Forum Moderation Policy

Elvis, as i have emailed to you before: Please make the forum moderation policy easily accessable by either putting it in the help section of this site, or making a direct link to it on the front page. Also, we REALLY need a TOS in irc.winbolo.com, it's like a dictatorship! (and not a good 1)

Madd Maxx wrote:

it's like a dictatorship! (and not a good 1)

rolf, that's a great quote, irregardless of the subject.

hehe, yet it's still true!

Elvis wrote:

2. No posting of illegal material or material that would be inappropriate to younger people. (Remember the age poll?)

What kind of illegal stuff are you talking? If you mean porno pictures, ok (althought, porno pictures by themselves are not illegal, just sexual pics of people under 18 ). But what else? Some say "die sticks" is illegal, though in a game in which we kill tanks over and over and kill "little green men", I find it a laughable charge, and one that has very dire results on the usage of this forum.

What does "material that would be inappropriate to younger people" mean to you? To me, it can be construed to mean so many things - such as no cussing, no berating, keeping things very clean and pc. If you give moderators that wide of a power Elvis, then this forum would probably go back to being a dead forum with little posting, and winbolo "community" would suffer as a whole.

3. No posting on methods on how to cheat/hack etc.

I find it unfortunate you find it necessary to ban that type of dicussion. I find it the more we know about how to hack, then more we can be aware of when people are doing it. Shutting down this type of discussion will not keep people from telling each other how to hack or cheat- as people can and will do it on IRC and during games.

It's very easy to say "to hack do this" as people will notify each other, but a conversation on how to counteract the effect or detect is more involved and thus would benifit from using a forum. Thus, banning this type of dicussion on here would not reduce hacking/cheating, and instead perhaps increase by stopping all dicussions on counteracting it and preventing the community from verbally frowning in an open forum those who use the hacks.

Instead Elvis, if you want to eliminate hacks and cheats, I suggest you make Winbolo an open source software so that the many many programmers involved in this community can start working on counteract hacks and cheats instantly.

Ok, you wanted opinions and feedback, you got mine. Thanks for caring enought about this community to consider our opinions into the matter :)

And as an aside note, this forum can be an important way for winboloers to still keep in touch and participate in the community if we keep ensuring the free flow of ideas, and information - case in point - I have not gone on IRC the past two days, nor played a game due to my busy schedule, however, I have gone on this forum and read posts and shared my ideas and thoughts. So, this forum in my eyes due to its relatively un-moderated statusthis past two months has changed from being a dead place to becoming a place where we can get together and share stuff.

nice ideas fi, but if elvis released the source code, pplz would make their own versions and elvis would get ripp'd off! I still like this idea, however. WE NEED A TOS IN IRC.WINBOLO.COM. Btw, i am currently working on another nice tutorial for irc.winbolo.us!!!!! it'll be up soon!!!

Elvis wrote:

As such I am a little dissapointed in underdogs post especially as it has been mentioned that I am currently out of the country and not checking forums as much as I usually do and had mentioned I would be updating the policy upon return. I understand underdogs intentions of trying to move this process forward however I don't agree with his method.

I apologize if I dissapointed you Elvis. I did not realize you were out of country at the time of posting. The only thing I saw was mins post on your not writing in the forum for a week, and so I held back for a week, then I posted. I admit I was frustrated and a little angered at the time, and I didn't listen to my better judgement. I didn't see a mentioning of you saying it would be updated either, perhaps I didn't look hard enough. Once again I apologize.

Elvis wrote:

1. Everything as before
2. No posting of illegal material or material that would be inappropriate to younger people. (Remember the age poll?)
3. No posting on methods on how to cheat/hack etc.
4. Mods will be able to move posts to a new forum for discussion and decide whether they should be moved back or deleted. (Note posts not topics at this stage)
5. If the mods decide they should stay they will be moved back into the general forum.
6. Otherwise they will be deleted and a note will be placed saying this was deleted.

Any thoughts on this? Apologies about the spelling/grammer. I don't have time to proofread it.

What material is illegal or inappropriate needs to be better defined, imo. There should be a clear rule on deleting/moving material that is obviously inappropriate, and material that is opinion.

I totally agree with rule 3. Posting how to hack doesn't help anything at all. I think fi may have misunderstood. Posting how to circumvent a hack, or disallow a hack is fine, according to this rule, so long as your arnt including explicit instructions on how to hack. I also agree with making winbolo completely open source, but that is a whole different topic.

I agree with 4 5 and 6, but I think there needs to be a clearer definition on the voting of a post. There are mods that view .net forums infrequently, and so it could take a very long time til something is voted on with a majority one way or an other. A solution could be to increase the number of active moderators, or to set a certain number to make a vote go, that isnt necessarily a majority. Perhaps 3 or 4 votes makes it a go? Would depend on how many people who are mods are active.

BTW, we already have a method that has proven quite effective for dealing with people who hack or cheat in games - banning them from game server bots. As an example, Sheeps has been vigilant in banning those who cheat or hack on his game server bot.

fi wrote:

BTW, we already have a method that has proven quite effective for dealing with people who hack or cheat in games - banning them from game server bots. As an example, Sheeps has been vigilant in banning those who cheat or hack on his game server bot.

True. However, that inconveniences the people who serve. Sheeps cannot play every game to make sure every person isnt cheating all day long. Not all people who serve know how to ban, and if they do, they also cant be around all the time to supervise.

As an adition to the policy, i would like to add some things to what can be deleted or moved.

Spam

Advertisements for things not bolo related. This is a problem when any news group or forum gets a significant flow of traffic. People start putting up links to sell this and that, or sign up for this with your credit card, etc etc. That sort of third party unrelated advertisement should be kept, if anywhere, in the General Chat.

Double messages. Those should be moved or deleted immediately, as they are a technical error. I think this is already being done my mods, even though it isnt in the policy

As well as hacks, links to urls that download a virus and such should not be tolerated



Thats about it. Feedback appreciated

fi wrote:

Some say "die sticks" is illegal, though in a game in which we kill tanks over and over and kill "little green men", I find it a laughable charge, and one that has very dire results on the usage of this forum.

So uh, you're saying that death threats and wishes are ok on this board?

fi wrote:

I find it unfortunate you find it necessary to ban that type (hacks/cheats) of dicussion. I find it the more we know about how to hack, then more we can be aware of when people are doing it. Shutting down this type of discussion will not keep people from telling each other how to hack or cheat- as people can and will do it on IRC and during games.

I'm gonna disagree with you here, fi. I think it should be banned. Why? Well, like you said, people can talk about it other places so why let it be more widespread? Just keep it contained to hush-hush conversations. If we let it continue, some of the more casual, less computer savvy players would easily glean this knowledge and annoy the hell out of the forums for hacks and cheats. We don't need to degrade this forum any more than it already is.

All in all, looks good Elvis. I'd vote for a yes but I'm neither a mod nor a constituent.

underdog wrote:

I agree with 4 5 and 6, but I think there needs to be a clearer definition on the voting of a post. There are mods that view .net forums infrequently, and so it could take a very long time til something is voted on with a majority one way or an other. A solution could be to increase the number of active moderators, or to set a certain number to make a vote go, that isnt necessarily a majority. Perhaps 3 or 4 votes makes it a go? Would depend on how many people who are mods are active.

Good point. How about majority vote with quorum (minimum) of 3 mods. Maybe Elvis can be a tie-breaker vote, in case an even amount of mods vote on any topic. But I would think there should be more mods who are active daily to make this work well, so as to make up for the mods that will be gone at any given moment. OK, so who is drafing the bylaws?

underdog wrote:

As an adition to the policy, i would like to add some things to what can be deleted or moved.
Spam
... advertisement should be kept, if anywhere, in the General Chat.
Double messages...
... hacks, links to urls that download a virus and such should not be tolerated

Im all for this, ads/spam only in General Chat if anywhere. I don't really want to see any non-bolo related commercial stuff on this forum. This would still allow someone to post a link to a great cheat irc hosting company or info about the company a player works for that does web design, since the info can be vouched for my that player. The mods could then vote to delete posts that abuse this 'loophole.'

Jeez, guys. heh.

I've read all of the posts, and I think [Content deleted by Kax 10/25/03]

Kax

Elvis: I think the new moderation policy is great.

To anyone who thinks the new moderation policy is too stiff, read the following moderation policy from another forum that I attend:

We are trying to provide the highest quality community experience for all of our members and following these guidelines is the best way to maintain a quality environment for all age groups. If we find that you break any of these rules, your account may be disabled and you’re posting privileges removed. These rules are very basic and we hope that you read them fully. Thanks for your cooperation.

1. No Graphic Material of either a macabre or pornographic nature. Racism and/or sick jokes are not permitted. Any posts or links to such content will not be tolerated.

2. No Warez (links) & Cracks: Help requests or posts that discuss circumvention. This includes linking to software, posting about it, and suggesting getting it.

3. No Cursing or Swear words. We encourage you to use our Communities as a forum to debate topics, but please use proper adjectives to express yourself. We do not tolerate circumvention of our word filter or abuse upon another member.

4. No Racism, No Threatening, No (citing) Victimization (via PM) or Hateful posts / Retaliation of any kind against a member, or group of members.

5. No Flaming, Personal attacks such as flaming, instigating "flame bait", verbal abuse or mocking of members in forum posts are not tolerated at ******. Such posts will be deleted on sight and moderated accordingly. If you are a long standing member, act like one. Lead by example and assist other newer members rather then attacking them. We look upon our veteran members to use this opportunity to teach the newer members the appropriate way to use these message boards.

6. Posts in a particular forum need to stay on topic. If you want to talk about something that is drastically removed from the topic of a forum, please take it to General Discussion. General Discussion was set up and designed for members to discuss issues not related to a specific forum section. We welcome most general conversation in the General Discussion, but discourage it from other forums. Use a title that describes the content of your post. Don't use all caps or special characters to draw attention.

7. No Avatar & Custom Title Abuse. These are a luxury and abuse of them will result in them being lost and your account being restricted. We also have Sig. Guidelines that outline what image (type, dimensions & file size) we find acceptable.

8. ****** is not a support forum for affiliates or related sites, comparing, judging the content/value or raising the opinion of other sites, recruiting members or staff, bad mouthing (or victimizing) & negative discussion about non/affiliate site issues on our forums is neither wanted or tolerated.

9. No spamming. Spamming is characterized by the initiation of threads or posts that contribute nothing to a forum, be it off topic or on topic. Examples include: empty bodies, bodies with few words that have no relation to the current thread or discussion and those posts that state they are spam, either to annoy, advertise or increase a member's post count. Resurrecting old forum posts is also not appreciated unless it serves a worthy cause to the forum. This determination is made by the forum Moderator or Administrator and is not up for discussion.

10. ****** Also enforces forum specific rules, the "****** Community Rules" apply in conjunction with any forum specific rules.

11. ****** requires that members respect the decision of moderators. Threads and posts questioning the actions or decisions of forum moderations will be deleted on sight, and the appropriate action taken (up to and including forum bans) against the thread starter and/or participants. However, as a member you reserve the right to PM any moderator or administrator regarding action taken at ******.

12. ****** Reserves the right to change or alter these rules at any time and an Administrator’s word is final.



Some of those rules don't apply obviously, but a lot of them do, and on this forum we've really got it lax, and we need to count our blessings. So before people go complaining about the moderation rules that are in place here on the Winbolo forums, they should read this, or attend other forums, to see just how strict they are. Because we are a small community I don't believe that we need extreme rules like I just posted, but there is a time and place for them. I think that we need to thank Elvis for being generous with the moderation policy, instead of getting mad at him for instating one.

Heh, just cuz some other forum may have their toilet seat all shitty with a crappy moderation policy, and we only have our toilet seat half shitty, that doesn't mean we should just sit on it and be happy, let's get it all cleaned up and ensure free speech keeps flowing. :)

Remember the phrase "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can't"? On the .us IRC forum, personal threats are allowed toward anybody, even toward the ops and we don't have any problems at all. In fact, the irony is that because we allow people to say anything at all they want without fear of being kicked/banned (unless they flood), the discussion level seems to be much more civil and there seems to be lot less tension and hate and more respect toward each other then on .com.

Also on the voting thing.

If the rule is clearly broken, there shouldn't need a vote. And if there needs to be a vote

1) Then the rule is vague and shouldn't exist or should be modified so that it's clear to everyone. If the moderators are unclear if something is breaking the rules, how do you expect the posters to know if they are breaking the rules?

2) It is repulsive to me that 4-5 other people are going to vote on my post, with my having no say on it.

fi wrote:

Also on the voting thing.

If the rule is clearly broken, there shouldn't need a vote. And if there needs to be a vote

1) Then the rule is vague and shouldn't exist or should be modified so that it's clear to everyone. If the moderators are unclear if something is breaking the rules, how do you expect the posters to know if they are breaking the rules?

2) It is repulsive to me that 4-5 other people are going to vote on my post, with my having no say on it.

The rule maybe vague, that is why something that is in question is voted on and discussed. Once a discussion on something is made, then any future matter will be dealt similarily, and will most likely be added to moderation policy.

The posters just need to use common sense.

Your 2) comment doesnt make all that much sense to me. Who says you have no say? You just start a thread and discuss it. There is no rule for deleting threads discussing deleting of threads.

Elvis wrote:

And another point, do we want to make a decision on whether people should be allowed to post information on hacks and cheats in the forums? Does this cause more harm then good? (Does it cause any good?) Maybe a good topic for a poll.

Can I post in a recipe for Shark Vindaloo I have discovered?
I can do it in two versions, depending on who wants to read/moderate/delete it; with or without "profanity".

Desmo

fi wrote:

Heh, just cuz some other forum may have their toilet seat all shitty with a crappy moderation policy, and we only have our toilet seat half shitty, that doesn't mean we should just sit on it and be happy, let's get it all cleaned up and ensure free speech keeps flowing. :)

Considering the moderation policy I pasted was from one of the largest, most used forums on the internet, I figure they are doing pretty damn good. I don't see people bitching at each other or flaming one another, I'm sure it happens, but definitely not like it does here. I am just saying that we are lucky to have such a lax moderation policy compared to some other forums, but there again you aren't using your brain and instead are taking thing totally the wrong way. I've said it before fi, I am pretty sure you are a smart guy, why don't you use your brain?

fi wrote:

Remember the phrase "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can't"? On the .us IRC forum, personal threats are allowed toward anybody, even toward the ops and we don't have any problems at all. In fact, the irony is that because we allow people to say anything at all they want without fear of being kicked/banned (unless they flood), the discussion level seems to be much more civil and there seems to be lot less tension and hate and more respect toward each other then on .com.

I think that the only reason you are LRL's lackey, following his every footstep and eating up his every word is because you are pissed off that you had your op's removed. When technically you didn't have them to begin with, neither did LRL, you just happened to be auto-op'd by others who did in fact have op's. You're how old? Older then me and more others around here, I think it's time for you to maybe mature a little bit huh?

Like I said before; in regards to personal attacks on others as well as op’s: "that’s not how real life works, go out and make a personal attack on a cop, I dare you."

Also the sticks and stones crap ... well you make it obvious that words hurt too - especially when you jumped down addbot's throat about the gay bar thing. I think you need to rethink that, or start practicing what you preach. I know full well that words hurt, and times can hurt more then being pelted with rocks or being beaten with sticks - or just plain out kicked in the head, as the case may be. Physical wounds heal fi, mental and emotional ones take longer, and there’s always the chance that they can fuck a person up forever.

underdog, what forum was that policy offa??? If we wurnt allowed to do flame attacks and talk about cheating and all that other shit....Our forum would get too few posts and some1 would start a new 1!!! Also, some pplz do nothing but amusing flame attacks, like SJ, for example. I agree wit Fi!!!

Your 2) comment doesnt make all that much sense to me. Who says you have no say? You just start a thread and discuss it. There is no rule for deleting threads discussing deleting of threads.

Well, true, I can and probably would post a thread about the deleted thread/post if it includes mine. However, that's after the fact, my post would already be gone. I just find it repulsive that others would have the power to vote on whether to censor my post or not - and as we all know, voting is often-based upon popularity, politics, and the emotions of the day.

yeah fi!! Any post i bother taking over 3 minits on i make a back-up copy of!

I am just saying that we are lucky to have such a lax moderation policy compared to some other forums

Yes, I agree it is fortunate that Elvis has loosened the very tight restrictions this forum used to have - and we've seen the result by the explosions of dialouge and posts occuring here that are hidding among the flames. However, let's not make things half-shitty again just cuz this forum you go to is completely shitty in its moderation policy.

but there again you aren't using your brain and instead are taking thing totally the wrong way. I've said it before fi, I am pretty sure you are a smart guy, why don't you use your brain?

Heh, an insult with a compliment in the middle to lesson the brunt of it. (in a hjgh pitch voice) Oh My, oh please moderators, please delete her post, she is offending me Oh So very Much, I am so heartbroken, I am going to cry, Please Save me from her personal attack! (/end of high pitch voice)

I think that the only reason you are LRL's lackey, following his every footstep and eating up his every word is because you are pissed off that you had your op's removed.

Heh, nah, as I explained in the other post, I respect LRL because he had the guts and courage to do something no one has ever done before - use a policy that allows anyone to flame and cuss him on his own server. It takes guts and inner strength to do that, and LRL supriseds me by accepting the policy I wrote. Yeah he's got his personal faults, but hey, we've all got them.

Likewise, I like min a good bit - he is a very good bolo teacher, and I've had many many interesting conversations with him. While I respect his skill at contributing technical services to the winbolo community, I disagree strongly with his method of operating a channel and server, as he has known (or should have known) for a long time due to the many arguments we've had about it. Unfortunately for min, he takes my dissagreement with his policy too personal.

You're how old? Older then me and more others around here, I think it's time for you to maybe mature a little bit huh?

Like I said before; in regards to personal attacks on others as well as op’s: "that’s not how real life works, go out and make a personal attack on a cop, I dare you."

Again, more personal attacks from the one who believes there should be no personal attacks what-so-ever.

Also the sticks and stones crap ... well you make it obvious that words hurt too - especially when you jumped down addbot's throat about the gay bar thing.

Heh, so making a joke that he must love us because he compares .us to a gaybar means I'm jumping down his throat? You gotta loosen u Liz and not take things so personal.

I think you need to rethink that, or start practicing what you preach. I know full well that words hurt, and times can hurt more then being pelted with rocks or being beaten with sticks - or just plain out kicked in the head, as the case may be. Physical wounds heal fi, mental and emotional ones take longer, and there’s always the chance that they can fuck a person up forever

Nah you only fuck yourself up if you take what people say too seriously and too personal.

A problem which plagues this forum is the demographics of the players, most notably the ages. Such is the case, its difficult to find a common ground among players on a topic which relates to what should be tolerated and what shouldn't.

Some players just don't know better while others are attention whores and still others just like to cause trouble. The only reason I believe this place needs to be moderated is because of the attention grabbing people and the ridiculously obnoxious posts. These forums are barely worth reading anymore. Once in awhile someone posts something relevant or informational but not often enough, in my opinion.

Sticks wrote:

A problem which plagues this forum is the demographics of the players, most notably the ages. Such is the case, its difficult to find a common ground among players on a topic which relates to what should be tolerated and what shouldn't.

Some players just don't know better while others are attention whores and still others just like to cause trouble. The only reason I believe this place needs to be moderated is because of the attention grabbing people and the ridiculously obnoxious posts. These forums are barely worth reading anymore. Once in awhile someone posts something relevant or informational but not often enough, in my opinion.

Well, I find it relatively easy to skip all the posts (and threads) by the people who I know will write silly and stupid stuff, and go on and read posts by people who can post coherent stuff. [DISCLAIMER to everyone reading this: Just because I have responded to your post, does not neccessarly mean I think it was coherent :P]

The underlying problem with trying to censor or trying to remove the posts that are stupid and silly, is that at the same time, it will prevent and discourage people from posting those posts that are a true gem.