Dion

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

Pretty sure there's two "Casual" RPs in the Casual RP section that don't belong there.

@Ambra

This discussion has been had like 20x now and every time said people come and say their RP is more complicated than it looks.

We're better off rolling our eyes and nodding at this point. Let the kids have their playground.

Looking Back - 5 months have passed, what now?

I don't know, are we doing correctly to what the purpose of the page is? For all I see is a group of people mocking each other. Some say other are guilty, some defend themselves and made others look guilty. I subscribe this to see change but it seem that all I see is another " In Defense of Genre 2" Mk 3.

@Scarescrow

You're new to these threads, aren't you? This is the way it goes when not enough people chime in and give their suggestions and instead it's the same four people arguing. The moment I noticed nobody else was suggesting things, I knew it'd go down this road. I'll quote from someone unaffiliated with the current discussion:

Its a funny phenomenon. People think all is okay. Once a few group of people start speaking out with well reasoned criticisms and evaluation of the system, the others then associate you as some kind of psychopaths out to cause some damage to the community-- disregarding or stepping aside actual arguments that should be considered.

The issue I see here is that people are quick to throw away all critiques because they disagree with a few of the others. Or they are going hunting for reasons not to do certain things (''what we have now is FINE! We don't need to improve it!'') just for the sake of argument. I'm not interested in that, I'm interested in discussing the few ideas that are there and seeing what other people think of that.

I think that point got lost in translation somewhere and we ended up with a back and forth. It's not surprising but a bit sad perhaps.

Looking Back - 5 months have passed, what now?

Before I even begin replying to this mess of a post, I have to say, you really outdid yourself more than you ever have before Catchambers. I think the only time I was more amazed by you was the time you spammed threads filled with [@Mentions] of Mahz and got banned for it. You've managed to not only miss the point more often than I drink coffee in the day (I drink lots of coffee) but also have you managed to not understand most of what was written. I am amazed. You will find my comments inside.

Holy Shit Wall of Text

<Snipped quote by Odin>
By your own logic, increasing moderator power or adding more co-admins may not result in any real changes, because even Hank can't do much, and they're the highest ranking person after Mahz.

No, this was a comment I made on a previous suggestion that was partially fulfilled. More moderators and a co-admin was the thing we did. The reason it didn't work was because of the fact that the role powers are ingrained in the coding, ergo, Mahz needs to change the code. It has nothing to do with whether or not we increase power or add co-admins at this point because we already did that. The thing that needs to happen now is for Mahz to operationalize those changes so they can do what they were intended to do.

So no, by my logic, we never gave the moderators and co-admin the powers they need to do their job better. So no, your point is false.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
You want to whip up some sprites for the staff to plug in, then?

I could if I was asked to help, but I was not, so I shan't. Unless they ask me. I offered to make emotes for the guild discord and I can still do that if needed.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
If you actually want these events, you should organize them.

I no longer have access to the discord, so no, I shouldn't. That'd be impossible. Also, this wasn't my suggestion, so I mean, no, I'm under no obligation to do so.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Can you provide hard evidence that the rules aren't being enforced, preferably in the form of links to specific instances?

Per forum moderating standards enforcement of the rules isn't made public, and I no longer have access to the discord, so no, I cannot, but why don't you do your own research for once?

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Except there are a dozen entries in the "What has been completed:" section to your first post in this thread, and the staff have posted in virtually every thread about this subject, which is proof that discussion and debate about the state of RPG is not useless at all, things do happen, and the moderators do talk back.

Far more hasn't been done than has been done, as I'm sure you can count.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
If you don't mind me asking, when did you last post in that subforum?

Again, it wasn't even my suggestion, but I posted a comment saying 'what the fuck' there 3 days ago, and besides that, went in there a few more times prior to that to welcome people when I felt like it.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Can you provide hard evidence that this is causing problems?

I think it is generally understood that inactive moderators are a problem. The real thing you should be asking is whether or not there are good reasons for this. I'm reading here that there are. Are you satisfied?

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Why?

Community building. It's my own personal opinion that is likely never going to happen, but if I don't stand up and say what I think I also have no right to complain.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
I think that having moderators with authority over the forum, chat, or both would help spread out the weight of their responsibilities.

.. you mean they currently don't have authority?

<Snipped quote by Odin>
If you ask me, I don't see anything wrong with the current system.

Just because nothing is wrong with it doesn't mean there are better ideas.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Maybe it'd be less aesthetically pleasing to have over a handful of guides pinned in each roleplaying subforum, instead of just letting curious users go read them in the Articles & Guides subforum?

That's subjective. You'd have a good point if the articles and guides subforum was better represented closer to the top instead of down at the bottom where, indeed, nobody really reads it.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Perhaps there's tension between you and some of the moderators, which makes them less inclined to speak with you. I haven't had any problems with talking to them about various site-related topics, but that's just my experience.

I would like to think moderators are open to talking to everyone whenever they are available regardless of their personal opinion of said person, because that's what they're there to do.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
How much of the community is dissatisfied with the status quo?

No idea. Host a questionnaire for it.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
It's not the moderators' responsibility to deal with off-site matters. If something happens on the forum or chat, then they have to respond.

I'm gonna start sending you death threats off-site and we'll see if it's not of interest to the guild.

Nah, I think that it's at least something they should consider.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
While I can agree that we might need more moderators, I would seriously consider going to another forum if even a single community-elected power-hungry member joined their ranks. This is because there's no effective and reasonable way to get the community to vote on a new moderator without someone boosting their votes via alternate accounts.

??? ok

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Agreed.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Agreed.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
I never really cared for RPGNews, but maybe you could make your own version of it?

The last time that happened the account got nuked and banned.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
I never really cared for those, but maybe you could make your own version of it, or offer ideas for potential contests? Just because we have Contest moderators doesn't mean that we need to have contests at the moment, but I do find it curious that section hasn't had a post in roughly 3 months.

:)

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Moderators don't need to share those things with the community. They just need to moderate the forum and chat.

Then they should also put up with critique that people see nothing happening. No?

<Snipped quote by Odin>
For the love of Mahz, please don't.
Again not my suggestion.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
I joined RPG a handful of years before Guildfall, and virtually every clique that was around then has either vanished or splintered. Given enough time, the current cliques will end up the same way. This is just how the internet works, and the moderators are only obligated to ensure that rules aren't being broken.

no shit lol

<Snipped quote by Odin>
I wouldn't be upset if any of those subforums were axed, so long as they remained inactive for an entire month.

So you'd be content keeping a subforum if only 10 people used that subforum? What do you consider inactive?

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Can you elaborate on this?

Wasn't my suggestion so no I can't. You can do your own research and read the previous thread.

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Would you prefer that the moderators be trigger-happy with their banning powers, and never let people appeal their bans?

Not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation.

Odin

I'll throw you a bone. Opening these may help you:

Hider

<Snipped quote by Odin>
Considering that moderators have replied to this and similar threads, and that they regularly post in the chat, I'm inclined to disagree with you on this. Also, when was the last time you stopped to chat with a janitor in real life?

We're gonna equate them to janitors now just because Hank made an analogy that they're janitors? OK, I guess I'm gonna throw shit on the floor in front of them too and not clean up after myself because 'we have janitors'

what kind of tomfoolery holy shit

@catchamber

Reading catch's post was what tuned me into this, but I did in fact use the new guild join feature that was in the general chat. It made things rather easy. I saw the message, clicked into the thread and had a welcome put up split seconds after the user posted. It's entirely our issue to welcome people, and I try to throw at least some sort of welcome to people who haven't had a response when I feel like hopping over there, which is fairly frequently.

In other words, when it comes to welcoming, we're just a lazy old bunch of bastards it seems.

@ArenaSnow

Yup. Whether or not it's really an issue that is worth fixing is another matter but an attempt was made, now it's up to the people to take it. They won't but that's out of the hands of anyone at that point.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

Okay, if you're in/running a fandom RP, and the best you can come up with for a character is "son/daughter/girlfriend/third cousin of canon character" then you need to try harder.

@Surtr

I'm Boruto's dad.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Odin>

I don't quite get your meaning.

@mdk

How many immigrants come to the USA yearly? That's a lot of fish to sieve through and that is just to establish 'potential' POI's. Then you drag a smaller finer net through that batch to get the people who actually are suspicious. Mind you, by that time you're left with, what, maybe 1% of all immigrants. Seems like you're looking for a needle in a haystack and using the most inefficient way to do it.

What I'm saying is, from the article I infer that they're using big data on a pool that is incredibly large. But they're using it in a way that isn't effective. Eh, we have this thing called 'dragging nets' or sleepnet. It's a net you drag through the ocean at the bottom and catch fish with it that way. It's nice because you catch a lot of fish with relatively little effort. But it's bad because the net gets tangled and you catch things you don't need - it's not very specific.

It's the same with surveillance. If you use a net like that (net referring to the method of detection) you're gonna get stuck a lot and you're gonna catch a lot of things that are not what you need (like, you're looking for herring but you catch a lot of trout or w/e. In surveillance, you want to catch the bad guys, but you're gonna just end up catching a lot of guys who google 'egg timer' and 'camping propane tank' or people who just happen to write something weird).

I'm not saying the entire idea of this is erroneous because it could be used, but they haven't refined it and taken extra processing steps to the point where they can minimize the amount of false reports. They're just analyzing big data and not knowing what they're looking for. It's a problem that has existed in US intelligence agencies since.. forever. That's why there's so many reports of people being watched for no reason or getting swatted for weird reasons.

Waiting until we have a problem and then acting is foolish. It is easier to stop a problem from developing in the first place than it is to untangle it after it has already developed. To look at the situation in Europe and then say that maybe migrants aren't a problem is obtuse. The cost of migrants outweighs the benefits.

@Kratesis

The situation here is more just one of intense stupidity and the EU's idiotic structures. I mean, pairing up all the different things that go into this, it's just stupid and we never should've gotten into it. Letting the EU decides who takes how many refugees? Retarded. Letting the EU dictate the vetting process? Retarded. Letting Turkey hold us hostage with refugees? Retarded. Putting thousands of refugees in countries that already have failing infrastructure for housing? RETARDED. Putting refugees in countries with plenty of population while not giving more to the countries that need population? Makes me screech like a retarded kid on /pol/ that thinks the jews are behind everything. It really makes me mad.

Maybe this is my god complex talking but I think if I was in charge I could've done something far more efficient than the shit we have now. It's just plain bad and stupid. Now with the recent German elections we might get Merkel to tone it down a bit before she loses even more votes.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

@boomlover Yeah, that one is still alive I think.

Looking Back - 5 months have passed, what now?

<Snipped quote by Odin>

Any form of moderator rank makes you a representative of the guild's staff team, and that is the angle that I approached the self nomination with. Moderators on this site simply do not nominate themselves if they want to be truly considered. And yes, I don't see the point in offering the rank piecemeal - it's far more effective, based on what I've seen on this site and others, to have teams with full capabilities (and perhaps specific things that they do on the side) that manage the site and its offshoots as a whole as compared to plopping moderators in each section to make a chaotic structure.

@ArenaSnow

Two of the current moderator team have nominated themselves to Hank. Despite you saying it didn't happen - it did. I should just correct you on that - please not that I'm not disagreeing with everything you said, but just saying that the way things work here isn't according to a standard set of rules, it's down to whatever the moderators feel like. This structure has worked for 10 years now, it seems, but we can all agree that post-guildfall things have changed.

Who is "the community"? Who stands for them? Who has properly collected the views of what is referenced as the "community" in any of the posts of this nature? I consider myself a member and wasn't asked about it to form that base.

Perhaps you weren't involved in the first thread that was made where we saw a wider reach in terms of users coming in and putting in their two cents (which is where the first list of suggestions came from). Although I vaguely seem to recall you participating, I'm not sure and I'm not in the mood to go hunting for it.

Yes, you were asked to participate, but my lack of capability to really publicly ask people + the fact that suggestions is the single least used sub section made it hard for me to attract a real group of representative users. My apologies for that, really, sincerely. I wish I could've done a better job but PM'ing all members of the forum 5 members at a time but that is just logistically impossible.

You see where I am going with this no? No, the suggestions are perhaps not entirely representative, but they're representative of the people who took time out of their day to participate. And you know, I think participating in a thread like this at least gives my bitching some legitimacy because unlike others who whine and complain, I go out of my way to at least try to help.

ArenaSnow, I think you're a nice guy, and we've had some nice posting back and forth in other threads. But now it just seems like you're attacking the credibility of this process as a whole based on factors I can't really do much about. No, not everyone on the guild participates, and yes, perhaps that means it's not representative at all. I hope you can also see that I'm trying to achieve something close to that regardless of the limited means I have as a standard user with no access to the discord.

Let's B!tch. I feel it's a healthy release for our roleplay annoyances 2.0

not all advanced rps are slow as all hell mind you. Their was one who's name ive saldy forgotten but i do remeber it going bloody fast. Like post after post. that and the fact we got like 40 applicants. in the first few hours. Point is advanced rules. And it can go fast but if it goes as slow as every post a week people loose interest. especially if the ooc is somewhat dead. Hence the reason why this rp had a discord channel.

@boomlover

Was it the space one? I remember that one having a lot of applications at the start.

Looking Back - 5 months have passed, what now?

<Snipped quote by j8cob>

Any moderation role on the site is representative of the guild, even if it's on discord. Hank can do whatever he wants, pretty much, as a co-admin. I'm no more "qualified" to "analyze" your role than you are "qualified" to nominate yourself when that's clearly not even how the guild's promotion system has ever worked.

At the end of the day, my point is simple. Nominating yourself makes you look like an ass. You've only proven the point.

@ArenaSnow

I mean, I get where you are coming from and I agree in part. But, I also think that j8 nominating himself isn't that crazy. He's in the politics channel frequently enough and out of all the participants might just be the one most sane one.

That said it makes no sense to have section specific moderators. It's either everything or bust. Having section specific moderators just means we need people that can only look at certain areas and have no influence elsewhere, so if something goes wrong and they're there, they can't even do anything. You should be a moderator for all sections and maybe just pay attention to the areas that need it.

Had the same route to Ruby been taken with me, it would have been handled. Once it stays public, it's less a plea for moderation and turns into a shit slinging contest. As I said before, any issue brought to me in PM has been handled, including an appeal for a warning overturn. I could have handled it better, but it wasn't like it was handled fine by all parties involved anyway. Then again, Nyte says I'm not a 'Real' mod, so that's probably why he went to Ruby instead of sending me a message. Or whatever he reason was.

Despite my claims of laziness, people have had little issue coming to me with reports and all on Discord. My PM box here and there are eternally open, and so far aside from me not handling that issue, I don't think there has been any issue with how I handle reports, at all. Unless they are just not brought up in my presence.

@Rilla

I don't really take this as a satisfactory response. It wouldn't turn into a shit slinging fest if you were quick with your response, or in fact, were proactive. If someone is spamming, you shouldn't need a report to do anything, you should just man up and tell whatever kid is spamming to shut the fuck up. It's not that hard. So why did you need a report when by Nyt and Chai's statement it was clear you were in the discord at that very moment?

Like Chai said, it's not a sign you're a bad mod. But it's a sign you may have done something else that would have worked better. Nobody is asking you to apologize (even if you did, you can't buy anything with sorry) - we're asking you to look back and see if perhaps you could've done things differently so that things may improve for the future. You're being given feedback, and your response isn't to think about it, but instead to deflect it and give excuses? Why?

I also want to comment on the real mod thing because that's something a lot of people are confused about apparently. A lot of people simply aren't aware you're no longer 'just' an arena mod. Something that could've been fixed with a simple alert from the mod team. There has to be some function that allows admins or moderators to PM all users at once, so why is that not being used? If there is no such function then why isn't there a moderator log in the news section where changes, updates or even just small casual messages can be posted by moderators?

It's something that wouldn't even take much time and that would give so much clarity to a lot of these situations. Something I've said about thrice now in separate threads.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Odin>

Not so fast... Also, ISIS has second-generation and the like.

I could keep going but you get the point. This isn't a fictional threat.

Now it's true -- Europe's situation is worse. Europe is closer, Europe is taking more refugees in. Europe is getting hit more -- except of course for Poland, which takes in zero refugees and has suffered zero attacks. A stats analyst could probably find a pattern there, but that's beside the point. If we know Islamist terrorism is a threat, and we know that Europe -- taking more refugees from areas with Islamist movements -- suffers a greater number of attacks... Doesn't that justify restrictions on refugee intake from those same areas? Our national interest would seem to dictate precisely that course of action.

@mdk

Ah, I was under the impression that this referred to Islamic immigrants from areas like Iran, which is what most of the attention has been shifted to given recent changes.

It seems that this is more shifted towards immigrants in general. Which could be better or worse. Sounds like you're dragging a net through the ocean that doesn't have many fish to begin with. But, we'll see. If it's immigrants in general then it makes a bit more sense, but still seems like this isn't the right step forwards.

As for Poland - not true. Poland took in refugees - it's just that the moment the refugees arrived, the very next day they'd already escaped and went to Germany instead.

That said, the Netherlands hasn't suffered an attack yet either and we do have refugees. So, there seems to be little causation there in terms of your actual argument. Does it contribute? Yes, 100%, taking in refugees from those areas is a risk. But it's not a guarantee.