Question on rules of PFI and mod issues?

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose
Interesting thread...

yllus, you make some good points, if AT had been more progressive in Hot Deals way back when, Fat Wallet would never have gotten as big as it has...

From what little I know about the forums, it seems they wanted the forums to at least pay for themselves, and I suspect that's still a long ways off.

Red & Olds, you guys sound frustrated, and I can see why, particularly since you guys were made public & there's no going back now.

the forums used to have a gaurenteed way of making money, Subscriptions, ever sence i joined i subed till they took it a way, it was a way of giving back and all that, it also made things faster with no adds 😛, im sure no where near enough people subed to totally pay the costs but it didnt hurt im sure

many seem to forget or just dont know what the forums were like 5 years ago, it was worse then it was now IMO, and IMO now isnt bad its better then it was, way back there was very little moderation and then for whatever reason you guys went crazy, IDK if it was 1 mod or a group thing, but that night when you guys banned like 70 was a bit much, things have greatly relaxed sence that which has brought more life into this place

i took a huge break from posting on here because i didnt like what was going on, i went from posting like 50 times a day to nothing, people actually thought i was dead 😕

this place is much better then many other forums, most of the other big forums are some of the most unfriendly places ive ever seen, unless you were there when they started or just post all the time like its your job, you are ignored, the threads are nearly 100% worthless and many seem like they are run by people who are 12.

the moderation team here i feel does a fine job seeing as what they have to deal with, ive had my run ins with them in the past and what not, i didnt know Derek had gone AWOL and can see why that is a big issue for you guys ad well as the forum upgrades and such,

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
The main focus of our moderation by far is the For Sale Forum then OT. P&N really isn't modded that much in comparison of the other two it just seems that it is because a lot of members in P&N are always complaining about each other (one Mod mentioned that those in that forum reminded him of his Pre School Children, always egging each other on) From my perspective though it seems to me that we are Modding both P&N and OT a lot less than we did before.

Also it's not about right or wrong answers Alky, it's about behavior.

I would hope it was, but some of the moderation has been due to a wrong answer. P&N is funny as it is like pre-school. Half the 'combatants' there would never survive a formal debate and more than likely would have to be removed from said event from going hysterical and turning to personal attacks.

Half my threads turn into the same group of people attacking me rather than focusing on the topic. When they think they are focusing they have basically created a whole new version of what I said.

It's entertaining at least.

 

[Geekbabe]

All the changes mean to me is that I visit here far less often,post far less often. moderation? unless you're threatening to kill somebody or are an active thief in FS/FT I don't bother as all it's likely to get me is a protracted discussion via pm.With Derek being gone for like 6 weeks and with no support to fall back on for guidence as to the wishes of the site owner, I have no interest in getting into a mess with any member here and the best way to avoid all that is to moderate as little as is possible.

I love these forums but feel we're back right where we were prior to all the changes..struggling along with one arm tied behind our collective moderator backs attempting to do the right thing for a website who doesn't care enough about any of us to send a stand in for Derek or even offer any explaination for why major changes were implemented and we were than basically abandoned yet again.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Derek's absence is likely a trick 😀

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Originally posted by: JD50

Originally posted by: Corn

Originally posted by: JD50

Originally posted by: Corn

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: alkemyst
If I had an issue with a mod I would think to post it in PFI...I saw that this is not the way it's to be handled but I don't see the rules anywhere.

Does the moderator PM go to all mods now? I had sent a few in long ago that some never saw.

It may be a little more fair to have the rules posted on moderator grieviances.

Å

I've seen this confusion numerous times since we've changed to identifying mods.

IMO, that change was 100% guaranteed to result in the kinda threads that are geting people banned (i.e., naming the specific mod when complaining about moderation issues).

This forum has many posteres from other countries, whose first language may not be English or whose vernacular may differ (e.g., earlier somebody got in trouble for the word "i love you" which meant a cigarrette in the context, & did not refer to sexual orientation). We also have many members spanning many generations. While "calling out a mod" may be clear to some, I'm not used to hearing "calling out" and don't really know what the h*ll it means.

A simple clarification in the rules is what is needed. I have PM'd with suggested language revisions, etc.

IMO, until the rules are officially clarified no one should be banned without a warning about this. PM them a warning with instructions, lock or delete the thread and move on.

My .02

Fern

Now I'm the most polite person on these forums, but give me a break. Nobody tells someone to "go smoke a cigarrette". :roll:

When you are making fun of someone's slang you do.....(it was me that said that by the way).

Oh, so then the thread topic was about slang? Doubtful......since I saw the thread in question. It was a back handed insult, again, give me a break.

Yea, because we all know that P&N threads are always 100 percent on topic......give ME a break. Either way, I was responding to a personal attack, and depending on which mod you get, responding to a personal attack with a personal attack is ok. But Derek is AWOL so I doubt we will get any kind of resolution to any issue that goes above the senior mod level, we might as well just live with what we have....*shrug*

Why don't you just you shut up, no none got the message wrong "go suck on a i love you"was a dual message while you got banned for ONE week because if it i got banned for TWO weeks because of it, so stop whining about unfair treatment.

"go suck a i love you" in a general American forum, in a forum i have even been asked to write in American rather than English, this has a meaning and i do not think even he is unclear what he mean by it.

Corn, i didn't expect you to stand up for someone like me, but you did, i underestimated you and for that you have my apologies, you also have my thanks for standing up while i was not here.

 

[alkemyst]

Yeah I don't get how no one knows what to do without Derek.

Moderators are hard to find...AT fills all the slots quick though. If you play right you can even get elite easy.

There is a huge reason other boards surpassed this one...it had all the opportunity to be huge.

Keep pissing off your posters to help the lurkers and soon you have no forum.

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield

Why don't you just you shut up, no none got the message wrong "go suck on a i love you"was a dual message while you got banned for ONE week because if it i got banned for TWO weeks because of it, so stop whining about unfair treatment.

"go suck a i love you" in a general American forum, in a forum i have even been asked to write in American rather than English, this has a meaning and i do not think even he is unclear what he mean by it.

Corn, i didn't expect you to stand up for someone like me, but you did, i underestimated you and for that you have my apologies, you also have my thanks for standing up while i was not here.

Looks like I have my first stalker...anyways, I thought we "made up" in that thread, guess not...

BTW, I wasn't whining about it, I was clarifying what I meant, if you have any more issues about that just PM me and leave it out of this thread.

 

[Geekbabe]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
Yeah I don't get how no one knows what to do without Derek.

Moderators are hard to find...AT fills all the slots quick though. If you play right you can even get elite easy.

There is a huge reason other boards surpassed this one...it had all the opportunity to be huge.

Keep pissing off your posters to help the lurkers and soon you have no forum.

We are uncertain as to how to proceed because Derek was placed here to supervise huge changes in the forums that were being shown to us piece by piece, new guidelines being rolled out one or two at a time. On many occasions when we'd think HQ would want things done a certain way they'd come back at us wanting it done in a totally different direction.
Rather than going on instint and having a huge mess that needs to be reversed later it's better to sit on our hands and do nothing.

I'm not certain here but I'm getting the sense you feel that there's some sort of special perks that come with this job, there is no salary whatsoever here,there's no power of the type that assists you in getting a high paying job or having influence in any money making sense. The only things you get with this job is a never ending stream of complaining pm's and an empty title that means squat out in the real world.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
Yeah I don't get how no one knows what to do without Derek.

We know what to do, your last time out is a perfect example.

Moderators are hard to find...AT fills all the slots quick though. If you play right you can even get elite easy.

Do you feel that you deserve to be an Elite with the behavior you exhibited in the past?

There is a huge reason other boards surpassed this one...it had all the opportunity to be huge.

And what reason is that?

Keep pissing off your posters to help the lurkers and soon you have no forum.

To be frank with you Alky, your criticisms and opinions regarding the moderation of these forums is highly suspect given the history of your behavior here and the interactions you've had with the Moderators because of it.

 

[alkemyst]

My last time out? for what asking about what should be done because another got banned without rules posted....that's really great.

I don't want to be an 'elite' here. That title to me denotes supreme ass kisser more than someone that really did something great here.

The reason this board lagged was because of the biased moderation esp when posting in Off topic forums.

I know my past with the moderators here. I also know some of you have done this while you were part of a thread and just weren't hearing what you wanted.

Like I have said to any moderator...you make the rules and it's cool with me when I get the time out or whatever.

and in response to Geekbabe...there are perks to the mods here, maybe less now that they are known; it doesn't require money...it's more of a power thing.

perhaps explain why you do it then...I didn't go down that path in my statement.

 

[JJChicken]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
The reason this board lagged was because of the biased moderation esp when posting in Off topic forums.

That may be true, but I'd doubt that's the major reason. The forums aren't growing because the parent site (Anandtech.com) isn't growing and looks to be decaying. I remember a couple years ago there used to be 100+ comments on some of the articles, its dropped off alot since. And wasn't there a period for at least over a month where there was little to no new reviews put up? It seems better now though, the site seems more active.

At the end of the day, these forums will only grow if anandtech.com grows. We can't blame moderation for that. I doubt anand cares too much either, hes made his money. It was good while it lasted (and is, but who knows for how long?)

EDIT: Also, I just saw an article by Derek dated October 12, so that means he is just putting the forums on the backburner. Remember guys, its peak season for AT right now, with all the new hardware coming out and new system configs for christmas.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Yep, just read the Half Life review Anand & Derek posted, he's been benchmarking the hell out of it I suspect 🙂

Dunno what to say about the traffic issues for AT, this site was a big fish in a small pond for a long time, now it's a small fish in a huge pond. To get the numbers up, you need an original idea or unique content.

And I'm not going to throw rocks at the mods, it's been done to death 😉

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
My last time out? for what asking about what should be done because another got banned without rules posted....that's really great.

I don't want to be an 'elite' here. That title to me denotes supreme ass kisser more than someone that really did something great here.

The reason this board lagged was because of the biased moderation esp when posting in Off topic forums.

I know my past with the moderators here. I also know some of you have done this while you were part of a thread and just weren't hearing what you wanted.

Like I have said to any moderator...you make the rules and it's cool with me when I get the time out or whatever.

and in response to Geekbabe...there are perks to the mods here, maybe less now that they are known; it doesn't require money...it's more of a power thing.

perhaps explain why you do it then...I didn't go down that path in my statement.

Woa :shocked: somebody has a serious case of Mod envy

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Woa :shocked: somebody has a serious case of Mod envy

huh?

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: alkemyst
My last time out? for what asking about what should be done because another got banned without rules posted....that's really great.

I don't want to be an 'elite' here. That title to me denotes supreme ass kisser more than someone that really did something great here.

The reason this board lagged was because of the biased moderation esp when posting in Off topic forums.

I know my past with the moderators here. I also know some of you have done this while you were part of a thread and just weren't hearing what you wanted.

Like I have said to any moderator...you make the rules and it's cool with me when I get the time out or whatever.

and in response to Geekbabe...there are perks to the mods here, maybe less now that they are known; it doesn't require money...it's more of a power thing.

perhaps explain why you do it then...I didn't go down that path in my statement.

Woa :shocked: somebody has a serious case of Mod envy

i don't see it as Mod envy myself.

many like ot bash alkemyst for any little thing (yeah i agree he deserves it sometimes)

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: Allen Iverson
That may be true, but I'd doubt that's the major reason. The forums aren't growing because the parent site (Anandtech.com) isn't growing and looks to be decaying. I remember a couple years ago there used to be 100+ comments on some of the articles, its dropped off alot since. And wasn't there a period for at least over a month where there was little to no new reviews put up? It seems better now though, the site seems more active.

At the end of the day, these forums will only grow if anandtech.com grows. We can't blame moderation for that. I doubt anand cares too much either, hes made his money. It was good while it lasted (and is, but who knows for how long?)

EDIT: Also, I just saw an article by Derek dated October 12, so that means he is just putting the forums on the backburner. Remember guys, its peak season for AT right now, with all the new hardware coming out and new system configs for christmas.

perhaps....but a good OT forum doesn't really need a 'parent' site.

The thing I like about AT is that it's safe enough for work...but like Pliable said, we were a big fish in a small pond for a long time. People say it was worse in the past, I thought it better...I think a lot of people lose sight what OT forums are really about. I try to be truthful in my presentations of myself, but I also like posting up something to get a laugh, some discussion, etc. I don't mind those that love the attention you can get (Casio, Dezign, even ducknuts/wdauqnug)...thing was in the past the mod fist didn't come down so fast and hard and when it did the thread was usually left up save anything that had to be edited.

Now you can be in the middle of a great thread....see a great reply (I miss email notification of every response...but bandwidth issues are real) and want to post something back only to get 'the topic you have requested does not exist'.

Still I like the forums here despite how many people think of me. The odd part is the people that should hate me don't it's always some third party that thinks the must read every thread instead of just picking another topic to go to.


I wanted to add I do appreciate what the moderators do here esp when it comes to posts that should never have been made (things involving harming someone and the like) and those in the FS/T area that are simply scams that the innocent member may fall for.

Other more personal forums to me have long had issues finding good moderators. It takes a lot of time definitely and being impartial is hard for anyone when reading things close to their heart.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
I wanted to add I do appreciate what the moderators do here esp when it comes to posts that should never have been made (things involving harming someone and the like) and those in the FS/T area that are simply scams that the innocent member may fall for.

Other more personal forums to me have long had issues finding good moderators. It takes a lot of time definitely and being impartial is hard for anyone when reading things close to their heart.

yeah. have seen forums that if you disagree with them or the "popular" posters you get banned (wich i have heh).

at least here you can have disagreements with everyone (and the mods) without a fear (well most of the time) of getting banned.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: alkemyst
I wanted to add I do appreciate what the moderators do here esp when it comes to posts that should never have been made (things involving harming someone and the like) and those in the FS/T area that are simply scams that the innocent member may fall for.

Other more personal forums to me have long had issues finding good moderators. It takes a lot of time definitely and being impartial is hard for anyone when reading things close to their heart.

yeah. have seen forums that if you disagree with them or the "popular" posters you get banned (wich i have heh).

at least here you can have disagreements with everyone (and the mods) without a fear (well most of the time) of getting banned.

From what I have seen in the past, it's mostly how you present your argument.

Next time someone gets pulled over by a cop, ask him this:
"What the fuck do you want, asshole?"
:laugh:


<--- waits patiently while this comment gets misconstrued and taken out of context.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: alkemyst
I wanted to add I do appreciate what the moderators do here esp when it comes to posts that should never have been made (things involving harming someone and the like) and those in the FS/T area that are simply scams that the innocent member may fall for.

Other more personal forums to me have long had issues finding good moderators. It takes a lot of time definitely and being impartial is hard for anyone when reading things close to their heart.

yeah. have seen forums that if you disagree with them or the "popular" posters you get banned (wich i have heh).

at least here you can have disagreements with everyone (and the mods) without a fear (well most of the time) of getting banned.

From what I have seen in the past, it's mostly how you present your argument.

Next time someone gets pulled over by a cop, ask him this:
"What the fuck do you want, asshole?"
:laugh:


<--- waits patiently while this comment gets misconstrued and taken out of context.

there is a difrence. I am sure you can understand how and why there is.

Actually it was not even a mod that was upset. others on teh forum did not like that i disagreed. i was pretty nice (compared to here anyway heh) and they whined to the mod. shrug.

my point being at least the mods here do not take in mob rule to ban someone.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: waggy
my point being at least the mods here do not take in mob rule to ban someone.

They take in Mod rule to ban someone. 😛

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper

Originally posted by: waggy
my point being at least the mods here do not take in mob rule to ban someone.

They take in Mod rule to ban someone. 😛

booo!

you deserve a ban for the pun! =)

 

[BeauJangles]

I'm glad this thread has opened up a discussion, that's what I had hoped for in the first place. Seeing moderator feedback, it's clear that the forums are a source of frustration for both users and administrators. I'm sure that even Anand is annoyed that the forums cost money (lots of money, I'm guessing).

I love the Anandtech forums. I got advice on building my first computer here about five years ago, and I've kept coming back. I think the community we have, for the most part, is fantastic. There are a wide variety of topics and a lot of knowledgeable people contributing on a regular basis. I also love how clean the forums are. The lack of pictures, goofy avatars, and flashing logos makes for a very clean and presentable layout. Other forums give me headaches with the overwhelming number of Lolcat pictures or whatever.

That being said, getting some key issues addressed here is very, very necessary. I don't care if other forums have 500,000 members or whatever. I care that the community here keeps on going and that the quality of the content keeps improving. The big draw of these forums is that, generally, we are more intelligent and mature than lots of other forums. We have the Anandtech main page as a portal. What we need now is consistent rules, a few more forums, and a commitment from Anandtech itself to keep its forums and the community alive.

This post isn't here to blame anybody, I just hope that Anandtech itself begins to understand that unless it actively works to maintain its community, that community could easily vanish.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
....

This post isn't here to blame anybody, I just hope that Anandtech itself begins to understand that unless it actively works to maintain its community, that community could easily vanish.

I've been hearing that from various posters for 7 years. Is there a time frame for this or do we just take your word for it?
😕

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
....

This post isn't here to blame anybody, I just hope that Anandtech itself begins to understand that unless it actively works to maintain its community, that community could easily vanish.

I've been hearing that from various posters for 7 years. Is there a time frame for this or do we just take your word for it?
😕

huh? I'm basing a lot of what I said off the numbers... namely that other forums have grown much faster than Anandtech. Is it likely AT forums will collapse? No. It's highly unlikely. But it is more likely they will become increasingly irrelevant.

I dunno why it sounds like you take what I said personally, using the rolling eyes at me is just going to make me less inclined to even bother posting in this forum. I thought you guys would appreciate some feedback, but maybe I'm mistaken.

 

[JJChicken]

Originally posted by: BlinderBomber

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
....

This post isn't here to blame anybody, I just hope that Anandtech itself begins to understand that unless it actively works to maintain its community, that community could easily vanish.

I've been hearing that from various posters for 7 years. Is there a time frame for this or do we just take your word for it?
😕

huh? I'm basing a lot of what I said off the numbers... namely that other forums have grown much faster than Anandtech. Is it likely AT forums will collapse? No. It's highly unlikely. But it is more likely they will become increasingly irrelevant.

I dunno why it sounds like you take what I said personally, using the rolling eyes at me is just going to make me less inclined to even bother posting in this forum. I thought you guys would appreciate some feedback, but maybe I'm mistaken.

I completely agree with your original post. The mods here seem quite adverse to feedback...