1: It was a general point abouut staff on communities and I'm certain there are some here who are like that. Whether they display that publicly or not is irrelevant.
Umm I don't know about all that. Talking in absolutes and making sweeping generalizations about a community that you by your own admission aren't very familiar with isn't very helpful at all and really just looks like trying to stir the pot more then anything.
I got ninja'd bruh. Real life got in the way so some stuff wasn't relevant anymore. I was too lazy to take it out.
If you really wanted to help you'd have the due diligence of hitting the refresh button and amending your post accordingly. And we have exceedingly different definitions of the term ninja'd on a forum.
My definition means I got beat by another post by minutes. Your's means your lazy? or something
Perhaps I was overhasty in making that post. I just don't like to see condescension towards other members.
If you were being sincere about wanting to offer your honest 2 cents and help out you honestly went about it the wrong way.
I mean you toats missed the context of this thread, made sweeping generalizations that this forum historically has a track record discounting said generalizations. Made insults in pretty much the same paragraph where you called for people not to insult one another. Didn't read all of the posts to make sure you weren't continuing resolved topic points etc.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Call a spade a spade and don't back pedal justify every point. It will help your over all point out greatly tbh. You didn't do your due diligence and get properly caught up on the topic at hand. And that's fine, just don't make sweeping generalizations that are masked in the cliche of "Other forums suck" and everything should be cool. Other wise well just be stuck in another loop that doesn't actually resolve anything.
1: It was a general point abouut staff on communities and I'm certain there are some here who are like that. Whether they display that publicly or not is irrelevant.
For you to be certain you actually have to have proof of these claims which you don't, you've even admitted to not knowing a lot about this community. It seems to me that you saw this thread and thought conspiracy without actually doing any research on the matter.
1: It was a general point abouut staff on communities and I'm certain there are some here who are like that. Whether they display that publicly or not is irrelevant.
For you to be certain you actually have to have proof of these claims which you don't, you've even admitted to not knowing a lot about this community. It seems to me that you saw this thread and thought conspiracy without actually doing any research on the matter.
Perhaps. Or maybe I just know human nature
I've seen it in a lot of communities before this, and perhaps that has tainted my view of what is elitism. Awell. I know I have biases I'm not afraid to admit it
Ok I think were spiraling into er....some kind of spirally thing. It isn't really productive. So lets draw a line under it eh?
The whole point of the thread was that I asked Starling to outline what she sees as issues with the forum and to have other members weigh in on it, as originally her assertion was that people had 'issues' but hadn't said anything. Thats what we're trying to gauge. EG. The FAQ is something other people have mentioned here so yeah, we can do something about that.
So I suggest people read the opening post (if they haven't already) and if there is anything they agree with or want to add then please do.
EDIT: And from this point on everybody stick to their points please - no more snarkiness.
@Starling I was a little surprised to see that your opening post didn't really mention what I thought was your main issue (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) that 'don't be a dick' was too vague?
As it stands as a point of general concern in the comments of several members when it comes to staff conduct and tone in their replies, and in the effort of being open about things — I'm more than open to explaining mine. (This should be especially helpful for anyone who's coming into this conversation blind of its history and feeling uncomfortable), so here is a quick background of how this came to be the tone I used in this particular thread:
--------------------
The Thanks thread discussion with Starling has been going back over two months now, during which time that information was clearly explained multiple times by me as per usual when making clarifications about changes or whatever we're doing:
• Example A (4/16)
• Example B (4/16)
My tone shift started when Starling made an accusatory and dismissive post about my own conduct in the Thanks referendum thread, which — because of its tone and woeful inaccuracy, I responded to more harshly.
• Example C (4/19)
None of that reply was directly addressed by her in public, and the points made there two months ago seem to've been still ignored to this date.
Instead, the next public replies Starling made about it were passive-aggressive comments made in the Blind Debate Rules threads a month later that I responded to by telling them to stop, and direct actual, meaningful feedback where it belonged:
• Example D (5/19)
From there, this discussion with her (along with several other conversations) were taken through staff channels where I, and the other staff have repeatedly clarified these points multiple times, starting from 5/26 up until a week ago (I would gladly link to these examples as well, except that they're in a private channel) before telling her to make a public thread with her forum suggestions — which became this thread.
At that point, after two months of very tl;dr clarification about this, and still seeing the same things and re-treading the same inaccurate ground, we're here in THIS thread, where my posts are fairly candid in their explanations about my tone.
--------------------
As I said when I first posted in this thread, there are PLENTY of valid suggestions made that we'd be MORE than glad to take action on if we get what we need to do that. We want to make things easier to use and are more than happy to get feedback.
At the same time, "feedback" that consists of continually making inaccurate statements as though they were fact about what Staff is doing (especially after repeated clarification) is not conducive to getting to the heart of resolving anything, and we absolutely cannot continue with it. This is true when it comes to the Thanks subject, as with the baseless claims of staff elitism and hivemind here. They're something that's dealt with very sternly, because it paints a ridiculously false image of the staff and the community here, and we just don't tolerate that.
This is why we ask for specific, concise examples for Staff to address when making these claims — and is why I've made my post in a format showing what that looks like.
If you have something like that, please give us examples to work with, and we'll address them or make improvements with what's provided.
Hopefully that clears things up & gets us what we need to make the improvements what need to be made.
I'm seeing something brought up in private (and in here) a couple of times that I believe needs clarification.
Forum Staff (Admins and Moderators/ Super Moderators) are the people who deal with reports etc. and can do things like change your username. The following people currently fit into that category - Yop, X, Tres, Me, Octo, Mog, Joe, Force, Ghost.
Site Staff (Anything with "site" or "editor" in the user title) deal with the front page and are not forum staff members, but have access to a limited amount of the staff section (they cannot see reports/ mod stuff/ the private feedback forum). So Tets is the Final Fantasy Editor, I'm the Site Director, Force is a Site Author, Vader is the Podcast Director, JT is the Community Manager etc. etc.
Since this post responds to posts made a few days ago, some things may be a bit outdated, depending on whether or not the people being responded to have revised anything they said in said posts. I've been getting the impression that some people have thought I wasn't working on a response anymore, possibly not realizing how much I had to respond to. In the interest of addressing pending responses concerning pressing issues, the FAQ sheet will have to come later.
Believe it or not, the example you're referring to has nothing to do with the recent shooting in Orlando, but rather the usual discourse in gun debates, which was meant as an example of illusory correlation and how making assumptions prevents the real issue from being dealt with. I've been working on this thread since before that happened.
Well, even if it wasn't in relation to the recent shooting it was still in extremely poor taste to draw such an analogy shouldn't have been included at all.
I fully acknowledge that wasn't the best idea. However, people completely missed the point of what I was saying when they latched onto that. That example was meant to explain what illusory correlation is. I was trying to explain the problem with assuming the problems with the debates were because of having thanks rather than due to other things, such as letting people get carried away with condescending remarks and general disrespect of others. It's one thing to disagree with someone, but being disrespectful in the manner in which you do so is a whole other matter that undermines the equal exchange of ideas discussion is for. Just look at this thread and tell me that's not happening here. And yet if someone removed thanks from this thread, it wouldn't be any less of a problem.
The issues presented in the thanks thread aren't confined to the debates section, but rather are present anywhere that has people disagreeing without taking the time to really listen to each other.
Ok I think were spiraling into er....some kind of spirally thing. It isn't really productive. So lets draw a line under it eh?
The whole point of the thread was that I asked Starling to outline what she sees as issues with the forum and to have other members weigh in on it, as originally her assertion was that people had 'issues' but hadn't said anything. Thats what we're trying to gauge. EG. The FAQ is something other people have mentioned here so yeah, we can do something about that.
So I suggest people read the opening post (if they haven't already) and if there is anything they agree with or want to add then please do.
EDIT: And from this point on everybody stick to their points please - no more snarkiness.
@Starling I was a little surprised to see that your opening post didn't really mention what I thought was your main issue (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) that 'don't be a dick' was too vague?
I was considering making the issues about the rules a separate thread discussion to keep this one focused on suggesting general improvements for the forum. I was already worried about anything concerning issues on the forum and how they could be dealt with would devolve into an argument that could get bad enough to devolve into banning and infractions without even addressing what was brought up and knew starting off with potential rule revisions at the very start increased the likelihood of people doing that as a gut reaction against change. The general sentiment here appears to be that everyone thinks everything is fine until they experience the issues firsthand and don't like letting people discuss those issues because they think things are fine or that the person in question is just causing trouble by bringing it up. It's why all I said about it in my opening post was:
Starling said:
Some of these could be added to the rules post, which hasn't been updated since 2012. If necessary, a separate thread could be made just to discuss what could be done to update it.
All of that is moot now that the thread has already descended into the kind of conflict I was trying to avoid, so I suppose we might as well talk about it now. It really bothers me that it took so long for staff to intervene regarding the antagonistic behaviour on this thread and how people effectively stopped discussing what I brought up in favour of attacking my credibility and insistence on bringing up an issue no one agrees with, parroting uncited claims of bias and misrepresentation. That's ad hominem. I can't defend myself against such claims if no one tells me how they relate to the points I've been making and exactly what part of my posts they take issue with. It's not fair and respectful discussion.
When I first messaged staff about the issue I was having with the behaviour on this thread, I was told nothing was wrong and that they were just stating their opinions. It just kept getting worse from that point before you finally said anything about it, and still staff hadn't addressed the part about people not really addressing my points. I've had to deal with that kind of response about similar problems I've taken to staff every single time I've messaged staff about anything. Some of the points in my original post are things I brought up in the staff section because staff hadn't clarified on them when I asked in the PMs or were suggested solutions to issue I was experiencing, yet I was told to take here instead, despite my reluctance to do so and frustration at having to deal with that immediately after being forced to take my problems from PM to private feedback for staff convenience, also despite my reluctance. I first found out about PMs being posted in staff when staff was telling me my privacy concerns about switching form PM to private feedback were moot. My concerns about having to deal with staff in a place where I couldn't address the one I felt more comfortable with and risk having the ones I'm having problems with make antagonistic posts towards me while I'm trying to have my problems dealt with were proven correct with the way X has been treating me. I've been simultaneously told to sum up my TLDR posts in as few words as possible and to explain my points in a clear and concise manner as if I hadn't already explained those issues. You and X were the only ones who posted more than once and X was doing most of the talking. No one took issue with the way X was acting in the private feedback section and he just continued that here.
Staff has come across as generally apathetic towards my problems, complacent regarding the current state of moderation, more concerned about how much work it takes to help someone with their problems than actually dealing with them and biased in regard to placing more value on staff perspective than member perspective. Having to deal with all that for months has thoroughly broken my trust in staff's objectivity in dealing with interpersonal problems on the forum. My response to Carlie relates to the trust issues concerning what happened with Aaron.
I'll respond to the part directed specifically at me and leave it up to others to respond to the rest of your post if they so choose (because to be frank most of us have already addressed the points you've brought up).
Starling said:
What's the point of having a FAQ that can't effectively answer frequently asked questions or be navigated properly? I figure even just making its whole contents visible by default if you scroll down from the search bar would likely be simple enough even if you aren't going to change the contents of it. That still leaves the stickied thread option, like with the forum rules.
Please tell me specifically what questions are frequently asked enough to warrant us revamping or updating that section, because literally the only thing I can think of is BBCode and how to use it. We have posts/ a thread on both that and the "when can I post x" type-questions that are easily findable using the regular forum search function, as well as just asking somewhere in a thread like chit-chat.
What members won't be able to do right away, why that is, when they'll be able to, the whole privacy stuff on the forums, options for contacting staff, how they differ and which methods are preferred for what. Since this is to provide easy access to any information members should have access to about the forum, pretty much anything members should know ought to be included if it isn't already present.
Starling said:
Regarding the rules, adding some clarification on parts of the rules isn't going to turn the whole thing into obstructive bureaucracy. If anything, the vagueness of some parts combined with a lenient approach causes too much disagreement over what does and doesn't fall under a particular rule.
To be frank, there are some members that treat the current rules like an obstructive bureaucracy already, forgetting that mods don't need to list one off and "quote a violation" if someone has Been a Dick. We only use the rules if they're going to be helpful in explaining why something has been dealt with in a certain way. It's vague on purpose/ for that reason. Making it more specific just results in trolls trying to find loopholes. If we're doing anything to the rules, we're completely rewriting them (and it won't be any time soon) to account for the experiences that staff have had in recent years trying to deal with certain situations which the rules do not effectively cover. But don't be surprised if all this means is we delete 75% of what is already there and replace it with "Don't Be A Dick", because that's how we currently operate. The people who pretend not to know what that means are trolls trying to find loopholes, and doing that is also against the rules
If that's how it's supposed to work then why have all the times I've taken this kind of issue to staff been met with explanations of how it wasn't violating any rule, at times fully admitting that someone's being a dick but claiming you can't do anything about it despite wanting to because the rules somehow prevent you from doing so? Why did it take so long for any of you speak up about the disrespectful behaviour on this very thread?
Seems like that's an issue stemming from the rules being too vague about certain things. They should include an accurate explanation of how staff handles those problems, for one thing. You said so yourself that the rules specifically cover attempts to exploit loopholes, so that's not really going to become a problem by being more specific. As for people wanting to remove what's already there, that's downright absurd. The rules as they are right now barely go into detail about anything and only what cover what are supposed to be the most basic aspects of proper conduct. If that was removed, it would likely just exacerbate existing problems.
Starling said:
When there's a rule that amounts to don't be a dick and someone comes to staff about someone being a dick, it shouldn't become a matter of "sorry, that wasn't dickish enough to warrant intervention." and then leaving that person to deal with it on their own. That kind of thing would lead to people being dicks as much as they want as long as it's not something staff thinks is worth doing anything about. When stuff like that happens, it's generally because the rules are applied more narrowly than the problems they encompass, leading to conflict over what is and isn't a reasonable application of a rule with a broad spectrum of applicability. The rules seem to have been made the way they are so they'd be simple without excluding any situations where they'd apply. Leniency regarding the rules is all good and nice but too much leniency inevitably becomes complacency.
Well it's actually a matter of the reporters opinion of what makes someone a dick vs. the staff's opinion of what makes someone a dick. This is why everything is looked at on a case-by-case basis and we discuss every situation before taking action (and what I mean by that is that if someone reports a person and says "this person is being a dick" then there are at least four or five people who have disagreed with that assessment before you're told "no they're not"). There are unfortunately cases where the so-called "dick" has actually done nothing wrong except express an opinion the person reporting the post has disagreed with. There are also situations where staff have closed an issue and a person is unhappy we haven't immediately (for the purpose of this example) destaffed and banned the so-called offensive person, and so decided that they'd become trolls on the forum. This happened a few times with a previous staff member you're very familiar with. We don't string people up because there are members baying for blood, we do it only when it needs to be done.
There's a reason we give second (and third, and fourth) chances to people, and it's because we would expect the same from anyone else. People make mistakes. I've broken the rules myself, I've acknowledged it, apologised, and moved on. Then I've been good for months. Then I've got drunk and pissed off at something and vented and pissed everyone off (then acknowledged it, apologised, and moved on). As long as that part in the brackets happens and people aren't constant assholes (read: trolling), staff generally don't give a shit.
And how would anyone know whether the decision was made fairly or not if there's no set standard for what does and doesn't constitute staff misconduct? How can people make sure how staff deals with it isn't down to which of the people involved they like more? How do we know the way those issue are dealt with is consistent if there aren't any guidelines ensuring a consistent manner of dealing with the problem? If the latter part is about Aaron, see my response to Carlie.
Another point that seems to require elaboration is information about staff conduct. While staff is held by the same rules as everyone else on the forums, their position as staff allows them to do things other members cannot and puts them in a position of authority where they're expected to do things like enforce the rules and resolve conflicts between members. As such, occurrences of misconduct within staff has the potential to be a lot worse than the same with someone who isn't. What do you do if someone who enforces the rules misuses their authority or exhibits exactly the kind of behaviour you wouldn't want to see from someone with that authority? Additionally, how does staff treat issues concerning their fellow staff members fairly and without bias if there aren't any set standards on how to deal with it while maintaining objectivity? Making it clear what is and isn't tolerable behaviour from staff would make it easier to verify that the reasoning is sound and free of bias towards either end, especially with the low transparency impeding member input on whether or not the matter was dealt with fairly.
Staff members are subject to the same rules as everyone else, if a staff member is seen misbehaving and/or breaking a rule anyone can report them. Starling you were here when we demoded Aaron and there was an announcement explaining he had been demoded for a long string of misconduct, that several members had reported his behavior and that staff had discussed it for a long time and came to an unanimous decision on the matter.
From what I saw in his departure thread, it doesn't really look like the situation with Aaron was handled fairly. For one thing, he had every right to be upset that no one told him his behaviour was problematic enough to warrant demodding and people suddenly come out with how much they dislike him and glad they are that he's gone once that happened when I didn't see any of that being a common occurrence before then. It makes it quite clear people were talking behind his back, which is specifically what he cited as his reason for leaving. He deserves and apology about that if anyone's willing to find him to give it.
It was said that he was destaffed due to his behaviour in the past year. I looked through all his posts in that timeframe and there's nothing in public discussions that would warrant destaffing him for misconduct. That means it's entirely based on whatever went on in the private sections of the forum. I understand that stuff going on in those sections is private but it makes me rather suspicious, given the kind of disrespect I've been told is perfectly acceptable lately. People have to stop citing the issue with Aaron as something that was dealt with correctly when none of them have provided any details on what misconduct occurred. All I've been hearing about it is that an unknown number of people complained about his behaviour. My suggestion that we have set guidelines about staff misconduct isn't just to allow people to better identify cases of misconduct and have them addressed, but to make sure staff stays consistent in how they deal with those issues. Right now, I don't trust that staff members have gotten away with repeated disrespectful and antagonistic behaviour towards me while Aaron got destaffed based on the same standards. I have little reason to believe this discrepancy isn't based on how well liked the staff members involved are in relation to the members taking issue with their behaviour.
1. I'm not pursuing it anymore. Decided that it's not worth my time after seeing some of the replies here. Fangu was right.
2. Why hasn't Yop admin'd you yet? I'm not kidding. Just from that one post alone, in my eyes, you're way more qualified than some of the mods/admins here.
Whether or not you get banned for that post, I fuckin salute you.
It's too bad you don't feel like sharing your thoughts on updating the forum anymore. While I like the way the main forum page is right now and may not have necessarily agreed with whatever changes you wanted, I would've loved hearing them and discussing the pros and cons. I mean, it's what I made this thread for.
I'm flattered you think I'd make a good mod and I'm sorry people gave you such a hard time for the way you worded that part of your post.
I think it's fair to assume that if people don't get involved in an issue, despite being given the opportunity, it's because they don't care about it enough to make their feelings known. To take me as an example, I don't care about the thanks issue either way; I can't even remember if I commented on the discussion, but if I did it was because I felt it was my duty as a citizen of this community to contribute to the debate.
FWIW, what I think is this: we elect the mods/staff to run the site and make decisions and they should be allowed to get on with that. We don't need referenda about everything, and by that I mean most things don't require a referendum.
This thread is proof enough that the forum is somewhat lacking in offering an environment where people would feel comfortable with giving feedback on some issues or like anyone will give a damn about said feedback. Dealing with stuff like what's going on in this thread is tiring and a lot of people just don't have the time or energy to deal with stuff like that just to be listened to and have their feedback be treated fairly and respectfully. Then there's the bystander effect, where no one speaks up when they see someone being disregarded when they're trying to say something, effectively leaving them to fend for themselves. Or maybe none of them realize anything's wrong because they disagree with something that person said and think speaking up about the way they're treated will prevent them from disagreeing.
Most of the threads here where people have a disagreement about something devolve into a polarized, us vs them debate where all other discussion on the topic at hand effectively dies off and doesn't start up again. No one likes getting dragged into that kind of thing, so they stay silent. Then when that dies out too, it effectively kills the thread. Even if conversations do start up again, it's unlikely to reach the same level as before.
It's not about not caring enough to speak up, it's about not having the time and/or energy to fight an uphill battle every time you have something to say, not wanting to waste all that time and energy on saying something no one will listen to, not wanting to become a target of the hostility and disrespect someone already has to deal with and so on. Dealing with this kind of thing is exhausting. Having to deal with it repeatedly while even the people who sympathize are telling you you're wasting you time is disheartening. The thing is, nothing will get better if you don't try and to stop trying is to resign yourself to dealing with that as if there isn't anything wrong. I've had to deal with stuff like this several times and it never gets any more pleasant. I've been told to ignore problems I've tried to address and act like they aren't there by people whose jobs were to help people with such problems and have had firsthand experience with how doing that just makes it worse.
It's not an accusation at all. It is a fact that you're misrepresenting it, that is backed up by the data points that I listed in bullet points AKA "elaborating on [my] reasoning" like you continue to claim that I'm not doing.
If you're saying that I'm misrepresenting the thanks issue then yes, you are. You have to cite exactly what you're calling misrepresentation or else you're just shifting the burden of proof to get out of justifying your attempts to undermine my point about the problems with how the thanks thread was handled. Notice that I actually point out what I'm calling a fallacy instead of just saying you're being fallacious and leaving you to figure out what I'm referring to.
I'd like to remind you that my issue isn't so much that the blind debate section exists as the way it was put in place and the lack of discussion on whether or not it was actually addressing the problem at hand. There wasn't even any discussion on seeing if adding the option to make thanks invisible on an individual basis would suffice on its own.
The fact that you've avoided responding to the SPECIFIC parts of my post to detail what you actually found issue with – like I'd asked is irksome but completely expected from you at this point.
Just because I didn't quote you doesn't mean I didn't address what you said.
While you've been off to a decent start... once again, I'm going to have to HEAVILY correct you here on what actually took place with the Thanks reform, since you seem adamant about continually misrepresenting what took place, despite having had it explained to you multiple times.
1. Stop accusing me of misrepresenting the situation when I'm listing facts instead of actually addressing those facts. It's condescending and indicates that you aren't actually acknowledging what I'm saying. If you were, you'd treat my input with as much value as you expect yours to be treated in return. Saying I'm wrong and that I'm presenting an inaccurate picture of the situation without even elaborating on your reasoning isn't conductive to that.
• The Thanks system was polled (starting on 4/14) for general opinions on how we implement in on the forums. Within two days (by 4/16), we had the following results from 40 users:
- 24 people didn't want it changed at all.
- 12 thought it should be restricted it in certain sections.
- 4 wanted it gone completely.
• We let the users know that the people who wanted it gone entirely could utilize a browser plugin to disable it (which covers the minor 10% who voted and leaves the other 90% as-is).
- This is still an option for any users who dislike the system and would rather not use or see it, since we won't be removing it from the forum.
2. There are several problems with citing that poll to defend your claim that things were handled properly:
a) Polls are supposed to be handled as rule of majority. 24/40 people voted they didn't want anything changed, which is 60%. That's quite plainly the majority. The option of restrictions was also vague and could mean a number of different things not everyone in that category would necessarily agree on, making opinions on that matter ambiguous without dividing it into specific options.
b) That poll was meant to gauge general opinions on the thanks system without intending to make immediate changes.People voted on it before the intent to make changes and what those changes would be were actually suggested. Therefore, it's not actually representative of which option members want and shouldn't have been used as the basis for going through with changes. If you wanted a poll that's actually representative of that, then it should've been a poll listing the specific options available such as no change, thanks free subforum, member specific option to not see thanks while allowing everyone else to keep using them, etc. You're affirming the consequent (If people voted for restrictions on the thanks system, any option given under that category is approved by those people, which assumes they all agree with the suggested application of the opinions they expressed even if they weren't aware of the manner of application when voting, or even that it would be applied at all. There's no way of knowing if they had the same thing in mind or something different.), which is a fallacy.
c) Elaboration on specific options and what they entail, as well as discussing the nature of the problem can affect opinions and cause them to change. I started out open to the idea of a trial run, where thanks would be temporarily absent from some threads until I thought about the problems with its implementation and further discussion indicated changes would be made without actually discussing the root cause of the thanks issue. I recall a few people saying they voted for something they didn't want due to misunderstanding the options or changing opinions so redoing the poll would likely lead to different results.
• I created the Blind Debate sub-forum. Within it, I generated an introductory thread with rules & guidelines for its use, and I moved the Presidential Debate thread in there so that the people affected by it who very much wanted partial restrictions (which was 30% of the vote) had a place to test it out there, as well as with any threads they wanted, in addition to being able to make new threads without the Thanks system in place. This meant that there wasn't any discussion needed on converting the entire Debate section to being Thanks-less, since all threads in there would be voluntarily moved by the minority representation who could benefit from a more sterile conversational environment.
- Secondarily I compiled a quick list of threads from the debate section to possibly also test, and that list was left in place for user feedback for two full weeks (until 5/4). This is also known as a re-verification of user input, where many of the quickly listed threads were deemed that they wouldn't be moved, and a couple others were moved immediately, before at the end of the two weeks, the remainders were moved into that sub-forum to give a more broad test set.
5. While changes that add an optional feature that doesn't affect anyone not using it such as giving members the ability to not see thanks if they don't want to is fine, changes such as moving threads to a thanks free section that will be permanent despite prior discussion being about a temporary feature to test how lack of thanks affects people needs re-verification of member input before you go through with it, which is what I meant by it in the first place. Doing it afterwards is too little too late.
7. The thanks free debate section was touted as a test/trial run, which it isn't as there's no intention to remove it after the supposed trial period, which hadn't even been given when it was put up. The details of how it would be implemented weren't even ironed out until it was already put in place. We could've tested if the invisible thanks option was sufficient to satisfy some of the people who wanted restrictions before assuming something like the thanks free debate section was necessary. It could've even been tweaked to allow members to choose which sections to make thanks invisible in and which to show them. Seems like it'd make a better trial run, in any case.
• The original polled Thanks thread was left to discuss any other potential issues related to Thanks, but not directly caused by them (clique-ish activity, groupthink, etc). WE ARE IN NO WAY way pushing off, ignoring, or saying that this conversation doesn't need to be had. We simply do not have enough substance to have a meaningful conversation yet, by which I mean – to this date – no one has come forward with concrete examples of this happening for the staff to work with for finding potential behavioural patterns to address this (currently) phantom issue. If ANY users have examples of anything like that, we are STILL waiting on them to be posted in that thread because the Staff absolutely cannot do anything with no physical evidence to review. If you have this stuff, please go post it now, so that we can finally have this blasted conversation and do something to get it settled.
4. Treating absence of specific input on something as indication that there isn't any, or as justification to skip to solving a problem that hasn't even been properly discussed is fallacious (Argument from ignorance), especially given the issue of low member participation on most matters concerning feedback, which is one of the reasons I made this thread in the first place. I want to know why so few members regularly give input about matters that concern them and how that issue can be improved. Given opinions I've heard expressed about the thanks thread, one reason in that case seems to be that the thread in general is simply too unpleasant to go back to. You claim we lack sufficient information to discuss the underlying problems concerning debates and whether or not they're related to thanks but discussing the matter at all isn't dependent on input, not to mention hardly any time was given for said input to be given to begin with. Such reasoning also doesn't justify skipping that step of the problem solving process.
If anyone would like to discuss why ANY of these above-listed, specific points as they came to pass were somehow unacceptable, ill-advised, too-hasty, etc. I'm here and I will be more than happy to detail what went into those decisions insofar as the limitations of related users' privacy is concerned, but I want everyone to have a clear understanding of how this ACTUALLY came about before moving on to my next point.
3. You still haven't addressed the issue of not giving people enough time to actually discuss the matter before making changes. 2 days simply isn't enough. All the other stuff like mod nominations and the various polls voting for the best FF song were done over a far larger period of time specifically to give people the time to think things over before making their final decisions and those aren't even things that involve lengthy discussions between members to reach a consensus. Doing all that in 2 days, especially when the aim wasn't to change things immediately is far too quick and is therefore rushed. Rushing solutions simply isn't conductive to ensuring that the problem's been correctly identified and solved with majority consensus of the community.
I've worked in tech support and the IT environment for the last decade, and I've been near-continually involved with this specific community (or versions of it) since December of 2003. I very well know what it takes when it comes to troubleshooting and problem solving especially in regards to this forum (because of all of what failed massively from ACF until now). Believe me when I say that there were FAR more things happening with the Thanks implementation than just who posted in the thread, including users interacting directly with me via PM about the Thanks issues they experienced, because not everyone wants their feelings displayed publicly like that. As an admin, that interaction means that I have a sufficiently different perspective than other non-Staff, and even some Staff users when it comes to how changes in the forum come about and are decided upon.
6. As said at the start of this thread, steps were skipped in dealing with the thanks issue. There was no need to go from Ghost making a thread about trying to figure out what everyone's opinion on the thanks system based on a few mentions of people having problems with it to assuming the issues brought up with debates are automatically caused by the thanks system without examining the various factors surrounding the debate problems, whether or not they actually are caused by thanks instead of mistakenly associated with it and only move on to proposing solutions after making sure the real problem's been correctly identified.
What I really, REALLY don't appreciate here is you continually re-telling a biased narrative of events despite the clarification that we've provided you, and ESPECIALLY making wholly inappropriate comparisons to how we operate when making minor changes on this forum with how people are responding to one of the most heinous incidents of mass death and homphobia in modern American history. That's flat-out disgusting, and you should be ashamed for writing that. In case you want to know (because it's tangentially related to the earlier topic) – that's why my Thanks isn't on your post despite you covering some helpful improvements & suggestions that we will continue to chat about and address.
Believe it or not, the example you're referring to has nothing to do with the recent shooting in Orlando, but rather the usual discourse in gun debates, which was meant as an example of illusory correlation and how making assumptions prevents the real issue from being dealt with. I've been working on this thread since before that happened.
Also, if anyone wants to ask questions about my points here, or the other more helpful things that Starling addressed, I'm happy to listen. Keep in mind that Gabe made good (albeit rather drunk) points about what necessitates change, vs. what'd be cool if this were some official SE Website with a paid staff running it.
It's a wonder I missed pointing out to you right there that Gabe was very rude and largely went on about how useless this whole thread is, that people didn't need to be serious about suggesting changes to the forums and that there was absolutely no need to change anything. In saying that consisted of good points, you effectively told the rest of the people on this thread that you supported that kind of behaviour and discouraged them from addressing my points properly or giving their own input instead of just repeating the kind of remarks that derailed the thread.
Starling said:
2. There are several problems with citing that poll to defend your claim that things were handled properly:
a) Polls are supposed to be handled as rule of majority. 24/40 people voted they didn't want anything changed, which is 60%. That's quite plainly the majority. The option of restrictions was also vague and could mean a number of different things not everyone in that category would necessarily agree on, making opinions on that matter ambiguous without dividing it into specific options.
To start with the bit I bolded: No. You are flat-out, 100% wrong.
Any poll with multiple options is completely allowed to be conducted to gauge opinions from those multiple options, and implement multiple solutions based upon how it's responded to. Even a close A&B poll can have a change that matches the fact that it's close, rather than just falling into which side got the most voted.
That's what was done here. You're just wrong, and you're stating your OPINION of how you wanted this poll to be run as if it were an ultimatum of our misconduct, which is absolutely is not.
THAT is what I mean when I say that you're continually misrepresenting what happened.
If you're going to act like community vote has any bearing on the decision made, then yes, majority opinion matters. What you did was a false compromise while using a poll that isn't even an accurate representation of what people think about the individual solutions proposed later on. A real compromise between the people who don't want any changes to the thanks system and those who want partial restrictions would've been going with just the thanks plugin and waiting to see if that does anything.
Starling said:
b) That poll was meant to gauge general opinions on the thanks system without intending to make immediate changes. People voted on it before the intent to make changes and what those changes would be were actually suggested. Therefore, it's not actually representative of which option members want and shouldn't have been used as the basis for going through with changes. If you wanted a poll that's actually representative of that, then it should've been a poll listing the specific options available such as no change, thanks free subforum, member specific option to not see thanks while allowing everyone else to keep using them, etc. You're affirming the consequent (If people voted for restrictions on the thanks system, any option given under that category is approved by those people, which assumes they all agree with the suggested application of the opinions they expressed even if they weren't aware of the manner of application when voting, or even that it would be applied at all. There's no way of knowing if they had the same thing in mind or something different.), which is a fallacy.
c) Elaboration on specific options and what they entail, as well as discussing the nature of the problem can affect opinions and cause them to change. I started out open to the idea of a trial run, where thanks would be temporarily absent from some threads until I thought about the problems with its implementation and further discussion indicated changes would be made without actually discussing the root cause of the thanks issue. I recall a few people saying they voted for something they didn't want due to misunderstanding the options or changing opinions so redoing the poll would likely lead to different results.
• Solution A: We made no significant change to the forum.
• Solution B: New sub-forum that can be utilized by minority members feeling underrepresented in certain threads that is dynamic to specific threads: i.e. it only gets used when they feel they need it, and the threads can come and go as their users please.
• Solution C: User-specific, browser-based plugin to hide the thanks option, which makes no change to the forum itself.
Adding a subforum and moving a large number of threads to it is a significant change. Adding it on the basis that it isn't and that it's better than removing thanks from everywhere is a false compromise, especially since solution C is applicable to those who wanted partial restrictions while only affecting those who don't want to see thanks, unlike the blind debate solution. It could've easily sufficed on its own and checking if that was the case before making changes such as the blind debate section would've been ideal.
Should we have had a poll to see how many people are utilizing the browser plugin?
Yes. Like I said, it's a less drastic option than the blind debate section and testing if it was sufficient on its own would've made a better trial run than the blind debate section.
Should we have had a poll letting people know that nothing was going to change on the forum and see how they felt about that?
Seeing as the original poll was supposed to gauge opinions without the promise of actually changing anything, it already covers that. What was a new poll when changes were stated as an actual thing that was going to happen and explicitly listing the options with explanation of how they'd be implemented, including a no change option so people could make an informed decision about it. The poll you based your decision on isn't accurate.
Should we have had a poll to see who was aware of and or utilizing the Blind Debate section?
You already decided there was an informal vote for that specific purpose, didn't you?
There comes a point in time where, if you've been around an internet community for long enough, you can't split down EVERY, SINGLE, POSSIBLE contingency into a user-facing poll. That's why staff exists at all is to interpret what the forum could used based on sufficient information from polls, thread posts, user conversation, and direct interaction with the users. It's those later four options that you are continually ignoring were ALSO factors in that decision.
The polls don't matter if they aren't accurate. Going purely by discussion alone also leaves the risk of fallacious reasoning or getting an inaccurate idea of what's going on, which is why polls and other voting methods are used. Just because I take issue with the way the blind debate section came to be doesn't mean I'd still take issue with it if the process leading to its creation was done properly. I want to address why it wasn't done properly so that stuff like that won't happen again.
Again, this is so heavily based on your completely incorrect assumption that you've somehow got a direct tap into the wants and needs of our userbase that goes above and beyond our own. I have very clearly explained to you that multiple people had contacted me via PM during that time since they weren't comfortable posting at length or going off into more detail in front of other members – specifically because this issue dealt with people who held a minority opinion & weren't being heard in the normal channels of communication.
So basically "I know better than you because I'm a mod and you're not". If you're going to reference a discussion I don't have access to as evidence for your point, you'll have to outline the relevant information they provided without outing who said it. It also doesn't affect my point about assuming the thanks system is the cause of the problems people have in debates.
Guess who really NEEDS the Blind Debate sub-forum – very, VERY few people, because they represent a minority opinion on the boards in threads that an even smaller subset of users directly participate in. That's why the system is built the way it is, so that both sides can reach a consensus on a more neutral ground that requires a small amount of user input, and not something that the majority of the forum may ever need to utilize. That's something that a simple poll WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO ADEQUATELY REPRESENT OR CAPTURE (especially if polls are used like you suggested, as a simple majority rule).
Then why are you citing the poll to defend your decision? You're basically admitting it isn't accurate. As for setting up a neutral environment, the whole forum should be a neutral environment where people can discuss fairly and respectfully. If it isn't, then there's a bigger problem not being addressed. Those issues weren't strictly confined to the debate section, but we can't just make a thanks free subforum for each section or dump them all in the same one, now can we? There should've been a discussion about that before it was done, to ensure it was properly addressing the issue it was supposedly made for.
The fact that any thread can come and go makes its implementation a trial run by nature on a thread-level basis, and from the minority groups who feel like they need those options, they're VERY much appreciated that section for having them.
What's still not clear about all of this is what while you may bemoan that the process didn't go the way that your idealized imaginary internet forum utopia would've conducted it, you have yet to state ANYTHING about what you actually want from it NOW, or why this has actually been problematic, or in any way more harmful than not putting it in place.
No, that means threads can come and go out of the section supposedly on trial run. What would make it a trial run is that it's testing something specific that people are observing over a set period of time and that it's not permanent by default. That none of that was clarified before making it casts doubt on the matter.
• What did it HURT by putting a quick solution in place for the minority group?
Not actually giving people time to think about the situation or discuss the nature of the problem, basing your decision on discussion when people weren't even made aware that changes would be made, not accounting for the possibility that less drastic solutions would get the job done just fine, ignoring the 60% that didn't want any changes, not basing your decision on a poll that actually lists all the options after everyone's been made aware of how those options would be implemented...
• What is it that you actually WANT by continuing to talk about this ad nauseum?
3. You still haven't addressed the issue of not giving people enough time to actually discuss the matter before making changes. 2 days simply isn't enough. All the other stuff like mod nominations and the various polls voting for the best FF song were done over a far larger period of time specifically to give people the time to think things over before making their final decisions and those aren't even things that involve lengthy discussions between members to reach a consensus. Doing all that in 2 days, especially when the aim wasn't to change things immediately is far too quick and is therefore rushed. Rushing solutions simply isn't conductive to ensuring that the problem's been correctly identified and solved with majority consensus of the community.
You implemented a solution before proper discussion was had about the cause of the problem it was presumably solving. Your arguments defending why that was OK assume 2 days was sufficient for getting input and letting people think things through before voicing their thoughts. Only about 2 hours had passed between mentioning the blind debate section and actually putting it in place. Multiple pages of posts were made the time it took to catch up to discussion. No one had time to get their thoughts together if they wanted to say anything at all. I would've said a lot more a lot sooner if I had the time to do that while keeping up with the discussion that was going on. The blind debate section was put in place before the rules and details of its implementation, including the supposed trial period, was actually discussed. There was no need to rush it like that.
After that, the Presidential debate thread was moved there almost immediately, because it was a large catalyst in the entire Thanks-related discussion that I was actively having with multiple members via PM during that time, and they expressed huge interest in putting that in place as soon as possible.
Given the importance of the decision, that input should've been anonymously posted on their behalf so others could give input regarding the reasoning and such. It also doesn't excuse rushing at the expense of having everything ready and thought out beforehand, nor forgoing a proper discussion on whether or not the thanks system was the actual cause of the problem.
Moving that thread immediately was important, because discussions like that are live and have a lot of potential things happen throughout a single day, and again – the minority representation who stood to benefit from it expressed an overwhelming desire to have it done.
Mods could've kept tabs on the discussion and spoken up on anything getting out of hand or someone's post getting ignored/unfairly dismissed.
Anything else put in there was either done at the request of the thread's active discussion based, or it was left as a part of a larger user-input-based thread move that waited for two weeks. This is, once again, a soon-to-be classic example or you misrepresenting what was done in favour of your narrative of events.
A lot of those threads were listed by you and then added because no one said anything. Some of those threads weren't even active. 2 days is not enough time to make an important decision. It is not misrepresentation just because you had private conversations I wasn't part of. You're missing the point of what I said, focusing on your sense of urgency rather than not giving the matter enough time to be sorted out properly.
Starling said:
4. Treating absence of specific input on something as indication that there isn't any, or as justification to skip to solving a problem that hasn't even been properly discussed is fallacious (Argument from ignorance), especially given the issue of low member participation on most matters concerning feedback, which is one of the reasons I made this thread in the first place. I want to know why so few members regularly give input about matters that concern them and how that issue can be improved. Given opinions I've heard expressed about the thanks thread, one reason in that case seems to be that the thread in general is simply too unpleasant to go back to. You claim we lack sufficient information to discuss the underlying problems concerning debates and whether or not they're related to thanks but discussing the matter at all isn't dependent on input, not to mention hardly any time was given for said input to be given to begin with. Such reasoning also doesn't justify skipping that step of the problem solving process.
Again, we're NOT skipping that stop in the problem solving process. However, that hasn't stopped you from going on incorrectly touting that talking point like it's fact.
We're interacting with members both within that thread AS WELL AS OUTSIDE OF IT. Polls that deal with a minority group needing help don't always address their concerns adequately (especially since you think that polls only show flat majority opinion). This is why members also directly converse with us, and did so during the time that the Blind Debate section was established.
In short: You're looking at a fraction of the picture, and assuming that that's the only thing that drives our decisions. It's not. You're woefully off base, and poorly informed about the bigger picture, and overly interested in making accusations based off of that, rather than gaining an understanding of the real process.
5. While changes that add an optional feature that doesn't affect anyone not using it such as giving members the ability to not see thanks if they don't want to is fine, changes such as moving threads to a thanks free section that will be permanent despite prior discussion being about a temporary feature to test how lack of thanks affects people needs re-verification of member input before you go through with it, which is what I meant by it in the first place. Doing it afterwards is too little too late.
The duration or the trial run and what to look for wasn't even discussed, which gives the impression that it may not be as temporary as it was suggested to be. Trial runs aren't supposed to be indefinite, after all.
If this sub-section accomplishes what it was meant to for particular debate threads, it will absolutely remain in place. If it somehow spectacularly fails, then we'll just put things back to the way that they were before, but no one can definitively say that that'll happen one way or another without actually testing it.
In your response, you didn't even address the issue of the trial period. To my knowledge, no one ever got around to actually deciding how long the trial period would be, the exact parameters of the trial and what would qualify the blind debate section as a failure. It's not in the rules for blind debate thread, which is where it would've been placed. It's also something that should've been outlined before the section was even put in place.
That gives every indication that the trial can just go on indefinitely with no intention of ever removing the blind debate section and that it's simply there by default. Combined with your unwillingness to acknowledge any of my points as having the slightest hint of credibility, I also have some doubts about how fair any discussion about whether or not the subforum is actually addressing any problem the option to make thanks invisible doesn't, or the problem that was assumed to be caused by thanks, would really be. That's one of the reasons why it's so important to actually have that discussion to begin with. Just to be clear, making my point doesn't necessarily mean removing the blind debate section, but rather amending the issues caused by the way it was implemented.
As it stands, the manner in which the blind debate section is being dealt with continues to assume it's actually dealing with the cause of the problems that were brought up, and my attempts to discuss whether or not the the thanks system actually is the cause of it have been largely ignored while people continue to assume it's already been dealt with.
Are you saying that everything that you're going on about is, "too little too late"? Then why are you even still going on about it.
Your reverification of user input after the blind debate section was already put in place was too little too late. You misunderstood what I was saying.
WHAT. DO. YOU. WANT. TO. HAPPEN. WITH. THIS. NOW.?
6. As said at the start of this thread, steps were skipped in dealing with the thanks issue. There was no need to go from Ghost making a thread about trying to figure out what everyone's opinion on the thanks system based on a few mentions of people having problems with it to assuming the issues brought up with debates are automatically caused by the thanks system without examining the various factors surrounding the debate problems, whether or not they actually are caused by thanks instead of mistakenly associated with it and only move on to proposing solutions after making sure the real problem's been correctly identified.
No they weren't. Again, this is another part of your misrepresentation of the events that you wouldn't've made if you'd actually had the courtesy to respond to my specific points like I'd asked.
Ghost's poll WAS NOT the only conversation being had, but rather a part of an ongoing conversation that was meant to focus on a different systemic issue that was displaying itself through Thanks (like I'd stated before). That's why that thread is still sitting there waiting on user evidence of that specific issue.
Argument from ignorance again, which I've already explained to you. Refer to my response to Lic about why leaving the thread open isn't going to lead to any feedback. I've also quite plainly disproven your claim that I didn't actually address your points in the previous post. If anything, you're the one misrepresenting, by relying on fallacious arguments to attack my credibility rather than addressing my problems with the way the thanks issue was dealt with, my attempts to suggest improvements for the forum that actually address problems I've observed and derailing discussion on the suggested improvements because you took personal offense at my insistence that it wasn't handled properly.
Ghost has confirmed on this thread that he made that poll to gauge opinions. I know he said as much in the thanks thread but I figured by restating it here, he'd be able to add further input if he felt it was necessary and it wouldn't feel like we were still extrapolating on his words. When the poll was made, nothing was said about making changes, just figuring out how people felt about it. I've also pointed out that you shouldn't assume thanks were the cause of the problem rather than discussing the factors of the the problems presented and determining whether or not the thanks system was the cause. Correlation doesn't imply causation and you shouldn't present thanks as the problem itself rather than a possible cause. There's good reason to believe it's just a symptom of the moderation problems you dismissed as a separate issue.
If you're going to use conversations I don't have access to as evidence for your point, you'll have to cite the relevant information in a manner that respects the individuals' privacy. That there was discussion prior to the thanks thread means nothing in the context of this discussion.
The rest of your post is basically you repeating the first half in the most condescending and disrespectful way possible and is quite frankly an unacceptable way of addressing someone, as I brought up in the post I made the other day. As such, if there's anything in there you still want addressed, you'll have to restate it in a respectful manner.
As it stands as a point of general concern in the comments of several members when it comes to staff conduct and tone in their replies, and in the effort of being open about things — I'm more than open to explaining mine. (This should be especially helpful for anyone who's coming into this conversation blind of its history and feeling uncomfortable), so here is a quick background of how this came to be the tone I used in this particular thread:
--------------------
The Thanks thread discussion with Starling has been going back over two months now, during which time that information was clearly explained multiple times by me as per usual when making clarifications about changes or whatever we're doing:
• Example A (4/16)
• Example B (4/16)
@X: I wouldn't say the issue is quite resolved when multiple people have expressed concerns that the problems associated with the thanks system isn't really caused by it and would therefore remain whether it's present or not. Despite expressing the need to discuss that before taking action on anything, it was basically glossed over in favour of everything else going on in the thread and then left undiscussed when people started considering the whole thing resolved.
Really thinking about it, the feeling of everyone being stacked against you or no one agrees with what you're saying is something that'll remain even if you can only see all the posts disagreeing with you and the absence of other people posting in agreement of what you're saying. I'll say that when I had that feeling on the forums, it was because I felt like the person I was debating with wasn't listening to what I was saying or was being disrespectful to me and no one was speaking up for anything as simple as showing I wasn't the only one having that issue with the way they were speaking to me. That's not an issue removing the thanks system is going to fix.
About what I said about the new subforum: I figured a fresh start would let people have the debate without all the baggage from before. Sure the older threads have a bunch of useful information but links can stop working and information can get outdated. Seeing as the threads still exist and you'd have to scroll through them to read the info anyway, I don't see separating them as making it much harder to find it. The forum even has a search function you can use for it.
I specifically gave an example of how issues cited as caused by the thanks system earlier in the thread weren't actually caused by the thanks issue, but rather member conduct, which you didn't acknowledge as related to the discussion I was trying to have and then went on to say you're lacking more specific information to have the discussion. You've been dismissive of my arguments from the start.
Well, I'm still waiting on hearing more specific information about what the issue that exists outside the Thanks system itself is. As I've said in the end of multiple replies to Dawn's post – until there's more specific information on exactly what that is, we can't address it. Regardless, that's still an ENTIRELY separate issue from what's being done with the Blind Debate section.
Didn't I just provide an example of that? The problem attributed to the thanks system is the feeling of being ganged up on or like no one is supporting your opinion. A lack of verbal support won't really be fixed purely from removing thanks from the equation. That kind of thing occurs in heated debates, which involves additional factors not being considered. They're still tied to debates, which is what prompted the thanks talk to begin with. Because of that, I wouldn't say it's an entirely separate issue. The whole point of bringing this up was that the thanks system might not be the real problem to begin with. If we don't talk about other debate problems and how they relate to each other, how would we know? Right now it's largely assumed the thanks system is the problem without really bothering to check if there's a deeper problem to deal with and it'll continue to be ignored if you dismiss it as a separate issue instead of actually talking about it.
Additionally, as I mentioned to Octo, we'll never be able to make an equal number of people have conflicting opinions, and that wasn't ever something that the Blind Debate section was meant to do either. Like the previous issue, those are things that are dealt with on a more specific basis by the Staff or Community accordingly.
That doesn't quite encompass the issue I brought up. Not everyone has to fully agree on something but they may not agree point for point with either "side" of the opposing opinions discussed. There would be some in the middle. Just having those people in the middle can make a difference and make debates less polarized. Likewise, things like someone speaking up when they see what someone is saying get dismissed without really being addressed can make a difference too.
The way I see it, the debate issues all come into play when things start to get heated. Thus, you need to ask why things get heated. It seems that debates get heated when people feel aggravated. Why do they feel aggravated? For a number of reasons that include things like the argument going nowhere, feeling like they aren't being listened to, feeling talked down to or otherwise disrespected, etc. Wouldn't that make them feel the same way as what people have been attributing to the thanks system? So then how would dealing with the thanks system actually solve that? We need to look at the bigger picture.
Lastly, the Blind Debate section itself wasn't ever meant to be a hard, new fresh start for all debates on TLS. I'm not going to split the debates between two threads, because that'd be counter-productive. Additionally, closing the existing threads would be doing a huge injustice to them, because we're not forcing anyone to use the sub-forum. Because threads can be moved both into or out of the Blind Debate area at the desire of the people involved with them, it doesn't make sense to close the thread when it might not remain there.
We're not stopping any of the ongoing debates or forcing people to discuss things in one location or another like closing the threads and making new ones would be doing. The threads' presence in that sub-section is an organic process that is managed by each thread's individual necessity as judged by the people partaking in them and can be reevaluated at any time.
I was a bit preoccupied with keeping up with the discussion on this thread so I wasn't clear on the details of what you were planning on doing with the subforum. I wouldn't call closing a thread a disrespect, considering some threads simply get closed due to sheer length and then a new thread is made to continue the discussion without having to deal with that. That said, I got the chance to read up on how you're using it and the fact that the threads will be moving around as needed suffices to explain why a fresh start wouldn't make sense. I initially had the impression threads were permanently being moved to the subforum and that simply making new versions of the threads in that section would allow people to get into the topic without being weighed down by prior out of hand portions of those debates.
post, I effectively explained correlation doesn't equal causation for why you shouldn't assume thanks are the cause of the problems. The issue I brought up is probably the biggest problem in discussions, as evidenced by this thread. You still missed my point and thought we were talking about two completely separate things. The disagreements that turn into infractions don't start off that way. They build slowly when people get frustrated about being unfairly dismissed or people missing the point of what they're saying. You identified the problem I brought up as a moderation issue and incorrectly assumed that meant it was no longer relevant to the discussion. Given the issues I've been having with moderation and the system that's supposed to deal with those problems, continuing discussion on that topic would've actually gotten us somewhere on the matter. Instead, you insisted that it was a separate issue and that we needed further input to discuss it. You also proceeded to assume the plugin couldn't address the same issues the blind debate section was made for instead of trying it out first. I had to keep explaining the necessity of discussing the causes of the problems associated with the thanks system while you kept insisting it was a separate issue.
Didn't I just provide an example of that? The problem attributed to the thanks system is the feeling of being ganged up on or like no one is supporting your opinion. A lack of verbal support won't really be fixed purely from removing thanks from the equation. That kind of thing occurs in heated debates, which involves additional factors not being considered. They're still tied to debates, which is what prompted the thanks talk to begin with. Because of that, I wouldn't say it's an entirely separate issue. The whole point of bringing this up was that the thanks system might not be the real problem to begin with. If we don't talk about other debate problems and how they relate to each other, how would we know? Right now it's largely assumed the thanks system is the problem without really bothering to check if there's a deeper problem to deal with and it'll continue to be ignored if you dismiss it as a separate issue instead of actually talking about it.
That doesn't quite encompass the issue I brought up. Not everyone has to fully agree on something but they may not agree point for point with either "side" of the opposing opinions discussed. There would be some in the middle. Just having those people in the middle can make a difference and make debates less polarized. Likewise, things like someone speaking up when they see what someone is saying get dismissed without really being addressed can make a difference too.
The way I see it, the debate issues all come into play when things start to get heated. Thus, you need to ask why things get heated. It seems that debates get heated when people feel aggravated. Why do they feel aggravated? For a number of reasons that include things like the argument going nowhere, feeling like they aren't being listened to, feeling talked down to or otherwise disrespected, etc. Wouldn't that make them feel the same way as what people have been attributing to the thanks system? So then how would dealing with the thanks system actually solve that? We need to look at the bigger picture.
The issue that we have been seeing (and are testing with the Blind Debate forum) is largely what was being seen in the Presidential Debate thread: i.e. most all of us here're fairly liberal, so the more conservative viewpoints are visually less supported by the Thanks system, and it's a little more tough for those users to keep making them and feel that they have the same level of validation in their opinions. There IS a reason to support that more neutral mindset in the trial that we're doing with the removal of the Thanks system for it and various other debate threads as a test run.
I'm fine with testing out the no thanks thing to see if it makes debates more objective. We'll have to wait and see how that goes to confirm what kind of difference it makes. I just want to make sure other problems don't get overlooked because of that.
I'm aware some of that stuff would fall under moderation. It's kinda inevitable when dealing with debate issues. The thing is, going over problems, their root causes and potential solutions can indicate whether or not anything needs to change, whether in moderation, subforums or whatever is being dealt with. Isn't it pertinent to moderation to assess problems of any kind present on the forums? Don't you regularly go over everything to make sure the system is doing a good enough job? Isn't this the kind of reasoning that prompted Ghost to make this thread?
These are completely different things, and I've re-stated a few times that we're waiting on more information for what the "other issues" are by the folks that are experiencing them. Again - without specific examples, we can't do anything meaningful to fix them. Lastly, people who're of the mindset that they just dislike the Thanks system in general also have an option for just disabling it, so that it's not there for them for all intents and purposes.
No, it's not completely unrelated. We may still be waiting on more input elaborating on the problems people have with the thanks system but we also have input about why some people stay out of the debate threads that doesn't have anything to do with the thanks system.
The people who've spoken up about either of those things so far say things about how debates can feel like your opinion isn't acknowledged or that everyone else is agreeing with the opposing argument, or that things get too heated and possibly disrespectful. Why do we have to wait for elaboration on the thanks issue to discuss whether or not what's been said so far indicates a problem that's either unrelated to the thanks system despite being associated with it or that goes beyond it and would require a different solution? More feedback on that front is as simple as asking people if they've had any problems with debates and then whether or not they associate those problems to the thanks system.
I and a few other members expressed feeling that there's a deeper issue that goes beyond the whole thanks thing. I pointed out that having a broader discussion about the issues seen in debates to figure out whether or not the thanks system is really the problem and how to better deal with it was important before we started taking action on the thanks thing. No one really responded to that. I asked whether or not we'll broach the subject in order to figure out if messing with the thanks is even necessary, then later elaborate on why I think it's important to do that and still no one replied to what I said. It wasn't until the subforum was made and Dawn expressed disappointment that no one else was looking into the deeper issues that the topic was finally responded to.
tl;dr - This thread has fractured into 3 different things:
• People who dislike the Thanks system entirely:
- These folks are the vast minority, and have the option of removing the Thanks system for just themselves. • Debates that could use a more flatly objective interaction:
- This is what the trial of the Blind Debate section is for • Clique-y or other ganging-up-type behaviour:
- This's what we're still waiting on more information for before suggesting potential ways to alleviate the issues being felt by whomever is feeling them.
I'd say that summation oversimplifies the range of opinions somewhat. It also leaves out the opinion that the thanks system either isn't the problem or not the root cause of it. There were people who wanted a solution to be found without removing thanks, others who wondered if the problem associated with thanks was a matter of perception, etc. Then there's how the thread was originally made to discuss opinions on the matter rather than actually go ahead and do something only 2 days in. There wasn't any need to rush for a solution so quickly, especially when the topic of whether or not the thanks system was the real problem hadn't been dealt with.
I pointed out that I was fine testing out the blind debate section, which was when I was under the impression proper trial parameters would be outlined for it, which were never listed. I was also getting frustrated that you were still missing my point and treating it like a separate issue. It wasn't looking like I was actually going to get a straightforward discussion about whether or not thanks were the cause of the problem. The longer our exchange went without addressing it, the less likely someone else was going to try and have the discussion either. Then Tres, who wasn't supposed to talk to me as a consequence of our previous issues, joins in to further dismiss my point while offering sympathy when if he felt any sympathy, he would've apologized for what he put me through. Still, I was actually trying to give him a proper response.
My tone shift started when Starling made an accusatory and dismissive post about my own conduct in the Thanks referendum thread, which — because of its tone and woeful inaccuracy, I responded to more harshly.
• Example C (4/19)
It was an accurate summary of my perspective of the whole thing, as seen above. The way you'd been dismissing my attempts to discuss the issue as unrelated to the topic at hand came across as trying to have a discussion while you were telling me it wasn't necessary. That's why I described it as a discussion about whether or not it was necessary to have a discussion. Over half that summary is about my attempt to start that discussion before you responded and how that felt like it only happened because I commented on something you said.
I'll admit I mistakenly thought you'd pulled back from the discussion while Tres was responding, though it didn't warrant your condescension. I still don't get what's so accusatory and dismissive about it. It seems we weren't really having the same conversation, hence the miscommunication. Was it that I was addressing Tres? If I was trying to be accusatory and dismissive, why would I have appreciated another response from you? I was still hoping you'd understand what kind of discussion I was trying to have.
None of that reply was directly addressed by her in public, and the points made there two months ago seem to've been still ignored to this date.
Instead, the next public replies Starling made about it were passive-aggressive comments made in the Blind Debate Rules threads a month later that I responded to by telling them to stop, and direct actual, meaningful feedback where it belonged:
• Example D (5/19)
I wasn't being passive-aggressive, I was responding to a comment. I got the impression no one had anything to gain from continuing the discussion in that thread and I was getting busy with other stuff so I opted to just leave it so I could deal with other stuff that'll actually go somewhere. I'm not gonna name names but I do know that some people have gotten fed up with that thread for various reasons, one of which being how the whole thing went down. In any case, I just got back from being gone a few days and would rather not have an argument be the first thing that happens now that I'm here again.
why I didn't respond as well as why I made that comment. I'd been hearing a lot of people give a sentiment to the effect of "Fuck that thread, I'm not touching it again" whenever anyone talked about the thanks thread, so I honestly wasn't surprised everyone was generally fed up with it. It didn't occur to me at the time that it would be construed as passive aggression and I was ready to leave the issue until I'd given the blind debate section a fair try. I also hadn't been on the forums the past 4 days due to being busy with a bunch of IRL stuff, so I hadn't even seen that response until I came back. I was seeing the signs of an imminent fight and still having to deal with the fallout of the previous ones, I'd decided I was better off not responding. That the dismissiveness hadn't improved and you were taking personal offence at my continued insistence that there were problems with he way the thanks thread had been handled meant that you'd just get more antagonistic if I responded.
From there, this discussion with her (along with several others) were taken through staff channels where I, and the other staff have repeatedly clarified these points multiple times, starting from 5/26 up until a week ago (I would gladly link to these examples as well, except that they're in a private channel) before telling her to make a public thread with her forum suggestions — which became this thread.
At that point, after two months of very tl;dr clarification about this, and still seeing the same things and re-treading the same inaccurate ground, we're here in THIS thread, where my posts are fairly candid in their explanations about my tone.
Alright, I am not OK with your summary of the private portion of this discussion and it's time I addressed some of the stuff that happened in there now that it's been brought up. You're giving everyone the misleading impression that I made the private feedback thread to discuss the thanks thread, when I made it to address a few month's worth of on-off PM exchanges concerning my issues with certain people that I was forced to take to the private feedback forum because staff found it more efficient and refused to respond through PM anymore. One of the loose threads was that in one of the last posts in the exchanges, I was told that my concerns having to discuss my problems with Tres where he could get involved were moot because my PMs with staff were all posted in the staff section where he can see them. That is quite possibly one of the most upsetting ways to find out about that, by the way.
The only time I mentioned the thanks thread in my opening post was
[...]
Then, there's how what Tres said in the visitor message and the thanks thread were never really dealt with either, nor how it's acceptable for a mod to treat a forum member that way. He was completely unapologetic about the whole thing, acting like the problem was all in my head rather than a legitimate issue. That makes it pretty clear he's learned nothing from the whole incident.
where I'm only referring to posts from Tres that I'm taking issue with. That was not an invitation to derail my attempt to discuss issues I'd brought up in PM to dismiss and antagonize me about the thanks thread. To gloss over that is a gross misrepresentation of this whole exchange. When you responded with
First, your own behaviour in the Thanks thread was... less-than-exemplary, and when I did respond to the thread – which Tres in no way was preventing or interrupting – you ignored my post entirely. If you have specific issues – explain them how I described at the start of this post, otherwise you're not helping at all.
in a post that was overall antagonistic and dismissive of my attempts to bring up other issues, it became clear you held a grudge about the thanks thread and that I'd have to confront you about it if I was going to be able to deal with what I'd actually tried to have addressed in peace, which is why I wanted you to back out of the thread. And yet,
X said:
Starling said:
X, if you're still mad at me over the thanks thread thing, maybe you should back out of this on account of potential bias. As awful as that whole thread was, I didn't take our discussion personally and opted to cease responding because there just wasn't any point continuing. I thought we dealt with that already.
Just to be clear, I was referring to the fact that Lex needing to tell you not to bring up personal issues with Tres in that thread, since that wasn't the place for them and you've already been told not to do that.
Additionally, let me bring up an issue with what you just said. You (as a user) are assuming that I (as an admin) have a bias that I'm apparently unaware of and are suggesting that I opt out of a conversation on those grounds. You're not a moderator here, so that's really not your call. Since you're a fan of quoting rules, here's what THAT is an example of:
* Backseat Moderating
Please do not try to dictate and control another forum member's behavior beyond asking said member to stay on topic or post/debate/discuss/argue the points at hand. If you feel a member is acting out of line, please report the post (by using this icon: ) or PM a moderator to handle the situation.
is what happened next. In accusing me of backseat moderating on account for suspecting bias on the basis that you're staff and I'm not, you actually confirmed that you have a bias and should've backed out of the thread when I asked you to. None of the other staff members voiced any issue with letting you handle most of the talking while treating me that way, the same way they took so long to intervene in this thread about that continued behaviour.
When I pointed out
X said:
Starling said:
The rule about backseat moderating is about non-moderators moderating on the public forums. If you write off any complaints staff gets about the way things are as backseat moderating, then you're effectively forbidding them from questioning how things are or pointing out flaws in the system, which impedes progress and lets staff ignore what members think about something if they don't like what's being said.
That rule is in place when one member who is not a moderator tells another member how to act, what conduct they should be taking on the forum, or what action should have or needs to have been taken by the staff. That's what you were doing, and in fact something that you seem to do rather frequently that we've been exceptionally lenient with for you since those are warnable offenses according to the rules. Lex's post also gets into a good bit of detail on this, so I'll leave the rest to his post.
that accusing people of breaking the rules just for speaking up about a problem concerning staff effectively forbids anyone from bringing up any issue staff doesn't like, you effectively made indirect threats of infractions by claiming staff's been lenient on the matter and should've issued warnings by now. Since you also said
Starling said:
That's hardly your call to make, is it? Would you like it if I cut out parts of your posts, called them sweeping generalizations and only dealt with select parts of it? It's hardly helping you prove me wrong about your possible bias. You still seem pretty hellbent on not giving me the time of day and give off an overall tone of being mad at me.
Given that I'm an admin here, and the Staff can only do things about select specific issues, that is absolutely my call to make. Also, just to be clear – IF I was some sort of biased Internet Forum Admin who was hell bent on not giving you the time of day – I could just ignore this thread or just ban you from the forums to not have to deal with you. But that is 100% not the case here. I'm working through your excessively tl;dr posts, and cutting out what we can and cannot deal with as Staff to attempt to get you to refine what it is that you want, and what it makes any sense for us to actually spend time discussing.
Yop CBA to crawl through all of this, and I don't blame him, because you have a lot to say and very, VERY few points to make on what all it is that you want to be done about it NOW. If you can make a bullet list of things that you want to be done, we'll address them directly.
in the same post and that it's the last one in the thread, you were definitely making threats. That's staff misconduct right there. The rest of staff didn't say anything about X's behaviour and the thread had become a hostile and toxic place to discuss my issues, so I had no other option than to take as much of it as I felt was appropriate to public feedback.
I had to put my foot down about taking my problems concerning the behaviour stemming from the making of this thread to the private feedback forum due to my problems with it not being addressed, including what the discussion devolved into. Right now, there is only a total of 11 posts in private feedback. 3 are mine, 3 from X and Octo's the only other mod to have posted more than once (2 times).
Those aren't even the only issues with your posts. Just the ones that make it clear the backseat moderating rule is obviously way too easy to abuse and in dire need of revision. It also makes it clear staff conduct needs to be addressed. I'm pretty sure all the thanks thread stuff you brought up in the private feedback thread was in your posts on this one, so refer to part one of my response to you about addressing those points.
--------------------
As I said when I first posted in this thread, there are PLENTY of valid suggestions made that we'd me MORE than glad to take action on if we get what we need to do that. We want to make things easier to use and are more than happy to get feedback.
At the same time, "feedback" that consists of continually making inaccurate statements as though they were fact about what Staff is doing (especially after repeated clarification) is not conducive to getting to the heart of resolving anything, and we absolutely cannot continue with it. This is true when it comes to the Thanks subject, as with the baseless claims of staff elitism and hivemind here. They're something that's dealt with very sternly, because it paints a ridiculously false image of the staff and the community here, and we just don't tolerate that.
This is why we ask for specific, concise examples for Staff to address when making these claims — and is why I've made my post in a format showing what that looks like.
If you have something like that, please give us examples to work with, and we'll address them or make improvements with what's provided.
Hopefully that clears things up & gets us what we need to make the improvements what need to be made.
Way to steer discussion right back to how wrong I supposedly am about everything. Saying as much where you're citing what you consider examples of it is one thing, you really didn't need to include that sentiment where you're asking others for feedback. You'll just sour the whole thread again.
If you can't trust staff, argue it publicly. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes conspiring going on, and that is frankly dishonest and not productive at all. If you can't argue your case here, where all parties can defend themselves, don't argue it at all. If you want to remain anonymous, get a sympathising party to do it for you.
I understand the sentiment behind this. The thing is, I also understand that some things said in private can't be quoted word for word in a relevant public discussion, as they may mention personal matters or other issues not relevant to the public discussion. As such, if referring to private discussions as relevant to a public one, I figure just outlining whatever relevant info that doesn't breach privacy and provides adequate context to give the person you're addressing something to respond to would be the closest thing you could get most of the time. Arguing your point based on information you won't disclose, however, is definitely fallacious, as it fails to fulfill the burden of proof and denies the person you're speaking to the ability to contest your reasoning.
My conclusion of this thread so far is we have three members who take issue with some things and they are blowing it out of proportion. Importantly, they do so without wider support of the community as well. One way to prove this would be to take each issue to a poll (worked great last time ). If you are so confident you have support, what better way to settle it? Maybe you are not after support though, maybe you are the dictators that you accuse staff of being? Your way or the highway. If there are things that are so critically important to you, but you can't get public support from, perhaps this is not the forum for you. Go make a competitor forum
I really don't appreciate what you said here, especially knowing I'm one of the 3 people being referred to. It was uncalled for. The "If you don't like it maybe you should leave" argument is one of the worst things you could say to someone trying to address a serious problem, not to mention suggesting that someone with lack of public support may just be a dictator. This whole part is ad hominem.
I'm operating on the understanding that you'll be more respectful from now on, so if you still wish to have other things you've said so far addressed, let me know what they are. Keep in mind that some things I've addressed to other people at this point may have dealt with similar points.
The shoutbox. There's no justification for it. I was being a dick but honestly given the post I made prior to calling you out on the shoutbox about how you like to set up things in a biased light it was only fitting that I saw you doing the same in the shoutbox.
No buts. It was out of line. What I said in the shoutbox in no way magically caused whoever read it to be biased and prior accusations of bias lacked citations to justify being made.
People disagreeing with you is NOT negative. It's just people disagreeing with you.
Additionally I felt it was underhanded for you to seek black up there from people who hadn't read the thread yet and instantly paint with bias.
By negative, I was referring to all the disrespect and how it was completely derailing the topic while causing people to disregard what I was trying to say. By positive, I meant posts attempting to address what I was saying in a respectful manner or offering suggestions like what I made the thread for. There's a difference between disagreeing with someone and being disrespectful. It's entirely possible to disagree with someone while fully addressing their points and being nice about it, which wasn't what was happening. I'm very much hoping that issue has been resolved at this point.
I know full well he would never reply like that if he wasn't the only person who felt that way. He's always been in tune with how this community feels on many levels. Additionally as you said people are frustrated, and it's clear this thread is not the result of a one off interaction between you and staff.
You can't justify disrespect by the assumption that it's conveying an opinion shared by others. What may or may not have occurred in prior discussions doesn't justify it either. You also can't assume everyone agrees with something unless they say so, nor would that justify being disrespectful towards someone.
Yop, it's still not something that can be summed up with the kind of brevity you're asking for if you want a proper explanation of why it's a problem. I just can't do that while providing the necessary context and reasoning.
So, one-sentence bulletpoint summaries pls. Give me some text to put in the FAQ and I'll get it up asap. Give me a text for a PM to automagically send to new members and I'll have that up in no-time too.
But please, no more tl;dr or meta discussions, they're unproductive and a waste of time and energy.
Do you mind waiting a bit longer for the FAQ stuff? The sheer volume of pending responses is a bit much right now and I'm going to need more time to put that together.
I consider it a work in progress, but I've got at least a rough draft of your new member PM, so you can tweak it whatever way you think will make it more presentable.
Hey [New member's name], welcome to The Lifestream forums . As a new member, Introducing yourself to the community, while optional, will help you get to know everyone. Some features such as editing your posts and uploading images will become available after 10 posts. 10 posts go by rather quickly, so there's no need to rush it. While this forum discusses FFVII and other titles within the franchise, we also discuss a variety of topics you may be interested in within the general section. We at TLS value civility, so generally being nice and refraining from spamming or trolling is advised. You can check the rules here at any time for full details on forum conduct. If you have any questions, feel free to ask another member or check the FAQ.
Starling, I understand that you were responding to some older posts. But now that you have, I reiterate the request that you drop the thanks thread thing. The creation of that forum harmed absolutely no one, and we have said countless times that we will review if it was worth it in time. Enough.
Starling said:
The "If you don't like it maybe you should leave" argument is one of the worst things you could say to someone trying to address a serious problem
While this statement is correct, I think the issue at hand is that there is not a "serious problem." This is not me saying the forum is beyond reproach or has no room for improvement, mind, but I think you make it hard for people to take you seriously when you make it sound like this place is coming apart at the seams when it clearly, demonstrably isn't. It makes it seem as though you are incapable of being satisfied when such minor things strike you as world-shaking issues, that maybe only a rulebook composed completely by you would be sufficient. At the risk of speaking for him, I think that's what Ghost was getting at.
Thank you for the sample PM, that is something tangible and productive.
I mean come on. That's a lot of thanks I could have racked up there.
All things considered you know what Starling , your right! There is no excuse for me being a dick there I apologize
edit:
From what I saw in his departure thread, it doesn't really look like the situation with Aaron was handled fairly. For one thing, he had every right to be upset that no one told him his behaviour was problematic enough to warrant demodding and people suddenly come out with how much they dislike him and glad they are that he's gone once that happened when I didn't see any of that being a common occurrence before then. It makes it quite clear people were talking behind his back, which is specifically what he cited as his reason for leaving. He deserves and apology about that if anyone's willing to find him to give it.
Whoa whoa whoa. Huh?
Just to clarify maybe I'm misreading your post but that's not at all what happened in Aarons farewell thread , nor with how him being Demoted occurred either o.O
Almost overwhelmingly everyone said they are sad to see him go... I haven't reskimmed the thread but to mind the only person who was harsh was Mage. And even then I don't recall her saying she's glad to see him go but rather that she saw his demotion coming.
Additionally part of the discussion around his demotion was based on the fact that he was aware that his attitude was pushing it. Additionally Aaron had been formally warned and put on notice for his attitude issues.
Simply put that while he did make progress and reeled it back a bit members were still speaking with staff regarding how Aaron was conducting himself.
Additionally FWIW there is no need to find him. Many of us are friends with him on FB though his presence on TLS is ,at least from me , missed.
I know I'm beating a dead horse here and not helping by responding to this part of your post but that's not at all how it happened... The situation was a shitty one but it's only made worse by framing it like that.
I'd reply to the second half of your reply to Carly , but I can't I really just can't , but I will say your entire second paragraph there doesn't hold water at all when Aaron himself in his own farewell thread admitted to going to far with some of his posts.
@Starling: I've kept quiet until now, but I need to say this. I want to start out by saying I really do like you as a person and as a member of this forum. I also think I should state that this is the opinion of JT and not some shadowy government conspiracy (well at least not a TLS-based shadowy government conspiracy )
Nobody has been as vocal about this "Thanks" thread as you have. I understand a lot of us had a problem with it. I had a problem with it. I know Dawn had a problem with it. But I am also getting tired of every two weeks you coming back to bat with the same problem and apparently we're only finally getting something productive out of this discussion, which is fine but you have been beating a dead horse that most members of the forum abandoned long ago.
Also, you constantly talk about "disrespect" and yet treat the staff as though there is some nefarious plot against the members as a whole - and attitude that is unwarranted and unproductive from ANYBODY who brings it up. Furthermore you seem to be blind to the very disrespectful way in which you treat the staff member during all of these posts. I would recommend you at the very least more carefully evaluate your posts because frankly, you come across as somebody who is just stirring the shit pot for their own sake. I know that's not your intent, but it's really not helping.
I get that you're passionate about this subject, and passion is generally commendable. But the way in which you're approaching this subject has been wrong in just about every way. I like you, Starling, but I can't idly sit by when hopefully some solidarity will help you see that this behavior is not winning you allies. You're a nice, fun person who is massively creative. Don't risk spoiling your image over something that really in the long run isn't worth it.
Give us concrete actionable items, not speculations about forum politics or unproductive rants that call into question the character of people who are supposed to be friends.
I back ForceStealer's suggestion that any further unproductive posts should warrant a thread lock.
@X
If you're saying that I'm misrepresenting the thanks issue then yes, you are. You have to cite exactly what you're calling misrepresentation or else you're just shifting the burden of proof to get out of justifying your attempts to undermine my point about the problems with how the thanks thread was handled. Notice that I actually point out what I'm calling a fallacy instead of just saying you're being fallacious and leaving you to figure out what I'm referring to.
I'd like to remind you that my issue isn't so much that the blind debate section exists as the way it was put in place and the lack of discussion on whether or not it was actually addressing the problem at hand. There wasn't even any discussion on seeing if adding the option to make thanks invisible on an individual basis would suffice on its own.
For clarification, not discussion (since as Force said – we're done with that).
Your continual misrepresentations in specific:
1) You're constantly saying we skipped the phase of member feedback – we did not. • We took a poll, and communicated with members directly in the thread and in Private Messages. Based on that poll and the direct feedback, a section was created. Once that was done, there were two weeks of user feedback to determine what threads would be put there.
2) You made claims that I ignored the problem and said not to discuss it – I did not. • There is absolutely zero evidence of this claim whatsoever.
3) Hiding Thanks individually is a universal change that cannot be used in a section/thread-specific capacity. • Additionally, it WAS discussed that it wasn't a viable option for people who only want it hidden it in certain threads / sections (again, 3/7ths of the votes show that as well).
Also, if anyone wants to ask questions about my points here, or the other more helpful things that Starling addressed, I'm happy to listen. Keep in mind that Gabe made good (albeit rather drunk) points about what necessitates change, vs. what'd be cool if this were some official SE Website with a paid staff running it.
It's a wonder I missed pointing out to you right there that Gabe was very rude and largely went on about how useless this whole thread is, that people didn't need to be serious about suggesting changes to the forums and that there was absolutely no need to change anything. In saying that consisted of good points, you effectively told the rest of the people on this thread that you supported that kind of behaviour and discouraged them from addressing my points properly or giving their own input instead of just repeating the kind of remarks that derailed the thread.
You're very much reaching to misattribute what I said here as well.
The very first sentence literally says that I do want to listen specific points from users about improvements to the site. It doesn't even remotely suggest that I was discouraging people from addressing your valid points or giving their own input. It is literally exactly the opposite of what you're claiming.
In the second sentence, I make a caveat – that, when it comes to suggesting changes on the site, Gabe made valid points about what would be "nice to change" vs. what would be "necessary to change" and WHY that's different between if we were an officially supported and paid staff of a FFVII Website, rather than a purely volunteer self-run website. – Which is something to keep in mind when making suggestions like I asked for in the first sentence, because this is our hobby not our job.
If you're going to act like community vote has any bearing on the decision made, then yes, majority opinion matters. What you did was a false compromise while using a poll that isn't even an accurate representation of what people think about the individual solutions proposed later on. A real compromise between the people who don't want any changes to the thanks system and those who want partial restrictions would've been going with just the thanks plugin and waiting to see if that does anything.
The plugin disables Thanks universally on the forum and doesn't address this in a specific capacity like the users who wanted to restrict and not eliminate it wanted. AND this point was even directly addressed publicly in the original Thanks thread itself to explain why this wasn't done (as did a large number of the PMs that I received during the time). This one posts completely covers this argument you keep making in its entirety AND in the original thread, so I'm going to leave it at that since it doesn't need to be discussed here any longer.
The polls don't matter if they aren't accurate. Going purely by discussion alone also leaves the risk of fallacious reasoning or getting an inaccurate idea of what's going on, which is why polls and other voting methods are used. Just because I take issue with the way the blind debate section came to be doesn't mean I'd still take issue with it if the process leading to its creation was done properly. I want to address why it wasn't done properly so that stuff like that won't happen again.
So basically "I know better than you because I'm a mod and you're not". If you're going to reference a discussion I don't have access to as evidence for your point, you'll have to outline the relevant information they provided without outing who said it. It also doesn't affect my point about assuming the thanks system is the cause of the problems people have in debates.
Further clarification on general Staff decision making process, using Thanks as an example:
The process of creating that section (or other larger user-impacting forum changes) involves:
• Thread poll data about where users wanted Thanks (or something) changed.
• Itemized discussions in the poll thread about the options on how to do so.
• Direct PMs to Staff from users who didn't/don't want to post in the thread.
• Staff implements changes.
Please explain what about this process was done improperly, because the process is solid and has been working just fine. If there's a real issue with how this is done in general we'll address it.
The poll data was and is used to get a picture of the active community, and not solely operate on majority rule. From there, we split out the issues into individual discussions in the thread or PMs with individual solutions and implement them accordingly to those users' wants, or set-up what solution seems viable and let it run its course.
Additionally, the Staff absolutely does not EVER "need" to detail the general points of users' Private Message communications. I will not detail more beyond the fact that they supported the creation of the Blind Debate section that they wanted to utilize – which is what pushed it to be made in lieu of dropping Thanks from the Debate section entirely (which would've had a greater impact on threads that didn't necessitate it). Staff will not do this for the Thanks discussion or any other issue AT ALL, unless we are given explicit permission to do so in advance by the user sending the PM.
This represents a clear line between the permissions and responsibilities of the Staff and of the general Users, and it will NOT move beyond that.
After that, the Presidential debate thread was moved there almost immediately, because it was a large catalyst in the entire Thanks-related discussion that I was actively having with multiple members via PM during that time, and they expressed huge interest in putting that in place as soon as possible.
Given the importance of the decision, that input should've been anonymously posted on their behalf so others could give input regarding the reasoning and such. It also doesn't excuse rushing at the expense of having everything ready and thought out beforehand, nor forgoing a proper discussion on whether or not the thanks system was the actual cause of the problem.
As I said before – Absolutely not. This will NOT happen. If a user wishes us to post information anonymously, they can have us do that, but it is CERTAINLY not happening by default. It is the STAFF'S role is to listen to user input – both public and private – and adapt the forum accordingly, or merely take those thoughts into consideration. There is no reason that this has to be posted for the rest of the userbase to scrutinize – especially with dealing when issues of minority representation.
This was the case with Blind Debate, and will continue to be how we operate the forum or with any other changes that we make. You're welcome to your input just like any other member, but if you do not have a meaningful end result for what it is that you want to take place on what is now June 22nd, 2016, then you lack anything that the Staff can continue to address with you in regards to this matter – because there is no roadmap for resolution. We won't keep going down a road with no specific goal.
As it stands, the manner in which the blind debate section is being dealt with continues to assume it's actually dealing with the cause of the problems that were brought up, and my attempts to discuss whether or not the the thanks system actually is the cause of it have been largely ignored while people continue to assume it's already been dealt with.
You're still more than welcome to post any relevant examples of evidence of this in the original Thanks thread where this discussion belongs – because as I said before and many times previous, we currently have zero examples to support continuing this discussion. Additionally, we are not continuing the Thanks-specific discussion in this thread any longer.
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Lastly, since you're openly quoting my replies from a Private Feedback thread and posting it into a Public forum for the majority of your other response to me... I'm wondering what exactly you feel it's appropriate to share from there.
I mean, I certainly wasn't consulted about you posting what was ostensibly a private discussion in public – which is generally expected for PMs or other Private communications. Would you rather we move your entire thread into a General Discussion public forum for this conversation? The whole thing is completely irrelevant to this thread on site improvements, so (like with the Thanks thing) we won't have that conversation here, but that could technically be done if the rest of the Staff who'd commented there are ok with it.
The issues presented in the thanks thread aren't confined to the debates section, but rather are present anywhere that has people disagreeing without taking the time to really listen to each other.
Ok, I won't deny that this isn't something that happens. And sometimes it can be annoying. But it is something that everyone is guilty of.
Furthermore how would you fix that? We have debates here, but they're not 'formal' debates, and I don't think anybody here has a desire to have formal debates.
Staff has come across as generally apathetic towards my problems, complacent regarding the current state of moderation, more concerned about how much work it takes to help someone with their problems than actually dealing with them and biased in regard to placing more value on staff perspective than member perspective. Having to deal with all that for months has thoroughly broken my trust in staff's objectivity in dealing with interpersonal problems on the forum.
I think you're being unfair here Starling. And for anyone reading - the post I am responding to (not my edited version) is an example of the length of PM we were dealing with. And there were several PM's to several different staff members.
We care about the community, and we care about member perspective. If we didn't we wouldn't even have a feedback section, we wouldn't have the members nominate and vote for mods.
But this particular situation we've been dealing with has been unprecedented, and at the end of the day all of the staff are regular people with jobs and real life responsibilites.
I'm going to outline my own personal thoughts here on the situation as I see it, I'm not speaking for other staff members.
The problem we had (prior to this thread) was that you were reporting posts that were not actionable (with the exception of one person mentioned below) your threshold for 'being a dick' is an awful lot lower than anybody else on the forum.
Then you messaged us complaining about someone else - member 2 -where you wanted us to tell this person -who wasn't actually violating any rule at the time - to modify their behaviour.
We used to have problems with people being dicks left right and centre and drama erupting every 5 minutes, but for a long time it has been pretty peaceful - with the exception of a few obvious trolls- doesn't mean that everyone gets along all the time or even agrees 100% but it's been a workable system.
So, what you seemed to be asking us to do, is either:
a) to modify the rules in such a way that the system would become far more strict - the relaxed atmosphere that we have here compared to some other forums would have to go
b) police other members behaviour according to your particular sensitivity - in short giving you special treatment over other members.
I could be wrong here, but that is how I feel about the situation and what possible solutions could satisfy you.
That is why I wanted you to create this thread - because if other members agreed that they wanted the rules to become more strict then that is something we would have to look at if the majority is in agreement.
The other member (going to call them '3' ) you had problems with. That person had been getting away with skirting the rules for a long time (prior to any incident with you) and although most of that was before I became a Mod I regret that that person wasn't dealt with more quickly and more harshly. (And I can assure you that they will not get away with it in future)
I feel like if that had been taken in hand sooner then it wouldn't have contributed to your feeling of unfair treatment. I regret that and I'm sorry.
But as for the rest of it, I think it really comes down to a huge difference of opinion in what the rules should be, and the rules of TLS have evolved the way they have for a reason because that is how the majority of members seem to want it.
With the exception of person 3, the other incidents where you felt people had been condescending or disrespectful towards you were incidents when the majority of people would have gone 'Ok this person doesn't agree/isn't listening/I'm not getting anywhere with this so fuck it I'm going to cut my losses' instead of reporting posts and expecting Mods to step in.
EDIT: Regarding the Thanks issue: Again I might be wrong, but I feel like the reason the Thanks issue became a big deal to you, is because you wanted other people to echo your thoughts on the rules/don't be a dick thing/ what you believed to be the 'acutal source of the problem' and it didn't materialise in the discussion thread and when the solution was reached you felt like the oppurtunity had passed. If that is the case I hope that now you've been able to have your say in this thread that would resolve your problem with the Thanks debate.
Anyway, that is my thoughts on the matter. I hope it goes some way to bringing things to a head.
I'll allow other people to respond to the parts of your post concerning them.
So er, it's been 5 days since I last posted here. Has anyone got anything to contribute? Responses? Cos we don't want this to turn into some sort of saga y'know?
Starling, I understand that you were responding to some older posts. But now that you have, I reiterate the request that you drop the thanks thread thing. The creation of that forum harmed absolutely no one, and we have said countless times that we will review if it was worth it in time. Enough.
That has nothing to do with why I think it's a problem. Just because it's an unpopular opinion doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. There still hasn't been word of a proper timeframe for the supposed trial period, nor the official parameters of said trial. Not only would this discussion be relevant to evaluating the section, but I've already pointed out discussing whether or not the thanks thread was the cause of the problem should've happened before it was put in place.
While this statement is correct, I think the issue at hand is that there is not a "serious problem." This is not me saying the forum is beyond reproach or has no room for improvement, mind, but I think you make it hard for people to take you seriously when you make it sound like this place is coming apart at the seams when it clearly, demonstrably isn't. It makes it seem as though you are incapable of being satisfied when such minor things strike you as world-shaking issues, that maybe only a rulebook composed completely by you would be sufficient. At the risk of speaking for him, I think that's what Ghost was getting at.
It's rude and dismissive, which is why I took issue with it. I'm still here talking about this stuff because I want these problems addressed and actually care about this place enough to want it to improve. If I just left, those problems would still be here and may come to bother other people. If I left, I'd likely lose touch with friends I've made here. If everyone who took issue with the system was told to leave, then when would anyone actually discuss its problems and what to do about them?
I don't see how my opening post made it out like the place was falling apart or exaggerating the situation. I suggested improvements and simply cited why I thought they would improve things. Clarifying information about how staff currently does things that isn't written down anywhere, generally making information more accessible to members, having a written guideline on the basic process of addressing staff misconduct and updates to ensure they're done properly, even the latter ones don't really need a complete rule overhaul so much as clarification on things that should already be happening and that members should already know about.
I've actually given examples of issues that very much do need to be taken seriously, such as X's hostile and dismissive behaviour and the aggravating problems in my attempts to sort out various problems in private. I even suggested solutions as they would benefit the forum as a whole. I find it appalling that staff apparently doesn't have a problem with the way X has been treating me as of late, especially when I was trying to resolve the problems I was told to take to the private feedback forum. If you do, you haven't been clear on the matter. I've been remarkably patient and civil in the face of all the dismissiveness and hostility that's been directed at me as of late. I've tried to get staff to address it before it got any worse and was told nothing was wrong until you finally took action, and yet I'm still being treated like I don't deserve to be taken seriously. X's behaviour in the private feedback thread prevented me from really getting anywhere addressing the issues I'd gone there to address. Staff has told me to both condense what I'm saying, and provide explanations I've already given, which is rather conflicting. If staff was more specific about what they wanted clarification on, then maybe we could've made some progress.
Another issue I'm having specific to this thread is that not only have people been unnecessarily dismissive of me, but also towards Tel. Correcting what you consider an erroneous comment doesn't warrant the way it was dealt with, especially if you miss the point while doing so. How was it that correcting the matter of having been banned before was handled more respectfully than the comment on thinking I'd be a good mod? It gives the impression that the way people were treating my posts influenced it to some extent, even if not consciously. The way X responded to her backing out of the thread was also problematic, given that it shows she was right about feeling unwelcome in the thread, especially given he played the opinion card to justify the way he expressed it.
If staff can't provide an environment where I can bring up my problems and have staff acknowledge those problems and attempt to resolve them in a calm and respectful manner rather than silently observe hostile and dismissive behaviour from others, then yes, it's a serious problem. I easily could've suggested all the improvements in my opening post without there actually being an ongoing problem related to it, simply because it would help improve the forum. And yet, I'm not confident the reception would've been much better than it's been even without the discussions that led up to it.
Thank you for the sample PM, that is something tangible and productive.
From what I saw in his departure thread, it doesn't really look like the situation with Aaron was handled fairly. For one thing, he had every right to be upset that no one told him his behaviour was problematic enough to warrant demodding and people suddenly come out with how much they dislike him and glad they are that he's gone once that happened when I didn't see any of that being a common occurrence before then. It makes it quite clear people were talking behind his back, which is specifically what he cited as his reason for leaving. He deserves and apology about that if anyone's willing to find him to give it.
Whoa whoa whoa. Huh?
Just to clarify maybe I'm misreading your post but that's not at all what happened in Aarons farewell thread , nor with how him being Demoted occurred either o.O
Almost overwhelmingly everyone said they are sad to see him go... I haven't reskimmed the thread but to mind the only person who was harsh was Mage. And even then I don't recall her saying she's glad to see him go but rather that she saw his demotion coming.
Mage was mostly referring to stuff from way back before the timeframe given for the problems relevant to Aaron's destaffing and wasn't really hearing him out on his side of things in her post, being rather disrespectful about it to the point where staff had to warn her about it. I'm not saying there aren't plenty of people sad to see Aaron go, just that everyone seemed fine with him up until his departure thread, where people came out about issues they've had with him in the past (before the relevant timeframe, it seems), a number of posts were generally dismissive of Aaron's problem with being led to believe there weren't any unresolved problems about his behaviour and several comments around the lines of backing off the internet. On top of that, Aaron's demotion seems to have become the go to example of how mods currently deal with things fairly and consistently, which really isn't fair since no details are ever given of exactly what Aaron did to warrant destaffing and what was so fair about the way the whole thing was handled.
Like I said, you can't use stuff like that as an argument if you're not going to/can't provide enough context to explain your reasoning. In conjunction with the issues I've been having with staff, I simply can't trust that without the necessary information to deem whether it's true or not. Despite my suspicions of inconsistent standards regarding staff conduct, I'm not actually assuming it's impossible for Aaron to have actually done something to get him destaffed, just saying that I can't take staff's word for it. As for people saying they're glad he's gone, I was mostly thinking of
I don't remember what the edited/deleted posts in the departure thread said and some of them weren't really about Aaron but those happened too.
Additionally part of the discussion around his demotion was based on the fact that he was aware that his attitude was pushing it. Additionally Aaron had been formally warned and put on notice for his attitude issues.
Simply put that while he did make progress and reeled it back a bit members were still speaking with staff regarding how Aaron was conducting himself.
Actually, it was that Aaron hadn't been made aware of the problems leading up to his destaffing until 2 days before his departure thread. He even pointed out how as someone on the autistic spectrum, he wouldn't necessarily notice subtle hints at it if present and that such things should've been made clear and explicit to him. In regards to the stuff pertaining to public conduct, I checked his posts in the year prior to his destaffing and didn't find anything that would warrant that kind of thing, so I'm not really sure what the reports and non staff complaints would've come from within that timeframe.
It doesn't really help that he got destaffed without notice, letting him find out through the public announcement rather than a personal message. He ought to have at least been notified his position as staff was being discussed before that point, what the complaints were and how to address them. It was also brought up that demoting could've been an option.
Additionally FWIW there is no need to find him. Many of us are friends with him on FB though his presence on TLS is ,at least from me , missed.
I know I'm beating a dead horse here and not helping by responding to this part of your post but that's not at all how it happened... The situation was a shitty one but it's only made worse by framing it like that.
I'd reply to the second half of your reply to Carly , but I can't I really just can't , but I will say your entire second paragraph there doesn't hold water at all when Aaron himself in his own farewell thread admitted to going to far with some of his posts.
That was in reference to past issues that were dealt with. Staff told me the same about Tres and yet he's still staff, so clearly saying such a thing is insufficient evidence to say whether or not it warranted destaffing and adds to the issue of writing down the staff misconduct guidelines where everyone can see it. Like I said, insufficient information was given to explain why he was destaffed. All that was really said was that staff deemed Aaron's conduct unfit for a mod and didn't really say anything about it until he was destaffed.
@Starling: I've kept quiet until now, but I need to say this. I want to start out by saying I really do like you as a person and as a member of this forum. I also think I should state that this is the opinion of JT and not some shadowy government conspiracy (well at least not a TLS-based shadowy government conspiracy )
Nobody has been as vocal about this "Thanks" thread as you have. I understand a lot of us had a problem with it. I had a problem with it. I know Dawn had a problem with it. But I am also getting tired of every two weeks you coming back to bat with the same problem and apparently we're only finally getting something productive out of this discussion, which is fine but you have been beating a dead horse that most members of the forum abandoned long ago.
I literally only discussed the thanks issue in the thread itself and the rules about blind debate. To say I've been constantly bringing it up is an exaggeration. As I've said, X is the one who brought up the thanks thread in the private feedback section and demanded that I respond to it despite attempting to broach other matters. It's also not a discussion anyone was publicly aware of until a few days ago, so it's not really relevant to the issue of public perception. The only reason the thanks thread has anything to do with this thread is because I used it as an example for why basic guidelines for future forum updates would be an improvement.
Also, you constantly talk about "disrespect" and yet treat the staff as though there is some nefarious plot against the members as a whole - and attitude that is unwarranted and unproductive from ANYBODY who brings it up. Furthermore you seem to be blind to the very disrespectful way in which you treat the staff member during all of these posts. I would recommend you at the very least more carefully evaluate your posts because frankly, you come across as somebody who is just stirring the shit pot for their own sake. I know that's not your intent, but it's really not helping.
That's not what I was doing. I was suggesting improvements I genuinely thought would improve the forum. I have actual, legitimate issues with staff, such as X's conduct and how it was completely unconductive to actually getting anywhere in my private discussion with staff, as well as how other staff members gave no sign of taking issue with such behaviour while it was happening right in front of them. Then, that issue bled into this thread and it was a chore just to get people to listen to the FAQ suggestion, let alone anything else. It's great that we're making progress on that but it doesn't mean everything else I've brought up should be ignored.
I get that you're passionate about this subject, and passion is generally commendable. But the way in which you're approaching this subject has been wrong in just about every way. I like you, Starling, but I can't idly sit by when hopefully some solidarity will help you see that this behavior is not winning you allies. You're a nice, fun person who is massively creative. Don't risk spoiling your image over something that really in the long run isn't worth it.
I wouldn't really call what you're doing solidarity. I'm making observations on the dubious consistency of dealing with matters that lack explicit standards for dealing with them and even suggested a way to deal with it. As I've said to Lex and Octo, it doesn't even require changing the rules so long as accurate information on what staff does about that stuff is provided. Keep in mind this thread was to suggest improvements and now I've had to explain the kinds of issues that make those suggestions so important to discuss.
Give us concrete actionable items, not speculations about forum politics or unproductive rants that call into question the character of people who are supposed to be friends.
I'm not speculating about forum politics, I'm pointing out actual problems that need to be dealt with, as well as making it clear what I have a problem with. This thread was never meant to be a list of rule breaking for mods to deal with, it was to suggest improvements to the forum and provide clarification on why those improvements would be beneficial. If you insist on "actionable items", then how about these:
1. X's behaviour in the private feedback was obstructive of attempts to resolve problems I addressed to staff.
2. X made indirect threats of banning and infractions for attempting to address said issues, requesting he back out of the discussion and suspecting him of bias.
3. The reasoning he used to dismiss the request proved he had a bias
4. When I started a public feedback thread within days of his final post and attempted to address issues I felt were relevant to improving the forum, X continued his hostile and antagonistic behaviour, not taking me seriously and implicitly inciting others to do the same.
5. It needs to be made clear that ganging up on people to disregard their comments shouldn't be condoned. That's not how discussions work and such behaviour discourages people from giving feedback.
I back ForceStealer's suggestion that any further unproductive posts should warrant a thread lock.
He didn't say anything about thread locks. I really don't like the insinuation that my posts aren't productive. How am I supposed to address ongoing issues on the forum if I'm going to get pushed around from one method to another while next to no one treats me seriously? On top of that, if I try to make another thread for general feedback suggestions, am I going to have to deal with potential derailment or claims that it isn't necessary based on this one? The main reason private matters concerning me and staff bled into this thread was because the private thread became a toxic and unwelcoming environment to discuss in, X continued his problematic behaviour in this one and everyone seems to have let past discussions dictate how this one went.
@X
If you're saying that I'm misrepresenting the thanks issue then yes, you are. You have to cite exactly what you're calling misrepresentation or else you're just shifting the burden of proof to get out of justifying your attempts to undermine my point about the problems with how the thanks thread was handled. Notice that I actually point out what I'm calling a fallacy instead of just saying you're being fallacious and leaving you to figure out what I'm referring to.
I'd like to remind you that my issue isn't so much that the blind debate section exists as the way it was put in place and the lack of discussion on whether or not it was actually addressing the problem at hand. There wasn't even any discussion on seeing if adding the option to make thanks invisible on an individual basis would suffice on its own.
I told you to stop with those accusations. I've already dealt with all your supposed examples of it.
1) You're constantly saying we skipped the phase of member feedback – we did not. • We took a poll, and communicated with members directly in the thread and in Private Messages. Based on that poll and the direct feedback, a section was created. Once that was done, there were two weeks of user feedback to determine what threads would be put there.
The poll is inaccurate and doesn't gauge informed opinion on explicit solution options with full knowledge that changes would be made and how they would be implemented. Private discussions only matter if you cite the relevant information. User feedback is supposed to occur before the section is made, not after. There were only 2 days to discuss anything in the thanks thread and a few hours to discuss the blind debate section before it was put in place.
2) You made claims that I ignored the problem and said not to discuss it – I did not. • There is absolutely zero evidence of this claim whatsoever.
I was trying to have a discussion about whether or not issues brought up in the thanks thread were actually caused by the thanks system and how to address the causes. Literally the whole point was to discuss whatever those causes were, including the stuff you dismissed as mod issues and therefore unrelated. Then, there's what you did in the private feedback thread, such as what I quoted. On top of that, the behaviour on this very thread further demonstrates the unwillingness to discuss anything that has the slightest thing to do with questioning staff decisions, especially pertaining to moderation.
3) Hiding Thanks individually is a universal change that cannot be used in a section/thread-specific capacity.
Why not? Adblock is capable of working on specific pages on a domain, being paused and probably some other neat stuff I'm not aware of. It's entirely possible to make the plugin work like that too. It's also an issue not strictly confined to any particular section, so that kind of precision would allow people to do it on a thread by thread basis.
• Additionally, it WAS discussed that it wasn't a viable option for people who only want it hidden it in certain threads / sections (again, 3/7ths of the votes show that as well).
Again, the poll is not accurate. Looking at the poll options again, it would seem that I accidentally clicked a different option than the one I wanted, and so did at least one other person. It's not like I would've had time to mention it before changes were made given how rushed it was. There's at least 5% of the total vote that's been misplaced.
It's a wonder I missed pointing out to you right there that Gabe was very rude and largely went on about how useless this whole thread is, that people didn't need to be serious about suggesting changes to the forums and that there was absolutely no need to change anything. In saying that consisted of good points, you effectively told the rest of the people on this thread that you supported that kind of behaviour and discouraged them from addressing my points properly or giving their own input instead of just repeating the kind of remarks that derailed the thread.
You're very much reaching to misattribute what I said here as well.
The very first sentence literally says that I do want to listen specific points from users about improvements to the site. It doesn't even remotely suggest that I was discouraging people from addressing your valid points or giving their own input. It is literally exactly the opposite of what you're claiming.
And what points of mine have you actually treated as valid? It's just been misrepresentation this, bias that, absolute refusal to respectfully acknowledge what was handled poorly in the thanks thread and what could be done to deal with it, constantly antagonizing me the whole while. The only thing so that's really been treated as worth doing so far was the FAQ and it was a chore just to get anyone to give that a try.
In the second sentence, I make a caveat – that, when it comes to suggesting changes on the site, Gabe made valid points about what would be "nice to change" vs. what would be "necessary to change" and WHY that's different between if we were an officially supported and paid staff of a FFVII Website, rather than a purely volunteer self-run website. – Which is something to keep in mind when making suggestions like I asked for in the first sentence, because this is our hobby not our job.
Well maybe you should've been more specific about what was a good point rather than saying it about his post in general.
In treating a disrespectful dismissal of my points as good points, you implicitly condoned that behaviour and set it up as an example of the kind of thing others could say, since they were apparently good points.
It's a bit like what you did in your previous post, where your request for feedback was implicitly condoning dismissal of what I've been saying as not worth taking seriously just because you keep accusing me of misrepresentation. In that one, you were indirectly continuing to undermine me the whole time you were asking others for feedback, again implying I wasn't worth taking seriously while addressing the other people in the thread.
Starling said:
If you're going to act like community vote has any bearing on the decision made, then yes, majority opinion matters. What you did was a false compromise while using a poll that isn't even an accurate representation of what people think about the individual solutions proposed later on. A real compromise between the people who don't want any changes to the thanks system and those who want partial restrictions would've been going with just the thanks plugin and waiting to see if that does anything.
The plugin disables Thanks universally on the forum and doesn't address this in a specific capacity like the users who wanted to restrict and not eliminate it wanted. AND this point was even directly addressed publicly in the original Thanks thread itself to explain why this wasn't done (as did a large number of the PMs that I received during the time). This one posts completely covers this argument you keep making in its entirety AND in the original thread, so I'm going to leave it at that since it doesn't need to be discussed here any longer.
Still not addressing the false compromise issue, nor making a poll with the full list of options and how they'll be implemented to get more accurate information on who wants what. That post doesn't actually say anything about why the plugin couldn't be tweaked to work on specific threads/sections. I don't have the time to go on a post scavenger hunt every time you mention one I don't remember the exact location of within a particular thread, but discussion was definitely had about testing out the plugin past that point. Again, private conversations don't matter if you're not going to share the relevant information.
It was even said in the thanks thread that making decisions based on private conversations whose relevant input was not being divulged was sketchy. Discussion in that thread is very confused and unfocused, given the sheer volume of posts within so little time.
Further clarification on general Staff decision making process, using Thanks as an example:
The process of creating that section (or other larger user-impacting forum changes) involves:
• Thread poll data about where users wanted Thanks (or something) changed.
See everything I've already said about why it wasn't done properly.
Please explain what about this process was done improperly, because the process is solid and has been working just fine. If there's a real issue with how this is done in general we'll address it.
I have been telling you why for several posts and you still act like I haven't. If that were true it would've already been addressed by now.
The poll data was and is used to get a picture of the active community, and not solely operate on majority rule. From there, we split out the issues into individual discussions in the thread or PMs with individual solutions and implement them accordingly to those users' wants, or set-up what solution seems viable and let it run its course.
The poll still isn't accurate. It was made under the assumption of gauging general opinions without any mention of changes being considered based on it. Ghost even clearly stated he had no ulterior motives like the ones you seem to have ascribed to it. The poll doesn't account for what solutions were proposed and how they would be implemented. The implementation is especially important, as it can be a deal-breaker for people who would otherwise be OK with a particular option. You also should've made it clear that X thing was going to happen based on X number of votes for a particular option if that's what you intended from the start. Failing to do so was dishonest. It also doesn't address not discussing the trial parameters of the blind debate section beforehand, nor the lack of discussion on whether or not thanks was what needed to change in order to deal with the debate issues, which is a pretty important thing to discuss before resorting to making changes intended to address those problems. See below on the PM issue. All you're doing here is showing the whole thing was done in an incredibly dishonest manner, not really giving members the chance to make an informed decision on the matter with full knowledge of how you intended to go about it. Stuff like that shouldn't happen again, which is why I suggested making basic guidelines for it.
Additionally, the Staff absolutely does not EVER "need" to detail the general points of users' Private Message communications. I will not detail more beyond the fact that they supported the creation of the Blind Debate section that they wanted to utilize – which is what pushed it to be made in lieu of dropping Thanks from the Debate section entirely (which would've had a greater impact on threads that didn't necessitate it). Staff will not do this for the Thanks discussion or any other issue AT ALL, unless we are given explicit permission to do so in advance by the user sending the PM.
This represents a clear line between the permissions and responsibilities of the Staff and of the general Users, and it will NOT move beyond that.
See below. The general userbase should've been given full disclosure on staff's intentions from the start and omitting half the arguments on the topic from the public discussion was dishonest, especially if it's such a big part of your decision. How many people is that anyway? There's a reason stuff like that is normally done by rule of majority, as well as why proper discussion on the matter should be allowed to occur, which didn't because of stuff like this.
Given the importance of the decision, that input should've been anonymously posted on their behalf so others could give input regarding the reasoning and such. It also doesn't excuse rushing at the expense of having everything ready and thought out beforehand, nor forgoing a proper discussion on whether or not the thanks system was the actual cause of the problem.
As I said before – Absolutely not. This will NOT happen. If a user wishes us to post information anonymously, they can have us do that, but it is CERTAINLY not happening by default. It is the STAFF'S role is to listen to user input – both public and private – and adapt the forum accordingly, or merely take those thoughts into consideration. There is no reason that this has to be posted for the rest of the userbase to scrutinize – especially with dealing when issues of minority representation.
This was the case with Blind Debate, and will continue to be how we operate the forum or with any other changes that we make. You're welcome to your input just like any other member, but if you do not have a meaningful end result for what it is that you want to take place on what is now June 22nd, 2016, then you lack anything that the Staff can continue to address with you in regards to this matter – because there is no roadmap for resolution. We won't keep going down a road with no specific goal.
I meant basic outlines like reasons some people have voiced X opinion on the thanks issue and how many people that amounts to. You can't keep arguing that private discussions happened on a subject as justification for making a decision if you refuse to share the relevant information. That a private conversation occurred doesn't mean anything without that, as you're not fulfilling the burden of proof. You could've done something like the vote results for the previous batch of mod nominees or something, so long as you provided the relevant information for the discussion at hand. You can't base an argument based on withheld information and withholding input on an issue concerning changes being made to a system most people didn't want changed is dishonest, especially if it's apparently a key part of why you did it anyway. You claim the vote and discussion on the thread mattered for the decision and that you're making such a big deal about listening to all input on the matter, and yet you're not really listening to mine about the problems with how it was done.
Fact of the matter is, you can't make an educated decision on something without taking the time to discuss all aspects of it, such as whether or not the thanks system is the cause of the debate problems mentioned or just perceived that way, what the actual cause of the debate problems are, various ways to deal with them, how to go about implementing a given solution, actually outlining trial parameters before starting one, etc. You can't do that if you withhold information such as intending to do more than just gauge opinions, basing opinions on proposed solutions on votes made before said solutions and how they'd be implemented were even made, refusing to discuss if thanks are even what need to be dealt with, withholding arguments made about the discussion despite said arguments influencing the decision and then claiming that the results accurately reflect what was agreed on. Imagine if court trials happened where one side could make its case without the other's knowledge and what was said in private was instrumental to making the final verdict. Now, forum decisions aren't court but the same principle applies for why withholding information your decisions are based on is dishonest. It doesn't let anyone give input on whether or not there was a problem with the reasoning and so on, which is absolutely crucial to discussing potential changes to the forum. So in short, if you can't provide that information due to privacy issues, then arguments based on it are invalid.
As it stands, the manner in which the blind debate section is being dealt with continues to assume it's actually dealing with the cause of the problems that were brought up, and my attempts to discuss whether or not the the thanks system actually is the cause of it have been largely ignored while people continue to assume it's already been dealt with.
You're still more than welcome to post any relevant examples of evidence of this in the original Thanks thread where this discussion belongs – because as I said before and many times previous, we currently have zero examples to support continuing this discussion. Additionally, we are not continuing the Thanks-specific discussion in this thread any longer.
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Lastly, since you're openly quoting my replies from a Private Feedback thread and posting it into a Public forum for the majority of your other response to me... I'm wondering what exactly you feel it's appropriate to share from there.
I mean, I certainly wasn't consulted about you posting what was ostensibly a private discussion in public – which is generally expected for PMs or other Private communications. Would you rather we move your entire thread into a General Discussion public forum for this conversation? The whole thing is completely irrelevant to this thread on site improvements, so (like with the Thanks thing) we won't have that conversation here, but that could technically be done if the rest of the Staff who'd commented there are ok with it.
I took your claim that you would gladly post it here as meaning you were OK with it. I also wanted to address the misleading manner in which you described the private feedback thread as if it was made to discuss the thanks thread instead of other matters, as well as the way in which your behaviour made me uncomfortable with continuing discussion there. Everyone already knows about my problems with Tres and I couldn't leave it out of the quote I provided for context in correcting the erroneous perception that I was trying to discuss the thanks thread in my opening post, so that's the only reason it was in the quote I provided. I don't want the stuff concerning my problems with non-staff members discussed here if it can be left out of discussion concerning your conduct. I can't exactly discuss your conduct in private, seeing as you're the main reason I can't resume the discussion I was trying to have with staff in the private feedback thread. Your conduct and other problems with that thread need to be discussed, no matter how irrelevant you consider them. You're the one who wouldn't let go of the thanks thing and I really do think there should be guidelines for how updates should be handled in the future, which is the only reason I even brought up the thanks thread to begin with. There were problems with how it was handled and I suggested a way to prevent those problems in the future.
Octo, a response taking 5 days isn't that big a deal, given it'd just add more to respond to and I have other things to do as well. I get busy IRL and also need rest, meaning some responses may take longer than others depending on factors that may not be noticeable from your perspective. These issues really do need to be addressed, and ending the discussion right there wouldn't really do that.
The issues presented in the thanks thread aren't confined to the debates section, but rather are present anywhere that has people disagreeing without taking the time to really listen to each other.
Ok, I won't deny that this isn't something that happens. And sometimes it can be annoying. But it is something that everyone is guilty of.
Furthermore how would you fix that? We have debates here, but they're not 'formal' debates, and I don't think anybody here has a desire to have formal debates.
Well for one thing, including measures to address behaviour someone has a problem with before it escalates any further, which doesn't necessarily require handing out infractions, so long as you make it clear that a particular behaviour is problematic and should be stopped, especially if the discussion is turning into the forum equivalent of shouting down the opposition rather than politely acknowledging what they're saying and explaining what problem you have with what they said in a respectful manner that doesn't ignore what they're saying and gives them a fair chance to respond with clarification or what problem they may have in turn. The important thing here is that measures taken by mods don't have to involve infractions and that they shouldn't have to wait until it gets that bad to see what they can do about a situation someone's having problems with.
Staff has come across as generally apathetic towards my problems, complacent regarding the current state of moderation, more concerned about how much work it takes to help someone with their problems than actually dealing with them and biased in regard to placing more value on staff perspective than member perspective. Having to deal with all that for months has thoroughly broken my trust in staff's objectivity in dealing with interpersonal problems on the forum.
I think you're being unfair here Starling. And for anyone reading - the post I am responding to (not my edited version) is an example of the length of PM we were dealing with. And there were several PM's to several different staff members.
We care about the community, and we care about member perspective. If we didn't we wouldn't even have a feedback section, we wouldn't have the members nominate and vote for mods.
But this particular situation we've been dealing with has been unprecedented, and at the end of the day all of the staff are regular people with jobs and real life responsibilites.
I was describing how staff came across to me in the culmination of everything up to this point. While staff may not have intended to seem that way, that they did is a problem that should be addressed. All the way back from that first exchange, it didn't feel like staff was taking me seriously in the way they were dealing with the situation and that problem just kept getting worse over time. When staff forced me to switch to the private feedback forum, they didn't really address my issues with doing so before cutting off the discussion, nor did they ask me to move things there at any prior point of those exchanges. If staff had asked me to do so instead of issuing an ultimatum and leaving me hanging on suddenly finding out all my PMs were posted in staff, as well as clarified what's so much more efficient about the private feedback forum if my PMs ended up in staff anyway, I would've been more understanding about your reasons for doing so. The way you did it didn't feel very considerate of my problems with going there and I was too worried about things getting cut off right then and there to properly list all my problems with it rather than just a few.
Then, staff let X treat me the way he did without taking issue with it, as well as putting emphasis on how much they had to deal with without seeming to consider that maybe I have just as much to deal with on top of being a single person dealing with a group of people capable of collaborating to make things less difficult for any single one of them, as well as feeling like I wasn't really being given a fair chance to have my problems taken seriously. Hell, Force is specifically claiming I shouldn't be taken seriously a few posts back.
Then, there's how everyone started calling the whole thing TLDR as soon as Yop popped in and asked me to sum everything up in a single sentence because he CBA to read it all, while also telling me to clarify things I already explained and generally lacking clarity in what exactly it was that they didn't get about what I'd already explained. I don't recall staff even saying anything about the visitor message I took issue with and brought up a couple times. That's why staff has come across as apathetic and like they care more about their convenience than taking my problems seriously.
As for the issues of bias and complacency, one of the reasons staff told me they weren't dealing with Tres was because he was staff and a longstanding member and X claimed I couldn't suspect him of bias due to being a mod while I wasn't. The complacency is from being treated like there's no problem with moderation and being accused of backseat moderating for saying there is.
I'm going to outline my own personal thoughts here on the situation as I see it, I'm not speaking for other staff members.
The problem we had (prior to this thread) was that you were reporting posts that were not actionable (with the exception of one person mentioned below) your threshold for 'being a dick' is an awful lot lower than anybody else on the forum.
I only reported 3, two from the person you ended up taking action on. The other's initial response was a warning about making bogus reports instead of simply asking for clarification on why I found it worth reporting. While staff later retracted the warning, the damage was done and I haven't really been able to trust the report system ever since, which is something I already explained. I reported those posts because I had a serious issue with them and how the person was acting, which fit the description of the rules, which I'd checked beforehand. If staff considers those things non actionable, then the rules aren't properly representative of what is.
Then you messaged us complaining about someone else - member 2 -where you wanted us to tell this person -who wasn't actually violating any rule at the time - to modify their behaviour.
We used to have problems with people being dicks left right and centre and drama erupting every 5 minutes, but for a long time it has been pretty peaceful - with the exception of a few obvious trolls- doesn't mean that everyone gets along all the time or even agrees 100% but it's been a workable system.
I literally just wanted someone to talk to them about their behaviour, no infractions expected or necessary. I'd tried to deal with it on my own and concluded that continuing to do so would just make it worse, which is why I felt contacting staff about it was appropriate. Isn't staff supposed to help deal with stuff like that?
So, what you seemed to be asking us to do, is either:
a) to modify the rules in such a way that the system would become far more strict - the relaxed atmosphere that we have here compared to some other forums would have to go
The main rule of contention is about civility, often referred to as not being a dick. That's what the issue was, so there isn't actually any need to change it in order to make it applicable to the situations I brought to staff. As such, staff wasn't really giving me a clear reason why they couldn't so much as talk to the person about their behaviour instead of leaving me on my own to deal with something that is, in fact, a breach in the rules as currently written.
b) police other members behaviour according to your particular sensitivity - in short giving you special treatment over other members.
It's not about a particular sensitivity. If this includes telling me that people were just expressing opinions when I came to staff about my problems with this thread, then yeah, you've been too lenient about dealing with stuff like this.
I could be wrong here, but that is how I feel about the situation and what possible solutions could satisfy you.
I wasn't exactly given a chance to elaborate on what I meant, seeing as I was occupied dealing with blatant antagonism and dismissal as well as having the thanks thread dragged into it. The explanations I'd given didn't seem like they were being taken seriously for the most part.
That is why I wanted you to create this thread - because if other members agreed that they wanted the rules to become more strict then that is something we would have to look at if the majority is in agreement.
It was never about making the rules stricter, but rather make them clearer about unnecessarily vague matters. At the moment, they don't accurately reflect what you do and don't consider breaches in the rules based on the situations I've had to deal with. The rule about backseat moderating has been abused in an attempt to prevent me from taking issue with staff bias and the way the moderation system currently is.
If you have guidelines about dealing with staff conduct in an objective manner, then all you had to do was tell everyone what they were and have them written down where they can see it and judge for themselves.
More than anything, it was about clarifying what appear to be unwritten/unspoken things that staff is already doing but aren't written in the rules, as well as addressing matters like what allowed X to behave the way he did without being called out on it.
I was already aggravated from being forced to use the private feedback forums without having my problems with it properly discussed, so I really didn't need to be immediately told to take stuff to public feedback, especially given my concerns about doing so were proven true with how disrespectful people have been about my genuine attempt to improve things on the forums. Like I said, disagreeing doesn't mean you should be disrespectful about it. No one's really been listening to me so far, preferring to just disregard me as if I'm not worth their time.
On top of that, I wanted a proper discussion about those issues, not a popularity vote. Gauging where everyone stands on the matter can wait until everyone properly understands the situation and changes are actually being considered.
The other member (going to call them '3' ) you had problems with. That person had been getting away with skirting the rules for a long time (prior to any incident with you) and although most of that was before I became a Mod I regret that that person wasn't dealt with more quickly and more harshly. (And I can assure you that they will not get away with it in future)
I feel like if that had been taken in hand sooner then it wouldn't have contributed to your feeling of unfair treatment. I regret that and I'm sorry.
Thank you and you're right, dealing with it more swiftly would've helped.
But as for the rest of it, I think it really comes down to a huge difference of opinion in what the rules should be, and the rules of TLS have evolved the way they have for a reason because that is how the majority of members seem to want it.
If the rules as quoted don't accurately reflect the range of actions and definitions staff uses to deal with matters, then there's inherently a problem. Like I said, the way things are right now has led to staff not dealing with issues before they got out of hand, such as what happened in this thread.
With the exception of person 3, the other incidents where you felt people had been condescending or disrespectful towards you were incidents when the majority of people would have gone 'Ok this person doesn't agree/isn't listening/I'm not getting anywhere with this so fuck it I'm going to cut my losses' instead of reporting posts and expecting Mods to step in.
In my experience, that doesn't really fix the problem. I tried that with X and look what happened. I tried doing things staff's way with Tres and he didn't learn anything from it, treating me like my problem with him was all in my head when I called him out on it. Again, I don't recall staff saying anything about that visitor message.
EDIT: Regarding the Thanks issue: Again I might be wrong, but I feel like the reason the Thanks issue became a big deal to you, is because you wanted other people to echo your thoughts on the rules/don't be a dick thing/ what you believed to be the 'acutal source of the problem' and it didn't materialise in the discussion thread and when the solution was reached you felt like the oppurtunity had passed. If that is the case I hope that now you've been able to have your say in this thread that would resolve your problem with the Thanks debate.
Well actually, I wanted a discussion going from the ground up on all the debate issues, to make sure the cause was accurately identified, regardless of what it was. X is the one who said particular issues were a mod thing and then refused to discuss any further on the matter despite that going against my intent to properly discuss all the problems. That's not the only issue though. I seriously have a problem with how the poll was treated like it was representative of people's opinions on changes being made when the poll was only intended to see how people currently felt about the thanks system. People weren't properly informed of what staff was apparently planning to do with that poll from the time of voting, which is dishonest. We were also only given 2 days to discuss matters, which is not nearly enough time to ensure everyone can properly think about the situation before commenting on it, the thread was disorganized and everyone was confused about where everyone was at in the discussion. Too much was going on at once and most people were just barely able to keep up with what was being said. I even pointed out that there was a counterargument for just about every point made by then and still it was decided to rush with the blind debate section mere hours after it was first mentioned, without even doing such basic things as determining the trial parameters and how it would be implemented beforehand. That's on top of not even bothering to question if thanks are even the cause of the problem, which I pointed out as fallacious reasoning. It's exactly the kind of thing basic guidelines on how to go about updates would help avoid in the future. They don't even have to be complicated, just stuff as basic as giving members the ability to make a calm and informed decision about a matter by clarifying the intent and what solutions are being voted for beforehand, ensuring all relevant information is publicly available, not starting a trial before outlining the trial parameters, as well as having a minimum timespan to offer people so that kind of thing won't be rushed the way the blind debate was. It's really that simple.
Mage was mostly referring to stuff from way back before the timeframe given for the problems relevant to Aaron's destaffing and wasn't really hearing him out on his side of things in her post, being rather disrespectful about it to the point where staff had to warn her about it. I'm not saying there aren't plenty of people sad to see Aaron go, just that everyone seemed fine with him up until his departure thread, where people came out about issues they've had with him in the past (before the relevant timeframe, it seems), a number of posts were generally dismissive of Aaron's problem with being led to believe there weren't any unresolved problems about his behaviour and several comments around the lines of backing off the internet. .
You tried to frame the subject like everyone hates Aaron and were throwing parades to celebrate his departure in his leaving thread. When thats NOT what happened in the slightest. That whole paragraph I quoted earlier in the week, not just the cherry picked selection I just made, is completely dishonest and quite frankly revisionist history. I don't know why you would frame a point like that when it's incredibly easy to just go get the thread and prove you wrong.
Honestly that point you tried to make is 100% dishonest and you really should apologize for trying to make a point in that way. That's NOT how we work on TLS. We make long winded as fuck posts but at least we keep them honest. I'd give you the benefit of the doubt here if it wasn't for the fact you claim to have read a years worth of Aarons post history. So what gives.
Additionally I feel you are also framing the "backing off the internet" thing in a negative light when its honestly valid advice and was never worded as "back off the internet" It was pretty much worded as "Hey buddy maybe you should take a few days off". I would know, I'm the main one who suggested doing that.
On top of that, Aaron's demotion seems to have become the go to example of how mods currently deal with things fairly and consistently, which really isn't fair since no details are ever given of exactly what Aaron did to warrant destaffing and what was so fair about the way the whole thing was handled
For one, again this isn't HR. This isn't a Presidential Campaign. We don't have to have a huge Press Release detailing in horrifying detail as to why every little thing happens on TLS.
Like I said, you can't use stuff like that as an argument if you're not going to/can't provide enough context to explain your reasoning. In conjunction with the issues I've been having with staff, I simply can't trust that without the necessary information to deem whether it's true or not. Despite my suspicions of inconsistent standards regarding staff conduct, I'm not actually assuming it's impossible for Aaron to have actually done something to get him destaffed, just saying that I can't take staff's word for it. As for people saying they're glad he's gone, I was mostly thinking of this. I don't remember what the edited/deleted posts in the departure thread said and some of them weren't really about Aaron but those happened too.
First up. Quoting one post from our resident 2edgy4me member (though he's toned it down a ton lately) is worlds away from how you framed the situation to make it seem like the board was happy to see him gone.
Cool 1 person making an edgy comment that no one agreed with , and Mage just being Mage is your source for wording the situation like that? Riiiiight.gif
Regarding trust. Well why don't you trust them? Because they didn't bend over backwards for your first demands 6 months ago?
I don't have access to staff , neither did Mage. Yet in the Departure thread it was no surprise that his actions caught up with him. And I for one wasn't referencing posts he made years prior to his demotion like you assume Mage was.
Actually, it was that Aaron hadn't been made aware of the problems leading up to his destaffing until 2 days before his departure thread. He even pointed out how as someone on the autistic spectrum, he wouldn't necessarily notice subtle hints at it if present and that such things should've been made clear and explicit to him. In regards to the stuff pertaining to public conduct, I checked his posts in the year prior to his destaffing and didn't find anything that would warrant that kind of thing, so I'm not really sure what the reports and non staff complaints would've come from within that timeframe.
Except that's not true? lol. He said she said territory but in addition to being in the know privately he IIRC had also been informed publicly in that time period to chill out.
I don't know what else to say. Staff spoke to him about his issues, if he didn't heed them, take them seriously or didn't pick up on them. That's on him NOT Yop and Co. I love Aaron but that's a "Tough shit" situation.
Also RE: I read all his posts. You act like posts can't be edited or deleted
Which is something Aaron would do in the past. He would flip out, come back an hour or two later realize he goofed and would amend or delete the post accordingly with apologizes dished out where necessary.
And mind you he wouldn't do that maliciously or anything. He was just at one time good about recognizing when he goofed and making amends.
Man. Don't be condescending like that especially when you have no idea how the situation even went down or how things transpired in pretty much the year since it's occurred. Heck I bet you wouldn't even know Aaron was his name if he didn't use it as his username. I bet you think my names Gabe
It doesn't really help that he got destaffed without notice, letting him find out through the public announcement rather than a personal message. He ought to have at least been notified his position as staff was being discussed before that point, what the complaints were and how to address them. It was also brought up that demoting could've been an option.
If only this was explained and accounted for. If only.
Yopy said:
To reiterate / explain the sudden-ness, this was mainly due to the fact that one, he had the access levels and knowledge to delete the site within about ten seconds, and two, we simply could not predict how he would respond / how he would take it; I should've explained that better in the announcement, I'm sorry about that.
That was in reference to past issues that were dealt with. Staff told me the same about Tres and yet he's still staff, so clearly saying such a thing is insufficient evidence to say whether or not it warranted destaffing and adds to the issue of writing down the staff misconduct guidelines where everyone can see it. Like I said, insufficient information was given to explain why he was destaffed. All that was really said was that staff deemed Aaron's conduct unfit for a mod and didn't really say anything about it until he was destaffed
Ohhh I see. You're trying to frame a really sour subject where multiple people on staff and in the general public felt prettty fucking shitty about how they handled it but felt they NEEDED to handle it in that way. And your framing it a dishonest light just to try and get an angle on getting Tres demoted?
Like really. REALLY? Yeah that's not happening.
Also what? No? Aaron in that thread even referenced stuff that happened like 2 weeks prior to his demotion and other things that happened with in a month to two months of said demotion. What do you think happened? Do you really think Staff deliberated over 1 weekend on whether or not they should destaff a friend of over a decade? That shit was ongoing for MONTHS.
And how can you not see the point that he didn't improve when he himself is like "Hey You know I goofed here 2 months ago , and here 1.5 months ago , and a few times a week ago but I'm totally getting better!". Like lol. Aaron was in a bad place emotionally and mentally during that time IIRC , what's your excuse for missing that clear context?
I think I'm done on this subject. I really only replied because that's a sour subject and I can't stand to see someone try to somehow make it look worse , and even worse as some sort of angle to try and push your own agenda?
That's disgusting. Guys, I mean it when I say I'm sorry for beating a dead horse. You guys (you know who you are) know I've been worried about losing good will here with how I've been replying. But I really just wanted to clear up this talking point for anyone coming in and not knowing the context of that situation.
IT did NOT happen in any way shape or form to the way Starling is making it out to be and honestly I'm quite annoyed and rather disgusted to see something like that used in that way.
Starling, I've held back responding to this thread for awhile now but I feel like I need to address some stuff. Before, I get started, I want you to understand that when you first made this thread I actually took a stand for you behind the scenes. I supported and still support your call for an updated FAQ (which Jason Tandro has taken on and done a fantastic job with). I supported and still support your call for a PM to be sent automatically to new people detailing how the forum works (which JT also took on with you). At first, I felt like there was some harsh words being shared here and I asked for cooler heads to prevail. However, as this continues to unfold it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand up for you.
There is no other way around it, you are the one being outright disrespectful here. It doesn't matter what tl;dr story you spin around it. The staff has tried and tried and tried to get through to you and nothing seems to be working. They tried being nice. They tried being more direct. They may have even gotten shitty with you. NONE of it has sunk in.
I think the real issue here is that NOTHING is going to satisfy you unless it's done in YOUR way. This thread reads like someone that has nothing but sour grapes over the fact that people disagree with you. I got news for you: PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE TO AGREE WITH YOU AND NOR SHOULD THEY BE MADE TO. If you want that, then you really need to start your own blog or forum where like-minded people can come and converse with you.
Do you know why I stay out of the debates section? I stay out because I don't want issues of politics, religion, personal beliefs, and social issues to come between me and the people on this forum that I consider to be friends. Hell, I do the same in real life with my family and friends. Those are all divisive subjects by nature and I don't want any part of that. I have come to grips with the fact that not everybody will agree with me and I'm fine with that. People CANNOT and SHOULD NOT be made to agree with another. It's called free will.
My Dad had a saying, "if you can't take the heat, stay your ass out the kitchen." It sounds to me like you can't take the heat. Rather than do the right thing and walk away, you keep fighting. You keep crying foul when somebody says something you don't like. Or you cry foul when someone says something you don't like AND you don't like the way they said it. While I agree that some folks can be downright condescending and rude in debate threads, I also understand that I don't have to participate in those discussions. Nobody is putting a gun to my head and forcing me to have to keep discussing issues and dealing with what I perceive to be rude behavior.
That's the key thing here, Starling. It's your perception of the behavior of certain members of the forum and of the forum staff that is causing the issues here. What you seem to think are major issues are just the way YOU PERCEIVE THEM. Clearly, nobody else in this thread agrees with any of the allegations you have brought up.
The forum staff here is the BEST staff I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with in my time on message boards. They handle situations with fairness AND they include forum members on matters of choosing new staff and making changes to the website. That's HUGE. There are MANY places on the web that do NOT allow the membership to have input on these matters at all.
Let me, for a moment, regale you with a cautionary tale about what happens when you have a forum staff that is strict with rules and does not allow disagreements to be posted on their site:
I am an action figure collector of a particular popular 80's toy line. We'll call this toy line "Barbarian". There was a website developed by a big fan of this toy line back in the late 90's and it became THE spot to go for the fan base of this toy line. The original owner of the site became to busy with other stuff so he sold the website to another guy. We'll call this guy "Bill". At first, "Bill" was really terrific and implemented a lot of needed updates and such to the site. This attracted the attention of the manufacturer of the "Barbarian" toy line. They realized there was still a large fan base out there and a wealth of fan knowledge. They reached out to "Bill" and several of the members of this fan website for assistance in creating a new, updated "Barbarian" toy line in the early 2000's.
"Bill" started a comic book company and was able to secure a licensing agreement from the toy manufacturer to create a comic based on this new version of the "Barbarian" toy line. "Bill" brought in a well known, well respected, and much beloved artist that we'll call "Steve" to assist in the making of this comic book series. "Steve" was made a site admin and partial owner of the fan website to help compensate him for his time spent on the comic book.
Eventually the new toy line tanked due to mismanagement by the manufacturer. The comic book was cancelled. There were a lot of hurt feelings all around on the fan website. There were several people that the manufacturer had worked with on different projects that never received an official credit for what they had done. Things like providing animations cells, original scripts, artwork, and notes from the original 80's cartoon series that were in private collections so that a DVD box set could be produced of the 80's cartoon series. A particular person in the fan base that had provided the vast majority of that stuff went completely uncredited.
This led to a lot of disgruntlement. Eventually, the toy manufacturer stopped communicating with the fan website. Then, in 2006, the toy manufacturer announced they were doing another "Barbarian" toy line that would pay homage to the original 80's toy line by updating their original looks and giving them a ton of articulation. This excited the fan base and the fan website was abuzz. "Bill" and "Steve" began reaching out to the toy manufacturer again. They wanted to help with the development of this new toy line. "Steve" specifically had a bunch of information that he had put together for the previous toy line that he was willing to share. The toy manufacturer didn't want "Bill" and "Steve" to be as involved with this new toy line as they had been with the early 2000's toy line. This led to some sour grapes and the ultimate downfall of the fan website.
The fan website started a podcast where they reviewed the new toys and talked about the "Barbarian" cartoons, toys, etc. Originally both "Bill" and "Steve" were hosts on the show along with a few others. "Steve" was always the more outspoken one. He had a wealth of knowledge on the original 80's toy line and cartoon. He had a grip on what made those great. He was unhappy with the new bio's that were being written for each character. He was unhappy with some of the egregious mistakes being made by the manufacturer on the new toys they were making. Most of all, he was unhappy because the manufacturer was blatantly ripping off his ideas or taking them and putting terrible twists on them, thus ruining them. "Steve" was very angry he wasn't receiving credit for any of this.
"Bill" started getting contacted by the product manager for the "Barbarian" toy line. The product manager wanted to regularly interact with the fans on the fan website. He also started to become a frequent guest on the podcast. "Steve" was appearing less and less on the podcast. He was appearing less and less on the forums. Something was amiss.
At this same time, "Bill" and his mod staff on the forums started deleting threads that expressed disenchantment or disagreements with the toy manufacturer. The forum mods were instructed by "Bill" to deliver warnings through PM's to members that couldn't keep their tongues in check. People started getting suspended and banned for expressing their displeasure. Basically, anybody that was expressing an opinion other than the opinion of "Bill" was unwelcome.
Then, came the announcement from "Bill" that "Steve" had been removed from his position as admin and part owner of the fan website. "Steve" took to social media and laid out all the dirt on why he had been forcefully removed from his position. Why he was removed from the podcast. It all boiled down to "Bill" wanting to show the toy manufacturer that the fan website stood behind them fully. "Bill" had dreams of working for the toy manufacturer on the "Barbarian" toy line.
This split the fan base right down the middle. There were those that sided with "Bill" and continued to heap blind praise on the toy manufacturer. Then there were those that sided with "Steve" and understood "Steve's" plight. The fan base has never been the same since. "Steve" explained that "Bill" felt like the general membership on the fan website was too stupid to understand how to behave correctly. So, he was instructing his forum mods to basically become THE law. They were given the freedom to censor the fan base. "Bill" only wanted positive things about the toy manufacturer on the site to paint the fan site in the best light possible.
I haven't been back to that site since "Steve" was removed and the truth came out about what happened. It's disgusting. I hope that never happens here at TLS. The staff is great here. The owner is great here. They have done nothing wrong and do their best to be fair and treat situations the best way they can.
You may not agree with the way the forum staff handle things but there is NO argument that can be made that they aren't fair. The bottom line is "if you can't take the heat, then stay out of the kitchen."
This is going to be my last post on this whole subject.
At this point we're going in circles Starling, you've made your points, and some of them have been agreed with, but it's clear that regarding your other issues none of the other members agree or have anything to contribute. That, for me at least, was the purpose of this thread.
Starling, I really feel you have severe tunnel vision on this subject. You really seem to think you haven't done anything wrong and are, frankly, talking about things you have no knowledge about. The constant accusations (to which you use the FOX News excuse of "I'm just asking questions!") about the staff is sickening and I'll have no more part of it.
When I was brand new here, I had issues with Aaron (which again was at the very least half my fault). He tossed about some rather hurtful comments including calling me racist, bigoted and even saying I must be "autistic". Lex gave me a stern warning and I got back to him accusing him of the same bias you had. Lex, in his usual cool fashion got back to me and set me straight. Now I'm on the site staff myself, by the recommendations of many members of the staff. The assertion that there is some anti-member conspiracy after, if nothing else, my own story is patently ridiculous.
I'm out of polite words to say and don't want to be outright rude to you, so I will excuse myself from this conversation. I'll just leave you with this: This isn't a full-time job for any of us, it's a hobby. We can't convince you to trust us, and we are all sick of trying.
It sounds rude, but it's not; what you want and what we're willing, or even able to accommodate for you is not possible. It's the Staff's job to make the forum a great and habitable place for everyone, but it's not the Staff's job to bend over backwards and spend tons of valuable time with a member who just won't be satisfied. Honestly it's hurting the community more than any of your complaints are.
Don't bother responding to my post at least with one of your extremely long, classic Proust-esque essays. I am going to urge the rest of Staff not to do it anymore, either.
). If you are so confident you have support, what better way to settle it? Maybe you are not after support though, maybe you are the dictators that you accuse staff of being? Your way or the highway. If there are things that are so critically important to you, but you can't get public support from, perhaps this is not the forum for you. Go make a competitor forum 
. As a new member, 
