mumei could you explain how something awful is a much bigger forum than gaf and includes ban lists yet doesn't suffer from your fears that it would fall into utter chaos and destruction and incessant thread derails and cthulhu rising from the ocean of spam to devour all the moderators
Is GAF too strict?
- Thread starter Kraftwerk
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GillianSeed79
Member
Ah man, I love that strip because it's so true about reporters and science. I laugh every time I see it in a science thread. The fact is about 90 percent of journalists outside of Ira Flatow don't know anything about science, so they try to embellish anything involving it. If someone doesn't get that joke they must be pretty dense.
Roland Garros
Banned
I must say, the moderator reasoning for a ban list is hyperbolic waffle. Worse case scenario thinking, and no-one has quite managed to respond to the fact that speculation and ban discussion happens now anyway, prompting detective-GAF and all that stuff, which is far worse than any issues caused by a ban list.
Seems to me the mods are justifying a decision made by admin, and trying to come up with arguments to support such a position for understandable reasons. It's not very convincing.
A compromise could be potentially be a 'User has been banned for this post' sort of thing, which would cause a lot of discussion to be nipped in the bid immediately.
Seems to me the mods are justifying a decision made by admin, and trying to come up with arguments to support such a position for understandable reasons. It's not very convincing.
A compromise could be potentially be a 'User has been banned for this post' sort of thing, which would cause a lot of discussion to be nipped in the bid immediately.
blame space
Banned
people should just get to the point where they can't get banned, like me. it's easy.
PetriP-TNT
Member
I'll just say that I pretty much agree with jaxword there.
charlequin
Banned
stump's talked about SomethingAwful several times already in this thread (starting here and addressing the ban record here). They have a completely different forum culture than we do here; they're much more subcommunity-oriented, way more forgiving (even encouraging) of rudeness and attacks betwen users, and way more willing to ban people for things we would let slide here. They also encourage a lot of unambiguously garbage posting with the assumption that it's okay as long as it stays contained to specific sections of the forum. And they still charge for membership, which makes the site's relationship with their users very different from ours.
Within that context, obviously having a ban record doesn't ruin SA, but as stump says it doesn't really contribute anything either. We're not going to take on the downsides of such a move (shy of heavens-rending though they may be) just to satisfy the interest in rubbernecking at car crashes, and I think the staff is united in feeling that posters don't need to read the whole ban list in order to learn how to post well.
blame space
Banned
MORE MOD TRANSPARENCY. MORE UNITY.
Obama 1012
Obama 1012
PetriP-TNT
Member
Like you said, shitposting is contained in shitposting sub forums and only there. And even there the really shit shitposters get punished for their actions, like they should be. GAF doesn't have (or need) a shitposting subforum and saying that ban record doesn't contribute anything is also sort of right: it only removes the dumb speculation out of topics. Being afraid of having to deal with other complainers than the one banned too (like Mumei put it) can be avoided: punish the ones that question clear bans.
There's a reason why Mumei has to defend his actions of banning for saying a certain word in like 30 topics in the past 2 months when that time could have been well spent on moderating other topics.
edit: I am not saying that NeoGAF should copy SA's banning policies because that would make no sense at all.
SouthernDragon
Member
GAF Moderation runs on European instead of American legal rules. Follow the spirit of the law, not necessarily the letter. Slavish adherence to what's written and unnecessarily detailed FAQs would actually create more problems as members will purposefully try to find a loophole of some kind and also create an additional burden on the staff as they write increasingly inclusive and explicit FAQs.
By setting simple rules and guidelines I think it provides much more flexibility for staff to act while still providing membership with a good sense of what's allowed and what isn't.
By setting simple rules and guidelines I think it provides much more flexibility for staff to act while still providing membership with a good sense of what's allowed and what isn't.
charlequin
Banned
I really, honestly don't want to be in a position of having to ban generally reasonable, contributory members because they're arguing about details of moderation policy.
As an American I instinctively bristled at your regional classification here (lol) but this is a very good description of our philosophy of moderation.
Not strict enough in some cases..
If any mods can clarify, I've always wondered how closely the ToS rule "no garbage posts" is enforced. Occasionally I find out people have gotten banned for threadshitting, but I think it's still one of the biggest problems on this site, with one word posts and meta-critiques on a thread's 'worthiness' to exist ("what a stupid thread" etc) plaguing the first pages. It is probably accumulative, but if a bunch of people do it and only a few are banned because they've accumulated enough bad karma, it's not likely to teach the collective anything.
Aside from that many posters I've been irked by in the past have been perma'd for fanboy-shit and hounding of other demonized members, so I can't complain much.
If any mods can clarify, I've always wondered how closely the ToS rule "no garbage posts" is enforced. Occasionally I find out people have gotten banned for threadshitting, but I think it's still one of the biggest problems on this site, with one word posts and meta-critiques on a thread's 'worthiness' to exist ("what a stupid thread" etc) plaguing the first pages. It is probably accumulative, but if a bunch of people do it and only a few are banned because they've accumulated enough bad karma, it's not likely to teach the collective anything.
Aside from that many posters I've been irked by in the past have been perma'd for fanboy-shit and hounding of other demonized members, so I can't complain much.
It's Eggman. His existence alone is enough to ban him.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Since we're talking about bans anyway...
Maybe make it so that the banned person can still access the site but cannot post? At least this allows the banned person to talk to a mod to clarify things, since sometimes there could be wrong banning.
Maybe make it so that the banned person can still access the site but cannot post? At least this allows the banned person to talk to a mod to clarify things, since sometimes there could be wrong banning.
See, this is a great example.
Dude's banned. Why is he banned? How long is he banned? Well unless someone can contact him outside of GAF, nobody knows.
So we gotta look at his post history, which doesn't look especially bad for Dr. Eggman. Was it his goofing around with G-Fex? Did he step over a line? If so, where was the line? And I kinda like Dr. Eggman despite some of his worse posts, so it's relevant to me to know how long he's gonna be banned.
Do you guys not see how this can be frustrating for us regular members?
Imagine if that's how the legal system worked in the real world.
"This guys is under arrest, but we're not going to tell anyone why he's under arrest. And now we're sentencing him. We're not even gonna tell anyone what the sentence is. Maybe he's in jail, maybe he's put to death. You'll only ever know how long he was jailed if and when he gets out."
Probably for being an obnoxious douche
I don't see the problem ???
I on the other hand don't care about the details
I like your old avatar better G-Fex
This. Or put in place an appeal system to contest controversial or "borderline" bans.
I know the mods are doing a great job considering the scale of the sites, but mistakes can happen (and it's ok). The less unfair judgments, the better.
I'd imagine the frustration for regular members isn't so much why he was banned but rather what took so long.
ding ding ding ding
spindashing
Banned
But that's not what he was trying to say at all...
Air Zombie Meat
Member
He was obviously banned for his "shocking" sexual joke. Or for the fact that he makes one in most threads and that was the straw that broke the camels back.
Are you serious? so a post like that is ok in your book?
It is an obvious joke and it wasn't directed to any poster.
Devolution
Member
All you have to do is look up recent posting history and it's pretty obvious every time. I'm not going to mention who else should be banned but that thread is fucking gross.
Yeah. Rape is very funny. Ha. Haha. Yeah. No.
Wind's Howling
Member
Some jokes can go to far.
You have to realize that the mods have to take into consideration that young kids are reading that shit as well.
We all know how quickly young kids take something as it is without thinking about it.
Charoncaori
Member
I have ban paranoia.
I was just posting in a crappy thread, and I went to post a sarcastic reply when everything got greyed out. I know that's not what happens when you get banned, but it scares the crap out of me every time it happens.
Maybe I should just stay out of those threads. Or stop caring about what happens to me on a videogame discussion forum so much.
I like it here though, and people aren't constantly spouting ignorant insults all the time, so I don't think it's too strict.
I was just posting in a crappy thread, and I went to post a sarcastic reply when everything got greyed out. I know that's not what happens when you get banned, but it scares the crap out of me every time it happens.
Maybe I should just stay out of those threads. Or stop caring about what happens to me on a videogame discussion forum so much.
I like it here though, and people aren't constantly spouting ignorant insults all the time, so I don't think it's too strict.
airmangataosenai
Member
It isn't a matter of being strict, it's the lack of real, uniform standards. There's no real way of knowing what will get you banned outside of sexist/racist language, especially on the gaming side.
What will get one person banned won't another because there's no accountability for moderators and they're free to let people they personally like get away with things that would get others banned.
What will get one person banned won't another because there's no accountability for moderators and they're free to let people they personally like get away with things that would get others banned.
Myke Greywolf
Ambassador of Goodwill
I used to think that GAF was too strict, but over time, and reading lots of threads and posts, I came to understand the necessity of such policies.
Even so, I can tell you that it used to be even stricter than it is these days.
Even so, I can tell you that it used to be even stricter than it is these days.
Wind's Howling
Member
I do feel that a lot of people here do not have a limit and that they say stupid things that are on their mind but are not allowed to say in real life. I mean. You can not just walk up to a girl and say that you want to have sex with her. I am just saying it lightly here because some posts about women can be pretty offensive.
Yep, i remember times where people got 2 week bans for creating multiple threads, especially on the gaming section. Glad these times are over.
Sadly this is probably true.
To be fair not much of those kinds of things are usually directed at other members; it's usually a slight parody of douchey fratboys.
Schattenjäger
Gabriel Knight
This thread would have been locked right away 2 years ago
Devolution
Member
What's your point?
What has it got to do with the thread? ......... do you want him banned?
Devolution
Member
That his post is in complete contradiction to what he just posted. I don't want him banned so much as I find it funny. What's your point?
I think her point was probably about his last sentence
And the irony that he had made an offensive post about women just prior to that.
Wind's Howling
Member
Seriously? Did you just seriously went that low?
It was already closed and nothing happened. Do you want to get me banned and, if so, why? I said nothing that was remotely offensive. In fact, it was a joke. More of a joke then Eggman did and from what I read he has been doing it in a lot of threads.
Moral Panic
Member
C'mon. That was an obvious joke wasn't it?
No point, just found it a strange post in relation to the rest of this page especially.
It just seemed out of the blue and not particularly relevant to the current discussion.
Public ban thread is a bad idea, leave it as it is mods.
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