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Osaka27179 Posts
*This thread is inspired by Stimy, and all of his manifestations. It is a discussion of moderation, and there are no reprucussions for posting your opinion in this thread.
Click here and read this.
There doesn't seem to be anything new here. Just another Stimy rant against the running of this site. A site which he has consistantly called a sewer, yet he spends more time on than almost anybody else. But, Stimy is not a stupid fella. He is able to analyze a situation and pick it apart. Heck, the guy is a self-proclaimed genius.
Reading what he wrote, and then looking back on my own moderation over the past couple months, I felt it was necessary to Stimy's beef some airtime. Undoubtedly I will be seen as a hypocrite, discussing his ideas after he is gone, but since I didn't pull the trigger I don't have control over that. There are only three people on this site that can unban (administrators), it is not a feature moderators can use.
So here is where I adress Stimy's comments about the way I moderate. Also, I think this is a good chance to get the forums input on how things are done.
TL.net Moderators
These are the people who can ban, edit titles, move topis, post news/replays and post articles. Not all of them are active here.
- Manifesto7
- Meat (admin)
- Nazgul (admin)
- Rekrul
- mensrea
- Klogon
- TKWL
- Drone
- Cyric
- uhjoo
- X)Benny
- Saro (admin)
- Legionnaire
- GroT
- Beyonder
- Twisted
- WaxAngel
Moderation of these forums is conducted by a group of individuals with different personalities and backgrounds. They have different beliefs and behaviours when it comes to moderation. For example, Drone believes: (these were taken from a discussion about fakesteve)
I think anything should go and people should be banned or kept based on whether they are overall a positive asset to the forums. I believe steve has been much more of a positive than negative asset to the forums, and I believe he still is, although much less than he used to be, and I think stimey used to be as well, until we made him really bitter. (and personally I still value his occasional gems, but now at least I understand why people think he sucks. )
and while we do have a rule-system implemented, I believe it should only be used to be an overall guide towards posters who haven't made any contributions.
While Twisted says this:
I don't think we should care about forum users telling us that we're doing a crappy job with the moderating. They can give feedback at the feedback forum about it in a normal manner, fakesteve doesn't do that, he just goes on a flamewar against a staffmember. And again, we have 'more rights' than normal posters, thus we should be able to flame/ban shitty posters when they deserve it, I mean that is kind of our job (at least some of it) as moderator here right?
While Nazgul says this:
I don't care what he has done but I'm not letting any of my staff members get insulted like that.
that's pretty much end of argument, if there was any to begin with.
and I really agree on giving people that contribute special treatment, but there has to be a line and that line has been crossed too often.
Waxangel believed nobody should be banned no matter what.
This is point #1. There are many ways that the rules are enforced. However, when one moderator decides to ban someone, very rarely is it questioned by the other moderators. Usually the group is in agreement. Sometimes it is questioned, and we discuss it. Sometimes it is reversed. Moderators are human and get in bad moods as much as anybody else. The reason people are chosen to be moderators is usually because they have the ability to say 'I was wrong'. Something not often seen on the internet.
For myself? I close a lot of threads. I personally believe that our forums are busy, and should be kept clean of things that are avoidable, searchable, irrelevant, or illegal. This is what I have done in the past 30 days in regards to closing threads:
- stimy- too many ppl (closed with flame)
- checking icon spam thread
- 11 year old wants a date site.
- one sentence terran imbalence thread
- japan vs usa that was highjacked by chuck norris (I should have left this open)
- warez x5 (including one where i made a chuck norris joke... I am so ashamed)
- spoiled results/nalra is chobo (I flamed killashark here)
- repeat thread
- old thread revived with 1 word
- stategy post with no strategy x2
- liquibet beef x2 (the results were not going to be changed no matter what)
- vod upload request
- football thread, moved to a new one
- ftw=wtf
- watch korean tv in america? no.
I personally closed 21 out of a 132 threads. With most, I gave information or a different place to look. Some, I posted with warnings (especially warez). In at least four, I closed the thread after flaming the topic maker and/or posters. This is something that Stimy points out as being a problem.
On February 15 2006 05:36 mitsy wrote:
gotta silence every discussion after you get your one word in? can't let ANYONE exist without you, how nice.. "this discussion should be stopped--after i say what i want." what a hypocrit abuser pussy you are.
As Drone says:
On February 16 2006 15:17 Liquid`Drone wrote:
no our job is to moderate the forums, not to elevate ourselves to a level where we're allowed to post in a different manner from everyone else.
the best way to show what is proper behaviour is to behave properly.
it's not about it being a democracy, it's about being consistent.
This is essentially what Stimy says. I am fully willing to admit that I will flame people and close topics that I don't agree with. Sometimes I feel I am right, and other times I feels that I make mistakes. The problem is that Stimy seems to think this forum is something other than a very popular clan site. He seems to think that I get some kind of charge out of it. He is wrong. In the end, this site is Team Liquid.
So please, if you wish to comment about how the site is moderated, if you can suggest changes, or have questions, this is the thread to do it in. Do you think too many threads are closed? Too many people are banned? Not enough?
I am not naive enough to think that Stimy will go away. He will be back. In fact, he is reading this right now. So, let's clear the air now for when he makes his return.
Discuss.
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I am glad Mitsy is banned, but FakeSteve? Meh, he's a dick sometimes but it's meant to be funny. I see nothing wrong with trying to make someone laugh.
But, I respect your decision.
Edit: FUCK. I misspelled his name.
Anyways, I think that the site is moderated just fine. I've never had to ask why someone was banned. Honestly, I'm surprised I haven't been banned, as I've made a couple of posts that were way out of line. I'm just glad the mods here are forgiving. Either that or Rekrul was in a good mood when he saw them, if he saw them at all. 
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Canada3819 Posts
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5404 Posts
I've been lurking for a long time, and started posting in the last couple months. The thing I hate the most is when people randomly quote a post and blatantly go way off-topic to get attention. Please stay on topic if you are going to be funny. An example is the thread about the most useful starcraft unit, and someone quoted "SCV" and said "SCVs are niggers". Stop this, and moderation/deletion will not be needed!
edit: The two posts above me are good examples 
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United States37500 Posts
Even though we don't get to see Nazgul post much anymore, except occasional in the Games section, I like his stance and backing of the mods.
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On February 16 2006 22:34 pheer wrote:edit: The two posts above me are good examples Sorry for laughing. I see nothing wrong with laughing at something. Fine, from now on you cannot express emotion in any way, shape, or form. Fair? Yes.
I don't see that kind of behavior as a problem for moderators. Conversation naturally drifts from topic to topic.
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Fakesteve was banned too?
I'm glad Stimey's gone, always hated him, but Fakesteve rocks. His overall post quality wasn't the same anymore, though after that long break. He was starting to be like Stimey in some respects. Either way, he was still a great poster, especially those MSPaint threads that he did recently.
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Baltimore, USA22261 Posts
All I can say is: About fucking time.
Mani, you don't need to defend yourself from wastes of life like Stimy. 
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I tend to agree with drone's point of view but the Mods gotta do what you gotta do T_T
It would be almost impossible for me to see reason for permanently banning a member like steve since i remember reading his stuff from what back when i was just a random troll T_T But steve probably wont really care either way and when he is back im guessing it will be like nothing ever happened;o
As for mitsy welll
Stimey was great.
Lately he basically pisses people off cause he seems pissed at hte world in all of his posts but he does open up some discussion too i suppose. At the very least he always gives you something new to read every time you log in. But the thread he made after u closed his was way over the line, and its pretty obvious why he got banned. I guess it doesn't really matter if mitsy got perma banned or not because he will come back with another persona soon enough:D
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United States37500 Posts
I like how moderation is overall. Klogon, uhjoo, Twisted, and Mani close threads and ban with good reason. drone is a nice guy, probably too lax, a very laissez faire person, probably why I don't see eye to eye with his style of moderation. He would allow too much to just slide by. ;X
Steve has his appeal to the forums, sometimes witty, sometimes just amusing. I never understood stimey or mitsy. Just seemed like he spewed out bullshit with each post. (i.e. those massive posts about PGT maps when I'm pretty sure he doesn't even play at a level where maps would really affect him).
All in all, I side with Mani and his main post.
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is awesome32282 Posts
First of all, sorry if i make any major grammar mistakes.
Things TL offers ( you might no use them all, but TL offers them):
- Very updated korean progaming scene information. <- Most important
- Quality vods.
- Good strategy advice.
- Good reps.
- Good laughts.
- Some good discussions (there were better times).
- A place to chat/browse when you are bored. (irc + forum)
I think if all the people who i consider "funny" were banned, i woultn' t stop visiting this site but i would narrow the number of threads i would visit. Having a 'friendly' atmosphere in a forum or one in you can make jokes is pretty important though. It was makes a forum better than others IMO.
I have no doubt that Steve contributed in some of the items listed above, and that misty did in none, except one or two laughts. So i guess my opinion goes along with Drone's. Every regular poster that contributes at least in some of the items above, deserves to be here imo.
As for moderation goes (about closing topics, not about banning), the only thing i hate is that there are some very funny posts in the Closed Forum. And closing some of them which could be updated or be talked about kind of sucks. Maybe there could be a Closed Forum for: Flamefest, topic revival, strategy threads without content; and a "Wasteland" Forum: where all the funny posts (like the being cheated by girlfriend with my dog) could go.
ps1: Isnt Carnac a Moderator too? or is he only limited to writing News?.
ps2: We demand (?) a better buddy list
edit: Aww i forgot to mention, Steve topics always have something special, and are worth visiting
Travian thread, MS Paint threads, Skype Thread; to mention some of the lastest
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Certainly glad stimy's gone, even when what he said was actualy fruitful the way it was presented just made it seem baseless and annoying.
As far as moderation goes, I honestly wish things were more tightly moderated for the most part. Even in a high quality thread you can figure on at least half of it being total shit like "yeah, what he said" or a quote of a quote with "yeah, I agree" or something completely off-topic/pointless. Though I understand the number of moderators is small and the number of posters is huge, especially compartively so it's hardly a surprise.
As for you, personally, mani. Quite often I don't agree with a lot that you say, but overall I think you do a good job as a moderator. You definitely flame more than I think any moderator should, but I understand why the majority of the time and the rest of the time is completely forgivable considering everything you've done. I don't see a problem with closing a thread after its usefulness has been served, though I can also see plenty of reason to not close them.
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Korea (South)1740 Posts
mani put it just perfect here and he is absolutely a GREAT mod
the fact that he's willing to share what goes on among the mods to the community at large should show that he cares
also let me add that modding or any other staffwork for this site is done out of the pure kindness of our hearts and a dedication to keeping this site the best damn site for sc gamers (this includes myself).
we get no pay, no bnet chicks, no free bjs, nothing
we do get occasional gratitude (which is thankfully accepted), but frankly we get flamed just as much as well (which we occasionally pay attention to).
powertripping occasionally happens, but tln in relative terms is very free of such individual tendencies. the moderators on this site are all considerate, thoughtful, and smart and in the end care about what happens with this site more than themselves.
so in sum, not everyone will be happy with our decisions, and because there are so many mods decisions will sometimes seem inconsistent (i personally am definitely still learning), but the sum product tends to be that we do a good job of keeping the quality of this site at a high level.
one last note: i would ask that if any of you want to constructively criticize modding, which for my part is always welcome, do it either in 1) the website feedback forum, or 2) via PM's.
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United States37500 Posts
Carnac is a news writer, PoP is a liquibet updater (?)
What kind of updated buddy list are you asking for? Details would be helpful to Meat and Saro.
And I think mensrea should come back and be more active. <3
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ok fakesteve has to comeback now...
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According to me, the moderation is a difficult task.
If you start trying to analyze each case, it will be difficult to say wether or not someone deserve a ban.
There are always and there will always be, people that just want to insult or to provocate to attract some attention.
According to me, i have never felt offended about the ban, temp/ban or about a closed topic. I mean come on, in real life for instance, when you start shouting or insulting the owner of a pub just cause you're drunk or just cause you want to attack someone, you will be led to the door in the next second. The same goes for this forum. I think 90% of the people of this forum have never been banned so it is not that hard to sometimes keep your idea for yourself and not post it on a board.
As i said, some people just think like that:
They think:
1) a normal user is always cool and respect the rules
2) To attract attention, you need to be different.
Conclusion: Provocation will attract attention.
To my mind, i have much more respect for someone who can live with the rules than for someone who just acts stupidly.
The same goes for the genius stimy.
1) Noone usullay clame he is a genius
2) Genius are always different thant other people.
Conclusion: Claiming i am a genius makes me someone different-> if i am different, that implies i am a genius.
That's really sad according to me. So i live with it but i agree that you should ban someone if he is getting idiot and insulting.
Posting on a board implies not only rights , but also responsabilities. So keep on doing your work manifesto and the staff. You give us the right to browse and post on this board, so we must be aware that there are limits.
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Stimey is a jerk, he always has been and he will not change, at least on the internet. I didn't actually know mitsy was stimey, I was always under the impression that he was gone and mitsy was just someone else I disliked.
But I think what Steve said, was said as a joke, and you could tell by what he was quoting, and he's a great asset to this website, he should get a second chance. At least imo.
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is awesome32282 Posts
On February 16 2006 23:12 NeoIllusions wrote:
Carnac is a news writer, PoP is a liquibet updater (?)
What kind of updated buddy list are you asking for? Details would be helpful to Meat and Saro.
And I think mensrea should come back and be more active. <3
Like the one someone asked for in the feedback forum.
Basically: place it in where tournament is now, allow to see if there is someone online at the moment, and any useful added to would be great (anything to keep track of pms, liquidbet rank pos (?) :D)
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EPT
