Arguments for moderation policy reform

[Snafturi]

I think we're talking at crossed purposes here. I'm not saying the deliberation process should be visible, just the fact finding.

But to us, they're part of the same process. The only way to separate them would be to prune posts from M/A, which would be confusing and unnecessary. What do we do about posts that contain both? Posting, trimming, and reposting comments from every appeal would get pretty old pretty fast, and people would still probably find ways to complain about deliberation transparency (since, let's face it, the players don't all want the same thing[s] and even these changes may not accommodate them). As volunteers, we have a certain interest in efficiency that I for one am not eager to countermand by trying to fix something that isn't broken.

do much to improve mod/player relations. Max did create a politics based game, generally suited to recruiting the slightly brighter citizens on the 'net who wouldn't really take kindly to secret police style moderation team when considered enmasse.

Kinda created a rod for the moderation teams back with that one.

I realize this, I'm just explaining my general preferences, which carry the day far from always!

See, I've been around for well over 5 years and take quite an interest in the moderation forum (I'm nosey, sue me) and had no idea that was possible. Every time I've seen people not directly involved with a dispute request information in the mod forum it has been rebuffed.

I must have been editing as you were writing this, it might clear things up.

It would mean changing the way that things are currently done, but what's wrong with asking for additional info from the mod who made the original ruling in the open moderation thread? Basically, limiting the original mod's say to the thread in the open forum?

[Melkor Unchained]

Not all punishment is executive punishment. If players know which mods voted against which users, some would undoubtedly take votes against them as being in bad faith and will start to heckle and harass said moderator and demand his dismissal, etc. It's happened in the past (also present) in the absence of such regulations, and I don't think any of us feel that our positions should be subject to public audit. As long as the Boss is happy with how the site is running, that's all that should matter to us. I defy anyone here to try and tell me with a straight face (okay... fingers?) that naming moderators would not also lead to shaming them. There will always be votes that @@user@@ or @@user2@@ disagrees with, for any number of reasons


Um, I hate to break it to you, but that's what it is, at least on a theoretical level: both the mod and the player believe they are correct, and one way or the other either a middle ground must be met or a declaration made one way or the other. That's what moderation is. I'm not "turn[ing] the whole ideal of a neutral appeal ... on its head," I'm saying that's what we're already doing.


I actually mentioned and focused on IRC and email for a reason, Fartsniffage was the one who pointed out that TGs weren't the best way to go and I generally agree with him. Again, my point is that there are many more and useful tools available to the player in order for him/her to conduct as much contact with the mods as they want. If transparency is the issue here, then I don't see where you get the idea that constant contact with moderator(s) being possible is "fucking irrelevant" to establishing it. You can talk to us as much as you like, but we're just not going to debate amongst ourselves in front of everyone. I'm sorry, it's just not in the cards.

Given that I have poor self-control, I can't help posting again to point out I NEVER ARGUED FOR MOD DELIBERATIONS TO BE PUBLIC OR MOD VOTES TO BE PUBLIC. In fact, if you look back at my posts, I argued against those ideas.

You just directed your almost your entire post at berating a strawman.

I am saddened to see you say Moderation is an "us" versus "them" battle between Mods and posters. I thought these Forums worked differently.

To be fair, some people in the thread are talking about exactly that, and I've lost track a lot of who-said-what in the last 36 or 48 hours. If I got you mixed up with Fartsniffage or didn't see a post or three, I apologize, I've been talking mostly in the "public voting" vein right now and I think I got some wires crossed at the beginning. I'll go back over it all later tonight (assuming this is still going on) but I still don't see why a lot of what's being said is an issue at all. Mods get overturned sometimes, but players... want to know more about it? We already disclose just about the limit of what we're ever going to.

[Fartsniffage]

It's a topic that has come up a lot and accordingly, we've talked about it a lot. The farthest I'd be willing to go is publish anonymous polls from M/A in certain (high profile?) cases that deserved it. There are some things we're not interested in releasing to the public, and which mod voted for or against a certain player is one of them. We don't want rulings to become more politicized/complicated than they already are, and revealing the voting would open the door for players to take advantage of administrative disagreements to various ends.

I agree, which is why I said so in my first post in this topic here.

I still disagree with the idea that the fact finding can't be conducted in public but that seems to have no support among the moderation team so there's not much point pursuing it.

Well, it's long buried now but earlier I mentioned that the ruling mod makes his case, but doesn't get a 'vote' per se in the final decision since s/he basically already voted with the ruling in the first place. The ruling mod is not involved in the sense that s/he isn't a voter. The ruling mod can still state a case, s/he just doesn't get to vote.

Yes, that seems to be the central theme to much of the discussion in this thread and the main objection to the current system. If a moderator is permitted to continue to make their case during the consideration process then why isn't the player?

[Fartsniffage]

To be fair, some people in the thread are talking about exactly that, and I've lost track a lot of who-said-what in the last 36 or 48 hours. If I got you mixed up with Fartsniffage or didn't see a post or three, I apologize, I've been talking mostly in the "public voting" vein right now and I think I got some wires crossed at the beginning.

Yeah, I never made that argument either.

[Muravyets]

It saddens me very much to see that at least some of the people asking how to eliminate the "us versus them" attitude are the very people creating that attitude and holding fast to it as if the very existence of the site depended on things being that way. That is something I'm not interested in dealing with.

Just for convenience, I will gather the pre-going-back-to-explain, pre-argument-phase posts containing my suggestions for this site. If anyone cares what one user really said, here it is:

viewtopic.php?p=4119676#p4119676
viewtopic.php?p=4119940#p4119940
viewtopic.php?p=4123670#p4123670
viewtopic.php?p=4125193#p4125193
viewtopic.php?p=4125994#p4125994

'Bye.

[The Blaatschapen]

"Many rules, unless otherwise noted, do not restrict posting certain content, but rather posting with certain intent. No ruling is meant to be read as banning, or allowing, any word or phrase in all circumstances. The same actions that were deemed not a rules violation in one instance may be considered a violation in another if the intent behind those actions is to commit a violation of the forum rules"

Abide by the spirit of the law not the letter

I propose Haiku rules.

I'll give it a try:

No Swastikas here
not up for a discussion
Max himself said so

Flaming not allowed
swear and cuss not to posters
You will burn yourself

More on topic, lest I be warned for spamming moderation.

Besides the appeals there were also some other topics discussed. What's the verdict about unofficial warnings and Mods trying not to moderate if they're not having the time because of RL constraints(especially the trickier not so clear cut cases)? Can we make some progress there?

[Laerod]

Many of us ignore moderation related TGs but I don't think we all do. Most of the ones I get are simple gameside questions, but I don't tend to have conversations via TG in general because it's a little clunky for that. Our emails should be public knowledge and IRC can be run in a browser alongside NS itself, the only real limitation to that would be (likely employer-enforced) filters or firewalls or what have you and there isn't really anything we can do about that. Players don't have any way of figuring out who was involved with the final decision by design. Yes it's a defense mechanism, but that's sort of the point. I don't think m/any of us (not just myself) are particularly eager to install a system by which we revealed directly who votes for/against a particular user. There's a natural limit to the rage and drama that we're willing to endure for the sake of a volunteer position, and that would well exceed it! :p

I'm not arguing we should find out who is voting, but that this design makes it rather difficult to give input to the appeals process for a player, whereas the mod in question would still be able to follow and, if asked, partake in the discussion of the appeal without anyone being able to see that. Moving the case statement by the mod in question to the thread where the appeal has been made as well as questions by (one representative of) the board of appeals could add some transparency to that process without revealing the deliberation itself.

To be fair, some people in the thread are talking about exactly that, and I've lost track a lot of who-said-what in the last 36 or 48 hours. If I got you mixed up with Fartsniffage or didn't see a post or three, I apologize, I've been talking mostly in the "public voting" vein right now and I think I got some wires crossed at the beginning.

Yeah, I never made that argument either.

Snafturi did. I suppose we can forgive Melkor given the similar sounds in both of your names =P

[The PeoplesFreedom]

I'm glad to see this is being discussed in a serious manner.

[Saint Clair Island]

Sheesh, you guys post a lot. Updated the OP. Let me know if I've missed anything important.

On to business. First of all, while I'm glad people are listening, I'm also disappointed that five or six pages of it seem to have been taken up with circular, pointless arguments that address very little if anything. Apologies in advance for the spoilered bit (it's not particularly relevant to the current discussion, so you can skip it if you like).

Really, what I'm seeing here is a lot of bullshit that nobody has tried to call out. Mods haven't called out mods for the sake of cohesion, players haven't called out mods for fear of being shut down, mods haven't called out players out of some aversion to the kind of brutal honesty this sort of thread deserves. I don't know why players haven't tried calling each other out, apart from a one-post wonder who probably hasn't been active in five years (or is someone's puppet). Laerod makes a good point, actually. Kudos for that.

I try to make an effort to be nice to people, but a bitch doesn't change her spots, and one thing that really bothers me is mind games. So here goes.

Katganistan, I find you ordinarily a sound, fair (if harsh) moderator. It appears that you came in here with a poor attitude and only got worse, though. Arguments that boil down to "no u", sidetracking the discussion into bickering over analogies, then all those coy "people can read between the lines" statements. Yes. We can. This person thinks she'd have a good deal more respect for you if you'd either dropped the implications altogether or outright said what you meant. The middle ground with its "I'm implying that you're full of shit without openly saying anything" can be incredibly maddening, which you should be well aware of because you were arguing against Neo Art.

It's almost a shame you were the primary expositor of your own arguments, NA, since what applies to Kat about implications applies to you about fivefold. Even when you're making valid points you seem to treat everyone else with disdain, and in general display a level of arrogance such that I have a hard time believing it's for real. (Do we really need three or four "I'm a lawyer and therefore more knowledgeable than you" posts? Everyone here knows you're a lawyer. Two-day-old newbies know you're a lawyer. Seriously.) Then you're surprised that the mods are less interested in listening to you. I agree with you on some points, and your argument style is quite entertaining in NSG debate threads, but here, it likely would have been better to leave your position to The Cat-Tribe or TNB.

Muravyets, you're problematic. Your pronouncement that you "always knew nobody would listen to you" back on page three or so was the start of a run of passive-aggressive behaviour that has continued throughout the thread and is arguably one of the main reasons why discussions broke down somewhere in the middle. While you are a fine debater and capable of bringing new insights to a variety of topics, for which I respect you, you have a significant blind spot. That lies in accepting that you could ever be wrong. Not every criticism is a personal attack and not every disagreement is a sign that no one is listening to you; drop the martyr complex and move on.

Melkor Unchained, I can't help wondering if the emphasis on players "ganging up" on mods and cohesion for cohesion's sake is a lingering sign of your buried martyr complex. I seriously hope you're not still clinging to the idea that the only reason we create threads like this is due to some overarching plot against you. Either way, you seem to be the main propagator of the "mods vs. players" dichotomy at present, perhaps because of the emphasis on "no fighting in front of the children, dear!", and a slightly disturbing view of players as The Enemy who can't be shown any chinks in the mods' defenses. That's what I get from reading between the lines, at least. I can't see the way you think of things around here as healthy. That said, you've been otherwise reasonable and your generally down-to-earth demeanour belies any mod-player division you may talk about, which I've always appreciated.

Lunatic Goofballs, you seem to have some reading comprehension issues. More than once you've demonstrated an apparent inability to relate to the subject at debate (for example, your player vs. player with mod as referee example applies to first rulings only. appeals really are player vs. ref. that was what they were talking about). Also, never say "I don't like to blow my own horn". Translation: you do like to blow your own horn. If you didn't want to bring it up, you wouldn't have. Unless you're talking about an actual horn. Which I wouldn't put past you, tbh (damn clowns ¬_¬)

The Cat-Tribe, I like what you've done so far in this thread. But honestly, I think you were right to go on vacation and wrong to come back to post in every other thread where your name's brought up. Not necessarily because anything you've done has been bad; you've been a consistent voice of reason; but that reason nonetheless does seem impaired by whatever RL circumstances caused you to leave. For instance, "I'll leave and the mods won't care!"? Seriously? That's incredibly childish.

The mods in general -- ffs, if you want to have a consensus, don't produce an enormous variety of answers to any one question. I thought I knew how the appeal system worked before I read this thread. Now I have no idea. If you want to keep up the illusion of a Mod Collective, explain things as a collective, not in five or six different ways that wind up making no sense to an outsider. Really, this is perhaps the number one or two reason that fixing the OSRS is needed.

Okay, I'm done venting. I've tried to make these criticisms as constructive as possible to avoid being warned or whatever. Things have otherwise been surprisingly calm, though -- perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised, this isn't the summer of '09 anymore

All right, that feels a little better. Now on to the main point.

I have a small idea -- perhaps pointless -- but some noise has been made about how appeals are seen as "attacking the judgment of the mod who made the ruling" etc etc etc. One potential solution would clarify the difference between "an appeal" and "a second opinion" -- appeals would be removed altogether, and players would be able to request second opinions. For second opinions the mod making the ruling (it should probably be a more senior mod than the one who made it initially) looks at the situation as though the first mod was never there. The first mod's ruling is not considered at all, and is overridden by the second mod's ruling. That serves the same function as an "appeal" imo -- player can try to get mod ruling they think inaccurate corrected -- but without any of the investigative stuff or deliberation or whatever. Which I honestly don't see as necessary. Moderators aren't judges. They're more like janitors, ideally: "clean up spam from this thread", "sticky the latest at vote WA resolution", "lock a troll thread so no one steps in it".

That said, I also have some questions.

(1) What, exactly, is the justification for the prohibitions on flaming and trolling?* (I don't mean "admin said so", I mean "why did admin say so?".)

(2) What standards of conduct are moderators held to? (There are some rather vague passages in the OSRS, but none of them are exceptionally well-organised.)

(3) Why is it required for a player to request a copy of their warning history rather than being able to see it on their own? Is this only a limitation of the forum software or is there a moderation reason for this?

More to come as I think of them.

* I am not proposing that these prohibitions be lifted.

[The Blaatschapen]

Sheesh, you guys post a lot. Updated the OP. Let me know if I've missed anything important.

On to business. First of all, while I'm glad people are listening, I'm also disappointed that five or six pages of it seem to have been taken up with circular, pointless arguments that address very little if anything. Apologies in advance for the spoilered bit.

[blocktext]Really, what I'm seeing here is a lot of bullshit that nobody has tried to call out. Mods haven't called out mods for the sake of cohesion, players haven't called out mods for fear of being shut down, mods haven't called out players out of some aversion to the kind of brutal honesty this sort of thread deserves. I don't know why players haven't tried calling each other out, apart from a one-post wonder who probably hasn't been active in five years (or is someone's puppet).
<snip>

<snip>

Since my reply is about your spoiler, I'll also put it in a spoiler. Don't worry, I'll keep it short.

The reason people haven't been calling each other out is very simple: It's not the goal of this thread. This thread is about moderation policy reform, not about how people behave in the thread. We can do it all we want, but it is even less beneficial to the topic at hand than an argument that's going in circles.

Edit: fixed quote and spoiler tag.

[Hydesland]

Man, I had all these ideas, but I can't be fucked to read all 10 pages to check if they've already been posted, and I don't want to put effort into explaining ideas that have already been suggested. All I can say is, try and be less snarky in moderation threads, and if someone posts an opinion in a moderation forum, don't tell them their opinion is worthless, that just causes an anti-social attitude towards the moderation team.

[Saint Clair Island]

Sheesh, you guys post a lot. Updated the OP. Let me know if I've missed anything important.

On to business. First of all, while I'm glad people are listening, I'm also disappointed that five or six pages of it seem to have been taken up with circular, pointless arguments that address very little if anything. Apologies in advance for the spoilered bit.

[blocktext]Really, what I'm seeing here is a lot of bullshit that nobody has tried to call out. Mods haven't called out mods for the sake of cohesion, players haven't called out mods for fear of being shut down, mods haven't called out players out of some aversion to the kind of brutal honesty this sort of thread deserves. I don't know why players haven't tried calling each other out, apart from a one-post wonder who probably hasn't been active in five years (or is someone's puppet).
<snip>

<snip>

Since my reply is about your spoiler, I'll also put it in a spoiler. Don't worry, I'll keep it short.

The reason people haven't been calling each other out is very simple: It's not the goal of this thread. This thread is about moderation policy reform, not about how people behave in the thread. We can do it all we want, but it is even less beneficial to the topic at hand than an argument that's going in circles.

Edit: fixed quote and spoiler tag.

Fair enough. I guess I just got pissed off. MY THREAD! MY BEAUTIFUL THREAD! THEY RUINED IT WITH THEIR POINTLESS BICKERING! *sobs*

In honesty, though, how people behave in this thread (or anywhere) strikes me as one of the major reasons there's a need for discussions like this at all. A lot of attitudes are broken and need to be fixed. Without people being reasonable to one another, all the moderation reforms in the world won't do anything to improve the lot of the community itself.

I probably won't do that kind of thing again, or attempt to get into any arguments over anything I said. I've had a stressful week: I have to deal with my family. Oh joy.

[Lunatic Goofballs]

Man, I had all these ideas, but I can't be fucked to read all 10 pages to check if they've already been posted, and I don't want to put effort into explaining ideas that have already been suggested. All I can say is, try and be less snarky in moderation threads, and if someone posts an opinion in a moderation forum, don't tell them their opinion is worthless, that just causes an anti-social attitude towards the moderation team.

*pushes you into mud*

[Laerod]

Fair enough. I guess I just got pissed off. MY THREAD! MY BEAUTIFUL THREAD! THEY RUINED IT WITH THEIR POINTLESS BICKERING! *sobs*

In honesty, though, how people behave in this thread (or anywhere) strikes me as one of the major reasons there's a need for discussions like this at all. A lot of attitudes are broken and need to be fixed. Without people being reasonable to one another, all the moderation reforms in the world won't do anything to improve the lot of the community itself.

I probably won't do that kind of thing again, or attempt to get into any arguments over anything I said. I've had a stressful week: I have to deal with my family. Oh joy.

To be honest, I felt it was warranted, though the criticism that those involved haven't called others also involved out on perceived failings is a bit unnecessary. It does sort of take someone who hasn't been involved to be able to address that.

[NERVUN]

That said, I also have some questions.

And I have some quick answers before class.

(1) What, exactly, is the justification for the prohibitions on flaming and trolling?* (I don't mean "admin said so", I mean "why did admin say so?".)

The feeling was that it is hard to conduct a meaningful argument when the point someone is trying to make ends up looking like "Because if you checked the news story I linked to, you'd see that you are wrong, you bloody idiot" (Not YOU, just an example . Max felt, and still feels, that in a board with open ended RPs and a General form that loves to talk politics, it's best when standing in pools of gas that you don't hand people lit matches and allow them to start juggling.

(2) What standards of conduct are moderators held to? (There are some rather vague passages in the OSRS, but none of them are exceptionally well-organised.)

We actually have 10 commandments from Max, that will hopefully be posted very soon (Working on including it in another post in other words).

(3) Why is it required for a player to request a copy of their warning history rather than being able to see it on their own? Is this only a limitation of the forum software or is there a moderation reason for this?

I believe that's software, but I could be wrong.

[Belschaft]

(3) Why is it required for a player to request a copy of their warning history rather than being able to see it on their own? Is this only a limitation of the forum software or is there a moderation reason for this?

I believe that's software, but I could be wrong.

Even if it's software, it's damn silly. We should have access to it much more easily. Any chance I could get a look at my permanent record?

[Saint Clair Island]

That said, I also have some questions.

And I have some quick answers before class. ;)

Thank you.

(1) What, exactly, is the justification for the prohibitions on flaming and trolling?* (I don't mean "admin said so", I mean "why did admin say so?".)

The feeling was that it is hard to conduct a meaningful argument when the point someone is trying to make ends up looking like "Because if you checked the news story I linked to, you'd see that you are wrong, you bloody idiot" (Not YOU, just an example :p . Max felt, and still feels, that in a board with open ended RPs and a General form that loves to talk politics, it's best when standing in pools of gas that you don't hand people lit matches and allow them to start juggling.

But is it really?

I mean, let's say someone calls me an idiot. In response I can (a) shrug it off and move on, so the argument is not disrupted; (b) respond with an insult of my own ("Who are you calling an idiot, you misbegotten pipsqueak?"), disrupting the argument and causing the thread to be derailed.

Hypothetically, when (b) occurs, the role of the moderators could be to remove the off-topic posts, issue warnings for derailment, and let the discussion continue. This would allow problematic flaming or trolling (i.e. that which actually has an impact on others) to be dealt with without having to resort to looking for "intent" -- which is subjective and therefore a major cause for complaints. I can't help seeing this method as simpler for all parties involved, really.

I guess I'm just trying to understand why the specific offenses are trolling and flaming instead of, say, subsets of thread hijacking (or, if a specific thread has no purpose but to stir shit, it could legitimately be considered spam). As I said, I'm not saying those offenses should be removed or changed at the moment, but I do note that they cause... 90% of the appeals and moderation issues, conservatively. At least that are publicly visible. (Dunno about GHRs.)

(2) What standards of conduct are moderators held to? (There are some rather vague passages in the OSRS, but none of them are exceptionally well-organised.)

We actually have 10 commandments from Max, that will hopefully be posted very soon (Working on including it in another post in other words).

Cool. That should clear things up.

(3) Why is it required for a player to request a copy of their warning history rather than being able to see it on their own? Is this only a limitation of the forum software or is there a moderation reason for this?

I believe that's software, but I could be wrong.

Fair enough.

[Hydesland]

What's this about requesting warning history? I've never heard of that.

[Belschaft]

What's this about requesting warning history? I've never heard of that.

Well, I've heard about the concept before but I'm not sure if anyone ever has. I figure it'll be nice to see what one looks like.

Edit: It's just a TG. It might have been a bit more informative if I didn't have such a clean record, but the procedure in itself seems a bit... lacklustre.

How hard would it be to get the codemonkeys to code something into our profile pages?

[NERVUN]

I believe that's software, but I could be wrong.

Even if it's software, it's damn silly. We should have access to it much more easily. Any chance I could get a look at my permanent record?

If it IS software, that requires a lot of work to change and it probably fairly low on the totempole for the techs.

Oh, and TG'd.

What's this about requesting warning history? I've never heard of that.

A few months back someone (Don't remember who) asked that we send them their record. Players can ask that we TG them any warnings, offical or non, that we have on file.

[Melkor Unchained]

To be fair, some people in the thread are talking about exactly that, and I've lost track a lot of who-said-what in the last 36 or 48 hours. If I got you mixed up with Fartsniffage or didn't see a post or three, I apologize, I've been talking mostly in the "public voting" vein right now and I think I got some wires crossed at the beginning.

Yeah, I never made that argument either.

Okay, I think I understand better now. I was quite literally on my way out the door for work earlier and missed some things: namely what specifically should occur in public versus private...

...but a lot of what's being complained about seems to us to be either already in effect or pointless/too much work to change or enforce. Players can appeal at any length they choose, whether it be a simple "I request a review, I totally wasn't flaming" or something more like TCT's marathon appeal from last month. They can contact us in private, something I've already noted is an excessive rarity.

Anyway, all the "fact finding" that third parties need to know should already be in the ruling (e.g. if someone is warned for a flame that looks weak on its face, the ruling mod might cite prior history or a recent offense, but if it's appealed we're not going to, say, publish IRC logs just because some people think we should: it would be exchanging one set of problems/headaches for another).

[NERVUN]

What's this about requesting warning history? I've never heard of that.

Well, I've heard about the concept before but I'm not sure if anyone ever has. I figure it'll be nice to see what one looks like.

Edit: It's just a TG. It might have been a bit more informative if I didn't have such a clean record, but the procedure in itself seems a bit... lacklustre.

How hard would it be to get the codemonkeys to code something into our profile pages?

Don't know, but like I said, chances of it happening with everything else they have on their plate is rather low right now, at least quickly.

Of course, I could be wrong and it could be a switch to flip. This line of thought however doesn't belong in Moderation, but in Technical so those who actually what know they are talking about (I.e. not me) can see and respond.

[Katganistan]

The feeling was that it is hard to conduct a meaningful argument when the point someone is trying to make ends up looking like "Because if you checked the news story I linked to, you'd see that you are wrong, you bloody idiot" (Not YOU, just an example . Max felt, and still feels, that in a board with open ended RPs and a General form that loves to talk politics, it's best when standing in pools of gas that you don't hand people lit matches and allow them to start juggling.

But is it really?

I mean, let's say someone calls me an idiot. In response I can (a) shrug it off and move on, so the argument is not disrupted; (b) respond with an insult of my own ("Who are you calling an idiot, you misbegotten pipsqueak?"), disrupting the argument and causing the thread to be derailed.

Hypothetically, when (b) occurs, the role of the moderators could be to remove the off-topic posts, issue warnings for derailment, and let the discussion continue. This would allow problematic flaming or trolling (i.e. that which actually has an impact on others) to be dealt with without having to resort to looking for "intent" -- which is subjective and therefore a major cause for complaints. I can't help seeing this method as simpler for all parties involved, really.

I guess I'm just trying to understand why the specific offenses are trolling and flaming instead of, say, subsets of thread hijacking (or, if a specific thread has no purpose but to stir shit, it could legitimately be considered spam). As I said, I'm not saying those offenses should be removed or changed at the moment, but I do note that they cause... 90% of the appeals and moderation issues, conservatively. At least that are publicly visible. (Dunno about GHRs.)

I'd (as in me) say that because they DO cause 90% of the problems. In a perfect world of course, no one would rise the bait, trolls would just echo in empty halls while the players ignored them, and no one would ever raise their 'voice'. Sadly, that is not the case and things tend to get out of hand fairly quickly. Even worse, they don't stay contained but tend to draw in people who weren't there in the original mud slinging.

That and we also have to have definitions that work across the forum as a whole.

[Vonners]

regarding email addys -

GMC Military Arms
Lunatic Goofballs
Jenrak
The Archregimancy

all don't have email addys listed on that page listing all the mods emails...

[The Archregimancy]

regarding email addys -

GMC Military Arms
Lunatic Goofballs
Jenrak
The Archregimancy

all don't have email addys listed on that page listing all the mods emails...

That would be because I don't have one.

Say..... you don't think the other mods are trying to tell me something, do you?