Recent Forum Problems Discussion

[Baker]

Lately there have been discussions on how to deal with some of the problems in the forum. Here are the ones that I see:

1. Spamming
2. Chatting in the Help Forum
3. The occasional "terrible" help or "inappropriate" opinions.
4. Mild flame wars in threads off topic.

FOQ-A has been, honestly, doing a lot of spamming lately. The problem isn't FOQ-A, anyone could spam and, in fact, plenty of people have done worthless posts. Not at the rate FOQ-A's done them lately, but there have been plenty of contentless posts.

FOQ-A isn't the problem, actually he's been quite helpful in exposing some of the issues that need to be addressed.

I don't have answers but I am wondering what can be done to eliminate these problems without moderation, or with very little moderation. People hate moderation and with moderation always comes "moderation mistakes".

I agree with everything that Bank said. Foqer, Sole is kicking himself for allowing postcount and rankings because it's so very obvious that you're spamming this forum to raise your post count.

I believe is Sole is very wrong. Someone spamming shouldn't spoil the system for 90% of people who don't spam.

But I agree like Bank and Canadian have said, that the spam lately is a real problem due to the contentless nature of it and the lion's share lately has been from FOQ-A.

Spammers can easily be kicked out of the forum rankings system, given the custom title of "Member" where they are no longer "rewarded" for spamming, at the same time not ruining it for the rest of us.

I think everyone here wants these problems solved, it isn't anyone's fault. A well-run and well-setup forum doesn't have these problems. These problems are a result of a successful forum growing and problems always arise when something is rapidly growing.

So ... who has ideas on how to fix these things? Not just the spam problem, but #2, #3 and #4.

[Bank]

Moderation is not bad. There is a difference between moderation and rule. Let's look at Doomworld, a perfect example of how a forum should be run. The rules are laid out simply in the FAQ, and those who break the rules get one of two punishments. One- They're sent to the losers forum (a special hidden forum on the site that is only viewable by those who have been loser'd, and while someone is loser'd, it's the only forum they can view/post in.) Two- They're banned, which is self-explanatory.

In order to eliminate stupid/meaningless/spam/etc. posts, Doomworld has a special area called Post Hell where these posts are locked and sent, almost as an example.

I'd be happy to help moderate, surprisingly enough, I dont take jobs personally, as I was a pretty decent admin on the short-lived QT forum and others. It really depends on the stupidity of the post.

[Solecord]

I am going to type up some mock rules... I'll post here for feedback and once a couple people chime in I'm going to post them as our official forum rules.

Should have done that from the beginning... I figured people here were all mature enough not to need them though...

--

And as far as post count goes, the forum is not about post count. It's a place for discussion and fun. People who are so concerned about post counts are the ones who always ruin it. I've been running forums for about 6 or 7 years now... My most popular back in the day (1999-2002 or so) had tons of users on at single times (more than here) and there were always the few who thought they needed to get higher post counts. It was always the rank titles that people spam to get. That's why I never wanted the custom rank titles in the first place...

[Net-Tyme]

1. Spamming
2. Chatting in the Help Forum
3. The occasional "terrible" help or "inappropriate" opinions.
4. Mild flame wars in threads off topic.

When you have adults and children on a board you need to moderate at different levels. Yes I know they are teenagers but their posts seem to take an entire thread off base for days and people lose interest. There is a chat section to this board and perhaps instead of deleting a post let them continue their agenda there? So is there a way to move posts? Only because deleting a post seems to piss people off.

It could be moved with a notation of the move due to topic corruption.


Chatting in the help forum? depends on the chat, I mean some chatter is good when it stays on topic? different problems are discussed that someone might say HEY.. I have that problem to. discussions should be allowed if left on topic. chit chat has a place.. again... move it.

Terrible help.. I think a notation from a moderator that knows the subject or perhaps in that case "so as not to tarnish" the help section with fiction vs fact to delete the fiction? Putting that warning in that group topic is enough for them to know if the post is without merit it will be deleted. No surprise when it is deleted. It's a P.I.T.A. to have to moderate anything but the help section is where we all go to get facts. Not have to filter through the garbage.

I know when I enter the chatter what to expect but the other area's should stay on topic.

Take the flames to the chit chat area. Period. I could care less about post counts. I'm sure they max out somewhere and they are meaningless on most boards. Banks idea isn't bad either.. Bad.. bad.. boyz..

[Bank]

I am going to type up some mock rules... I'll post here for feedback and once a couple people chime in I'm going to post them as our official forum rules.

Should have done that from the beginning... I figured people here were all mature enough not to need them though...

--

And as far as post count goes, the forum is not about post count. It's a place for discussion and fun. People who are so concerned about post counts are the ones who always ruin it. I've been running forums for about 6 or 7 years now... My most popular back in the day (1999-2002 or so) had tons of users on at single times (more than here) and there were always the few who thought they needed to get higher post counts. It was always the rank titles that people spam to get. That's why I never wanted the custom rank titles in the first place...

A title should be earned, not just applied for.

I like to think I've earned my title, and Canadian as well.

FAQs and Rules should be so outrageously specific that they allow little to no room for error. I'll help personally if needed.

If a post-hell type area was set up, it'd be great. Any topic that has become nothing or starts out as nothing would be emmediately hell'd and forgotten about.

[Baker]

Member ranks are fun. There will be a few people that try to "ruin" it, by spamming.

Why not just have forum rule #1 be "Don't spam the forum with low content posts. Member ranks are based on post count for the fun of the forum, abuse this to try to bump your rank and you will be assigned the permanent, non-changing rank of "Member".

There are always a few people who cause trouble, rather than let them ruin it for everyone, just deal with those individuals.

Case in point, I read a news story a few years back that Wisconsin moved to ban alcohol from public parks due to a few incidents and I guess the public uproar over "A few people ruin it for everyone" let Wisconsin to change it back.

There were 53 posts in the Rankings Names thread (http://www.quakeone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154) and I believe it was Canadian Sniper that initially posted about having forum ranks here and quickly a lot of ppl wanted to see that here.

/my 2 cents

[Bank]

Forum ranks are fine, but custom titles should be earned. Or at least by asking nicely : D

[Canadian*Sniper]

If you just forward the really bad spam posts into my "SPAM HERE FFS" thread, all should be well and dandy

My goal wasn't to make FOQ leave the forum, I simply wanted him to stop posting large amounts of spam.

[=peg=]

about the ranking system.. i think the problem is that 'points' are rewarded for quantity only, which makes it easy to 'cheat' the system by spamming.. why not reward 'points' for the quality of the posts (if there is such a need for a rankingsystem, couse i couldnt care less).

How about making a rating system that lets the user rate someone else's post once.. this way bad posts will just get 'lowrated' and could be automatically deleted/moved if the rate drops too low. At the same time a 'highrated' post may earn someone 'points'/respect for the rankingsystem..

[Solecord]

This forum does have a "reputation" system in which all normal users can add or subtract from one's reputation points. You can't spam reputation points either + or - for any user as I believe the system only lets you add/subtract rep points for a single user every X minutes and you can't give the same user rep points either + or - in X hours/days whatever. It's just another "fun" feature of vBulletin.

You guys think I should turn that on and give it a try? I've actually never used it on a forum before because I found it pretty useless. Most people didn't understand it or didn't bother using it.

[Net-Tyme]

Sorry.. TU board has something similar. Thought it high schoolish? That's just me though. Leave the rankings but for every post you have to remove/move perhaps reduce their rankings by points?

[Canadian*Sniper]

Most people didn't understand it or didn't bother using it.

And most people don't have avatars, didn't vote on their favorite weapon/rune/monster/map and didn't etc etc (ya I couldn't think of a third ). Let's try it!

[Bank]

This forum does have a "reputation" system in which all normal users can add or subtract from one's reputation points. You can't spam reputation points either + or - for any user as I believe the system only lets you add/subtract rep points for a single user every X minutes and you can't give the same user rep points either + or - in X hours/days whatever. It's just another "fun" feature of vBulletin.

You guys think I should turn that on and give it a try? I've actually never used it on a forum before because I found it pretty useless. Most people didn't understand it or didn't bother using it.

I think it'd do more harm than good. The whole idea of reputation of forums is that it's an unspoken rule. I shouldnt need a box that tells me how great I am.

[Canadian*Sniper]

I'm giving Bank a 1/5 for voting against the reputation idea

[Bank]

As said before, I'm already like 6-9 out of five, probably 12.