable or they won't respect them (for example, I was contacted to mod a forum that I had minor relations with, and had to spend time developing a credible account to take the position).
5) Culture momentum
The last point I'll bring up is about how the forum works. Refer to Mondragon's TL-attack: he doesn't post on SC community sites because they're useless to him. Good posters don't go towards bad sites, bad posters can't maintain themselves on good sites. From what you've described, you're massively in the former (through no fault of your own, perhaps), and thus you need a lot of constant work to push it up, as well as a user transfusion. Remove bad users, get some quality control in, and better posters will be more willing to move in. We see the opposite with TL somewhat - with SC2, a huge wave of lower-quality posters arrive, and are able to lower the quality enough to survive (while before a single poster would have likely been eaten alive by Manifesto), because you can't simply ban half the forum. In your case, if you get a core of good posters in place, you can re-build up the community around it, and that should be your main focus. What others have said about a 'trash' section is also good, there are posters in any community that have nothing to do with anything of value and just spam OT. Shunt 'em over there. Holy crap you essentially highlighted the issues that plague the forum right there. The company's trimming costs and redundancy so they're bringing the different products on offer together, i.e. new blood and a boatload of people who are IMO much better posters than the people I'm handling now. I was essentially given the shittiest forum because I'm the guy who can deal with the worst cases; I have low idiot tolerance. They're actually calling me a dictator and saying I implemented Forum Marshal Law. =)) That means it's working. I'll probably end up banning half of the forum anyway just to clean up all the noobs there. Fools can't even NOT post redundant threads! I'll respond in more detail in a bit, still finishing an analysis from work. I'll also try to get pseudo-admin powers with the new forum we'll roll out, so I can have an open license to kick people out. I'm actually the first Mod to do TL-style bannings (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST is so damn satisfying to put on shitty posts), so we'll see how it catches on. It'll take a couple of months.
I'll DEFINITELY suggest they take on one full-time forum admin (but they can't do IP bans here because a very big segment of the population use floating IPs) so somebody can oversee everything. They can and have to afford it. It's PR value to them.
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Sounds like you're making progress in the right direction.
Be careful though - you don't want to end up with a forum where everything is clinically on-topic. Make sure there's breathing room for jokes and little derailments, so that the forum stays somewhat interesting. It helps if the lines of what's 'fun' and what's 'bullshit' are clearly marked out, so people don't bitch about hypocrisy when you make the call.
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Well, it's going to be hard to define what's 'fun/sarcastic' remarks and what's QQing. Lots of sarcasm end up reading like QQ because people bite on them. ~_~
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Yup, that's the problem when your userbase is varied in terms of collective humor and intellect.
Again, it's a split case - some people who take things too seriously and bitch need to be banned for being disruptive, and some jokers who act up need to be put down. This is also why it helps to have extra manpower, so you can track potential problem users and monitor them (via account notes, private forum, etc) if they consistently ruin jokes with whinging, or are caustically sarcastic.
The potential issue with that is some old-established forums get too into monitoring and never take direct action when it could be useful, letting trolls troll freely until they've 'gone too far', usually after they've been trolling at full speed for some time. It seems like you've got the banhammer well in hand, though.
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I prefer being pro-active, and this is where TL is full of win. They shut down troll attempts in a prompt and sometimes harsh manner, but it's always appropriate.
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