Rule Change (New Staff Power)

[Tiberius]

Maybe I'm weird, but I have always recognized, regardless of what forum I'm on, that my ability to post and be a member is a privilege granted to me by forum ownership.  I don't actually have any right to post since the forum is owned and operated by a private entity who can do whatever they wish with it, and a ban doesn't actually impart harm.

...

Honestly, this staff is by far the most lenient I have ever encountered.  I'm amazed by the patience and restraint they've shown with certain, obvious members.  People that, at PHPF, I would've swung the ban hammer at far sooner.  So, I'm not worried about the nuke being used when it shouldn't because this crew has already shown a remarkable resistance to banning members.

Honestly, that's probably because we try not to run the forums like a private entity, and more like a community. People say I "own" it, and in a legal sense I do, but when it comes to decision making and running the place, it's a joint effort and I don't hold any more power than the other admins. The only non-community aspect is that staff are chosen by current staff, rather than being elected, but we've offered to hold staff elections multiple times in the past and our members always vote overwhelmingly to leave the system as it is.

The rules are long-winded and complex partially because we want the staff to be bound by them as well, so whereas in other forums you may just have a rule "No trolling" and the staff get to decide what trolling is, we have it as well defined as we think is needed.

[LastPoet]

Napo, you always liked to be a whiny bitch

[Brian37]

I think so...it seems that if someone is having that negative of an influence, there must be a rule they're breaking. I still think the rules we already have in place are ambiguous enough that the mods could potentially ban anyone negative without this new power.
I also still think the new power isn't hurting anyone except maybe a temporary feeling of unease. Should wear off as people become more sure that it doesn't make us more likely to get banned.

Eta. Was in response to Tibs not Brian.

That's the problem, people were being a negative influence but they weren't breaking any rules, at least not any that the staff could agree on. We'd have people report trolling and take a look and think "well, it could be trolling, but at the same time it might be a weird opinion". If they were breaking a rule, believe me, we wouldn't even be discussing this new power.

Why you can't just make this a rule instead of opening it up as a way to negate the rules themselves is confusing.

To me it sounds a lot like arguing over semantics, but if that will reduce the level of consternation I'll discuss it with staff.

I had consternation once, but I took a laxative.

[The Valkyrie]

If it helps to know, when Tibs mentioned new powers I asked to be able to become invisible.

[LastPoet]

Honestly, this discussion sounds like armchair politics and people picking on semantics and details to make a point for the sake of it. We had the prime directive, we trashed it  The staff is trying a new thing. I for one never feared being banned.

The reason why all the fear by new members is beyond me. The staff has been banning alot, true, but simple soammers.

[ignoramus]

Oh whoops! I thought I was posting on the super secret part of the forum.

Err, whoops!?

You are; but I have red powers, remember. You seriously think you can hide from me? I can see what you dream, never mind post.

I bet you didn't see I was dreaming of Kingy in his wife's undies!
(Did I just say that out loud?)

[Cyberman]

Can we honestly drop this. Nobody to my knowledge has seriously said otherwise and the contentions raised here have nothing at all to do with the competency of the staff.

Well, that's a relief!

[account_inactive]

-nvm-

[KevinM1]

Maybe I'm weird, but I have always recognized, regardless of what forum I'm on, that my ability to post and be a member is a privilege granted to me by forum ownership.  I don't actually have any right to post since the forum is owned and operated by a private entity who can do whatever they wish with it, and a ban doesn't actually impart harm.

...

Honestly, this staff is by far the most lenient I have ever encountered.  I'm amazed by the patience and restraint they've shown with certain, obvious members.  People that, at PHPF, I would've swung the ban hammer at far sooner.  So, I'm not worried about the nuke being used when it shouldn't because this crew has already shown a remarkable resistance to banning members.

Honestly, that's probably because we try not to run the forums like a private entity, and more like a community. People say I "own" it, and in a legal sense I do, but when it comes to decision making and running the place, it's a joint effort and I don't hold any more power than the other admins. The only non-community aspect is that staff are chosen by current staff, rather than being elected, but we've offered to hold staff elections multiple times in the past and our members always vote overwhelmingly to leave the system as it is.

PHPF was organized a lot like this place, complete with new staff being voted on/chosen from the member pool by current staff. The biggest problem there is that the owner just disappeared one day. Not off the face of the planet, but just from being involved with the forum. He was a drum tech for the Blue Man Group for a while, then tried making some pretty terrible phone apps. He held the purse strings, so when it came to things like renewing the forum license, we were pretty much screwed. We wanted to make some pretty dramatic upgrades, but without access to cash (mostly for licences, access to better hosting, etc.), we were screwed. He'd show up every 18 months or so on the forum, make a dumb post about how much he still cared, and then disappear again. One of the other staff members actually tried buying the forum from him, but he wanted way too much for it. Despite hemorrhaging members and the existence of Stack Overflow, PHPF was still high in search results.

So, it's really nice to be on a site with an active and involved owner. Because not having that, and being stuck with no real way to improve the user experience, really, really sucks.

The rules are long-winded and complex partially because we want the staff to be bound by them as well, so whereas in other forums you may just have a rule "No trolling" and the staff get to decide what trolling is, we have it as well defined as we think is needed.

Yeah, ours just said no trolling or flaming, which is too vague.

I also wish that we had the "I'm now talking as staff" block of text that you guys have here. That would've been really nice because we did get into conflicts with certain members about when exactly we were throwing our staff weight around.

[Thumpalumpacus]

But the insults they meted out, and the breast-beating they engaged in, and the consistent and clearly deliberate derailing of threads... And it didn't fall under the rubric of trolling

I'm sorry, but if it's as obvious and as disruptive as you reckon, then it absolutely does fall under the rubric of trolling and the staff can absolutely determine that.

I was on staff, I know for a fact we've banned members in the past (after much deliberation to be sure), for exactly the things you describe, without the need of some 'nuclear option' that completely undermines the existing rules.

The staff have said they couldn't amend the existing rules? Why? Just put a disclaimer in there that those deemed to not be following or flagrantly flouting the 'spirit of the rules' can be banned, and treated as rule breakers. The whole notion of saying "we can ban people who follow the rules", surely, undermines the rules in the first place?

And that's fair enough, too. I'm not wedded to this new way of handling things, but I'm not on the staff either and not privy to the behind-the-scenes discussion. It may be that some staff feel that there's enough substance to the disruptor's posting that bannage for trolling isn't called-for.

I reckon the staff are lenient in enforcing the rules in an attempt to err on the side of caution, and I think that is the right approach to moderation. I also think that members who tax the patience and good nature of the membership should know that this option exists and can be invoked even if their dance inside the letter of the rules is flawlessly asinine.

I can't address your experience moderating here, but I'm wondering if things might not have changed a bit behind the scenes to make some if not all feel that this option would be useful.