We've been wondering about your thoughts regarding the way we set up the rules and the moderation on this forum. We feel that strong language should be acceptable, but personal insults or snidy comments are best left at the door, and we've been moderating accordingly. We're wondering if you think our rules make sense at all, and how you think moderation has been. Are we moderating too much? Too little? Just about right? We're not creating a regular poll, as we would prefer people to motivate their answers, maybe even citing particular incidents to support their claims. As stated before, we are not aspiring to be a second ER, nor are we aspiring to be a second EF. We have only a few rules, but we do expect those to be followed.
I have no probs with it. In fact I can express myself here quite adequitelly. Should I have a need to do so.
I think a good place to strive for is a nice middle road between the other two. There are things that need to be censored and others that do not. If most posters would just show good sense the point would be mute. They want to attempt the flames and wars while they sit behind the monitors. If those same people would apply ne simple rule. Would you say the same thing to that other person in real life then we wouldnt have the issues. I believe you guys are doing a great job.
The underlined is subjective isn't it? I mean if I call someone an asshole, ya thats a personal insult.. But saying someone is being immature is really not an insult. How do you draw the moderation line on that? it doesnt seem as easy of an issue on the surface to deal with.
It's not. As you can see, some people are more annoyed about being us interfering than others. But you're 100% correct. It IS subjective. When we suspect something to be said purely in spite, we will probably remove it, and actually, we do not care who said it or who it was addressed to. We've made edits in posts that were targetted at both people we deem to be friends, and people we have a different opinion about. Whatever the case, we are trying to be completely impartial while handling insults and snidy comments, and we'll just have to accept there willl always be those trying to argue about the intention of their posts. If there's better ways to handle things, please feel free to let us know :)
I think the fact that you've started this thread is awesome. Looking for feedback of performance is always the way to go. Personally, I think you guys have hit the nail on the head in terms of moderation, but I also know that mine isn't the only opinion around these parts.
The art of moderation I am fine with any kind of moderation as long as the main point in the posts remains intact ( IF there is a point in the post, just being rude or insulting doesn't qualify as "having a point" ) Suppressing content (information/opinions) = censorship, altering the way it is expressed to a more civil level = just plain necessary at times. And those who have been mod'ed already and whine about it will never adapt to any rules whatsoever: they never got over of the late teenage rebel phase.
This is a really difficult topic! As you already chose to moderate you should take into account that with sensible people you won't need to moderate much. So when you moderate you mostly need to do it with people who for whatever reason stopped being sensible, maybe because out of strong emotions like hating someone. This means these people will often feel as if they have been treated unjustly and won't be open to sensible arguments. Actually the frame how EF solves it makes good sense, do number your forum rules and do state the rule which caused an edit. No a full sentence information won't be appreciated by the aggrieved party and it is much more work and no just to write "against forum rules" won't also help because the aggrieved party will disagree. With numbered rules you save time, which can be used better and you take the wind out of a possible rules discussion. Especially if you make it a forum rule that discussion of a moderated entry has to be taken to PM and is not publicly allowed.
Snide comments will always surface aslong as there witches, people who ditch pregnant girlfriends and other stuff on this forum and others. Disagreements leads to confrontation on various levels
So far you guys are doing a great job I think. Was thinking of something else to say, but can't think of anything :)
your doing a great job so far, as long as you manage to keep the Brown-nosing, Whining and whatever else that has caused me to stop reading ef at bay i have no issue. As far as whining goes, i dont like the whole 1000 posts complaining about same thing crap that occurred around VU10. or mudslinging contests As long as you can stop any of this taking over the forum ill be happy to continue to visit. Ive got no problem with Constructive criticism and discussions :)
I think you folks are doing great so far! I couldn't even dream of taking on that kind of responsibility!
It is a double-edged sword. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't. What offends one will not offend another. All you can hope to be is consistent. Rules apply to all. Rules are known. Be objective. No worries.
I think you should look at EF..... then look at ER.... and decide which one you want to be like more. Then look at Shinobi. Then look at its posts on EF and its posts on ER.
Hey Nat - thanks for your reply - and you have some valid points. BUT the fact is our goal is NOT to become another ER nor another EF! You see, we chose the difficult way - because we have another vision of how to run a forum. When we ask members of the forum it is to see if they find our moderation now to be good, or whether we should improve. Yes, this might sound like a democracy, but it really isn't. We highly value input, but in the end it will be our choice how we run the forum. We do hope that the majority here are satisfied with how it's being run (and if it turns out not to be the case, we will change course), because they spend time and efford to join this forum, and a forum's right of existence is at the grace of its visitors. We are not pleased to be on the CL because we think this will make MA join this place. We are pleased because then hopefully more players will join this place. We are trying to make a forum for gamers by gamers, as our motto states - and if MA goes here, of course that would be great - and if not? So be it. We also feel that by allowing constructive criticism of the game, or MindArk, we can keep MindArk sharp. A company that is not challenged will more easily drop the ball, so in a way, we are hoping that if people can speak their minds on where improvement could be achieved, that feedback might be used, and lead to changes. One main way we feel this forum stands out is that we have no problems whatsoever in promoting other forums, sites, companies, games, tools and so on, because we do not believe in competition, but in partnerships. You can see that from the links we have on the front page. And no doubt, that we will be pissing off some people (as you express yourself) but you cannot please everybody and when the rules are set and the forum structure is shaped, we're not going on a compromise because we are afraid of peoples reactions.
