Discussion: change GA modding? (split from Q&A)

[Mallorea and Riva]

I'd like to ask a question: In what ways do you think the GA mods could improve things around here? I'm looking for constructive criticism and feedback.

[The Dark Star Republic]

Three months ago, you told me to submit a GHR, and you haven't responded since. If you're looking to improve things, how about responding to player queries, especially player queries submitted at your own behest?

[Euroslavia]

Three months ago, you told me to submit a GHR, and you haven't responded since. If you're looking to improve things, how about responding to player queries, especially player queries submitted at your own behest?

Absolutely valid point, our response time can be improved significantly.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Three months ago, you told me to submit a GHR, and you haven't responded since. If you're looking to improve things, how about responding to player queries, especially player queries submitted at your own behest?

Yup, that's definitely something we need to work on, no doubt about it. No excuse for that other than other things cropping up and it continually getting put on the backburner, which obviously isn't great for you the player.

[Railana]

I'd like to ask a question: In what ways do you think the GA mods could improve things around here? I'm looking for constructive criticism and feedback.

Heh. All right, I'll bite.

• Make all ruling deliberations public. This is simply a matter of transparency. I certainly want to see precisely what arguments were made in support of a ruling, as well as if there were any dissenting voices.
• Create a centralized repository of all rulings. Frankly, this would be as much for the mods' benefit as for ours.
• Consider amending or even completely rewriting the aging set of GA rules through player consultations. This is especially important in cases where certain avenues of legislation are seemingly arbitrarily prohibited, such as the no army rule.
• Clearly define under what circumstances the Discard feature can be used. A feature that was supposed to be reserved for egregious breaches of the rules should not have been used for a branding violation.
• Acknowledge your biases. You GA mods are a very conservative bunch; not politically, you understand, but in a gameplay sense. You're very fond of traditional World Assembly norms, such as strict constructionism in the interpretation of resolutions; the "no army" rule; and, of course, the oldest player-created resolution on the books. You don't want to see any of these things changed. Some players like myself, on the other hand, very much do want to change these things. Let's all publicly admit this and move on.
• Stop appointing new GA mods with little to no recent GA experience but who reinforce the biases of the existing GA mods. For instance, Mall, I don't think you and Mousebumples should have been appointed as mods. I think Glen-Rhodes or Gruenberg would have made better choices. Hell, I would have volunteered (though I recognize that that's extremely unlikely after the self-commendation debacle).
• Stop making contradictory and poorly substantiated rulings like this one. I realize you may not see them as problematic, but you should nonetheless be concerned that many players do.
• Stop punishing people for your mistakes. For instance, don't discard a resolution for following a ruling that you later decided to rescind.
• Stop participating in rant threads offsite. It's hard to believe you'll treat me and others fairly while mocking us semi-publicly. I'm looking at you, Mall, but also Ardchoille (a.k.a. artichokeville), Mousebumples, Flibbleites and the Most Glorious Hack (a.k.a. The Evil Smurfs).

[Mallorea and Riva]

I'd like to ask a question: In what ways do you think the GA mods could improve things around here? I'm looking for constructive criticism and feedback.

Heh. All right, I'll bite.

Make all ruling deliberations public. This is simply a matter of transparency. I certainly want to see precisely what arguments were made in support of a ruling, as well as if there were any dissenting voices.

The reason we always ask players to debate legality issues before coming to us is that we want to get player input before we make rulings, but when we make rulings we want them to be final and not turn into a spectator sport of screaming matches.We make them in private so that individual mods don't need to fear ridicule or harassment for their opinions before we wrangle out a final ruling.

Create a centralized repository of all rulings. Frankly, this would be as much for the mods' benefit as for ours.

This is definitely something that needs to be picked back up, agreed. It's unfortunate that Douria CTE.

Consider amending or even completely rewriting the aging set of GA rules through player consultations. This is especially important in cases where certain avenues of legislation are seemingly arbitrarily prohibited, such as the no army rule.

I'm open to people starting discussion threads on any area of the rules that they would like, particularly that one. I can't promise change but it's worth trying.

Clearly define under what circumstances the Discard feature can be used. A feature that was supposed to be reserved for egregious breaches of the rules should not have been used for a branding violation.

I'll try and get this clarified for us.

Acknowledge your biases. You GA mods are a very conservative bunch; not politically, you understand, but in a gameplay sense. You're very fond of traditional World Assembly norms, such as strict constructionism in the interpretation of resolutions; the "no army" rule; and, of course, the oldest player-created resolution on the books. You don't want to see any of these things changed. Some players like myself, on the other hand, very much do want to change these things. Let's all publicly admit this and move on.

I actually disagree with this in many senses. We call ourselves the hivemind but to assume that we are in lockstep in our opinions of certain things including the no army rule isn't accurate.

Stop appointing new GA mods with little to no recent GA experience but who reinforce the biases of the existing GA mods. For instance, Mall, I don't think you and Mousebumples should have been appointed as mods. I think Glen-Rhodes or Gruenberg would have made better choices. Hell, I would have volunteered (though I recognize that that's extremely unlikely after the self-commendation debacle).

As always you can feel free to submit nominations, and/or people who you think ought not become mods for whatever reasons.

Stop making contradictory and poorly substantiated rulings like this one. I realize you may not see them as problematic, but you should nonetheless be concerned that many players do.

I think a ruling repository will help solve issues such as any inconsistencies that may exist in the rules.

Stop punishing people for your mistakes. For instance, don't discard a resolution for following a ruling that you later decided to rescind.

I only vaguely recall the rulings in question, but once again a ruling repository should help fix inconsistencies and whatnot. Obviously we never want to make mistakes but strive to fix them when we do.

Stop participating in rant threads offsite. It's hard to believe you'll treat me and others fairly while mocking us semi-publicly. I'm looking at you, Mall, but also Ardchoille (a.k.a. artichokeville), Mousebumples, Flibbleites and the Most Glorious Hack (a.k.a. The Evil Smurfs).

I actually just had to check to make sure I still had an AO forum account since I haven't been on there since my old laptop died on me *shrugs*
Anyways if you feel anything inappropriate is occurring please feel free to submit a GHR on the matter and uninvolved mods and admin as needed will take a look. Thank you for the list!

[Sciongrad]

The reason we always ask players to debate legality issues before coming to us is that we want to get player input before we make rulings, but when we make rulings we want them to be final and not turn into a spectator sport of screaming matches.We make them in private so that individual mods don't need to fear ridicule or harassment for their opinions before we wrangle out a final ruling.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that rulings be made public spectacles. A lack of transparency is probably the largest complaint any player has against moderation because, aside from being frustrating in its own right, it allows other problems to continue. Inconsistent rulings, rulings that apparently make no sense, or arbitrary rulings could all either be prevented or more easily comprehended by players if the actual ruling discussions could be observed by the public. Until you guys provide some transparency, I don't think anyone will seriously believe that you're making any real effort to make the system more efficient and judicious.

And furthermore, it's a little insulting that your argument against transparency is that the reactions of players will be too unreliable. First of all, if you seriously think that knowing the names of the individual moderators in the discussion will turn us into a mob of foaming lunatics, then I don't think you understand what the problem is in the first place. Players are upset by rulings, and knowing that names of moderators will not elicit any more anger from the select dozen or so players that this reform will impact than if we hadn't known the names of the involved moderators. That seeing the process will somehow make us angrier than being given rulings with minimal to no justification by a nameless hivemind is terrifically uninformed.

This is definitely something that needs to be picked back up, agreed. It's unfortunate that Douria CTE.

Not really. The rulings repository did literally nothing to prevent stupid or inconsistent rulings when it was around. Unless it was run by moderators and the rulings process was made more transparent then it would just be an easy way for you to claim you're reform minded when really, nothing will have changed.

[Mallorea and Riva]

The reason we always ask players to debate legality issues before coming to us is that we want to get player input before we make rulings, but when we make rulings we want them to be final and not turn into a spectator sport of screaming matches.We make them in private so that individual mods don't need to fear ridicule or harassment for their opinions before we wrangle out a final ruling.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that rulings be made public spectacles. A lack of transparency is probably the largest complaint any player has against moderation because, aside from being frustrating in its own right, it allows other problems to continue. Inconsistent rulings, rulings that apparently make no sense, or arbitrary rulings could all either be prevented or more easily comprehended by players if the actual ruling discussions could be observed to the public. No one is suggesting that anyone but moderators be allowed to participate, but until you guys provide some transparency, I don't think anyone will seriously believe that you're making any real effort to make the system more efficient and judicious.

You ignore the segment of my quote dealing with protecting moderators from players. If you would like more detail to be given in actual rulings then that is something that I could see happening, such as publishing selected quotes from our discussions, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of opening it up entirely. Besides, if we did then there would be those who would claim that we were having backroom discussions anyways.

This is definitely something that needs to be picked back up, agreed. It's unfortunate that Douria CTE.

Not really. The rulings repository did literally nothing to prevent stupid or inconsistent rulings when it was around. Unless it was run by moderators and the rulings process was made more transparent, this is just an easy way for you to claim you're reform minded.

The repository was a work in progress up until Douria CTE if I remember correctly, and forgive me if I don't remember it right. I wouldn't be posting this to appease you lot, I'm legitimately interested in fixing some of the perceived problems that players have with GA moderation. If I didn't care then I wouldn't open myself up to this criticism.

[Sciongrad]

You ignore the segment of my quote dealing with protecting moderators from players. If you would like more detail to be given in actual rulings then that is something that I could see happening, such as publishing selected quotes from our discussions, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of opening it up entirely. Besides, if we did then there would be those who would claim that we were having backroom discussions anyways.

That was my fault, I posted my thoughts before actually finishing what I had in mind. I made an edit above before you posted, but here it is again:

And furthermore, it's a little insulting that your argument against transparency is that the reactions of players will be too unreliable. First of all, if you seriously think that knowing the names of the individual moderators in the discussion will turn us into a mob of foaming lunatics, then I don't think you understand what the problem is in the first place. Players are upset by rulings, and knowing that names of moderators will not elicit any more anger from the select dozen or so players that this reform will impact than if we hadn't known the names of the involved moderators. That seeing the process will somehow make us angrier than being given rulings with minimal to no justification by a nameless hivemind is terrifically uninformed.

I'll add this though: to suggest that there is any player who cares about this issue and at the same time is unaware of the lack of transparency that currently characterizes the rulings system doesn't make sense. Saying that some new group of players will be galvanized by more transparency isn't a real possibility, it's just a way to deflect having this discussion.

The repository was a work in progress up until Douria CTE if I remember correctly, and forgive me if I don't remember it right. I wouldn't be posting this to appease you lot, I'm legitimately interested in fixing some of the perceived problems that players have with GA moderation. If I didn't care then I wouldn't open myself up to this criticism.

My point was that it did nothing when it was around. The onus is on you, the moderators, to keep track of your rulings, not us. History has shown that a rulings repository without transparency won't accomplish anything, so if the moderators are truly interested in reform, then you guys will record your own rulings and apply them consistently.

[Mallorea and Riva]

You ignore the segment of my quote dealing with protecting moderators from players. If you would like more detail to be given in actual rulings then that is something that I could see happening, such as publishing selected quotes from our discussions, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of opening it up entirely. Besides, if we did then there would be those who would claim that we were having backroom discussions anyways.

That was my fault, I posted my thoughts before actually finishing what I had in mind. I made an edit above, but here it is again:

And furthermore, it's a little insulting that your argument against transparency is that the reactions of players will be too unreliable. First of all, if you seriously think that knowing the names of the individual moderators in the discussion will turn us into a mob of foaming lunatics, then I don't think you understand what the problem is in the first place. Players are upset by rulings, and knowing that names of moderators will not elicit any more anger from the select dozen or so players that this reform will impact than if we hadn't known the names of the involved moderators. That seeing the process will somehow make us angrier than being given rulings with minimal to no justification by a nameless hivemind is terrifically uninformed.

I'll add this though: to suggest that there is any player who cares about this issue and at the same time is unaware of the lack of transparency that currently characterizes the rulings system doesn't make sense. Saying that some new group of players will be galvanized by more transparency isn't a real possibility, it's just a way to deflect having this discussion.

If I didn't want to have the discussion I wouldn't be discussing it with you Scion. I think we're missing each other a bit here: I'm stating that there is a reason we keep things private: it's so that we don't have to be afraid that if we individually make a mistake that we'll get jumped all over. If we made every ruling public then suddenly we'd have that issue, it'd stifle our discussions. Since we post our finished and summarized thought process I'd rather players who think there are big old mistakes in rulings submit a GHR on the matter with evidence. Yeah I know we don't normally allow appeals of rulings due to their final nature, but if something is that glaringly obvious that you feel we missed something undeniably simple, then please do submit one. I can make an exception there.

The repository was a work in progress up until Douria CTE if I remember correctly, and forgive me if I don't remember it right. I wouldn't be posting this to appease you lot, I'm legitimately interested in fixing some of the perceived problems that players have with GA moderation. If I didn't care then I wouldn't open myself up to this criticism.

My point was that it did nothing when it was around. The onus is on you, the moderators, to keep track of your rulings, not us. History has shown that a rulings repository without transparency won't accomplish anything, so if the moderators are truly interested in reform, then you guys will record your own rulings and apply them consistently.

We relied on players to help us build it because it is such a mammoth task. Recording things going forward is easy, that we can do without assistance and I can certainly see to it that we do so. I'm planning on creating a list out of these suggestions and working through them.

[Sciongrad]

If I didn't want to have the discussion I wouldn't be discussing it with you Scion. I think we're missing each other a bit here: I'm stating that there is a reason we keep things private: it's so that we don't have to be afraid that if we individually make a mistake that we'll get jumped all over. If we made every ruling public then suddenly we'd have that issue, it'd stifle our discussions. Since we post our finished and summarized thought process I'd rather players who think there are big old mistakes in rulings submit a GHR on the matter with evidence. Yeah I know we don't normally allow appeals of rulings due to their final nature, but if something is that glaringly obvious that you feel we missed something undeniably simple, then please do submit one. I can make an exception there.

And my point is that fearing 16 or so players who are already very upset when moderators make inconsistent or arbitrary rulings is not reasonable. To justify a complete and total lack of transparency with "what if we get called out for making a mistake" only underscores how the current process engenders, or at the very least, enables, inconsistency. What we do know, however, is that posting three sentence rulings under an anonymous account, often without justification, will cause players to criticize you.

[The Dark Star Republic]

The rulings repository was a joke; the player who originally suggested the project dismissed what it had turned into as a "farce". If moderators aren't going to make use of it, there's no point having it.

Since we post our finished and summarized thought process I'd rather players who think there are big old mistakes in rulings submit a GHR on the matter with evidence.

Even if you ever actually responded to such GHRs, this would be a terrible way of doing things. We're complaining about a lack of transparency, and you're proposing an even less transparent method of resolving issues. Legality disputes should be resolved in the WA forum, like they always have been, where everyone can see them, not behind the closed door of a GHR where only moderators can see them.

[Mallorea and Riva]

The rulings repository was a joke; the player who originally suggested the project dismissed what it had turned into as a "farce". If moderators aren't going to make use of it, there's no point having it.

Which is an area I acknowledged that we needed to improve upon.

Since we post our finished and summarized thought process I'd rather players who think there are big old mistakes in rulings submit a GHR on the matter with evidence.

Even if you ever actually responded to such GHRs, this would be a terrible way of doing things. We're complaining about a lack of transparency, and you're proposing an even less transparent method of resolving issues. Legality disputes should be resolved in the WA forum, like they always have been, where everyone can see them, not behind the closed door of a GHR where only moderators can see them.

This is a separate issue entirely, you can submit the GHR to ensure that you get our attention and then the response would come in the thread. This is assuming that we don't notice what you say in the thread itself after our ruling of course.

If I didn't want to have the discussion I wouldn't be discussing it with you Scion. I think we're missing each other a bit here: I'm stating that there is a reason we keep things private: it's so that we don't have to be afraid that if we individually make a mistake that we'll get jumped all over. If we made every ruling public then suddenly we'd have that issue, it'd stifle our discussions. Since we post our finished and summarized thought process I'd rather players who think there are big old mistakes in rulings submit a GHR on the matter with evidence. Yeah I know we don't normally allow appeals of rulings due to their final nature, but if something is that glaringly obvious that you feel we missed something undeniably simple, then please do submit one. I can make an exception there.

And my point is that fearing 16 or so players who are already very upset when moderators make inconsistent or arbitrary rulings is not reasonable. To justify a complete and total lack of transparency with "what if we get called out for making a mistake" only underscores how the current process engenders, or at the very least, enables, inconsistency. What we do know, however, is that posting three sentence rulings under an anonymous account, often without justification, will cause players to criticize you.

There isn't a complete and total lack of transparency, that would be making rulings and not giving any reasoning at all. It would just be saying legal or not legal and then moving on. Again, however, your request for more information in rulings is noted and I'll take it up with the rest of the team.

[Sciongrad]

There isn't a complete and total lack of transparency, that would be making rulings and not giving any reasoning at all. It would just be saying legal or not legal and then moving on. Again, however, your request for more information in rulings is noted and I'll take it up with the rest of the team.

Forgive me, you're one rung above a complete and total lack of transparency. Now that you've corrected me on a point of semantics, I'll point out that more information in rulings is decidedly not what I'm asking for. That suggestion is your own, not mine or anyone else's. If you're seriously interested in hearing our suggestions, then you'll consider what is suggested to you, not what you want suggested to you.

[Mallorea and Riva]

There isn't a complete and total lack of transparency, that would be making rulings and not giving any reasoning at all. It would just be saying legal or not legal and then moving on. Again, however, your request for more information in rulings is noted and I'll take it up with the rest of the team.

Forgive me, you're one run above a complete and total lack of transparency. Now that you've corrected me on a point of semantics, I'll put it out that that more information in rulings is decidedly not what I'm asking for. That suggestion is your own, not mine or anyone else's. If you're seriously interested in hearing our suggestions, then you'll consider what is suggested to you, not what you want suggested to you.

Work with me here Scion. We aren't going to publish every post of our discussions to this forum, so I'm trying to find a middleground that would at least help solve the problem you're putting forward. I'm not looking to get into an argument with you, I'm looking to see what we can do to make the GA moderation better for the players. One thing we have discussed is being more active in GA threads themselves (which would include legality discussions). Would that help with the transparency issue?

[Railana]

We aren't going to publish every post of our discussions to this forum...

See, that's the problem. Why not? Why do you want to conceal your ruling discussions? What is in there that we shouldn't be allowed to see? We've made it clear that this is what we want, and you haven't yet provided a good answer as to why this shouldn't happen.

[The Dark Star Republic]

The rulings repository was a joke; the player who originally suggested the project dismissed what it had turned into as a "farce". If moderators aren't going to make use of it, there's no point having it.

Which is an area I acknowledged that we needed to improve upon.

The moderators made zero use of the previous archive. Not one single ruling was resolved thanks to it. Not one. So even if you "improved", that's no guarantee it wouldn't just go from completely useless to almost completely useless.

This is a distraction, just as it was last time: a way of making it seem like you're engaging in reform while doing everything possible to avoid being accountable.

This is a separate issue entirely, you can submit the GHR to ensure that you get our attention and then the response would come in the thread.

It's impossible to enter into a dialogue that way. It also makes no sense: if the response is going to be in the thread, why can't the query be posted there?

This is assuming that we don't notice what you say in the thread itself after our ruling of course.

Given the moderators don't appear to read the forum, that seems a pretty safe assumption.

[Sciongrad]

Forgive me, you're one run above a complete and total lack of transparency. Now that you've corrected me on a point of semantics, I'll put it out that that more information in rulings is decidedly not what I'm asking for. That suggestion is your own, not mine or anyone else's. If you're seriously interested in hearing our suggestions, then you'll consider what is suggested to you, not what you want suggested to you.

Work with me here Scion. We aren't going to publish every post of our discussions to this forum, so I'm trying to find a middleground that would at least help solve the problem you're putting forward. I'm not looking to get into an argument with you, I'm looking to see what we can do to make the GA moderation better for the players. One thing we have discussed is being more active in GA threads themselves (which would include legality discussions). Would that help with the transparency issue?

I'm sorry if I seem difficult to work with, that isn't my intention, but if you're seriously trying to make meaningful reform, making your rulings a couple sentences longer isn't going to cut it. Active moderator involvement on the forums certainly would be a step in the right direction, because frankly, the only moderator I've interacted with more than once in the last year or so has probably been Ardchoille. More interaction would perhaps bring the moderators out of their isolated sky tower. But in the long run, anything short of showing us how you guys reach your conclusions simply won't resolve the issue in its entirety. And in all candor, you haven't given us a real answer as to why going to that road is unworkable.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Which is an area I acknowledged that we needed to improve upon.

The moderators made zero use of the previous archive. Not one single ruling was resolved thanks to it. Not one. So even if you "improved", that's no guarantee it wouldn't just go from completely useless to almost completely useless.

This is a distraction, just as it was last time: a way of making it seem like you're engaging in reform while doing everything possible to avoid being accountable.

If you are going to assume that we have no intention of changing anything then please cease responding to this query as it is pointless.

This is a separate issue entirely, you can submit the GHR to ensure that you get our attention and then the response would come in the thread.

It's impossible to enter into a dialogue that way. It also makes no sense: if the response is going to be in the thread, why can't the query be posted there?

Because GHRs ping all of us GA mods now whereas posting in the thread will only ping whoever posted the ruling. But if you have your heart set on using the thread, by all means do so.

This is assuming that we don't notice what you say in the thread itself after our ruling of course.

Given the moderators don't appear to read the forum, that seems a pretty safe assumption.

Your assumption is incorrect.

Work with me here Scion. We aren't going to publish every post of our discussions to this forum, so I'm trying to find a middleground that would at least help solve the problem you're putting forward. I'm not looking to get into an argument with you, I'm looking to see what we can do to make the GA moderation better for the players. One thing we have discussed is being more active in GA threads themselves (which would include legality discussions). Would that help with the transparency issue?

I'm sorry if I seem difficult to work with, that isn't my intention, but if you're seriously trying to make meaningful reform, making your rulings a couple sentences longer isn't going to cut it. Active moderator involvement on the forums certainly would be a step in the right direction, because frankly, the only moderator I've interacted with more than once in the last year or so has probably been Ardchoille. More interaction would perhaps bring the moderators out of their isolated sky tower. But in the long run, anything short of showing us how you guys reach your conclusions simply won't resolve the issue in its entirety.

Then it's possible that it never will be resolved in its entirety, since even if we held the discussions in public there would still be the lingering doubt by some that we were having a distinct discussion in a non player area. But I am willing to try and work towards eliminating such suspicions and the issues which caused them.

[Euroslavia]

Which is an area I acknowledged that we needed to improve upon.

The moderators made zero use of the previous archive. Not one single ruling was resolved thanks to it. Not one. So even if you "improved", that's no guarantee it wouldn't just go from completely useless to almost completely useless.

This is a distraction, just as it was last time: a way of making it seem like you're engaging in reform while doing everything possible to avoid being accountable.

This is a separate issue entirely, you can submit the GHR to ensure that you get our attention and then the response would come in the thread.

It's impossible to enter into a dialogue that way. It also makes no sense: if the response is going to be in the thread, why can't the query be posted there?

This is assuming that we don't notice what you say in the thread itself after our ruling of course.

Given the moderators don't appear to read the forum, that seems a pretty safe assumption.

I'll be going through each of the rulings and will be contributing relevant information of rulings I can find in our forum (as well as this forum), to hopefully give some insight.

[Sciongrad]

Then it's possible that it never will be resolved in its entirety, since even if we held the discussions in public there would still be the lingering doubt by some that we were having a distinct discussion in a non player area. But I am willing to try and work towards eliminating such suspicions and the issues which caused them.

That's an assumption that isn't really grounded in reality. If there are critics around that are opposed to the very idea of moderators making rulings without direct player interaction, then I've never encountered one. The single largest issue that faces the GA is a lack of transparency, and making rulings discussions publicly observable would resolve the entire issue.

[Reploid Productions]

Then it's possible that it never will be resolved in its entirety, since even if we held the discussions in public there would still be the lingering doubt by some that we were having a distinct discussion in a non player area. But I am willing to try and work towards eliminating such suspicions and the issues which caused them.

That's an assumption that isn't really grounded in reality. If there are critics around that are opposed to the very idea of moderators making rulings without direct player interaction, then I've never encountered one. The single largest issue that faces the GA is a lack of transparency, and making rulings discussions publicly observable would resolve the entire issue.

Not gonna happen. That'd just lead to people trying to shop around and play disagreeing mods off one another. There's a very good reason certain moderation discussions take place out of the public view including proposal rulings, appeals, Delete-On-Sight votes, and so on. Input and advice out in public are one thing, putting the entire knock-down, drag-out, chair-smashing arguments that eventually lead to a ruling out in public is another entirely.


~Evil Forum Empress Rep Prod the Ninja Admin
~She who wields the Banhammer; master of the mighty moderation no-dachi Kiritateru Teikoku

[The Dark Star Republic]

If you are going to assume that we have no intention of changing anything then please cease responding to this query as it is pointless.

Not quite. I think what you are doing is setting the bar so incredibly low that you can then claim some completely miniscule changes represent genuine progress. This kind of pedantic weaseling, for example:

There isn't a complete and total lack of transparency, that would be making rulings and not giving any reasoning at all. It would just be saying legal or not legal and then moving on. Again, however, your request for more information in rulings is noted and I'll take it up with the rest of the team.

allows you to claim almost any moderator response as being better than a literal "complete and total lack of transparency".

Again with the suggestion of moderators posting more in the forum. Kryozerkia - who the Game Mod Olympic stats show is not only the most active GA moderator, but is more active than all of the other moderators put together - has not posted once in the WA forum this year. You yourself have barely been a presence until now. So of course it's easy for you to suggest posting more often. Because if in the next four months Kryozerkia makes one single post in this forum, she will indeed have posted more, and you can point out that you've indeed changed something.

Because GHRs ping all of us GA mods now whereas posting in the thread will only ping whoever posted the ruling. But if you have your heart set on using the thread, by all means do so.

You just said below that the moderators do indeed read the forum. Do they or don't they?

Given the moderators don't appear to read the forum, that seems a pretty safe assumption.

Your assumption is incorrect.

So, what, the moderator did read the forum - but decided to ignore it? If that's the case, then how is suggesting moderators being more involved on the forum going to change anything, if you're just going to ignore it anyway?

The single largest issue that faces the GA is a lack of transparency, and making rulings discussions publicly observable would resolve the entire issue.

Not gonna happen. That'd just lead to people trying to shop around and play disagreeing mods off one another. There's a very good reason certain moderation discussions take place out of the public view including proposal rulings, appeals, Delete-On-Sight votes, and so on. Input and advice out in public are one thing, putting the entire knock-down, drag-out, chair-smashing arguments that eventually lead to a ruling out in public is another entirely.

Bullshit. That never happened, ever, in the NSUN, or the early days of the WA. Besides, which mods would we "play off"? You're all pretty incompetent when it comes to the WA, lol.

There is exactly one reason why discussions happen in private: because the secret moderator forum exists. It didn't exist on Jolt, and there were far fewer legality disputes there.

Edit: ridiculous typo

[Railana]

Make all ruling deliberations public. This is simply a matter of transparency. I certainly want to see precisely what arguments were made in support of a ruling, as well as if there were any dissenting voices.

The reason we always ask players to debate legality issues before coming to us is that we want to get player input before we make rulings, but when we make rulings we want them to be final and not turn into a spectator sport of screaming matches.We make them in private so that individual mods don't need to fear ridicule or harassment for their opinions before we wrangle out a final ruling.

I don't see the connection between releasing a record of how a ruling came to be and rulings becoming a "spectator sport of screaming matches". People already dispute supposedly "final" rulings if they disagree with them, if that's what you're referring to. Furthermore, I don't see why mods should be permitted to conceal their individual opinions in the context of a ruling. For instance, in most courts, dissenting judges write opinions too.

Consider amending or even completely rewriting the aging set of GA rules through player consultations. This is especially important in cases where certain avenues of legislation are seemingly arbitrarily prohibited, such as the no army rule.

I'm open to people starting discussion threads on any area of the rules that they would like, particularly that one. I can't promise change but it's worth trying.

See, here's the thing. I already did, and I was told to repeal GAR #2 first before a change would be even considered. I tried repealing GAR #2, but the repeal (which had attained enough votes to pass) was thrown out on a technicality, using a feature that supposed to be reserved for egregious violations of the rules. Not really sure where to go from here, unfortunately, given that there appears to be an effort on the part of the mods to prevent these changes from happening.

Clearly define under what circumstances the Discard feature can be used. A feature that was supposed to be reserved for egregious breaches of the rules should not have been used for a branding violation.

I'll try and get this clarified for us.

Glad to hear it. I've been asking for this for a while, though - ever since the GAR #2 debacle, actually - so I'm not exactly holding my breath.

Acknowledge your biases. You GA mods are a very conservative bunch; not politically, you understand, but in a gameplay sense. You're very fond of traditional World Assembly norms, such as strict constructionism in the interpretation of resolutions; the "no army" rule; and, of course, the oldest player-created resolution on the books. You don't want to see any of these things changed. Some players like myself, on the other hand, very much do want to change these things. Let's all publicly admit this and move on.

I actually disagree with this in many senses. We call ourselves the hivemind but to assume that we are in lockstep in our opinions of certain things including the no army rule isn't accurate.

Great! Would individual GA mods mind sharing their views on these issues, then? They're not obligated to, of course, but it would certainly help allay my fears about bias.

Stop appointing new GA mods with little to no recent GA experience but who reinforce the biases of the existing GA mods. For instance, Mall, I don't think you and Mousebumples should have been appointed as mods. I think Glen-Rhodes or Gruenberg would have made better choices. Hell, I would have volunteered (though I recognize that that's extremely unlikely after the self-commendation debacle).

As always you can feel free to submit nominations, and/or people who you think ought not become mods for whatever reasons.

That's true, but I think the mods should have enough sense to realize that part of the point of bringing in new blood is to challenged established groupthink. The onus shouldn't be entirely on me to fix this.

Stop making contradictory and poorly substantiated rulings like this one. I realize you may not see them as problematic, but you should nonetheless be concerned that many players do.

I think a ruling repository will help solve issues such as any inconsistencies that may exist in the rules.

I don't think it'll really help at all, actually. For instance, I already made criticisms of the ruling I cited with reference to previous resolutions and the like, and nothing came of it.

Stop punishing people for your mistakes. For instance, don't discard a resolution for following a ruling that you later decided to rescind.

I only vaguely recall the rulings in question, but once again a ruling repository should help fix inconsistencies and whatnot. Obviously we never want to make mistakes but strive to fix them when we do.

You're not really addressing the issue here, which is the notion of punishing a player for a mod mistake.

[Railana]

Not gonna happen. That'd just lead to people trying to shop around and play disagreeing mods off one another. There's a very good reason certain moderation discussions take place out of the public view including proposal rulings, appeals, Delete-On-Sight votes, and so on. Input and advice out in public are one thing, putting the entire knock-down, drag-out, chair-smashing arguments that eventually lead to a ruling out in public is another entirely.

Bullshit. That never happened, ever, in the NSUN, or the early days of the WA. Besides, which mods would we "play off"? You're all pretty incompetent when it comes to the WA, lol.

There is exactly one reason why discussions happen in public: because the secret moderator forum exists. It didn't exist on Jolt, and there were far fewer legality disputes there.

If there's already precedent for public WA legality discussions, then that's another point in favour of the idea.