Are we rally that bad?

[SinbadEV]

So, how about these helpful suggestions?

If someone doesn't appear to be showing enough effort or talent to be worthy of positive commentary, don't comment. (that's like, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all)

When you make a post, before hitting submit, re-read is and ensure that it is directed at the content of a post, not its author.

Good idea. As a moderator, will you enforce it? Or will your words eventually disappear into the depths of offtopic and forever from our memories?

The latter, definitely the latter.

(especially seeing as Its not like those are enforceable rules...)

[Forboding Angel]

Why not? I don't see how deleting posts because someone isn't remotely nice could be anything but good for this place.

I go around being an asshole and no one gives a shit. I get another board warning "OH THE HORROR!", like I don't have plenty of those. But at that point the damage is already done, but better would have been a deleting of my "Assholish" post and a stiff dickslap in PM. But unfortunately, the moderation staff here are content with letting the inmates run the prison.

New people come, get bashed, and leave. THAT'S SURPRISING?!? If that's the case then I have something else that might interest you. Gravity is what keeps us attached to this miserable little plant.

OMGRLY?
Yarly.

[Gota]

I agree.
Malicious posts and post that discourage people should not be allowed.

[zwzsg]

Why not? I don't see how deleting posts because someone isn't remotely nice could be anything but good for this place.

Because then the guy you deleted the post of would be very pissed and stop contributing. You'd have one more newb who anyway would still leave out of boredom the next day, and one less vet who'd have contributed a shitload more in quantity and quality.

[FLOZi]

Deleting posts is bad moderation. Edit out the offending comment and use the warning system.

[KaiserJ]

i've made some pretty stupid posts and suggestions. i realized eventually that even by suggesting something that seems constructive to me, others may not approve; it's best just to keep my head down and my nose clean.

just a generality about spring users, and maybe even moreso about people who post on this forum; even though we all come from very different places and have had very different lives, we share a few common bonds :

a) we are all creative people
b) we are all intelligent people (sure, you can question this, but for gods sake think about it; we are posting on a forum about an OS RTS engine and our own projects involving art and programming. this is not pokemon forum... even if you think someone on here is really stupid, chances are stepping out your door today the first person you see will be stupider than them. common sense <> intelligence.)
c) for the newcomers : we have discovered spring and been inspired; we are greatly respectful that this project even exists in the first place, and it's only human nature that we feel the need to contribute and help in any way we can.

the only differences we have on here are differences in opinion.

for doleos contribution : he was misguided about many things in his project, most importantly about "keeping his nose clean" as i mentioned earlier; spring is an engine, not a game... this is obvious to us because we've all seen about a thousand posts about it, but maybe HE hasn't. even though his artwork was quite sub-par to the other work done on similar projects, theres no reason to assume that he wouldn't take advice or guidance from someone else to turn it into something workable.

for the other shit flinging that goes on in this forum, if you don't like someone, and they make a thread, and you've had beef with them before, and you don't have something directly constructive or congratulatory that hasn't been said before then just stay the hell out of it. would you show up at someones house for a party who didn't like you? no. it's basic social etiquette.

are we REALLY that bad?

who knows what happens with the forumers day to day; everyone has good days and bad days, maybe some of the rage comes from IRL anger spilling over, or just a frustration at seeing the same posts over and over again (i can't relate to this, still new, but i see it upsetting others)

so we ARE that bad. sometimes. it all depends on the day, what was said, who said it, what color socks they are wearing. i just wish people on here would be willing to sugar coat their opinions a little bit (for a FIRST infraction of logic, if someone keeps doing it, THEN breakout the flamethrower) and the people who HAVE opinions offered to them, take it with a grain of salt.

not claiming to be perfect, in fact i've probably made more mistakes and stupid comments than anyone.

just remember WHY you are here in the first place, don't be an asshat, and we'll be fine.

[Auswaschbar]

Why not? I don't see how deleting posts because someone isn't remotely nice could be anything but good for this place.

Maybe becasue the forum would be almost empty then

[CarRepairer]

for the other shit flinging that goes on in this forum, if you don't like someone, and they make a thread, and you've had beef with them before, and you don't have something directly constructive or congratulatory that hasn't been said before then just stay the hell out of it. would you show up at someones house for a party who didn't like you? no. it's basic social etiquette.

This is a rehash of what SinbadEV said and I agree with it.

Why not? I don't see how deleting posts because someone isn't remotely nice could be anything but good for this place.

Because then the guy you deleted the post of would be very pissed and stop contributing. You'd have one more newb who anyway would still leave out of boredom the next day, and one less vet who'd have contributed a shitload more in quantity and quality.

Well then I see you've made your decision. Piss off the nice newb, or piss off the experienced jerk. Obviously the latter is more valuable of a person to you.

Get off your high horse. You could be the smartest person around but if you're a huge jerk I wouldn't care if your posts get deleted or you completely left. There's such a thing as human decency and being smart doesn't give you a license to be an ass to anyone who doesn't deserve it. You can kill the user base and that's more devastating than your "one less vet."

Has it occurred to you that neither the newb nor the experienced user needs to get pissed off and "stop contributing" since the experienced user didn't have to be a jerk in the first place?

[zwzsg]

There's such a thing as human decency and being smart doesn't give you a license to be an ass to anyone who doesn't deserve it.

I never said being a vet should grant you a license to troll.

I'm saying that removing a thoughtful post without notice just because it happened to cross the eye of moderator who happened to be in a sensitive mood at the moment is not an appropriate answer. When moderator starts silently removing post left and right, then lot of paranoia and shitstorm ensue. Because moderator happens to be human, with their fallibility, their emotion, their tie to Spring and Spring-related project, so there would always be case of one post getting deleted while another more offensive is allowed to stay elsewhere, which create feeling of injustice, invisible oppression, being denied possiblity to express, which are the sort of things that can drive people away more surely than a little flame here and there.

Good moderation is not about power-hungry moderators roaming the forum in search of posts to kill. It first start by defining the rule, then enforcing them with as much transparency and fairness as possible. Deleting critics on criterion as subjective as not being encouraging enough won't achieve anything but more drama.

[PicassoCT]

Is this a Question, asuming we could do better at beeing bad? Sort of getting the /b/ of the OpenSourceComunity? And those who run for harsh words do also have the tendency to jump from steep learning cliffs, and find it faithless to touch there visions with such mundane things as tutorials and tools. So run Forrest, run Forrest, they are really mean dogs here, they bite and bitch, while there dreams kite and itch.

[Gota]

Delete post.
Inform forumers a post was deleted.
Warn poster.
Paste post to poster if he wants to rephrase(if post is not clearly made to insult someone or some idea and is just badly phrased).
Asking moderators to go through all malicious posts manually and removing and editing the posts is not fair nor can it ever work with volunteer moderation.

[CarRepairer]

Deleting critics on criterion as subjective...

deleting posts because someone isn't remotely nice

Big difference.

[zwzsg]

Define not nice in an unambigious way, with a clear and objective delimitation between nice and not nice.

[Master-Athmos]

Well imo we shouldn't be discussing that deleting topic to that extent. Deleting a post should ALWAYS be the very last thing to do and not the very first. "Censoring" insults by a mod is a bit better but still not a really ideal way because just as for deletion there sure will come up discussions and quarrelling if it was justified, too much got censored and so on...

I believe it would be totally sufficent if a mod just would pop up in such a situation asking people to calm down. If things go on the respective people get a warning. Gathering a certain amount of warnings in a small timespan or just not stopping the insults or whatever is going on leads to a temporary ban and that's it. Works for any forum I know. Deleting something only should apply to spam and the usual stuff like sexual content, pure racism and stuff like that...

This is something I miss here as there hardly is any moderation (or it simply is very "generous") which is why we have all the flaming and insulting in certain threads and needn't to be that way...

[Argh]

It's better to use warnings and temp-bans to cool people off, than waste time with edits when things get hot. Edits tend to make things worse, not better, by obscuring why the argument's gotten to a bad place.

[Gota]

Warn several times.
Ban.
Ban for longer.
Ban for even longer.
Rinse and repeat.
If someone keeps posting unacceptable posts after you ban him over and over again he deserves to get longer bans that will,in practice,act almost like a permanent ban and prevent him from using the forums and discussing matters in it.

[Master-Athmos]

Well the thesis of that system leading to perma-bans for certain people only is valid on the paper but not in reality (unless there are real "asshats" but I know no such person in this forum)...

Yeah - if you manage to get different IPs you could create countless e-mail accounts and then countless forum accounts and keep spamming and flaming. That might be true in theory. Practically nobody does so though. That's why warning and temp-banning (which should occur never to really rarely) simply works...

[Forboding Angel]

Define not nice in an unambigious way, with a clear and objective delimitation between nice and not nice.

Not Nice = Being an asshole

Is "asshole" too ambiguous for you?

Z, you are a perfect example of someone who does this. You yell at someone for not reading what you wrote clearly, then you do the same thing to others.

I said "Not Remotely Nice". Did I stutter? How is that ambiguous? It's common sense, use it! If the words "Common Human Decency" don't mean anything to you, then you probably shouldn't be posting at all.

^^ See gents? Now that is an example of me making a post that isn't even Remotely Nice. In fact, I'm being an asshole about it. Will moderation do anything about it? I highly doubt it.

Z, what it means is, use your common sense and judge whether someone is being too harsh. Being a moderator doesn't mean you have to be a social genius, it just means that you have to use your noodle to make judgements. If a moderator is being too harsh on his judgements, then I'm sure the head moderator (Swiftspear) will let him know to not be quite so strict.

It really isn't rocket science, I promise!

Z, I was being a jerk on purpose to prove a point, don't take it personally.

Get off your high horse. You could be the smartest person around but if you're a huge jerk I wouldn't care if your posts get deleted or you completely left. There's such a thing as human decency and being smart doesn't give you a license to be an ass to anyone who doesn't deserve it. You can kill the user base and that's more devastating than your "one less vet."

Dam Right. PREACH IT BROTHER!

[Forboding Angel]

Well the thesis of that system leading to perma-bans for certain people only is valid on the paper but not in reality (unless there are real "asshats" but I know no such person in this forum)...

You're kidding right? I know of several, including myself.

My feeling is that if moderation wants to allow people to be an asshole to me, I'm not going to allow someone to walk all over me just because I want to remain civil. If moderation wants to cut down people being assholes (including myself), then I'll be my usual cheery, helpful, and overly nice self.

I believe the above opinion is shared by the vast majority of content devs here, whether they will actually admit it or not.

A good example is Smoth. Smoth is a ridiculously nice guy and in the majority of cases will go out of his way to be helpful even when he thinks something is awful (My modeling being a perfect example), moreover, he's really really nice about it. That said, he has a temper (as we all do), goad him enough and he'll flame your ass to hell and back, and I don't blame him one bit for it either (even though sometimes I think when I am debating an issue with him he sometimes takes what I say and dumb questions that I ask a bit too seriously).

Edit: Sorry for the double post.

[zwzsg]

what it means is, use your common sense and judge whether someone is being too harsh. [...] use your noodle to make judgements.

That's where I disagree. Just like for the IRL justice, a fair system requires you to define the law extremily precisely, down to the obvious details, then apply the law while making abstraction as much as possible of feelings. System that relies on granting cop-judge-executioner powers on individuals then letting them do as they please quickly turn out into being worse than jungle.

So, no, common sense and noodle should NO be used. Instead we just should set a clear code of conduct, defining what is unacceptable and what are the sentence for infractions. Then apply it, while keeping the moderation process transparent (ie, no stealth post deletion).

Well imo we shouldn't be discussing that deleting topic to that extent. Deleting a post should ALWAYS be the very last thing to do and not the very first. "Censoring" insults by a mod is a bit better but still not a really ideal way because just as for deletion there sure will come up discussions and quarrelling if it was justified, too much got censored and so on...

Gathering a certain amount of warnings in a small timespan or just not stopping the insults or whatever is going on leads to a temporary ban and that's it. Works for any forum I know.

Deleting something only should apply to spam and the usual stuff like sexual content, pure racism and stuff like that...

It's better to use warnings and temp-bans to cool people off, than waste time with edits when things get hot. Edits tend to make things worse, not better, by obscuring why the argument's gotten to a bad place.

Quoted because I also wanted posts I agree with to be read again.