NationStates

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 3:00 pm**

The Emperor of the mighty Yellow Empire wrote:What i want to know is why the Forum rule can't be as simple as this

http://yellow-empire.freeforums.net/thr ... orum-rules

Because y'all don't have hundreds of thousands of players, and haven't been around for years. People have kept on finding new ways around rules, and dem mods have had to make more rules to fit those.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 3:01 pm**

The Emperor of the mighty Yellow Empire wrote:What i want to know is why the Forum rule can't be as simple as this

http://yellow-empire.freeforums.net/thr ... orum-rules

Because if trolling and flaming was allowed then NSGeneral and the like would turn into an almighty shitfest within very short order...

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 3:02 pm**

The New California Republic wrote:
The Emperor of the mighty Yellow Empire wrote:What i want to know is why the Forum rule can't be as simple as this

http://yellow-empire.freeforums.net/thr ... orum-rules

Because if trolling and flaming was allowed then NSGeneral and the like would turn into an almighty shitfest within very short order...

There'd be so many incidences of it, it'd turn into 4chan and Reddit mixed.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 3:49 pm**

I've had a generally good experience with the mods (with one exception that I will not go into here). I will say that my favourite mods are the "British" mods (OT, Sedge before he CTE'd, Archregimency - for who I have a particular soft spot- have I missed anyone?), mostly because it's nice to know that there's at least one mod who comes from my corner of the world.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:00 pm**

Thyerata wrote:I've had a generally good experience with the mods (with one exception that I will not go into here). I will say that my favourite mods are the "British" mods (OT, Sedge before he CTE'd, Archregimency - for who I have a particular soft spot- have I missed anyone?), mostly because it's nice to know that there's at least one mod who comes from my corner of the world.

I'd guess Crazy Girl was also British, but I'm not sure

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:06 pm**

Enfaru wrote:If you get warned for that Jebslund, it would prove the Ops point.

Final Appeals are not typically revealed (anywhere, a few minor exceptions) and nor are the full decisions or the evidence behind those decisions posted in the Mod forums of the second opinions. Yes I do expect citations of previous cases, the differences between the cases and the guidance that the Moderator has used. I demand no less of my own legal system for the exact same reason. Making sure that Moderators are acting consistently (comparison response given to similar events), proportionately (does the response fit the action) and appropriately (was the response necessary). As I have argued so far, although we disagree with one another, Moderation on Nationstates is on the excessive side and I believe that a contributor to that is the fact that there is little transparency.

With that being said others have suggested that perhaps stress and the lack of the number of mods active at any given time taking into account work load indicates that there may not be a 'policy' issue. By that I mean, the site is not inherently geared towards over moderation, but rather the stress and work load leads to mods tackling everything as fast as they can often at the cost of good judgement...hence over moderation. It's not particularly helpful when mods are purely voluntary (I have been lead to believe) and have other jobs and responsibilities off line reducing their ability to spend sufficient time on Nationstates. Therefore an adequate, but somewhat counter intuitive response to this thread could be to take on more Moderators and implement better standards for how mods deal with any given situation. After all, we should be able to expect the highest standards of behaviour from our mods at all times, no matter how pedantic things may be.

I would expect that Mods help everyone (and this is my experience) not just Newbies after all there are times when standards of behaviour go unnoticed for a period of time or such a situation may not come up for a significant length of time. Some mods disagree and believe if you've been here x amount of months/years you should be fully aware of the rules and give a full on warning, others a curt stare. I see the former as over moderating, often because the impact of the problem is minimal and the response unnecessary. Of course, this would be solved by the implementation of the suggestion above. Additionally having a codified set of policies would give much better guidance to Mods (as Mallorea and Riva points out a necessary example) as to what is and is not against the rules, this can only often be done by precedence and reasoning. Likewise it is of course logically stupid to expect all mods to agree, but after that discussion in my view, the full reasoning should be published, unfortunately it often isn't, nor is the dissenting opinion.

The New California Republic

I have to agree with you, I too have some some excellent reasoning behind some decisions, admittedly often without certain references to other similar decisions but ultimately a satisfactory explanation. There are 'some' processes that need to be kept secret. I do not feel the appeals process (including the final appeal through the GHR) is or should be one of them at any stage. Although I would not expect the staff to comment on police matters, merely that the complaint has been referred to the appropriate legal authorities.

As someone who has a law degree, meaning that I fully understand the importance of precedent, I should say that such a system would not work in Moderation because there are just too many cases to go through. Might work with the WA Secretariat, but that's because they have far fewer cases and they've been citing precedents from the very beginning. It's too late for Moderation to go the same way

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:15 pm**

Lord Dominator wrote:
Thyerata wrote:I've had a generally good experience with the mods (with one exception that I will not go into here). I will say that my favourite mods are the "British" mods (OT, Sedge before he CTE'd, Archregimency - for who I have a particular soft spot- have I missed anyone?), mostly because it's nice to know that there's at least one mod who comes from my corner of the world.

I'd guess Crazy Girl was also British, but I'm not sure

She is Dutch, I believe.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 4:35 pm**

*is still trying to figure out what I did with Batman* :blink:

About dissenting opinions: We've bandied this around from time to time and the main objection to it is Mod-shopping. We, as a team, don't want to get into that can of worms (I.e. So-and-so ALWAYS rules for me, so I want him/her to take a look). You get the Mod you get. Yes, we've considered stripping names and whatnot off, but since a lot of the dissent comes down to "I think this is" vs "I don't think" it wouldn't have a lot of value, especially since final appeals are that, final. You couldn't really cite it for anything so...

Ironically though, the GHR for finals is to increase transparency, not reduce it. There is simply no way for Mods to edit, delete, or else-wise attempt to monkey with a GHR vs the forum were there are a number of ways due to the forum software. Thus requesting the final to go that way means there are deliberate records that the request was received and what happened to it.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 5:06 pm**

NERVUN wrote:
The New California Republic wrote:Hm, I'd say 90%, maybe slightly less, as I have seen frequent Mod interventions even in F7 of all places...

Quite a bit less than that. Actually, TBH, the forums are a drop in the bucket of stuff we do gameside. That's where most of the work takes place.

Oh yeah, there's a game thing associated with these forums isn't there? I forgot about that :lol:

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 5:10 pm**

The Emperor of the mighty Yellow Empire wrote:What i want to know is why the Forum rule can't be as simple as this

http://yellow-empire.freeforums.net/thr ... orum-rules

Your forum literally has ten users and was created only a little over a month ago.

NationStates has existed since November 2002, the current incarnation of the forum dates back to 2009, and has had over one million accounts created on this incarnation. (Sure a lot of those might be puppets, CTE, DEATed, DOS, etc but even still).

Also 'over-regulated hellhole' buddy if you don't like the way these forums are ran you aren't obligated to use them.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 5:51 pm**

NERVUN wrote:*is still trying to figure out what I did with Batman*

About dissenting opinions: We've bandied this around from time to time and the main objection to it is Mod-shopping. We, as a team, don't want to get into that can of worms (I.e. So-and-so ALWAYS rules for me, so I want him/her to take a look). You get the Mod you get. Yes, we've considered stripping names and whatnot off, but since a lot of the dissent comes down to "I think this is" vs "I don't think" it wouldn't have a lot of value, especially since final appeals are that, final. You couldn't really cite it for anything so...

Ironically though, the GHR for finals is to increase transparency, not reduce it. There is simply no way for Mods to edit, delete, or else-wise attempt to monkey with a GHR vs the forum were there are a number of ways due to the forum software. Thus requesting the final to go that way means there are deliberate records that the request was received and what happened to it.

Perhaps to increase transparency, you could release the log of a final appeal of someone who has not played the game for a long while and likely will not again, with names redacted, so that people can get an idea of how much discussion takes place?

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 6:16 pm**

Over-moderate? Hardly. General could probably even use a firmer hand.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 7:37 pm**

In my early posting days I did have a lot of run-ins with mods but ever since, not really. I've been here for 10 years *cries* and I haven't had any major issues. It's not too hard to stay out of trouble. At least that has been my experience.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 8:17 pm**

Greater vakolicci haven wrote:
NERVUN wrote:*is still trying to figure out what I did with Batman*

About dissenting opinions: We've bandied this around from time to time and the main objection to it is Mod-shopping. We, as a team, don't want to get into that can of worms (I.e. So-and-so ALWAYS rules for me, so I want him/her to take a look). You get the Mod you get. Yes, we've considered stripping names and whatnot off, but since a lot of the dissent comes down to "I think this is" vs "I don't think" it wouldn't have a lot of value, especially since final appeals are that, final. You couldn't really cite it for anything so...

Ironically though, the GHR for finals is to increase transparency, not reduce it. There is simply no way for Mods to edit, delete, or else-wise attempt to monkey with a GHR vs the forum were there are a number of ways due to the forum software. Thus requesting the final to go that way means there are deliberate records that the request was received and what happened to it.

Perhaps to increase transparency, you could release the log of a final appeal of someone who has not played the game for a long while and likely will not again, with names redacted, so that people can get an idea of how much discussion takes place?

No two cases are alike. Sometimes we get an appeal from someone who posted something like porn. Not much discussion to be had. Sometimes it's something far more complex, like us deciding whether so-and-so's history under puppets x, y, and z seems to be linked to region M and their ongoing feud with region L which can be seen from this GHR back here... blah blah blah.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 8:38 pm**

Mallorea and Riva wrote:
Greater vakolicci haven wrote:Perhaps to increase transparency, you could release the log of a final appeal of someone who has not played the game for a long while and likely will not again, with names redacted, so that people can get an idea of how much discussion takes place?

No two cases are alike. Sometimes we get an appeal from someone who posted something like porn. Not much discussion to be had. Sometimes it's something far more complex, like us deciding whether so-and-so's history under puppets x, y, and z seems to be linked to region M and their ongoing feud with region L which can be seen from this GHR back here... blah blah blah.

Or sometimes it's a totally simple-minded issue like "Is this nation name allowed?", but it drags on for days and we have to wait for 15 different mods to give their $0.02 because the team doesn't agree.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 10:20 pm**

The Emperor of the mighty Yellow Empire wrote:What i want to know is why the Forum rule can't be as simple as this

http://yellow-empire.freeforums.net/thr ... orum-rules

Because, and I say that having been a mod on several sites, a rules list that short on a popular site *will*, at some point, invite people who will whinge and whine because they did something that doesn't neatly fit into those rules, or will argue subjectivity ad infinitum, or will otherwise find ways to do what they want without regard for petty concepts as "order" or "other players' enjoyment of the site", and you eventually get 4chan. If you're lucky, you get [one of the better boards]. If not, you get /b/. Without the "best buds" part of the vitriolic best? buds/frenemies dynamic. It hasn't happened with your site because your site (apologies to your ego) isn't big or popular, but, assuming it doesn't peter out like most such boards do, it will. You already had to go from it being rules-free to needing rules, if that Ex Post Facto clause is any indication, and it'll only get worse.

The thing you and others like you often fail to grasp is that rules are typically not made just for the sake of making rules, and administrators who already have full plates are not going to add to their workload unnecessarily just to tick you off or be spoilsports. The rules are extensive because they *need* to be. 9 times out of 10, when you see a rule, it's because someone, somewhere, tried it, and the thing being banned was detrimental to the site, either by a single instance creating a shitstorm, or by the Monkey See Monkey Do effect where one person getting away with it results in more people doing it, making what was a small issue into a huge mess.

Posted: **Tue Aug 28, 2018 11:55 pm**

Ooh.. Mod feedback..

How has your experiences been like with the moderators of nationstates?

I mean.. by default my only experience with Mods is when I'm cited for trouble so technically it's skewed.. there isn't a 'Praiserater Forum' where you can report posters for awesome posts and receive a commendation from the Mods - god I'd be a daily feature on that - so any experience is on the edge of a warning. I think I've only disputed one warning received, and not overly vehemently at that.

Somehow I think I've picked up 2 official warnings and an unofficial this year alone, which I find remarkable as I don't see myself as a troublemaker but just goes to show..

Have you had bad experiences with the moderators?

I once received an initial 10 day ban for something entirely innocuous that was later reduced after a large brouhaha.. I wasn't particularly bothered but a lot of other people were on my behalf. Even so I wouldn't call it a bad experience per se, more a typical misunderstanding of intent.

Do you know anyone else that has?

I'm sure plenty of people are outraged at the Mods on a daily basis.. experience is kind of subjective in this regard.

Have you had good experiences?

Generally liked all the Mods, my favourite was Ardchoille but I quite like the current crop as well - I think I've only ever had TG communications with two on specific individual instances so only experience is when they post on NSG.

Do you know someone that has had the same?

As what.. my experience with the Mods.. no idea, but reading through the posts seems everyone's kind of fine with everything.

Feel free to post your thoughts and opinions.

*takes out cane and sits down in rocking chair* see son, in my day Mods were a lot harsher than the moddlecoddling crop we have now.. 'grow a thicker skin' was a common refrain. Personally I feel people run off to Moderation at the slightest slight.. I especially see this cycle of people who are pretty abrasive themselves constantly reporting perceived abrasive behaviour. Seems you see the same people reporting back and forth these days - I speak mostly of NSG here since that's where I essentially reside. Yet the cycle seems to be..

Be abrasive. Be warned. Be Upset. Report everything to justify your sense of persecution. Continue being abrasive. Get banned. Repeat and rinse until eventual DEAT.

..and I in part blame Megathreads where particular groups engage and personal enmity arises but then I hate Megathreads and all they stand for.. except MAGAthread because Trump is an ongoing real life soap opera - a sort of Truman Show gone real bad.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 4:02 am**

Mallorea and Riva wrote:
Greater vakolicci haven wrote:Perhaps to increase transparency, you could release the log of a final appeal of someone who has not played the game for a long while and likely will not again, with names redacted, so that people can get an idea of how much discussion takes place?

No two cases are alike. Sometimes we get an appeal from someone who posted something like porn. Not much discussion to be had. Sometimes it's something far more complex, like us deciding whether so-and-so's history under puppets x, y, and z seems to be linked to region M and their ongoing feud with region L which can be seen from this GHR back here... blah blah blah.

It'd be nice if players could receive their own discussions though. Aside from a 'your sig is too long' I've not had any run-ins with the mods in 3 and a half years (How? How have I managed that one? I don't know), but I'd still be interested to know what was said about me.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 6:18 am**

Twilight Imperium wrote:
The Emperor of the mighty Yellow Empire wrote:What i want to know is why the Forum rule can't be as simple as this

http://yellow-empire.freeforums.net/thr ... orum-rules

Because people actually post on this forum.

Uh huh, then why has the Star wars thread been dead since 2011?
Along with every other subject i come across.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 6:26 am**

Rost Dreadnorramus wrote:
Twilight Imperium wrote:
Because people actually post on this forum.

Uh huh, then why has the Star wars thread been dead since 2011?
Along with every other subject i come across.

Yup, every thread I see on the forums is dead(!) :roll:

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 7:19 am**

Rost Dreadnorramus wrote:
Twilight Imperium wrote:
Because people actually post on this forum.

Uh huh, then why has the Star wars thread been dead since 2011?
Along with every other subject i come across.

Because you are cherrypicking subjects to "come across" in a remarkably half-assed attempt to "prove" that your e-peen forum is bigger and more popular.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 7:21 am**

Rost Dreadnorramus wrote:
Twilight Imperium wrote:
Because people actually post on this forum.

Uh huh, then why has the Star wars thread been dead since 2011?
Along with every other subject i come across.

Really? How odd, it only took me a couple minutes to find this Star Wars thread. Maybe you weren't looking hard enough?
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=431699

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 7:23 am**

Moderators are allegedly humans. They do the best they can, sometimes they make mistakes, and they have biases, then again, who doesn't? But by and large they make a conscious effort to Get it right. I for one, appreciate the effort and much prefer a moderated site to an unmoderated one.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 7:45 am**

Ethel mermania wrote:Moderators are allegedly humans. They do the best they can, sometimes they make mistakes, and they have biases, then again, who doesn't? But by and large they make a conscious effort to Get it right. I for one, appreciate the effort and much prefer a moderated site to an unmoderated one.

And also because it's more or less a fact that unmoderated ones will quickly go downhill. Take YouTube, for example... sure, meaningful and intelligent debate and dicsussion can happen there, but a good 90% of the comments are the ones that will get you bans and DEATs here. And tons of spam - from gibberish and random comments from literal kids (prevalent in those "kid-friendly" videos and channels), to adbots everywhere.

Do Mods overmoderate? Well, a little, but I'm not complaining. The internet out there is already more or less (not all, but most) screwed up with heinous comments, so it's good to know that you can discuss your ideas and have a good debate with users here because everyone is keeping in mind of the consequences of breaking the OSRS' rules.

Posted: **Wed Aug 29, 2018 8:00 am**

Ethel mermania wrote:Moderators are allegedly humans. They do the best they can, sometimes they make mistakes, and they have biases, then again, who doesn't? But by and large they make a conscious effort to Get it right. I for one, appreciate the effort and much prefer a moderated site to an unmoderated one.

I'm waiting for the first AI moderator to come into being...

NationStates

Do moderators over moderate?