Fix the damn Elevator, ALSO

[Furore]

Some feedback suggestions from me:

1. Fix the ****ing elevator. Seriously, I am a lazy bastard and the TFF stairs are utter fail.

2. Groups. Specifically multipage topics in groups. It's kind of annoying how you're forced to view the topic from page 1 all the time rather then from your last unread post, or the newest page.

3. Double standards. Seriously, fire half the mods and get in some newblood. You have some just mods/admins (Andromeda comes to mind) and some who're just cool (Meier Link) but then you get others who'd clearly be better standard members, because even if they can be cool as individuals, they act up with power. Oh, and then there are mods/admins that rarely if ever appear to be online? WTF, srsly?

One GREAT example of double standards is that some members can get away with near anything (such as one member posting a topic with **** as the first word of the subject matter, using a space so that it wouldn't show as four asterisks. Note that I couldn't be ****ed typing in a specific manner to kill the effectiveness of a useless filter anyways. Anyway, back on track this isn't a matter of mods being able to say they missed a word in a thread as it's in the thread name.) And then yesterday I posted a random spammy thread, and though it got closed, where was my warning? I'm almost certain there are others who would have been warned for that. Oh I'm grateful you lot love me, but still...

I call for one of two things. Relaxing things for everyone or punishing every member the same way.

4. Homophobia. Yes, as a collective, many of you act homophobically, even if as an individual you're not a homophobe. I will bring up good ol' Phantom for example. Great member, but he got the **** trolled out of him by half the people on the forums and then when he started striking back, who got punished? I see this as an even more serious problem as while he was active, he was getting backstabbed on MSN by several members INCLUDING currently active mods. Considering other risque subjects are often discussed on TFF including religion and politics, there's no excuse to pick on someone for posting threads on something else a person feels passionate about. And then he was probably also the best here at FF trivia, way to kill a valuable resource smart people. I bring this up, because I'd rather not see it happen again and history repeats itself unless things get changed a bit now, don't it? Driving members to quit is a very welcoming move people. Great for that wonderful sense of community.

5. In relation to point 3, get someone to review deleted/modified threads, and if they were deleted/modified for something not against forum rules, have the original post restored. As it stands, some posts/threads do seem to get edited/deleted due to a mod's agenda rather than for breaking any rules. Act professional if you are going to accept responsibility, there's good reason I never do and that's because I figure I'd probably act up like I've seen others do which just isn't productive.

This isn't my forums and in reality I have no real say (hell I see this getting closed/edited/deleted fairly soon, or at the very least a warning about bringing up Phantom [because people hate being shown to be the douchebags collective humanity can be at times]), but I figured I would throw this out there so that some might have the opportunity to see what's going on and who knows, maybe Fuzz or someone else cool will read it and take some of my ramblings to mind.

[Pete]

1. You can stand the exercise

2. It's tolerable. Just click on the last page of the thread.

3. It's not really a double standard. People just look like dicks when they're put in a position of power and have to use that power to actually enforce the rules. Any cop who is called to crash a party will look like a **** when you're attending the party, but an asset to the neighbors who want sleep. All they're doing is their job. What's the point of giving people power if they won't/ can't use it.

As for the censors, it's not an issue of people getting warned for dropping f bombs. By now, most all of us know how to avoid the censor. It's really a non issue if someone curses. Describing things like sex, in detail is another story though.

4.a. There's no vb code for fixing homophobia. That's up to the members themselves.
b. Phantom would do the same thing over and over again; posting biased new from pro-gay sites and then cry outrage. Some would just tell him to shut up and deal with it, others would sympathize and others don't care either way. It's the same anywhere.
c. When he accuses people of homophobia for not wanting to see the same thing again and again, it's not homophobia; it's just being sick and tired of his crap. HE would get all pissy because others didn't agree. It was a double standard on his part.
d. He got banned for non-gay related reasons.
e. MSN and TFF are two different entities. What happens in MSN isn't under TFF jurisdiction, and we don't have an extradition policy. It should stay that way.
f. I understand that Phantom was all about gay rights and equality and all of that, but HE brought a lot of it upon himself. The first couple of times it brought interesting debate. After that it was just bickering on both sides, and a lot of 'which mod will close this to stop the petty insults?'

5. I don't think we have any problems with the mods. The admins do checks and balances and can review the jobs of the mods at hand. They do their jobs and they do them well. Spam is shut down fairly quickly and we don't have any troll problems. That makes the forums happy.

And I do appreciate you sticking up for the weak, poor, unsheltered and any other in need of a personal champion. You sir, are an internet saint.

[Furore]

1. You can stand the exercise

Those stairs are a death trap.

2. It's tolerable. Just click on the last page of the thread.

Tolerable, but improvable.

3. It's not really a double standard. People just look like dicks when they're put in a position of power and have to use that power to actually enforce the rules. Any cop who is called to crash a party will look like a **** when you're attending the party, but an asset to the neighbors who want sleep. All they're doing is their job. What's the point of giving people power if they won't/ can't use it.

So it's not a double standard when member A and member B do something similar and only one is punished or the punishment differs greatly?

As for the censors, it's not an issue of people getting warned for dropping f bombs. By now, most all of us know how to avoid the censor. It's really a non issue if someone curses. Describing things like sex, in detail is another story though.

Rules are rules, though aren't they? And some members do get in trouble for breaking rules even if others don't.

4.a. There's no vb code for fixing homophobia. That's up to the members themselves.
b. Phantom would do the same thing over and over again; posting biased new from pro-gay sites and then cry outrage. Some would just tell him to shut up and deal with it, others would sympathize and others don't care either way. It's the same anywhere.
c. When he accuses people of homophobia for not wanting to see the same thing again and again, it's not homophobia; it's just being sick and tired of his crap. HE would get all pissy because others didn't agree. It was a double standard on his part.
d. He got banned for non-gay related reasons.
e. MSN and TFF are two different entities. What happens in MSN isn't under TFF jurisdiction, and we don't have an extradition policy. It should stay that way.
f. I understand that Phantom was all about gay rights and equality and all of that, but HE brought a lot of it upon himself. The first couple of times it brought interesting debate. After that it was just bickering on both sides, and a lot of 'which mod will close this to stop the petty insults?'

Oh really? I thought he got banned from ID because his threads weren't popular, or it was his flame-baiting that resulted from mods not intervening when people were trolling him? Do tell me if I'm wrong.

Other topics come up a lot too and some members often bring their own lifestyle choices into threads and I'm yet to see a repeat of what happened to Phantom for those choices.

MSN and TFF are two different places, but when you have people discussing and plotting TFF related events on MSN including mods, there's a bit of irresponsibility there. And I do recall where you sat on MSN too Pete.

5. I don't think we have any problems with the mods. The admins do checks and balances and can review the jobs of the mods at hand. They do their jobs and they do them well. Spam is shut down fairly quickly and we don't have any troll problems. That makes the forums happy.

Thanks for the laugh.

And I do appreciate you sticking up for the weak, poor, unsheltered and any other in need of a personal champion. You sir, are an internet saint.

Beats being an internet sheep.

[Pete]

Oh boy am I going to enjoy this.

Phantom aside, give me an example of where two members do the exact same thing and receive different punishments.

Also, please factor in that every mod doesn't get the chance to review every single thread and every single post. I had the job before, I know.


He got banned from ID because he would flame bait. He would post accusations of homophobia pretty much whenever someone would disagree with him. I appreciate his passion for the topics, but he was blinded by it more than anything. Plus, 99% of his posts in ID were all the same thing, including calling people ignorant or homophobic. When you slander someone like that, you're essentially doing some trolling yourself.

Other people do bring up their lifestyles, but they don't parade it in every post. I don't write about being a straight white dude in the majority of my posts, or how it affects me. Could I write about reverse racism and be the champion for that? Sure I could. Would I look like an asshat because of it? Probably.

I don't think it's irresponsible to discuss TFF related events on MSN. We all go to the same board, it's really one of the things we have in common. People talk about everything on MSN and AIM. Should I not talk about baseball with kids from my team because we're not on the field right now?

Trolls are only a problem if you let them be a problem

I wouldn't know what being an internet sheep is like. I do like the analogy though.

[Andromeda]

As I tell a lot of people use reports or PMs. Any report I get I always look into to see if something needs to be done. If it goes to a mod and you think things haven't be handle properly PM me. I will take a look at the problem myself. I take every report I get seriously regardless of how many I get. Just send me all of the information and I'll look it over. Rank doesn't matter to me, if they made a mistake they'll get warned just same as anyone else. Heck, Shadow knows I've warned him a couple times myself and he's my best friend. I may not be the active member I once was, but I'm still available as a staff member. That always comes first for me and I do take it seriously and try to make the others as well. For anyone in the staff forums knows I've gotten on a couple people for acting unprofessional.

I'll keep my points to that. I understand your emotions and investment in this must be strong, but I do ask that you temper yourself. This is a slippery slope.

[Furore]

As I tell a lot of people use reports or PMs. Any report I get I always look into to see if something needs to be done. If it goes to a mod and you think things haven't be handle properly PM me. I will take a look at the problem myself. I take every report I get seriously regardless of how many I get. Just send me all of the information and I'll look it over. Rank doesn't matter to me, if they made a mistake they'll get warned just same as anyone else. Heck, Shadow knows I've warned him a couple times myself and he's my best friend. I may not be the active member I once was, but I'm still available as a staff member. That always comes first for me and I do take it seriously and try to make the others as well. For anyone in the staff forums knows I've gotten on a couple people for acting unprofessional.

I'll keep my points to that. I understand your emotions and investment in this must be strong, but I do ask that you temper yourself. This is a slippery slope.

Will do in future, I have always seen your judgements as more or less fair, so it is good to hear you care about these kinds of things.

Oh boy am I going to enjoy this.

Sure you are, big boy.

Phantom aside, give me an example of where two members do the exact same thing and receive different punishments.

Sexual pictures a while back. Froggie got punished for something where you couldn't really see anything, I don't recall anyone else getting punished for similar, even though worse pictures have been seen on occasion. For a more recent example, look at a thread I created yesterday to illustrate my point. An entire thread of complete spam, and no warnings even though people have been warned for spam in the past, including things that were more or less relevant, just spammy.

He got banned from ID because he would flame bait. He would post accusations of homophobia pretty much whenever someone would disagree with him. I appreciate his passion for the topics, but he was blinded by it more than anything. Plus, 99% of his posts in ID were all the same thing, including calling people ignorant or homophobic. When you slander someone like that, you're essentially doing some trolling yourself.

Isn't that what I said? It came from people trolling him because he was passionate about homosexual issues. And he was a cool guy who didn't get snarky until provoked. I also think there's a bit of a conflict of interest concerning the impartiality of your posts here considering where you sided on the issue of Phantom. I saw it on MSN, and I've heard from someone on MSN there's a discussion on me right now further illustrating my point that this occurs. I do find it amusing that people are getting riled up so much by my observations though...

Either way, it shows great strength of character to attack someone from behind the shadows like that.

Other people do bring up their lifestyles, but they don't parade it in every post. I don't write about being a straight white dude in the majority of my posts, or how it affects me. Could I write about reverse racism and be the champion for that? Sure I could. Would I look like an asshat because of it? Probably.

Some DO parade their lifestyle choices in most posts. Particularly things like religion which seem to hold some people's lives together. Why aren't they getting trolled by half the forums?

I don't think it's irresponsible to discuss TFF related events on MSN. We all go to the same board, it's really one of the things we have in common. People talk about everything on MSN and AIM. Should I not talk about baseball with kids from my team because we're not on the field right now?

I do, especially when someone is in a position of power. Even if they're not though, if multiple people are targetting an individual, that's low, especially if the individual isn't enjoying the conflict. (I do though, feel free to target me!)

Trolls are only a problem if you let them be a problem

I wouldn't know what being an internet sheep is like. I do like the analogy though.

Tell that to the victims Pete. I know some of you feel the internet is 'serious business', but behind every computer is a person and believe it or not, those people have feelings too. Burying you head in the sand about problems only makes you a part of the problem.

[Treize]

Isn't that what I said? It came from people trolling him because he was passionate about homosexual issues. And he was a cool guy who didn't get snarky until provoked. I also think there's a bit of a conflict of interest concerning the impartiality of your posts here considering where you sided on the issue of Phantom.

No, from what I saw Phantom got snarky whenever someone disagreed with him. He even got snarky about other issues besides his gay threads too. He was also doing a lot of the trolling himself. I know that he's trolled me for issues that weren't even about gays just because I had a differing opinion from his. I think that he probably brought 80% of what happened upon himself.

I saw it on MSN, and I've heard from someone on MSN there's a discussion on me right now further illustrating my point that this occurs. I do find it amusing that people are getting riled up so much by my observations though...

MSN and TFF aren't related... There isn't much Mods/Admins can do about MSN conversations. Besides, if people are talking about you on MSN, you should just ignore it. It is very easy to block someone if they are giving you a hard time, or you can always just talk to someone else. Surely not all of TFF is talking about specific individuals, and if they are that would be pretty sad.

Some DO parade their lifestyle choices in most posts. Particularly things like religion which seem to hold some people's lives together. Why aren't they getting trolled by half the forums?

I have not seen anyone else post threads about their lifestyle choices like Phantom did. I know that I would even get annoyed if someone kept posting religious topics over and over again even if it was my religion being discussed. People will get sick of someone posting topics that are essentially about the same topic over and over again. If he really only wanted to talk about gay issues, he should have joined a gay forum. Then everyone would want to talk about that, and probably the majority of the people would then agree with his views.

I agree with what you are saying about the spam. It is starting to seem like a lot of the older members are thinking that they can just type whatever they want and get away with it.

A great example would be the welcome thread for that new member who wanted to talk about Final Fantasy XIV. I think it is pretty bad if we have members insulting and spaming in someone's welcome thread. I wonder how many new members we would get if we did that to everyone who joined.

[Furore]

No, from what I saw Phantom got snarky whenever someone disagreed with him. He even got snarky about other issues besides his gay threads too. He was also doing a lot of the trolling himself. I know that he's trolled me for issues that weren't even about gays just because I had a differing opinion from his. I think that he probably brought 80% of what happened upon himself.

He wasn't bad originally, it was after every topic he posted started getting hammered. I honestly think that'd **** with near anyone. And he knew that people were directly targetting him for trolling which only made things worse like that.

MSN and TFF aren't related... There isn't much Mods/Admins can do about MSN conversations. Besides, if people are talking about you on MSN, you should just ignore it. It is very easy to block someone if they are giving you a hard time, or you can always just talk to someone else. Surely not all of TFF is talking about specific individuals, and if they are that would be pretty sad.

I know a good number can get to it. It was actually worse a few months back, but it still happens from time to time and on occasion you get a pack mentality thing going. Funniest part is I know some involved are proud Christians and I've always found Christians acting UnChristian really funny for some reason. Like I said, if anyone wants to target an individual, they can target me. I love a good conflict, physical or through text.

I have not seen anyone else post threads about their lifestyle choices like Phantom did. I know that I would even get annoyed if someone kept posting religious topics over and over again even if it was my religion being discussed. People will get sick of someone posting topics that are essentially about the same topic over and over again. If he really only wanted to talk about gay issues, he should have joined a gay forum. Then everyone would want to talk about that, and probably the majority of the people would then agree with his views.

I'm more annoyed at how people bring religion/athiesm into several discussions constantly. Though, it is relevant as things like that can influence a person's decisions, it's much the same thing.

I agree with what you are saying about the spam. It is starting to seem like a lot of the older members are thinking that they can just type whatever they want and get away with it.

Yeah. And it's amusing to an extent, but It's not really all that fair most of the time, and that's coming from someone who does get away with it.

A great example would be the welcome thread for that new member who wanted to talk about Final Fantasy XIV. I think it is pretty bad if we have members insulting and spaming in someone's welcome thread. I wonder how many new members we would get if we did that to everyone who joined.

Bingo. That's part of my concerns. I honestly think some members these days are posting more crap than serious posts these days.

[LocoColt04]

Pardon, but do we really need a thread to turn its focus onto someone who was banned, brought back on a parole basis, let waver from said parole terms, let slide on breaking more terms, and THEN banned again -- even when he shouldn't have been let back the first time? One who then created a new account to evade said ban, only to be banned again?



As for spam threads, I have a very clearly posted rule on that. If someone failed to issue a warning for starting said thread, I wouldn't mind giving you one on a retroactive basis -- but I don't work that way. Someone else handled the matter yesterday, and I am online today. I would have given a warning. Someone else chose not to. I'm not here to berate the moderators for their choices. I'm also not saying that I'm against fair treatment. As a whole, I'd like to think we're aiming for a much more relaxed stance on a lot of things (including spam and spam-like threads). Just because someone got warned for something six months ago doesn't necessarily mean they need to get a warning for it today.

I notice a trend of more members "warning" members not to spam than there are moderators doing the same. It's almost like a scare tactic, and I have never been fond of it.

Now, if you'd like to cite specific examples happening simultaneously, you'd have a case worthy of remark. I don't have the time to read every single post in every single thread, so I miss a lot of things. It happens. I especially miss out on all of the little visitor message fights because no one bothers reporting them before they go about deleting the messages, and then we get complaints about how so-and-so never got a warning for harassment.

And as for the filter... eh. I'd like to think it's there more as a formality these days anyhow. When members sign up for the forum, they sign an agreement that says they are at least 13 years of age. If a 13 year old hasn't been exposed to the word fuck by now, that's pretty damn strange to me. Racial slurs need to remain blocked, but the so-called swear words aren't really an issue. I don't know if everyone feels the same way about that, but those are my two cents.



Silver, I would be more than willing to debate and discuss, but don't let this get nasty.

[Furore]

Loco, I was satisfied with Andro's response concerning this and if I do see anything in future I'll be sure to send an example of both the person being treated unfairly and whoever I'm contrasting with. As far as examples go, I'm nearly sure I could dig up two usages of avoiding the word filter being treated differently, but I'm lazy, and I'd there'd be no easy way to search as I wouldn't know which way they got around the filter. I *do* recall people getting warned in the distant past over it though.

Now that that's more or less settled, how about addressing my other points? Are any a good idea/bad idea, what, ey? Specifically points 2 and 5. 2 I'd just find rather conveniant, 5 would help preserve free speech, but could cost more manpower than a forum is willing to give.

[Victoria]

2. If you want that to happen, find the source code for user groups and modify it to do that sort of thing. As far as I know, it does not have that capability. So... tough noogies. For now. (Unless said developer modifies it to have such a thing.)

[Meier Link]

Ok first off all I have to say is damn.

Sorry for derailing this back to eaerlier parts of the conversation but I just got home and am getting caught up on all 150 some odd posts that had been made over the last 24 hours. I have to throw my 2 cents in though.

I signed in yesterday to find your spam thread in my area, I in turn closed it, I then had to log off and leave the internet behind me for the night. As I previously stated I just got home again.

Now, I was planning on issuing a warning for that thread today but I stumbled apon this thread first and decided to respond to the issue that is being discussed here.

Also my thought on the issue of mods and warnings, there is no standard for how a mod is to moderate. It is up to the mod at hand to determine the appropriate actions for any discrepancies found on the forum. With that said every mod is different, we are not bots. We do what we see fit and there is the system of checks and balances in place just in case.

Now with all of that said, I am off to issue you your warning.