2. Lightly moderated: moderation should be diplomacy related. No talking about on going games, no making cheating accusations. Other than that the forum will be pretty much anything goes. Mods can request that users be civil to each other and set a good example, but other than that member decide amongst themselves how to behave.

3. Heavily Moderated: posting "offensive" material is banned. Ultimately it will be up to the mods and Kestas to decide what is deemed to be offensive and what penalties (if any) will apply for infringements for making illegal posts.

In a thread earlier today I posted my thoughts about some of the recent changes in the tone of the moderation. Our senior admin, jmo said that rather than posting in the forum I should email Kestas, as the mods are simply enforcing his rules. Fair enough. I might just do that, but before I do I thought perhaps it would be a good idea to gauge opinions of site members. My feeling is that there is no point bothering Kestas if most members are happy with the recent changes to the site. This is why I have created a poll. What sort of moderation do members want? Please + 1 one of the three options posted above.

These are my thoughts:

When I first joined the situation was pretty much option number 1 as far as official enforcement of rules. Generally speaking though it was understood that you shouldn't talk about ongoing games, and if you did half-a-dozen members woud tell you to shut up. There were a lot of threads with cheating accusations, and opinions were divided as to whether the forum was the right place to bring this up. Mods were still a new innovation and their main job was to pause/unpause games and ban cheaters.

Eventually mods became more active with regards to cheating accusations and talking about ongoing games. Initially there were no penalties but these were introduced before too long. Otherwise the forum was pretty much anything goes.

Over time the mods have become stricter. The recent controversy concerns "offensive material". An example of this is don't post links to porn sites - this is no brainer, and I agree it should be banned (but I don't think the mods need to actively investigate this). But this rule has been extended to satirical pretend links - which don't link to anything, on the grounds that mods have to investigate, and modern browsers makee "suggestions" to actual sites. Plus the there seems to be confusion about what constitutes pornography or "offensive material". YouTube film clips by Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke have been deemed "offensive"... whoah I think we are getting into some pretty strange territory for a site like Webdiplomacy, bordering on the ridiculous. Or maybe I am a moral degenerate?

I have been told by a senior mod that these recent changes are in-line with Kestas wishes. If so I wonder if he has fully thought through the consequences. "Offensive" is extremely subjective. Is Kestas really offend by Miley Cyrus? Has Kestas considered the extra workload that the mods have to take on,and the extra flack they have to deal with. Does he really want have to deal with this extra "appeals process".

I think this site works well because it is "lean", especially compared with other sites. The game software and forum have relatively light server requirements, and the site requires relatively light administration.

My concern is that all these recent changes are going to mean a lot more effort for Kestas, and since he first created this site as a hobby when he was barely out of school, and since he does not make any money from it, he will eventually decide - "you know what... I can't be bothered". The chances are he will eventually decide this (hopefully many years from now), but I think the less effort this site is to maintain, the farther in the future that day will be.

Another reasons I think this site should be "lightly moderated" is that the structure of the forum doesn't really lend itself to moderation. Posts can't be edited by users or deleted by mods. Thus the only tools the mods have at their disposal to "clean up the forum" is to lock entire threads and/or penalize members.

This why I urge people to vote for a "lean" lightly moderated site, don't let it become over-moderated (fat and bloated, like in Elvis in the seventies). If you don't like a member, mute them. If you don't like a post, don't read it. This is the webdiplomacy tradition. Its a good tradition.

4. Russian Roulette modding. Each day at approximately 5:37:45 in the afternoon the thread at the top of the forum will be silenced and the 3rd to last poster will be silenced for 24 hours.

5. Silence Draugnar like he proposed and see if that in itself doesn't alleviate some of the problems.

2 and a half. Grey zone modding. Accept that there is a grey area of what can be allowed and not allowed. Don't legislate everything beforehand, but trust the mods to do whats right. Appeal to Kestas when you feel they overstep their bounds.

Also known as the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' option.

I probably shouldn't have used the term "heavily moderated" - I really do just mean more heavily moderated than what I defined as "lightly moderated".

I didn't really feel that any of these captured my preferences.

I'd tend toward what 2 describes, but I don't really agree with the exceptions listed. Request that users be civil to each other? On webdip?! I'm fine with the current exceptions instead -- no threats of RL physical harm, no pornography. The no fake pornography seems a little silly, and otherwise I can't think of any exceptions there should be.

No RL threats or allusions to using violence against another user and no pornography or allusions to it. The links YJ posted should definitely not be allowed, the could be picked up by work filters. Many people legitimately use the webdip forum at work to blow off some steam.
First thing to do: make a mod-controlled Diplomacy and Non-Diplomacy Forum section, the second one equipped with an overall mute function.

PS That puts me with TMOW in 2.5

I think splitting into sections is a bad idea -- it would prevent much of the wonderful entrapment of innocent diplomacy players into our crazy discussions that makes this forum such a cool and crazy place.

We could also add the sections 'The Great Debate' and 'Demand your justice here'.

4. Moderately moderated. Moderation will be diplomacy related and/or minimal involvement in the name of decency. Mods should have the ability to intervene when posts are:

-sexually explicit or violent
-racist, homophobic or otherwise grossly offensive
-personal threats/ad hominem attacks (within reasonable criteria)

Otherwise anything goes.

So by voting 4 does that mean SYnapse approves of mine as well?

Does anyone else think this is a ploy for spyman to gain +1s?

Yea, I'm surprised zultar didn't create this thread.

Here are my thoughts. Option 2, with only one exception needed. We don't need exceptions for porn, racism, death threats rape threats, etc. We need one simple exception. The duchebag exception. While we might not have agreed on whether or not what draug posted was porn, it was blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer that he was being a massive duchebag! I mean heir to the Massingil fortune massive!

So silence the prick for a day, and if he comes back whining, silence him again. Enough with having to come up with new rules everytime someone does something stupid. Was it really necessary to have a Fucking rule about not threatening actual rape or violence? Whoever does that is a duchebag, plain and simple. No rule needed. And more importantly no Fucking line to try to get ever so close to without crossing it ... That's being a duchebag! trying to frame legal arguments around common sense rules ... Duchebag!

See where I'm heading ... In all fairness its really just the common sense rule that has always been in place. You could also call it the "act like a child, get treated like a child" rule. 24 hours doesn't even justify an appeal! Just sit I'm time out like a child, and when your time out is over, act like an adult or go back in time out like a Fucking child. Simple really.

philcore 2014!

It's DOUCHEBAG, you american bone-smoker.

Unfortunately for maple, my rule would limit him to one post per day ;-)

Or philcore. Like many of you twisted yankee doodle murderers, you could just SHOOT the children.

You know......act like a child; get shot by an american faggot. Then pull up a lawn chair and wait for the KK errrrrrrr NRA rally.

nice teick to get +1's on your report card

trick - or - treat

3. And for the record, I would call that "Reasonably Moderated/Moderator Discretion"

I must say I'm surprised and a bit disappointed that the split in sentiment is so even. Apparently there are a lot more whiny whiny sissy crybabies here than I expected who, being unable to utilize the mute button for themselves, need a big brother to make the decision for them.

Way to go.

I was hoping we could have a lot more Moderation heavy with dodgy decisions and ridiculous bias, I think this is sadly lacking at the moment.

@YJ,
The problem with mute-button moderation is that you have to sift through reams of worthless bullshit and personal invective, muting it all before I find that one worthwhile thread. It's not that I need some big brother to tell me what to do; I need responsible peers who are willing and empowered to sift through the bullshit, separating the chaff from the wheat so that I can actually find those few minuscule grains of worthwhile content that exist on this forum.

I would favor light moderation with the following rules:

1. No explicit, credible RL threats directed towards other users (implicit threats are okay as long as they are obviously facetious and/or not credible, for example I could casually remark that I want to kick blankflag's ass but that doesn't mean I'm going to track him down and assault him)

2. No revealing another user's vital personal RL information (such as RL name or RL precise location) without that user's explicit consent.

3. No direct links to sexually explicit materiel and no sexually explicit text. I'll admit that this rule would be subjective and difficult to enforce, but let's try to keep the Forum reasonably SFW in terms of sexual materiel.

4. No discussion of ongoing games (except for rules questions)

5. Restrict advertisement of live games to the "ADVERTISE LIVE GAMES HERE" thread. (this could be more of an unofficial Forum etiquette rule instead of being a punishable offense)

6. No commercial spam (mods, keep up the good work on protecting the Forum from this)

7. Come up with some sort of "thread allowance" rule. In other words, make it so users are only allowed to post Y number of threads in X time period. Obviously, Diplomacy-related threads could be exempt from this rule.