¤ milky moon ¤

Well, the difficulty is that currently the moderators have no basis except gut feeling and our own perception of general sentiment on which to act. We don't have a mandate. There's nothing to say what merits a warning, when to ban someone, who should get an informal caution, etc.: we just have to play it by ear.

I wouldn't personally be in favour of a strict set of rules, either; that's why I use the word "guidelines". General principles of conduct are more what I would suggest: say, for example, being civil, operating through moderators rather than disrupting threads with accusations and arguments, that sort of thing. More like an agreement regarding due process than anything else. Rather than rules or guidelines, even, it could just be an explanation of how to report your concerns to the moderators, since most concerns we'd be able to handle on a case-by-case basis. Mostly, these would be the kind of things you'd just take for granted, but it's a lot clearer if they're written down rather than having to be assumed.

I suggest we have a three strike system based on general etiquette. If a user does something that a mod / another user is unhappy about, and the mods agree, be that trolling, flaming, spamming etc, they will receive an unofficial warning, an official one, then a banning.

Our lovely little forum feels like it's been pretty poisoned recently, and I'm surprised that the members here can't just swallow their pride and let things go.

I'd agree with both Jordan~ and Weirdelves; in fact Jessie sums it up perfectly:

I think if we go crazy with rules people will not want to join/post.

I've written several sets of rules in the past (none for a web forum, I might add) and I think to set down firm instructions in this context would be rather arbitrary and - since the range of behaviours is unbounded - almost impossible to interpret with total clarity.

I think it might be best if any of us had a specific point that we feel needs to be addressed in a "guideline" - we should PM it to one of the moderators. Meanwhile, perhaps the moderators could get together and come up with a list of 'unwelcome behaviours' for us all to consider, and we could then go back with our suggestion to the degree of tolerance to be applied under each heading, and the recommended sanctions. I am assuming that the Moderators' powers fall roughly into 5 types -
1. Private warning via PM
2. Unofficial warning via a posting on the forum
3. Official warning via a note under the avatar
4. Suspension for a period of time
5. Expulsion (at least under a given user name - probably not possible to prevent re-registering under a new name?)
- Did I forget any? Do you have other secret weapons that I can't guess at? Would you tell us if you do?

But when all is said and done, I think the moderators' "gut feeling" is still going to play a big part in this, whatever system we come up with. So I'd like to propose a vote of thanks to the present Moderators for
on the whole applying fairness and a decent degree of tolerance, to ensure that for most of its existence, MM has been a pleasant and trouble-free oasis of calm in the mælstrom that is the www!

Steve wrote:I'd agree with both Jordan~ and Weirdelves; in fact Jessie sums it up perfectly:

I think if we go crazy with rules people will not want to join/post.

I've written several sets of rules in the past (none for a web forum, I might add) and I think to set down firm instructions in this context would be rather arbitrary and - since the range of behaviours is unbounded - almost impossible to interpret with total clarity.

I think it might be best if any of us had a specific point that we feel needs to be addressed in a "guideline" - we should PM it to one of the moderators. Meanwhile, perhaps the moderators could get together and come up with a list of 'unwelcome behaviours' for us all to consider, and we could then go back with our suggestion to the degree of tolerance to be applied under each heading, and the recommended sanctions. I am assuming that the Moderators' powers fall roughly into 5 types -
1. Private warning via PM
2. Unofficial warning via a posting on the forum
3. Official warning via a note under the avatar
4. Suspension for a period of time
5. Expulsion (at least under a given user name - probably not possible to prevent re-registering under a new name?)
- Did I forget any? Do you have other secret weapons that I can't guess at? Would you tell us if you do?

But when all is said and done, I think the moderators' "gut feeling" is still going to play a big part in this, whatever system we come up with. So I'd like to propose a vote of thanks to the present Moderators for
on the whole applying fairness and a decent degree of tolerance, to ensure that for most of its existence, MM has been a pleasant and trouble-free oasis of calm in the mælstrom that is the www!

We can do IP bans, actually, but that doesn't stop someone from registering on another computer. We can ban by email address, too. Then, of course, there's the Milky Moon secret police that we can send to disappear trolls, flamers and spammers while they're sleeping. (But not really.)

We can also edit and delete posts and move users into different groups. That's about it, as far as user administration is concerned - everything else we can do pertains to the forum itself. This probably isn't comprehensive, since I don't know the full extent of what we can do, but that I know of/can discern from the admin controls, we can:

Change the structure of the looms (the correct term is "subforum", but I like "looms") and of the forum more generally (e.g. the "Milky Moon"/"Tadpoles" divide)
Change the settings for:

posts (what sorts of code and smilies can be used, etc.)
PMs (as above)
attachments (who can attach what to what)
signatures (length, content, who can have one, etc.)
avatars (size, who can have one, etc.)
users groups (what user groups exist, who can see them, automatic movement between groups, group permissions, etc.)
forum permissions (who can view which forums and what they can post there)
word censoring (currently seen in "uʍop ǝpısdn" only, which I'm guessing Lina added)
member ranks (owlet to chim-choo-ree, post thresholds for ranks)
Install/delete smilies, topic icons and BBCodes.
Add or remove custom profile fields.
Manage the logs.

Most of this is stuff we never need, fortunately, but it gives you an idea of what we can do outside of managing users. Ultimately, the forum's not big enough to require the sort of complex system of rules and permissions that all these controls could permit, and I think you're right that a lot of it will be down to our discretion.

And thank you for the support, it's appreciated!

With the recent locking of the "Batten down the hatches" thread, does this mean that discussions relating to He Who Shall Not Be Named have become taboo? You know, just in case I undergo a fit of Tourette's.

I think it was mostly that the whole thread was dedicated to warning people about a threat that was no longer active. Though, I think we do want to pay attention to potentially controversial and personal subjects and make sure they don't get out of hand, leading to personal attacks and a less welcoming environment. That topic could certainly lead in that direction, but I don't know that we're declaring any topic taboo.

Is there anyone getting personal attacks here at the moment? I mean other than the usual?

I don't believe so? Which would explain the lack of us doing anything except being forum members at the moment.

Although I could possibly give a more detailed accounting of issues which have plagued the forum, old and new, it would almost certainly create additional controversy. My perspective and actions have not always met with widespread approval. So, perhaps someone else will offer to give you a more widely acceptable, although surely more inaccurate, version of the "potentially controversial and personal subjects" you mentioned above.

Sent you a PM answering your question.

Sorry if I jumped in there in that thread and stuck my nose in, you know you are all lovely and I don't want to offend xx

I think we should have to sign in to view posts.

I'm sorry that I don't have a bold, red name. They only give those to the most knowledgeable and trustworthy of people. That leaves my out on two counts.

sadie wrote:I think we should have to sign in to view posts.

May I ask why?

I really like information to be easily accessible, so I support the idea that any news/discussions about Joanna Newsom would be available to anyone, member or not. But I could understand why when it comes to The Fray.

Ann wrote:

sadie wrote:I think we should have to sign in to view posts.

May I ask why?

I really like information to be easily accessible, so I support the idea that any news/discussions about Joanna Newsom would be available to anyone, member or not. But I could understand why when it comes to The Fray.

Ok. Perhaps The Fray should be the only locked area. I just feel iffy as to whether or not I want to see my posts in Google search results .

If we make it so that you have to sign in to view posts, then scherado would never know about the bad things we say about him here.

Members are usually lurkers first I wouldn't hide anything. (Except have a hidden mod thread for only the mod peeps.)

We're talking about how to and whether or not to hide The Fray from search engines right now. There's a way to do it, but it would, as people have suggested, prevent lurkers from reading The Fray, which would on the one hand mean that some people we don't particularly want reading it couldn't read it, but on the other mean that the bona fide potential new members wouldn't be nearly so able to get a feel for the place before they registered, which I know is something a lot of people like to do (I'm a fool, so I rushed in, as wise men say). There may be a way to do it that only stops the search engines' bots from being able to read The Fray (by removing their permissions in that forum individually), but I'm not sure that the search engines wouldn't just send more bots, like in The Matrix Revolutions.

Is there much demand for this? We don't exactly pass around classified information, and our posts are always going to be legible by any palooka who registers. We're hardly about to switch to Tor and bury ourselves in the deep webs either, so there's really only limited privacy we can achieve, short of making members able to read only their own posts, which would make this place more of a diary than a forum.

i vote no to locking anything, really isn't that much u can block anymore from someone that is really trying

dwain

I'm with Dwain on this one. Post only what you don't mind the world knowing. If you want to communicate something more personal to only one or a handful of people, then I would recommend finding another way of contacting them...

I have only recently started visiting The Fray (which I guess is where the contention, if there is one, comes into play), and was always happy just to use the first three looms, but I can see the attraction of The Fray, and agree that it can provide a 'feel' for what MM is all about, a welcoming place for new members who enjoy that sort of interaction.