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HeadBangaa
United States6512 Posts
On January 01 2009 11:43 H wrote: I used to give a shit about posting but when it all goes unpunished and good post(er)s are just torn down by idiots, who gives a fuck I''ve never seen a post of yours longer than 1 or 2 lines not resounding some already-mentioned inane comment. | ||
vGl-CoW
Belgium8305 Posts
I have noticed throughout the years that posting quality is pretty much cyclical in nature. It started off low (everybody should check out some random '03 threads, it was pretty terrible by today's standards), then gradually improved as TL started maturing and from then on we always just implemented some sort of Purge whenever we felt it was sinking again. This means we're constantly flopping back and forth between shitty and great posting. Although I think it has worked out very well for us (I don't think anyone with at least half a brain would disagree that we are the best forum in this community, bar none), this is not an optimal solution. In my opinion, strictness isn't the issue here. We throw people out pretty fast for being blatant idiots and the Mod Team as a whole is pretty well on top of things, in terms of swiftly taking out the completely unacceptable threads and posters. I think there's mostly two other issues at play:
To combat this, I see two solutions. First off, a change of attitude. We (by which I mean YOU) need to be more constructive towards offending posters. It's simply the difference between saying "here is what you should have done" and saying "LOL. NOOB. GET OUT." People will be more inclined to better their posts when they're being helped, rather than mocked. Of course, this doesn't apply to people who are being malicious. Those people don't have a soul, are therefore not human and should be treated the same way one treats a tumor. Secondly, as other people have already suggested, some sort of system for people to report bad posts/threads to a Mod. To keep it functional, we'd probably need to restrict it to the veterans, but I still think it'd be a good idea because not only does it alert the Mod Team to stuff we might be missing, it also provides an outlet for people who might otherwise start flaming the offending poster, thereby being detrimental to the thread and the forums as a whole. But of course, this is easy for me to say as I don't have to do any of the coding and the staff is already very busy as it is. I don't expect this feature to make it (at least not any time soon), and I think my first solution is much, much more important. Well, this turned out a little longer than I had intended it to. I promise I won't write as many serious words ever again. Poo poo kaka balltastic. | ||
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onepost
Canada297 Posts
On January 03 2009 23:46 vGl-CoW wrote: First off, a change of attitude. We (by which I mean YOU) need to be more constructive towards offending posters. It's simply the difference between saying "here is what you should have done" and saying "LOL. NOOB. GET OUT." People will be more inclined to better their posts when they're being helped, rather than mocked. Of course, this doesn't apply to people who are being malicious. Those people don't have a soul, are therefore not human and should be treated the same way one treats a tumor. I myself have a honoris causa PhD degree in dealing with that kind of people. Even here I tried to be constructive, to no avail. There's always people that will cling to the "ur a fscking troll" line even if you engage them constructively. Or there's the pedant type that calls everyone "ignorant" (a strategy forum pandemic) and refuse to dialogue intelligently if you ask them, because "you're not worth my time" (but they have plenty of time to BM you; go figure). You need negative reinforcement with those people, a mix of fear and pain that forms the limit of their sensibility spectrum. Secondly, as other people have already suggested, some sort of system for people to report bad posts/threads to a Mod. To keep it functional, we'd probably need to restrict it to the veterans, but I still think it'd be a good idea because not only does it alert the Mod Team to stuff we might be missing, it also provides an outlet for people who might otherwise start flaming the offending poster, thereby being detrimental to the thread and the forums as a whole. But of course, this is easy for me to say as I don't have to do any of the coding and the staff is already very busy as it is. I don't expect this feature to make it (at least not any time soon), and I think my first solution is much, much more important. I differ regarding that "limit to the veterans" attitude, which is part of the problem we're currently trying to address; a very significant proportion of offenders ARE veterans. Civility does not come with the number of posts you have. How about a comment flagging system, like for most news outlets? Just put another link on the top bar that says: "Report abuse". It would be very effective, and if individual posters repeatedly abuse it, you ban them instead. It's a simple, tried-and-true method of reducing the moderators' burden, while it wouldn't require recruiting new mods, hence putting to rest this dispute over who should be promoted. Also, it should be quite easy to implement, less than a day of coding perhaps? | ||
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vGl-CoW
Belgium8305 Posts
On January 04 2009 00:45 onepost wrote: I myself have a honoris causa PhD degree in dealing with that kind of people. Even here I tried to be constructive, to no avail. There's always people that will cling to the "ur a fscking troll" line even if you engage them constructively. Or there's the pedant type that calls everyone "ignorant" (a strategy forum pandemic) and refuse to dialogue intelligently if you ask them, because "you're not worth my time" (but they have plenty of time to BM you; go figure). You need negative reinforcement with those people, a mix of fear and pain that forms the limit of their sensibility spectrum. I am using negative reinforcement (because when all else fails, it's the only thing a Mod is capable of). If I see people clinging to a negative, "fuck you newbie"-attitude, the ban hammer will be swung. It's a nice tool to get one's point across. I differ regarding that "limit to the veterans" attitude, which is part of the problem we're currently trying to address; a very significant proportion of offenders ARE veterans. Civility does not come with the number of posts you have. How about a comment flagging system, like for most news outlets? Just put another link on the top bar that says: "Report abuse". It would be very effective, and if individual posters repeatedly abuse it, you ban them instead. It's a simple, tried-and-true method of reducing the moderators' burden, while it wouldn't require recruiting new mods, hence putting to rest this dispute over who should be promoted. Also, it should be quite easy to implement, less than a day of coding perhaps? I suggested restricting it to veterans out of several considerations. If we'd allow anyone to use this sort of system, we'd probably be drowned in reports, which would be counterproductive. Also, I would nuance your statement - civility does not necessarily come with the number of posts you have. A high post count doesn't guarantee quality posting, but usually acts as an indicator for it. If someone survives long enough to have a few thousand posts over a reasonable span of time, more often than not it means that person is at the very least a decent poster. It seems logical that the reports this person makes will more often be in line with the decisions a Mod would make, and therefore will be more useful to us. I really have no idea how long it would take to implement a feature like this so I won't comment on that, I just know our coders already are very busy bees. | ||
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onepost
Canada297 Posts
On January 04 2009 01:13 vGl-CoW wrote: I suggested restricting it to veterans out of several considerations. If we'd allow anyone to use this sort of system, we'd probably be drowned in reports, which would be counterproductive. I assure you it works well everywhere I've seen it implemented. Besides: =>You can put a big fat warning on this feature: "Abusing the abuse report feature can get you banned." Scary enough. =>If it is indeed abused, ban the offenders. Although that makes another bannable offense, I suspect that it will overlap with the kind of posters you want to ban anyway. Makes sense? Also, I would nuance your statement - civility does not necessarily come with the number of posts you have. A high post count doesn't guarantee quality posting, but usually acts as an indicator for it. If someone survives long enough to have a few thousand posts over a reasonable span of time, more often than not it means that person is at the very least a decent poster. It seems logical that the reports this person makes will more often be in line with the decisions a Mod would make, and therefore will be more useful to us. I respectfully disagree. Look at sites like Slashdot, for example, where a lot of veterans that spit acid on everything that breathes have insanely positive karmas. I really have no idea how long it would take to implement a feature like this so I won't comment on that, I just know our coders already are very busy bees. I'm a software developer (even though web and database stuff aren't my cup of coffee). The logic would be quite simple: an additional flag for each post, an additional link on the post bar, a thread for mods that shows the flagged posts (like the automated ban thread; that should be just a single tweak to a request I think) and a bit more code perhaps, like disabling the report abuse link if the post is already flagged, or recording who flagged the post (just another field and a couple more lines here and there). If I were to estimate how long I would take to implement this on a codebase I'm familiar with, I would say one day. Perhaps two if you want to add statistics by user (how many posts were flagged for a given user, percentage, a sorted list of worst offenders). It's so simple yet so useful that I would also make this kind of stuff a high priority. | ||
micronesia
United States24686 Posts
On January 03 2009 23:46 vGl-CoW wrote: First off, a change of attitude. We (by which I mean YOU) need to be more constructive towards offending posters. It's simply the difference between saying "here is what you should have done" and saying "LOL. NOOB. GET OUT." People will be more inclined to better their posts when they're being helped, rather than mocked. I agree. I think this is a bigger problem than most people give it credit for. Everybody has to walk on eggshells on tl, never do anything that could be even remotely construed as dumb, and avoid contributing to a topic unless they are 100% sure that they are an authority on that topic, lest they get harassed and labeled as one of the dumb ignorant noobs (especially true for new members). This always happens on the internet to some extent, of course, but I think TL could definitely be better about it than we currently are. | ||
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Fontong
United States6454 Posts
On January 03 2009 23:46 vGl-CoW wrote: First off, a change of attitude. We (by which I mean YOU) need to be more constructive towards offending posters. It's simply the difference between saying "here is what you should have done" and saying "LOL. NOOB. GET OUT." The problem is the massive are of negativity surrounding TL.net. Everyone, especially the forum vets, flame first and ask questions later if someone does something stupid rather than ignoring it or letting the mods deal with it. I remember a thread I posted in where the OP was some new poster and had done a 1 liner or smth. I just posted some funny thing about him being a future GG.net member. He went on to create 2 more crap threads in short succession. I'm not sure, I guess I felt bad for him so I PM'd him in a super mannered way that we don't do things like this at TL and got him to post 'Plz close' in all the threads. Unfortunately I don't have anymore instances of being so generous, I will try harder in the future though. | ||
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onepost
Canada297 Posts
On January 04 2009 03:11 Fontong wrote: The problem is the massive are of negativity surrounding TL.net. Everyone, especially the forum vets, flame first and ask questions later if someone does something stupid rather than ignoring it or letting the mods deal with it. I remember a thread I posted in where the OP was some new poster and had done a 1 liner or smth. I just posted some funny thing about him being a future GG.net member. He went on to create 2 more crap threads in short succession. I'm not sure, I guess I felt bad for him so I PM'd him in a super mannered way that we don't do things like this at TL and got him to post 'Plz close' in all the threads. Unfortunately I don't have anymore instances of being so generous, I will try harder in the future though. Regarding that thread thing: there ought to be general guidelines about the minimum expected burden for new threads, like we have in the strategy forum (requests for help require a replay and short analysis at the very least, this sort of things). I read the closed threads list just for fun and I observed that a huge proportion of these are just one liners, sometimes with a pic, like posters have no clue that a thread should weigh much heavier than an ordinary comment. Also, many threads are just replies to an existing thread. If we had guidelines displayed at the top of the new topic form, most of these shallow threads would be averted. | ||
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AcrossFiveJulys
United States3612 Posts
It may be that you are getting older or more mature and are just starting to notice / be annoyed by it. If every post in every thread were paragraphs of well thought out responses, this forum would be boring as SHIT! Not to say that threads like "warning: adult link" shouldn't be closed... but hell, I got a laugh out of people's reactions to it so it wasn't entirely useless. I guess the biggest reason why less people are banned nowadays is that fact that rekrul lost his ban scythe  a lot of his bans were unfair, but just from pure statistics he managed to do a good job cleaning up the forum.Ah, I think it's worth a poll: Poll: Give Rek back the scythe of death (if he wants it)? (Vote): Hell yeah, I'm sick of these trolling newbs (Vote): No, rekrul is unjust and has no heart (Vote): Sure... as long as he doesn't ban me | ||
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vGl-CoW
Belgium8305 Posts
On January 04 2009 01:43 onepost wrote: I assure you it works well everywhere I've seen it implemented. Besides: =>You can put a big fat warning on this feature: "Abusing the abuse report feature can get you banned." Scary enough. =>If it is indeed abused, ban the offenders. Although that makes another bannable offense, I suspect that it will overlap with the kind of posters you want to ban anyway. Makes sense? I'm not worried about abuse, it's easy to ban abusers as you indicate. I'm simply worried about the volume of reports as well as the number of justified reports so it seems like this should be a privilege for veterans. There are a few terrible posters with high postcounts, but they'd be reported by the other veterans. I have no prior experience with this type of system though, I guess a trial phase or something would be ideal. I respectfully disagree. Look at sites like Slashdot, for example, where a lot of veterans that spit acid on everything that breathes have insanely positive karmas. Well from my experience here on TL, I'd say that most of the veterans really are decent posters, although I certainly think they (and myself, to be honest) could be a lot nicer to newbies. I really don't think it'd be too hard to instill a generally friendlier attitude, though. On January 04 2009 03:11 Fontong wrote: The problem is the massive are of negativity surrounding TL.net. Everyone, especially the forum vets, flame first and ask questions later if someone does something stupid rather than ignoring it or letting the mods deal with it. I remember a thread I posted in where the OP was some new poster and had done a 1 liner or smth. I just posted some funny thing about him being a future GG.net member. He went on to create 2 more crap threads in short succession. I'm not sure, I guess I felt bad for him so I PM'd him in a super mannered way that we don't do things like this at TL and got him to post 'Plz close' in all the threads. Unfortunately I don't have anymore instances of being so generous, I will try harder in the future though. Yeah, this is the sort of attitude change I feel we need around here. Setting a good example rather than crucifying the offenders. This isn't a fresh idea either, I actually remember some of the Mods saying we needed this exact kind of change even before I was made staff. It just pretty much never happened. On January 04 2009 03:26 onepost wrote: Regarding that thread thing: there ought to be general guidelines about the minimum expected burden for new threads, like we have in the strategy forum (requests for help require a replay and short analysis at the very least, this sort of things). I read the closed threads list just for fun and I observed that a huge proportion of these are just one liners, sometimes with a pic, like posters have no clue that a thread should weigh much heavier than an ordinary comment. Also, many threads are just replies to an existing thread. If we had guidelines displayed at the top of the new topic form, most of these shallow threads would be averted. I agree with this, it'd be simple to add and it would diminish the number of one liner trash threads. At the same time I'd be more inclined to hand out bans to people who'd still not follow this guideline, it really irks me when people are too stupid to read the warnings that are right in front of them. | ||
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onepost
Canada297 Posts
On January 04 2009 03:59 vGl-CoW wrote: I'm not worried about abuse, it's easy to ban abusers as you indicate. I'm simply worried about the volume of reports as well as the number of justified reports so it seems like this should be a privilege for veterans. There are a few terrible posters with high postcounts, but they'd be reported by the other veterans. I have no prior experience with this type of system though, I guess a trial phase or something would be ideal. [Emphasis added] Hence my feature proposal for a list of worst abusers based on the volume of reports. That way moderators don't have to go through every single flagged comment, only those from people that blink red on top of the list. | ||
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IzzyCraft
United States4487 Posts
And the other side is true as well as if you ban those who use the flagging system because the bandwagon what happens is people get scared to use it and it will never get well used. For safety any flag system has to have details meaning that it has to be in context with the forum it's in and given at least 2 line explanation to why it is being used but the only problem is you say one liner is the cause is a one liner report. So really one liner's would have to be reported by someone who notices his posting history in that forum and can suggest that he only posts one liners and should be investigated. | ||
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Fontong
United States6454 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=85527 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=85603 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=85563 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=85547 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=85554 It annoys the crap out of me. Can we have some kind of news post where we emphasize that making completely stupid threads or trolling with titles like 'jianfei wang is dead' isn't permitted in TL. The number of atrocious/one liner OP/just plain stupid threads has skyrocketed as of late, at least thats what it feels like. Wouldn't it also be easier on the mods if they took action to stop threads like this from being made in the first place? | ||
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Physician
United States4146 Posts
about mods - people in general think they are good moderators but in reality 99% are not really suited for moderation - main qualities mods should have is an above average patience, intelligence and unwavering respect of fairness and freedom of speech - an important issue is to get all moderators to set the better example always - the primary goal a moderator should have is the health of the forum, not his own popularity, not his clan, not his fans, not his opinions etc.. about offenders - the hardest cases are members with poor intelligence who do not realize their limitations and who have only one social outlet, the forum itself - most trolls can actually be encouraged to be good posters & one can divert the energy of most spammers into something productive - smart trolls in general despite their mayhem respond better to moderation and are less harmful about mod functions - closing threads is always a double edged sword, in general I rather a mod rescue a shitty thread if it can be done than close it i.e. any new thread with effort put in by the poster one should avoid closing as much as possible; the opposite is true for short shitty single double line threads without links/pics - threads with legal links almost always help the forum - banning* is pointless when the pool of new members is limited or shrinking and in my opinion harmful to most forums; the problem is that to avoid banning you need an active and impeccable moderation i.e u single out the frequent offender, you monitor all his post, you edit when you have too, over and over, you engage him one on one in conversation, 99% are just kids wanting attention. - *but banning smurfs, multiple accounts, sockpuppets etc.. should be relentless about moderation - the answer to forum moderation is usually never "more" moderators, but "better" moderators, and many times "less" moderators is healthier - the only time you add moderators is if the forum is really growing quickly and you are adding new forum subject categories. - a common mistake in moderation is thinking one can force people to be smart or wiser or that one can force people not to interact with the forum my feedback on current tl.net quality level - it's fine & has improved - too many opinions (mine included) are currently pointless - if anything, the observations that matter now, in my not so humble opinion, I left highlighted. /use them or lose them ~ | ||
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fusionsdf
Canada15390 Posts
On January 03 2009 23:23 HeadBangaa wrote: I''ve never seen a post of yours longer than 1 or 2 lines not resounding some already-mentioned inane comment. this is like the third or fourth time I've seen you post something like this in the past few weeks and again, I would say look at your own posts before you act all high and mighty | ||
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onepost
Canada297 Posts
On January 08 2009 08:21 Fontong wrote: When I see threads like this: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=85527 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=85603 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=85563 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=85547 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=85554 It annoys the crap out of me. Can we have some kind of news post where we emphasize that making completely stupid threads or trolling with titles like 'jianfei wang is dead' isn't permitted in TL. The number of atrocious/one liner OP/just plain stupid threads has skyrocketed as of late, at least thats what it feels like. Wouldn't it also be easier on the mods if they took action to stop threads like this from being made in the first place? Basic guidelines, or at least a link to the full guidelines, needs to be on top of the new topic form; it's already been mentioned. I second making an announcement about it though. Suggestions about basic guidelines for opening a new thread: WARNING: The required burden to start a thread far exceeds that of a mere comment. Think of a thread as an article instead. If you've never posted before, we invite you to read: TL.net Ten Commandments, How to Use TeamLiquid, [G] Forum Posting Guide (unofficial). Summary: First make sure it's substantial; no one-liners, single short paragraphs, picture-only, youtube-only, jokes, hoaxes, rants, scams, and the like. See the list of closed threads for examples of what does not constitute an acceptable thread on TeamLiquid forums. Second, use the search function to make sure no similar thread already exists. Select the option to search contents as well, not just titles. If it's a topic of general interest, don't neglect to ask Google as well. Third, make sure it's posted to the right forum and meets that forum's own guidelines. In doubt, ask an admin. Infringing threads will be promptly closed. Severe infringers and recidivists may be banned without further warning. This is short enough that people will read it all if put prominently on the new topic form. Edit: I've trimmed down the above warning suggestion to make it more compact. | ||
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H
New Zealand6138 Posts
On January 03 2009 23:23 HeadBangaa wrote: I''ve never seen a post of yours longer than 1 or 2 lines not resounding some already-mentioned inane comment. I'd wager you've only read my posts in a certain section pretty much designed for shitty posting. WHAT A COINCIDENCE! I also find it hilarious you preach about post quality when you've been banned twice (take note - I haven't). | ||
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CDRdude
United States5625 Posts
On January 08 2009 09:56 H wrote: I'd wager you've only read my posts in a certain section pretty much designed for shitty posting. WHAT A COINCIDENCE! I also find it hilarious you preach about post quality when you've been banned twice (take note - I haven't). There is no section designed for shitty posting. HeadBangaa's past ban history has little to do with his current posting quality, unless you are saying that poor posters never reform. If that were the case, temp bans would be pointless. If you want to continue your disagreement, have a bo3 on Python, Lost Temple, and Luna and post reps. Getting back to the discussion at hand, I think that more education among new members about what we expect in a thread can help. I think putting a more condensed version of what onepost wrote in the "create new topic" form would be a good idea, maybe in between the text box and the post/preview buttons, forcing your eyes to at least skim over it on the way to the post button. On January 08 2009 09:24 Physician wrote: - main qualities mods should have is an above average patience, intelligence and unwavering respect of fairness and freedom of speech I would make a terrible mod. | ||
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Ack1027
United States7873 Posts
What the fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk All caps thread titles ftw Oh wait its a blog // gg divine shield | ||
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kroko
Finland2136 Posts
 .. My tip for users, if u have no input to gamereport topics, GOD DAMN, dont post ! (i follow that guideline) I also dislike that some ppl here chat on topics, come on, use msn, irc, facebook etc. Many admins do this too and I belive it lowers the bar for posting. Some might think he can do it too since admins does it... Also it would be nice if we would be able to "Posts" for other ppl too, would be easier to report spammers etc. Anyways I am still happy about tl.net, or I wouldnt be lurking here. | ||
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