Cutstuff Forum

Cutstuff => Cutstuff Discussion and Feedback => Topic started by: Tesseractal on August 18, 2012, 01:59:23 AM

Title: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: Tesseractal on August 18, 2012, 01:59:23 AM
In the MM8BDM Discussion forum, there's currently eight stickies, most of them are very, very old news. The screenshots and wiki thread aren't updated by Mike any more, the CTF contest is over. Keep the MM8 expansion around as it's the only one still going on. V2C was released over a year ago by now; everyone seems to have it at this point. If you want to keep them you can have them linger around in the help forum, which doesn't have much traffic (ergo stickies wouldn't slow it down), along with the masterserver changes (again, also relatively dated).

I could report all of those threads individually but I bring it here because I think a policy change would be effective overall. A large amount of stickies are ugly and nothing more than clutter after the activity tails off, so keeping the amount of them low (<4) would look more organized.

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FORUM rules: They're nice but I think these might not be suited to host a larger community. In the past I've noticed a lot of the moderations / warnings given on this forum come down to "discretion", and that leaves more room for moderated users to argue (which is unnecessary and generally a waste of space). I actually am suggesting this for the moderators' benefit as well; if they have certain things to look for they can act on, their jobs will become smoother and more automated, less discrepancy will occur, and the whole board will be clear on the game. Additionally, laying out guidelines for the moderators will work as well - there have been instances in the past when one moderator acted out of line; but I have never seen anything that explicitly told him not to behave that way; it was only "expected" of him to act better. Rather than leave things up to your (or his) expectations, establishing a firm guideline for his behavior would most likely curb infantile behavior. (Or at least, allow users to report it accurately.)

As for any new forum rules, I think a general policy concerning new members would be nice. My impression thus far of this forum is most of them are introverts who might behave in ways contrary to hospitality; any policy that would encourage old members to be cooperative (or at least, non-hostile) toward new members would be fantastic. Definitely something to consider. Both these issues I bring together because they deal with old, dated topics that need to be purged. The rules have been neglected for an extended period now and I think it'd be nice to remind both new and old users they're still around.
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: Mendez on August 19, 2012, 01:09:35 AM
I like it Roc, allow me to suggest a couple of new rules that might be helpful.
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: Russel on August 19, 2012, 02:40:12 AM
Not too fond of 1a, I think that there really shouldn't be any bias as to who is punished for what...there really shouldn't be any bias and if 1a goes through, that should be applied to all users.

Basically everyone has to follow the rules and everyone will have the same punishment.
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: CarThief on August 19, 2012, 05:22:08 AM
Hm, instant bans on acting improperly once seems a bit... unneccesairly and harsh. Perhaps a 2 or 3 strike system, at most. Not like we're getting that many misbehaving kids here anyway, though.
Not to mention Mike already implemented a 'if you make a bad/offensive introduction (if you're a new user) you get banned' rule, to keep the less mature and, uh, capable out. Though this rule rarely needed enforcing i believe.

Normally i'd say im all up for giving moderators strict guidelines and behaviour protocol when doing their moderation business, but i dont quite feel that the mods here (or rather, it seems to be just Ivory, right now, and maybe occasionally Brotoad) really need these. So far their judgement was rarely questionable, and almost never bad.
If Mike's planning on getting larger amounts of mods, though, then the situation changes. Large groups always need some coordination.

I rarely see any hostilities against new users, though its occasionally there, ussually its the types that are proud of making something relatively simple and/or bad and start advertising it much to the dismay of the more experienced members. Not sure if new rules will help the tendacy of such users to yell at the newbies, but it might be worth a try. I just hope this wont grow out to be a 'be kind to people or get banned' rule, though. No-one likes those, sometimes you need to vent or be a dick to prove your point. :P

As for the forum reorganizations, eh, no comment i suppose. What could possibily go wrong if some exessive stuff gets removed and revamped a bit.
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: Korby on August 19, 2012, 06:55:43 AM
(click to show/hide)
I wouldn't mind a new set of rules.
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: CutmanMike on August 19, 2012, 06:54:51 PM
Feel free to edit that post then. The last rule definitely needs to stay though, or else we'll end up like the Skulltag forums. That's something I will not see happen while I'm admin!

Also I took a few of the stickies down, woo
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: Balrog on August 20, 2012, 06:36:18 PM
I say that the current rules are fine. They're more specific than "don't be a dick" but are still broad enough that you can't weasel out of anything. As someone who took a banhammer for somewhat questionable reasons in the past, however, I would recommend a set of guidelines be set out for moderator conduct so mods can't reasonably ban people for violating their pet peeves.
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: Ivory on August 20, 2012, 06:42:33 PM
You linked to NSFW content. That isn't a pet peeve.
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: Balrog on August 20, 2012, 06:48:00 PM
Not arguing about that. However, it was a first offense, and due diligence was observed as to preventing people who didn't want to see it from seeing it. In my book, that's a post nuke and warning, not a permaban.
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: Ivory on August 20, 2012, 06:52:56 PM
You don't deal with people who need to be moderated. I do. And I can safely tell you, every 1/3 people I deal with will try to squirm around the vague rules. Any sort of issue you have with "mod conduct" would be solved if there was clear and cut rules with no room for wiggling around them.
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: CarThief on August 21, 2012, 12:32:46 AM
Hm, a permanent ban seems a bit exessive for someone who just posted NSFW content, while assumingly not infringing the first impression rule.

Doesnt help that the NSFW rule lets the moderators pick bans or warnings on their leisure, given the nature of human error, this may be too much. I suppose best way to deal with it is to keep a set punishment on certain rules. Though this will either need judgement and/or approval by Mike and the mods in general or the whole forums having a say in it (though i guess thats essentially happening right now :P), because rules dont mean much if no-one wants to follow them.

If you ask me, that whole thing might as well be an extra discussion point in here for now, perhaps something agreeable will come out of it. I kinda trust the current mods on these, but i also found that particular bit of judgement a bit much, hard to pick sides on this one...

Hm, dont frequent MM8BDM forums that much so your name unfortunately didn't come to mind, Korby. :P
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: Ivory on August 21, 2012, 02:47:25 AM
...What? Excessive? I haven't been on a sane website that wouldn't have banned someone from posting to such content, which is why I don't tolerate it here either.

The biggest problem the rules have in the current form is that Korby and I (very) often have to spend 15-30 minutes simply trying to figure out if what "person a" did was infringing on vague "rule x". You know there is a problem when the moderators can't even act without second guessing themselves that something is wrong. This will change because with Mike's Permission, Cutstuff will be getting more updated rules that actually have seeable boundaries. Not the current "if it isn't clear-cut wrong, it's ambiguous" problem.

Of course, when it come down to it, what says or goes is purely based on what the Cutstuff Staff deems acceptable or not. Think of Cutstuff as CutmanMike's house and the forum rules are the house rules. If the house rules said take your shoes off, but you wanted to walk around with your shoes on, who is right?
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: Tengu on August 21, 2012, 02:50:06 AM
TBH, I like this idea. I'm never sure whether something is okay or not okay.
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: CarThief on August 21, 2012, 03:54:59 AM
Perhaps we just come from two very different spots of the internet. The places i've seen, even the sane ones, one would ussually get a warning for just one fairly normal NSFW picture or being 1/3 away from a ban (or both), depending on the forum's system, but almost never a permanent ban, perhaps a warning and a temporarely one, though. (Of course its a different story if it was a forum for kids, or simply exessive quantities of it, or simply something THAT extreme.)

Hm, the rules may be a bit vague and broad, but they where fairly clear to me, with some common sense. Unless lack of common sense is the issue here for the users that infringe on the rules. I guess more specific rules wont hurt anyone but i dont see a significant need for them either.
Unless it makes moderating that much more difficult, it seems easy enough to me, but i guess its hard to judge without an example.
Title: Re: [Suggestion] Cut down stickies; update forum rules
Post by: King Dumb on August 02, 2013, 03:14:47 AM
Reviving this topic because a conclusion has not yet been established and I have suggestions.

In any case, I believe a change to the rules post would be beneficial. As has been suggested, it's more of a clarification that is called for than changes.

Specifically, I am referring to the "KEEP IT SANE" and, to some extent, "KEEP IT FRIENDLY" rules. Each of these are extremely prone to subjectivity and discrepancy. I'm not citing any gross misinterpretations of the rules, merely saying they could benefit from expansion and clarification of all the instances in which they apply. Though it wouldn't hurt to expound upon all of them.

Even if people don't read the rules (which is of course another issue; I'm not sure if the suggestion that they be presented upon signing up for the forums was taken up or not), having more defined rules makes it easier to explain warnings, bans, and locks, and makes it easier for mods to be consistent.

One function of moderators that goes almost entirely undefined by the rules is the discretion to lock topics that have, as a whole, become derailed. If this ability is to be maintained (and I see no terrible reason why it shouldn't be), there ought to be an explanation for it in the rules.

Expanding upon the rules will probably result in them becoming more like forum guidelines, but that's probably a good thing.

Additionally, it'd be nice if, within or in addition to the guidelines, the penalties for violations were posted.

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Another thing to note is that some forums (including many topically close to our own) implement a system where the first few/x number of posts by new users must be approved by a moderator before they are shown in a thread. Personally, I don't like this 'solution', but I suppose it is something to consider to insure rules are being followed. Not really the point of this thread though.