Mods don't own forums. The posters are what make the forums.

robinph

mike65 wrote: »

A bit of planning goes a long way, it not a question of rostering just a question of realising when boards is likely to be very very busy if last night wasn't even considered then thats a failure. I trust the mod-hut (or admins are in a huddle) discussing last nights fiasco. If not then nothing will be learned. There were 1000 people looking at the soccer board last night at one point, even at midnight it was 250 users, 350 guests. I'm guessing AH was similair.

How do you plan for a dodgy refereeing decision?

It only got to be such an issue because of the hand ball. If Ireland had won or lost in regular time then there would be a handful of people wanting to go to AH to talk about it, they would then be told to head off to the soccer forum. Because of a dodgy goal then everyone wants to come on and vent about it and you cannot forward plan for that.

snyper

snyper wrote: »

oi!That stunt raised over 400 quid.

I ransom dev if i got enough for ssf

My stunt would have raised 20 quid.. A full 5% of what yours did :cool:

TheZohanS

Correct mods don't own forums, we try to make them run smoothly that is our function as mods.

I was watching the match myself last night so I wasn't keeping an eye on AH. As soon as I was able to, I logged on and checked out the Reported Posts as that's generally my first port of call.

What I was met with was an absolute disgrace, the venomous racist remarks from some posters was unreal. Now don't get me wrong, I was absolutely gutted over the result but the crap that was posted was way out of line. We had regular good posters that had a few drinks and were outraged, trolls and at one stage we even had mods from other fora dishing out abuse. We dealt with the situation as best we could after being caught on the hop.

The mods were working so hard last night cleaning up the crap last that we did not have a chance to chat to each other, it's fair to say the majority of interaction we had was when we crossed paths deleting posts or closing threads. It's very easy for people to come on here and say we should have done this or that but our primary focus was containment.

In the AM we had a chance to brief each other and the majority agreed to go with one Match thread. That's where it stands now.


For all the posters that saw we were under pressure last night and didn't give us grief; we say a big thanks. Any poster that was banned for breach of the Forum Charter by starting a Footall thread you have been unbanned and are welcome back. Anyone that got banned for trolling, abuse or any other reason - normal rules apply.


Thanks.

mike65

robinph wrote: »

How do you plan for a dodgy refereeing decision?

It only got to be such an issue because of the hand ball. If Ireland had won or lost in regular time then there would be a handful of people wanting to go to AH to talk about it, they would then be told to head off to the soccer forum. Because of a dodgy goal then everyone wants to come on and vent about it and you cannot forward plan for that.

Again nonsense, (good to see Mods have an excuse for everything) last night was a winner takes all occassion. Win or loose it was going to be a big night on boards with "a whooping and a hollering" on AH and soccer if winning and outbreaks of misery and regret if loosing. That it happened to be a loss in controversial circumstances merely ramped up what would have happened anyway*.



*(Did anyone really think it would be straighforward win/loss )

Terry

Sharpshooter wrote: »

I think you do.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irony
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/humour

Thaedydal wrote: »

I don't do soccer, never have but what happened last night cross over into a topical national matter and those who frequent AH were going to want to comment on it in AH.

If the mods had of showed some foresight a single thread was all that was required with a warning to stay in it and all others merged into it, that would have meant a lot less of a work load and a lot less hassle and ill feeling.

Just my 2c.

Well we did discuss this in the AH mod forum.
I told everyone that Henry was going to cheat and cost Ireland the game, but nobody listened.

Xavi6 wrote: »

An all out ban on soccer threads is a little bit silly though considering the forum allows threads about the government (we have a politics forum), Kate Moss (Celeb & Showbiz), Your Morning Song (Music forum).....etc etc, you get my drift.

One rule for soccer, another for the rest it seems, and I presume it's because of the tribalism it brings and the AH mods don't want to deal with the hassle. If that is the case then just come out and say it.

Same goes for the ban on threads in Ranting & Raving.

You're a soccer mod.
You know damn well how people react if their team loses.

AH is a minefield at the best of times.
Throw in some disgruntled armchair supporters and it's mayhem.

Because AH is not a dedicated soccer forum, you are going to get people who don't give a flying **** about that game (hi).
Telling an angry soccer fan that you couldn't give a **** about it is going to cause hassle.

Thaedydal wrote: »

So which was it?

That none of the AH mods were on in the same time period so there was no chance of making a reasonable call on it

or

that there were mods on seeming to either refusing to mod or doing impressions of headless chickens?

I wasn't on until later in the night.

Rabies wrote: »

Well this fun

The question, do we have each other on IM. Don't think we do. Just leave messages in the AH mod forum. Get to the later

People need to understand that no mod is here 24/7 and here for every opportunity (good or bad).

If you get caught in the sh!t storm, so be it. It ends at some stage.

SS did what she thought was right, and is an always by the book mod. The same can be said for Terry (even more done the line at times).

Just because we mod the same forum doesn't mean we're on the same track. Said it before, different people, personalities and ways of doing things. Don't expect the right choice everything, fvck 50% of the time would be good.

The actions taken by SS at the time were right according to the charter. Soccer threads are not part of AH. But neither are celeb death threads, but we adjust and mega merge. The same could have been done for this. If I knew the game was on, I'd have tried to be online. Only found out about an hour ago when I seen this thread in work.

Like what some of you have said, AH is the general all purpose forum on Boards, but specific threads and threads of a topical nature do get moved to where they're better suited. Soccer threads are best suited to the Soccer forum. If you don't have access, get access. National interest sporting events can be in AH, especially when it deals with eveyone, not just fans.

As for Terry, I haven't seen all of what happened. Only flicked through some of the locked threads and Terry's farewell threads. Haven't read anything proper yet.
If he wants to leave, fair enough. I'm not gonna stand in his way. He has some great qualities and some childish ones and was a great source of amusement (in a good way) . Sometimes there wasn't an even balance.

Mods don't own forums, true. But it's not Terry's playground either. Not a great way to bow out to be honest

It's hardly unexpected.

The mods who closed the soccer threads did the right thing.
I don't agree with the lengthy bans though.
One day would have sufficed and allowed cooler heads to prevail.

Rabies

mike65 wrote: »

Again nonsense, (good to see Mods have an excuse for everything) last night was a winner takes all occassion.

Yup. You know the inner darker secrets of the mod forum. We have a list of excuses. The last one was #345354

Don't you have to complain about Boards servers crashing for 15min or something?
Ah, I wish the Admins could plan it and be ready for it every time. No more outages would be great.

Conor

mike65 wrote: »

A bit of planning goes a long way, it not a question of rostering just a question of realising when boards is likely to be very very busy if last night wasn't even considered then thats a failure. I trust the mod-hut (or admins are in a huddle) discussing last nights fiasco. If not then nothing will be learned. There were 1000 people looking at the soccer board last night at one point, even at midnight it was 250 users, 350 guests. I'm guessing AH was similair.

It's not a question of predicting when things will kick off, it's a question of what the mods/admins do when it does. Some responses can be pre-planned, some can't since most busy periods are somewhat unique. (For example, if Ireland won last night, we'd have an entirely different set of whinges to deal with even though it's the same event.) From a technical side, it was handled since we have some spare capacity since my trip to the data centre on Monday. It got a bit choppy at times but the infrastructure held up a lot better than it would have a week ago. The modding side of things is much tougher to deal with though, scaling that is a very hard problem. I'm sure the mods and admins would appreciate constructive ideas though.

The problem of fast-moving, contentious threads is one that we're well aware of in the office and we're trying to figure out ways of making the mods jobs easier. Unfortunately, it's more a sociology problem than a technical one, so our ability to solve it is limited. We'll still try our best to provide as much support as we can.

Boards, like the rest of the country and like the world as a whole, relies on most people being reasonable most of the time. If people think that the modding is oppressive now, they should sit down and think through the kind of site that would be built to handle continual strife. Luckily, most people are decent most of the time. The necessary consequence of this structure is that there is a breaking point where the system will fail to cope. Can it be improved to the point where a game of football is not a threat? Probably*. Can it be hardened against all unrest? No.



* I say probably because sports seem to be the number one cause of irrational stupidity among otherwise sane and reasonable adults.

Kiera

Rabies wrote: »

Failure of the modding/admin hierarchy? Would you like the Admins to plan my modding agenda? Rostered start times? I do enough of that in work. There is enough of mods in AH at the moment. We are just all online at different times. Don't expect all of use here at once to have a conference call about how we'll deal with today over a cup of coffee from starbucks and a muffin.

But there are not. There are only about 5 active mods (Dr.B, TheZohan(new), SS, Frada and you). And AH has the most traffic so this does not make one ounce of sense?

If they were of the calibre of Dr.B, Java, Karoma it would run fine but they are not.

Handsome Bob

Voodu Child wrote: »

I mean, jesus christ, some moronic football fans (is there any other type :rolleyes:) don't get their way so they spam AH with dozens of childish threads?

Well done on getting a pot shot in on all soccer fans that went under the radar. You're an real intelligent guy.

On topic, I'm personally of the stance that AH shouldn't be allowed to have their say on every single topic, because it takes away from other forums that are designed for specific discussion. However since access is restricted to Soccer, and given the circumstances of last night, perhaps one thread would have been okay in AH last night.

Either way I'm not too fussed, the AH mods know their own forum best so I'm sure they made a decision that they felt was the right one for their forum.

Boston

mike65 wrote: »

Last night turned out to be a good stress test for the boards modding/admin hierarchy, and its fair to say they failed. The last time anything this big happened in "soccer" it was Saipan 2002. Back then boards population was 3 men and a dog relatively speaking. Last night was always going to be the biggest night on the board ever - win or loose and the traffic that could not get in was always going to express itself in After Hours.

That no-body appears to have foreseen that at the top table suggests a bit more effort needs to be expended on planning.

I searched but I can't find the thread you started prior to the match outlining your concerns?

robinph

mike65 wrote: »

Again nonsense, (good to see Mods have an excuse for everything) last night was a winner takes all occassion. Win or loose it was going to be a big night on boards with "a whooping and a hollering" on AH and soccer if winning and outbreaks of misery and regret if loosing. That it happened to be a loss in controversial circumstances merely ramped up what would have happened anyway*.



*(Did anyone really think it would be straighforward win/loss )

True, an uncontroversial result would still have had a load of people wanting to cheer or cry about it. They would still have just been told to bugger off to the soccer forum though. A few people would whine no doubt, but it would all have blown over a whole lot more quietly.

Sparky

mike65 - very easy for you to make those remarks when you dont have to lift a finger to control a situation.
Mods concerned done their best. Flinging sh1t in their faces and telling them to do better wont make it all better.
Of course everyone is angry what happened last night, it was unforeseen that it would happen. If we were to go about life planning for everything unforeseen, we would be all paranoid.
If anyone wants freedom to call a French player and the French whatever they like, there is plenty of facebook groups out there since last night to do that, but they wont last long due to the comments contained within them much in teh same way comments and threads created on boards did not last long either due to their content

Overheal

Kiera wrote: »

But there are not. There are only about 5 active mods (Dr.B, TheZohan(new), SS, Frada and you). And AH has the most traffic so this does not make one ounce of sense?

If they were of the calibre of Dr.B, Java, Karoma it would run fine but they are not.

Whats all this business about singling out The Zohan anyway? He's doing a fine job.

Anyway as I recall it after people wanted AH to go through sensitivity training after the Jade Goody incident where things started to change there very fluidly. All I can say to that is the forum's audience has changed, or theres just a vocal minority making healthy use of the Report Function, I dont know.

Kiera

Overheal wrote: »

Whats all this business about singling out The Zohan anyway? He's doing a fine job.

Anyway as I recall it was a few posters who wanted AH to go through sensitivity training after the Jade Goody incident where things started to change there very fluidly.

He's an active mod and new. I think he's gonna be a great mod tbh.

--amadeus--

OK, I don't read AH but let me see if I have this straight...

- In the early hours of the morning some people posted threads against the charter.

- Some of these people were drunk / had been drinking and may not have been 100% on the ball

- Mods reacted as fast as they could

- Mods made errors of judgements

- Errors of judgement led (in the wee small hours) to lots of crap, trolling and general muppetry

- Lots of bans handed out for general muppetry

- In the morning the Mods realised they had made errors of judgement, publicly admitted it and apologised (these are unpaid volunteers who stop this place become 4chan btw, they may have had better things to do at 2am)

- Any bans for charter breach have been lifted, any for muppetry and trolling haven't.

Pretty much the run of things? Sounds like the processes worked pretty well in very exceptional circs, tbh. Not sure how we've wound up with a Mod/Witch hunt.

Doctor DooM

Overheal wrote: »

Whats all this business about singling out The Zohan anyway? He's doing a fine job.

Anyway as I recall it after people wanted AH to go through sensitivity training after the Jade Goody incident where things started to change there very fluidly.

The newest AH mod always gets picked on. It's something I noticed.

Rabies

Kiera wrote: »

But there are not. There are only about 5 active mods (Dr.B, TheZohan(new), SS, Frada and you). And AH has the most traffic so this does not make one ounce of sense?

If they were of the calibre of Dr.B, Java, Karoma it would run fine but they are not.

For big events the place goes crazy. We could throw all the admins and more mods at the place and the same would have happened, but to a lesser extent.
The thing is, it does stop and it dies down.
If the place goes tits up, for a short while. I'm not too worried. Lord of the Flies and all that jazz.
Balance will be returned. It comes back to normal and things work out.
I find that people stress out so much about modding, it gets crazy.
Sometimes people need to take a step back.

If someone gets called a 'wanker' on thread and if that post is sitting there for a few hours before a mod is around, then so be it.

With AH, I think about 5 mods is enough as long as about 3 of us are online everyday to check on things for a while.

Moderation in moderation

To be honest, I blame Ruu. If he wasn't so bloody good we'd all be doing a great job

Kiera

Doctor DooM wrote: »

The newest AH mod always gets picked on. It's something I noticed.

Excuse me? I was picking on no one! I was naming the active mods of AH.

mike65

Boston wrote: »

I searched but I can't find the thread you started prior to the match outlining your concerns?

No, cos I'm not a mod. Had I been a mod of soccer (or AH) I would have expected to raise such a matter.

As for Conor and Sparky, you have responed to my input so my job is now done.

Doctor DooM

Kiera wrote: »

Excuse me? I was picking on no one! I was naming the active mods of AH.

I wasn't actually talking about you k. Thus the lack of a quote. It's always happened though as long as I've been here, as far back as Dudess.

Kiera

Rabies wrote: »

For big events the place goes crazy. We could throw all the admins and more mods at the place and the same would have happened, but to a lesser extent.
The thing is, it does stop and it dies down.
If the place goes tits up, for a short while. I'm not too worried. Lord of the Flies and all that jazz.
Balance will be returned. It comes back to normal and things work out.
I find that people stress out so much about modding, it gets crazy.
Sometimes people need to take a step back.

If someone one gets called a 'wanker' on thread and if that post is sitting there for a few hours before a mod is around, then so be it.

With AH, I think about 5 mods is enough as long as about 3 of us are online everyday to check on things for a while.

Moderation in moderation

To be honest, I blame Ruu. If he wasn't so bloody good we'd all be doing a great job

If there were more, things wouldnt have gotten so out of hand. There were only 3.

As i said before. As soon as this crap started they should have all been dumped into a mega thread and the mod sticky could have said so.

Doctor DooM

mike65 wrote: »

No, cos I'm not a mod. Had I been a mod of soccer (or AH) I would have expected to raise such a matter.

I dunno dude... that sounds like a cop out, to me.

Boston

mike65 wrote: »

No, cos I'm not a mod. Had I been a mod of soccer (or AH) I would have expected to raise such a matter.

As for Conor and Sparks, you have responed to my input so my job is now done.

On that's a great attitude. It's similarly not your job to **** stir after the fact, but you're doing that. "It's no my job to help" is really going to improve matters. I'm frankly sick of the nei sayers who sit on the side lines waiting for an opportunity to put the boot in but never open their mouth on the various threads asking for feedback about the site. With that attitude you opinion is less then worthless to me, I'm in fact actively ignoring you.

robbie_998

im not picking on him but Frada did ban me for 10 days for trying to help out !!!

made a thread to say no more Football threads in AH and he banned me and locked the thread.

But then a few minuets later SharpShooter came on and did the exact same thing !!!!!

yes i do understand it was backseat modding but giving the circumstances it was kinda needed and i was there with that thread about 10mins ahead of the mods !

Wibbs

I see where the AH mods are coming from. Major shítestorm catches people off guard. It happens and I wouldnt have liked to be in any of their shoes. I also see Mike65's take too.

As a general thing, not just in AH. No you can't always allow for future events but in the last year there has been more than one shítestorm. A few indeed and take out specifics and the basic trajectory of them has been similar. Something kicks off, often when the mods are overwhelmed or just having lives outside this place, then one mod/cmod/admin figures "shíte, better do something to head this off", users/mods revolt/get pissed off, recriminations start and we have fallout. That could be worked on IMHO.

How? OK while no one can predict the future, some stuff can be worked out. So a major thing for many like the match last night was bound to kick off something in soccer and AH. Regardless of the outcome. Some stuff is easier to spot coming than others and it depends on an individuals interests too. Me if I was an AH mod? I wouldn't have had a clue about the importance of this as I dont follow football. I didnt even now about the fuss until I watched the news this morning.

OK so what I would suggest is a stickied thread in Feedback and in the Mod forum. A thread called something like Future red flags or something I dunno. A thread where users and mods can flag a possible upcoming issue that may cause trouble in a forum. Whether that be politics sport or a general forum.

The structure at times is weak when pushed, from mods to cmods to admins. IMHO and I dunno how to explain it but there is a shift in that structure too. Many mods are doing their own thing and the admin layer and cmods to a lesser extent are there but disregarded in one sense. Actually wrong word. There's a disconnect rather than a disregard. That's my humble anyway

I would agree with Keira re the number of AH mods. NOT the calibre of the existing ones. They have a hard job and AH is a job unpaid or not. And they do it very well IMHO but as AH has by far the most traffic and freewheeling all over the place traffic on boards I would think having more mods would be a major bonus.

Rabies wrote:

Yup. You know the inner darker secrets of the mod forum. We have a list of excuses. The last one was #345354

AFAIR Mike65 was a mod for a good while? so maybe he does.:p He may have even used the same excuse:D

Overheal

Boston wrote: »

On that's a great attitude. It's similarly not your job to **** stir after the fact, but you're doing that. "It's no my job to help" is really going to improve matters. I'm frankly sick of the nei sayers who sit on the side lines waiting for an opportunity to put the boot in but never open their mouth on the various threads asking for feedback about the site. With that attitude you opinion is less then worthless to me, I'm in fact actively ignoring you.

Wtf are we getting on Mike's case for? Get on my case, I said the same thing last night. Goodness.

I mean it wasnt a big subject of my Tuesday but Im sure since the weekend its been all the talk over there in Ireland? Im not criticizing the Mods though - its a once in 4 years event and the website has changed so much since then. Im just saying for future events; but you know yourself. Thats the last I'll say about it.

Kiera wrote: »

Excuse me? I was picking on no one! I was naming the active mods of AH.

Its cool. It wasnt aimed at you, I just noticed Everybody who's mentioned him likes to tack on the fact that he's relatively new to the game.

-Chris-

I was asked to be a mod of Motors because I was a decent contributor and I had an interest in the subject-matter.

I presume the same is true of the Soccer mods.

Therefore, I'd expect the most likely place for a Soccer mod to be during a big game is in the stadium or in front of a TV (at home or in the pub). I don't expect them to be online.


If you're going to insist that people are online in the evening during a really important event, you should be paying for their home broadband connection and probably paying them a wage too.




All the mods are volunteers, and they try and act with the best interests of their forum, and the community they "lead", at heart.

Everyone on here should be acting like adults - if there's a specific request in the charter to not discuss something, don't discuss it (like AH's "no soccer" request).
If there's abuse, trolling, racism or any of this stuff, it needs to be hit with a very Big Stick.



Bearing all this in mind, I think it should be completely reasonable for a forum to go un-modded for 24 hours and when the mod returns the only thing they should have to worry about is spam (and maybe a noob who doesn't know any better).

We all know that this will never happen because people will take advantage and run amok.



If the mods enjoyed the match and then came back to a shambles, then the posters should take their portion of blame for causing the issues, just as much as they should blame the mods for being asleep at the wheel.

Borneo Fnctn

robbie_998 wrote: »

im not picking on him but Frada did ban me for 10 days for trying to help out !!!

made a thread to say no more Football threads in AH and he banned me and locked the thread.

But then a few minuets later SharpShooter came on and did the exact same thing !!!!!

yes i do understand it was backseat modding but giving the circumstances it was kinda needed and i was there with that thread about 10mins ahead of the mods !

You definitely deserved that.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055744154
It's not your place to start threads like that. And I hope you know that putting [STICKY] in the thread title doesn't make it a sticky. Were you expecting a little pat on the back from the mods or something?

-Chris-

Wibbs wrote: »

OK while no one can predict the future, some stuff can be worked out. So a major thing for many like the match last night was bound to kick off something in soccer and AH. Regardless of the outcome. Some stuff is easier to spot coming than others and it depends on an individuals interests too. Me if I was an AH mod? I wouldn't have had a clue about the importance of this as I dont follow football. I didnt even now about the fuss until I watched the news this morning.

But here's the thing - there's a soccer forum for people interested in soccer, with mods who are interested in soccer.
If you're an AH mod, you shouldn't need to know about soccer, you should just know where to move the thread when it comes up.

Wibbs wrote: »

OK so what I would suggest is a stickied thread in Feedback and in the Mod forum. A thread called something like Future red flags or something I dunno. A thread where users and mods can flag a possible upcoming issue that may cause trouble in a forum. Whether that be politics sport or a general forum.

I'd think putting a sticky at the top of the forum that lays down the rules with regards to what's acceptable and what's not is just as preemptive.

I don't disagree with the idea of a future red flags thread, but look at what happened in the Leaving Cert forum earlier this year - you couldn't have predicted that. Equally, as has been said before, this wouldn't have been half as much of an AH topic if it wasn't for Henry.

Mods write the charter based on the requirements of boards and their users. Mods are well within their rights (if not obligated to) to apply the guidelines of the charter in a literal fashion.

Especially when things are blowing up.

robbie_998

jackpalance wrote: »

You definitely deserved that.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055744154
It's not your place to start threads like that. And I hope you know that putting [STICKY] in the thread title doesn't make it a sticky. Were you expecting a little pat on the back from the mods or something?

cant see that link !!!!!!!

well it was there then frada just did away with it then another mod came and did the exact same thing !!!

cant just keep the one no ???