Godammed SDN

[Darth Fanboy]

Or for fucks sake I almost posted in the RLM thread and caught myself before realizing that it would be sort of like the SDN equivalent of diving headfirst into a piss trough and everyones been eating asparagus.

If it weren't for the football threads id seriously be considering a ban

[Aaron]

Datapackrat?

[Dooey Jo]

in a tsw thread he had genealogical records that claimed he was descended from zeus

a serious lie under paragraph 5 section 23 book 6

since he couldn't substantiate his most heinous lies, instead lying even more that he knew perfectly well that record was inaccurate, he was beaned


it was awesome, it went exactly like this

dpr: "guys since we are talking about gods and people related to demons according to bullshit i am descended from zeus"
fgalkin: "you just LIED i am going to show my intellectual superiority by pointing out your devious lies CONCEDE! concede or be banned from the grace of god"
dpr: "jesus i didn't expect the smartest inquisition on the continent"
ghost rider: "NO ONE expects the SIOTC! bu bye"

[adr-admin]

Wasn't this what was supposed to happen on SDN?

Yeah, I think so. My problem is more implementation than concept.

Oddly, your suggestion (that they calmly correct mistakes) strikes me as forcing the moderators to participate in the thread.

Indeed. Though my vision of it is more like a judge in an American court. The actual arguments are made by the two opposing sides, and the moderator steps in to arbitrate disputes on procedure that one side or the other raises.


This can lead to them being a full participant, but it'd be a judgement call on restraint. Maybe that's impossible in practice, on a board like sdn, but it'd be interesting to try.

[Zod]

I don't know how admins pick mods, but often it seems that respected debaters are the people who get turned into mods. And in principle, SDN mods aren't supposed to moderate threads that they are participating in.

[Aaron]

I thought the admins/mods were Wongs cronies from ASVS that came over. And that it stayed that way till he went AWOL and Bean stepped in to "lead"

[Phantasee]

Someone once told me Simon_Jester would be a great mod for N&P.

Discuss the terribleness of this idea.

[Zod]

Someone once told me Simon_Jester would be a great mod for N&P.

Discuss the terribleness of this idea.

sarevok tried recommending him and samuel for mods back when the senate was still up

[Veef]

make Shep a mod

ohhhwww...

[adr-admin]

why do people still suggest the colesium for things

what a fucking waste of time

and it's almost never been used anyway

[Veef]

so a bunch of people making reasoned arguments versus two dudes who talk past everyone equals circling the drain

idgi

[RogueIce]

I thought the admins/mods were Wongs cronies from ASVS that came over. And that it stayed that way till he went AWOL and Bean stepped in to "lead"

I don't think Bean was ever really "leading" because Ghost "I'm going to lock this for necro even though it's on the first page of PSW and call you an idiot for it" Rider was the lone admin doing things. Yeah people may miss him since he went missing, but he was one of the most asshole mods SDN had before the staff shakeup and he was fired stepped down.

EDIT2: And yeah, I think at the start it was mostly ASVS cronies, though since then it has evolved into the supposed "respected/skilled debators" 'standard'. How well you think they've maintained that is, of course, a matter of opinion...

Supermods are flat-out forbidden from banning anyone except spambots and invading trolls without Mike or Dalton's personal say-so. That's fallout from the DataPacRat debacle.

This is probably not a bad thing because of, as mentioned, that little mess.

EDIT: And a little surprisingly, maybe, but Mike never seemed to like the idea of giving mods the power to issue temporary bans. I guess he thought even a temp ban was too serious a punishment without his say-so, but I always thought it would be a useful tool in the mod arsenal.

That's not too surprising though, is it? A temp ban is basically the most serious thing short of an all out ban. Kinda like getting 10-20 years instead of life (or the death penalty). (DISCLAIMER: At least, in the apparent view of the board, as it goes "lesser punishments -> temp ban -> perm ban")

EDIT: Oh, and even the rules seem to disfavor temp bans in any case:

Bans may be either temporary or permanent, but most bans are permanent.

There are supposed to be other punishments, of course: the negative titles and losing sig and/or av privileges. Yet none of the supermods can do that either. AFAIK only an admin (which these days means only Dalton, as Mike seems to have vanished again) can actually do anything aside from stick a warning in somebody's profile. And it seems by the time it ever gets to Dalton they've veered into permban territory, or else that's the only form of 'punishment' the mods care to ever use; the equivalent of the forum death sentence.

[adr-admin]

Most the 'punishments' are laughable. Ohes noes they are going to take away my idiotic av and sig!11!!11!!11

At least the titles have some level of social shit possible.

[Zod]

That's not too surprising though, is it? A temp ban is basically the most serious thing short of an all out ban. Kinda like getting 10-20 years instead of life (or the death penalty). (DISCLAIMER: At least, in the apparent view of the board, as it goes "lesser punishments -> temp ban -> perm ban")

Depends on the length of the temp ban. I mean a week or two? Pfft, who gives a shit.

There are supposed to be other punishments, of course: the negative titles and losing sig and/or av privileges. Yet none of the supermods can do that either. AFAIK only an admin (which these days means only Dalton, as Mike seems to have vanished again) can actually do anything aside from stick a warning in somebody's profile. And it seems by the time it ever gets to Dalton they've veered into permban territory, or else that's the only form of 'punishment' the mods care to ever use; the equivalent of the forum death sentence.

I think it's kind of a huge lol that people actually care about losing their av and sig.

[starku]

Week ban = decade in prison

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

[Aaron]

I don't think Bean was ever really "leading" because Ghost "I'm going to lock this for necro even though it's on the first page of PSW and call you an idiot for it" Rider was the lone admin doing things. Yeah people may miss him since he went missing, but he was one of the most asshole mods SDN had before the staff shakeup and he was fired stepped down.

EDIT2: And yeah, I think at the start it was mostly ASVS cronies, though since then it has evolved into the supposed "respected/skilled debators" 'standard'. How well you think they've maintained that is, of course, a matter of opinion...

Bean's words, not mine dude. But yeah GR was a terrible admin/mod, though he may be a great guy face to face.

Or was, I guess. I'm pretty sure he's dead.

There are supposed to be other punishments, of course: the negative titles and losing sig and/or av privileges. Yet none of the supermods can do that either. AFAIK only an admin (which these days means only Dalton, as Mike seems to have vanished again) can actually do anything aside from stick a warning in somebody's profile. And it seems by the time it ever gets to Dalton they've veered into permban territory, or else that's the only form of 'punishment' the mods care to ever use; the equivalent of the forum death sentence.

If Mike loosened the reigns a bit and delegated more then we might see lighter punishments, but I get the impression that he's either really bad at managing people or really insecure, hence the heavy handed stuff.

[Bakustra]

Titles aren't really compatible with the whole "debating club" atmosphere that Mike claims to want- if the idea is that it's about the arguments rather than the people, well, insulting titles are all about the people. And so either you invite dismissal of people's posts because of their titles, or you try to water down any punitive effect. That's also ignoring that social shaming only works if you respect the individuals shaming you or otherwise care about what they think. Personally, I don't care what, say, Shadowdragonnumbers or Crossroads thinks/thought of me, so I doubt that a title would really incite changes in the way I post unless it was accompanied by warnings. Loss of avatar/sig? Yeaaah, those are pretty much gravy and I doubt that the people who care a whole lot about them would really be at home on any board that required active moderation.

So I think that as it stands there are really only three effective punishments for the SD.net setting. Warnings, temp-bans, and permabans. And only two of them are implemented in any real sense.

If Mike loosened the reigns a bit and delegated more then we might see lighter punishments, but I get the impression that he's either really bad at managing people or really insecure, hence the heavy handed stuff.

Or he doesn't really trust any of the moderators. Would you? Apart from, like three or four, I can't think of too many that I'd consider trustworthy.

[Aaron]

Only Rob and only because he's always taken of issues I've had promptly.

[RogueIce]

That's not too surprising though, is it? A temp ban is basically the most serious thing short of an all out ban. Kinda like getting 10-20 years instead of life (or the death penalty). (DISCLAIMER: At least, in the apparent view of the board, as it goes "lesser punishments -> temp ban -> perm ban")

Depends on the length of the temp ban. I mean a week or two? Pfft, who gives a shit.

Week ban = decade in prison

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

Hey look, that's what I added the disclaimer for. Seemingly, in the eyes of Mike or whoever wrote the rules the way they did, temp ban = serious business. Though they apparently prefer perm bans anyway, so...

So I think that as it stands there are really only three effective punishments for the SD.net setting. Warnings, temp-bans, and permabans. And only two of them are implemented in any real sense.

This is not inaccurate. I guess it could go something like warning, week, month, six months, year, perm or whatever. Assuming they actually care about degrees of punishment and not just "you've pissed us off, good bye" or whatever reason the staff seems to have for considering perm bans their only real form of punishment.

Aside from the occasional warning or getting HoSed.

[Zod]

Aside from the occasional warning or getting HoSed.

I think I've lost track of how many times I've been hosed

i can even claim responsibility for getting the dumping thread in hos started

[Veef]

pretty sure the whole "mockery of stupid people" thing kind of overshadows any attempts at serious debate in favor of using your big brain to own the noobs

[RedImperator]

RogueIce is pretty much right. In the beginning, when Mike decided he needed mods (for the first few weeks, I think, it was just him, but SDN grew very fast and probably would have needed a moderating staff even if it had been a board about kittens and needlepoint), he picked some of his old bros from ASVS. But he branched out from that pool pretty quickly. After the first batch of ASVS vets, the standard for being a mod was 1) did Mike and the other mods think you were a solid poster, and 2) did you have the time to do it? This did not work out perfectly, but it's a reasonable standard, I think, and proably the best you can do without offering a salary.

Mike always saw banning as the most serious punishment and always jealously guarded the right to issue it. He didn't even appoint new admins until he decided he needed 24-hour coverage. I think part of why we never really used temp bans is because the software didn't support it; phpBB 2 didn't have a temp ban function that I know of, so you had to manually keep track of temp bans. It's an interesting example, I think, of the tool shaping the user's behavior; if the software had had a way to automatically manage temp bans (like phpBB 3), they probably would have been part of the standard punishment suite.

Incidentally, Rogue Ice is right--Bean was never an admin at all, let alone the head admin. He didn't even really have that much influence in the mod forum before he convinced Mike to blow up Testing, and even that ended with him getting fired. Dalton was second in command until his work consumed all his free time. Ghost Rider became Mike's #2 mostly because he was willing to take out the garbage--registration approval, password resets, fielding admin PMs, that kind of thing--and then Mike drifted away from doing the day-to-day admin work as his kids got older. I didn't like Ghost Rider's style very much either, but I'm a little pressed to think of anyone else who would have been willing and able to manage the backstage stuff then. Really, you should probably have those jobs separate unless you have someone who's good at both (and even then, on a board as big and hairy as SDN, you should have more than one admin to avoid burnout), but that just wasn't Mike's management style. Dalton came back right about the time Ghost Rider resigned, and it's probably a good thing he did, because without Dalton running the place, I'm hard-pressed to think of who would be in charge right now.

I would guess Mike's aversion to bans is related to how things went on ASVS, where banning wasn't possible. Your only option there was to debate someone into the ground or convince everyone else to put a troll's email into their killfilter (I think they did that twice). Mike's approach was to ban people for breaking the rules, but he was concerned that resorting to them too much would lead to people getting banned for holding unpopular opinions. You can take issue with how it's been implemented, but that's the reasoning, and I don't think it's that off the wall even if, having been around SDN since the beginning and having modded there for a long time, I probably would have done it differently if it had been up to me.

[Flagg]

Is it wrong that after having my grandfather die and being in a major car wreck within 48 hours I wanna tell DEATH to do the world a favor and kill himself instead of whining about how depressed he is?

[Aaron]

Little harsh yeah, but he is a baby.

[starku]

Just mentall replace everything he posts with 'I have infinite money and opportunity and am a disappointment to my family'