[Discussion/Announcement] NSG's "Wing" Megathreads

[The Archregimancy]

A while ago, there was a general organised conference set up to address problems in r/d gameplay, from a technical standpoint, and some recommendations (some of which actually got implemented!) were brought forward from that. Perhaps a similar organised conference, regarding addressing issues that sections of the community have with moderators could be set up? It'd be a good way to make sure that the dialogue was more about suggestions than sniping (I admit I've been guilty of the latter though.)

Good suggestion, given that there are WDT regulars that genuinely feel isolated from the modding process.

I'm literally going to bed right now (in fact am in bed as I type), but I'll try and remember (no promises; it's late here in Cairo) to follow up with a couple of points on this tomorrow.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

Good suggestion, given that there are WDT regulars that genuinely feel isolated from the modding process.

I'm literally going to bed right now (in fact am in bed as I type), but I'll try and remember (no promises; it's late here in Cairo) to follow up with a couple of points on this tomorrow.

I'll remind you

[Valentine Z]

Violations of the PG-13 rule.

There's this thing though. If the decision's true purpose is to flush out problem posters, they could be more upfront about it. Put a list of banned topics to discuss for a certain length of time and then allow them again after that, maybe.

A little bit more regarding the F7 C/CLT ban. So... back in those days of 2016, there were quite a handful of C/CLT threads being started, with the only difference being that they are ICly, not OOCly. In other words, they are for Roleplaying. Unfortunately, it went into a spammy territory, and violating the PG-13 rule (even in Ram's Head Saloon, you will still find it now and then, but it's a bit more controlled). As you (Diarcesia) said, I think it would have been good if we are to address the needed issues (like problematic spammers or porn/gore/ERPs) instead of shutting the whole thing down, like with C/CLTs for F7. It's personally a bummer for me, but in all honesty, we can either be in Ram's HS, or open our own RPs with a set of fleshed out OPs and rules (instead of thinly-veiling a C/C as a RP, which I have no intentions of doing).

The 7-day purge of even the good F7 threads is another thing, but that can be solved by Archives and I am straying off too far; this is regarding NSG's threads, not F7.

I personally would sit on the fence and rather not talk too much about this, given my lack of involvement for personal reasons. Reading and glimpsing through the entire thread, I can sympathise the loss of LWDT/RWDT, but at the same time, I understand that Moderation is doing their best to rectify that, or come to a common consensus, despite the sniping from either side, if I dare say so.

I would have kept my mouth shut due to lack of aforementioned experience, but I figured I would give my 2 cents on this matter.

[Questarian New Yorkshire]

This may be hard to believe, but I'm trying to find actual productive solutions instead of making tribalistic snipes because I genuinely want to see this forum improve.

There is not some secret list of things mods can use to "fix" NS or make "admin better". The culture of administration needs to change - and then the forum will improve massively.

The problem with NS is that almost one third of the forum lives right under the borderline of making literally every post a flamebait and they're allowed to proceed because the NS mods juts enact rules ad-hoc without reference to context or a mission statement. There's nowhere a statement that says what the administration's vision for the forum is. What they need is a central vision and then they would have to simply sit on people whose posting habits do harm to the vision. There'd be no need to rules lawyering or even transparency - mods can just point to a player and say you're being disruptive to the mission statement, you're done.

I'd probably get DOSd probably — c'est la guerre. But so would a bunch of other people or types of people who have done irreparable damage to the forum's intellectual capacity. It would be for the greater good.

[Luziyca]

Thank you.

A strong disagreement need not obviate the possibility of constructive dialogue moving forward.

I can't speak for the rest of the team, but I read every post in this thread. Some of the suggestions are more realistic than others, but I am taking note of some of the ideas that I think have value.

That's obviously not in any way a promise of action; but I am paying attention.

A while ago, there was a general organised conference set up to address problems in r/d gameplay, from a technical standpoint, and some recommendations (some of which actually got implemented!) were brought forward from that. Perhaps a similar organised conference, regarding addressing issues that sections of the community have with moderators could be set up? It'd be a good way to make sure that the dialogue was more about suggestions than sniping (I admit I've been guilty of the latter though.)

This would actually be a great idea.

[Outer Sparta]

There's this thing though. If the decision's true purpose is to flush out problem posters, they could be more upfront about it. Put a list of banned topics to discuss for a certain length of time and then allow them again after that, maybe.

A little bit more regarding the F7 C/CLT ban. So... back in those days of 2016, there were quite a handful of C/CLT threads being started, with the only difference being that they are ICly, not OOCly. In other words, they are for Roleplaying. Unfortunately, it went into a spammy territory, and violating the PG-13 rule (even in Ram's Head Saloon, you will still find it now and then, but it's a bit more controlled). As you (Diarcesia) said, I think it would have been good if we are to address the needed issues (like problematic spammers or porn/gore/ERPs) instead of shutting the whole thing down, like with C/CLTs for F7. It's personally a bummer for me, but in all honesty, we can either be in Ram's HS, or open our own RPs with a set of fleshed out OPs and rules (instead of thinly-veiling a C/C as a RP, which I have no intentions of doing).

The 7-day purge of even the good F7 threads is another thing, but that can be solved by Archives and I am straying off too far; this is regarding NSG's threads, not F7.

I personally would sit on the fence and rather not talk too much about this, given my lack of involvement for personal reasons. Reading and glimpsing through the entire thread, I can sympathise the loss of LWDT/RWDT, but at the same time, I understand that Moderation is doing their best to rectify that, or come to a common consensus, despite the sniping from either side, if I dare say so.

I would have kept my mouth shut due to lack of aforementioned experience, but I figured I would give my 2 cents on this matter.

If Forum 7's such threads couldn't be self-policed by users, then how can NSG ever do that with their megathreads?

[Luziyca]

A little bit more regarding the F7 C/CLT ban. So... back in those days of 2016, there were quite a handful of C/CLT threads being started, with the only difference being that they are ICly, not OOCly. In other words, they are for Roleplaying. Unfortunately, it went into a spammy territory, and violating the PG-13 rule (even in Ram's Head Saloon, you will still find it now and then, but it's a bit more controlled). As you (Diarcesia) said, I think it would have been good if we are to address the needed issues (like problematic spammers or porn/gore/ERPs) instead of shutting the whole thing down, like with C/CLTs for F7. It's personally a bummer for me, but in all honesty, we can either be in Ram's HS, or open our own RPs with a set of fleshed out OPs and rules (instead of thinly-veiling a C/C as a RP, which I have no intentions of doing).

The 7-day purge of even the good F7 threads is another thing, but that can be solved by Archives and I am straying off too far; this is regarding NSG's threads, not F7.

I personally would sit on the fence and rather not talk too much about this, given my lack of involvement for personal reasons. Reading and glimpsing through the entire thread, I can sympathise the loss of LWDT/RWDT, but at the same time, I understand that Moderation is doing their best to rectify that, or come to a common consensus, despite the sniping from either side, if I dare say so.

I would have kept my mouth shut due to lack of aforementioned experience, but I figured I would give my 2 cents on this matter.

If Forum 7's such threads couldn't be self-policed by users, then how can NSG ever do that with their megathreads?

Exactly.

[Cekoviu]

This may be hard to believe, but I'm trying to find actual productive solutions instead of making tribalistic snipes because I genuinely want to see this forum improve.

There is not some secret list of things mods can use to "fix" NS or make "admin better". The culture of administration needs to change - and then the forum will improve massively.

The problem with NS is that almost one third of the forum lives right under the borderline of making literally every post a flamebait and they're allowed to proceed because the NS mods juts enact rules ad-hoc without reference to context or a mission statement. There's nowhere a statement that says what the administration's vision for the forum is. What they need is a central vision and then they would have to simply sit on people whose posting habits do harm to the vision. There'd be no need to rules lawyering or even transparency - mods can just point to a player and say you're being disruptive to the mission statement, you're done.

I'd probably get DOSd probably — c'est la guerre. But so would a bunch of other people or types of people who have done irreparable damage to the forum's intellectual capacity. It would be for the greater good.

You'll note that throughout this thread, I have discussed issues with moderation's internal culture as well as external material changes that can be made to improve the operation of the forum and mod-community relations. If "there is a secret list of things mods can use to 'fix' NS or make 'admin better'" is what you got out of what I've been saying in this thread, you haven't been paying enough attention.

Plus, culture doesn't just change unprompted - cultural changes are downstream from material changes the majority of the time. The technological process for handling reports and warnings and the specific content of the OSRS are very important substrates for moderator actions and alterations to these cause cascading material effects within the system that will ultimately help foster the kind of cultural changes we (I) would like to see.

I also disagree that transparency should be avoided and there should be some sort of "central vision." A key component in healthy relationships, including user-mod relationships on Austrian book site, is trust - the system you are advocating throws any and all trust that users might still place in moderation completely out the window. This sort of policy will breed even more dysfunction and sow more discontent. Additionally, it ultimately fails to address the root of the problem with particular users' behavior; rather than attempting to consider the systems that might've generated such a thing and what kind of policies might help improve it in the future, you've elected to haphazardly board over the issue and proudly declare "there, it's fixed!" It's intellectually lazy and I'd expect better from you.

[Katganistan]

How do mods enforce a DOS? Can't people just go on a different device?

They read people's minds to tell if they're DOS, and if they're DOS the mods send in a drone strike.

Crap. They know.

[SD_Film Artists]

Thank you.

A strong disagreement need not obviate the possibility of constructive dialogue moving forward.

I can't speak for the rest of the team, but I read every post in this thread. Some of the suggestions are more realistic than others, but I am taking note of some of the ideas that I think have value.

That's obviously not in any way a promise of action; but I am paying attention.

A while ago, there was a general organised conference set up to address problems in r/d gameplay, from a technical standpoint, and some recommendations (some of which actually got implemented!) were brought forward from that. Perhaps a similar organised conference, regarding addressing issues that sections of the community have with moderators could be set up? It'd be a good way to make sure that the dialogue was more about suggestions than sniping (I admit I've been guilty of the latter though.)

On the whole I don't have a problem with the mods; they're one of the things which stops NSG from turning into infantile flamewars. I just don't see why the Wing threads were deleted as it seems like it's following the word of the rules but not the spirit of them. Who exactly is it serving? As a (mostly) non-WDT poster I never felt that they're a blight on the forums, and the people who are active in them evidently like coming back to them so is there any victim?

[Vistulange]

This may be hard to believe, but I'm trying to find actual productive solutions instead of making tribalistic snipes because I genuinely want to see this forum improve.

There is not some secret list of things mods can use to "fix" NS or make "admin better". The culture of administration needs to change - and then the forum will improve massively.

The problem with NS is that almost one third of the forum lives right under the borderline of making literally every post a flamebait and they're allowed to proceed because the NS mods juts enact rules ad-hoc without reference to context or a mission statement. There's nowhere a statement that says what the administration's vision for the forum is. What they need is a central vision and then they would have to simply sit on people whose posting habits do harm to the vision. There'd be no need to rules lawyering or even transparency - mods can just point to a player and say you're being disruptive to the mission statement, you're done.

I'd probably get DOSd probably — c'est la guerre. But so would a bunch of other people or types of people who have done irreparable damage to the forum's intellectual capacity. It would be for the greater good.

I have issues with moderation myself, but you're making it seem like there's some sort of conspiracy by the moderation team to fuck us all over. Seriously, your entire approach in this thread has been one of hostility, and more comically, directed at Archregimancy who is probably the most level-headed, trustworthy, and overall respectable moderator on the site (personal opinion, yes, but I doubt I'd be alone in it).

There might be a problem with your approach, as opposed to what you're saying. Just sayin'.

[New haven america]

This is what puzzles me about the decision: they could have avoided most of the trouble by locking the threads for a bit (a few hours? a day? whatever would let people get the message.) with a warning like "We think this is getting too chatty and off-topic. The topic is left/right wing politics. Talk about that, or risk getting this thread locked."

There would be some angry reaction to that, but most people would get the idea. We'd still be having a dicussion, but it would be a different one, a calmer one, with fewer people feeling they'd been shat on again by another capricious, unprovoked decision.

Kyrusia did say something similar several weeks ago, tacked onto the end of the mass threadjacking warnings that were dealt out following one of Questers's bans. I can personally attest from offsite conversations that the RWDT regulars (and some external users) did not take that threat seriously because we didn't think they would do something that dumb, knowing the massive amount of backlash that would obviously ensue. So I'm not sure that this tactic is really as airtight as you think it is.

Ce, this is doing nothing to help your case.

"They warned us several times but we decided to ignore them and now they're being dumb by punishing us" doesn't paint the best picture of the situation or help give you favor. Like, I don't agree with their ruling either but is this supposed to help?

[Cekoviu]

Kyrusia did say something similar several weeks ago, tacked onto the end of the mass threadjacking warnings that were dealt out following one of Questers's bans. I can personally attest from offsite conversations that the RWDT regulars (and some external users) did not take that threat seriously because we didn't think they would do something that dumb, knowing the massive amount of backlash that would obviously ensue. So I'm not sure that this tactic is really as airtight as you think it is.

Ce, this is doing nothing to help your case.

"They warned us several times but we decided to ignore them and now they're being dumb by punishing us" doesn't paint the best picture of the situation or help give you favor. Like, I don't agree with their ruling either but is this supposed to help?

It's not their fault that warnings went unheeded, though perhaps the escalation should have been more gradual so you would know how "stupid" the mods were.

"They warned us but we ignored them" is a very weak argument for your favor.

It's not supposed to be an argument in our favor. It's a commentary on the issue with using that particular strategy as a means of controlling behavior with this particular set of users. This may be hard to believe, but I'm trying to find actual productive solutions instead of making tribalistic snipes because I genuinely want to see this forum improve.

pleez reed better thx

[New haven america]

Ce, this is doing nothing to help your case.

"They warned us several times but we decided to ignore them and now they're being dumb by punishing us" doesn't paint the best picture of the situation or help give you favor. Like, I don't agree with their ruling either but is this supposed to help?

It's not supposed to be an argument in our favor. It's a commentary on the issue with using that particular strategy as a means of controlling behavior with this particular set of users. This may be hard to believe, but I'm trying to find actual productive solutions instead of making tribalistic snipes because I genuinely want to see this forum improve.

pleez reed better thx

You want to see this forum improve by letting you get away with shit that you've been warned not to do several times.

pleez logic better thx

[Esternial]

pleez reed better thx

pleez logic better thx

Please. Don't. My eyes can only handle so much intentionally badly spelled snark.

[Diarcesia]

Kyrusia did say something similar several weeks ago, tacked onto the end of the mass threadjacking warnings that were dealt out following one of Questers's bans. I can personally attest from offsite conversations that the RWDT regulars (and some external users) did not take that threat seriously because we didn't think they would do something that dumb, knowing the massive amount of backlash that would obviously ensue. So I'm not sure that this tactic is really as airtight as you think it is.

Ce, this is doing nothing to help your case.

"They warned us several times but we decided to ignore them and now they're being dumb by punishing us" doesn't paint the best picture of the situation or help give you favor. Like, I don't agree with their ruling either but is this supposed to help?

Never go against Kyrusia when DEAT is on the line.

[Questarian New Yorkshire]

I have issues with moderation myself, but you're making it seem like there's some sort of conspiracy by the moderation team to fuck us all over. Seriously, your entire approach in this thread has been one of hostility, and more comically, directed at Archregimancy who is probably the most level-headed, trustworthy, and overall respectable moderator on the site (personal opinion, yes, but I doubt I'd be alone in it).

There might be a problem with your approach, as opposed to what you're saying. Just sayin'.

No I never said there's a conspiracy to screw everyone. I said they're collectively lying about the reasons for closing the LWDT. And I still believe they are.

The hostility thing is classic. Forsher made a lot of hidden jabs at RWDT posters which I pointed out and as a result I was given a one day ban. Now I'm the one who has a "hostile approach" — do you think you'll be warned for trolling me? Do you think you're trolling me?

I'm saying things how I see they are. I'm not going to change my approach. This isn't a negotiation. NS mods do not negotiate with terrorists. We have heard this line many many years from all eras of moderation. This is an environment where a thing happens and we're allowed to respond to it. This is my response. I think Arch is lying to us. I think that he is the one lying to us because he is the most trustworthy moderator. He isn't a child and he can face a person saying "I don't think you're telling the truth" to him so I think this situation is fine.

[Cekoviu]

pleez reed better thx

You want to see this forum improve by letting you get away with shit that you've been warned not to do several times.

pleez logic better thx

wow, you've made some bizarre non-sequiturs before, but this is one of the most bizarrest ones i've seen yet

[Kanaia]

Thank you.

A strong disagreement need not obviate the possibility of constructive dialogue moving forward.

I can't speak for the rest of the team, but I read every post in this thread. Some of the suggestions are more realistic than others, but I am taking note of some of the ideas that I think have value.

That's obviously not in any way a promise of action; but I am paying attention.

A while ago, there was a general organised conference set up to address problems in r/d gameplay, from a technical standpoint, and some recommendations (some of which actually got implemented!) were brought forward from that. Perhaps a similar organised conference, regarding addressing issues that sections of the community have with moderators could be set up? It'd be a good way to make sure that the dialogue was more about suggestions than sniping (I admit I've been guilty of the latter though.)

The R/D summit is not a shining example of Mods listening to Users. The summit was in response to the heavy imbalance in R/D giving advantage to raiders over defenders. The summit went on for an extended period of time. The Mods then cherry picked a few suggestions, most having no real effect on balance, and then had more discussion on them. Then they implemented a select few of those, with all of them giving further advantage to raiders despite defender objection. Literally the opposite of what the conference was about.

Go ahead and have your Mega-Wing Conference. But, don't be surprised if the Mods let you talk yourselves to sleep for a few months, pretend like they're listening and willing to implement changes, and then do the opposite of the original goal and blame it on you for the ideas "originating" it in the summit.

[New haven america]

You want to see this forum improve by letting you get away with shit that you've been warned not to do several times.

pleez logic better thx

wow, you've made some bizarre non-sequiturs before, but this is one of the most bizarrest ones i've seen yet

Considering you're the only one here who's apparently having trouble with what I'm saying, it ain't my fault you don't get my point.

[Esternial]

I have issues with moderation myself, but you're making it seem like there's some sort of conspiracy by the moderation team to fuck us all over. Seriously, your entire approach in this thread has been one of hostility, and more comically, directed at Archregimancy who is probably the most level-headed, trustworthy, and overall respectable moderator on the site (personal opinion, yes, but I doubt I'd be alone in it).

There might be a problem with your approach, as opposed to what you're saying. Just sayin'.

No I never said there's a conspiracy to screw everyone. I said they're collectively lying about the reasons for closing the LWDT. And I still believe they are.

The hostility thing is classic. Forsher made a lot of hidden jabs at RWDT posters which I pointed out and as a result I was given a one day ban. Now I'm the one who has a "hostile approach" — do you think you'll be warned for trolling me? Do you think you're trolling me?

I'm saying things how I see they are. I'm not going to change my approach. This isn't a negotiation. NS mods do not negotiate with terrorists. We have heard this line many many years from all eras of moderation. This is an environment where a thing happens and we're allowed to respond to it. This is my response. I think Arch is lying to us. I think that he is the one lying to us [b]because[/b ]he is the most trustworthy moderator. He isn't a child and he can face a person saying "I don't think you're telling the truth" to him so I think this situation is fine.

EDIT: Removed this part - I have no idea what I was getting at here, sorry.

Referring to anyone on this forum as "terrorist" is needlessly hyperbolic. I'm also not going to make any insights into Moderation's collective hivemind because I wouldn't have a clue.

I'm not really seeing what you're trying to get at, aside from trying to really emphasize the "us vs. them" narrative, followed by complaints that it's "us vs. them". Correct me if I'm wrong here.

[Joohan]

wow, you've made some bizarre non-sequiturs before, but this is one of the most bizarrest ones i've seen yet

Considering you're the only one here who's apparently having trouble with what I'm saying, it ain't my fault you don't get my point.

What exactly have WDT's been getting away with?

[Luziyca]

A while ago, there was a general organised conference set up to address problems in r/d gameplay, from a technical standpoint, and some recommendations (some of which actually got implemented!) were brought forward from that. Perhaps a similar organised conference, regarding addressing issues that sections of the community have with moderators could be set up? It'd be a good way to make sure that the dialogue was more about suggestions than sniping (I admit I've been guilty of the latter though.)

The R/D summit is not a shining example of Mods listening to Users. The summit was in response to the heavy imbalance in R/D giving advantage to raiders over defenders. The summit went on for an extended period of time. The Mods then cherry picked a few suggestions, most having no real effect on balance, and then had more discussion on them. Then they implemented a select few of those, with all of them giving further advantage to raiders despite defender objection. Literally the opposite of what the conference was about.

Go ahead and have your Mega-Wing Conference. But, don't be surprised if the Mods let you talk yourselves to sleep for a few months, pretend like they're listening and willing to implement changes, and then do the opposite of the original goal and blame it on you for the ideas "originating" it in the summit.

Because most of the ideas proposed at the R/D Conference would have been too difficult for the staff to properly implement, given NS is basically run on nearly twenty-year old spaghetti code thrown together because NS was meant to be a mere promotional tool for his book.

It'll be significantly easier with NSG, given that it doesn't really require any changes to the gameside mechanics, which means there won't be as much code changes, which means that these issues will be more likely to be resolved to the satisfaction of those demanding these threads be restored.

[New haven america]

Considering you're the only one here who's apparently having trouble with what I'm saying, it ain't my fault you don't get my point.

What exactly have WDT's been getting away with?

It's what they (Specifically the RWDT) haven't been getting away with that's the problem.

Ce's argument is that it was unfair and downright stupid to shut down the threads after repeated warnings and bans caused by consistent rule breaking, even though they also proceeded to admit that users who were most often responsible for those warning/ban raids have been saying offsite that they weren't going to listen to the mods and any warnings of having the thread shut down because it's a stupid idea that the mods would never go through with.

Well now the threads got shut down because they've outright said they're not going to listen and now they have on a whole been the embodiment of the Surprised Pikachu Face for the past 2 days.

And Ce's argument in a nutshell is basically "Hey, let us get away with rule breaking because we think shutting down the threads is dumb."

[Questarian New Yorkshire]

I also disagree that transparency should be avoided and there should be some sort of "central vision." A key component in healthy relationships, including user-mod relationships on Austrian book site, is trust - the system you are advocating throws any and all trust that users might still place in moderation completely out the window. This sort of policy will breed even more dysfunction and sow more discontent. Additionally, it ultimately fails to address the root of the problem with particular users' behavior; rather than attempting to consider the systems that might've generated such a thing and what kind of policies might help improve it in the future, you've elected to haphazardly board over the issue and proudly declare "there, it's fixed!" It's intellectually lazy and I'd expect better from you.

Actually this is the perfect place to start my reply. You wrote your post in inverse order.

Now I don't know if you've ever been banned, or even warned. I'm guessing you probably got warned once. Have you noticed that none of the conversations revolving around rulebreakers and rulebreaking ever ask people who routinely break the rules why they do it? I mean the last kind of investigation on that tier that I would remember would be Ostro's post about if you report people or not. This kind of conversation is obviously materially useful if you want to reduce the number of "offences". Do we want to do that? Yes? No? Do we want a transparent community? Yes? No?

Who knows? Nobody knows. When I go into work I can ask any person there, literally anyone, what is the purpose of our organisation? Like why are we here man? They can tell me. More or less every person will give an answer equal in content. Nobody knows this about this forum. What's the fuckin point of NationStates General? Why does it exist? Is it a place where we can "talk about politics while insulting each other?" How about "Serious debate about current affairs?" How about "bait Questers with shitty one-line no-content posts and get him warned when he reacts like a normal steak-eating male?" How about "thinly veiled flirtatious comments underlined by extremist political agenda?"

I don't know. We don't know. You don't know. The most important: they don't know. If they do they haven't let on. Without an expression of purpose, no kind of plan can execute. I'm sorry but this is fundamental stuff to making an organisation. You need a purpose, you need a mission, you need a plan. Of course it's possible NS mods have those things — but usually they're public.

Plus, culture doesn't just change unprompted - cultural changes are downstream from material changes the majority of the time. The technological process for handling reports and warnings and the specific content of the OSRS are very important substrates for moderator actions and alterations to these cause cascading material effects within the system that will ultimately help foster the kind of cultural changes we (I) would like to see.

I didn't say anything bad about your changes man. I didn't. Swear. They're fine. They're cool. You're all technical, I get it. Like this is some kind of material systems analysis, whatever, it's not my thing. I didn't comment on your ideas being bad or good.

I'm saying without the organisational base to execute a plan then no operation succeeds. The exact specifics can be done by people who are good at those things. Maybe you. I don't care. But without that clarity about what kind of a place they want this website to be, there will never be consistency, there'll never be any clarity, there'll never be any fairness and never be any order — quite irrespective of whatever adjustments you think they should make.