Reform of 'PDMA' Guidelines and Establishment of Public Appeal Thread/Forum

brennan said:

It is looking increasingly as though the people agitating for change just want to be able to get away with breaking the rules. I for one am not surprised the mods are not particularly interested in taking part in such a discussion.

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Rules that are terrible, inefficient, and disastrous to the community and feedback on said community shouldn't be rules at all. Breaking them has nothing to do with being a "bad boy" so much as wanting a better forum experience for us all.

It's a good thing the rules here are nothing of the sort then.

brennan said:

It's a good thing the rules here are nothing of the sort then.

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If you paid attention to the active complaints about moderation and PDMA, you'd have a different picture of the situation.

That's almost as silly as declaring that an ancient rule on an internet forum that has been operating for well over a decade is "disastrous to the community".

brennan said:

That's almost as silly as declaring that an ancient rule on an internet forum that has been operating for well over a decade is "disastrous to the community".

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I have not showered in ten years. Therefore not showering is good.

No wonder your logic stinks.

Not showering and the long term policies of moderation here do not lend themselves towards analogous comparisons. The consequences of the latter are a community of civility demonstrably superior to many comparable sites on the internet. The consequences of the former is becoming malodorous.

While it is certainly true that we should not remain hidebound to the traditions of the past, where existing mores provide a meaningful and significant benefit they should be given a degree of deference.

brennan said:

That's almost as silly as declaring that an ancient rule on an internet forum that has been operating for well over a decade is "disastrous to the community".

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I am curious. Do moderators always delete posts praising their actions? And do they infract posters doing so?

No, it seems to be that they don't, even though those posts are quite equally PDMA. In fact, the PDMA rule is applied selectively. Public praise of moderator actions is tacitly tolerated, while public criticism of moderator actions is cut down. I have seen this occur quietly for years without comment, but it is worth mentioning now.

The rules are not even fairly enforced as written.

We don't live in an era where civil, polite, measured criticism should be cut down simply because it is critical. Discussion builds bridges, it doesn't burn them. If you care about this forum, you should support reform. It is essential to making this a more mature community.

Thlayli said:

We don't live in an era where civil, polite, measured criticism should be cut down simply because it is critical. Discussion builds bridges, it doesn't burn them. If you care about this forum, you should support reform. It is essential to making this a more mature community.

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Certainly that is a sensible position.

However, isn't it fair to distinguish public discussion of moderation policy, as we have here, from public discussion of specific actions?

It seems to me that it is.

At the same time, I reiterate that some of the discussion in this thread has not been civil, polite, or mature.

BvBPL said:

No wonder your logic stinks.

Not showering and the long term policies of moderation here do not lend themselves towards analogous comparisons. The consequences of the latter are a community of civility demonstrably superior to many comparable sites on the internet. The consequences of the former is becoming malodorous.

While it is certainly true that we should not remain hidebound to the traditions of the past, where existing mores provide a meaningful and significant benefit they should be given a degree of deference.

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All he said was that it's been in place for a long time, therefore it's good. I highlighted the absurdity in such an argument.

A false equivalency remains false even if the statement to which it is speaking is unsupported.

BvBPL said:

A false equivalency remains false even if the statement to which it is speaking is unsupported.

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Not really. I was pointing out a flaw in argumentation, not equivocating bad hygiene with CFC rules. I used a ridiculous example to highlight the ridiculousness of the argument.

It is not ridiculous to say that what has worked in the past is likely to work in the future.

To say that because something has -to a degree- worked in the past then it should remain the eternal status quo is.

BvBPL said:

It is not ridiculous to say that what has worked in the past is likely to work in the future.

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He didn't say it worked, he just said it existed.

brennan said:

That's almost as silly as declaring that an ancient rule on an internet forum that has been operating for well over a decade is "disastrous to the community".

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Not to mention that the whole point of this thread is that it hasn't worked.

Thlayli said:

I am curious. Do moderators always delete posts praising their actions? And do they infract posters doing so?

No, it seems to be that they don't, even though those posts are quite equally PDMA.

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You'll laugh, but some 3 years ago or so I had some arguments with one of the other former mods regarding that, due to the exact same reason.

My tribe of NESers has been scattered to the wind. Only embers remain. Those who pass here, I beg you: remember the wisdom they left behind.

Luckymoose said:

Rules that are terrible, inefficient, and disastrous to the community and feedback on said community shouldn't be rules at all. Breaking them has nothing to do with being a "bad boy" so much as wanting a better forum experience for us all.

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Thlayli said:

I am curious. Do moderators always delete posts praising their actions? And do they infract posters doing so?

No, it seems to be that they don't, even though those posts are quite equally PDMA. In fact, the PDMA rule is applied selectively. Public praise of moderator actions is tacitly tolerated, while public criticism of moderator actions is cut down. I have seen this occur quietly for years without comment, but it is worth mentioning now.

The rules are not even fairly enforced as written.

We don't live in an era where civil, polite, measured criticism should be cut down simply because it is critical. Discussion builds bridges, it doesn't burn them. If you care about this forum, you should support reform. It is essential to making this a more mature community.

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Zack said:

All he said was that it's been in place for a long time, therefore it's good. I highlighted the absurdity in such an argument.

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That's not actually what I said.

It was stated that the PDMA policy was 'disastrous'. I merely pointed out that the long and successfull functioning of this community with the rule in place simply demonstrates such a statement to be an absurdity.

Not to mention that the whole point of this thread is that it hasn't worked.

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That would be a hypothesis. I think it's been pretty poorly evidenced on this thread by people who seem to have a chip on their shoulder.

Thlayli said:

If you care about this forum, you should support reform.

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You've obviously not been reading my posts on this thread.

Takhisis said:

To say that because something has -to a degree- worked in the past then it should remain the eternal status quo is.

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It is almost as if BvBPL and brennan are trolling this thread.

Anyhow, human rights and democracy are relatively recent developments in human history. Our ancestors were fine without them for millennia. Does it mean they shouldn't have pursued these things?

brennan said:

It was stated that the PDMA policy was 'disastrous'. I merely pointed out that the long and successfull functioning of this community with the rule in place simply demonstrates such a statement to be an absurdity.

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Or maybe the community functioned well despite this ineffectiveness.

It's just like the Chinese economy has been doing well... despite the rampant corruption and widespread environmental degradation.

Anyhow. Weeks have passed and moderators have ceased taking part of this since last week. It would appear they want to let this issue quietly fade away. On a positive note, we can treat this as some sort of re-enactment of how police states are formed and maintained. The type of rules, strategies, and excuses involved bear some degree of resemblance. Pre-occupation with control, perceived pre-occupation with civil order, lack of transparency, lack of diplomacy, draconian measures, fancy speeches, etc.

Daftpanzer said:

My tribe of NESers has been scattered to the wind. Only embers remain. Those who pass here, I beg you: remember the wisdom they left behind.

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There's always the option to start anew somewhere else. CFC is not the only decent medium for these kinds of topics. An experiment that can hypothetically be done is to open shop elsewhere else (i.e. http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/ etc), send an invite to some CFC member, and see how many would be drawn over.

<slight derail>

Speaking of ACG, by the way, their definition of "spam" is much more... er... sensible and normal than what we have in CFC, which I do not know how it was decided upon in the first place (not to mention the grammar).

ACG said:

SPAM
Spamming is posting links to commerical products in any forum except the Messageboard forum. Items not specifically geared towards history or gaming will be deleted outright (cell phones, viagra, etc.) wherever they are found. Posting the same message in multiple forums is also considered spam, no matter what the content unless specifically authorized by staff.

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CFC said:

Spam
Spam is posting something that does not make a significant contribution to the discussion at hand. The forums are discussion forums, and it is therefore expected that posters will post in a way that contributes to discussion. It is also expected that new threads will promote discussion. Moderators may periodically allow some lighter or more frivolous threads, but this will be at their discretion. Posting isolated links without meaningful poster input as to the value of such a link does not contribute to the discussion as will be considered spam. There is a lower tolerance for spam in threads where there is a good discussion taking place.

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And of course... the way CFC staff members defines "spam" in practice is even more original than what's written on paper, but that's for a different discussion.

</slight derail>

It would be sad if the PDMA issue is simply left to fade into the background without being resolved, as it will inevitably flare up again. I understand we have no way of knowing what is or isn't being discussed right now - and we were surprised by some positive changes made in what remains of CFC NES forum - but I also gather that excuse has been used as a smokescreen in the past, so you can understand the scepticism.

Many forumers are now into their 20's or, in my case, early 30's. Some of us have invested hundreds - thousands - tens of thousands - of hours on this site. On the rare occasions that disputes arise, we resent being treated as unruly teenagers, or even worse.

NESers were from the Civ 3-5 generations that wanted more than just Civ-related threads. They were active on many other parts of the site and had tens of thousands of posts between them. And now most of them are gone for good.

The way things are going, I think CFC is going to keep loosing these more mature, creative types from the forum... The mods have to decide if this is an issue for them or not. I guess it depends if they can count on getting enough new traffic from every new civ-related game release.

tl;dr: I'm still waiting to see any real argument against having more openness around moderators and their decisions.

ywhtptgtfo said:

There's always the option to start anew somewhere else. CFC is not the only decent medium for these kinds of topics. An experiment that can hypothetically be done is to open shop elsewhere else (i.e. http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/ etc), send an invite to some CFC member, and see how many would be drawn over.

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Well indeed, that is what has happened in this case. About 2/3 of the NES community is now posting on The Frontier, though its having a slow start in terms of actual games. Meanwhile the CFC NES forum is at less than 1/2 of its previous activity. I can name at least one person from this thread, who has sadly decided to leave the community altogether.

ACG is an interesting site, I know other NESers have looked at it or been active there. I will bear that in mind