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amp's guide to boards
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09-12-2003 12:05pm#1
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DEATHGIVER2003: DAT'S REALLY NOT FAIR! WAT HAPPENED TO INOCENT TIL PROVED GILTY?
amp: Ah, you're confusing boards.ie with real-life(tm) again.
DEATHGIVER2003: I DONT WANT TO B A MUPPET! HOW DO I NO IF I'M BEING A MUPPET?!
amp: Well, here's a few tips. For a start talking all in caps is out. Capital letters on the internet generally indicates that you're shouting. It might be easier to type but to people who've been on the internet a while it's deafening. Talking in l33tspe@k should be reserved for satire and sarcasism.
Generally speaking (and imo) what you type is the equivilant of what you wear in real-life, so if your spelling, grammar and punctuation are bad to the point that's it's hard to read, some people just won't bother and may think slightly less of you. However slagging someone for bad spelling, grammar or punctuation should be only used as a last resort. On boards.ie it's considered very lame to do this and if you do, you'd better make sure your own text is entirely error free.
Your signature also provides clues to other members about who you are. Most people hate massive signatures that take up either valuable screen real-estate or bandwidth. People will quickly get irritated if they constantly have to spend time scrolling past your big assed signature. Pictures take up a lot more bytes than text. So far this document is 8000 bytes which is a lot smaller than the bytes a tiny picture would take up.
Now, let's talk about going off-topic. Boards.ie is heirarchially structured. There's a board for almost anything people like to discus from Unreal Tournament to Gardening. So posting a thread about the latest Bruce Willis movie in Hardware/Tweaking is going to off-topic unless the movie involves Bruce overclocking a Xeon cpu with Peltier cooling in order to save the free world.
DEATHGIVER2003: Ah c'mon, surely going off-topic shouldn't be that big a deal.
amp: Well it's not that big a deal, you're right. And the occasional drift is usually ok. But imagine if everyone went off-topic on a board. It'd be chaos, there'd be loads of boards with random conversations and there'd be no point in having the structure we do. And the heirarchial structure of boards.ie is part of the reason behind it's success. People know they can go to All Things Retro and have a conversation about lego and find other people who loved/love lego. They know they can go to Soccer and not expect a thread about Counter-Strike.
DEATHGIVER2003: Some moderators can be heavy handed though, they can go to far with their banning and editing and stuff.
amp: Yeah, moderators aren't perfect. They can have mood swings like most people. But generally moderators are only entrusted with a board if they prove to not be muppet (I am a notable exception in this case
) and there have been a couple of cases were a moderator has had their moderatorship removed.
A moderators job is to keep order in a board. Their prime directive is to allow civilised on-topic conversation to happen. Sometimes a moderator will have to get tough with people and make a few examples to return a board to order. Mostly this is done for the good of the board in question.
We currently have a few boards (mostly in the Society Section) where highly emotive subjects are discussed. These are very hard boards to moderate as members tempers can quickly flair and fights sometimes have to be broken up. So they tend to have more moderators than most they can seem very harsh sometimes.
DEATHGIVER2003: So what do I do if I feel a moderator is being unfair towards me?
amp: Well, the first thing not to do is argue with the moderator on the thread in question. The first thing you should do is relax, take deep breaths and re-read what happened. Posting in anger is never a good idea at anytime. When you're angry or upset you're not thinking straight. It's like ringing an ex when your drunk; you'll only regret it afterwards.
Another question you should ask yourself is "Am I taking this too seriously?" The Feedback/Suggestions board gets a lot of people posting about their outrage at the actions of moderator. Often, the person starting the thread becomes a target for veteran members to make fun of because of the relative triviality of the complaint.
Now of course the Admins would want to make the point that all complaints would at least be listened to. And almost always they make their opinion known and will act accordinly if need be. But their time is limited. They have jobs to do, real-lives(tm) to lead so posting or pming an Admin should be seen as a last resort.
Try pm'ing the moderator and try to understand the issue from the moderators point of view. After all the moderator will more than likely have been reading that board longer than you and therefore should have a better idea than you about what's acceptable behaviour. This isn't elitism, this isn't the "in-crowd" enforcing their will, this is the way boards is run.
DEATHGIVER2003: Sounds like a dictatorship to me.
amp: The official line on this is that yes, boards is a benevolant dictatorship. And this is the way it has to be currently. Unlike a real-life(tm) country the equipment that runs boards.ie is owned by a private entity, not the general population of boards. But unlike a real-life(tm) dictatorship the people do have a voice. If a general consensus happens on a particular issue then normally it's acted upon, if possible. If you've got a good idea about changes to boards.ie post them to Feedback/Suggestions.
DEATHGIVER2003: What about freedom of speech? And what's the deal with the censor, I mean it's easily bypassed?
amp: The laws of freedom of speech and how they apply to sites on the internet are still a grey area. On boards.ie freedom of expression is generally applied except when an opinion breaks general anti-social rules like racism, sexism etc. Again, imagine a situation in real-life(tm) where you went up to a group of people to spout off some racist diatribe. You'd probably start a fight.
Talking about how to do illegal things is also usually restricted. An example of this is in Games were the moderators stamp out talk of warezed games with ferocity. Why? Because A: Copying games is illegal and B: Boards.ie could technically be shut down by the Garda for allowing illegal activities to take place. And if comes to a choice between Harry Homeowner being able to play The Sims for free or keeping Boards.ie running it becomes a bit of a no-brainer.
The single biggest threat to boards.ie and indeed any bulletin board is a big assed lawsuit. Apart from a server which is worth relatively little, boards.ie as a company has virtually no assets. So a lawsuit could kill it.
That's also why the censor is in place. There's ways round the censor but at least boards.ie can be seen to have done everything in it's power to prevent certain language being said.
Now, alongside this there seems to be a phenomenom on boards.ie which normally involves the Set My People Free phrase being said. There seems to be a growing number of people who want to fight the power for the sake of fighting the power. These rebellious newcomers just seem to have an irrational hatred of anyone in a position of authority
DEATHGIVER2003: Ok, fair enough. Now I'm not entirely sure what the difference between a troll and a flame is?
amp: Ok, a flame is an attack on another poster eg: You're a wanker! and a troll is anything used to get a rise out of someone. Trolling is often more complex than flaming. A troller will often pretend to believe in something, often outrageous in order to make the target react and look stupid. A good troller will examine their intended target to try and find out what will anger them into a response. Example:
amp: The world is flat!
Target: Don't be stupid it's been proven that the earth is round
amp: Then why does the sun set and rise?
Target: [Long tedious explaination and proof of the earths roundness]
amp: I have a spirit level which proves the earth is flat
Target: OMG YOU'RE SO STUPID! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!! *FOAMS AT MOUTH*
People with an underdeveloped sense of humour are often the unwitting victims of trolling. An unwritten rule is that the troller will rarely admit to the troll except when the victim goes completely mental.
Good flaming almost always incorporates sarcasm:
Target: You're a wanker!
amp: Yes I am, could you give me a hand?
In this case, admitting to the **** takes away the targets thunder and confuses them. It also incorporates a small punnage troll as I don't actually intend for the target to give me a hand (well it does depend on the target
)
DEATHGIVER2003: You don't use much smilies amp
?
amp: I think the overuse of smilies implies that you can't articulate the emotions involved with what you're saying. Also it can make a troll useless, let's take a look at the world is flat troll again, this time with smilies:
amp: The world is flat!
Target: Very funny.
amp: ummmm
Beruthiel: amp, you mong you've completely forgotten the most important thing.
amp: Huh? How'd you get in here.
Beruthiel: I posted below your post.
amp: Oh I see, damn.... Right. Look, you've got to read the Charters.
DEATHGIVER2003: Where are they?
amp: Well they're stickied at the top of the forum usually titled CHARTER: READ THIS OR DIE or something. These are the laws of that particular forum. It's vital to read because these are additional things that could get you banned from the forum.
DEATHGIVER2003: Banned?
amp: Yeah. Now, I gotta go, I've got boards to mod.
*amp flexes muscles*
DEATHGIVER2003: Ok, thanks amp, I love you.
amp: I should hope so and welcome to Boards.ie. Enjoy your time here.
DEATHGIVER2003: HA HAHHAH! I R TEH FOOL U! I R SPEK LIKE DIS 4VR!
amp: *sigh* trolled again
[Updated to reflect various things, cheers B.] 0 -
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