Vicki for mayor!
Originally posted by VickiMints
[b]1. What would you like for us as members to do when someone annoys the crap out of us as a community? I hate to use a scapegoat (and I apologize in advance), but let’s take Uriel’s signature for example. I think I can safely say that the majority of people who come here wanted to gouge their eyes out at the sight of it, and for other people it was more than that because of slowing down page loading because of slower Internet connections. Now, are we just supposed to sit around and think to ourselves, "No, I can’t say anything because the mods and admins don’t want us using the citizen arrest " and then just sit around hoping someone will eventually do something? Would you rather us PM MB issues to a mod or an admin (and then end up flooding PM boxes, lol)? I trust that the members of the community would not abuse this concept, hint hint people.
- Question 1 led into question 2, which is this in a roundabout way - I think that the majority of posters on this board are at least relatively responsible when it comes to their behavior here. I also think that for the type of community that we are, it’s nice to see so much interaction between administration and general members. Now, when it comes to these issues we’ve been discussing, I for one would like to know not the exact mechanics and arguments behind what’s being done about something (since that’s for staff, and I respect that as non-staff) but at least that an issue in question is being addressed. I don’t know if you as admins want to let us in on just that little bit, or if other people here feel the same way that I do, but knowing that the administration is aware of an issue and that someone is on the case would make me and probably at least a couple of other people happy.[/b]
Well, you have two options. If something a user is doing or saying really bothers you, you could talk to the person privately yourself, like via a board PM or e-mail or something. And I’m sure if you’re being sensible and respectful about it the message would get through. This is a good method too, especially since publicly telling somebody something often does not lead to good results – because the person feels singled out and responds more angrily; which leads to you responding more angrily, etc. And also I bet some users might listen better to a peer than an authority figure. The drawback is if you are being too aggressive and the user complains to one of us, you could be in hot water.
The other option is of course to tell us. We try to keep our eyes and ears everywhere, but invariably something will occur that we may overlook or not notice. At that point you guys certainly have the right to tell us; in fact we’ve always encouraged user input on ways to improve our forums. But it’s up to you the user to take the initiative and contact one of us, and I think you’ll find we usually respond promptly to user concerns. For example, probably over half my “please shorten your sig” messages are the result of Xelo’s <strike>whining</strike> observations 
I do advise you tell us before you do the deed yourself, especially for newer visitors; that’d be what I’d prefer. But for other users who have been around for a while and you know to a degree the first option might work very well too.
As for wanting to know that stuff is getting done, keep in mind that often we deal with things rather privately; for the users’ benefit. When dealing with rules issues I often do it via PMs, because I find it a more productive method than calling someone out publicly (unless it has to be announced for a greater benefit). And other mods/admins have their own style. But that is a legitimate issue you raised and in the future I am going to play with an idea to let this stuff be more well-known by you guys, if you wish to know it.
Let me know if that didn’t answer all of your questions, but I hope it did. And I second the motion of Vicki for mayor.
Originally posted by Merlin
Well, the problem is twofold. For one, you guys aren’t responsible for enforcing our rules. Thus, a conflict could arise where one of you guys say something is fine, but then a mod doesn’t, or vice versa. It could be confusing, especially since often it takes a while for users to know who the mods and admins are. The other issue with that is often enough the sort of citizen-enforcement you want turns rather nasty, or can become that way. Our mods’ and admins’ behavior is monitored more strictly so they are expected to deliver messages and suggestions about the rules more respectfully.
Vicki for mayor, DT for president! … ._.
That’s actually not really what I meant.
For example, a while ago (I think it was before the second purge, Epic pointed out to some guy (I don’t remember who) that his sig was disturbing him because it was too long and Sin replied with “blah don’t tell others what to do you’re stealing our job”. (Just as an example, there were more of these pleasedon’tkillme <_<) Excuse me but I refuse to accept that the concept of being a mod is just running around, yell at people and close threads/forcibly shorten sigs (exaggerated). I just mean that people could just settle some stuff by themselves and don’t always need the big bad ev0l merl to calm down every fight. It would annoy you anyway if you had to run after every single whine of every goddamn member, wouldn’t it?
And I said I wasn’t making any sense because what I tried to say came out pretty crappy (this post too, actually) but I was too lazy to delete it
>For example, a while ago (I think it was before the second purge, Epic pointed out to some guy (I don’t remember who) that his sig was disturbing him because it was too long and Sin replied with “blah don’t tell others what to do you’re stealing our job”. (Just as an example, there were more of these pleasedon’tkillme <_<) Excuse me but I refuse to accept that the concept of being a mod is just running around, yell at people and close threads/forcibly shorten sigs (exaggerated). I just mean that people could just settle some stuff by themselves and don’t always need the big bad ev0l merl to calm down every fight. It would annoy you anyway if you had to run after every single whine of every goddamn member, wouldn’t it?
True, but as I said, you guys aren’t responsible for enforcing the rules. Which means that it isn’t your job. It is difficult enough to have cohesive rule enforcement with the number of people we have as mods and admins (who all have their own views as to how forums like ours should be handled), let alone if everyone else who visited here told everyone else whenever they thought they might be in rules violation. It could lead to miscommunication (like if a user said they could do one thing but a mod says something else), conflict between users (like if you and Vicki started arguing about how long a signature should be), or even flaming towards others (if your own vigilante enforcement triggered a flame war between you and the person responsible or between other people), etc. Does that help make it more sense? You could probably talk to users via PMs if you really wanted to, but sometimes it might be best to leave things up to the people responsible for it, that way if things go badly enforcement-wise we know who is supposed to handle it.