Limiting mod power is good. Limiting them to one kick and one ban per hour (or something like that) would be good. Muzzling should be limited to 10 minutes or so.

But yes, I think that these are essential to a solid community.

we cannot presume to force that sort of decision on the SYs. After all a moderator needs to be there most of the time and years from now what will the situation be when the SYs have finished spring. I think an impartial code based answer is the best way to go. After all you are assigning responsibility to the SYs who then would have to delegate further lower level responsibility.

Where as a code based solution would provide a good neutral low maintenance solution. Aslo for example if I came in there cursing in japanese most of you would have no idea what I was saying but it COULD offend the hell out of a japanese man.

People, a chatfilter is USELESS.

I'm sure that over 90% of the users would turn the chatfilters off if they could, and it's too easy to bypass it by spelling words differently.

ALso, you create another problem, because if in example, you ban the word "nig" (short for nigger), would it also block words which contains those 3 letters, like Nigeria? And if it doesn't, how long would it take for Nigeria to take over the meaning only to bypass...

Really, what i've seen on Zone, Gamespy and PhoenixWorx, this happens too easy, making it harder to ban offensive language.

About controll-freakish behaviour of sysops, it should be simple. It isn't hard to make a screenshot of a sysop being an ass, or save a chatlog.
As sysops are supposed to be role models, any mishaviour should be punished at once, and i 2nd the statement about having them answer directly to the SY's, betalord or whoever else would be in charge.

Also a TEAM of sysops ( 5-8 ) could be self-controlled, making it less likely to have someone who thinks he's the allmighty god himself like zone has. Who does not remember +ServiceDept?

It appears we can and have.

But seriously, unmoderated chat is just annoying.

and the word AIsh1teru which means I love you is also censored but hey I am not going to split hairs over that. as far as things like leet speak and the '|,' '(,' ')," '/' those can be handled also. However, most chats are lazily programmed so that they can just say "we tried to censor it but someone was bypassing it."

I am a moderator in the lobby. I have already been talking and warning people (sometimes they don't take it to lightly, though ). But i haven't been around to «moderate».

I was recently on my way to a professional internship of 12 months at the company Critical Software. Many things had to be taken care of, like finding a place to live in the area. But things didn't worked out because of some technicalities in my technical qualifications.
Also, my father had cirgury to it's intestines to remove a cancer. He's still in the hospital and, as such, there is much stuff for me to handle of real life stuff.
Finally, i'm trying to cut down on Spring (godam freaking vice...).

My suggestion is to make it something like this:

1 Head moderator:

Slap: yes
Kick: yes
Muzzle: 6 hours (longer isn't needed, it's most likely they'd be banned by then )
Ban: permanent

2 Moderators

Slap: yes
Kick: yes
Muzzle: 2 hours
Ban: 24 hours

3+ Junior Moderators

Slap: yes
Kick: no
Muzzle: 15 minutes
Ban: no

And all members should have the power (if they have the power to issue it off course) to undo a (chat)ban as i've stated earlier, except for a perma-ban, which only a Head Moderator should be able to undo.

Off course, the number of each moderator rank should be adjusted to the ammount that is required. I'd say at least enough that on typical days there's allways at least 1 of them on.

Another thing: as far as flood-control goes: yes, 3 posts/sec is annoying, but then so would even 1 post/sec if you try to imagine it.

I think all this heirachy powertrip moderator stuff is silly. All you need is to be able to right click on someones name and click 'ignore'. This will cure any problem you may have, from people that are insulting, to spammers. fullstop.

Generally saying: "there are no limits to what is acceptable behaviour"
Also meaning, that if someone logs on such a thing might be the 1st thing he sees, which would scare people away.

I say let at least the MAIN chat be watched by moderators, so all the people who feel the need to go all out on some insane offensive trip can create his/her own channel for it.

About the client itselve, it would be nice if there was an extra screen displaying the ammount of channels that are open, the names and the number of people who have joined that channel.

Whats wrong with moderators and a button.

You could go for a more complicated system of karma and "warning levels" also, but that would be quite a bit of work to tweak and get to work. The simplest system is a combination of moderation and software-side stops like flood and spam control.

Truth is, moderators can't cover the server all_the_time, which is why you need something more than that to stop it.

perma-ban is retarded. Most people deserving of a permaban would leave after a month to two month ban.

I know but redragon is crusading for this moderator crap.

Seriously, what have you guys got against having moderators AND an ignore button.

Ignore button would be awesome.

Anyway when i am logged on, almost notting happens. Usually saying to someone that he has to behave is sufficient. Also i think having a load of different moderator levels is just confusing. Most of the time being present is enough to stop the spam/flood. moderators should hav the power to temporary remove ppl from the lobby, but it should only be used after a warning, second warning, kick, kick, mute for 15 mins, mute for 30 mins, ban for 1 day, ban for 1 week ban, for 2 weeks etc

moderators shouldn't be limited if they see what action would be needed and they should be able to apply it. Otherwise it's just pointless.

just something more to IGNORE function for considering ...

the client's ignore list should be stored server side ...
(in other words server will prevent data from ignored person to be sent to client ignoring that person ...)

reason ? let say I ignore person BLA1 and BLA2 ...

and after some time these persons decide to spam / flood chat with nonsense and spam me over PM etc.

if the ignore list is client side my client will still keep receive trash and it can lead (theoretically) to issues on lo end machines (skips, lags, stutter whatever) ....

Plus, a server-side ignore list allows a hypothetical admin to notice that an awful lot of ppl are ignoring user "X" and investigate.

/ignore is needed. Other solutions just ask for trouble - look at Fark and Slashdot.

If having moderators is a bad thing, why do all the big chatservers and gameservers have them?
Because they NEED them. And an ignore button is very usefull, but simply isn't enough.

If i'm crusading in favour of having moderators, why are you crusading to not having them? If you play nice, how would it ever affect YOUR gaming or chatting? Exactly, it wouldn't. It's just something we all need to stop pointless and offensive arguements. And no ignore button or chatfilter would stop an offensive conversation taking place. A moderator would. Closing your eyes for a problem (/ignore) does not mean it's not there. I say fix the problem, do not ignore it.

/ignore RedDragon