What exactly is happening around this forum lately?
I know it can be a tough gig to be a moderator, and that we lost a lot of people when the forum was sold. there was the threat of it being closed for good and a lot of people jumped ship but just what exactly has this place become?
Hi Xcric,
I apologize that we did not see this earlier, and that it has taken so long to answer these questions you've raised. I do not have alerts raised on this forum, so this post was only brought to my attention recently. If you seek immediate answers, the staff inbox is always a great way to get our attention, as many of us have alerts set there.
I will try to answer your questions as best I can.
The threads they start are left up for days on end before they're locked. Its especially true in the rumor mill. Do moderators just not go into the forum any more at all? personally, i'm in there multiple times throughout the day. why are the moderates not also active throughout the day? if they are, why are these threads left up so long? I know reporting those threads helps however; they're blatantly obvious without even clicking them. it shouldn't even get to the point of needing to be reported most of the time if moderators are active.
I also ask why there isn't a waiting period for new threads on accounts. It wouldn't take much, 5 replies before you get new thread privileges. This goes on at other forums so why not here? it would stop the ad-bots pretty fast. there could be a limitation i'm not aware of with this particular style of forum, but as that's been a pretty standard practice everywhere else i'm not entirely sold on that.
As you have surmised, both a large number of users, as well as a large number of moderators have had turnover. This has compounding effects. The lower number of moderators is most evident - this is a large site, and each of us has the parts that we frequent most often, while trying to check through the other forums to the best of our ability. The second is a bit less obvious - with fewer users, there are fewer new posts/threads, which increases the visible density of the adbot posts. This also means there are fewer users reporting the adbot posts to us.
The rumor mill in particular was hit hardest. The Rumor Mull is one of the forums that tends to be highly active, and has historically had a large number of moderators, however all original moderators of the Rumor Mill have left. This leaves only our reduced number of admins to browse and answer any reports that arise in that forum. In fact, even before the forum split, we've had active application requests on that forum non-stop for several years. Today we are looking for moderators in several open forums, and Rumor Mill is one of the major ones we'd like to fill. If you happen to know some level-headed rumor mill regulars who you would like to nominate - we are all ears.
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One issue with adding a delay to new users is that we get a lot of people who come here for rulings questions - they need to be able to ask questions immediately, and get eyes on their question and answered as quickly as possible. This is true in other forums as well, such as the Rumor Mill, where sometimes someone needs to post from an alternate account to not associate some of their information with their main name.
A threshold also doesn't really deter the bots, but rather moves their posts into the threads as well, where they can be harder to catch. On the user side, the threshold simply encourages new users to spam "I agree" style posts to reach the threshold as quickly as possible.
Captcha's have limited success as well, as sophisticated bot farms are actually able to outsource captcha solving to actual human captcha farms. I've raised the question with our techs again though, as we do seem to currently have an increase in activity.
2. I see there's a disclaimer thread about what the forum won't tolerate regarding sexism, racism, and all that other jazz.
My question here is... why is that only in this sub forum where no one even bothers to go?
Why is that post not stickied in every single forum across the entire place? Now more than ever that post (or one like it) should be stickied at the top every single forum and sub-forum. If you put it out there everywhere you can better hold people to it. You make the values and standards known. Making that statement helps make the environment here healthier, and helps make the playerbase healthier too. Hiding those values and standards away is almost if you're condoning those negative behaviors. Why hide that statement? Why be silent? Is now not the time to say we won't stand for this here, and if its not, why stand for it at all?
That thread should be an announcement in every forum. Attached for example is how I see it in the Rumor Mill forum. If this is not the case for you, please let me know so I can forward that to the techs.
3. What's going on with moderation in the general forum?
General should be a place for general discussion no?
Why do we see so many threads locked up, and people getting infractions for being "political"? This has been especially true when discussing decisions made by wizards regarding magic that are... well... political. If they can't be discussed there, then where? There is no way to separate the politics of those discussions from the discussion because they're so political in nature to begin with. If those threads are being locked up when legitimately discussing the politics of those topics, well then what's left to discuss? is this a forum for speaking on ideas, or nothing more than a news blog?
I understand when its flaming, or trolling, that's legitimate (though there hasn't been much action in holding people accountable to that either). When its a politically charged topic, in a general discussion forum, what exactly is the rationale behind locking the threads for being "too political"? even more so when we take into account that the statement on racism and such is buried deep in the bowels of this place where you actively have to look for it and that there is virtually no other forum to filter that kind of discussion into.
so... what gives? is there anyone behind the wheel here any more?
Political discussions have been a difficult line to judge at present. You are absolutely correct that Wizards has made some political decisions, and these decisions, and their impact on the game, should absolutely be grounds for discussion on this site - it is Magic related.
Our line is when the discussion strays from that - when the discussion is no longer about the game, the decision itself, or the effect of the decision overall, but rather when the conversation turns to whether that political stance is valid, or into a diatribe about certain topics, or even a soapbox platform of trying to convert people to a specific political stance. This site isn't intended to be that type of platform, and we are not equipped to handle those topics adequately.
A while back, we had a political discussion forum. It did not particularly address the needs well, and was a horrendous upkeep on a moderation staff that was considerably larger than today. Even then, the forum often devolved into straight arguments and insults. By the end, some topics seem to have been created solely for the purpose of argument, or potentially trolling. Users treated it as a 4chan lite, and we have no need or desire to be a 4chan lite.
To return to the point - we are fine with the discussion as long as it remains centered on Magic, the decisions that Wizards in particular has made, or how it affects Magic or the Magic community. When it devolves into attacking or arguing the merits of a political stance, questioning the validity thereof, or into a soapbox recruitment platform - the conversation has ended.
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StaffHi Xcric,
I apologize that we did not see this earlier, and that it has taken so long to answer these questions you've raised. I do not have alerts raised on this forum, so this post was only brought to my attention recently. If you seek immediate answers, the staff inbox is always a great way to get our attention, as many of us have alerts set there.
I will try to answer your questions as best I can.
As you have surmised, both a large number of users, as well as a large number of moderators have had turnover. This has compounding effects. The lower number of moderators is most evident - this is a large site, and each of us has the parts that we frequent most often, while trying to check through the other forums to the best of our ability. The second is a bit less obvious - with fewer users, there are fewer new posts/threads, which increases the visible density of the adbot posts. This also means there are fewer users reporting the adbot posts to us.
The rumor mill in particular was hit hardest. The Rumor Mull is one of the forums that tends to be highly active, and has historically had a large number of moderators, however all original moderators of the Rumor Mill have left. This leaves only our reduced number of admins to browse and answer any reports that arise in that forum. In fact, even before the forum split, we've had active application requests on that forum non-stop for several years. Today we are looking for moderators in several open forums, and Rumor Mill is one of the major ones we'd like to fill. If you happen to know some level-headed rumor mill regulars who you would like to nominate - we are all ears.
---
One issue with adding a delay to new users is that we get a lot of people who come here for rulings questions - they need to be able to ask questions immediately, and get eyes on their question and answered as quickly as possible. This is true in other forums as well, such as the Rumor Mill, where sometimes someone needs to post from an alternate account to not associate some of their information with their main name.
A threshold also doesn't really deter the bots, but rather moves their posts into the threads as well, where they can be harder to catch. On the user side, the threshold simply encourages new users to spam "I agree" style posts to reach the threshold as quickly as possible.
Captcha's have limited success as well, as sophisticated bot farms are actually able to outsource captcha solving to actual human captcha farms. I've raised the question with our techs again though, as we do seem to currently have an increase in activity.
That thread should be an announcement in every forum. Attached for example is how I see it in the Rumor Mill forum. If this is not the case for you, please let me know so I can forward that to the techs.
Political discussions have been a difficult line to judge at present. You are absolutely correct that Wizards has made some political decisions, and these decisions, and their impact on the game, should absolutely be grounds for discussion on this site - it is Magic related.
Our line is when the discussion strays from that - when the discussion is no longer about the game, the decision itself, or the effect of the decision overall, but rather when the conversation turns to whether that political stance is valid, or into a diatribe about certain topics, or even a soapbox platform of trying to convert people to a specific political stance. This site isn't intended to be that type of platform, and we are not equipped to handle those topics adequately.
A while back, we had a political discussion forum. It did not particularly address the needs well, and was a horrendous upkeep on a moderation staff that was considerably larger than today. Even then, the forum often devolved into straight arguments and insults. By the end, some topics seem to have been created solely for the purpose of argument, or potentially trolling. Users treated it as a 4chan lite, and we have no need or desire to be a 4chan lite.
To return to the point - we are fine with the discussion as long as it remains centered on Magic, the decisions that Wizards in particular has made, or how it affects Magic or the Magic community. When it devolves into attacking or arguing the merits of a political stance, questioning the validity thereof, or into a soapbox recruitment platform - the conversation has ended.
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