Kantor said:
1) That would already be against the rules
2) We still have Person Above You threads? Besides, all of that stays confined in one thread, so I don't see the issue.
3) We have a Vita thread and it has some 250 pages. No specific discussion can happen in a thread that large.
4) No moderator has ever been elevated for being a friend of current moderators. In case you've forgotten, we all had to submit applications and were chosen on that basis. We were the best picks, in Machina's view.
5) Already happens.
6) We have the GIF rule already, but the length rule is a good one, I suppose.
Essentially, most of what you're saying is already in place. Moderation is not the problem here.
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To argue or not to argue....ah Hell with it.
1. It's not against the rules, or otherwise it's not enforced which means it's effectively not against the rules. As things stand now, members can do or say damn near anything while hiding behind the cover of "It's like, my opinion man", and there is no moderation that comes down on the majority of trolling in the forum. I'm not looking for a rule amendment so much as I am a stricter enforcement, in this respect.
2. Elimination threads in particular are everywhere and drown out otherwise good discussion, pushing it off the main page of the Hot Topics (which is the way most people browse, I assume, since it can be customized). It flooding out of the discussion isn't a problem, it making other discussions irrelevant, hard-to-find, and less active is.
3. That doesn't address the larger point, but for the sake of clarity I will rephrase it in the context of something you and I can both mutually understand: a Mass Effect thread.
Say we have one Mass Effect thread. There is no need for more Mass Effect threads, as it stands now. All Mass Effect discussion would take place therein. When the new DLC is announced, the OP and thread title would be changed to reflect that. Talk about characters? It goes in there. Talk about multiplayer? It goes in there. Asking for build advice? It goes in there. Got some interesting quotes from Chris Priestly concerning when DLC is landing? It goes in there.
The idea is that the vast, even overwhelming majority of threads don't need to actually exist. We've fetishized "official" threads so much that they're essentially worthless, but once they exist we're supposed to post relevant news in them. We don't, at the moment, which is another case where the rules aren't being fully enforced. Do we need a new thread every day about THe Last of Us? No. It just takes up space on the forum listings and pushes most discussions off of the main page.
Also, I hoped that this would be implied, but in case not: threads would have size limits. Something like 2000 or 5000 posts. After that, time for a new thread.
4. You're addressing one specific sentence without referring to the larger point. How many people still hold grudges over multiple past questionable moderations that were never acted upon by the administration? Quite a few, I think. Maxwell was a friendly guy, but his moderations were some of the most controversial on the site, and some of the most personal, and nobody's complaints were ever really thoroughly investigated.
I'm not saying there needs to be transparency in this process. I'm saying there needs to be clear and actionable rules laid down for moderators, and these rules being acted upon needs to be indicated to the forum at large to some degree.
5. THis is another case where I guess I'm being too gentle in the language
Be more strict about it. Moderators tiptoe a lot around here, and it needs to stop.
6. SHRINK THE GIF SIZE LIMIT. Also set the size limit, hard and fast. People have been screwing with the size of their sigs for literally years, and it's been impossible for the mods to keep a leash on it because there's nothing there for them to refer to anymore.
Anyway.
This isn't about the job that the mods are doing within the context of the current system. You guys are doing fine. However, a few rule tweaks - and an increasing willingness to bloody your hands, granted - would do a lot to weed out unnecessary and harmful discussion, which allows better discussion to flourish. When we're not being drowned out in threads all covering the same topic, it creates a sense of clarity and purpose in discussions where we can form communities around topics and ideas, and where people can exchange those ideas in a constructive way.
Like I said: rearrange the forums all you like, but it's only going to fix a part of the problem. The other part of the problem is harder, based on the discussion being had here, and that's using the rules to help foster the kind of community you want to participate in. I know you yearn for a return to the days where discussions were in-depth and vibrant, and even where they weren't friendly they were either level-headed or ban-filled.
I don't know anything about Prediction League so I wouldn't know how these things work! Don't just act like I should know!
