I remember when I first joined this site one of the first things that made me keep on visiting was that despite this site being massive (nothing compared to what it is now of course but still pretty crowded) moderation kept pretty much everyone in line, if someone wanted to throw a joke in a thread it was good, if he was boring or annoying he was quickly banned or warned.
Sure there was a lot of goofing around and some flame wars over the course of different topics but you still could get different insight in what was being discussed, remember that joke about how many tlers do you need to screw a ligthbulb? Where despite all the shit there would still be an "isnider of the lightbulb business"That kind of shit doesn't happen anymore. Just look a this thread http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=363979
Im just linking that one because its currently on the front page on general but it would take no effort at all to fin another one like that from past days or in other subforum. Theres pages and pages of people saying absolutely nothing besides one liners or idiotic memes. Sure, they arent being rude, they arent being offensive, but they are making NOISE, and after a while all that NOISE makes it impossible to TALK. How can we have a disccusion forum where theres impossible to have any kind of meaningful discussion. The only thing thats missing is to have the first three post arguing about who was "first".
I strongly believe what is needed is to start enforcing one simply rule, which I hope to whoever is reading this still sounds familiar. THOU SHALT CONTRIBUTE. When people keep posting the same shit of the first page on the sixth its impossible to get anything out of a thread.
I understand a lot of this is because after SC2 this the site grew exponentially, sure now there are banlings and a lot more moderators but if you guys are moderating only those who are blatantly trolling, the threads will still get overrun by one liners with no content at all which in turns makes anyone who can actually contribute by posting something insightful, or at least having an interesting point of view getting discouraged to actually post something. (the perfect example is the "pros" staying the fuck away of strategy threads).
People need to be afraid to post again, people need to wonder if what they are saying is truly a contribution or not. People should READ THE THREAD before posting.
What do you expect moderation to do? The problem is that nearly all those posts are fine by themselves - the problem comes only from that there are thousands of them. I agree people should contribute more and post less - but how could moderation force them to?
On August 29 2012 22:31 zatic wrote: What do you expect moderation to do? The problem is that nearly all those posts are fine by themselves - the problem comes only from that there are thousands of them. I agree people should contribute more and post less - but how could moderation force them to?
Because posters *should* be able to figure out that repeating certain behavior is obnoxious or detrimental to the discussion after a while. Imagine this: Poster A, B and C are arguing about whether maps should have destructible rocks on a thread about map design. A is pro destructible rocks, B is against and C while totally engaged in the discussion is uncertain. After a while poster B makes a great post arguing that in the current state of the game destructible rocks are hurting map design and poster C, in a way to side with poster B quotes him and says "Yeah, pretty much this" or just quotes him without saying anything which is pretty standard.
Of course there's NOTHING wrong with what the C poster did. BUT what happens when comes poster D and E and F and start doing the same thing? Just quoting and pasting B's argument ad infinitum? It becomes annoying and fills the thread with noise which eventually kills it. Now normally, this people under current standard would NOT be banned or warned. Which makes sense, after all they just did the same thing that poster C did right? I'm arguing that they SHOULD be WARNED.
First because due to the sheer amount of posters nowadays the only way to keep the quality standard is with harsher moderation, people need to understand that when you have a 4k people reading a thread of which at least 400 are willing to just go ahead and say stuff like "LOL Apples gonna get owned"or "dis gunna b good" [b]You are gonna end up with those 400 posts saying exactly that clouding at least 3 or 4 pages of a thread with completely useless information[b]
The second reason is because of netiquette, Teamliquid is a FORUM, a DISCUSSION FORUM, can you imagine in real life seeing two people arguing about, lets say, Evolution, and just coming ahead and seeing "YO BUT WHAT ABOUT THE EYE STRUCTURE" , or even worse just going ahead and saying "WOW EVOLUTION? check this south park video where they mock creationist". At best you'll just be disruptive, I presume that any barely edfucated individual would at least wait to hear what are they saying. But even if you DONT, and even if you just go ahead and start arguing something that they already discussed its AT LEAST excusable because you had NO REAL WAY to know what they were talking BEFORE YOU ARRIVED.
But in TL's case, or any other forum for that matter, that is NOT THE CASE, this is the INTERNET, we are communicating through a permanent written media where the only thing I need to do to know what people have discussed is TO READ THE PREVIOUS PAGES. And if a poster IS LAZY ENOUGH to not do that, or worse yet, has is head so up his ass that think HE DOESN'T NEEDS TO DO IT before joining the discussion, is it really a poster worth keeping?
Its all about context. Sure this is totally excusable on threads like Live Reports where people are just keeping up on real time but when discussing gun control or patent infringement? Is it really too much too ask for the users to READ the thread before posting and to question themselves if its necessary for them to keep repeating one liners that contribute nothing?
Another example, this is from the Google v Apple thread, this are all post from the first page:
On August 28 2012 14:21 FinestHour wrote: SAMSUNG WILL BE AVENGED
On August 28 2012 14:21 Emnjay808 wrote: Idk why, but im very happy for this. Apple gets a taste of their own medicine.
On August 28 2012 14:20 Selkie wrote: *grabs popcorn*
I hope copyright law changes
On August 28 2012 14:19 Chairman Ray wrote: Holy shit this is epic. Gonna be following this war closely.
Now, this post are completely valid, I have nothing against people expressing their sentiment against an important event, but when YOU KEEP POSTING STUFF LIKE THAT THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE THREAD it clusters it and kills it:
Page 9:
On August 29 2012 00:50 Maxd11 wrote: Apple Fighting!
On August 29 2012 00:57 TsGBruzze wrote: gogo google xD
On August 29 2012 01:32 IntoTheheart wrote: This is great. Gogogo Google!
Mood music?
On August 29 2012 01:51 b3n3tt3 wrote: winter is coming, apple.
it's only a matter of time
Did you learn anything by that? Is it necesary to keep reading that shit EVERY SINGLE PAGE? Sure, a position like the one im arguing for will end up with more threads dying quickly, but if that happens its simply means THERE WAS NOTHING TO DISCUSS about them, and thus, THEY WEREN'T NEEDED. At best they were a circlejerk and at worst they were just sensationalist crap.
Page 12: Page 12:
On August 29 2012 07:56 IMHope wrote: This is going to turn out into a big and ugly mess. Hope everything gets resolved for the better.
On August 29 2012 07:54 TranceKuja wrote: Everything Apple makes is stolen from someone and somehow they always get away with it.
So, the Google vs Apple thing is gonna be a mess and Apple are thiefs too, you really think no one said that at least three times already on the previous ELEVEN PAGES?.
BTW I already said this was different on the LR threads for obvious reason but id also argue that the same applies to persistent threads like the US election threads or any other that gets constanly "updated"through real life. For instance I would see it as totally acceptable if people started reposting that stuff I quoted after a verdict has been reached. Its common sense really.
Warning definitely. Its just to remind them that, despite what they might think, they are NOT ALONE on Teamliquid, and despite their uniqueness we also have nine thousand other perfectly unique snowflakes trying to voice their opinion and if they want to get hear, they better take the effort to set themselves apart of the other nine thousand voices. But if their posting behavior is that of a zombie, they'll be treated as such.
Of course, if despite several warnings they keep doing it, well, I've heard Disney World is specially well suited to deal with all kind of annoyances.
We do regularly warn and ban people for just generally bad posting. If someone's posting history is just a string of one-liners, they will be warned for it - if it continues, they will be banned. Those mod actions are mostly not visible to the public (or not as visible as a big has been banned for this post line), but they do happen.
Warning / banning for every single one liner though is not feasible nor is it desired.
Some people just have a laconic style or don't feel particularly verbose but would like to express solidarity or "just be there" in the thread for some reason, so I don't think all one-liners are such a bad thing, at least not in every situation; and I think at least I prefer an honest one-liner to an artificial paragraph worth of text without real content. It would therefore be very controversial to sanction them, especially on a single post basis. But perhaps clearly worthless posts like, "wow! what a worthless thread!" (oh irony) could be deleted by moderators on sight/by report. I suspect deleting them on sight would work better than any sort of warnings, penalties etc. that create bad blood and endless discussion. Same could go for posts that only offer some negative feedback on the OP's personality or intelligence or mental health or some other clearly gratuitous insult.
Except from my own experience with moderating a forum, posters sometimes create a storm in a glass of water if you edit or delete their posts. But again, that specific type of one-liners I mentioned above can be show to violate multiple different rules, off-topicness being the easiest to show.
Going further than the above with the moderation of unproductive or inappropriate content would require a lot of subjective, situational judgement by moderators, who are only human and subject to the same temptations as everybody else. Imagine a thread about religion, morality, politics, where not even expression but the views held by one poster are deemed offensive by others to the point they'd like him to be banned. There would also be an entire line of problems with equal treatment (e.g. "you banned me today but the guy yesterday got off with a warning"). That could result in bad feelings overall.
Also, discussion could be largely stiffled if what's offensive or productive depended on the judgement of a moderator (people not expressing themselves at liberty for fear of drawing ire); heck, last time I was a moderator, the five of us weren't able to agree on the principles of a common policy (e.g. where to draw the line between the liberty of speech and the need to act against defamation/insults, where non-action could actually result in lawsuits and damages because anti-defamation and anti-insult laws in our part of the world very harsh and coinflippy), much less the implementation of it. With the users, it was the perceived stiffening of discussion, limitation of their own rights, some perceived injustice, deep emotions. In fact, we'd have preferred to stay away, we simply couldn't because of the law. It was a hugely bad experience overall.
Edit: Sorry, I messed up the structure of what I wanted to say but the post is already made. Please be understanding of an overworked person, thank you. Hope any of this babble is actually helpful.
On August 30 2012 01:35 zatic wrote: We do regularly warn and ban people for just generally bad posting. If someone's posting history is just a string of one-liners, they will be warned for it - if it continues, they will be banned. Those mod actions are mostly not visible to the public (or not as visible as a big has been banned for this post line), but they do happen.
Warning / banning for every single one liner though is not feasible nor is it desired.
But Im not saying you should warn someone just for posting a one liner. I don't believe one liners are bad per se, its just the repetition of them that its unnecesary and hurtful to the threads, specially when they are accompanied by some kind of meme. Threads are getting increasingly clustered by unnecesary post that dont contribute anything. Why would people take the time to write something more elaborate when they know that their post is gonna get surrounded by irrelevant commentaries and whats worse just the sheer amount of useless pages will probably scare away those who are genuinely interested in a subject.
Im not against free speech. But when you have a website as massive as Teamliquid you just cant have everyone "shouting" yes or no or LOL. Why should EVERYONE have to post on any given thread, there's nothing wrong with just reading what others are saying. If you make people think twice or hopefully thrice everytime before they post you are gonna give more room for an actual conversation to come out of a thread. (As Ive said before, they should be afraid post).
If people "come up" with 30 post a day and we make them post just their 5 best post I see no other conclusion that ending up with a better forum. Whats better is that well have all the other lurkers READING BETTER POST which in turn will lead them to post better response.
Well, the problem with restricting 30-post a day people is that there are several that post truly good content each post, like Aerisky. There's nothing wrong with them.
I actually think moderation is in something of a sweet spot right now, and the rate of bans is increasing as more users register.
All in all, I think the mods, banlings and admins are doing a great job.
On August 30 2012 11:09 Plexa wrote: Are you suggesting we implement post restrictions like, all users are only allowed to make 30posts week or something similar?
nooo, what, how did you get that? that was just an example u.u. When I said that I was referring to people that post just for the sake of posting, it was a completely arbritary number it could be 100, someone could post 100 posts a day of which only 5 or 10 are really worth to post.
On August 30 2012 11:13 Praetorial wrote: That would kill LR threads and the LoL subforum though.
On August 30 2012 11:30 Praetorial wrote: And General, what with the US election thread and other that have constant posters.
On August 30 2012 01:08 skindzer wrote: BTW I already said this was different on the LR threads for obvious reason but id also argue that the same applies to persistent threads like the US election threads or any other that gets constanly "updated"through real life. For instance I would see it as totally acceptable if people started reposting that stuff I quoted after a verdict has been reached. Its common sense really.
OK I still don't understand what you are requesting really. Can you give an actual suggestion what moderation should change? So far you are only describing what annoys you, and again, everyone agrees.
On August 30 2012 18:07 zatic wrote: OK I still don't understand what you are requesting really. Can you give an actual suggestion what moderation should change? So far you are only describing what annoys you, and again, everyone agrees.
My suggestion in particular is that people that keep on posting unnecessary one liners after page 2 or 3 of a thread should be warned. Specially when what they say has been said already (which is pretty much always). Hell, sometimes I would even do it on page one after seeing that the first 5 or so post are of the same nature and its start to get obvious that if the trends continues (on the same thread) its gonna end up being just noise.
Same with people that uses memes or pictures (dis gun a b good) or videos (and here we go),etc. This is for the most part taking care of but for some reason its becoming more common.
On a more abstract way I propose that unnecessary post/posters get warned on the basis of context. non trolling non flaming post can still be hurtful to a thread/discussion simply by being there making "noise".
That would require those of us with a report button to prowl those threads reporting people, or for mods to spend 100% of their time doing nothing but looking through threads.
If that had been applied to the Destiny thread, mods would have had to have done a hundred times the work accomplishing really nothing.
1. Disallow posts that have less than a certain number of characters. Let's say 400 - 500 (just an example). This would force posters to write more than 1-2 sentences. EDIT: text that is quoted from others should not count here, only what you write.
2. People could still get a limited number of restriction free posts per day/week. Maybe there could be a system in place that rewards posters who make lengthy posts with the right to write more short posts, as a way to cut some slack to the folks are not mindless drones all the time.
This is all based on the premise that moderation works as far as stopping offensive posting, bad behavior and trolling go - so the real problem is the average, polite, almost void of any original thought, one-or-two-line a-la-Reddit post. In this sense, a longer post is usually a better one. If people have nothing to say - just keep them from posting one-liners.
Of course, exceptions should be present in forums like Mafia, LoL, and a way to make specific Live-report or official TL announcements/hype threads restriction-free would be imperative imo. Sounds like a lot of work to implement, but could have the desired effect. Thoughts?
For some perspective, this whole post has a total of 1266 characters.
On August 31 2012 04:03 minus_human wrote: ...or the staff could give Rekrul his banhammer back, and then run to the hills.
nukenukenuke
#2: a system that rewards posters is already in place, isn't it, the icon system. With it, longer registered users who post frequently get ever-cooler Brood War icons. I think it's perfect.
On August 31 2012 04:01 minus_human wrote: How about this:
1. Disallow posts that have less than a certain number of characters. Let's say 400 - 500 (just an example). This would force posters to write more than 1-2 sentences. EDIT: text that is quoted from others should not count here, only what you write.
2. People could still get a limited number of restriction free posts per day/week. Maybe there could be a system in place that rewards posters who make lengthy posts with the right to write more short posts, as a way to cut some slack to the folks are not mindless drones all the time.
This is all based on the premise that moderation works as far as stopping offensive posting, bad behavior and trolling go - so the real problem is the average, polite, almost void of any original thought, one-or-two-line a-la-Reddit post. In this sense, a longer post is usually a better one. If people have nothing to say - just keep them from posting one-liners.
Of course, exceptions should be present in forums like Mafia, LoL, and a way to make specific Live-report or official TL announcements/hype threads restriction-free would be imperative imo. Sounds like a lot of work to implement, but could have the desired effect. Thoughts?
For some perspective, this whole post has a total of 1266 characters.
I think whatever the solution is, it does require some degree of automation, like you're saying. But it also needs to be some fairly intelligent automation, or else we'd end up like many of the vbulletins out there where people pad their posts just to get past character limits. And of course the other thing we don't want to do is to block legitimate, constructive posts that are just slightly below the limit (so we'd need to be very careful about choosing the limit). And then we also probably don't want to include quoted text in the character count (but then there are also legitimate ways of posting new content inside other people's quotes, so how do we handle that?).
Its a pretty complex problem, to say the least. Its basically what the reddit system of upvoting tries to solve, but I think their solution is not the optimal one, or at least not the one I'd like to see at TL. Their system is to allow everything and rely on community effort to pick out the stuff that doesn't suck. This greatly inhibits discussion though, as the organization of the content changes over time.
So yeah, in the end, I'm not really sure of what the solution is. In brainstorming stuff for this, I came up with basically the same thoughts (of automated limits, and earning restriction-free posts), but its just tough to predict what the effects of that would be. I think the best thing would be to pick a subforum and introduce those changes there, see what works, what doesn't, and iterate from there.
I hear what you're saying skindzer and I think it all comes down to the policies and/or guidelines of each forum/subforum.
What I would suggest, if something were to actually be implemented, would be to revise those specific forums policies to state something along the lines of:
Only reply to a post if you're response will add value that pertains to the topic being discussed. If you want to give props, kudos, or flame someone individually then do so via PM.
Obviously, that could be tweaked but you get the idea. This would allow for actual enforcement of what I'm picking up on as the suggestion.
However, this sort of enforcement is a slippery slope (since what is or isn't a meaningful contribution is entirely subjective or at least is perceived to be entirely subjective) and may possibly cause dissent and distrust of mods within the general community.
edit to address minus_human's ideas I think you guys are on the right track because the enforcement to this degree would require a lot of manpower unless there was an automated solution. However, I don't think you can reasonably assume that just because a post meets a certain length that the post actually contributes to a thread. I could easily write or copy/paste 500+ characters of total troll/flaming nonsense.
As you can see, in the first page, there are posts such as:
On August 31 2012 00:18 Kipsate wrote: Yay yay yay yay
On August 31 2012 00:19 Bakkendepao wrote: This is epic.
On August 31 2012 00:19 TRAP[yoo] wrote: great news!!!!!!!
If TL were to implement your policy, all these posts "should" be warned. However, these posts are great because they provide feedback to TL that what they are doing is a good thing. Likewise, when TSL4 was announced, there were many "low-content" posts expounding hype. Should these be warned as well?
That thread is not at all applicable to this discussion. Site news threads have little to no discussion in them. What skindzer is talking about is threads that actually generate discussion (or should, anyway) which are much more common. And you must admit that those same posts made in a different context (in a thread where legitimate, long-term discussion is possible), they would be a detriment to the discussion as a whole. The longer a thread gets, the less likely it is that people will read the whole thread, and the more likely it is that people will just simply post their opinion without checking to see if its been posted before.
There was a time before TL had this many people when threads didn't balloon to 30+ pages with no added content outside of the OP. There was a time when you didn't have to wade through 500 "me too" and one-line content-less posts to find something that added to the discussion in a meaningful way. Thats what we want to see a return to, its just difficult to think of a system that doesn't also punish constructive posters.
On August 31 2012 05:26 mythandier wrote: edit to address minus_human's ideas I think you guys are on the right track because the enforcement to this degree would require a lot of manpower unless there was an automated solution. However, I don't think you can reasonably assume that just because a post meets a certain length that the post actually contributes to a thread. I could easily write or copy/paste 500+ characters of total troll/flaming nonsense.
To address this specific concern: I don't think its necessary that it 100% eradicates the problem. Mods would still exist to clean up the trash that happens to meet the character limit. The major point is to greatly reduce the amount of non-constructive posting that happens, to change the environment and thought process surrounding TL posting. Right now everyone posts the 1-line useless posts, and its largely seen as something that is okay to do. People read other people doing it, so it seems acceptable to them to do as well. Simply stating, "Hey, don't do this" won't do anything because its happening on too large of a scale, and some sort of punishment or at least prevention is necessary to change the direction of the site.
My main questions of the automated solution would be A) Does this harm legitimate posting, and posting that contributes to discussions? And B) Does this harm the culture of TeamLiquid? If either of those are true, I think its not worth it, but again, its tough to know without trying it *somewhere*.
I dont like a minimum characters requirement. I'd say the majority of threads would be hurt - the possibility to post short posts is actually useful in the majority of threads. i.e. providing links to additional material (or old threads about the same topic), providing a short answer (tech support, ...), etc.
The "problem" with the "Google sues Apple" thread (and a lot of the other General Forum threads) is actually: There's nothing to discuss. It's just a news. Sure some people use it to discuss the patent system overall - but that's actually offtopic and would be more useful in a dedicated patent discussion thread.
Ah <3 TL! I was gonna start a topic on this, but my inner-forum-member told me to check in Website Feedback first, away from the spillage from the floodgates of hordes upon hordes of posters.
Go on down in the thread, and Ret takes the time to make an absolutely fantastic post! Then the next page people quote him with 1 liners, agreeing and duly complementing him. So, we need an automated way to improve post content, but distinguish between these two types of post. Heh, that's been my job this summer, so allow my inept advice! BTW it'll require a lot of automated assessing of people's posts directly after they hit 'Post', but if that slows stuff down, that's ok, since they shouldn't be rapid-firing anyways.
Redirect people's posts to a reply page, similar to "dis be old, u sure u wanna bump it?" You have automated features set up that trip if there are indicators their post is crappy, so when those fire, you prompt them with a little text warning, and give them a chance to reconsider. Kinda like the warning of starting a new thread in General (well, doesn't that feature work?) With this system, you aren't heavy-handed in auto-moderation, but you appeal to their better-posting-nature. It's a message they can ignore, but ignoring it too much would raise a red flag, like a "Report".
Different sub-forums have different posting styles or expectancies, so you'd implement the different features according to which specific posting issues you're trying to remedy. But what's key about using this 'redirecting warning' system is that it is innocoious enough to not dissuade posting, but is inconvenient enough (redirecting takes time) that people will minimize their inconvenience by adopting better posting habits. Yay!
What should constitute a 'trip':
"Twit" warning. If someone wants to submit a post that's less than 140 characters long, inform them so, and that TeamLiquid is not Twitter. "Your post is that of a Twit. Please exaine if your submission contributes to the actual discussion." You could be sneaky and raise it to 160 characters (who'd check q (gather some data an assess the mean character-length of a one-liner), but the idea is simply to dissuade people from posting overly-short one-liners. Again, it's important that they get a choice and chance to improve, without having direct punishment or constraints. A mandatory character-limit would be bad, people would use 'filler' text, and a limit on post-frequency would be too harsh. 'Tournament' sections (LR) threads have massive ammounts of condoned one-liners, Mafia post short and quick, but I believe all 'General' and 'News' forum-threads should have this implemented, to encourage more content than just one-liners. Prevent it from triggering false-positives, by searching for "[QU@TE][B]On " and " to discount quoted posts. replace '@' with o
"Has_Read_Thread". I don't know how it works, but I really like the tracker living in "Subscribed Threads" that knows how much of a thread you've read. Again, for threads where you want discussion ("General", maybe "Strategy" too), set up the Has_Read_Thread Trip, that triggers if the person hasn't at least clicked on the first 3-5 pages of a 'X' lengthed thread. This again would take some tweaking to get right. Idea: get people to read the thread before posting, if they haven't, remind them that they should. Overlook if they've already posted in the thread.
Quote_Check this one is less necessairy, but it'd deal with the type of problem I randomly segwaed away from at the beginning of my long post. Would take a lot more processing, but that's why you build supercomputers (: Check if their text contains the exact text of the OP. Trip to tell them to not quote the OP. Maybe there'd be a way to check for [length of quote] vs [length of reply], that is, not replying to a nice big post with a one-liner. But actually no, it's proper nettiquette NOT to quote a big post just to say "yer/nah/cool story bro". So you would calculate their reply ratio:
# = 'number of' For a 800 character post with no nested quotes, and a reply of 100 characters (less than one line), it would yield (100 / 800) * (2 / 2) = 0.125, which is unnaceptably low (i.e. would 'trip). Searching for the "Quote]" string and dividing by two accounts for lots of nested replies. For example, if the above 800 characters were made up of 3 replies, it would give ratio = 0.375, which is acceptable. You'd have to fiddle to implement it, and experiment to gauge what is an appropriate reply:quote character ratio < : People should be snipping and replying to little sections of long posts, not quoting the whole thing intact. Lol one way to completely juke this method would be to put lots of little quotes from a big one, and reply sequentially. So, looking for the "[QUOTE][B]On " thread would be more reliable, and you wouldn't divide by 2. <3 Coputational Forum Dynamics!
I can't think of any other types of trip. Just the little inconvenience of having to read a notice, think about improving your post, deciding not to, than hitting post again, would really put it on people's minds to post better. Again, a Trip for "Twits" would not be appropriate for LR threads, so you wouldn't implement it in "Tournaments". Also, if people break a threshold for 'number of Trips they trigger in a certain time-frame', that would be reported under a separate category "1Liner?". You'd gauge what time-period and Trip limit are necessairy by examinig the posting habits of people you are currently moderating for 'crappy posting', then you'd have some coefficients to plug into your runtimes, and bam, forum gets better!
I admit I am guilty of this, and though I haven't been explicitly warned (that I can remember) I feel there's a sentiment from the MIR that I do this. So please tell me what exactly is naughty, and how to do better! There is a confusing blurring between 'backseat moderation' and 'froum-members suggesting others improve', for example this: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=365641
I believe the KwarK did perfectly right here (one post to the effect, I bet DivinO reported, but the next guys decided to repeat the obvious and got rightly told off for not reading), but we need some sort of community 'Posting Standard Head's Up' to let others learn from those guys' mistakes before repeating them themselves. Even if posts are crappy and clutter with noise, replying with a shallow one-liner telling them off is almost just as bad. In that instance, they should have simply reported, and responded as if it was already fixed. Or at least, responded in conjunction with telling them off.\
"Report and leave be." Yes, but imagine trying to Report ALL the crap, impossribruuuuuuuu! The easiest way to filter out crappy 1Liners is a Twit Trip that I explained above. But, if people get pro at not contributing or discussing, while still managing to pass the 'suggested character-floor', I suggest implementing a "1Liner?" function, similar to the current "Report". This could be given to those who already have 'Report', and/or those with a notably high #character/post ratio. See a crappy 1Liner which doesn't deserve a warning, but is still bad enough to deserve a PM from a mod to 'clean up your act' ? Click "1Liner?" and that post will be flagged for 'assesment by a worthy one'.
Most times I'd like to do this with report, but that system isn't suited to weeding out short, mediocre posts, but which aren't actually all that bad. I don't wanna waste the Mod's time, and IMO a big red 'Warning" would scare a lot of people who wouldn't understand. Is it possible for a Mod to PM people about specific posts, just to kindly remind them to contribute more? They'd have to have a good collection of '1Liner?' 's to merit one, but maybe that could help.
It would all be nicer if you'd just implement a Twit Trip, where after (for example) you've made 10 twits in 4 hours, you're flagged to get a PM from a mod asking to take more consideration with the content you're posting. It could even be automated from TL.netBot!
Finally, about #character/post ratio, you'd account for quotes, so the number you'd extract would only be (an approximatio to) how much you yourself wrote. Somehow some time a super-computer would have to go all the way back to the beginning of time to troll through and take the sum of 'number of characters you've ever posted on the site'. I don't know how you store the "User's post number" count, but each time they post, you could add to their "Total Characters posted" , and find the ratio characters per post. It wouldn't even have to be retroactive (ok maybe from 1 Jan 2012 onwards), but I think it'd be a really nice little number for people to have access to, and to be able to display in their profiles if they so choose. Maybe I'm just looking for some recognition for the massive ammount I type per post, but having that number displayed would be a nice whollistic estimate if someone's more of a spammer or a contributor, and it would incentivize people to try and increase their char/post ratio, that is, encourage them to post longer and less!
EPT
