Boards is becoming a Ghost Town

muffler

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

how does the soccer forum benefit by allowing children to use childish terms when talking about a club they don't support?

I bet you never used the term Lollerpool, did you?

You see, some people love to dish out the "banter" but can't take it when someone dares to slag off the English club they support. This leads to silly situations where you get "well he started it" playground bolloxology, and the forum is eventually closed.

So, it's better to just tell everyone to use the actual correct terms when talking about clubs, players, managers and other hangers-on. It just makes sense.

There are plenty of soccer forums on the internet where such terms are welcome, you should try them.

J Mysterio wrote: »

Thank you for your input.

Actually that post by Baldy Conscience was one of the best I seen in this thread and left you (or anyone else who feels that they should be allowed to act the bollix) in a "cant argue with that" situation

The Moldy Gowl

Just to clarify Baldy. I don't want them terms in the Soccer forum. They never bothered me. I just rolled my eyes, ignored it and thought the poster was 12 years old.

It's the walking on egg shells in case you call Diego Costa a prick becuase he elbowed someone on purpose stuff which annoys people. I don't resort to name calling players except when I called Vardy a knacker and got a card and subsequent ban or was accused of trolling and carded for saying x club won't do as well this season.
It's the culture of trying to get people carded that's the annoying thing.


There should be jokes and jabs when teams lose . It's all part of the 'banter' and goes in circles.
Not allowing that, is playing up to the precious snowflakes and creates the egg shell culture that runs through the site.

ThisRegard

Where I find the numbers posting being down most noticeable is on the front page. A couple of years ago pretty much every time you refreshed it it would have a load of new posts. Now you'll still have posts on the front page that were last posted up to 5 minutes ago which is really telling.

dudara

intheclouds wrote: »

Which is exactly why transparency would be nice, so that users who take responsibility and interest actually see that their report didnt just go to the black hole of reported posts in the sky.

Putting aside the technical and time implications of a transparent system, there are other aspects to consider too. What if a poster doesn't agree with a mod decision? Do you want right of appeal and further consumption of the mod time? Involvement of CMod and Admin time also?

I think, and this is my personal opinion, there has to be some level of common sense applied here, because at the end of the day, this is the internet. It's not a court of law, or public record. The system used here should be effective and efficient, not overly elaborate, labour intensive or time consuming. When you think of it like that, I do think the Reported Post system ticks most of the boxes.

What's the process?
When submitted, an RP creates a new thread in the Reported Posts forum. If the same post has already been reported by another poster, the report simply adds a new reply to the existing thread. The default mod settings means that mods are emailed an alert on the Reported Posts in their forums, while CMods receive email alerts for their entire category!

Some mods like to "thank" the thread in Reported Posts forum once they have reviewed. This shows that a mod has looked at the thread and decided. Some mods don't do this, but I don't think it has a massive impact either way.

Why stay private?

A lot of personal grievances between posters get played out through the Reported Posts system. Also, trolls and flamers can abuse the Reported Post system with multiple Reported Posts in a short space of time. Sometimes comments are added by posters that are best kept private. For all of the above reasons, I do think it's best that RPs are kept private.

I do understand that posters who report posts would perhaps like to see, at the very least, that a moderator has looked at the RP. However, I don't think that would be technically easy at all.

KomradeBishop

LoLth wrote: »

As for user history, well its all we really have to go on for context. If a user has 10 bans from different forums for personal abuse of another poster and in forum 11 they start calling another user names, what action do you think should be taken? From their history , have they shown that they are inclined to change their behavior if they receive a warning or a short ban? (yes, this is one example but for every example someone can show me of history being used to incorrectly apply a decision I can guarantee I can find another where history was ignored and the user ended up getting a ban elsewhere and ultimately getting a site ban)

Posters don't always get a chance to defend themselves properly based on their history though - mods can get away with smearing people as soapboxers, and it gets stated as the gospel truth, just because the mod says so - then once it's stated from a high enough level cmod/admin, it's discussion over and there is no opportunity to defend yourself.

Sometimes the history that a poster builds, is built up because of mod mistakes or unfair treatment as well.

There is far too little transparency on what counts as a posters history really - I am pretty sure that the lions share of it, is hidden away privately.


See - small/subtle things, mistakes/biases in moderation, can cascade into something much bigger, that become a black mark on a posters history, when posters aren't afforded an opportunity to challenge inaccurate parts of their history (since they can't even see it all).

uck51js9zml2yt

dudara wrote: »

Putting aside the technical and time implications of a transparent system, there are other aspects to consider too. What if a poster doesn't agree with a mod decision? Do you want right of appeal and further consumption of the mod time? Involvement of CMod and Admin time also?

I think, and this is my personal opinion, there has to be some level of common sense applied here, because at the end of the day, this is the internet. It's not a court of law, or public record. The system used here should be effective and efficient, not overly elaborate, labour intensive or time consuming. When you think of it like that, I do think the Reported Post system ticks most of the boxes.

What's the process?
When submitted, an RP creates a new thread in the Reported Posts forum. If the same post has already been reported by another poster, the report simply adds a new reply to the existing thread. The default mod settings means that mods are emailed an alert on the Reported Posts in their forums, while CMods receive email alerts for their entire category!

Some mods like to "thank" the thread in Reported Posts forum once they have reviewed. This shows that a mod has looked at the thread and decided. Some mods don't do this, but I don't think it has a massive impact either way.

Why stay private?

A lot of personal grievances between posters get played out through the Reported Posts system. Also, trolls and flamers can abuse the Reported Post system with multiple Reported Posts in a short space of time. Sometimes comments are added by posters that are best kept private. For all of the above reasons, I do think it's best that RPs are kept private.

I do understand that posters who report posts would perhaps like to see, at the very least, that a moderator has looked at the RP. However, I don't think that would be technically easy at all.

I agree that RPs should be private but surely a pm back to the reporter to say it's read and actioned/or not as the case may be isn't beyond the bounds of mods technical skills.

KomradeBishop

K-9 wrote: »

Mods aren't really here to judge who's right or wrong in a debate though, that isn't our role unless it's a serious example.

If a person is saying something disreputable about a poster though - which is the case for Lexie - isn't that clear-cut? It's not really a debate then.


If someone is being hooked into responding again and again, by someone knowingly misrepresenting them - even after a poster has made clear repetitively that they have not said what is being attributed to them, and they don't want to be having to debunk that nonsense - isn't that also nothing to do with debate though, and just a clear misrepresentation?

If it can be clearly shown that someone is on a wind-up like that, that they demonstrably know they are misrepresenting you, and just won't stop doing that over and over - there should be a point where that becomes infractionable, because it's just trolling/disruption.

dudara

Royal Silly Ballet wrote: »

I agree that RPs should be private but surely a pm back to the reporter to say it's read and actioned/or not as the case may be isn't beyond the bounds of mods technical skills.

I understand where you're coming from, but for the busy forums, that could mean a mod having to send 10, 20 PMs to each poster who reported a post. It would get quite insane quickly for some mods, and I wouldn't think it's frankly worth it. The mod time is better spent dealing with issues on threads.

It would be nice alright if there was some "workflow" type system that showed when a mod reviewed a RP, but that's technically far beyond Boards at the moment, based on my understanding of the data model and design.

intheclouds

dudara wrote: »

When submitted, an RP creates a new thread in the Reported Posts forum. If the same post has already been reported by another poster, the report simply adds a new reply to the existing thread. The default mod settings means that mods are emailed an alert on the Reported Posts in their forums, while CMods receive email alerts for their entire category!

So if the default mod settings mean an auto email is generated then why:

dudara wrote: »

I do understand that posters who report posts would perhaps like to see, at the very least, that a moderator has looked at the RP. However, I don't think that would be technically easy at all.

Surely it would be just as easy to send an auto email to all posters who have created a reply in the thread you mention above by whoever looks at it clicking some kind of "Acknowledge Reported Post" button?

dudara

intheclouds wrote: »

So if the default mod settings mean an auto email is generated then why:

Surely it would be just as easy to send an auto email to all posters who have created a reply in the thread you mention above by whoever looks at it clicking some kind of "Acknowledge Reported Post" button?

I'm not au fait with the technical details behind the scenes, or how easy it would be to develop this. But it's an idea we can take to the tech team.

One thing that occurs to me though, is that such a system could create an undue expectation on moderators, and make moderating seem much more rigourous/process driven than it currently is. That's not an appealing thought.

Penn

intheclouds wrote: »

So if the default mod settings mean an auto email is generated then why:



Surely it would be just as easy to send an auto email to all posters who have created a reply in the thread you mention above by whoever looks at it clicking some kind of "Acknowledge Reported Post" button?

But even if the mod clicked something to auto-send PMs saying the reported post has been acknowledged, it wouldn't give any indication what action the mod did or didn't take. Not unless the mod also had to fill in something explaining what action they took. Then that results in the mod getting PMs back if one or more of the posters don't agree with the action taken, meaning the mod has to respond etc etc. It's over-complicating the very simple.

The Report function is so a poster can bring a post to the attention of the mods and give a reason for same. The mods then action it or don't. It's in the mods hands at that stage. If anything getting an auto-reply PM back every time a mod acknowledges a reported post could put some people off reporting altogether just because of the repeated annoyance. If you report a post for being spam, is it really necessary to get a PM back saying the mod has acknowledged your reported post and has deleted the spam?

If I report a post, I trust that a mod will get to it eventually and take whatever decision they feel is best. I don't see why any follow-up would be required unless it was very strong circumstances, in which case I'd PM a mod.

Turtyturd

K-9 wrote: »

Twas about the soccer forum feedback thread last week being very positive.

Was afraid this would happen. It was a sub 300 post thread, with about 50-60(???) different posters before it was hijacked by two posters having their little back and forth, and it pre-empted the comments about bad moderation with a ban on them. It was more an example of how many people have left the forum than positive feedback.

The DRP forum will give you a better idea of the problems in the SF.

LoLth

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Posters don't always get a chance to defend themselves properly based on their history though - mods can get away with smearing people as soapboxers, and it gets stated as the gospel truth, just because the mod says so - then once it's stated from a high enough level cmod/admin, it's discussion over and there is no opportunity to defend yourself.

it has to stop somewhere. Before the rule of "final say" there were back and forth between mod/cmod/admin and users that went on for weeks if not months. and usually went round in circles with the user refusing to accept any version of events other than their own no matter how intricately the situation and rules were explained. I've been the mod and cmod and admin in that scenario and it can be a huge undertaking and it can be difficult work out if the user is genuinely aggrieved or if they are intentionally winding the mods up.

Not everything a mod says is taken as gospel. Mods are not instantly believed over users. same as cmods. same for admins. I cannot just accuse someone of anything I want and have them dealt with. I still have to present evidence and a reason behind my actions and my actions can be overturned by another admin on appeal by a user/mod or cmod. Decisions I have made have been reversed after discussion, sometimes against my own opinion sometimes after I have been shown the light. it happens and its nowhere near as totalitarian as you seem to think it is. There is a hierarchy or control that is directly proportional to the degree of responsibility.

Sometimes the history that a poster builds, is built up because of mod mistakes or unfair treatment as well.

The DRP process is there to prevent exactly that. When it was introduced there were calls of it being weighed in favour of the mods. I did a quick audit of appeal results and found that more appeals resulted in leniency than otherwise.

There is far too little transparency on what counts as a posters history really - I am pretty sure that the lions share of it, is hidden away privately.

a posters' history is between the poster and boards moderation. The history consists of forum bans earned + reason , date ban lifted + reason , cards + reason, site bans + reason. Each of these are associated with the mod that imposed the sanction. Its pretty easy to see if a mod/user conflict is going on or if the issue is restricted to a single forum. The users themselves will have PMs relating to each of these events as well. outside of mods and the users I do not think anyone else has any reason to view it. If a mod is being unfair I'm pretty sure the user can raise an issue on their own.

See - small/subtle things, mistakes/biases in moderation, can cascade into something much bigger, that become a black mark on a posters history, when posters aren't afforded an opportunity to challenge inaccurate parts of their history (since they can't even see it all).

if you get a card you can see it. if you get a ban you can see it. that's all there is. (I'm open to correction on this). If you have so many bans that you cannot recall which ones are form where, then there is already an issue. If they all come from a single moderator then thats something that may be worth reporting.

its also important to note that history isnt the number of bans a user receives, its how long ago, time between , reasons for the ban/card etc , severity of the infraction and prior warnings.

osarusan

I'd be in favour of something that allowed to me to see a post I'd reported had been looked at by a mod, but I don't see any reason why I should be filled in on the decision reached (if isn't already obvious from the post itself - mod edit, card, etc).

I see posters being advised to PM a mod to find out, but I've also seen mods say they wouldn't reveal that in to a request by PM - nor should they in my opinion.

intheclouds

intheclouds wrote: »

So if the default mod settings mean an auto email is generated then why:



Surely it would be just as easy to send an auto email to all posters who have created a reply in the thread you mention above by whoever looks at it clicking some kind of "Acknowledge Reported Post" button?

I would have an issue with that in that it could give immense satisfaction to those spamming or abusing the report post function. You and I know those kind of people exist even in a very small number and would be ecstatic to have that.

K-9

Turtyturd wrote: »

Was afraid this would happen. It was a sub 300 post thread, with about 50-60(???) different posters before it was hijacked by two posters having their little back and forth, and it pre-empted the comments about bad moderation with a ban on them. It was more an example of how many people have left the forum than positive feedback.

The DRP forum will give you a better idea of the problems in the SF.

Feedback threads usually attract those with issues more than positive reviews (not a criticism btw) and people who don't post are more likely to be positive, or probably even more likely don't really care either way.

intheclouds

Penn wrote: »

But even if the mod clicked something to auto-send PMs saying the reported post has been acknowledged, it wouldn't give any indication what action the mod did or didn't take.

True.

Id be happier knowing it was acknowledged though. At the moment its just a black hole.

LoLth

Deleted User wrote: »

it could give immense satisfaction to those spamming or abusing the report post function. You and I know those kind of people exist even in a very small number and would be ecstatic to have that.

yup ^this . its ridiculous but some users will see it as a "win" if their reported post is the one that gets an action taken against another user. I **** you not. Such a user does exist.

its not the only reason but , to me, its enough to be taken into consideration.

intheclouds

LoLth wrote: »

yup ^this . its ridiculous but some users will see it as a "win" if their reported post is the one that gets an action taken against another user. I **** you not. Such a user does exist.

its not the only reason but , to me, its enough to be taken into consideration.

But they wouldnt know because the auto email would go to everyone who had reported it.

So theyd only know it was acknowledged, not that their report caused it to be actioned.

intheclouds

Deleted User wrote: »

I would have an issue with that in that it could give immense satisfaction to those spamming or abusing the report post function. You and I know those kind of people exist even in a very small number and would be ecstatic to have that.

I always think we shouldnt make rules to suit the minority cases.

Turtyturd

On the other side of the coin there are some mods who won't action a post because of who posted it. I **** you not, they exist. It would be nice for posters to get an explanation for this other than 'we can't get to every post'.

K-9

KomradeBishop wrote: »

If a person is saying something disreputable about a poster though - which is the case for Lexie - isn't that clear-cut? It's not really a debate then.


If someone is being hooked into responding again and again, by someone knowingly misrepresenting them - even after a poster has made clear repetitively that they have not said what is being attributed to them, and they don't want to be having to debunk that nonsense - isn't that also nothing to do with debate though, and just a clear misrepresentation?

If it can be clearly shown that someone is on a wind-up like that, that they demonstrably know they are misrepresenting you, and just won't stop doing that over and over - there should be a point where that becomes infractionable, because it's just trolling/disruption.

That's why I excluded serious examples or cases.

However loads of people (probably most) aren't great debaters or are interested in them either. Straw manning can be annoying but I'd say everybody has probably used it at some time or another, just to give an example you used.

But really mods aren't here to judge who is correct in a soccer, technology or political debate, trolling we can deal with but even that often isn't clear cut and takes time to be sure on.

I'm sure from those reading Prison or DRP threads they've probably wondered how such and such lasted so long!

However a substantial amount of rp's that don't get acted on are just differences of opinion. I've said it myself a few times recently in mod forums, I might not agree with a point somebody makes but it is up to others to debate it and point out what they see wrong with it.

dudara

Turtyturd wrote: »

On the other side of the coin there are some mods who won't action a post because of who posted it. I **** you not, they exist. It would be nice for posters to get an explanation for this other than 'we can't get to every post'.

And this is partially why every forum should (and mostly does) have at least two mods. It reduces any bias that might creep in. Don't forget that CMods also get the Reported Posts too. So it's often more than just one set of eyes seeing a Reported Post.

Turtyturd

K-9 wrote: »

Feedback threads usually attract those with issues more than positive reviews (not a criticism btw) and people who don't post are more likely to be positive, or probably even more likely don't really care either way.

Would generally agree but like I said when you won't let people talk about the main problem in the forum you're stacking the odds in favour of a 'positive' outcome.

K-9

Turtyturd wrote: »

On the other side of the coin there are some mods who won't action a post because of who posted it. I **** you not, they exist. It would be nice for posters to get an explanation for this other than 'we can't get to every post'.

Well you'd need to give examples of that to a C-mod or Admin really if it's that horrendous and transparent to see.

KomradeBishop

LoLth wrote: »

it has to stop somewhere. Before the rule of "final say" there were back and forth between mod/cmod/admin and users that went on for weeks if not months. and usually went round in circles with the user refusing to accept any version of events other than their own no matter how intricately the situation and rules were explained. I've been the mod and cmod and admin in that scenario and it can be a huge undertaking and it can be difficult work out if the user is genuinely aggrieved or if they are intentionally winding the mods up.

Not everything a mod says is taken as gospel. Mods are not instantly believed over users. same as cmods. same for admins. I cannot just accuse someone of anything I want and have them dealt with. I still have to present evidence and a reason behind my actions and my actions can be overturned by another admin on appeal by a user/mod or cmod. Decisions I have made have been reversed after discussion, sometimes against my own opinion sometimes after I have been shown the light. it happens and its nowhere near as totalitarian as you seem to think it is. There is a hierarchy or control that is directly proportional to the degree of responsibility.



The DRP process is there to prevent exactly that. When it was introduced there were calls of it being weighed in favour of the mods. I did a quick audit of appeal results and found that more appeals resulted in leniency than otherwise.



a posters' history is between the poster and boards moderation. The history consists of forum bans earned + reason , date ban lifted + reason , cards + reason, site bans + reason. Each of these are associated with the mod that imposed the sanction. Its pretty easy to see if a mod/user conflict is going on or if the issue is restricted to a single forum. The users themselves will have PMs relating to each of these events as well. outside of mods and the users I do not think anyone else has any reason to view it. If a mod is being unfair I'm pretty sure the user can raise an issue on their own.



if you get a card you can see it. if you get a ban you can see it. that's all there is. (I'm open to correction on this). If you have so many bans that you cannot recall which ones are form where, then there is already an issue. If they all come from a single moderator then thats something that may be worth reporting.

its also important to note that history isnt the number of bans a user receives, its how long ago, time between , reasons for the ban/card etc , severity of the infraction and prior warnings.

Well I don't think it's totalitarian or anything, it's just that there comes a point, when things in your history seem to become set in stone, and you're not allowed to challenge them afterwards - and it becomes acceptable to use that against you in other contexts too.

The DRP process doesn't provide you with a full view of your history though, you don't know everything you're up against; there are a lot of behind the scenes discussions between mods/cmods etc., you don't know everything that is levelled against you, so you can't get to challenge any inaccuracies there.

Renegade Mechanic

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

how does the soccer forum benefit by allowing children to use childish terms when talking about a club they don't support?

I bet you never used the term Lollerpool, did you?

You see, some people love to dish out the "banter" but can't take it when someone dares to slag off the English club they support. This leads to silly situations where you get "well he started it" playground bolloxology, and the forum is eventually closed.

So, it's better to just tell everyone to use the actual correct terms when talking about clubs, players, managers and other hangers-on. It just makes sense.

There are plenty of soccer forums on the internet where such terms are welcome, you should try them.

"If you don't like it, there's the door."

See, there's the problem, and on the site ad a whole. Any time there's been a problem, "There's the door". The door is practically being worn off it's hinges, so many people are "choosing the door". You can come down like a ton of bricks on things, but it's going to be upon a smaller and smaller crowd each time..

Many people will choose the door. Every time.

Flint Fredstone

Turtyturd wrote: »

On the other side of the coin there are some mods who won't action a post because of who posted it. I **** you not, they exist. It would be nice for posters to get an explanation for this other than 'we can't get to every post'.

Is this just what you think is going on in your head or have you anything to back it up with?

Renegade Mechanic

Can I axe a question here...

Why, oh, why are images blocked on AH?
When did that even happen? I remember being able to post images..

Lovely Bloke

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

"If you don't like it, there's the door."

On that particular point, though, I agree with that stance.

Very specifically, that is one of the things the soccer mods have gotten spot on down through the years - no silly, childish or abusive nicknames for players, managers or clubs.

I honestly cannot fathom the people who want the alternative. Why does a person feel the need to use terms like "Manure" "Lollerpool" "Whiskey Nose" if only to rile up, or have the "mad bantz" with rival fans.

It adds absolutely nothing of substance to the forum, and, in fact, serves to annoy users and lower the tone of the forum.

There ARE copious forums on the internet where such puerile nonsense is allowed, welcomed and celebrated. Luckily, the Boards.ie Soccer Forum is not one of them, and yes, if you don't like it, I do hope you go elsewhere.