Bounty wrote:For all this talk about a "debating culture" and "high standards of debating", I'm struggling to remember the last time I saw an actual debate on this board.
Simplicius wrote:How much of the knee-jerking isn't effectively a me-too or a one-liner?
That's sort of what I'm getting at. The rules are in place to deal with this. The problem is that the mods, I think, need to change gears from hunting bad users to hunting bad posts. Especially the kind of dipshit post where someone responds to an argument with "epic fail" or some other idiot one-liner that doesn't make the slightest attempt to address what's said. Unfortunately, as I said, that requires a lot more work on the part of the mods. There was a time when I would try to clamp down on that sort of thing myself, but I just don't have the free time any more.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Bounty wrote:Silly as it sounds, I really think we need to be nicer to people we disagree with. Not by changing the rules or mollycoddling them, but by realising that you won't have good debates without good opponents and you won't have good opponents if the audience is obnoxiously hostile.
The problem is not the hostility. It's the lack of content. If some right-wingnut comes in here and posts a bunch of stupid shit, we should still take the time to deconstruct his stupid shit, even if we're telling him he's an asshole. We should not just say "STFU" and then post a bunch of 4chan pictures of retards.
It's always bugged me when some right-wingnut would post an argument and maybe I and one other person would bother to do a point-by-point rebuttal while others just tossed out one-liners. Especially since right-wingnuts like to focus on the weakest rebuttal rather than the strongest, and the peanut gallery just gives them way too much opportunity to do so. They can even argue (with some justification) that the legitimate rebuttals were lost in the sheer volume of idiot half-assed responses.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Well, I try what I can to crack down on bad posts in the History Forum, but it does take a lot of time, so I am not sure the rest of the moderating staff does have that time. I am therefore not sure if the idea is practical without increasing the staff and there already is a pretty large staff in place.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------ My LPs
Simplicius wrote:How much of the knee-jerking isn't effectively a me-too or a one-liner?
That's sort of what I'm getting at. The rules are in place to deal with this. The problem is that the mods, I think, need to change gears from hunting bad users to hunting bad posts.
Yes. I liked what Surlethe was doing in SLAM for a while and what the Thanas does in History, where they would just split the low-calorie posts off to Testing to die ignominious deaths.
Thanas wrote:Well, I try what I can to crack down on bad posts in the History Forum, but it does take a lot of time, so I am not sure the rest of the moderating staff does have that time. I am therefore not sure if the idea is practical without increasing the staff and there already is a pretty large staff in place.
This is true. I recall that there was a push a while back to add more people to the staff. Which resulted in Surlethe and Simplicus being made mods. But I think the board could pull off a crackdown on bad posts without needing a lot of staff, since an aggressive short-term crackdown plus the odd bad post being offed afterward would have the effect of suppressing bad posts for quite a while afterward.
Splitting off posts to Testing is just a way of deleting them without admitting that you're deleting them. Maybe we should make a "low-quality post" trash can thread in HoS where these things can be dumped. Or, for more serious thread pollution problems, one could go through and split the low-quality junk out of the thread periodically.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Well, the reason I split them to testing is that a) It may provide more comedy fodder b) I don't want to deal with people whining "where did my post go" and c) if somebody complains, the post is still there to criticize it.
C is my main reason.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------ My LPs
Thanas wrote:Well, I try what I can to crack down on bad posts in the History Forum, but it does take a lot of time, so I am not sure the rest of the moderating staff does have that time. I am therefore not sure if the idea is practical without increasing the staff and there already is a pretty large staff in place.
Well, I'll say it, then: if the job description of the moderators changes, and the old staff can't do the new job, then we need a new staff.
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
Darth Wong wrote:Splitting off posts to Testing is just a way of deleting them without admitting that you're deleting them. Maybe we should make a "low-quality post" trash can thread in HoS where these things can be dumped. Or, for more serious thread pollution problems, one could go through and split the low-quality junk out of the thread periodically.
I think that is an excellent idea. When I have time to do more than a five-minute scan in between homework assignments and projects, I'd be more than happy to create and maintain such a thread.
A Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming higher authority for existence, or sanction for its laws, that nature, reason, and the regularly ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in the service of any religious creed or family is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and bigoted people among ourselves.
Darth Wong wrote:Splitting off posts to Testing is just a way of deleting them without admitting that you're deleting them. Maybe we should make a "low-quality post" trash can thread in HoS where these things can be dumped. Or, for more serious thread pollution problems, one could go through and split the low-quality junk out of the thread periodically.
I think that is an excellent idea. When I have time to do more than a five-minute scan in between homework assignments and projects, I'd be more than happy to create and maintain such a thread.
Question: Can this be expected to deter future poor behaviour? It cleans up threads, but still offers no reason for a poster to give a shit before hitting 'submit'. Perhaps if we could follow up with the warning system internally, or something equivalent, in order to tally a record of the number of times each poster has created work by mindless idiot posting. That would give us something to use for disciplinary actions.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
That won't work as mini-mods, me included, do not have warning power.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------ My LPs
Having your posts in the low-quality post thread creates a permanent record of worthless contributions. There could be a shaming effect. There would also be a very convenient way to substantiate accusations that a particular member is a spammy good-for-nothing shit, if it comes to that.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
A locked "Wall of Shame" thread in the HoS seems like a good idea. We can also have a commentary thread where people mock the posters responsible for the newest additions.
fgalkin wrote:A locked "Wall of Shame" thread in the HoS seems like a good idea. We can also have a commentary thread where people mock the posters responsible for the newest additions.
Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin
Wouldn't that just encourage the same brainless hurf-hurfing which is a big part of the problem to begin with?
Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves…We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.--Ada Louise Huxtable, "Farewell to Penn Station", New York Times editorial, 30 October 1963 X-Ray Blues
We would moderate the thread, of course, to prevent it from turning into a spamfest. But, it's not really the Hall of Shame if we're not mocking the people involved, that's the whole point of the forum- public humiliation.
Frankly, the spammy types are worse than the people with fucked-up opinions. A person with a fucked-up opinion is an opportunity for debate. A spammy person is just worthless noise. If anything, the proposed Spam Trash Can thread would help us identify the people who really do need to be banned, as opposed to "newbies who rub us the wrong way".
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
You know, I wouldn't be adverse to letting Graeme Dice back into the board; as long as he doesn't take every single opportunity possible to attack me. But I sadly get the feeling that he would just keep on behaving like he did before. Which is a damn shame.
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
This seems to go around the point I raised the last time we had a Board introspection moment. We have rules in place, many of them. What's lacking is will to implement. Not just by mods. Unlike quite a few people here, I don't hold the mods to blame, theres N posts in N&P and they don't have time to finely moderate all of them. A blanket "stop spamming" also doesn't seem to work unless the posts are split and junked, which takes time. It's also forum members responsibility, and there many people, including I, could serve by posting a better example rather than just sitting here and throwing peanuts.
Brotherhood of the Bear | HAB | Mess | SDnet archivist |
To address the issue of a general lack of debate (it's there in NP, mostly, but even there it's only at moderate levels), we have an entire forum for it.
The problem is that nothing is being organized for it. I understand keeping it restricted - it's a good idea in a few regards. But maybe we need to stick a thread in there for debate ideas and volunteers to offer themselves up, randomly draw a pairing or topic a week, and roll with it. I'm not gonna stick my head in for it - I'm shit at debating, as anyone who's ever taken me on knows in excruciating detail. But it'd certainly help make that 'high debating standards' boast a little more accurate these days.
As for the rest, yeah, open reg with image post restrictions sounds good. I'm actually on a hotmail account and joined during the lockdown - didn't donate, as was required for such email domains at the time, since I had no money. Instead, I emailed one of the mods (or maybe Wong, it's been a long time) to see if it'd be alright anyway, and here I am. I know at least two other people who wanted to join but were broke and only had forbidden email domains, and who didn't put in the effort to contact the staff. Would they have been any good? I don't know for sure, but they might have been but didn't end up getting a chance. We've also fallen off the radar a fair bit these days - gone are the raging haters, despite our past. Our last invasion was a chan, and they invade anything that moves for shits and giggles! So since most of the board's old enemies don't matter, it's not such a risk - and one we probably need to take.
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A