Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => Moderation Discussion => Topic started by: Louella Dougans on 07 Mar 2014, 11:01
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http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=5770.0
what's going on here ? and is this actually a problem ?
Are newer players registering and then continuing to post ? Or is it the same couple dozen people who are the only ones to stick around and continue to post ?
is this helpful to RP in EVE ?
If it wasn't Vince, would that posting be tolerated ?
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I'll answer your questions one by one, marked by a *:
1* Somebody got buttmad about Vince's post and walked out.
2* Since they aren't coming back and there isn't anything we can do but make a mountain out of a molehill by hanging Vince just to get one person to come back, no.
3*Newer players are registering and posting, but it is mostly the old guard (rofl, am I old guard now?) who post regularly.
4* It has nothing to do with RP in EVE. This is a Backstage issue.
5* Short answer, no.
Long answer... Vince's meme does break forum rules by most measurements, but it's tolerated because we all known him well enough to realize it's a joke. We all go "Haw haw!" and move on with our lives.
Newer players don't know him, may not understand that, and yeah, some of them walk away, apparently. If you check the threads of actual new people, a lot of them do seem surprised and/or question Vince's post, wondering if they had done something wrong. Until now, I don't think anyone quit.
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I voted for three options in the affixed poll.
It's funny, Vince's meme came up in conversation regarding another moderation topic just a couple of days ago.
The consensus that was reached on it a long time ago is that it's harmless in that no reasonable person who's been playing Eve long enough to even know this forum community exists would take it seriously or really care all that much.
As a kid, whenever you went to a new school or otherwise found yourself in a situation to meet a bunch of new friends, there was always that one person who came off as an asshole at first. And then everyone else usually said, "Don't mind him, he's an asshole." And then you wound up becoming closest with that person in particular. Everybody's best friend. Either that, or you were the kid who didn't have too many friends because you weren't able to laugh that guy off the first day.
As an internet, whenever you start playing a new mmo or join a new forum community or otherwise found yourself in a situation to meet a bunch of new internets, there was always that one internet who came off as an asshole at first. And then every other internet said, "Don't mind that internet, s/he's an asshole."
Can you see where I'm going with this?
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... so are you saying we can introduce Vince as an asshole?
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Well, I mean, we already implicitly do that, right? :lol:
[admin]Officially, no, I'm not saying that.[/admin]
:p
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Posts like Mr. Price's are tame compared to the real nonsense the internet throws at you. Old players who are newish to RP will gather the jesting nature of such posts: players who are new to EVE and cannot cope with the ribbing the catch here, wouldn't last a week in Local anyway.
I don't think this community is driving anyone away who didn't already have a foot out the door.
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Posts like Mr. Price's are tame compared to the real nonsense the internet throws at you. Old players who are newish to RP will gather the jesting nature of such posts: players who are new to EVE and cannot cope with the ribbing the catch here, wouldn't last a week in Local anyway.
I don't think this community is driving anyone away who didn't already have a foot out the door.
This. More or less what I said in the original thread, just more politely.
(Obligatory Morwen-grade bluntness: If something like Vince's traditional snarky greeting, which is given both to new and old RPers alike, would get someone to ragequit the forum, either they need to HTFU or find another game.)
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Intent matters.
(Also, everything is Graelyn's fault, forever.)
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(Also, everything is Graelyn's fault, forever.)
Vote Graelyn
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No particular animosity about about this, but I'm a bit disappointed that this is now the official stance here. It had seemed that part of the culture that Backstage fostered was that "He's just being an asshole" wasn't an okay defence.
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I agree with Matariki.
While I don't really care about Vince's posts, the hypocrisy at play here is palpable. I'm not asking anyone to change it, I'm not pressuring the mods to do anything about it, and I don't think it is anyone's responsibility but Vince's to address the real issue...
... but the reality is that there are multiple facets of this situation that violate the rules of Backstage, and for one reason or another they are being ignored. I'm not surprised or disappointed. I'm just pointing it out.
Please don't dogpile me, guys. :P
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I don't think Vince's posts violate the rules, because we've always taken the approach that each situation is different, and I haven't seen any previous people (before this one) take it seriously. I don't see any pattern of it being a problem. I don't think the argument is, officially, 'lol, he's just an asshole'. I think the argument is that we have room for people to say things as a joke, as long as it is inside the guidelines - and posting an obviously joking 'I hate you' would be (whereas his recently catacombed post wasn't, for example). If being an asshole was a defense, we wouldn't have catacombed the other post. We have to have some flexibility, however, and all of Vince's newbie area posts I have seen have been pretty tame, even by our standards.
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The excuse absolutely isn't "he's an asshole," it's "this is obviously a joke."
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Yet many other things that are 'obviously a joke' get catacombed.
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Some jokes about some topics, especially topics that we have an explicit zero tolerance view towards, will not be permitted to stand if we see them.
Also:
Q: Isn't all this subjective?
A: Yes. The Mods do their best to be fair, but inevitably, this is a subjective standard. Another thing for you to Deal With.
This board has two admins and four mods. 99.99998% or things are discussed before a mod action takes place. But all it takes is one moderator to decide something is grievous enough to be acted upon. Such as a violation of the explicit zero tolerance policy regarding homophobic remarks, for example.
Yet even then, the fact that there are six of us altogether ensures that even that rare situation doesn't simply end there. There is then discussion on the Moderators' board that everyone doesn't see. If a situation were to happen where one moderator went rogue and catacombed something based on personal motives rather than the maintenance of the desired posting environment of the forums, the post(s) c/would be restored and that moderator warned and/or removed from the team.
Interesting point of Backstage history/trivia: the decision to have not only posted Rules but a posted FAQ regarding the intended posting environment for Backstage was to prevent "rules lawyering". An example of this would be comments like "Well, Poster A did this, so how come Poster B got moderated for doing that?"
In most things:
Intent matters.
In other things, this is neither 4chan, Reddit, nor FHC. This is Backstage and some things are simply not acceptable under any circumstances - even if we mods do these things ourselves elsewhere.
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I don't think this community is driving anyone away who didn't already have a foot out the door.
That's convenient. It's bit putting the cart before the horse.
Maybe some people have the foot out the door precisely because of perfectly valid reasons.
Yet even then, the fact that there are six of us altogether ensures that even that rare situation doesn't simply end there. There is then discussion on the Moderators' board that everyone doesn't see. If a situation were to happen where one moderator went rogue and catacombed something based on personal motives rather than the maintenance of the desired posting environment of the forums, the post(s) c/would be restored and that moderator warned and/or removed from the team.
Well it would take the mods to actually stop defending each other to death as a default stance to begin with, no ?
Interesting point of Backstage history/trivia: the decision to have not only posted Rules but a posted FAQ regarding the intended posting environment for Backstage was to prevent "rules lawyering". An example of this would be comments like "Well, Poster A did this, so how come Poster B got moderated for doing that?"
While it is an awesome idea to have FAQ and a guide of good conduct and urban approach, the fact that it seems to overrule the rules for the mods is worrisome. Becomes an excuse for everything and very convenient answers.
Overall makes the team less and less accountable.
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Yet many other things that are 'obviously a joke' get catacombed.
Things being catacombed is not actually a big deal.
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Obviously some people are making a big deal out of this because there is something else irking them. Perhaps they should discuss whatever that is in a private mail with mods. As said in the other thread, in this particular case even the offended person noted in their post that the silly pictures were posted in every single welcome thread. There was no reasonable way to interpret it as actual hate at that point.
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Yet even then, the fact that there are six of us altogether ensures that even that rare situation doesn't simply end there. There is then discussion on the Moderators' board that everyone doesn't see. If a situation were to happen where one moderator went rogue and catacombed something based on personal motives rather than the maintenance of the desired posting environment of the forums, the post(s) c/would be restored and that moderator warned and/or removed from the team.
Well it would take the mods to actually stop defending each other to death as a default stance to begin with, no ?
I don't think this little snipe here is genuine or in good faith, but I'll address it anyway. Just because you might disagree with the Rules or FAQ or how they are subjectively applied by a team of volunteer mods from all walks of EVE (we barely talk to each other inside the game client, Havo's met Morwen Lagann once, Ghost Hunter I think twice? and Silver and Ciarente not even once. Of course, used to be alliance mates with Jekaterine but no contact IC or OOC since then beyond Backstage Staff channel), that doesn't mean we're all in cahoots to defend each others' asshattery and abuse of mod privileges here on this internet spaceships forum we all volunteer our time and energy to keep up with. It doesn't mean someone's out to get you or anyone else.
It just means that it's an internet spaceship forum with an expressly stated subjective set of guidelines with a couple of hard rules sitting on top of it and that we, as volunteers, try to keep our focus on the intent behind the rules and the posted FAQ rather than who's butthurt about what in the heat of a given moment.
The intent of the rules and posted FAQ is to protect the capacity for open discussion of topics here on Backstage from a small minority of vocal assholes driving away the rest of the community. One guy serially making off-color jokes reflecting the theme and mood of the game itself in the reception area is really pretty inconsequential. That's the verdict we reached months ago when it first became a topic of note and as of now that verdict hasn't changed. General consensus (not only among the vocal minority posting here, but in the form of silence on the topic in the mod boards) seems to suggest this verdict does not need to change at this time.
Frankly, I personally can't see it needing to change at a future time. It's a bunch of silly cartoons. They're not racist, they're not homophobic, they're not pornographic, they're not sexist, and given the context and application in question, it's even a stretch to call them trolling or ad hominem attacks. A faaaaar stretch. They're harmless.
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Oh, as far I am concerned, I hold no opinion on Vince's little sketches.
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I don't mind Vince's posts, or the mod's decision to allow it.
I just wanted to make it clear that I'm not blind to the subjectivity of it, to use the words in the FAQ. My first post in this thread made it seem like I thought nothing was amiss, so I wanted to clarify.
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So, if we act like an ass in one thread and it offends one person, we broke the rules, but if we act like an ass in an identical way in every similar thread to every person, we're just "that asshole" that everyone should HTFU and shrug off?
One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic sort of thing?
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So, if we act like an ass in one thread and it offends one person, we broke the rules, but if we act like an ass in an identical way in every similar thread to every person, we're just "that asshole" that everyone should HTFU and shrug off?
One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic sort of thing?
Way to miss the entirety of the fucking point, bro.
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So, if we act like an ass in one thread and it offends one person, we broke the rules, but if we act like an ass in an identical way in every similar thread to every person, we're just "that asshole" that everyone should HTFU and shrug off?
One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic sort of thing?
I think, at some point, there's a reasonable standard of what constitutes a joke. If I'd just come in, I wouldn't have thought that Vince was serious - it's obviously not. Now, while this might catch someone who doesn't recognize humor well, we can't construct rules solely on the basis of rare exceptions.
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(http://i.imgur.com/M5azp.gif)
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Dammit Graelyn, fix RP already!
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(http://oi60.tinypic.com/99q4ra.jpg)