Yep, but I was too busy for shenanigans recently.
A public appeal thread would become a giant cluster f. People won't be more satisfied with the answers there, they'll gather support (IOT/NESers mainly), use the same flawed logic as in here, throw some tantrums and try to get rid of a few specific mods. I foresee a couple of permabans
It's best that there was no official April Fool's Day stuff. The last time was... underwhelming, to be diplomatic about it.At the very least we'll stop incessantly arguing for it. Would PDMA hurt things, though? If we're wrong and it makes CFC crappy then just undo the rule change and we'll be fine with no PDMA because there'll be hard evidence as to why it's awful.
And Lefty, you missed a great April Fool's opportunity with this thread.
The thing is, different people have different reasons for wanting a change. The reasons that people in NES/IOT have are not the same as the people in OT, Civ III, or other areas of the forum. And if you took a poll of the OT forum, you'd also get differing views of why those in favor of change have that opinion.Thlayli: do you know the test scores of the moderators? If so, fair enough. If not you're drawing a conclusion from partial data.
It seems likely that a demand for PDMA will continue to be voiced until its tried. There's a possibility of PDMA getting out of control because there's some polarised viewpoints even in this thread.
I'm not convinced the moderation system is perfect, I've not been convinced that PDMA will improve it.
Has anyone launched a poll in OT? Maybe three options: Agree, Disagree, Not This Again.
Nope, nor would I suggest that warning post reiterating a prior warning in the context of dealing with a flame war, was rude, nor should you or other members publicly discuss the validity or appropriateness of a particular moderator action under the PDMA strictures.
Yep, but I was too busy for shenanigans recently.
Is the system perfect? Probably not.
Is PDMA likely to improve the system? I'm not convinced so far.
Are there any alternative sensible reforms?
The younger generation of moderators is definitely more open to making changes, so hopefully it's just a matter of time.
Please, tell us more about your crazy ex-girlfriend from high school. Bonus points for talking about someone with their pants down.
Paragraphs are your friend, Lefty.Moderator action is anything the moderators do about the rules and order. Infractions which put a little colored card in the corner, and may or may not be accompanied by text edited into a post; deleting posts (no mod tags to be seen there, anybody doubt that is a moderator action?); moving a thread to another sub forum; Deleting or trash binning a thread (no text or tags to be seen there, but if the poster then posts a "Why was my thread deleted" thread, that is PDMA); private messages or warnings about rules, almost always without any mod tags in them; editing posts, editing thread titles, deleting text; closing a thread, etc. Some of these do not even involve adding text that you could use a mod tag in. All are obviously with the scope of staff duties. Most of these were preformed for years before there were even mod tags available (I believe the infraction system came some time later than the mod tags were created). The mod tags are for giving more visibility to inserted text and instruction, when it is meant for a wider audience in the thread, it does not create the action. Choosing NOT to infract a reported is a action covered by the PDMA rule, obviously no text or tag there, but if you publicly complain about your forum enemy not being infracted for his post, you will be breaking the PDMA rule. If a moderator infracts a member and edits the members posts, that is a moderator action, whether or not he adds any text at all to the post. Most of my front line moderator experience in the OT and the game forums was before they were available. The PDMA rule precedes their invention by a few years.
Assuming the poster of a deleted single post or the starter of of a deleted thread were not sent a PM about the action (or they have private messages disabled or they ignore them), they are only bared from asking by public post on CFC. They may use PM or other private channel to inquire.But let's do examine the issue of deleted posts and threads. As you say, there are no moderator tags to explain why someone's (or lots of someones') words have suddenly vanished. It's a reasonable thing to ask where they went, and it's not reasonable to infract people for asking. You have some context for it since moderators can still see soft-deleted posts (not a CFC secret; this is how all vBulletin forums work). But to the rest of us, our words are there one second and gone the next, and most of the time we have no idea why and there have been occasions when it's been made very plain that it's really inconvenient to be asked for an explanation.
Considering that some peoples' perfectly innocent, legitimate posts occasionally vanish along with the ones that do merit deletion, it's just plain rude and inconsiderate to prohibit people from asking where their posts went - because there was nothing wrong with them!
Instead of focusing on the merits of my argument vis a vis people gunking up PDMA threads with useless circlejerking, we instead get post after post of people banning together to prove their not in a secret cabal.No not at all. I'm perfectly willing to accept I'm 100% wrong on everything I said here. Just trying to offer an opinion.
47 people is not necessarily a clique and it's a majority of the people who are interested enough in the topic to vote. I don't know the current membership of CFC but I suspect 47 people is not a majority of the whole community (and its still a vote supporting public appeal not general discussion).
There are many members who only stay in the Civ forums and take no interest in the rest of the forum. That's their right, and it's how things were for me at first. And there are members who have either never played Civ or haven't played for a long time, but who still love the site and have migrated to other areas such as the non-Civ games and the Colosseum section. Site Feedback is where we should all be able to meet and exchange ideas, suggestions, recommendations, and yes, criticisms of the site.
I would guess that the vast majority of the members of this forum take no interest at all in what happens in Site Feedback unless they encounter a technical problem or need to ask a question. They come, post, get their answer, and leave. They don't stay for the other discussions.
But some do. Some people are very interested in how this site works, the technical issues, the social dynamics, how the site is organized, and how staff is chosen. Those people want to help make this a better place to hang out, and it is really, profoundly annoying to be criticized and dismissed as a "clique" just for wanting to see improvements in some area or other or to try something new.
These 48 people (another person voted in support since the above post) are not a "clique." We are 48 people who see a need for this change to happen, and I daresay there are probably a lot more than just we who agree on this. We just happen to be the most vocal and willing to speak out publicly.
And that's a fallacy as it will be out of ordinary for polls to attract a majority of people to participate. Either way, participants of any side would've been minorities.
Anyway, I think enough have been said about "cliques". If some former/current moderators want to paint this as a clique attacking them, then it will be on them to show that all these people voting yes are part of one big group. Personally, I feel going this direction will hurt them because it would just further expose how dangerously irrational some of these volunteers and former volunteers are.
I'm extremely worried about the direction elements of this board are heading. Today, 48 out of the 60 people who voted in this poll are members of a shadowy cabal that has organized to overthrow the administration under the guise of transparency and democracy. Now, if this number was a realistic portrayal of the board at large, we're supposed to believe that 80% of the board is part of the cabal. That makes no sense whatsoever. I believe that every member of the cabal have voted and that only 48 people on this entire board support this measure, and the other four billion do not.
The five people who voted against represent the silent majority of forum users in my opinion.
Ooooh, I've never been a part of a shadowy cabal before! Do we get nice parking spaces, and secret tunnels, and cool robes, and songs about how we keep the metric system down and rig every Oscar night?
Curses! That reminds me my parking ticket just expired, and do you have an idea how hard it is to run in these robes? I personally would have went with plain rompers. Helps blending in.
I'm certainly not saying that there is a clique or cabal or movement. I am saying that c 60 people out of the CFC membership feel strongly enough about this issue to vote. The low turnout suggests that there isn't a widespread clamour for change on the rules regarding discussion of moderator actions.
Anyone has the right to protest as vociferously as they wish (within the bounds of civility) but without public support (i.e. membership of CFC) the demands for change won't get very far.
The thing is, that only a limited number of posters in OT and NES want or care about the PDMA. Civ4 S&T don't care about it, neither does the modding community.
All the fringe benefits are covered in the "How to Shill for the Stonecutters" Handbook on pages 13 to 17.
I agree. Low voter turnout in the real world usually suggests that there isn't a widespread clamour to change the president too.
So you're saying we should repress minorities?
I wouldn't want to be repressed just because I'm in minority. I don't usually feel that repressed, though. Perhaps I belong to a clique of irrepressible.
I'm slightly puzzled that 'anyone has the right to protest' can be interpreted as saying 'we should repress minorities' but I'm easily confused .
Most of us talking heads here do not hang with each other. Please accept that you are wrong. Thanks.
This derail from a few pages ago rather proves my point, I think. I raise concerns about people forming 'cliques' in the context of a PDMA thread to ban together to attack or defend someone's actions in such a way as to make a PDMA thread completely untenable from a practical standpoint. It will all break down into trolling. I've stated that I am just offering my opinion on the subject and am willing to admit that I may completely wrong. See below:
Instead of focusing on the merits of my argument vis a vis people gunking up PDMA threads with useless circlejerking, we instead get post after post of people banning together to prove their not in a secret cabal.
It's a red herring, but people were repulsed enough by the idea that I suggested to ban together to show exactly what I'm talking about. The above quotes contributed 0 to the overall discussion and didn't actually disprove my point in any way.
red her·ring
noun
1.
a dried smoked herring, which is turned red by the smoke.
I understand my opinion on the matter is not held in high esteem here. I understand a majority think I'm wrong. But I also see that a group of people decided to waste everyone's time and partially derail the thread to circlejerk about how wrong I am and turn the conversation into a red herring about how I apparently think you are all are in a coordinate covert secret attack squadron.
My main objection to PDMA threads is not that any group of people are consciously coordinating trolling, flaming and attacking (though I've been involved in that enough myself to know that it does happen). My main objection is that the kind of behavior shown in the quotes above will come to dominate PDMA threads and make them untenable. You all aren't a 'clique', you aren't hanging out in real life discussing how to show me how stupid I am. But given a subject you care about, you are going to tend to feed off of each other's useless comments. Throw in the hurt feelings of infractions and bad moderations and I think it will be much much worse than this rather benign show of circlejerking.
Or, because it's more fun, we can go back to focusing on how I think everyone's in a secret cabal.