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[kalaratiri]

I've found backstage extremely useful as a tool for learning how to format 3000 lines of text.

It is my eventual dream to become the forums' equivalent of Quackbot.

Sometimes I may even use it for RP reasons.

[Havohej]

@Che: I agree with Morwen, I wouldn't have found that post in its original form moddable, even if it were reported.

[scagga]

Karmilla Strife brings up a good point that I think would be a good change for Backstage. Right now, the "No urdoinitrong" rule encompasses even constructive criticism.

But it doesn't, imo.

Alter the rule. Only make asshole criticism moddable and err on the side of "eh, we'll allow it" when you're in a bit of doubt.

This is actually general practice; there're dozens of reports of YDIW where we look at it and two or three of us will comment "I don't see it." or something similar and leave it be.  I'm not saying there're never instances where we're too strict/sensitive on the trigger, but ideally we're supposed to be subjective about these things on a case-by-case basis.  Constructive, non-asshole criticism and advice are what we want to see.

Perhaps we need to review our practices internally, rather than actually altering the rules?

Havohej, you may recall that an alternative moderating approach was discussed in the smoke-filled room.  One where moderation largely stood back, people were permitted to express their opinions.  If things got out of hand, discussion with those in private was preferable to public evidence of moderation.   If things still spiralled out of control with people playing forum games moderation could be swift and arbitrary.

We could trial this type of moderation in a separate section, move any threads that are getting very hot there.   If you're interested, I'd prefer to discuss this further in private.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Other people need to get it through their skulls that unless someone is going full Vinski on someone (love you to pieces Vince but you're the best example here) or otherwise being a dick about it, they should HTFU and accept that not everyone is going to like or accept what they do, and that, god forbid, they may actually be wrong.

In my humble opinion, just catacombing those posts that are 'full Vinski' or 'otherwise being a dick about it' (which sounds to me like there's a similar quantity of impolitness implied), is by far too little. People should, in general, be able to stick to the rules of simple politeness. Honesty is a good thing, yes, but no one needs to be impolite to be honest, really. And if one thinks that someone is a dickhead, there really is no need to communicate that: Not saying that isn't dishonesty, especially if no one asked for that opinion.

Point is, as soon as somone starts with attacking one of the other posters, be this directly or indirectly, chances are that conversation spirals away from the topic at hand and towards a heap of dickery of one kind or the other. If the aim of the forum here is to discuss and debate topics instead of people piling over one another angrily, then impolitness shouldn't be tolerated.

And I say this even though I have been moderated and didn't see at first why. But after some people did some explaining to me, I saw that I did in fact say something that insulted people - not intentionally, but none the less. Stuff like that will happen, especially as there are cultural differences between users that can lead to unintentional insults (and that's I feel what happened to me, there). But still I agree, in hindsight, with getting moderated as a) it was a post that apparently insulted people and b) it gave me the chance to learn something about other people's mentality and to avoid unintentionally insulting them in the future (hopefully).

Tl;dr: One can criticise positions honestly, without being impolite to the person holding them. Thus, people should stay polite, if necessary motivated by force of rules. If people aren't swayed by civilized debate, insults won't convince them either.

[Lyn Farel]

What Nico said.

Like most people here I have found backstage of incredible help as a bridge between core RPers, RP factions and groups of the community, and a bridge that allowed people to enrich their respective RPs to incredible highs sometimes, with a produced content that was quite exceptional. So yes, it is a forum on steroids. Or was.

While some people might bask into contentious discussion and dialogue, I have to admit that reading and taking part in a forum where people can't just stop being uncouth, rude, or veiled passive aggressive, is extremely tedious. You basically spend your time trying to speak about content, to find yourself glued into OOC conflicts, either through old fashioned insults (ala chatsubo), or either as Karm pointed, through that new culture of passive aggressiveness targeting groups vague or general enough to get away with it, when it actually targets someone in particular, but since it's most of the time between those two players, and with a few witnesses aware of the issue, even if you report it for passive aggressive flamebait because you know you are the target, nobody will mod it since the mods will simply retort "I don't see it".

Of course you don't. The offender was precisely hoping for you not to see it.

Well I don't know for you, but it is indeed extremely tedious to take part into that kind of atmosphere. Instead of mods acting on weird stuff like Che's example (where the hell was anything wrong with that post ? I didn't understand it when it happened and still fail to see it) for obscure YDIW reasons, mods should act a lot more like they use to do at times, putting warnings to calm down at the first sign of bullshittery and passive aggressive.

Mods should also be reviewed fully for freely and continuously voicing their opinions of people violating the rules or circumventing the rules or whatever by using full derogatory sentences and words without any repercussion for them.

Mods should be held at the same, if not higher, standards than anyone else.

Note : by the way, what I did above is exactly what Karm and I are precisely denouncing above, and also something that I probably have done here and there again, is to point at nothing special while not naming who is the target, and getting away with it. And in my case here about mods, it is Morwen of course. In any case, if you don't listen to me for whatever reason - that I could be coloured by my background, which may be true - just listen to Nico above with the same basic criticism about the same issue, that can be found in the quote and the first paragraph of his post.

[Laurentis Thiesant]

EVE RP/Mods summary.

[Havohej]

The problem with moderating every single accusation of "veiled shit targeted at me" is sometimes it's really not and someone is just being overly touchy and we, very subjectively, have to do our best to tell the difference.  It isn't perfect, but reporting a post also can't be a programmed response (i.e.: I report you, you get ban!  I win forums!  Yay!)

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Well, Havo, I see that it's a difficult thing with veiled insults and what is percieved as such and that in the end it boils down to the (inetr-)subjective judgement of the moderators. But as I said in my first post in this thread:

Imho the forum rules here seem to say: "Stick to basic politeness or your post will get moderated." This is in my opinion also very effective to keep discussion on topic instead of spiraling down into mud-slinging contests. So I don't think that the rules in that department are too restrictive.

I also feel that the moderators do in general a good job at putting the rules into practice, acting with sound judgment.

[Lyn Farel]

The problem with moderating every single accusation of "veiled shit targeted at me" is sometimes it's really not and someone is just being overly touchy and we, very subjectively, have to do our best to tell the difference.  It isn't perfect, but reporting a post also can't be a programmed response (i.e.: I report you, you get ban!  I win forums!  Yay!)

Yep. It's something that you can't do much against. And people don't hesitate to abuse this as much as they can since they can't insult each other openly.

All in all it's mostly criticism against the userbase (including mods as users), not the moderation team in itself.

[Vincent Pryce]

You know you are creating waves when your post wakes the antediluvians from their slumber. Good to see you are still alive Jade.

We are eight pages long, still skirting the issue. Nothing has been resolved. Those whom cared have left the conversation, some deleted their accounts. That my friend is failure of intent staring you straight to face - no matter how you much you like to indulge in denial. Instead mods, apart from Morwen (Morwen, like bowties, is cool), hide behind their egoistic attitudes and passive-aggressive bullshit - or sit silence in the shadow of the more prominent personalities. If you call them out for it, you get smugged or banned as the Tolerance Hammer smites those committing thought crimes. You say you wanted to get away from cliquishness and egos. YOU are the clique and the ego. YOU have become what you tried to get away from. That, my friend, is why I am saying what I am saying. I was a proponent of Backstage, of heavy moderation and strict conduct. However, the original soul what we set out to create is gone from these forums. Your behaviour is an everlasting testament to it.

Silver, you are an obtuse cunt. You weren't always like that but you've slowly but surely turned sour like milk. You may dress your opinions in droll dribble of words and behind a thick veil of passive-aggressive dickery, but I call it out as it is. It's easy to skirt the rules when you have no accountability, no? Not only do you miss the point of my post, but you hang up on merely on the language. Here, let me he help you a little and spell it out for you; I could, and would, post my criticism in non-offencive language. I am fully capable of doing so. The reason why I not not doing so is because it does not matter if I do. The end result is same. This way when the train to Tolerance Camp comes I can at least be entertaining on my way there. My opinon on you really boils down to this fact: Someone disagrees with you, and you retort them with essentially what amounts to "GoBk2WoW". I find it just sad that when put against the wall, that is all you surmount to behind your wall of text.

Havo, while I do like you, you are riding the same dick train to buttfuck county as your best mate Silver here. You, more than him, get powermad with the your rights. You spew a shit ton of passive-aggressive bullshit and if someone gives you a dose of your own medicine it's off to banville with them. Someone doubts this? Ask Andy how'd that work out for him. I don't have time to watch you play princess with Silver in your ivory castle, so get the fuck over yourself and take it as you give it, or stop posting.

To end this post, I'll go out with something positive. I'd like to thank all of the people who've taken my criticism, my bad attitude and still stuck with me and been able to listen to what I've had to say. I would also like to say it's been a pleasure and a privilege to help you out with your respective conundrums or bumps in the road. Those able to listen and learn, you da real MVP.

I think I will do as Silver suggested and go wander the desert. You know where to find me.

I leave you with this post Backstage;

[Anyanka Funk]

^ Drama queen.

Inb4 catacomb.

[kalaratiri]

^ Drama queen.

Fukken lol

[Arista Shahni]

For the record, I was not entertained.  Just an observation. 

It didn't even make me laugh.  There was no humor, no punchline, the delivery was bad, and it earned "I will probably be banned for this BUT.."

3/10.  Could do better.

[Havohej]

So obviously that post was reported.  In this board (that is, ModDisc), we've traditionally had more relaxed moderation so that people who join in a discussion about the forum and its moderation can speak freely - understanding that most of the time, if a person feels a need to start a thread here, nerdrage is going to be involved.

So I'm not going to Catacomb the post, or the trollish replies to it.

Vince has been behaving like Ashar did in the early days, lately.  Provoking moderation, pushing the envelope, etc.  I don't really care to comment on any of that, besides saying it's been entertaining but that sort of posting really belongs on FHC, 4chan, I dunno, Reddit?  9gag?  One of those other internet shitholes?  (The only one I frequent is 4chan, so fuck Reddit and 9gag.  Oh, and tumblr #trigger)

Three specific points I'll respond to, though:

That's the second time I've been called passive aggressive.  I'm not.  People who know me well, I think, will tell you I'm pretty straight forward if I really have a problem with you.  I expect Miz, Jade, even Andy himself, with whom I had an IC war with years ago, would agree with that (though Andy's not posting here anymore - which brings me to the second point of address...).  If you think I'm passive aggressive, fuck you.  Direct enough?

Andy has been banned several times from this forum for being a fucking asshole.  Our bans escalate.  3-day, 7-day, 30-day, PBAN.  Andy's last ban was 30-day, putting him in line for a PBAN on the next fuckup.  He got moderated for trolling - a post which was reported, which I had no intention of moderating (and I stated as much), but another mod expressed intent to moderate at their earliest convenience.  On Backstage, it only takes ONE of us to say "That's inappropriate, it's getting moderated."  So, to save that person some time and effort, I went ahead and catacombed the offending posts and the replies directly to those posts.

Then Andy comes to troll me for moderating him for trolling.  Now, generally, if a ban is going to be activated, there's discussion about it.  I looked at Andy's warning/ban tracker thread and saw that he'd already had his 30-day and immediately started shitposting as soon as he could post again - at which point, the PBAN was discussed, but nobody pushed button (despite apparent consensus on the subject).  So, yeah...  call it what you want.  If I see you troll any moderator for moderating your shitty post, I'm going to ban you.  Don't care who you are.  That ban is going to be the next step up in the escalation of bans, according to your warning/ban tracker thread.

The final point I'll address is this:

I could, and would, post my criticism in non-offencive language. I am fully capable of doing so. The reason why I not not

I've seen similar sentiment expressed by even worse posters, here and on other boards where shitposting isn't allowed.

I cut the quote off because in the end, the reason why doesn't matter.  I don't particularly give a shit what convoluted, self-serving, whiney fucking cunt rationalization a shitposter has to "justify" their shitty online behaviour.  This forum has specific rules and detailed guidelines explicitly posted telling you not to behave that way here.  We do our best, by design, to subjectively give everyone who posts a fair bit of leeway/latitude/whatever you want to call it.

All we ask is that you act like a fucking grown-up and don't be a raging shithead.  For some people, apparently, that's an unfair requirement.

Was that passive-aggressive of me?  If you think so, then you are one of the people who has too hard a time avoiding being a shit spewing, nerd raging fucking spaz of an internet spaceship neckbeard and you need to grow the fuck up.

I don't have time to find cute gifs of comedians dropping microphones.

[Arista Shahni]