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

[The Reformed American Republic]

Ignore it then. I normally don't even pay attention to it.

I would if uBlock would actually work for once when I choose 'Block Element'. Also stuff from NSG will spill over into other forums from time to time.

I'm sure that would be even worse if General did not exist. People would try to discuss politics in the RP forums.

[Luziyca]

So which is it, since you're being inconsistent?

I think his main grievance is inconsistency in mod rulings, which is a topic as old as the forum I think.

I don't really believe there's a fix that would satisfy anyone here, but maybe there could be ideas out there none of us has thought of before. It's unfortunate these kind of discussions are inflated with complaints of people that feel personally wronged.

Wouldn't you like a fancy RoboMod AI though?

The only reason why mod rulings seem so inconsistent is because of the fact people don't report rule-breaking to the mods as much as they should. It isn't really a moderation bias, it's a reporting bias, which leads to such perceptions of "inconsistency" and what not.

[Torisakia]

I would if uBlock would actually work for once when I choose 'Block Element'. Also stuff from NSG will spill over into other forums from time to time.

I'm sure that would be even worse if General did not exist. People would try to discuss politics in the RP forums.

Not if we violate free speech and ban politics site-wide. It becomes an issue of ethics in the long run.

[The Reformed American Republic]

I'm sure that would be even worse if General did not exist. People would try to discuss politics in the RP forums.

Not if we violate free speech and ban politics site-wide. It becomes an issue of ethics in the long run.

There would just be more outrage and attempts to take it to telegrams and the like. Also, its a political simulator. Politics very much belongs on here.

[Atheris]

I'm sure that would be even worse if General did not exist. People would try to discuss politics in the RP forums.

Not if we violate free speech and ban politics site-wide. It becomes an issue of ethics in the long run.

Free speech? NationStates? Hahahahahahahaha.

[Luziyca]

I'm sure that would be even worse if General did not exist. People would try to discuss politics in the RP forums.

Not if we violate free speech and ban politics site-wide. It becomes an issue of ethics in the long run.

Sure, let's ban politics on a site designed so we can RP our nations and have political discourse. Good luck with that.

[Torisakia]

Not if we violate free speech and ban politics site-wide. It becomes an issue of ethics in the long run.

There would just be more outrage and attempts to take it to telegrams and the like. Also, its a political simulator. Politics very much belongs on here.

Maybe it's just cause I hold a nihilistic perspective, I don't know.

Not if we violate free speech and ban politics site-wide. It becomes an issue of ethics in the long run.

Free speech? NationStates? Hahahahahahahaha.

Lets pretend it exists for this example.

Not if we violate free speech and ban politics site-wide. It becomes an issue of ethics in the long run.

Sure, let's ban politics on a site designed so we can RP our nations and have political discourse. Good luck with that.

Stranger things have happened on the internet. I'm just presenting ideas. Whether or not they're taken seriously isn't my decision.

[Luminesa]

I disagree, even as a participant of the RWDT and LWDT, I wouldn't characterize it as "primarily on the topic of broad political theory"

It regularly fell into rehashing WW2 debates, topics which were covered in other threads, or just miscellaneous chatting.

The RWDT was far more guilty of that though. And note that much of what is said in the OP did not apply to the LWDT. Cliques? Didn't apply to the LWDT. Encouraging non-reporting? Didn't apply to the LWDT. General patterns of rulebreaking that causes that problem in the first place? Didn't apply to the LWDT.

Make no mistake, the LWDT died in the crossfire here.

There was drama in LWDT, trust me. Nobody is saying that RWDT was a perfect place, Questers surmised this better than me. But LWDT wasn’t some happy utopia either.

[Luziyca]

Sure, let's ban politics on a site designed so we can RP our nations and have political discourse. Good luck with that.

Stranger things have happened on the internet. I'm just presenting ideas. Whether or not they're taken seriously isn't my decision.

Yeah, and that idea is probably not going to work very well at all. If they ban politics site-wide, then I think that would be the end of NationStates, given that politics is inherently everywhere on this site: even on the RP fora.

[Torisakia]

Stranger things have happened on the internet. I'm just presenting ideas. Whether or not they're taken seriously isn't my decision.

Yeah, and that idea is probably not going to work very well at all. If they ban politics site-wide, then I think that would be the end of NationStates, given that politics is inherently everywhere on this site: even on the RP fora.

Not likely, but the probability is never zero. Just like the chances of you getting attacked by a gorilla at any point.

[Diopolis]

So which is it, since you're being inconsistent?

I think his main grievance is inconsistency in mod rulings, which is a topic as old as the forum I think.

I don't really believe there's a fix that would satisfy anyone here, but maybe there could be ideas out there none of us has thought of before. It's unfortunate these kind of discussions are inflated with complaints of people that feel personally wronged.

Wouldn't you like a fancy RoboMod AI though?

There are multiple ideas that would at least address the problem, they're just not getting floated in favor of people bitching.
For example, making the rules far more clear and detailed- part of the problem is pretty clearly that different mods are ruling differently on borderline cases.

[The New California Republic]

The RWDT was far more guilty of that though. And note that much of what is said in the OP did not apply to the LWDT. Cliques? Didn't apply to the LWDT. Encouraging non-reporting? Didn't apply to the LWDT. General patterns of rulebreaking that causes that problem in the first place? Didn't apply to the LWDT.

Make no mistake, the LWDT died in the crossfire here.

There were a couple of semi-regulars in the LWDT who repeatedly responded to any critique of leftist theory by calling opponents idiots but who got away with it because the right-leaning posters didn't want to play snitch. And remember Torra's exploits in deliberately winding up the RWDT? It died in the crossfire only insofar as RWDT openly criticising the moderation team made the moderation team open to looking at the discussion threads as a problem that needed solving, which had previously been an angle they were reluctant to adopt (see previous threads on the topic).

The RWDT didn't draw fire on you, that was the moderation team's resolutely "only things directly reported to us stance" which effectively rewarded rather than properly punished professional low-effort baitposters and made not only the discussion threads but any other thread that attracted a large amount of activity into a cesspit of shitty psyops.

Just a quick comment on both of the above posts.

The initial catalyst for the internal moderator discussion on the two threads was neither directed at the RWDT nor at the culture of rule-breaking in the latter.

The moderator who first opened the two threads to discussion earlier this year titled his discussion 'LWDT & RWDT' - with the LWDT mentioned first - and was narrowly focused on the extent to which the two threads were increasingly devolving into chat threads. This was the sole initial focus.

It would be fair to note that the internal culture of the RWDT did subsequently become a focus of discussion, but that was only quite late in the day, and by the time that happened the majority of the moderator team was already in favour of shutting down both threads.

So to be clear:

The internal culture of the RWDT (whether we frame perceptions of the positively or negatively) may have been the final catalyst in taking action, but it was not the initial cause of the internal discussion, and the decision to lock had been taken before 'rule breaking' and 'non-reporting' had come into focus.

The LWDT was therefore not 'caught in the crossfire'.

Cheers for the clarification Arch. We can't see the process that led to this decision, and since all we had is the OP that goes on about the aforementioned, you can see why we fell in the inadvertent trap.

[La Xinga]

I'm sure that would be even worse if General did not exist. People would try to discuss politics in the RP forums.

Not if we violate free speech and ban politics site-wide. It becomes an issue of ethics in the long run.

Free speech? Quoting the FAQ:

It's free speech, so I can post whatever I like here, right?

*Max Barry responds:*

Ahahahaha! Hahaha! Free speech! No, it's not. I run this web site, see, so you have to play by my rules. It's like my own Father Knows Best state.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I'm pretty sure that prior to the last banning of a certain type of thread (chil/chat location threads) there was some degree of warning given to the userbase of those threads about what they were doing wrong. Was such a thing considered in this circumstance: if not, why?

[The Reformed American Republic]

I'm pretty sure that prior to the last banning of a certain type of thread (chil/chat location threads) there was some degree of warning given to the userbase of those threads about what they were doing wrong. Was such a thing considered in this circumstance: if not, why?

I only recall one such post in the RWDT and it was given to stop posters from expressing outrage over a questionable ban.

[Katganistan]

Why were the threads locked?

Read the very first post of this thread, La xinga.

[Esternial]

I think his main grievance is inconsistency in mod rulings, which is a topic as old as the forum I think.

I don't really believe there's a fix that would satisfy anyone here, but maybe there could be ideas out there none of us has thought of before. It's unfortunate these kind of discussions are inflated with complaints of people that feel personally wronged.

Wouldn't you like a fancy RoboMod AI though? ;)

There are multiple ideas that would at least address the problem, they're just not getting floated in favor of people bitching.
For example, making the rules far more clear and detailed- part of the problem is pretty clearly that different mods are ruling differently on borderline cases.

I would create a dedicated thread for that in moderation, targeted at a specific section in the OSRS that you feel is not well-phrased, lacking detail, etc.

I've done some myself in the past and - when I had a sound argument (which wasn't always the case, admittedly) - the Mods were receptive to feedback and willing to adapt the OSRS.

That said, you'll never get rid of borderline cases because that's why they're borderline cases, especially/mainly when it comes to rules based on intent. You can just try reducing the # of false positives/negatives to the best of your ability.

I know I'm going on about it and you'd all like me to stop now, but that's where an AI would be very powerful. It could try to judge intent based on its repository of a poster's history. Max would probably have to expand his hardware and run more ads, but imagine the possibilities!

[Forsher]

ZS and it was actually worse than this.

What was that one?

Players fucked up a report. Mods followed the bad report. ZS and the reporter hijacked the report thread. Mods closed the report thread. As far as can be told, the mods never saw the worst posts that weren't specifically reported until later on. By which point in time it had already become a Thing. The central issue was confession to and celebration of a serious crime.

Note that shit was already going down before this so yeah.

I'm pretty sure there was also a whole thing either with ZS returning from DOS or another poster where the player base knew (or were pretty certain) what was going on, but didn't report it and then acted like the mods were at fault. I remind the thread that this is a retrospectively moderated forum,

And then there was the whole "mods read TG" storm in a teacup. I guess we can add trollnaming in as well. But my timeline is already really screwed up. There was A LOT of stuff going on. It wasn't just the ZS thing.

What's happening in this thread isn't even close to being like what was happening back then and that people think it is? It's laughable.

I mean, Christ, I can't even remember if we're even allowed to talk about the incident any more. I'm pretty sure we can't talk about the crime at hand at all. But that might be 1000 Cats' crime. Maybe it's both???

This is one of the most egregious things regarding NS moderation. If someone gets warned for trolling or flaming and the person it was done towards says "no it's fine, I really wasn't bothered and we're friends" or something to that effect it should be overturned immediately, full stop. Anything else is just going to piss people off and breed, as you said, bad blood.

I disagree. Everyone should be equally protected from flaming, whether they're prepared to stand up for themselves of not. What you're saying is like "it's not bullying provided the victim says they're alright with it" and surely you can see what's wrong with that.

The argument against trolling being acceptable sometimes, is even stronger. Trolling is presumed offensive to many posters, it cannot be forgiven because it was said in reply to a friend of yours.

Having been on the receiving end of one of the worst fucking instances of "it's okay, we're just having a laugh" I've seen on NSG... preach.

Their standard does nothing but leave people lost and confused in circlejerks, dogpiles and popularity contests with absolutely 0 ability to trust that the rules are actually on their side, that this kind of behaviour is not just tolerated but encouraged and so on.

Only in an elementary school ground would people disagree with this.

Doesn't make them wrong.

NSG has a terrible culture of bullying. Sure now everyone remembers Karinzistan as a notorious DOS but before that they were bullied... hard. Slembana left the site because of bullying. Ditto Sibirsky... I think. Certainly, there was a site wide "it's just for fun" bullying campaign, Sibirsky left and then it stopped pretty quickly... and then they got rid of a particular smiley as a result.

It's almost as though this same blunder has been made before!

When?

The only mass exodus I can recall was precipitated by a lot of things and most of the Batcavern crowd were gone before the whole R/D/Q/bad vs good faith system started.

t's not "your" NSG unless you are Max himself and you've only been here for little more than half a year.

Nation from 2020 that is seemingly also someone called "Nap" complaining about the age of a nation from 2019 whose older nation name is literally in their signature.

Priceless.

Because there was a time where NSG offered a unique sort of dive into debate and discussion with a certain charm and character and realism to it that couldn't be found elsewhere online. However over the years from a combination of things it has gone from a place where I could actually learn things and interact with educated people who offered a wide variety of viewpoints on topics to little more than low effort shitposts that would be banned for trolling anywhere but get excused here. I'd like to try and get some of that old spark back if possible.

Also again, in the past we have tried to leave, certain users who I won't name followed and tried to cause real world repurcussions when we did.

Yes and the causes of this dynamic have just suffered what is hopefully the first step in the eventual victory of the Old NSG over the New NSG.

Let me ask you a question Nobel Hobos, are you Max Y/N? If yes, then fine it's your site and we'll all drop the matter. If no, then stop claiming the site belongs to you.

I've not seen him claim that he owns the site. So......

It's like this person has never encountered people before. I think particularly of, for example, an Arsenal fan saying "We're fucking cursed" to which, say, anyone else that follows the EPL replies, "No you just suck".

But seriously, we're cursed, it sucks.

Unlike the doomsayers, I remember the time before the megathreads, when cohesive discussions and bantz were, unbelievably, had.

Um... your opinion appears to have changed... dramatically???

[The Marlborough]

I've been here since 2011 lad.

[Valrifell]

I'm pretty sure that prior to the last banning of a certain type of thread (chil/chat location threads) there was some degree of warning given to the userbase of those threads about what they were doing wrong. Was such a thing considered in this circumstance: if not, why?

I only recall one such post in the RWDT and it was given to stop posters from expressing outrage over a questionable ban.

Probably because moderation policy doesn't qualify as right-wing theory, even if there were attempts to tenuously connect it in the immediate aftermath. That's the problem, it read like a chat thread with good points and good-faith discussion intermixed, when it should have been the opposite.

[Forsher]

I've been here since 2011 lad.

Nation from 2020 that is seemingly also someone called "Nap" complaining about the age of a nation from 2019 whose older nation name is literally in their signature.

Shockingly, that you're an older nation is the entire fucking point I was making.

Of course, I've got no idea who you are (Napkilary??? however it was spelt) but that's not the point. There's a reason why I bothered adding in "is seeming also someone called 'Nap'"... it's not pointless verbage.

AiliAiliA appears also to be have been a 2011 nation so it's actually even funnier now.

[Katganistan]

So which is it, since you're being inconsistent?

I think his main grievance is inconsistency in mod rulings, which is a topic as old as the forum I think.

I don't really believe there's a fix that would satisfy anyone here, but maybe there could be ideas out there none of us has thought of before. It's unfortunate these kind of discussions are inflated with complaints of people that feel personally wronged.

Wouldn't you like a fancy RoboMod AI though?

I don't know. There are nuances, which machines would find difficult to delineate.

[The Blaatschapen]

So which is it, since you're being inconsistent?

I think his main grievance is inconsistency in mod rulings, which is a topic as old as the forum I think.

I don't really believe there's a fix that would satisfy anyone here, but maybe there could be ideas out there none of us has thought of before. It's unfortunate these kind of discussions are inflated with complaints of people that feel personally wronged.

Wouldn't you like a fancy RoboMod AI though?

Stop trying to find a new gig here as machine learning consultant

[New Visayan Islands]

I think his main grievance is inconsistency in mod rulings, which is a topic as old as the forum I think.

I don't really believe there's a fix that would satisfy anyone here, but maybe there could be ideas out there none of us has thought of before. It's unfortunate these kind of discussions are inflated with complaints of people that feel personally wronged.

Wouldn't you like a fancy RoboMod AI though?

I don't know. There are nuances, which machines would find difficult to delineate.

Which would ultimately require a human touch anyway, if I'm getting this right.

[Katganistan]

I think his main grievance is inconsistency in mod rulings, which is a topic as old as the forum I think.

I don't really believe there's a fix that would satisfy anyone here, but maybe there could be ideas out there none of us has thought of before. It's unfortunate these kind of discussions are inflated with complaints of people that feel personally wronged.

Wouldn't you like a fancy RoboMod AI though?

There are multiple ideas that would at least address the problem, they're just not getting floated in favor of people bitching.
For example, making the rules far more clear and detailed- part of the problem is pretty clearly that different mods are ruling differently on borderline cases.

And that is why people can ask for a second look, and even a final appeal. The first mod is not allowed to rule on whether what they ruled on is appropriate, for very obvious reasons.