Attn: Repli

Repli

Bambi wrote:

and making decisions on what the forum needs or doesnt.

I make my decisions based on how boards.ie is run in general, regarding things like advertising, personal abuse, off topic threads, etc. I don't just make up rules as I go along.

damien

Repli wrote:

That's ridiculous, boards.ie isn't a democracy, as I've said before if the admins want to remove me as a moderator I will respect their decision.

It is true that boards isn't a democracy but many forums and moderators of forums are suggested in a democratic way. If a forum was created and a moderator appointed by the wishes of the people, shouldn't the people have a say too on how the forum continues?

Seriously though, with that answer you gave it is obvious you would care more to dictate how the forum goes then respect the people who built it up to what it currently is. Communities evolve and change over time and this seems to have happened to a forum you abandoned. Should you not accept it? Are you afraid of the popular vote?

I'll offer a third solution so, make Repli a mod of a new forum where he can dictate the flow of discussion and lock threads to his heart's content.

Cabelo

Gordon on aggressive self moderation IRL,

Gordon wrote:

Just as well it's not the Shooting forum..

Have you any idea how much faster we could solve debates if we were the Shooting forum? We'd be an admirable problem solving machine...

All I will say is that, as someone who has come to the boards since Repli's previous departure, I may not be able to comment on how the board once was. What I can say though is that I am often trolled out of other MA forums (capoeira - I'm a dancer, sweethearts) and found a willing acceptance among the lads in the DS/MA forum here. Furthermore, these were people with whom I could meet and share ideas aswell as the discussions we've had here. It is a good, strong community willing to accept new members, even if they are dancers.

Anyway, the point is that when I arrived, with no moderation at all (literally none when I first arrived) everything was fantastic. There were debates with respected figures from the Irish MA community and the occassional bit of nonsense needed to keep a board light hearted.

It's a very tenuous balance to try and walk without going too far one way or the other. While I can't say that the board has changed tremendously, the general assertion is that it has since the days when Repli modded.

Considering this balance has come across naturally, why do we need so many mods? Our current active mod (Colm) has been doing an admirable job and has even addressed criticism of his views (the whole TMA MMA thing there love, you're wonderful), something sorely lacking in many mods.

We don't need to ditch Repli necessarily, but we did very well with only occassional moderation but very much reply, interaction and advice from our current moderator. It just bears thinking about that the board currently works well, which can be hard to achieve with some of the arguments we get into, why augment that working model now?

Furthermore, make me a mod... I'd learn them

Repli

damien.m wrote:

I'll offer a third solution so, make Repli a mod of a new forum where he can dictate the flow of discussion and lock threads to his heart's content.

That's a bit immature isn't it?

Seriously though, with that answer you gave it is obvious you would care more to dictate how the forum goes then respect the people who built it up to what it currently is.

If the people who built it up to 'what it currently is' are the same muppets posting off topic nonsense, advertising, abuse, etc then I have no respect for them. Should I just let them away with that crap because they have been posting there more than me?

Gordon

I don't get it Cabelo - you want no mods, one mod, two mods or the existing mods plus you as a mod?

Repli

Cabelo wrote:

and found a willing acceptance among the lads in the DS/MA forum here. Furthermore, these were people with whom I could meet and share ideas aswell as the discussions we've had here. It is a good, strong community willing to accept new members

It still is.

Anyway, the point is that when I arrived, with no moderation at all (literally none when I first arrived) everything was fantastic. There were debates with respected figures from the Irish MA community and the occassional bit of nonsense needed to keep a board light hearted.

I've no problem with that at all. You would swear I started the holocaust the way people are going on here

Dub13

I had a look at the forum and I agree with all the threads Repli locked or moved.It looks like the users of the SD/MA forum treat it more like a chat facility than a message board.

stevenmu

So to sum up this thread, some guys had a club house that they would hang out in and chat about stuff, then one day they left for a while and when they came back the big boys had taken it over as their club house and they told them they were little nerds and to feck off somewhere else ? Seriously, you've all been watching way too much Karate Kid, if this gets any worse we're going to need a montage.

I stilll think of myself as fairly new around here and my opinion isn't worth much, but I'm going to give it anyway. It seems to me that MA/SD is a boards.ie forum (not an Irish Martial Arts Organisation or whatever exists one) where boards.ie members (which may or may not include members of other organisations) can discuss MA/SD. As such it should be moderated by a boards.ie moderater (who may or may not be in other organisations), inline with all the other boards.ie forums, which includes moving threads which belong elsewhere and locking threads which are gibberish.

CuLT

stevenmu wrote:

I stilll think of myself as fairly new around here and my opinion isn't worth much, but I'm going to give it anyway. It seems to me that MA/SD is a boards.ie forum (not an Irish Martial Arts Organisation or whatever exists one) where boards.ie members (which may or may not include members of other organisations) can discuss MA/SD. As such it should be moderated by a boards.ie moderater (who may or may not be in other organisations), inline with all the other boards.ie forums, which includes moving threads which belong elsewhere and locking threads which are gibberish.

Quoted for truth. I think you've put it better than I have, maybe I've become too hackneyed and expect posters to know the score faster than is reasonable.

Poring over the recent postings of Repli and threads in SD/MA, Repli rarely interjects, and when he does, it is with valid cause.

stevenmu

CuLT wrote:

Poring over the recent postings of Repli and threads in SD/MA, Repli rarely interjects, and when he does, it is with valid cause.

Yeh, I had a quick look through myself before posting and apart from the knee injury thread, the only locked/moved threads I could see where spam.
e.g.s
"Attn: MR.FLIBBLE"
"Att: Fribble" (mr flibble posted link mentioned below)
"hey need some help!" (orla dating repli joke)
"moved threads"
"ads and locked threads"
"Attn: Repli"

going back to page 3 there was a thread with an illegal bit torrent link locked (other posters on the thread seemed to be against that), and another one about handcuffs locked (after the discussion was pretty much over anyway) because of the dubious legalities of civilians handcuffing criminals.

I really don't see where there's a problem

Dyr

repli rarely interjects because repli aint been there until two days ago, so his recent contributions show a heavy percentage of interjection. COR is the duly elected mod and most of the forum members are happy with his input. Maybe he's been absent the last few days and a sensible deputy would help.

Just go back and take a look at the amount of posts over the last year in the SD/MA forum, the topics are both information heavy and informal. Though you would probably have to know about martial arts to understand how useful most of the topics and posts are. This leaves people like stephenmu at a disadvantage as they dont really have much of a clue on the subject. Hence they think all this has anything to with organisations

As for boards.ie moderation: What is and is not acceptable is not uniform on boards, it varies wildly from one mod to the other. Which is what the thread is essentially about

Cabelo

Gordon wrote:

I don't get it Cabelo - you want no mods, one mod, two mods or the existing mods plus you as a mod?

Sorry, wasn't serious about the me bit

Anyway, my point is that our regular mod isn't very active. The cufuffle (there's a made up spelling for you) started because of a "hyperactive" mod. The board worked very well while it had only one mod being active when necessary.

Why shouldn't it work with all 3 (there is another isn't there?) mods being quite inactive? Or none at all but someone who can wander in and clean up once a week?

Asok

Ok I've looked at all the links provided in this thread and had a general gander around the forum (I actually read it myself quite a bit even though I don't take part in any of the sports) But from what I can see this is really something that has been hugely blown out of proportion.

Every mod action I have seen performed by repli has been perfectly justified from moving threads to closing others. I see nothing to call into question his abilities to mod the forum. Now from reading this thread and reading the Sd/Ma forum it does seem like a very close knit community which has all the usual pros and cons of a community. There are a few running overtones which I have picked up on such as a poorly hidden sense of elitism from some posters, and the interpretation that the forum is a separate entity to the rest of boards and that nothing is wanted from the general populous of the site.

As for removing repli as a mod I don't see any justification bar a few people getting annoyed for what in my opinion is just that the front page looks a bit messy (You should this site logged in as a smod ) this happens to every board on this site it will just drift off the page in a day or three. If his modding which seems fine to me is really getting up peoples nostrils why don't you request a hosted forum like Damien suggested.

Dub13

Cabelo wrote:

Why shouldn't it work with all 3 (there is another isn't there?) mods being quite inactive? Or none at all but someone who can wander in and clean up once a week?

First you will not get a forum on Boards with no mod...and rightly so, thats just asking for trouble.

If the members of the SD/MA forum stopped posting crap/spam then the mods would not have to be so active.

Amz

Asok wrote:

Ok I've looked at all the links provided in this thread and had a general gander around the forum (I actually read it myself quite a bit even though I don't take part in any of the sports) But from what I can see this is really something that has been hugely blown out of proportion.

Every mod action I have seen performed by repli has been perfectly justified from moving threads to closing others. I see nothing to call into question his abilities to mod the forum. Now from reading this thread and reading the Sd/Ma forum it does seem like a very close knit community which has all the usual pros and cons of a community. There are a few running overtones which I have picked up on such as a poorly hidden sense of elitism from some posters, and the interpretation that the forum is a separate entity to the rest of boards and that nothing is wanted from the general populous of the site.

As for removing repli as a mod I don't see any justification bar a few people getting annoyed for what in my opinion is just that the front page looks a bit messy (You should this site logged in as a smod ) this happens to every board on this site it will just drift off the page in a day or three. If his modding which seems fine to me is really getting up peoples nostrils why don't you request a hosted forum like Damien suggested.

Agreed.

"the interpretation that the forum is a separate entity to the rest of boards and that nothing is wanted from the general populous of the site." - In my opinion as CatMod for sport, this attitude is a particular problem.

stevenmu

Bambi wrote:

Just go back and take a look at the amount of posts over the last year in the SD/MA forum, the topics are both information heavy and informal. Though you would probably have to know about martial arts to understand how useful most of the topics and posts are. This leaves people like stephenmu at a disadvantage as they dont really have much of a clue on the subject. Hence they think all this has anything to with organisations

Even having no knowledge of martial arts, I can still tell the difference between something that is relevant and informative and something that isn't, altough it's kind of a mute point anyway because Repli is involved in MA as far as I can tell.

Bambi wrote:

As for boards.ie moderation: What is and is not acceptable is not uniform on boards, it varies wildly from one mod to the other. Which is what the thread is essentially about

Not really, I think in general it's pretty uniform. The only differences occur in grey areas, a good example of this being the knee injury thread. It could be said that it properly belonged in Fitness, because it's not an issue specific to MA, it happens across all (or at least many) sports. It could also be said that leaving it where it was isn't really a problem anyway. It's a 50-50 call, some mods would have gone one way, some would go the other, it could even be down to what Repli did or didn't have for breakfast that morning.

I could understand if this lead to people PM'ing Repli asking to leave such threads there in future, or maybe even started a constructively critical thread about it, but I don't see where all the doom-and-gloom hysterical toy-out-of-pram throwing in this thread has come from.

Dub13

BuffyBot

I think a collective "Awww schnookums" seems in order. As someone else said, you're own private clubhouse has been taken away and some order imposed. How awful!

Dyr

stevenmu wrote:

Not really, I think in general it's pretty uniform. The only differences occur in grey areas, a good example of this being the knee injury thread. It could be said that it properly belonged in Fitness, because it's not an issue specific to MA, it happens across all (or at least many) sports. It could also be said that leaving it where it was isn't really a problem anyway. It's a 50-50 call, some mods would have gone one way, some would go the other, it could even be down to what Repli did or didn't have for breakfast that morning.

Heres an example: i was temp banned from SD/MA. I was told what id done was equvalent to telling someone it was wrong to buy coke and then showing them how to smuggle it into the country, and as such that was "bad" for boards. Not long after a thread ran for numerous pages on AH which included detailed instructions on smuggling grass from amsterdam through dublin airport. no one took issue with this. Moderation on boards is often dependant on the individual mods personal opinion of what is and isnt acceptable IMO.

RuggieBear

I reckon stevenmu has it spot on


My worthless opinion:

Close down the SD/MA forum...;)

seems to be nothing but trouble. Wasn't the last time you all bitched on feedback to do with getting the almost universally despised Kevin RC unbanned?

Oh and Merry Christmas one and all!

Repli

Merry Christmas lads, I'm off to the pub.. I need it

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

Tusky

Is this thread serious ? You guys sound like whining babies. Why dont you start an IRC channel so you can joke around/spam each other ?

I had a look around the forum and all of his modding decisions were reasonable and justified. Yea are complaining that the front page looks messy ? Whos fault is that ? Surely its the fault of the people starting the spammy threads rather than the mod who closes them ?

Elite internet cliques really get under my skin. Yea are making a massive fuss over something ridiculously small. In fact, its so small, it doesnt even exist.

damien

Mercury_Tilt wrote:

This post has been deleted.

yellum's dead baby, yellum's dead. Seamus killed him off cos he called a mod scum. He's called you worse.

stevenmu

Bambi wrote:

Heres an example: i was temp banned from SD/MA. I was told what id done was equvalent to telling someone it was wrong to buy coke and then showing them how to smuggle it into the country, and as such that was "bad" for boards. Not long after a thread ran for numerous pages on AH which included detailed instructions on smuggling grass from amsterdam through dublin airport. no one took issue with this. Moderation on boards is often dependant on the individual mods personal opinion of what is and isnt acceptable IMO.

Perhaps it was just a bad analogy, what is it that you were banned for ?

Asok

damien.m wrote:

yellum's dead baby, yellum's dead. Seamus killed him off cos he called a mod scum. He's called you worse.

Yellum shall never die as long as I repress the memory of waking up to find him dry humping me.

I was at disney land I WAS AT DISNEY LAND

columok

I wont comment on the irony of this thread turning into little injokes when you simultaneously accuse us of talking OT rubbish all day. :rolleyes: Similarily the last thread decended into similar OT rubbish which in my eyes spoiled it. It would have been nice to sort it out in one thread. Again I heard no complaints about the established boards users killing that thread.

Boards.ie has kindly provided a SD/MA message board. The people that use said message board are those people in Ireland who train in or are interested in martial arts/self defence/combat sports. People who come to the board and ask questions are treated well and people go out of the way to help them. Sometimes the help provided stimulates debate. Well and good.

People also use the board to share MA related humour (same as most boards) and also info on coming events. Sometimes there is some banter interspersed amongst the information. I personally think that this light hearted "chat" provides an interesting balance with pure "information". The sometimes "light" tone of our board makes for a friendly atmosphere and a way for many people with diverging views to see each others points of view and also to meet "in the real world".

Now I really would prefer if people were less dismissive of people from our board raising issues here in the feedback forum. Some people in the SDMA forum post all over boards while some do not. I dont see this as a problem. Personally I enjoy many other of the boards groups and have had few issues with the people therein. We as a community - well said Mercury Tilt btw- are trying to restore the equilibrium that many of us had worked hard to establish. We would rather have worked this out amongst ourselves and Repli as any community would. Repli has decided that this would be more appropriately dealt with in the Feedback section- again fair enough but many of the SDMA member would probably just prefer to discuss it amongst themselves and himself.

Anyway many people, Bambi probably being the best of which, have stated that the sudden return and zero to sixty interjection of Repli in the last short while is inconsiderate to the dynamic formed therein. Personally I feel that more sensitivity should have been shown and maybe gradual changes should have been made. There's no harm in being compromising with things.

Anyway Happy Christmas to everyone and a happy new year.

CuLT

Mercury_Tilt wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Apology accepted, it's Christmas after all.

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

Cabelo

Now that the day is here, Happy Christmas chiefs.