Did Sporky's hand slip on the ban-hammer?

ourmaninthenorth

I'm surprised it's took this long for one of the mainstays to take a break ... I'm only a mere member and have to say I'm glad I can simply choose not to stay here on any given day for anything longer than moments. That is not a reflection of the admin, more a reflection of the lack of self responsibility a small minority seem to bask in displaying. 

To the admin: you have built it, I urge you to defend it, if you don't all the fabulous work you've done for us all will end up counting for nowt. In "defend it" I am expressly referring to strong, visible and robust moderation. This unfashionable concept won't concern the significant majority here in the slightest.

PolarityMan

holnrew said

I think it's the lack of appreciation shown. They took a lot of time and effort to provide a place for us, and to be nicer/better than MR. They're human and the way you come across is pretty acerbic and demanding. If you don't like it, make a better one.

I feel like a lot of good feedback was ignored when the place was set up. Obviously there was the decision to use a fairly unestablished framework which I guess is my main gripe but there were other like drew's point about rule 1 being entirely subjective. 

There was the stuff around post counts and the feedback mechanism generally.

Now I'm under no illusions that this is a democracy, of course the mods are free to run the forum as they see fit....but...I do feel that a lot of the way that is done is basically "what sporky feels is best".

It could be I'm way off base here and this is just because sporky posts more transparently and he's taking flak undeservedly for collective decisions. Even if so I think the respiratory sea to a few people have been out of character for him. Certainly I've never had a run in with him of any sort on MR

The challenge to make a better one is sort of missing the point. What made MR and this place good isn't the forum software, it's the content made by all of the members.

Anyway having explained my position I think that's the last I'm going to say on the matter. I hope if some of my perceptions are wrong then the mods collectively forgive me. As I said it's my perception and you can consider this a vent based solely on my perception.

TTony

PolarityMan said:
I feel like a lot of good feedback was ignored when the place was set up.

You may feel that way, but I can assure that it's not, and it wasn't the case. 

Please also keep in mind that none of us are professional forum builders, all of us have day jobs, and we took a view that it was better to do something, and quickly, to keep as much of the MR forum community together than it was to sit on our arses talking about what, how, when and who ... and debating all the finer details of look, feel and functionality.

And it took slightly longer than half-an-hour to set this place up.

 

PolarityMan said:

Now I'm under no illusions that this is a democracy, of course the mods are free to run the forum as they see fit....but...I do feel that a lot of the way that is done is basically "what sporky feels is best".

The mods??? You think the mods run this place ... 

It's really not "what Sporky feels is best".  We (the admin team) have had any number of discussions about various aspects of the shape, scope, use, control (et al) of the forum and Sporky's view does not always prevail. 

Just don't tell him that I said so.

ourmaninthenorth said:

To the admin: you have built it, I urge you to defend it, if you don't all the fabulous work you've done for us all will end up counting for nowt. In "defend it" I am expressly referring to strong, visible and robust moderation. This unfashionable concept won't concern the significant majority here in the slightest.

We are doing (defending it).

However - and somewhat against the implications of your post - we're actually trying to protect against the strong/visible/robust style of moderation.  The sort of moderation in which looking the wrong way at a mod gets you banned  Or admitting to liking a PRS-with-birds.  Or anything else that marks you out as the strange kid in the playground that everyone else can pick on.

We're trying to defend loose moderation.  We want this place to be self-moderating.  A place for grown-ups (not age specific) to play, to talk to each other, to discuss important stuff (valves or not. are Blackstar pedals too big), to behave in a "community-first, me-second" way.  We really wanted to just have the one rule (DBAD), because if you can stick to that, we don't need any more rules.  And we wouldn't need any banning.

And lots of people - the vast vast majority - are doing exactly that, and that's what gives me (and probably most of "us) the payback for setting this place up. 

 

So, please, everyone ... place nicely.  Enjoy this place for what it's intended to be.  Use it as it's intended to be used.  If you really really want to pick a fight with someone, grow a pair, head off to your local town centre, wait until closing time, and pick on someone bigger than you.  Do that once or twice, and you'll probably lose the taste for it.  Or the ability to taste anything.

If you think that that ^^ would be a stupid thing to do, don't try to do it here either.

 

And I want my* Sporky back.

 

 

(* not really "mine" - but I only know of the one).

digitalscream

PolarityMan said:

It could be I'm way off base here and this is just because sporky posts more transparently and he's taking flak undeservedly for collective decisions. Even if so I think the respiratory sea to a few people have been out of character for him. Certainly I've never had a run in with him of any sort on MR

To explain...yes, Sporky's been responding to design feedback while we've been busy with other stuff. It's not a hugely publicised fact, because we're still working on the details, but the forum you see here is just the first step in a vague plan that we have. That's the reasoning behind using Vanilla - you're right in that it's a relatively young piece of software, but it a) has the features and flexibility we wanted, b) supports the features we're going to need going forward, and c) is the only one of the open source forums that does so with a minimum of fuss. We have coding capability within the admin and development team, so we can also contribute back to the main project in a meaningful way when we find bugs.

To that end, almost every design decision that's been complained about has been made for a very specific reason. In some cases, that reason is purely because we've seen the failures of other forums and want to do things differently. In others, it's because it fits with The Grand Plan.

In retrospect, we've made mistakes - one of which was asking open-ended questions of the community in terms of features, thus guaranteeing that we got 100 different opinions from 100 different people, with the inevitable result that we'll upset 99 people no matter what we do. We're learning, though

All that aside, though, you have to bear in mind that most forums get a chance to grow slowly. We didn't have that luxury - we started with over 25,000 hits on day one. That's not an easy way to launch anything, and although we knew that we'd get a bit of traffic...we didn't expect anywhere near that. We thought we'd have a much bigger low-traffic window where we could bed things in, but because of the sheer volume a lot of what we've been doing thus far has been firefighting and management.

So...with all of that in mind...we don't ignore feedback. We take it all on board, pick the bits that fit with our overall plan for implementation, have a good ol' fashioned developer vs management fight about ideas we hadn't originally considered, and work out how we can use it all for the good of the community. Just bear in mind that stuff you might consider as good feedback isn't necessarily what we (or even the majority) consider to be useful for the site, 'k?

dindude

Wise words @TTony. I just wonder whether the concept of loose moderation works in reality. I don't worry for those here now posting away and debating, more for the future and attracting and retaining people to make a healthy place.

I wonder what a newbie just popping their head round the door would think sometimes when things get out of hand. It can be like the pub from hell, and in the end it will be a small group fighting away with an ineffectual landlord watching on.

I personally like the idea of liberal moderation but there comes a time to stop dancing around idiotic behaviour. 

digitalscream

dindude said:

Wise words @TTony. I just wonder whether the concept of loose moderation works in reality. I don't worry for those here now posting away and debating, more for the future and attracting and retaining people to make a healthy place.

I wonder what a newbie just popping their head round the door would think sometimes when things get out of hand. It can be like the pub from hell, and in the end it will be a small group fighting away with an ineffectual landlord watching on.

I personally like the idea of liberal moderation but there comes a time to stop dancing around idiotic behaviour. 

That's why we have Speakers' Corner - think of it as a quarantine for idiocy. As far as I can tell, it's working pretty bloody well so far.

imalone

TTony said:

That's why we have an "ignore" button.  

Had been meaning to ask if there was an ignore button. Fed up reading the stuff I post.

dindude

digitalscream said:

dindude said:

Wise words @TTony. I just wonder whether the concept of loose moderation works in reality. I don't worry for those here now posting away and debating, more for the future and attracting and retaining people to make a healthy place.

I wonder what a newbie just popping their head round the door would think sometimes when things get out of hand. It can be like the pub from hell, and in the end it will be a small group fighting away with an ineffectual landlord watching on.

I personally like the idea of liberal moderation but there comes a time to stop dancing around idiotic behaviour. 

That's why we have Speakers' Corner - think of it as a quarantine for idiocy. As far as I can tell, it's working pretty bloody well so far.

I would almost say then to take speakers corner out of the listings when you click on the global discussion button, but thats just another development request

TTony

dindude said:

I just wonder whether the concept of loose moderation works in reality

I personally like the idea of liberal moderation but there comes a time to stop dancing around idiotic behaviour. 

To be honest, we wonder too.  We're committed to giving it a bloody good chance to work though.

One of the problems is that one person's idiot, is another person's genius.  Or creative.  Or just someone that doesn't agree with the prevailing view.  Sometimes an idiot is an idiot for a day, and is then recognised as a perceptive.  I think that there a loads of idiots all over the place, and given half-a-chance, I'd "take care" of them.  But then other people would think I was an idiot for (a) doing just that, or (b) caring enough about something to do anything.

You see the problem?

Now, if "we" tried to write a rule about what constituted idiocy, we'd open a debate about whether the comma should be here or there, about what exactly we meant by each and every word we used, about who had the authority to interpret, second-guess and read-something-else-into our words.  And then we'd be called Nazis, Pseudo-Stasis, Communists, or Americans.

Rather than trying any of those approaches, we thought we'd try to do it differently.

But we can't make it work.

You have to.

dindude

^ I do get the gist of this but if anything it overcomplicates things. We all know how to go about our day without getting sacked by being rude to the boss, or getting punched in the face when filling up at a petrol station for being abusive, or making people feel generally crap or stupid. 

Why should this place be any different?

Mods shouldn't have to educate people on basic social awareness (even allowing for the internet), and shouldn't apologise for making judgements on it.

The lowest of the low for me are the peculiar social species that comment on the bottom of YouTube clips, let's not become like that pleeeeeese.

>:D<

VimFuego

excellent post dindude, spot on.

TTony

dindude said:

^ I do get the gist of this but if anything it overcomplicates things. We all know how to go about our day without getting sacked by being rude to the boss, or getting punched in the face when filling up at a petrol station for being abusive, or making people feel generally crap or stupid. 

Why should this place be any different?

 

Really, that's all we want.

You don't sign up to pages of rules to know not to insult the boss.  Actually, it doesn't matter whether it's the boss, or the night-time cleaner who doesn't speak English.  You just follow DBAD.

And it works all ways round.  The better bosses also know about DBAD.  And the cleaners smile sometimes, even if their life is shit.

randomhandclaps

dindude said:

^ I do get the gist of this but if anything it overcomplicates things. We all know how to go about our day without getting sacked by being rude to the boss, or getting punched in the face when filling up at a petrol station for being abusive, or making people feel generally crap or stupid. 

Why should this place be any different?

Mods shouldn't have to educate people on basic social awareness (even allowing for the internet), and shouldn't apologise for making judgements on it.

The lowest of the low for me are the peculiar social species that comment on the bottom of YouTube clips, let's not become like that pleeeeeese.

>:D<

Totally agree.  Unfortunately in evolutionary terms social behaviour via faceless communications has a long way to go.  It's like in the earlier post reference to a 'flounce', only in a virtual world would upsetting someone to the point they had to 'leave the room' so to speak, be met with anything other than disapproval.

I know this thread has progressed into a different angle of discussion but I do think it's conception and earlier comment are in slight bad taste.  Whether applying to Sporky particularly or not, whether someone is a mod of ordinary member, if someone feels the need for a break it shouldn't really be open to question or conjecture.  It's really nobody's business and I don't feel any explanation is necessary.  I think it's great of the other mods to field questions, but when it comes down to what anyone feels or has going on only they can answer and they are in no way obliged to.  If you have a concern with a particular member and wish to check all is well then there is always the messaging system.

Jetfire

One forum I used to visit had this quote at the top of it:
"if you dont like it, you can always fuck off" I think we should adopt this as our tag line..

fatherjack

randomhandclaps said:

dindude said:

^ I do get the gist of this but if anything it overcomplicates things. We all know how to go about our day without getting sacked by being rude to the boss, or getting punched in the face when filling up at a petrol station for being abusive, or making people feel generally crap or stupid. 

Why should this place be any different?

Mods shouldn't have to educate people on basic social awareness (even allowing for the internet), and shouldn't apologise for making judgements on it.

The lowest of the low for me are the peculiar social species that comment on the bottom of YouTube clips, let's not become like that pleeeeeese.

>:D<

Totally agree.  Unfortunately in evolutionary terms social behaviour via faceless communications has a long way to go.  It's like in the earlier post reference to a 'flounce', only in a virtual world would upsetting someone to the point they had to 'leave the room' so to speak, be met with anything other than disapproval.

I know this thread has progressed into a different angle of discussion but I do think it's conception and earlier comment are in slight bad taste.  Whether applying to Sporky particularly or not, whether someone is a mod of ordinary member, if someone feels the need for a break it shouldn't really be open to question or conjecture.  It's really nobody's business and I don't feel any explanation is necessary.  I think it's great of the other mods to field questions, but when it comes down to what anyone feels or has going on only they can answer and they are in no way obliged to.  If you have a concern with a particular member and wish to check all is well then there is always the messaging system.

Just to explain: I was curious when I saw Sporky's status, and given that he's accidentally banned people in the past, wondered if he'd dropped the ban-hammer on his foot.

Emp_Fab

This liberal 'light touch' nonsense isn't what they want.......

They obviously crave discipline.

....and I, daaahlings...    am the one to give it to them.

:P

monquixote

In answer to some of the questions earlier in the thread: 

Putting the forum up certainly didn't take half an hour. 

Over the two weeks it took to develop I put about 50 hours of work into it. Lee and Denis also put a good chunk of effort into getting the code into shape.

You might wonder why we bothered when there are other bits of software where it could have been magiced into being with a couple of clicks.

 

Using Vanilla was my idea. I didn't take the decision on my own, but I certainly pushed for it. 

Vanilla is not as mature as some of the other forum software out there, but what it is, is open source and extensible. The fact that it is plugin based means that you can do pretty much anything you want to with it and though we haven't really done a great deal with it since launching we have aspirations to expand the site in interesting ways that you simply couldn't do with most of the competing products on the market. 

The downside of it is that though most of the plugins work perfectly well in isolation they occasionally trip each other up (as happens with the editor and the quote feature).

I should also add that this site isn't just a cookie cutter, pick from a template type of site. A huge amount of the styling and design have been wrangled and tweaked (more so by DD and Lee than by me) to try and make it fresh and above all not like all the other forums out there most of which look like they escaped from 1995. 

When it comes to taking into account people's views I can only say that we've done the best that we can. We had some excellent suggestions in the threads on the temp forum and on this one and while building we tried to incorporate as many as we could (and logged many more for the future) unfortunately running through the threads an awful lot of what people have asked for is contradictory. This is always going to mean that some people are going to be disappointed with the choices that we've made and feel that their views haven't been heard. 

All I can say is that I've tried to take into account what seemed to be the balance of opinion, but how well we have succeeded in that goal is for the users to decide.

To give you an example, the two most popular requests we received when asking about what people wanted from the forum were: "Keep all the religion/politics/flamey stuff off the site/OT" and "Don't become like all the other forums and ban conversation about anything controversial"

The decision we took to meet these contradictory requirements was to split Speakers Corner from Off Topic so people could have somewhere for a bit of rough and tumble, but people who didn't like it could steer clear. 

We are now well past the honeymoon period and things seem considerably more tense at the moment, but I am immensely proud of what we have built (and by "we" I mean every member).

viz

Yes the forum is excellent, no complaints here. Hope sporky comes back again soon. But it can be a bit distracting so it's understandable that people can need a break from it!

chillidoggy

Never mind all that crap, I hope Sporky's gone just long enough for me to overtake him in the wisdom stakes.

close2u

When I read rule number 1 ... and its interweaving influence on all subsequent rules I thought it was GOOD.

Everyone knows if and when they're being a dick.

Rule 1: Don't be a dick.