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At 5/31/09 03:38 PM, Twilight wrote: I find it kind of odd that he leaves, users, mods and Wade post on his userpage about how it's sad to see him go and they are agreeing/disagreeing with his problems with the BBS and then this thread is made. Was this already in discussion and Willi was the last straw or am I just rambling?

Well, the way I see it - and I don't know for sure, but... - willi was the straw that broke the camel's back.

There's no doubt you've seen at least some of the "the bbs sucks" threads and blogs around here. Those have been going on for, well, ever. Most of them aren't constructive and they're usually just people growing up and not realizing that their senses of humor are changing, but there are a lot of them nonetheless.

I've been hoping for a thread like this for a long time so I could say what I want to say without being a whiny nuisance.

At 5/31/09 03:41 PM, Zerok wrote: That's where my awesome algorithms would come in. There'd be "weighted" votes, much like how the Flash Portal works, but no one would really know what their "forum voting power" was, or if bans affected it, etc. Some people would have a power of exactly ZERO, but wouldn't know it. Fine tuned properly, the model would accurately correlate with quality posters receiving the proper recognition, in spite of system abusers.

That might actually work, if you could find the right stats to base it on. Though, you don't have that many stats to choose from other than posts and bans.

I'd be interested to see how a working system like that would work, though I know I probably won't find out if we do get it.

You could even have a two tiered system, where non-mod users' votes didn't affect "scores" directly but rather investigatory attention from a panel of mods or specially appointed users/mods. Posts for consideration of either upping or... downing... could even be presented anonymously. Score change could be based partially or entirely on the discrepancies between the public and the panel.

Wait, I'm not sure what you're saying. A panel would approve the vote?

At 5/31/09 03:52 PM, yhar wrote: If moderators stopped handing out bans so often, took into consideration a users post count, post history and standing within the community it'd be perfectly fine, if ZAAL posts in a spam thread, someone who clearly is a regular here and posts well, why should he be banned? It's not even extra work for the moderators, hell, it'd reduce the load because you'd have less people bitching over bans that they don't understand.

Having a high post count and being popular doesn't necessarily make you a better user.

At 5/31/09 03:59 PM, Zerok wrote: That's not entirely true... bans have been particularly effective at stomping out memes or banned words in General. I'd assume they'd be just as useful in other forums.

I mean for spam and the like. A 2 day ban for posting in a spam thread, which are not clearly defined, does nothing. I remember getting my first ban when I became a regular poster for a spam thread, I thought "oh gosh, I better be careful!" so I was vigilant and made sure I posted well and in none spam threads, a few days later I got banned again for it. If you're posting >20 a day it's going to be close to impossible to avoid spam threads, because every single moderator has a different opinion.

Things like "rape her" work because it's easy to police; "Did his post containe "Rape her!"? Yes? ban! No? Don't ban!" whereas with spam, it's entirely subjective.

An automated warning system would be cool though. A button on every post that you can send a warning and warning message with.

Surely that's possible with Private Messages? It doesn't really require any tracking if, as above you claimed, people take notice of "Don't post this" or "don't post that".

If I ban you for a day at 11:59pm I'm pretty sure it wont expire in one minute. Or does it? I have never known it work on a midnight/server backup expiry.

I'm not sure about that because I don't really post at 5AM GMT and when I have done I've not been banned, I do know I've had bans expire within 5 hours, whether it's different the closer you get, I dunno. But all bans expire at the same time (8AM GMT, about 1AM NG time?) so it'd make sense for it to be the case.

Yeah but that requires every mod to adhere to the same standards. Which brings us back to square one.

You can't force a group of volunteers to do that without any initiative. That sort of thing would need to lead by the admins or a dedicated group of mods with no IRL commitments.

I disagree, every mod can moderate differently, we shouldn't expect otherwise, you can have your own opinion about something but at the same time be fair about it. Right now it's a matter of - as far as I can tell - "Do you like this users post? No, just click ban!" it should be a matter of if the mod thinks the user is going to repeat spam, or is doing something illegal then they get a ban.

If I post "lol cool" why do I deserve to be banned? I'm not breaking the law, or repeatedly spamming, I'm just presenting my opinion in a shortened form. I find banning to be stupid, it's taught me absolutely nothing, besides moderators can be irrational twats at times. I've honestly been banned for some absolutely ridiculous shit, but then I've also been banned for some legitimate shit I've done which I wouldn't expect anyone to let slide, things that I deserved to be removed from any discussions for. Why can't it be a matter of banning being a last resort?

I have a problem with people going to other parts of the forum.

Take for example, politics. Now, I'm a regular there, and I know more or less how things are supposed to play out. Now, it really frustrating to see some jackass whose posts are mainly from general (Yes, I will go through post history of users whom I don't recognize) go in and spam the forum. It's not like it's a bad thing, it's just not the place for it. That's (in my eyes) why General exists. You can kind of go free and do what you want. Every now and then even myself will come, post some wacky stuff, get it out of my system, and go back to being a grouchy and uptight politics regular.

Most of the time, though, people are good, they know how to be civil in politics, the whole 9 yards. Hell, I even made it easier and wrote down these unwritten rules in politics. (See Sig) You follow these there, and sure enough you won't get your thread locked or be banned. One of the rules I have there is "Think with your brain, and not your dick." If someone tells you you're out of line, whether it's a mod or another user, take that into consideration. Because really, is your ego that fragile you can't take advice? That's very pitiful.

That's why I strongly support the system right now. It works, and if it ain't broke, why fix it?

Now, that bring said, there are other things. People do need to stop being grouchy to a certain extent. I recall Evark made a thread about this, on how if older users complain, they're aren't doing anything to help the forum. The forum users are like children to adults. If the adults don't lead by example, then what makes you think children are going to be proper? That's why mods are so strict, because older users aren't setting by example.

That's it for now.

At 5/31/09 04:03 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: Awesome Sig Makers? (I remember the sinister sigmakers as well)

AMATURE!

And you can blame me and Life and for pushing for that...

And me :x

Another Topic: Doberman.

Anyone want to shed some light on why his posts are always delted?

Delted = Insta-Delete

At 5/31/09 03:59 PM, Zerok wrote:

At 5/31/09 03:57 PM, Jonas wrote: This is killing me. I can not for the life of me remember what ASM means.

Amateur Sig Makers? Maybe? I think.

hahhah awww man that makes me feel old
dont worry about the name it was closed cause users abused the freedom of the bbs while in it by not exersizing self restraint...I cant count how many hours of my life were spent making todo lists that started out as jsut a list with requests on it and eventually became an ungold long ass post containg ont only pending requests with links to the requesters profile and an image they might have posted ofr the sig but also a link ot the finished work and the profile of the person who did it...not to mention the huge list i made for helping people getting started in sig making which was ungodly in its own right for how many links to resources tuts and Photoshoping trials and fontsites it would contain. its kinda bad when the only time i can have good grammer is when it really counts
but even with all the time and effort i put into keeping the ASM organized it always fell apart when myself or soemone else wasnt putting a todo list on EVERY SINGLE PAGE cause heaven forbid someone go back a few pages and skim around to see whats up with their crap

What this forum needs is a sticky system, other forums have it, they sticky the threads that are good.

At 5/31/09 04:17 PM, Twilight wrote: Another Topic: Doberman.

Anyone want to shed some light on why his posts are always delted?

Delted = Insta-Delete

Yeah. We all know that he can make spammy posts sometimes, but the times that he was serious, those serious posts were deleted among his spammy ones. What's up with that? Some kind of new Mod tactic? "Remove all signs of the disease?"

At 5/31/09 04:19 PM, squidly wrote: What this forum needs is a sticky system, other forums have it, they sticky the threads that are good.

god awful idea. if you're reading this liljim, please, never ever do this.

At 5/31/09 04:17 PM, HellboundNinja wrote:

At 5/31/09 03:59 PM, Zerok wrote:

At 5/31/09 03:57 PM, Jonas wrote: This is killing me. I can not for the life of me remember what ASM means.

Amateur Sig Makers? Maybe? I think.

hahhah awww man that makes me feel old
dont worry about the name it was closed cause users abused the freedom of the bbs while in it by not exersizing self restraint...I cant count how many hours of my life were spent making todo lists that started out as jsut a list with requests on it and eventually became an ungold long ass post containg ont only pending requests with links to the requesters profile and an image they might have posted ofr the sig but also a link ot the finished work and the profile of the person who did it...not to mention the huge list i made for helping people getting started in sig making which was ungodly in its own right for how many links to resources tuts and Photoshoping trials and fontsites it would contain. its kinda bad when the only time i can have good grammer is when it really counts
but even with all the time and effort i put into keeping the ASM organized it always fell apart when myself or soemone else wasnt putting a todo list on EVERY SINGLE PAGE cause heaven forbid someone go back a few pages and skim around to see whats up with their crap

I think you could probably redo ASM now, because with userpages, you can have the members just keep track of projects on their userpage. Think about it, but likely since the addition, it'll help keep the clutter down. There's no reason after this long that you can't restart it. It's been a long enough hiatus, and you did a good job with it initially, so give it another shot with my blessing. Worst case scenario is it gets locked down the road, but who knows, it could be big again.

Another example of things that don't really need to be locked/unwritten rules.

I actually saved this picture for alternate reasons, but it fits here well.

The thread that he's talking about was actually fairly innocent and wasn't technically against the rules, but it still got locked. And when he asked about it in a different thread, that was also locked (With a rather rude comment too).

At 5/31/09 11:00 AM, Jonas wrote: is there something you would like to see happen?

Well, just 2 things come to mind:
1, Demod Poozy
and
2. a TV Forum

At 5/31/09 04:26 PM, WeHaveFreshCookies wrote: The thread that he's talking about was actually fairly innocent and wasn't technically against the rules, but it still got locked. And when he asked about it in a different thread, that was also locked (With a rather rude comment too).

This is why I think that all threads that are locked should have a good explanation in the lock message, unless it's painfully obvious.

Because sometimes I can't even see why a thread was locked and I've been here since 06. I know there must have been a reason, but it's not evident and I think it's only fair to the OP that it be made so.

actually, a perfect example is this thread. I bet it gets locked now, except it's exponentially better than 95% of the other threads on the frontpage. if he posts it in his blog, who's going to care? nobody.

At 5/31/09 04:03 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

At 5/31/09 03:57 PM, Jonas wrote:

At 5/31/09 03:48 PM, HellboundNinja wrote: for me bring back the asm would get me back full time but thats not gonna happen so on to more commonsense style jargin

This is killing me. I can not for the life of me remember what ASM means.

Awesome Sig Makers? (I remember the sinister sigmakers as well)

And you can blame me and Life and for pushing for that...

HellboundNinja, If you can come up with a good opening post though and solid way of running it and dealing with the drama (as in reducing it), I don't have a problem with it being remade. The NGSM is supposed to be for everyone, but I have no problems with a few really skilled people getting together and using the NGSM as a training ground. I just would prefer not to see the in fighting and back and forths with people wanting sigs that happened before.

I love you even if you hadnt said that but the NGSM is just the ASM with less flam wars so it worked out in the so far. granted it seems rather dead but i think tha tis in part of the bbs being sorta slowtoo. to me the best part of the ASM was the total anarchy...its what gave it that special feeling to be a part of. Also i loved the asm so much cause i saw it trhough form start to finish. Wathed it on page one when i didn t even know what a sig was and was a little heart broken when i saw BBM's final post in the end. even now im a little misty simply cause that thread was the bbs for me. If i came to newgrounds i always checked their first to see the new the old and the fire. If the NGSM ever goes down then give me a ring and be mroe then happy to head off a new sig club but other wise i wouldnt worry to much about it...i jsut wish new people new of its glory the way we do...lol and of its shittyness. and on the NGSM ive recently gotten back into making sigs and even droped one or two in there all ready cause i know its an open crew doing a service to newgorund...like mods but not nearly as strict

At 5/31/09 04:09 PM, InsertFunnyUserName wrote: Wait, I'm not sure what you're saying. A panel would approve the vote?

A panel could decide to alter one's score for a post. The post in question would only be brought to the panel's attention if enough people with enough sway clicked the right buttons. Sort of how it works with abusive reviews, except the panel works as a team and the "flag" thing would apply to both good and bad posts.

At 5/31/09 04:10 PM, yhar wrote: I mean for spam and the like. A 2 day ban for posting in a spam thread, which are not clearly defined, does nothing.

Oh, right. Yeah, like I said, for me the DESTROY function is not something I really use for reasons such as this. If I ban everyone in a thread it means I've evaluated that every poster in there shouldn't really be surprised by it, i.e. they were posting garbage posts in a thread that was pretty clearly garbage itself.

Surely that's possible with Private Messages? It doesn't really require any tracking if, as above you claimed, people take notice of "Don't post this" or "don't post that".

Yeah, but there's a lot more effort involved. Sounds lazy? There's a huge volume of posts I come across that I don't feel need banning but could use a little nudge in the right direction. I do not tend to PM all these people because it'd be a fucking arduous task. A button with a few automated selection options would be quite handy. Click, click, done. I could be sending those motherfuckers out while starting to read the post below it.

But all bans expire at the same time (8AM GMT, about 1AM NG time?)

Did not really know that, heh. I thought it was a basic countdown timer.

I disagree, every mod can moderate differently, we shouldn't expect otherwise, you can have your own opinion about something but at the same time be fair about it. Right now it's a matter of - as far as I can tell - "Do you like this users post? No, just click ban!" it should be a matter of if the mod thinks the user is going to repeat spam, or is doing something illegal then they get a ban.

I agree with that mentality. I don't think many mods ban on the basis of "I don't like what this dude has got to say," just basing that on the ban list and reasons.

If I post "lol cool" why do I deserve to be banned? I'm not breaking the law, or repeatedly spamming, I'm just presenting my opinion in a shortened form.

Well if there's one thing I like to curb, it's lazy posting. That's why I ban people for posting nothing but "lol" or a variant thereof. This isn't an IM. You have the time to read over what you post. In the case of "lol, cool" I'd only ban you if your last 7 posts or so were of similar shortness.

I find banning to be stupid, it's taught me absolutely nothing, besides moderators can be irrational twats at times. I've honestly been banned for some absolutely ridiculous shit, but then I've also been banned for some legitimate shit I've done which I wouldn't expect anyone to let slide, things that I deserved to be removed from any discussions for.

I've seen my share of irrational bans too. It'll happen. Best you can do is appeal politely.

Why can't it be a matter of banning being a last resort?

Because if you give the shit disturbers even one little edge they latch on and go haywire because it's cheap, easy entertainment. Do you remember when the redesign happened and EVERYONE could make stickied topics if they wanted to? That was shutdown in like 30 minutes because idiots just couldn't resist. If people here were mature enough to moderate themselves we wouldn't even need mods at all.

At 5/31/09 04:15 PM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote:

At 5/31/09 04:03 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: Awesome Sig Makers? (I remember the sinister sigmakers as well)

AMATURE!

Indeed. Don't remake the asm, then. The asm is practically the same thing as the ngsm, its just the ngsm has rules and stuff.

And you can blame me and Life and for pushing for that...

And me :x

Yeah, I almost wrote your name down, but I only vaguely remember that whole shit fest. :(

It just seems like the way the moderators have been working lately is subjectively deleting topics, locking topics "for the lulz" that shouldn't have been locked, or just plain being assholes because they know they can get away with it :/

At 5/31/09 04:29 PM, InsertFunnyUserName wrote:

At 5/31/09 04:26 PM, WeHaveFreshCookies wrote: The thread that he's talking about was actually fairly innocent and wasn't technically against the rules, but it still got locked. And when he asked about it in a different thread, that was also locked (With a rather rude comment too).

This is why I think that all threads that are locked should have a good explanation in the lock message, unless it's painfully obvious.

Because sometimes I can't even see why a thread was locked and I've been here since 06. I know there must have been a reason, but it's not evident and I think it's only fair to the OP that it be made so.

Well I think sometimes a mod will lock threads just because he can. I've seen poozy lock good threads saying, "Locked for the fucking lulz".

In my mind, that's completely irresponsible and rather childish. Mods are supposed to keep the BBS clear of clutter. I actually will not post a thread when Poozy's online. I'm sure many other people feel the same way, because if he decides to lock it for no reason other than he likes how shiny the lock button is, then that thread is dead. You can't remake it later, or it's a clear violation of the rules.

At 5/31/09 04:05 PM, Lagamuffin wrote: If a mod doesn't like a topic, they shouldn't delete/lock it unless the majority of people don't like it too.

Agreed.

If a mod doesn't like a thread, he should discuss with other mods about whether it should be locked/deleted or not. That is, of course, if the thread doesn't already blatantly break the rules.

What do you mods think about it?

in all honesty, get rid of TRANSOFRMER

he has absolutly no clue what he is doing, and he is locking all of the good threads

please get rid of him

It's probably stupid for me to post this far in the topic and I kind of didn't read all the rest.

1. But here's something that annoys me when it occurs.
Refrain from chain-locking.

By this I mean when a mod locks a thread and refers the users to another place and then someone follows it true and suddenly that thread is locked because it's apparently a wrong thread too.

For example, someone opens a thread for something to voice his opinion (to be serious) and then a mod locks the thread advises to check the archives because this thread has already been made. So the user looks a decent thread up and 'revives' it with his new addition and sudenly that thread is locked too for some reason.

2. To a minor extent, or rather not my primal point but kind of preachy, do not continue threads that are locked yourself.
It's a bit of playtime for mods sometimes, but it looks a bit douchy.

At 5/31/09 04:20 PM, The-Hitman wrote:

At 5/31/09 04:17 PM, Twilight wrote: Another Topic: Doberman.

Anyone want to shed some light on why his posts are always delted?

Delted = Insta-Delete

Yeah. We all know that he can make spammy posts sometimes, but the times that he was serious, those serious posts were deleted among his spammy ones. What's up with that? Some kind of new Mod tactic? "Remove all signs of the disease?"

That's happened to someone I know before, he gets banned for something stupid and then gets a shitload of posts nuked seemingly for punishment.

At 5/31/09 04:31 PM, Zerok wrote: Did not really know that, heh. I thought it was a basic countdown timer.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that when I was making my first post.

I think bans should be on a countdown basis. I got a destroy ban that was supposed to be for one day, but it was up in only five hours because all ng bans end at the same time.

It's 5am eastern standard time, btw.

At 5/31/09 11:00 AM, Jonas wrote: What can be improved on the BBS?

What can be improved on the BBS, well lets see.....You guys for one can stop being so strict about things.
I mean, i've had instances where the mods have deliberately looked through my post history, once they have already banned me. I mean that shouldn't be allowed! If you get banned then the mod shouldn't look through your post history just to see what they can extend your ban for.

Another thing, if one of us is back-seat modding in a help thread, don't ban us for it....Warn us! Delete our posts and give us a quick PM and tell us what we did wrong and why it was wrong. It only takes a few seconds. Then you guys will be able to ban us again if we do it again.

I would also like to see you guys relax a little! You guys are so uptight and strict. Just relax. Your just a user the same as us, I mean yeah now we are having a discussion but don't bite our heads off just because we said something you don't like! We have our opinions about things just the same as you have yours.

If we do something wrong, say we post in a spam thread, if its one of those which are on the border line of spam, and one of us posts in it, again with the back-seat modding, delete our posts (Or the whole thread) and just warn us about it! Example below:
"Your latest post in the thread <Insert thread here> was participating in a spam thread. This only fuels the fire to the spammer and makes it worse. Please look out for these in the future otherwise we will have to ban you, OK?"

Get us to participate more! I know this sounds very very stupid, but members may spot things you guys didn't, so if you could make it clear that we could give you guys a quick PM if you have missed something then maybe it would make your job that little bit easier!

I actually can not think of anything more to say, if I do I will post it. I just think the problem lies within yourselves and not the BBS.

Thats just my opinion.

DISCLAIMER - Your opinion may be ignored if you're stupid.

I hope I wasn't stupid.

About forum abuse:

Perhaps certain users find PM'ing a Mod intimidating for some reason or another. I've never had this problem, so I can't see what the problem could be, but it would seem likely. I wonder how much better the BBS would be if people weren't so afraid that they might message a Mod who's had an off-day or something of the sort and get banned. Yeah it seems silly, but that golden aura does something to a naive or relatively new user. This isn't a suggestion to the Mods themselves, but to the type of user I've just described.

Well, only improvement I can think of is more mods working on the Video Game forum. The response time is far too slow in there.

Other than that, you guys are doing a damn good job.

At 5/31/09 04:31 PM, Zerok wrote:

Why can't it be a matter of banning being a last resort?

Because if you give the shit disturbers even one little edge they latch on and go haywire because it's cheap, easy entertainment. Do you remember when the redesign happened and EVERYONE could make stickied topics if they wanted to? That was shutdown in like 30 minutes because idiots just couldn't resist. If people here were mature enough to moderate themselves we wouldn't even need mods at all.

In 2007 me and paradox were being silly, we'd post hilarious threads - well, they were at the time - and constantly spam and get 30 day bans for it. That was entirely understandable; we were posting shit and "disturbing the peace" as it were, but then I've been posting normally and ended up with bans for inane crap, sure it might not have been suitable for the BBS, or on topic, but I see absolutely no reason to ban for it, couldn't a mod just delete it? It's so much quicker for you to click "Delete" than to ban me. Banning should be a last resort; to prevent someone from continuous spamming or constantly breaking the rules and ignoring moderator notices.

I can honestly say It'd be better for me as a poster to have my posts deleted than to be banned, I'd know what I was doing wrong because I'd know which posts had gone. I've had so many bans that contain no message, just "You've been banned for 10 days, ban expires in 9..." and not understood what for, and not been able to find out because they were unsigned.

and yeah, try it, wait until 11pm NG time, make an alt, ban it and then check how long it lasts for. bans aren't for the full time, they're up until the midnight of that night. So a ban at 12:01AM lasts 23 hours and 59 mins, a ban at 11:59PM lasts 1 minute.

At 5/31/09 04:13 PM, BrianEtrius wrote:

That's why I strongly support the system right now. It works, and if it ain't broke, why fix it?

Ya well obviously it is broken because all the users who have frequented the General in the past are leaving it because they are just plain sick of how things are being run. Not all mods but certain ones are abusing their power. People have been wrongfully banned and a warning system needs to be put more in to use. When i was first banned i didnt get a warning.

I got banned then in the ban message it said "you arent supposed to make spam topics. I let you go at first because you are new but now i'm banning you." how the HELL was i supposed to know what i did was wrong when i didn't find out until AFTER i was banned? at least on the old NG the mod could tell you what you did wrong after the ban. Even though it didnt help but at least you could remember. Now after the Redesign users REALLY don't know what they can and cannot do.

Because they get no message at all. And yes there are rules, but how are you supposed to remember every single one being new to the BBS? and like you said in the General things are supposed to be a little more relaxed. But nobody can relax and laugh at stupid topics because overrall the mods aren't locking topics fairly.

A lot of topics that APPEAR to be spam aren't, and a lot of topics that don't look like spam ARE. So how do you know when to post in a silly topic? the fact of the matter is you DONT. I have heard countless users say "WHATS THE DIFFERENCE!!?" most get so nervous about whether a mod or not at that particular time believes a topic is Spam or not based on their own opinion. The MAIN fault lies within the rules. WHAT exactly can be considered spam? and the rules NEED to be enforced. The things that i have done in the BBS that arent against the rules i have been told to stop doing. Whereas other more serious things have been ignored or overlooked by Mods. Mods just really need to enforce the rules that have been ignored.

umm... It's probably been said before, but we need more late night modes.... last night I've seen a topic with something I'd rather not describe, or even mention.... even better, more active mods.