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Locking threads instead of moderating them

GarthGrey

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Could the Siege threads please be left alone, or at least moderated and bad content removed, instead of posting your final opinion and then locking it ? Take a look at the other shard forums and you'll see that Hands Down, Siege likes to communicate here quite a lot, and there are some of us that can't make every meeting and event, and we like to see what happened by reading it here, or are we supposed to log in and get it from gen chat, where there's no chance it will get spammed over with bad attitudes.

:pirate:
 

TheDrAJ

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I don't always agree with Garth but this time he is spot on. If people can not express themselves then these forums are worthless. I am not saying that people should be able to slander or thumb there nose at the rules here or at Broadsword rules. But it seems that locking threads is now on a hair trigger. I also believe (but I might be alone in this feeling) that locked threads should be deleted. I know people can post an inflammatory thread and when people start to vigorously respond it gets locked and the original post is still there. Also I have seen (watching when EA ran there own forums years ago) that people would post inflammatory stuff to get a thread locked with their comments intact.

I could say more but I am afraid that the thread might get locked and Garth might get mad at me!
 

GarthGrey

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
I don't always agree with Garth but this time he is spot on. If people can not express themselves then these forums are worthless. I am not saying that people should be able to slander or thumb there nose at the rules here or at Broadsword rules. But it seems that locking threads is now on a hair trigger. I also believe (but I might be alone in this feeling) that locked threads should be deleted. I know people can post an inflammatory thread and when people start to vigorously respond it gets locked and the original post is still there. Also I have seen (watching when EA ran there own forums years ago) that people would post inflammatory stuff to get a thread locked with their comments intact.

I could say more but I am afraid that the thread might get locked and Garth might get mad at me!
Thanks for replying :)

:pirate:
 

kelmo

Old and in the way
Professional
Alumni
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Dread Lord
I can assure you no thread is ever deleted. It is merely removed from public sight. You do not want to give "editing" powers to moderators ever. Mods can remove some posts as needed, but they are not deleted. Every post is still there and reviewed as warranted. There are checks and balances in place.

Stratics has a set of rules in place. These rules protect the Stratics members. While it might seem unfair to some at times, look at the entire picture. I could post that Pinkerton is a lint licking cheater and a scamming bastage just because I did not like him.

There have been forums created in the past on other sites that were "unmoderated". They were ugly places and never lasted. Feel free to create one if you wish. *chuckles*

Love it or hate it, Stratics has stood the test of time. Almost 20 years. I spent 10 wonderful years as a mod with Stratics. I have a lot of scars from that. Lost friends, battles with porn bots and the lose of thousands of posts. Hell, Stratics even has my date of joining wrong. That's OK... Where else could we all come together and discuss the game that we love, hate and want to change?

Like I said before... Moderating is not easy.
 

SpyderBite

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I can assure you no thread is ever deleted. It is merely removed from public sight. You do not want to give "editing" powers to moderators ever. Mods can remove some posts as needed, but they are not deleted. Every post is still there and reviewed as warranted. There are checks and balances in place.

Stratics has a set of rules in place. These rules protect the Stratics members. While it might seem unfair to some at times, look at the entire picture. I could post that Pinkerton is a lint licking cheater and a scamming bastage just because I did not like him.

There have been forums created in the past on other sites that were "unmoderated". They were ugly places and never lasted. Feel free to create one if you wish. *chuckles*

Love it or hate it, Stratics has stood the test of time. Almost 20 years. I spent 10 wonderful years as a mod with Stratics. I have a lot of scars from that. Lost friends, battles with porn bots and the lose of thousands of posts. Hell, Stratics even has my date of joining wrong. That's OK... Where else could we all come together and discuss the game that we love, hate and want to change?

Like I said before... Moderating is not easy.
I can confirm all of the above as a former moderator/reporter under the previous management. :)
 

Blind Otto

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Agreed. In all my time as a reporter, I never once envied the mods their role. They do a spectacular job, usually for little or no thanks, and a ton of grief.
 

Razz

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
While I agree the mods have a tough task, the post that this thread is about was handled horribly.

Either delete the whole post (which I disagree with categorically)
Or allow people to have a full discussion about it.

Deleting the replies, locking the thread and leaving that garbage of a post was a monumental mistake on the mods part. I even sent a couple of PMs to him and did not get any reply. At least, at some point, someone finally got rid of that trash.
 

kelmo

Old and in the way
Professional
Alumni
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Dread Lord
I see what you are saying. Siege gets a lot of leeway from Stratics,but... It is a difficult forum to mod. Especially when the mods do not know the population. It was easier to more delicately moderate this forum when we had a team of mods that knew what was going on. Unfortunately that is no longer the case.
 

Nexus

Site Support
Administrator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Kelmo has a point here, already the Siege Forum gets a bit more leeway than most others. Here's the deliema if a thread is headed down hill out the gate, with multiple people involved then what should be done.... We've really only 2 options, clean it up and lock/remove it from view. Or clean it up, post an in thread warning and let it continue.

In the latter case if the mods are having a good day and are feeling generous, they might clean up a thread more than once, they have that option, they also have the option of issuing warnings for ignoring the in thread warning as well.

You guys might not like the occasional thread lock, but often it is to your benefit, as it is unusual for warnings to be handed out in conjunction with a thread lock, especially when a thread is doing nothing but creating bickering and in fighting.

Now if you'd really like us to re-evaluate how we handle drama ridden threads on the Siege Forum we can, but if we do, and we start issuing more warnings for posts here as a means to keep the drama somewhat in check don't blame us...
 

Nexus

Site Support
Administrator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Let me add something else... another thing @kelmo is right about, it was easier to tailor moderation to specific shards needs when there were more voulenteers, however not many seem to be in the volunteering mood anymore.

If you want change then by all means apply to join staff. You'll get a direct line and a chance to give feedback when we're doing a review of how things are done on Stratics. We're not close minded, we're just limited to doing what is practical with the amount of staff we have.

Having mods try and keep up with the needs of multiple forums independantly isn't practical as it would be confusing and destroy consistency in how they handle post reports.
 

SpyderBite

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
He's free to hit the apply button just like everyone else, if he wanted to come back and moderate again he's welcome too.
I would approve such action. But I'm guessing he'd pass. I've been wrong before though.
 

Nexus

Site Support
Administrator
Moderator
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
I would approve such action. But I'm guessing he'd pass. I've been wrong before though.
Maybe, it's totally up to him. That's why I said he's free to put in an application, he left when he felt it was time, and I'm willing to respect that, if he feels he wants to come back, that's how to let us know.
 
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