Moderation in moderation.

Chubs - you've had 5 days to pee... For the record I think this is my first post ever (3+/- years) that wasn't in the 202phalo forum...

I think it's fine the way it is. I know it look bad when a flame war starts, but they don't happen very often. I haven't been here nearly as long as some. But I've seen my share of dickwads start shit on the forums. Eventually they fade away once people grow tired of feeding their flame.

I might have to venture into a game forum I do not play ...

i've watched the mayhem in *cough battlefield forum cough* and im finding that one has alot of drama going on in it. mind you i dont frequent the Halo or GoW so, i dont know how those are. as for moderation i'd fall under the catagory of let it simmer and hopfully fix itself. if it fails to fix itself and there is a threat of cyber violence then some weight needs to be thrown around.

Remember the good old days when video game enthusiasts only got to post 3 initials?

There's rarely serious drama on this site. Unless it's really bad, I say let the threads self-moderate. And the BF post was asking for it. Anytime someone posts a blog or initiates a thread to announce they're leaving because of the wrongs of the community, it's going to go downhill fast.

recent drama has been pretty weaksauce bitchslapping, now the old H2 forum, that was some juicy shit

I remember the political forum. I think that if we had been together in a bar physically a5t the time, it would have been the biggest bar-brawl in the history of man. There's a reason the political forum was axed. Anyway, never give people on the internetz the power to vote. That's a good way of destroying a perfectly fine community. I remember when the thumbs up/down still worked. Man, that was always good for some drama. Anyway, CMA, that idea will invite hate-votes and has a good risk of collapsing posts that are perfectly correct in any way, just because the poster said something another thread that made other people angry. You won't believe how many hours I have wasted checking collapsed threads on WoW information boards because of that.

CrypticCat - "I remember the political forum. I think that if we had been together in a bar physically a5t the time, it would have been the biggest bar-brawl in the history of man." Actually, I think it would've been just the opposite. It's easy to be "internet tough" but I'm sure the discussion would have been far more polite(ish) if everyone was face to face.

Yeah, I made a bad point. But it's time we came to realise that it's not 2005 anymore and that we're not all friends who are civil boyscouts because we all play videogames after the job and being a hubby to the wife long enough to get some Xbox-time in too. 2o2p has just become too diverse to introduce things like "voting off" posts. I think that the mods are doing an awesome job and generally speaking the chinese spammers are their biggest headache. Why introduce systems that'll only make their lives harder? I don't see it.

I think its fine. We don't need more mods and don't need more moderation. Outside of the rare instance, these forums have been PG as hell.

"People in clans don't like how the general boards are" LAWL

@TDrag: In the case of the BF thread, I think you have it backwards. It was not initiated based on some perceived wrongs done unto the author by the community. Instead, I believe it began because of a group of folks acting contrary to reason the author belongs to 2o2p, to have fun in a (semi) mature environment, which is the same thing many of us seek. I think the purpose of the thread was much closer to voicing the core purposes of this community than much of discussion that ensued. I'd agree that most threads self-moderate. For whatever reason, the BF forums do not, or they're taking their own sweet time getting there.

Moderation FTW!

i prefer a public comment calling out the flamers along the lines of "hey, xyz and abc, this was a good thread until you deuched it up. pull yo head outta yo ass before you lose posting rights for a couple of days" public humiliation can be a beautiful thing and hell yes we should bring the stocks back into use.

Nope - not backwards. The good intentions and validity of the OP's argument are irrelevant. "I'm taking my ball and going home" posts are like wanted ads for douchebags. Not saying it's right, it's just how the Internet works on a site of this size. When someone figures out how to get a couple tens of thousand people singing kumbaya and giving circle back rubs, call me.

"2o2p has just become too diverse to introduce things like "voting off" posts." DING DING DING. Voting is a TERRIBLE idea. In fact if most can remember back far enough we had this very thing in terms of karma. Now that was live for maybe 2 months. In that time we saw full groups of people getting together just to down vote others they didn't "like". What a huge facepalm that was.... The truth is simple. Mods will always get under your skin. Why? Because they are there to police a thread you probably don't want policed. If you happen to be in a thread that you really want closed your response will be, WHERE ARE THE MODS FOR THIS CRAP! If its a thread you are trolling or maybe don't believe there is a violation of our TOS you are more likely to scream bloody murder when its locked. To be clear, threads are almost never deleted. The only time you might see this is racial slurs, politics, and general bigotry. One thing remains consistent. Every couple of months someone is going to say the mods are doing a terrible job. The funny thing about this statement is that the mods often change. In the past 6 years we have had over 25 different moderators. I find it hard to believe that in all these years we have picked the worst possible people from every clan on 2o2p. Whats more likely is that adults just don't like to be managed. We always tell mods to tread lightly and only mod what breaks the TOS. The issue is really these gray areas where people try to toe the line. 9 out of 10 times they KNOW they're doing it, but instead of just letting mods do their job they would rather call them out.

As far as the forums I frequent, most of what I hear complaints about is the lack of respect for fellow gamers opinions and/or playing ability. I don't feel that it's something that can effectively be moderated in a public forum. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. They also have the right to express themselves how they wish. They don't have to be polite or powder anyone's bottom. In the clan forums, the overlords can moderate in any way they see fit. The population in that clan will eventually filter down to what fits the mold for acceptability for that clan. Just as everyone has their right to express themselves as they see fit in the main forum, everyone has the right to avoid those situations by retreating to the sanctity of their clan. The only way you could attempt it would be to write and post a very specific set of posting rules. Then you would be left with the problem of each individual mods interpretation of the rules. Despite what is felt by many members, I don't think moderation is the key to bringing the shut-ins out of the clan forums. I think a better avenue is to create opportunities for members that would make it worth tolerating whatever it is that keeps them from the main forum. ...or you could go all hardcore and make a minimum post count requirement from every member. This would inevitably cut the population dramatically. Both of which would whittle away at the problem, but I don't think that's the end we're trying to achieve.

Why wouldn't that be accomplished CMA? What's wrong with the forums? One little spat in the BF forums? Other than that, all I have to do is delete spam. The main forums have a great place to be. You're taking one issue to the extreme. Can you please send me any links to other threads that require a mods attention? Really, there are none. Trust me, I read all the posts all day long.

Man, I'm a clanmod and it is the most boring job ever. LOL! So I have to agree with Geekboy. If I were to make a suggestion, we need a forum where everybody is allowed to spew nonsense so the mods can go in there and close threads when they have an itchy triggerfinger. Poor mods. All that power and no-one to use it on. LAWL

I'm sorry. Maybe I'm a numb zombie, but I'm pretty active on the general forums and while there's a lot of making light going on, I don't see it as disrespectful or as people being jerks. If I may say so, I think you're the jerk. And before you go and lable an entire community as jerks because a handful of clannies have too much of an ego to have it poked at by us jerks, you should apply some self-moderation. That might help some.

It's ok CMA you brought up a good discussion and obviously worth a thought considering the new staff are trying to get people out of the clan forums. Cryptic cat usually cant hold a conversation without flinging poo so pay him no attention.

In a perfect world, moderation would work. Unfortunately, this isn't a perfect world. I think there will always be people who like the sanctity of the clan forums and others who like to venture out into the main forums. I think people have a right to say what they want to say. I think as long as the mods step in when threads become "out of hand" then all should be good. I personally don't post in the main forums that much. Not because I'm afraid to go there, but because I have no incentive to do so. I get plenty of entertainment in my clan forum and all my free time is spent there.

*Insert picture of TO eating some popcorn NG

"I love it when a plan comes together!"

Just to clear something up. It is not "fact" that people don't leave their clan forums to post in general because they think others are jerks. Just saying that its fact does not make it so. Nor does having a couple people tell you that they don't leave forums because of jerks. I can understand that you might have met a handful of people that might feel this way, but an even larger group don't leave simply because they don't want to. Truth be told people don't leave for a ton of reasons. Trying to distill it down to one issue is just being blind sided to whole picture. We have found that in general, most people don't leave for the reasons that Prodigalfox said above. "I personally don't post in the main forums that much. Not because I'm afraid to go there, but because I have no incentive to do so. I get plenty of entertainment in my clan forum and all my free time is spent there." People need a reason to post in general forums. The more tools, forums, pages, and features we give to clans means that over time less and less people will see a reason to go anywhere else. This is just the natural progression of small groups. In the end we are mostly ok with that. We would rather 2o2p be a place to find your own niche then hope you get along with everyone else.

When is the intermission? I need to whiz ...

Am I lost? This isn't the Battlefield forums...?