PD of PDMA

[Buster's Uncle]

I keep hearing blame on the kids.

Gentlemen, I know you're telling me the truth, but you ARE blaming the kids. You can't let up because they won't LET you. Anyone else a fan of Joseph Heller? He sure could write.

I can only go by my reading of the tone of the membership here, but that reading says the CFC demographic is substantially younger than the other Civ family sites with which I'm familiar, leavened with old-time members who grew up here, know the ropes and are comfortable. I doubt CFC pulls a lot of new adults. It's not worth it here, without love or money at stake. That's another invisible cost.

Is it possible that your experiences as management here are reflective of the sort of members this style of management pulls instead of proof the style is necessary? It's an old culture and nothing's going to change, but it's still pathetic that I can't discuss my bad experience here in any meaningful way.

Here, in Site. In a thread about the policy forbidding, of all places, it is forbidden. George Orwell is also a gifted author.

That's why nothing's going to change; talking about mod misjudgment inconveniences the staff, as explained over and over. Good luck with that.

ainwood, I got to know you a little citizen to citizen at WPC (I was wrong about CFC v. 'poly culture, BTW, being too green and not knowing CFC well enough), and you're genuinely okay on that level, and strike me as one of the more mature staffers here - but I've caught enough of your act right here in Site that I'm somewhat uncomfortable posting where you're active. Make of that what you will.

Mr. Mayan guy, AC2 averages around 30 members a day, and roughly 2-3 times that many posts. Click on my sig link and have a look. Laugh all you want, and say I don't know what I'm talking about, but we built that without taking a whole handful of people with us from our previous forum, very little aggressive recruiting, and starting with near zero content, all since February of last year. I've logged 242d 8h 0m onsite in a year and a half, doing nearly 100% of the people management. I know what I'm doing, and you're not dealing with a chimp. I still say it's at least as much the clientele we draw as the numbers, and you can't prove me wrong without changing the entire way CFC is run - which you won't.

I don't know why I'm even doing this. It's not like the members who agree and haven't been run off feel safe speaking up, and I'm only inviting ad hominem, as the only counter-examples I can offer are my own work, which will never satisfy in the face of the excuses offered.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You know, I lost a member just a few days ago because I edited some terminology that got by the swear filter. He actually mentioned the first amendment as he left.

You're not telling me anything I didn't already know.

In managing my own place, I do what's right in preference to what's easy. Luck has been with me, but so has the mature culture we established. I get people who volunteer how they've lurked for years to avoid the inept moderation typically found on 4xd game boards, until they found us.

God, that sounds so hopelessly conceited, but I don't know a better way to make the point. By treating them with respect, we draw a crowd who makes managing them as easy as could be imagined. -It'll never happen here, because the culture is all wrong.

How many members do you have? Size is everything. A steady 200 posters all the time is not the same as a steady 2000.

Size is a factor, but it is definitely NOT "everything."

I've mentioned my Doctor Who forum. In all the years it's been around, we've only had two really significant problems with the members, and they were lulus. The first was when the admin of the forum we split off from charged in and started calling us a bunch of ingrates and traitors for making our own forum. We let him have his say, a few of our members told him off, and he was invited to leave. He left, good riddance.

The second actually resulted in a permaban - some deranged woman decided to use our forum as part of her obsession with stalking Tom Baker. Literally stalking him, scaring his family, and who knows how far she went elsewhere? The most we could do was ban her and warn the other sites where we knew she hung out. It was hard for the forum owner to do this, as she is a gentle lady who tries to see the best in everyone. But she did it, and we all learned a lesson about human nature and how twisted it can be sometimes. I'm happy to say that the only problems I ever have to deal with as an admin there are technical ones - the members are the most well-behaved group of internet people I've ever known.

So size isn't the ultimate determinant of trouble. All it takes is one.

 

[Synobun]

Do the moderators and administrators on this forum really approve of turning your back on members the minute you deem them to be "difficult"?

I am 100% fully aware that there are many sections on this website and with many members passing through each and every single day, but that's why you have different moderators assigned to different parts of the forum. No? You can make the site-wide population argument but if you already have it set up so that a group of moderators have to deal with at most 500 members, where is the big deal with difficulty and moderators not having enough time?

If it is truly a problem with time and the moderators determine that acting like a picky five year old at dinner time is how they have to do things, then perhaps the issue lies in not having enough moderators? Understaffing can drastically reduce work conditions and morale, this is seen both virtually and within reality. Yet, moderators keep getting added and the problems seem to be getting worse, so it can't be that there aren't enough moderators.

Could it be, perhaps, that most of the moderators aren't actually qualified to moderate? Sure, they may not break the rules, they may be mature, but do they have what it takes to moderate efficiently and appropriately? Simply being a grounded human being isn't enough.

Personal anecdotal story here: I've either been admin or moderator on forums since before I was a teenager. These sites had very different member counts. One had over 20,000 members with extreme traffic each and every day because of how unique of a website it was, one had over 6,000 members, but most hovered around 20-400. Traffic was generally 50%+ at all times. The only thing that mattered is that with less members, you didn't need to care too much about moderator qualifications. The likelihood of being in a stressful situation is low so most of the big-time commitments could be passed off along to the head moderator or the administrator his/herself.

Could it be that discussing moderator actions is forbidden only because the moderator couldn't handle the stress of having their actions criticized by more than one individual which they could simply dismiss and not have anything happen afterwards? I've complained before of being ignored and nothing happened that was in my benefit. I actually got warned for saying that I got ignored in a PM simply because I indicated which moderator it was that was ignoring me which led me to PM the moderator that warned me for that. Their response? It wasn't their problem, I would have to PM the mod that warned me the first time.

Oh reaaaally? It's really just a perfect system designed to avoid being responsible for your actions while the member gets to feel like they made a difference. Raising all these points in previous threads tends to be the time a moderator says, "This is not a Democracy."

CFC finds itself in the wonderful position of being able to smirk at its member base and say, "What are you going to do? Find another forum just as good as this one? Huehuehuehuehuehue." and then comfortably sit there without worrying about backlash.

 

[The_J]

Here, in Site. In a thread about the policy forbidding, of all places, it is forbidden. George Orwell is also a gifted author.

Short reminder: This is a gaming site.
Comparing a totalitarian state to some simple behaviour rules on an internet site decidated to a gaming series might be exaggerating, and you might have your priorities wrong.

This is by the way also the arguments which make me raging in PM conversations.
You insulted another member, and you want to get at my with the "police state" argument? Seriously...

Do the moderators and administrators on this forum really approve of turning your back on members the minute you deem them to be "difficult"?

I wished.
The amount of permanent bans is really low, only a few per year.
If everyone was permanently banned, who got on my nerves with some really insane argument via a PM, then this amount would be tenfold.
It would already increase twice if everyone was banned, who made me hesitate to open my PMs, because I feared I couldn't stand the BS I got.

And I'm not even talking about OT.

The time to get someone permabanned is sometimes really too long. It takes years. Really.

Understaffing can drastically reduce work conditions and morale, this is seen both virtually and within reality. Yet, moderators keep getting added and the problems seem to be getting worse, so it can't be that there aren't enough moderators.

Could it be, perhaps, that most of the moderators aren't actually qualified to moderate? Sure, they may not break the rules, they may be mature, but do they have what it takes to moderate efficiently and appropriately? Simply being a grounded human being isn't enough.

Both correlates.
a) You have no idea how long a discussion about adding a new moderator can take, and what effort it takes to make everyone agree on that. It takes even months to get obvious candidates in.
b) and there aren't that many obvious candidates. If you want an even harder screening, then the side will be left without any moderators.

Could it be that discussing moderator actions is forbidden only because the moderator couldn't handle the stress of having their actions criticized by more than one individual which they could simply dismiss and not have anything happen afterwards?[...]

...um...yes?
If I have not only to defend myself against some lunatic arguments via PM, which is time and nerve consuming enough, but have a public witchhunt afterwards (that wouldn't happen? People did that despite the fact they knew they'd get a ban for that; I had at least 5 insulting threads dedicated to my own, one with the title "who sucks the most autocensored in the world?"), then I'll just not moderate here.

Oh reaaaally? It's really just a perfect system designed to avoid being responsible for your actions while the member gets to feel like they made a difference.

Avoid it? Do you want to know how often I've been scolded my a supermod or admin for my actions?

Raising all these points in previous threads tends to be the time a moderator says, "This is not a Democracy."

Which is by the way just true.
This is a privately owned site. You can demand as much democracy in a company or while visiting the house of a friend.

CFC finds itself in the wonderful position of being able to smirk at its member base and say, "What are you going to do? Find another forum just as good as this one? Huehuehuehuehuehue." and then comfortably sit there without worrying about backlash.

Not if we really behaved like idiots.

 

[Synobun]

I wished.
The amount of permanent bans is really low, only a few per year.
If everyone was permanently banned, who got on my nerves with some really insane argument via a PM, then this amount would be tenfold.
It would already increase twice if everyone was banned, who made me hesitate to open my PMs, because I feared I couldn't stand the BS I got.

...um...yes?
If I have not only to defend myself against some lunatic arguments via PM, which is time and nerve consuming enough, but have a public witchhunt afterwards (that wouldn't happen? People did that despite the fact they knew they'd get a ban for that; I had at least 5 insulting threads dedicated to my own, one with the title "who sucks the most autocensored in the world?")

With that said, this quote,

then I'll just not moderate here.

Would probably be for the best.

 

[The_J]

You might want to elaborate on this, because at the moment it seems that
a) you approve personal attacks against people, who just do their job here, without any knowledge if there's any reason for the attack and
b) you're using a personal attack to ignore the fact that I've actually tried to tell you that everything you assume isn't right, and that we in fact do not try to ignore people and we do not go berserk on users who get insulting.

I hope that both isn't true because that would be a sad reaction, and I hope that I didn't get the actual interpretation of your post. I hope you can explain the real intention of your post.

 

[Synobun]

You might want to elaborate on this, because at the moment it seems that
a) you approve personal attacks against people, who just do their job here, without any knowledge if there's any reason for the attack and
b) you're using a personal attack to ignore the fact that I've actually tried to tell you that everything you assume isn't right, and that we in fact do not try to ignore people and we do not go berserk on users who get insulting.

I hope that both isn't true because that would be a sad reaction, and I hope that I didn't get the actual interpretation of your post. I hope you can explain the real intention of your post.

The way you worded your response to what I said is that moderating without going berserk is, in all forms, an inconvenience on your life. In which case, you not wishing to moderate this forum would be a very good thing.

 

[The_J]

Dealing with idiots, who try to skirt the rules, who harrass other people, who get insulting if you tell them to stop, who can't understand simple rules...yes, that's an inconvencience.
That should be an inconvenience to every sane person.

(I'm still talking about the minority of the people who make moderating a pain, not the rest of the normal people)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Avoid it? Do you want to know how often I've been scolded my a supermod or admin for my actions?

Yes, please. That would be interesting to know. Except it's something you very likely can't tell us even if you wanted to, because that would be PDMA.

But moderators are never infracted, even if they themselves commit infractible offenses, like trolling. So how could it be PDMA? But it would be publicly discussing a moderator/admin's actions. But moderators are never infracted, and "scoldings" don't usually mean much in the grand scheme, unless the scoldee solemnly promises never to do it again (whatever "it" is), and keeps his word.

It's enough to make a person dizzy, just thinking about it.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Unless I somehow missed this forum of tyrannical abuse, I think this sums it up pretty well -

Short reminder: This is a gaming site.

Unfortunate that the conditions for moderating still seems harsh.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I keep hearing blame on the kids.

Gentlemen, I know you're telling me the truth, but you ARE blaming the kids. You can't let up because they won't LET you. Anyone else a fan of Joseph Heller? He sure could write.

I can only go by my reading of the tone of the membership here, but that reading says the CFC demographic is substantially younger than the other Civ family sites with which I'm familiar, leavened with old-time members who grew up here, know the ropes and are comfortable. I doubt CFC pulls a lot of new adults. It's not worth it here, without love or money at stake. That's another invisible cost.

Is it possible that your experiences as management here are reflective of the sort of members this style of management pulls instead of proof the style is necessary? It's an old culture and nothing's going to change, but it's still pathetic that I can't discuss my bad experience here in any meaningful way.

Here, in Site. In a thread about the policy forbidding, of all places, it is forbidden. George Orwell is also a gifted author.

That's why nothing's going to change; talking about mod misjudgment inconveniences the staff, as explained over and over. Good luck with that.

ainwood, I got to know you a little citizen to citizen at WPC (I was wrong about CFC v. 'poly culture, BTW, being too green and not knowing CFC well enough), and you're genuinely okay on that level, and strike me as one of the more mature staffers here - but I've caught enough of your act right here in Site that I'm somewhat uncomfortable posting where you're active. Make of that what you will.

Are the kids to blame? Much of the time the answer is yes.We moderate mostly in a reactive way. A post gets reported and a mod takes a look and either acts or doesn't act. Often a mod will ask for second and third opinions before any action is taken (or not). We respond to what members see as a problem. What they see as a violation of the rules. I make no attempt to read every post or even glance at every thread in the Tavern, the Chamber, NESing and IOT (my areas of responsibility). But I do keep up with the posts that are reported. In almost every case when I intervene, it is because a member has complained. And when I intervene, I do so in the context of the rules as I interpret them with all my bias. I feel very comfortable saying that if posters were less cruel, less mean, made fewer personal attacks and showed themselves to be kinder, more civil and friendlier, I would have a lot less to do as a mod.

Mr. Mayan guy, AC2 averages around 30 members a day, and roughly 2-3 times that many posts. Click on my sig link and have a look. Laugh all you want, and say I don't know what I'm talking about, but we built that without taking a whole handful of people with us from our previous forum, very little aggressive recruiting, and starting with near zero content, all since February of last year. I've logged 242d 8h 0m onsite in a year and a half, doing nearly 100% of the people management. I know what I'm doing, and you're not dealing with a chimp. I still say it's at least as much the clientele we draw as the numbers, and you can't prove me wrong without changing the entire way CFC is run - which you won't.

I don't know why I'm even doing this. It's not like the members who agree and haven't been run off feel safe speaking up, and I'm only inviting ad hominem, as the only counter-examples I can offer are my own work, which will never satisfy in the face of the excuses offered.

My question was simply to put your site into some context not to find some way to dismiss it. CFC is such a large site that moderation has been broken up into many smaller units that are very isolated from one another. I'm sure that some of those subsets are pretty similar to what your site is like.

NESing is perhaps such a subset. It has about 70 "regular" members, with 15-30 folks active at any time. Because it is a community unto itself, the posters are pretty good at self policing and usually my role is uneventful and a one person job.

The OT and Civ 5 forums are an entirely different matter. They are more active and have many more posters participating. Multiple moderators are required so members have to contend with multiple interpretations of the rules and the very different personalities of the staff.

In my experience as a moderator, I've found that almost all public discussion of mod action is all about a poster or posters trying to score some kind of public coup to enhance their own image or take down someone else. In contrast I've had many pm discussions with posters who had questions or concerns about what I or some other mod did that seemed fruitful or useful.

I do support a public log of who (mod) did what when in the subforums that have a lot of moderator activity in them.

 

[Kyriakos]

In any kind of forum which is not really academia-based (and CFC is not at all academia-based, despite some people in it having degrees) it is obvious that both the members and the mods of various "rank" will show behaviors that are not to everyone's liking.
The fact being that this is entirely an informal setting for debate, and that the vast majority of CFC's traffic is in the Civ games mod and strategy communities, it is even more evident that the parts of the forum not belonging to what gives CFC a reason to exist (the Civ games and mods/discussions on them) will not be important to anyone but the few who are unrealistically invested in them.

There are many specialised forums for epistemic debate. Some of them are quite populous too. They are a lot harsher with any sort of antagonists though.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

I find it hilarious how sometimes the staff can be so paranoid about (usually) pretty harmless PDMA.

Paranoid is not the word. Bored would be more like it. The first precusor to the PDMA rule was that it was off topic spam in the various game forum threads, and that the only place it was on topic was in Site Feedback forum. I was instrumental in formulating that, from Civ3 threads that would have multiple posts complaining about a flame or troll post I moderated which would derail the thread (about half of those from an Arab - Israeli war being fought out in the Civ3 creation forum).
Thunderfall, IIRC, himself mostly formulated the current rule of not allowing it anywhere public, finding it to be 99% baseless whining. When he got sick and tired of reading thread after thread of the whining, he barred it. I am not sure which if any of the then moderator staff worked with him on that or supported it. I did not, being of the "Let them rave on, that men may know them mad" and "blow off steam" persuasions, but I have been a minority on that ever since.
But what it boils down to is that the PDMA threads were 99% useless gargbage, and The Powers decided not to waste any more time or forum resources with them, just to catch a very rare gem of reason.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

And so the "gems of reason" and legitimate concerns get ignored or infracted, or get dismissed with a "WE don't think it's a problem, therefore it's not a problem, period" attitude.

 

[Synobun]

Dealing with idiots, who try to skirt the rules, who harrass other people, who get insulting if you tell them to stop, who can't understand simple rules...yes, that's an inconvencience.
That should be an inconvenience to every sane person.

(I'm still talking about the minority of the people who make moderating a pain, not the rest of the normal people)

Paranoid is not the word. Bored would be more like it. The first precusor to the PDMA rule was that it was off topic spam in the various game forum threads, and that the only place it was on topic was in Site Feedback forum. I was instrumental in formulating that, from Civ3 threads that would have multiple posts complaining about a flame or troll post I moderated which would derail the thread (about half of those from an Arab - Israeli war being fought out in the Civ3 creation forum).

Thunderfall himself mostly forumalated the current rule of not allowing it anywhere public, finding it to be 99% baseless whining. When he got sick and tired of reading thread after thread of the whining, he barred it. I am not sure which if any of the then moderator staff worked with him on that or supported it. I did not, being of the "Let them rave on, that men may know them mad" and "blow off steam" persuasions, but I have been a minority on that ever since.

But what it boils down to is that the PDMA threads were 99% useless gargbage, and The Powers decided not to waste any more time or forum resources with them, just to catch a very rare gem of reason.

Dear god. I hope neither of you ever enter a position of authority in real life. I'm sure the two of you are great guys, very mature, very grounded, but the attitude being projected is the exact opposite of positive management and authority and more of the reluctant man who sees those with a lesser rank as an annoyance and somehow incapable of forming a coherent opinion simply because they don't agree with the ruling.

Really? Garbage? "That men may know them mad"? Whining? Bored? Spam? Inconvenience? Insulting their basic intelligence while bringing up that all they do is insult (apparently)?

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Dear god. I hope neither of you ever enter a position of authority in real life.

Been there for the majority of my life, CEO, President, Managing Partner, of businesses: President, Master, etc, of clubs. I have been very sucessful and respected in all of them. Most did not, as a matter of policy or culture, suffer fools to waste their time and resources, nor did they suffer trolls at all; I have a little sign just 3 feet from this keyboard: "No brains, no service". But, In any case, as noted above, it was not my amused disdain that booted 'rant about moderator actions' threads from Site Feedback, it was whatever Thunderfall felt about them.
Here I just keep chugging along, enforcing rules and policy, including those of them with which I disagree.

 

[Synobun]

Been there for the majority of my life, CEO, President, Managing Partner, of businesses: President, Master, etc, of clubs. Very sucessful and respected in all of them. Most did not, as a matter of policy or culture, suffer fools to waste their time and resources.

Haha. Okay champ.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

You appear to be saying that any concern expressed about moderator actions is "foolish."

That doesn't show a very respectful attitude, Lefty.

How much of the current anger and distrust that exists among some posters and staff (speaking in broad terms here, not specifically) could have been avoided if the legitimate concerns brought up had been properly addressed and not simply ignored or dismissed?

Not every moderator action-related concern is "foolish" or perpetrated by a "fool" or is "baseless." Granted, many are; I dealt with some myself years ago. But there are times when people are genuinely concerned, out of a sense of justice, or maybe they've just misunderstood a situation. Or maybe the moderator misunderstood something and the situation needs clarifying. These deserve your time and respectful attention. They do not deserve being dismissed as "foolish."

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

You appear to be saying that any concern expressed about moderator actions is "foolish."

No, I said that back in the day when the rule was made, about 99% of what was actually posted was. It was largely of the "I am entitled to flame, troll, spew vulgarity, post porn, etc, anywhere I want variety". There were fewer rules and policies back then (and a lot fewer moderator tools), also, the membership was less mature and sophisticated than it is now. Constructive critisim was near non-existant. Non of which bothered me at all on a game site; I had teenage kids at home.

Not every moderator action-related concern is "foolish" or perpetrated by a "fool" or is "baseless." Granted, many are; I dealt with some myself years ago. But there are times when people are genuinely concerned, out of a sense of justice, or maybe they've just misunderstood a situation. Or maybe the moderator misunderstood something and the situation needs clarifying. These deserve your time and respectful attention. They do not deserve being dismissed as "foolish."

And there is two step appeals system, but not public. The % of not "foolish" is different as well, maybe around 10% of appealed infractions are modified or at least close enough to a line to stir debate among the supermoderators.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

No, I said that back in the day when the rule was made, about 99% of what was actually posted was. It was largely of the "I am entitled to flame, troll, spew vulgarity, post porn, etc, anywhere I want variety".

Yes, I had to handle a fair number of those.

There were fewer rules and policies back then (and a lot fewer moderator tools)...

Just curious - when was this? The earliest vBulletin I'm familiar with was back around 2005-2006.

And there is two step appeals system, but not public. The % of not "foolish" is different as well, maybe around 10% of appealed infractions are modified or at least close enough to a line to stir debate among the supermoderators.

Do you mean the formally appealed, or also the ones where a moderator might (hypothetically) say something like, "If you edit your post and/or apologize to the person you trolled/flamed/insulted, I would be open to downgrading the infraction"?