A slight moderation critique.

[Neuralize]

In my plight to get s3os imported into the game, I had a little chat with a moderator! For the record, my mod was named, "Fecal Fiesta"

Code: Select all

[11:49:08 PM] <Decimator> hey neuralize, probably should take that game down
[11:49:27 PM] <Decimator> it is an interesting meaning for FF, but no :P
[11:49:50 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Whaaat, I'm not making fun of anyone :( I'm just working on my own mod. :P
[11:50:08 PM] <Decimator> some people do bring their kids in here
[11:50:27 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> And knowing what a fecal fiesta is going to hurt their poor little minds?
[11:50:35 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Little kids laugh about poop all the time :P
[11:51:30 PM] <Decimator> so if you had a kid and brought him in here, you'd want that to be what he sees?
[11:52:41 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> I wouldn't mind, there are worse things said and seen just by turning on the television. :p
[11:53:31 PM] <Decimator> perhaps, but I doubt most parents feel the same
[11:53:49 PM] <Decimator> this is partly because it reeks of unmoderation
[11:53:56 PM] <Decimator> which makes my job harder
[11:54:01 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Well.
[11:54:05 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Take this for instance.
[11:54:11 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> There is a mod, with the name..
[11:54:13 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Pimped in it.
[11:54:22 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Now, last time I checked a pimp deals in hookers.
[11:54:24 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Sex for money.
[11:54:38 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Now, my name just says, poop party, basically, nothing more, nothing less :P
[11:54:53 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Mommy, what does Pimped mean?
[11:55:02 PM] <Decimator> however, it is usually used for "making something glamorous"
[11:55:29 PM] <Decimator> i see your point, but please...
[11:55:36 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> It's still a reference, and built on the fact :P
[11:55:41 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> People think pimps are cool!
[11:55:43 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Or pimped out cars.
[11:55:49 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> They belonged to pimps
[11:55:53 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Originally :P
[11:55:56 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Rich dealers.
[11:56:11 PM] <Decimator> but that's like saying compost is bad
[11:56:17 PM] <Decimator> :P
[11:57:21 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize>  intr.v., pimped, pimp?ing, pimps. One who finds customers for a prostitute; a procurer.
[11:57:29 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Compost is bad?
[11:57:44 PM] <Decimator> you put detritus and manue in it, correct?
[11:57:48 PM] <Decimator> manure
[11:57:58 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> I don't get the point you're trying to make.
[11:58:12 PM] <Decimator> sigh, just take it down
[11:58:18 PM] <Decimator> please.
[11:58:33 PM] <[TDP]Neuralize> Alright! :D
[11:58:47 PM] <Decimator> thank you
[11:59:42 PM] <Decimator> i've been getting overwhelmed here with spammers and worse

[Wasp]

your point is?

[Tired]

His point is that that's hysterical. Neural, I always thought that you were one of the wittier players, but wow - sorry I logged and missed that. ~~

I am curious as to the why behind the pressure put on the moderators to use their abilities, though. "Power best exercised is power judiciously reserved." Mods are ideally there to enforce the "no vulgarity" agreement that we all clicked on, and to prevent any spam that borders on flooding, but that the auto-floodblockerthingy doesn't catch. Tonight alone, though, I've seen moderators who I generally consider to be responsible people getting... touchy.

Spring is a free engine mod made by some really wonderful TA fans - an old passion that a lot of us share, and that makes us pretty unique; we have what, 1,000 unique, registered users if that, when the worst-produced commercial RTS ever released grabbed more players than that overnight. TA stood for depth, strategy, intelligence and scale, and frankly, a lot of that's not for your average gamer - shared interest should make for good allies.

When looking at the early call for moderators in these forums, I see not a great deal of legitimate harm to necessitate them, but a lot of hurt feelings that frankly would be best resolved by the natural onset of maturity that aging generally brings. It's a free game, and Betalord, and his appointees, have every right to boot any and/or all of us on any or no provocation as they see fit, but will that really make the environment any more enjoyable, even for those who first called for more mods (at least one of whom I've seen kicked already)?

Anyway, it's the internet. We're all flaming, 12 yr old, gay asshats, and anyone who doesn't know it yet needs to find out fast.

I've been kicked, btw, for starting to type the opening verse to the "Corsair Song." I totally deserved it, but wow, was it funny. =)

[SwiftSpear]

I wouldn't have bothered, but we haven't really been given strict policies in terms of what we are supposed to be moderating on client, and it does kind of fall into a grey area as far as the vulgarity clause goes, so I think deci was within his rights. Keep in mind, people seem to go to the moderators first for absolutly everything, so we are the guys who get asked where everyone can get the latest version of "Fecal Feista" and "how can a comunity like this let a mod like that exist?" That being said however, this is definately a point worth discussing. What do you guys as a comunity think is fair in terms of moderating lobby content? Where should the lines be drawn and what is too strict or too far? We try to enforce the rules in such a way that the most people receive the most benifit from our presance as possible. What do you think that should mean?

[edit] also, a kick isn't always a warning/punishment. Occationally I kick people who start game and go AFK or sit in games that are obviously just there to advertize thier presance. It isn't an issue of punishment it's just cleaning up.

[Forboding Angel]

I agree with deci. No pun intended, but it just stinks. Come on guys, have a little class. Just because you CAN act like a little kid doesn't man you SHOULD.

While it doesn't offend me, it is quite immature and that I have an issue with. Act like an adult, or at least try.

[Tired]

Well, you have my suggestion - less is more. I myself pointed out Neural's mod name as a joke when someone else was booted for potty language. Never wanted to see any trouble for him, although I hafta admit that the results were amusing. ~~

People go to you first? Sounds like a hassle - nothing in life's perfect, unless it's dead; then it's perfectly dead. Someone spams 5 lines of text? Why not let'en slide - it's 2 seconds of eyesore for anyone actively watching. People potty mouth a bit as a joke? Kick'em as a joke if it's funny, but we wrote them off before mods were prevelent. People log on with names to mock others? Caydr had kittens over that, but as his posted log shows, the kid was harassing me first, and I don't recall bleeding over it. It's Betalord's lobby, and he can do absolutely anything he wants with it (except make it skinnable ), so no one can ~blame~ any of you. Just here to have fun is all, so you all should have fun, too. =)

[Das Bruce]

All I have to say is that deci's fair.

[FLOZi]

I think this is ridiculous.

[NOiZE]

i think we need rules what to allow and what we don't allow.

[clericvash]

I think you should personally create a sticky topic in one of the forums or mabye the wiki layout out rules that we all should abide by or force a ban.

Things like;

Creating a game and quitting when it starts.
Spamming the lobby.
Creating a game and doing nothing in it to waste peoples time.

Ect.

[FizWizz]

All I have to say is that deci's fair.

/chuckles

[Felix the Cat]

I agree with Tired.

Reports just in out of Hell indicate the first ever hard freeze recorded there.

[wizard8873]

i support with deci. the title isn't bad imo but it might offend some people who are new. while there are no exact rules, i dont think we want to have people leave before they even try the mod just because they find something offensive to them. we just need to have rules on what we can and can't say or put as titles in the mods.

deci was still fair though. he didnt say "if you don't change it, i'll kick and/or ban you." he kindly asked for the name to be changed and then gave his reasons.

we all need to pick guidelines that we think the mods should follow. otherwise, we'll have people complain about little things and not the big things, or we'll focus on the big things and miss all the little things. what someone finds ok might offend another person. as of now, i find the mods very fair and reasonable.

[SwiftSpear]

I kindof doubt anyone on the internet is going to join up the spring lobby and go "Oh, a referance to fecal matter, how crude, this clearly isn't the place for me!" and if they did I'm not entirely sure that's the kind of person we'd want to fill our comunity with. But that being said, I bet at least 1 or 2 users asked deci where they could get "fecal festa mod" when they went and couldn't find it on the mod list. If you make stupid content chances are that the moderators get asked stupid questions about it.

[Tired]

All in good fun. Seriously, am I the only person who got a good laugh outta this? Feels like I'm back in gradeschool watching Shakespeare, and the only one laughing in the class is me. =.=;

[FizWizz]

All I have to say is that deci's fair.

/chuckles

All in good fun. Seriously, am I the only person who got a good laugh outta this? Feels like I'm back in gradeschool watching Shakespeare, and the only one laughing in the class is me. =.=;

I am too. I was laughing for a slightly different reason though, being that there's this little scuffle about the controversy of Tired's mod, and just yesterday Das Bruce was working on his own mod and labeled it "Hot Lesbian Sex."
People complaining about a Fecal Fiesta?
Now if it was called Shiza (or however it is spelled), that would be a different case.

[Tired]

Not my mod - I'm too lazy and uneducated to be a modder. =)

We saw the HLS mod too, and were laughing about it as well. ~~

[BigSteve]

Swiftspear wrote (in another thread)

I'm excited about sup com but I'm not going to stop playing and pimping spring because of it.

Does this mean one of our mods has now posted a "naughty" post worthy of a ban/muting/erased? As mentioned, pimping is probably worse than crap party or whatever it was neuralize posted as his game/mod description

My 10 yr old brother could have seen swifts post when I was surfing the forums... lucky he didnt eh?

Or is this whole stupid thing just completely ott... :)

[BigSteve]

just for the record, I couldnt care what language, game descriptions, player abuse etc appears on the forums or in lobby, its a bit of text on my monitor that I can very easily, and usually do simply ignore.
Im not saying it should happen Im just saying, personally I dont care - and as for kids seeing stuff like neuralizes game description - cmon... kids probably hear much worse in the playground! its hardly gonna scar them for life - theyve probably... no... definatley seen way worse on cable.
I just dont wanna see this place turn into some kinda police state (to quote gus) where we're constantly treading on eggshells all the time trying not to offend user x who we dont even know, is probably halfway across the world, and probably isnt even listening/looking anyway

[SwiftSpear]

Hey, I use dirty curse words all the time on these forums and others. You need only go back through some of my posts to be shocked and discusted. Personally I'm against censorship of crude language in either the forums or client, but I still think deci was within his rights to do what he did. There is no rules about the stuff right now, we're just moderating how we see fair and trying to make the spring comunity as friendly a place as possible.

For the record, when I did my stint in modding, playing around with unit statistics and script stuff the WIP name I used was "penis mod", so it's really not like I have much of a leg to stand on criticizing anyone elses crude mod titles. The fact remains, rules are yet to be solidified, and when they are things like this may change. However, I think what we want to be enforced and ignored in terms of rules should really be up to the comunity in the long run, so that's why I think it's good that the discussion has been opened.