YJ, I feel reasonably confident that a slim majority of what goes up on this forum is stuff nobody would be interested in seeing ever, and it would make me really grateful to anyone who would cull that garbage.

@Nigee I'm sorry we haven't given you anything to complain for a day or so. The mods will be back to doing that later today.. I think, I need to go look at the schedule.

I think Gunfighter hit it very closely with his list. Though revealing personal information thing is to much moderation in my opinion. If you reveal something about yourself to someone expect them to say something in the forums about it eventually.

YJ gets it

What the fuck is the matter with the collective apparently-internet-addicted morons around here that see a thread and/or post that they suspect is not of interest to them...and so they open the thread, click all the links, etc. Good lord, don't any of you pussies have self-control?!!?!? You do NOT have to read every thread and click every link.

Hey, they only asked what I wanted. I'd like and use the forum more if it had better content, and it would have consistently better content if there were fucktards out there calling each other morons, libtards, fucktards, and the like.

To hell with the readers, how about a little fucking self-control from the posters?

That should say "... If there were FEWER fucktards..."

"Censorship reflects societies lack of confidence in itself."

-Potter Stewart.

@hecks - Uh....NO. You desire to see content limited to what *you* find interesting, etc is fucking ridiculous. Who's version of interesting shall the forum conform to, huh? Seems like the forums are pretty damned busy regardless of what *you* like/don't like.

If you want interesting content, POST IT.

If people don't like content, DON'T REPLY.

It's pretty fucking simple, really. The capitalist economy of the threads demonstrates what most people around here really want...

The problem with the "mute" button is that as soon as you have a few regular posters muted, the forum stops making sense, because threads are full of people's responses to their comments, which you don't see...

"To hell with the readers, how about a little fucking self-control from the posters?"

+1

What would be super-great would be forum groups, so you could opt-in to stuff you found interesting and kick people out of the group who consistently post unwanted content. It would be like... self-moderating subcommunities of the forum. That, unfortunately, is way too much work not only to set up but also to maintain and moderate on an ongoing basis.

"kick people out of the group who consistently post unwanted content."

Eeeemmm who's making that call? That's just the same issue on another level.

We can get all philosophical about censorship and freedom of speech, but at the end of the day we all know there is a line and we all know we can never *ever* fully define that in advance.

Let's just accept that it remains fuzzy, like most things in life, and deal with it as responsibly as we can.

Well, presumably the groups would be user-moderated. Someone would create a group and that user would become owner of his/her own group, setting up his/her own rules and enforcing them individually and, if they so desire, arbitrarily. If people didn't like the rules or moderation of that group, they'd simply leave it.

It would actually be much more market-based than the current model. If you don't like the current forum, it's not like you can go start your own forum elsewhere on the site.

But again, tough to implement and maintain. Not particularly realistic. But it'd be neat, wouldn't it?

@YJ,

"Censorship reflects societies lack of confidence in itself."

If webdiplomacy.net were a society, it would be fair to say I would substantially lack confidence in it.

And 5:37:45 (EST) inches ever closer. Which thread will be bumped to the top? Who will be silenced?

Find out in a few short hours.

Are you taking volunteers?

"because threads are full of people's responses to their comments, which you don't see"

IN other words, those comments are popular in that they are driving the conversation - that's why people reply, and if you have them muted, it's your problem.

All of this discussion is supposedly because the content of the forums is undesirable. BULLSHIT. The forum is thriving and active currently, and it odd that those whining and bitching about it spend a lot of time in it, mostly replying, and rarely coming up with new content.

If you don't like the content, don't reply....make your own threads...

@hecks - good lord, your idea for highly structured sub-groups and self-monitoring censorship bullish is precisely what this place has *never* been about, and its my understand what kestas never wanted it to be.

Good god....go back to Facebook where you can have your safe little conversation in your monitored sub-groups...

I can understand your perspective, Krellin, given that it's precisely *you* that those seeking moderation don't want to hear from. True community moderation would, in short order, moderate you out of the community.

... and with that, it's finally happened. I've reached my bullshit quotient for the month, and as much as I hate muting users, I've muted Krellin and YJ, at least temporarily. It would make me very happy if I could tolerate their idiocy and bluster for the sake of their occasional worthwhile comments (which, though rare, can be truly scintillating), but it's just not worth it.

You guys are so nuts you make me feel normal (which is nice) but I'm not, only when I compare myself to you guys, thanks for being a bunch of looney-tunes !!

The other issue is when you have individual threads muted you no longer even have a forum. It doesn't just kick the next thread up into your "feed". This is why the "we can do whatever the fuck we want - mute it!" attitude doesn't work, b/c you *are* ruining the forum for others.

HEY GUYS I HAVE A BRILLIANT IDEA

SINCE DRAUGNAR IS GONE WHY DON'T WE GIVE IT LIKE A FEW WEEKS OR SOMETHING SINCE HE WAS 90% OF THE PROBLEM ANYWAY AND THEN COME BACK TO IT IF IT DOESN'T FIX ITSELF

That's entirely missing the point, hecks, which is that those in favor of censorship lack confidence in both/either their own ability to filter content, and more importantly, the ability of others.

So what is interesting is that there seems to be a pretty even divide between members who think no moderation besides games, and 3 people who feel "offensive" material should be disallowed.

I think this coincides pretty accurately with what the team enforces right now.

Currently we're in-between those two areas, where you can't post about ongoing gunboats (regular games are fine) or make cheating accusations. Besides those the only things limited are items that are typically disallowed or frowned upon in most environments. Death threats, you'll end up arrested in most places for making legitimate death threats. Actual threats against members or their families. These are where moderator judgement is applied, we're not going to warn someone for saying "I want to kick your face in for how bad you played", but if someone is posting something like "I'm going to hunt you down and rape your family" they need to chill the hell out anyways.

If you want to be allowed to make actual death threats or actual threats against a members family then there's something seriously wrong, and the mod team should be involved. No one on the site should have to worry about someone else taking real life action against them.

The one area that is more controversial is the porn issue. This really shouldn't be too hard for anyone though. If you really want to have a conversation about pornography then you're still able too, you just need to make the thread title non explicit so everyone gets to choose if they are going to be exposed to that kind of material. If the restriction on explicit links becomes a hindrance to an actual conversation (which I doubt it will) then just agree to send them to conversation participants via pm.

Offensive material in general though is not restricted. There's a thread titled n*****s and two titled boobs that have been left alone by the team. We have no desire to moderate that kind of content, that's where the self moderation aspect of the forum comes in. If you don't like content you're more then welcome to stalk someone and harass them every time they post offensive content.

It's only comments that would make other members feel unsafe or possibly limit their ability to access the site that the team is interested in restricting.

The rules about common sense apply to everything though, if people are deliberately posting questionable content only to push the bounds of the rules then don't be shocked when you're asked to stop. Ignoring a moderator request is the easiest way to get silenced. Kestas has said over and over that if you disagree with a moderator warning or decision to contact an admin or himself via email. If you choose to ignore that then the consequences are on you.

That's been the single biggest issue with forum moderation lately, people refuse to answer or respect moderator warnings and then refuse to follow the appeal process before they get silenced. So from now on the team will be handling forum offenses the same as regular investigations. When a forum rule is broken there will be a private email sent and possibly a public warning posted asking the offender to stop whatever behavior is causing the issue if it might be unclear for other users. After that everything will be handled via email like any other case. This will serve three purposes, it will keep the moderators on the same page, since we all check the email we will instantly see the reason for a silence to avoid mis-communications like with Draugnar's case. The second reason is to avoid the public lynching mentality that the forum seems to get whenever case details are made public. The last purpose is to make sure no one misses a warning in one thread and makes a second violation in another.

Last comment is I want to clear up the very common misconception that I or any other mod makes decisions on their own. We have a group chat on gmail that is active the majority of the day, and almost no decision is ever made by only one mod. Even Zultar, who's been busy with real life has been on chat with at least 1 mod every day and everyone weighs in on decisions.

Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.

very good info jmo, I take back all the wicked things your friends have said about you :-)

"If you don't like content you're more then welcome to stalk someone and harass them every time they post offensive content."

Harassment does not constitute community moderation. It merely rewards those most willing to harass and offend.

"So what is interesting is that there seems to be a pretty even divide between members who think no moderation besides games, and 3 people who feel "offensive" material should be disallowed. I think this coincides pretty accurately with what the team enforces right now. "

It also coincides nicely with the fact that there's a pretty even spit on the site between users who are perpetually offensive and users who are perpetually offended.