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Endless Flight

Endless Flight

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It has come to our attention that certain people do not like our moderation style here at the Pub and would like us to be more hands-on. Meaning, that we should step in and stop thread tangents, or thread-crapping, as some people would call it, before they get carried away. That we should not let people drop memes in threads as they call it a form of passive-aggressive attack, and that we should "fact check" arguments to see who should be warned about crossing the line. That we are too nice with people and let too much slide around here.

I want everyone who reads this thread to share your thoughts on what we do right, what we do wrong, how we could improve. As the owner, I am biased in that I think we take being moderators very seriously and have discussions about major issues before we decide to do anything about it. That we expect people here to act like adults and sort things out for yourselves before we have to get involved. That people can make mistakes from time to time and that we shouldn't jump all over you at the first sign of trouble. That if we warn people, we do so in general terms before being specific so that we don't single out and embarrass people. That we want this place to be as friendly and accommodating as possible. We don't want members to bring their baggage from other sites and we don't prejudge people based on their behavior elsewhere. I can go on, but I think we do a pretty damn good job and I think I have two great mods who share my views about how we do things here.

So I open the floor. What do you guys think?
 
I think you guys are doing a great job. I can't think of anything that would make this forum go downhill faster than trying to implement the suggestions in your first paragraph, except possibly dropping the prohibition on politics.
 
I think there could be improvements, but also that the general approach that moderators here take is the right approach.

I do think that sometimes the "pour memes onto a fire" thing gets annoying, but honestly I've just started just scrolling past those posts. Should it be banned? I think its counterproductive to ending a flame war, but then again, flame wars are kind of hard to stop once they get going without mod intervention or someone just falling dead anyway so... maybe it doesn't make much of a difference.

On the whole thing of "fact checking" I think that is completely unrelated to whether someone crossed the line. Being RIGHT isn't a defense to being an asshole. And I say that with complete selfawareness that I can be an asshole. Also, it starts dragging the moderators biases on games into the discussion. And let's be honest, we all have biases towards certain styles and games. That isn't a bad thing. But I do think adding that into the decision making of "is this dude being an asshole" muddies things.

It also creates an echo chamber. If mods start MODERATING in agreement with certain "facts" then this forum inherently becomes biased towards those "facts". I mean, let's be honest, most things argued over here aren't facts, they are subjective experience.

If I'm being an asshole, I'm fine with a mod just telling me I'm being an asshole, even if they agree with the point of what I'm saying, I still shouldn't be an asshole.

(As an aside "I think what you are saying is harmful" is not being an asshole, but being a dick about it is. I know I've done both).
 
I find that RPG Pub is a pretty relaxed rpg forum with a casual vibe, it's quite enjoyable checking it out every day.
Sometimes things may get a bit heated, but it doesn't appear to happen too much. Most of the time it fades away, but cccasionally things may become too confrontational and need to be moderated, and that's fine with me.

I think if people don't respect the middle ground, then there are other rpg forums that will certainly cater for more heated debate, often polarised in certain directions..

Redirecting train-wreck level derailed threads is fine at times, but often thread-tangents are where the juice really gets flowing. Becoming too vigilant regarding this is pretty negative from a social sense. Tangential threads often contain a fair bit of creativity and humour, and both of these things are good for roleplaying. Stifling this too much is like asking pilots not to fly planes.

Some other forums feel much more formal because of straight-jacketing threads that veer off from the initial title, and often they don't realise that sometimes riding the rainbows are better than finding the pots of gold.

Besides, if someone really wants to get a thread back on track, it's as simple as replying to a previous post that contains the concept you want to discuss. Pretty simple :thumbsup:

I really like the laid-back atmosphere here, and anything that keeps the casual middle ground vibe here works for me.

There's heaps of other places we can go to hear rants about the politicians and crap going on in the world out there. This place is a haven from all that, and I love that a 'No Politics' concept has been baked into the foundations of this forum.

Besides, anyone that puts up with characters like Dumarest Dumarest, or allows gonzo in-jokes like 'Swo' is fine in my book :grin:

I think the moderation here at RPG Pub works really well, and is the best I have seen for the last few years. Endless Flight Endless Flight, Baulderstone Baulderstone, and TristramEvans TristramEvans - you all do a great job, and it's no mistake that many of us make this our main rpg forum.

Thanks for making me feel like home here, and I'm sure many others feel that same way :thumbsup:
 
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Nah. It can be annoying but we can just use the ignore function. Straight up and consistent trolling should be addressed with a call to ‘chill’ but otherwise I think we have a good balance here between too strict and negligent.
 
I haven't had any issues.

I do think lately there have potentially been some bad actors testing what they need to do in order to get discussions shut down, derailing to make discussion more contentious. I also think there have been cases of topics created in bad faith specifically to create a storm.
 
Overall quite happy.

Biggest criticism. I don't think the less than friendly mocking of some folks helps whether from a fellow poster or Mod. I might agree at times but it's only adding to the knives out vibe which we don't need.

I don't want to be the other sites and I like our tangents, joking, poking gentle fun and generally less pole up rectum/one armed knife fight feel.

If people want heavy modding there's already a place for that. If they have want a knife fight there's a place for that already.
I want a pub.


But mostly I want the people here to recall this isn't the other major sites. If they want those or just slightly toned down versions of those this ain't it.
 
I’m good. I mostly draw the line at personal insults (you’re stupid, etc) in a direct fashion, and these have been handled.

The last couple of threads that have been heated have still been largely about games, which, frankly, is a good thing. I hope that folks can avoid the comments about how people play games wrong, but sometimes it happens. I can always ignore folks.
 
I'd hate to see the mods around here put on the jackboots and lay down the law. I'd like to think most of what passes for nasty around here is just good natured ribbing and if things are said or done in bad faith they're at least done with a laugh and a twinkle in the eye as among old friends. I can make enemies anytime I want. Friends are harder to come by.
 
My two pieces of feedback:

1. Ban problematic people from threads rather than banning threads because there are problematic people. The former solves the problem. The latter empowers problematic people and encourages problematic behavior.

2. If you step in to chastise a poster for flaming another poster and their direct response to that is to flame the original poster again, your response to that should not be a shrug. I honestly came very close to quitting the forum when you pulled that one.
 
I like the moderation here. Keep it dynamic though and be able to make special cases without setting precedent. If you deal with an individual in a specific way, there doesn't need to be a rule made about it going forward. So man forums seem to go that route, like all actions are a precedent setter. They really do not have to be.

Booting people from threads seems better than closing threads as well.
Like you said, we are all adults... that being said, if we act like kids and we are not getting the point. Do like you do with unruly kids. Give them a timeout.
 
So, for quite a while I was heavily involved in the dba Stackexchange site - and still am, to some extent. There is a chat channel associated with that forum called The Heap that was held up as an example of a good, well-behaved chat space. You may be aware of the tutu about Monica Ciello but before that things had a nice atmosphere.

From my experience, what worked for that channel was humour and discouraging folks from getting hot under the collar. There was also a certain amount of taking the piss tolerated out of folks who took themselves too seriously. Once we managed to defuse a potential situation between a gun nut and a regular who's children were about to start at Sandy Hook school. This was achieved by pretty directly telling the former to shut up and take his foot out of his mouth.

Usually it's possible to tell the difference between gentle ribbing and vicious mockery - and prod folks who cross that line, but if the pub loses its culture of humour you're probably screwed. At the moment it's possible to make some jokes that folks could take personally but they don't because the atmosphere makes it obvious that the intent isn't malicious. This type of joking would be impossible on (say) COTI because its moderators take themselves far too seriously and that atmosphere pervades the user base as well. Keep the atmosphere of humour going and keep discouraging folks from taking themselves too seriously.

Folks with narcissisitic tendencies can be OK if they have a sense of humour, but when they're allowed to take themselves too seriously they get toxic really quickly. Keeping a sense of humour in the general vibe of the site also has the effect of discouraging folks who are that way inclined.

I don't mind threadcrapping if it's not malicious - i.e. folks dragging personal agendas or malicious trolling into unrelated topics. Really, I think moderation should be focused on imperatives to 'keep it civil' and maintaining the desired tone. Shut down flame wars; I don't know what the permissions system is like on Xenforo, but if you can ban folks from threads it might help to calm down flame wars.

Boot persistently disruptive offenders if they give the impression that they have no intention to reform or play nicely. There will always be certain folks who make a net negative contribution and you're probably better off without these people.

That's my 2 coppers worth. I think you should largley stay steady as she goes. As the saying goes, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'
 
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The meme thing used to annoy me, but I lightened up and now no longer believe that forum posting is A Very Important Thing (TM).

Your modding is both fine and will never be good enough because that's how these things roll.
 
OHT said:
The meme thing used to annoy me, but I lightened up and now no longer believe that forum posting is A Very Important Thing (TM).

Your modding is both fine and will never be good enough because that's how these things roll.
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I’ve said this before but basically before the Pub I didn’t like memes much either but something clicked and I love them now.

Thank you to everyone so far., We occasionally ask for this input to remind us how we are doing as mods. It’s also because as the Pub gets busier we don’t want to go from mod style A to mod style B without even realizing it, so feedback also helps. Keep the comments And suggestions rolling in if you haven’t shared them. Thanks.
 
I think the moderation here is very good. I owned a forum for about five years. 2ķ registrations, maybe a hundred regular users at one point. Most ever online at once was about 350. A couple of things I can tell you from my experience:

Be consistent (you are)

If something is a problem, nip it in the bud, and early.

But y'all already seem to be doing these things so
 
Gringnr said:
I think the moderation here is very good. I owned a forum for about five years. 2ķ registrations, maybe a hundred regular users at one point. Most ever online at once was about 350. A couple of things I can tell you from my experience:

Be consistent (you are)

If something is a problem, nip it in the bud, and early.

But y'all already seem to be doing these things so
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I think the biggest thing with running forums, from my experience with it (I've been the head admin of several very very large forums (like 150k members, 3k concurrent users) both as a hobby and also for my job), is that moderation just has to fit the demographics and culture of the forum.

The forums I run are much much stricter as far as mod policy, but when you are talking about a really large forum, that has a much lower average age (I doubt you guys have ever had to worry about the whole "is this user under 13" thing), it's much more necessary to have more codified, strict rules.

Be consistent is about the only universal rule to running a forum as far as I can tell.
 
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I like the casual, chatty style here, and think it usually works pretty well for discussing a subject that's ultimately very low stakes. But it does allow itself to be taken advantage of if someone decides they want to tank a thread - as we've seen a couple of times this week - because even though we could try and drag a thread back on track... simply being in the presence of threadcrapping can be a miserable experience. I don't think there's a good solution, though; if we look to the two other big forums with RPG in their name then we see the failures of overly loose and overly strict moderation. The Pub's managed to go okay threading between those extremes, and keeping it's own culture along the way. It's not for everyone, but nowhere can be.

I really like the idea of threadbans, but it may be too much additional work from an admin point of view. At least we're still small enough that "active oversight" works; if someone's being a dick, it's a good chance that the moderators will spot it anyway and take whatever action is appropriate. Consistency and not having Acceptable Targets is key, and I think that's being managed well here.

I certainly don't think that there should be Official Facts About Roleplaying That This Forum Holds As True, because down that route lies echo chambers, and then what's the point of having a discussion forum at all.
 
Only been here a short time but I'm enjoying the vibe very much, especially when compared to certain other RPG sites which have far too much of an agenda and are either far too overzealous in their moderation or can just be downright toxic. The balance appears to have been struck here pretty well.

I don't think I'd change anything for now but will provide further feedback if that changes - ie, exposed to something that I don't agree with, etc.

Keep up the good work!
 
I've had few issues with the moderation.

I have seen, or at least perceived, that the overall tone of the forums is becoming one I find less palatable, but I have never reported anybody to a moderator. Just not my way. I'll use ignore as long as it helps, and I'll leave when it doesn't. Not in any grand, dramatic fashion...just in the same way I did other forums: Log out one day and not log back in.
 
I think there is a discrepancy between "No Politics" - which I'm perfectly fine with, and the reality of allowing people to use their personal ideological drives to police threads for their content, who don't happen to be Mods themselves is antithetical to your first rule. Because whether or not they're talking about politics - their engagement style *is* political. This leads to the Heckler's Veto killing off threads as we've seen this past week.

Ban people from threads that aren't actually participating in the spirit of the thread, don't ban the threads themselves. You can do it privately - or give warnings privately to the people in question. Or you can do it publicly and shame the shit the out of them if they don't seem to get it. Whichever is fine with me.

You can decide how much leeway to allow, be consistent and you'll be fine.
 
And for what it's worth: I love all the mods here. I'm a mod on a very very large non-gaming forum (I am the sole mod for the Hot topics politics and religion forum!) and I know what a fucking pain in the ass it is to deal with non-stop reporting, complaints, etc. etc. It's a whip.

The issue is, like I maintain about gaming groups, bands, and any social organization - curating. You can have a pack of assholes together and bicker together as long as the rules of conduct are not in opposition to one another (inadvertently or not) and are enforced evenly and consistently. And if someone really is just a bad seed - tell them. Privately or publically, whichever you choose. But make the space you *want*. Because god knows Modding it's a thankless job most of the time.

So thanks!
 
Also, I think the no politics rule is a good one. It seems that the owners/admins/mods have a pretty clear idea of what they want the forum to be (which is essential). If someone absolutely has to discuss that stuff, well, there are plenty of places to do that already. I like that it hasn't found its way here. It's not unusual for hobby forums to have such a rule (cgccomics.com comes to mind).
 
The moderation is perfectly fine. Occasionally certain parties might be qualified to be prevented from posting to a given thread, but really generally disagreements are alright. It's fine. If I had any advice it would be not to "poke the bear" as it were with troublesome posters; obviously it's generally meant in jest (and generally taken as such! The community here seems, on the whole, very laid back and jovial), but when someone is coming off as antagonistic or antagonized it's probably best not to stoke the boiler unless you have confidence they will likely interpret it in the good-natured way it's intended. Although to be perfectly fair, this absolutely has the potential to defuse a situation as well.

I also think that flexibility and situational interpretation, as seems to be used by moderation here frequently, should be encouraged. While I have no personal experience with moderation, I believe that mutual trust and appropriate spot rulings will do more to exhibit good intentions and implement measured moderation (moderation in moderation?) as well as promote good nature and salve animosity among the users, than rigidly following any lexicon of hard-and-fast rules ever will. Plus, at least to my mind, a more delicate and generous form of guidance seems like much less work than strict 'policing' as it were.

tl;dr I guess just don't get lost in the weeds hunting "threadcrappers" and the like. You'll be at it for a while and it doesn't actually help.
 
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The 'Pub has Goldilocks moderation compared to the Rock or the Hard Place.

It's the internet, so antagonists are going to antagonise, but I'd much rather the laissez-fair approach taken here than either a) Pure Freeze Peach, which often means the sweariest and most aggressive thumping their chests in an echo chamber, untroubled by us milder souls, or b) The Ten-Thousand Thousand Rules Under Heaven, which kills debate and has posters carefully checking each post they make before deleting it, or stepping on mines without realising they're standing in a minefield.
 
But the issue comes down to arbitrating what "is" allowed. I mean for myself, if I have to worry about every word I say for someone elses choice to define it how they see fit for their ulterior reasons... that is precisely how it starts unless people start handing out Telepathy Potions.

That is the "Hecklers Veto" mechanic. And so you either stop it at the source or in the attempts to be "egalitarian" - you kill the thread for everyone. Which is tantamount to the same thing. Not a wise means to have a discussion, however "heated", much less a discussion forum.
 
Keep a light touch.

Humor and benign tangents (food!) are much better at diffusing conflict than moderation.

Community investment is paramount and it’s up to each and every post not to escalate.
 
I definitely see your point there tenbones. It's unfortunate that these days "we" (i.e. internet users) have been conditioned to read only the narrowest, most uncharitable intent into the words we see.
 
It's also helpful to have the rules posted clearly somewhere. To keep both posters and mods in check. Of course there will be situational rulings but if it's right there in black and white, it cuts down on a lot of the arguments.
 
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I actually don't think you need more black and white rules. You just need the mods to stick to what they got - No Politics and then organically decide the level of discourse they want. The only time things need to get "moddy" is when one or more Mods decides someone is not really contributing to the thread in a meaningful fashion and give them a "tap on the shoulder".

Anyone with any modicum of sense should understand that's the time to stop. Telling "everyone settle down" in my experience rewards only the people that *want* to stifle the discussion in the first place. It puts people that are engaged in the discussion - at whatever level - on notice that they now have to cater to the least common denominator in the discussion, which happens to be the person(s) who've decided the discussion is about some inflection or assumption of what another person is saying taken to the worst and most egregious definition - and operating from that as the real discussion at hand. And so the cycle goes... until the eventual Threadlock occurs.

Just call the strikes and balls. That's what umpires do. It sucks - but that's what Mod's have to do.
 
I think the moderation style is fine as it is. I like that all the mods are active posters - I've been part of forums before where the mods only posted in certain areas or not at all, and that made it seem like mod posts were graven tablets handed down from on high.
 
I also noticed from heavily moderated forums that people try to deliberately push what they can get away with. I think it boils down to tribalism. When its an us vs you thing, the forum starts to collapse. Mods aren't an enemy here, and should remain that way. :smile:
 
Justin Alexander said:
My two pieces of feedback:

1. Ban problematic people from threads rather than banning threads because there are problematic people. The former solves the problem. The latter empowers problematic people and encourages problematic behavior.

2. If you step in to chastise a poster for flaming another poster and their direct response to that is to flame the original poster again, your response to that should not be a shrug. I honestly came very close to quitting the forum when you pulled that one.
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QFT

Just want to Echo this sentiment. There have been a few threads where it feels like the conversation was shut down because of one or two bad actors place. More so, something that I feel happens here is that there are some posters who know what the line is, and are good at saying just under it but provoking other people until they cross a line. This kind of trolling seems particularly obnoxious to me because it's usually not the instigator that seems to take heat.
 
If I understand the Heckler's Veto correct, it means that people can stop by and flame a thread, and get in an argument with one other poster, derailing the entire thread and getting it shut down, essentially using this tactic to shut down any thread discussion they don't like?

If so, I agree that is a potential problem. I don't think we shut down threads often (it just so happened this past week it was done twice - once temporarily). But I agree that maybe it's time that we as mods need to specifically call out bad actors, wherew in the past we've tried to avoid specifically targetting individuals for moderation.

I think this may personally upset some people more, which is why I've tried to avoid it. But that may just be something we have to deal with so that the system can't be abused or people don't think they can excuse their behaviour because of the behaviours of others.
 
Tommy Brownell said:
I've had few issues with the moderation.

I have seen, or at least perceived, that the overall tone of the forums is becoming one I find less palatable, but I have never reported anybody to a moderator. Just not my way. I'll use ignore as long as it helps, and I'll leave when it doesn't. Not in any grand, dramatic fashion...just in the same way I did other forums: Log out one day and not log back in.
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It's never going to be the friendly clubhouse it was in the beginning, when it was only 3 dozen of us who all knew each other from a previous forum, unfortunately. While I miss that, I'm not sure it was sustainable. We are trying to maintain a friendly atmosphere despite that though, as best we can with close to a thousand different perspectives and PoV. There are sometimes undercurrents of hostility that form, I'm not sure the best approach as Mods to take to stem that, short of viciously vetting and curating every poster. I've seen in other forums how mods can contribute to and exacerbate that problem, but I haven't seen a good solution.
 
TristramEvans said:
If I understand the Heckler's Veto correct, it means that people can stop by and flame a thread, and get in an argument with one other poster, derailing the entire thread and getting it shut down, essentially using this tactic to shut down any thread discussion they don't like?

If so, I agree that is a potential problem. I don't think we shut down threads often (it just so happened this past week it was done twice - once temporarily). But I agree that maybe it's time that we as mods need to specifically call out bad actors, wherew in the past we've tried to avoid specifically targetting individuals for moderation.

I think this may personally upset some people more, which is why I've tried to avoid it. But that may just be something we have to deal with so that the system can't be abused or people don't think they can excuse their behaviour because of the behaviours of others.
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As Certified pointed out though, there are people who are better at forum arguing and they tend to dance under the line and get others to cross it. The most common way this seems to be is when that person target how someone says something instead of what and twisting their meaning. this just infuriates people and causes them to launch into an offence while the instigator steps back going "whoa there, why so hostile?"
Honestly, in that case, blanket moderation can't work fairly and an individual approach seems more necessary.

Here is the thing. If I am having a bad day and acting like a douche... I'd much rather it be pointed out to me before I make a colossal douche of myself. What I do after it was pointed out is still on me, but at least it's out there. I typically take a step back and look at things. I've been known to apologize after too.
 
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