We could also remove /gala/

>>160896

There are certainly merits to that idea, but that wouldn't actually solve the problem I'm talking about. That's a very different thing.

Following a subset of rules will no doubt lead to the same problem we have on the actual site, except these user-made rules are no doubt going to be extremely abstract, e.g. "don't be a jerk."

It would be much simpler if the subcommunities were given the right to request a moderator to ban a person from their thread. The mods are currently unable to act because the only bans they can deliver are at best /gala/-wide and require the person to break the global rules, which few of these "disruptors" generally do.

It might be best if a system that involves the other thread's users demanding the removal of another is made.

>>160898
I feel that such a system would discourage people from working out their differences and make some /gala/ cliches even more closed off than they already are.

>>160898

Well "don't be a jerk" is already a site wide rule. Any kind of ordinary harassment or general problem causing is against site rules, it wouldn't be in the thread. This is a general topic idea, it fits in very closely with derails. If you make a thread on /pony/ about Rarity's dresses, you don't want people to start talking about Megaman halfway through. Or maybe you do, Megaman is pretty cool. We're speaking hypotheticals here, though.

The problem with it is these thread are supposed to be really open on topics, so instead of a normal thread where you're supposed to stick the the opening topic, a derail is going into disallowed topics, instead.

>>160899

I think in some cases that's really okay. The rest of the site is open, /gala/ gets to be a bit more closed off. It's just a collection of image board fueled chatrooms, really.

>>160898
This >>160899
unfortunately with *chans, moderation tends to be either interpreted more as banning and less as encouraging people to work out their differences and banning only if absolutely necessary.
Aside from 4chan, I come from a lot of general forums (a few game development forums, a Christian guitarist forum, and some other Lunoox forums and such), where moderation is taken as the above.

>>160902
>Aside from 4chan, I come from a general forum

Yeah, same here. Emulation forums, a pokemon forum, and I think OCRemix's forums for a little bit. Otherwise just 4chan.

And on any of those forums, there were rules that had to be followed and that resulted in bans, and otherwise people were pretty much left to their own devices, no matter how heated something got.

And for most of the site, that's really okay. Set actual rules on harassment and then let people have at it. /gala/, though, that's really a more private place. It's a place where people go to just chat with their friends in their serials. And what I keep seeing happen is people go there to chat with their friends, but then the school bully (or nerd, or whatever undesirable) comes and sits at your table to chat and everyone's like "Walter, be quiet, you're out of your element." Except Walter doesn't get up and leave, and if the rest of the table gets up to leave it's not to a different table, it's to a different school.

Man, I hope that metaphor made sense.

Last edited at Fri, Aug 29th, 2014 23:14

>>160899
I'm fairly doubtful an entire serial thread will request the removal of a certain user unless the person is awfully detrimental to the thread. And besides, the same point applies, except this way there's no technicalities involved and less drama/controversy (because, hey, vast vast majority agree).

I also have no idea how whether serials are inclusive or not is our problem. They're subcommunities, how they handle themselves has always been their problem.

>>160900
>Well "don't be a jerk" is already a site wide rule.
Which is ignored, the rules are fairly useless today since most aren't followed by the mods or otherwise taken to their minimal extreme. Serials are much more prone to controversy and extremism and lack the cautiousness of mods.

>>160902
Reminds me of Riot's toxicity policy. "We don't create a Prisoner's Island queue because it discourages reform."

The whole problem is that the rest of us, the legit average law-abiding citizens don't give a shit about their philosophical reform, we just want a good experience.

>>160905
>I'm fairly doubtful an entire serial thread will request the removal of a certain user unless the person is awfully detrimental to the thread.

I can immediately name an example where "detrimental" was incredibly loose as a term and there was a huge backlash when not only did people request it, but a mod went through with it. So that didn't quite work out.

>Which is ignored, the rules are fairly useless today since most aren't followed by the mods or otherwise taken to their minimal extreme.

Well that, again, is kind of a different issue. I'm kind of assuming that rules are going to have to be followed and that people will step in on that, 'cause otherwise we've got way bigger problems to deal with.

>>160903
Exactly. There were the obvious rules that you shouldn't have to be reminded about (no porn, gore, spam, raiding, ban evasion, etc), and aside from that
Mhmm. It does. But the issue with chan culture is that since you don't have to register, you can just dispose your title and get a new one. Or go anonymous and you can be anyone. Or no one. There's ultimately not a whole lot of accountability, banning aside.

>>160905
Mhmm. And see above. Over time, because of this, people can come in and make others' experience less than enjoyable, which can lead to all kinds of other issues.

>>160907
>There's ultimately not a whole lot of accountability, banning aside.

That could definitely be a problem, but in the cases I've seen, at least, it's all been major names that didn't want to drop their trips. It's people being themselves and other people not liking that. Like a Jewish serial where a couple of non-jews, totally friendly like, eventually start talking about how much they enjoy ham. They're not trolling, they just eat a lot of ham, so the Jews get upset. That sort of thing. But then because the thread isn't actually labeled "The Jew Thread", the Jews complain about how they're talking about ham, and the ham-eaters are all like "Yeah, it's not against site rules to like ham, it's only bannable if you enjoy lasagna." And that's where the issues stem from.

>>160906
And then the entire serial collapsed. Hurray, obviously a better outcome than keeping him banned from the thread, right?

Although to be fair, he was banned from... what was he even banned from? I don't know, but he surely couldn't have been banned from the thread, unless Zeke went back in time and gave mods that ability.

The definition of "don't be a jerk" from a user end and from a mod end can be vastly different, especially with site-culture-ignorant people like galloping /gala/ns who only stick to their own thread. A simple "is this person damaging the serial" cannot in any instance have more controversy than a technicality in some rulebook probably authored by the two biggest popularity figures in the serial or something.

>>160907
Not entirely sure what you mean by see above. I can't see how the collapse of /p/ad was a positive thing.

>>160909
>And then the entire serial collapsed. Hurray, obviously a better outcome than keeping him banned from the thread, right?

Well not really, but what I'm saying is we need rules in place to prevent that from being controversial. We need something we can point to and say "You broke this rule, that's why people don't want you here and you have to leave." Otherwise instead of the thread collapsing we'll have a bunch of angry people on /meta/. We get enough people angry at us as is, that's no good.

>>160907
/gala/'s culture isn't that of a chan, literally everyone's a tripfriend. The accountability issue in /gala/ is not the same as the accountability issues in /oat/, same as how its accountability issues are totally detached from, say, /collab/. Completely different animal here, and as soon as people stop thinking each board works the same the sooner issues can be resolved.

/gala/'s accountability problem is that it's a social group that, unlike everywhere else in the world, has not even a drop of self-moderation. Skype chats, IRL hangouts, whatever you can think of, there's always a way to throw out bad apples. And if you can't throw out bad apples, people leave. It's simple. It happens from Skype chats, to Steam chats, all the way to WoW guilds (happened to my guild, bloody monk and stupid officers)

Face the problems or forever suffer the consequences, or some other theatrical saying that will urge self-enforcement there.

>>160910
That may temporarily work but there's no way any serial would not make incredibly abstract rules or otherwise incredibly ineffective / "too effective" rules. It's just not possible to make perfect non-abstract rules without a group of moderators that are aware and know the environment to act dynamically according to the situation. Mods here don't fit the bill, and worst of all since it's a tiny place, every ban will likely result in controversy, because it's based around a technicality rather than universal agreement.

In places as small as gala serials, I feel group-wide self-moderation (i.e. the ability to remove toxic members) will result in considerably less drama than any other technicality problem. Imagine what would have happened if Noble had banned him out of a rule rather than because he was burning the serial down. At least this way he martyred himself.

Last edited at Fri, Aug 29th, 2014 23:34

you guys chose to break away and hang out in those little threads, i would have figured that people would have laid out groundworkings for rules and expectations in your little communities by now

exercise communal standards which can be upheld by your community if nere-do-wells are really that much of a problem. if someone's being a shitbag to the point where you think it requires entire separate mini-rulesets, exercise your ability to utilize the ignore function and shun them as needed

and if you cant do that, oh well, shouldn't have started a serial thread

>>160923
THIS NIGGA RIGHT HERE

Not to mention that >>160909
>A simple "is this person damaging the serial" cannot in any instance have more controversy..
Well I'm glad that's not grounds for a ban.
The grounds for a ban is "is this person breaking a rule".

>>160913
By this model proposed, you are treating innocent users the same way you are treating rule-breakers, which will piss people off because that's unfair to the banned users who have done nothing wrong, thus causing more /gala/ drama, bringing the victim's friends marching back here to /meta/ , and voila, you got Bagsgate 2.0. You wouldn't like that, believe me.

>>160913
>/gala/'s culture isn't that of a chan, literally everyone's a tripfriend. The accountability issue in /gala/ is not the same as the accountability issues in /oat/, same as how its accountability issues are totally detached from, say, /collab/. Completely different animal here, and as soon as people stop thinking each board works the same the sooner issues can be resolved.
And the reason why they're called boards in the first place is because a *chan is a bulletin board-based imageboard. Boorus are imageboards too, but they don't have boards. My point is, it is not a different kind of animal because the etiquette on any bulletin board based entity at all is that you ignore them, not making a mod abuse his power to revoke said person's right to post there.

Not a single successful board of any form works that way, period. Not 4chan, not reddit, and hopefully not us.

Edit: and I just realized that I posted a thumbnail, here's the whole cap. This is a repost.

>>160925
I'm not sticking around for a heated argument, but I can say I'm confused at how you're comparing thread-specific bans to site-wide bans. I said my piece, I don't see how this abstract group known as "the banned users" are in any way relevant, or how "Bagsgate 2.0" - i.e. a moderator going ahead and banning someone because of a few people poking his ear rather than out of an orderly system / vast majority - is comparable. Adieu.

>>160926
A ban is a ban. A ban is done to revoke the rights of somone that broke the rules and should not even be permitted to post somewhere. If you don't break the rules, you don't deserve a ban. Aligning the ban system with a poll that kicks people out due to majority rule implies that they were as wrong as the rule breakers and that they need to 'correct' their behavior into something they are not. Or, even the worst, turn the situation into a "bagsgate 2.0" as I used in the former post.

You know the logistics of all this is frightening. Who's supposed to keep track of who all the 'official members' of a serial are for the charter making or the votekicking? Are there rules for when people become 'official members'? When do you get to vote?

I know some /oat/ mlpchan serials (TKC for example) allow spoilered porn because there was a demand and people didn't care. So its not like its impossible for serials having different rulesets to function.

The problem is >>160928. How do we decide, and in the event that we don't decide how do we work it out? Also, how would we even moderate this? I think most of our mods aren't in the serials all day, and certainly there will be tons of reports that they'd have to deal with because people won't agree with the rules or don't know because they aren't regulars there and realize it.

Not saying I don't think this can't work. From what I saw of it, It seems to work on mlpchan...but I don't know how it would work or if it would work with every serial here and the logistics behind it.

and definitely don't ban people just because people don't like them. Just not a fan of that. People come here for fun and you can hide them if you have a problem.

>>160928

Eh. A minor issue. It's not hard to hear from people about who's who. At the most basic level, it's just the thread creator that gets to make all the rules. Now if people disagree with that and complain things'll have to be dealt with, like if someone decides "No, this is actually PAD." and makes a second one. That can be worked through, though.

>>160929
>Also, how would we even moderate this?

Like I said, it's just an extension of derail rules. Probably be especially soft with people breaking them at first, just asking people to move to a different thread, but the ability to come down on people eventually would be valuable.

>>160930

>Like I said, it's just an extension of derail rules.

It's not "just an extension". We have enough boards for our moderators to be spread out among as it is, we don't need them to also have to learn each frivolous ruleset that each little group of people in each serial thread has made. I mean, god knows just about all of them would be tenuous and people at large in there would want to change or ignore them on a case by case basis half the time.

This would make serial threads unbelievably annoying and complicated to moderate.

>>160931

I disagree. I don't think /gala/ is as complicated as other people are assuming. It's easy enough to slide into a serial and adapt.

I mean, it's hard to back that statement up with anything, but it's how I feel at the moment. I don't expect most serials to have more than one or two rules, if any at all. Some might have a few more, but it's all workable.

>>160932

/gala/ is not as complicated as people think it is right now, no. But if every serial starts getting their own ruleset, it's going to be. Not only for users, but for moderators that have to enforce those rules. even one or two is too many

and on a tangentially related side note, i really really dont like furthering the distinction between serials and the site even -more-

>>160933

I gotta head out for work, but on that tangent, I think it's actually important to separate serials from the rest of the site. They're a different beast. places like /mlp/ suffer in my eyes because it's all serials and generals and whatnot. I like that on Ponychan I can go to /oat/ or /chat/ and find new random stuff popping up, but on /gala/ we've got these nice established things you can join in.

Personal opinion, anyway.

I'm honestly not sure how relevant this post will be, but on the topic of serials not doing self-moderation and having no or few rules:

As the OP of Fillychan on /gala/, I established it as a meeting place for Filly Funtasia fans which follows Ponychan rules to the letter. I never really made a hard ruleset apart from introduction steps meant for visitors from other sites, but what the rules has basically become, is this, unless I've been seeing completely wrong:

-As a Filly place, every single Filly topic (except outright porn) is fair to bring up and discuss. Most off-topic discussions (of which there's quite a few) are preferred to start as an aside-note or a "That reminds me of a story" to a Filly topic, but details about real-life occurences are brought up without limits.
-Everything else is governed by what the rule interpretations for /oat/ is at the time.

You can cite me (though not the other thread members) on this if you should ever want to know what the typical standards for Fillychan is. My personal (not objective) advice for the other /gala/ serials, is to set at least a benchmark or pegging for where the limits goes, such as pegging the limits for insultments or derails to those on /chat/, for example.

>just
<filter
^them

>Trying to make /gala/ threads into chat rooms that require a registration of some kind or any sort of organization beyond people turning up to a thread.

>>160898
>The mods are currently unable to act because the only bans they can deliver are at best /gala/-wide and require the person to break the global rules, which few of these "disruptors" generally do.
If the only thing a mod can do to solve a dispute is to use bans, they are not a good mod.

>>160934
>I like that on Ponychan I can go to /oat/ or /chat/ and find new random stuff popping up, but on /gala/ we've got these nice established things you can join in.
You can literally do that on /mlp/.
Even easier than you can on ponychan, since the /mlp/ generals are based around content, usually have an archive and are literally all in one place so you just have to scroll down until you find a thread you like, general or not.
Not to mention the speed means you'll have a new set of threads on every refresh.

I assume Mondo was talking about a conflict I was also watching, and I also watched Fen resolve it. He was not handing out bans or threatening to. Instead he, as an official figure, offered both parties ways to save face while addressing the heart of the division that had taken place. That method is more involved and has a chance of failure, but I thought that it was the best solution and yielded the best possible outcome. It has caused me to revise my opinion of all the parties involved.

Acting as an arbiter is draining and unrewarding with often unclear outcomes, but I feel that in that in the sort of situation that OP is talking about it is the only action for mods to take. I'm not saying it should be done universally, the opposite since it can easily cause unneeded drama and calls for all parties involved to drop everything, but there comes a point where arbitration is necessary and it cannot be substituted with bans or other halfhearted attempts.

>>160937
but they ARE a potentially good janitor

>>160935

It's pretty much that easy.

>>160937
>Trying to make /gala/ threads into chat rooms that require a registration of some kind or any sort of organization beyond people turning up to a thread.

That's the thing, is it's not that at all! This is a very simple change. If you make a thread on /oat/ about sliced cheese, and people start posting about basically anything else, it's a derail. It's a punishable offense. The issue with that on /gala/ is that most threads have no topic at all, or abandoned their topic ages ago and kept a name for easy identification. So following usual derail rules, like every thread in /gala/ would just be straight up broken right now.

All that needs to be done is for an OP to write down what's going on in the thread, or in the case of the really open ones, what shouldn't be going on in the thread. That's it. That's the entirety of "registration". No further organization is required.

>If the only thing a mod can do to solve a dispute is to use bans, they are not a good mod.

True, but that implies that any of these conflicts are solvable. What I've seen happen, multiple times, is two sides of an argument want a different thing in a thread that they both post in. Usually one side has been there longer and claims seniority and how they never used to have to deal with that stuff, whereas the other side is fresher and is posting stuff that they like, isn't against the board rules, but destroys the thread's standing culture. It's always best to step in and see if you can talk to people about things first, but eventually there's a line people cross where discussion doesn't solve the problem. One side has to give up. There isn't any valid compromise. As a moderator, what has to be done is to keep everyone around, shuffle things so that the lines people can't cross are more clear, and make sure that everyone gets what they want in some way.

>since the /mlp/ generals are based around content,

[off-topic]I hear that a lot, but every time I go to /mlp/ all I see is shit. I don't know what content people think they're finding over there. I usually end up checking once a month, only to fail to find anything even remotely interesting, and a few things that are downright offensive that I'd prefer I didn't even have to know existed. In my personal opinion, /mlp/ has literally no redeeming qualities and it is completely worthless to me as a board. I am glad other people can enjoy it and they are welcome to continue, but I will always think that Ponychan is better off being as different from /mlp/ as we can possibly be.[/off-topic]

>>160936

I honestly think that defeats the purpose of /gala/. /gala/ really serves as a hangout place. It is chatrooms. It's a list of imageboard structured chatrooms that anyone can hop in and join. People should have some amount of control over what goes on in their chatroom threads, that's a normal thing.

Without that, there's really no reason at all not to allow serials on /oat/ or /chat/, there's no benefit to them being there. It's a clutter free place with an easy to use directory where people should really have a bit more control over their threads than they currently do.

>>160938

What Fen did was the same thing we've done in that thread several times now over the same problem. It has resulted in people leaving every time, and I think we've lost more this time than ever before and I expect we will lose more after the proposed change for spoiling things fails a couple time. Fen has not resolved the issue. He has put some newspaper down over it so no one sees the holes. This is not Fen's fault, this is the fault of the posters, his hands are pretty tied on what could actually be done and I'm not sure he really knows the full history of the thread, but this is what has occurred. We're seriously down like five veteran members of the thread right now and the only reason the thread is really active at all is because PAD has inserted themselves into a gap they saw, otherwise the loss of all of its core members would've killed it outright.

tl;dr: We've already done what Fen did and it hasn't resolved the issue. It keeps happening. The people that would actually respond positively to this have already done so, and the people that wouldn't are the ones still causing problems.

>>160942
>/gala/ really serves as a hangout place. It is chatrooms. It's a list of imageboard structured chatrooms that anyone can hop in and join. People should have some amount of control over what goes on in their chatroom threads, that's a normal thing.
And how is that compromised by using filters? You see some posts by somebody that you would rather not see for whatever reason, you click twice, problem solved. Since it's /gala/ and the regular users are all probably on the same offsite chatroom, you could suggest that your friends to do the same. That person's off topic posting is no longer a bother to the people in the thread that mind, and they may end up leaving if they stop receiving responses.

>it usually boils down to someone not liking someone else on their turf. And as of right now there isn't really a solution to that
If the problem is not that they don't want to see the posts and they just want that given person to not exist at all in their little corner of the site, then that sounds extremely petty and does not warrant any action to be taken by the staff.

Last edited at Sat, Aug 30th, 2014 21:55

>>160943
>And how is that compromised by using filters?

Because it's supposed to feel more relaxed. Having to filter people and deal with them being around, even if they can't see their posts, is a tax higher than such a relaxed place needs to pay. Filtering people on /oat/ or something is understandable because that's just an open free for all and god knows what kind of weird people you'd run into, but filtering people from a thread is just weird.

Add to that the complications that even a single person not filtering someone would almost completely negate the fact that they were there, and also that some posters, even on /gala/, are anonymous and without tripcodes (usually identified by an expression viewer), and the filter idea falls apart completely.

>If the problem is not that they don't want to see the posts and they just want that given person to not exist at all in their little corner of the site, then that sounds extremely petty and does not warrant any action to be taken by the staff.

In some cases, probably. Everything on a case by case basis, of course.

>>160944
If some people are actually bothered by the blank space that filtered users leave or by other people responding to them, then maybe they need something more effective than an internet drama hub like /gala/ to help them come off their edge. But me being judgmental solves nothing. If that's really not a viable solution for so many people then that's the way it is.

And I was under the impression that /gala/'s anon community was quite small, though I can't comment on how problematic they are compared to name users.

>Everything on a case by case basis, of course.
Which is why it is a bit more complicated than you're making it out to be, since the given mod at the time will have to take into account the topic and general culture of each thread, and that's all on top of each situation's context, which in some cases could go back several threads, which is thousands of posts.

Maybe /gala/ could use its own personal mod that would make it their duty to familiarize themselves with the topics and culture of each thread.

>>160945
>And I was under the impression that /gala/'s anon community was quite small, though I can't comment on how problematic they are compared to name users.

The anon community is about the same size as the rest of the site, perhaps a bit smaller, though they also aren't usually the ones that are causing issues. The anonymous issue is mostly hypothetical, but still very much a possibility. Really, it's hard to pinpoint things because said issues aren't a constant problem. They come in big bursts now and again, leaving us with screenshots that blur in our memories after a while.

>Which is why it is a bit more complicated than you're making it out to be, since the given mod at the time will have to take into account the topic and general culture of each thread, and that's all on top of each situation's context, which in some cases could go back several threads, which is thousands of posts.

I suppose you may be right on that. I have a tendency to paint things as simpler than they actually are. Perhaps because I don't like things to be all that complicated.

Still doable, though, even if it requires a dedicated mod to float around /gala/ and really get to know people. A couple mods show up in this or that thread sometimes, so they're not completely unknown, but I imagine they'd have to up their time there a bit, not to mention really get settled in. History isn't something that happens in a week, after all. Though, really, it's still "simple", just a lot less easy. The idea itself is fairly straightforward, it's just the complete execution would take more effort.

>>160942
You were talking about charters and 'official members' of serial threads.

Saying "Dont do this pls." would be fine, but you'd first have to get everyone current to agree on that.

>There isn't any valid compromise.
Bullshit there isnt, there's always a valid compromise that can be reached as long as people dont give up looking for one and as long as they dont consider the thing they want to be more important than the relationship they have with the 'other side'.

>I usually end up checking once a month,
I have discovered your problem.
Lurk a general for a while and see what crops up, read their archive to see exactly -why- a bunch of people got together and continuously remake threads about the same subject.
I recommend the Princess AJ threads, mainly because they literally started as a troll thread that people ran off with.

>>160942
>Fen has not resolved the issue.
It's a bit dense to believe that, things like this cant exactly be done overnight.
Presumably, the last times you did this you didnt have a neutral party as the mediator, and i could not give less of a shit about either side in that disagreement.
I just want people to get along.

>>160937
>If the only thing a mod can do to solve a dispute is to use bans, they are not a good mod.
That is utterly ridiculous and total conjecture unless you are saying that bans revolving "disputes" are all unjustified. Fact of the matter is that if an environment is negative people will leave.

People who oppose the positive future and endorse a negative status quo because they don't see a way out of it that wouldn't hurt their precious self-esteem are... is... I don't even know where I'm going with this. But some things have to be done, and sitting on your hands doesn't make you less guilty than a person taking the initiative but making the wrong decision. Might even make you more guilty for cowardice.

"You" here is totally abstract, I have no clue what you do or don't do. By "You" I mean a hypothetical mod who opposes change but offers none in return.

>>160949
>You were talking about charters and 'official members' of serial threads.
>Saying "Dont do this pls." would be fine, but you'd first have to get everyone current to agree on that.

Sorry, I didn't think I was, I probably worded something weird in there. But yeah, thread registration and charters and official members would theoretically be a doable thing, but I don't think that much work is required. Getting people to agree on things would be the job of the moderators, which is really not much different from right now, I reckon.

>as long as they dont consider the thing they want to be more important than the relationship they have with the 'other side'.

That is often the case and exactly what I'm referring to. Sometimes a relationship between the two sides doesn't even exist! To reference the problem that spawned this thread in the first place, like...Saikar and Ebrona don't even really know each other at all, I don't think. They have some mutual friends so they ended up in the same place, but their interests completely clash.

>I have discovered your problem.

I could give it a shot, then, I suppose. No harm in trying.

>Fen resolving issues things.

On one hand it's absolutely too early to really say whether the issue is resolved either way, but the thread has a lot of neutral parties that don't care too much about whether there's any lewd stuff floating around or not. The issue goes back to before a lot of the thread's current posters even showed up. Just a few of us had started hanging out in the thread and we were just talking about our normal things, but some dudes were getting pretty bothered by it 'cause they don't like that kind of talk. Everyone apologized and backed off whenever it came up (it was only the last couple times that the lewd side decided to stand up and demand equal rights or whatever), but it's such a natural thing for some people that as of a week ago at least one of the same people was still causing issues (though Swiper is fortunately missing now).

The idea to spoiler things was new, granted, but we immediately lost at least one more poster to that (possibly two, I haven't spoken with the other yet), and while a couple have agreed, I don't expect all of them to go along with it long term. They'll see it now and say it's a good idea and that it's worth trying to see how it goes, but even if all such content is spoilered, it'll grate on them over time because it's still right there. Imagine these people sitting in their homes while others are setting up naked statues of people. You can throw sheets over it so you can't see it, but as you walk by every day you still think "There's a naked statue of someone sitting in my living room."

And that's all assuming people remember to spoiler things at all, which I feel is a little unlikely, given that a few people haven't remembered all the times they said they'd stop posting it in the first place. And one of the recent issues was actually with a completely new person who wandered into the thread and started flirting with someone. People like that obviously won't know about this compromise, so it should really be put in the thread OPs regardless of how enforceable the rules are, but I fear without mods to back it up, people are going to say that their rules don't apply just because they were written down somewhere.

I really want people to get along, but I've seen it too many times now where a given pair attempts to compromise, but ends up breaking it a month or two later, and then the whole thing tumbles down again and I'm stuck dealing with the fallout. People leave, people get upset, sometimes they stick around but just get really quiet and spend all their time silently angry and frustrated. I want people to get along, but am willing to settle for people no longer fighting with each other about this or that issue. I want huge drama scenes like a couple days ago to pop up as infrequently as possible. That's really my goal. Compromise is a nice sounding term, but it usually results in neither side getting what they really want, which means that the problem resurfaces after a cooldown period of some length.

>>160950
Um, yes i agree that banning is sometimes the right choice.

I was just saying that if it's always your course of action no matter the circumstance, then you're not a good mod.

>>160954
>Getting people to agree on things would be the job of the moderators, which is really not much different from right now, I reckon.
Good fucking lord i hope not.
Right now i just encourage people to get along while providing an example of how to do that while also suggesting different ways to do that.

Sai and Ebrona just need to talk without that issue right in their face and realise that the other person isnt a complete dipshit and could have a point that they agree with.

Yay shots.


>The idea to spoiler things was new
I dread to imagine what the other 'discussions' were like if thats a brand new idea.

Putting thread do's / donts in the OP has merit, but there's the issue of getting everybody to agree to a set of rules in the first place which puts you back where you started.

You could have a system of rotating OP's that each put their own little rules for the thread which would mitigate things a little, but that might be a bit complicated to manage fairly.
Could always use a RNG to determine the next OP though, which would make it a lot more fair.

>>160957
I don't think I was recommending to go in banhammer waving, nor do I know where you got that idea. I was saying that if you need to have the guts to do what's needed if and when it comes to that. If a serial is falling apart from internal conflict, raising your arms and saying "I can't do anything" and abandoning them is the worst choice you can make.

Last edited at Sun, Aug 31st, 2014 14:44

>>160958
I'm not sure what you meant by:

>That is utterly ridiculous and total conjecture unless you are saying that bans revolving "disputes" are all unjustified.

When all i was talking about is that bans shouldn't be your default response.

>>160960
>>The mods are currently unable to act because the only bans they can deliver are at best /gala/-wide and require the person to break the global rules, which few of these "disruptors" generally do.
Well clearly we have a communication issue here. By act I mean actually put your foot down. How could you assert your authority if you're bluffing? What would make you any more useful than anyone else that's trying to reason with them?

>>160961
If people wont listen to reason, then a /gala/ ban would be required, but only as a final option since it doesnt actually solve the dispute that people have.

To use the schoolyard analogy, if you cant play nice with the other kids, you wont play at all.

People can disagree with other all they want, but if you're just throwing shit at each other and disrupting things for everyone else, you need to take a timeout.

Until "Ban from thread" becomes a possible thing, /gala/ bans are the only feasible option there.

>>160962
I don't understand you. How are you able to ban people if they aren't breaking global site rules?

Harassment is one thing and is a clear global rule, this situation can apply to /oat/ or any other place where a poster needs a timeout. I mean when a person or persons disrupts the enjoyment of other posters, and because this person is always in the serial, it is a "deal with it or leave" situation unless a mod can get the person to stop their disruptive behavior.

Disruptive behavior, as I'm sure you know, is not cookie-cutter, cut and paste, simple and obvious and it is not always obvious the person needs a timeout or attitude rehab. Take the situations, or rules, Mondo put at the top:

>MOBA-chat
>Lewdness

And let's put "argumentative" in there for good measure.

If a pair of people fill the thread for dozens of posts with MOBA-chat that nobody else cares about and refuse to take it somewhere else as it heavily disrupts the "main chatter" in the serial, you can't help, they have to sort it out themselves.

If a minority in a serial starts posting lewdly all over the place and it makes other people uncomfortable, and after requests to tone it down they refuse, you can't do anything about that.

If a person keeps getting into arguments about stupid stuff and every 50 posts there's a 30-post heated argument, you can't do anything about that.

These situations are not clear-cut. They require a moderator to intervene, but that's all it needs - a moderator to intervene, see the situation and make a decision. But you can't intervene if you can't ban them, do you see what I mean? You'll find that you don't command much obedience and respect if people know you can't do shit.

Last edited at Sun, Aug 31st, 2014 15:11

>>160963
>How are you able to ban people if they aren't breaking global site rules?
Because while they are not breaking a site rules, they are willfully disrupting the board and the people within.
If they are not open to talking about the matter like adults, they will be removed like the children they are acting like.

>If a minority in a serial starts posting lewdly all over the place and it makes other people uncomfortable, and after requests to tone it down they refuse, you can't do anything about that.
Why?
If you're at a restaurant and somebody starts a drunken conga line around all the tables and ignores the staff asking them to stop or leave the premises, do you expect the restaurant to do nothing?

In that example, the restaurant is the thread, the OP is the staff, the conga line is lewd posting, the other patrons of the restaurant that are alternately joining in, watching with annoyance or just leaving are the regular thread goers and the police are the mods.


I recognize these situations are not clear cut, but thats why each one is a case by case basis that doesn't have a specific rule to govern it.
We're on the same page when i say "/gala/ ban" right? As in, it's a ban from that board only, but is otherwise identical to the three strikes system that applies to everyone that doesn't punch dragons for a living.

>>160965
>f they are not open to talking about the matter like adults, they will be removed like the children they are acting like.
I have never heard of a situation where a person was banned from a board for refusing to obey the instructions of a moderator when their conduct did not break a global rule.

>We're on the same page when i say "/gala/ ban" right? As in, it's a ban from that board only
I just don't see you ever being able to get away with banning someone from anything but a single serial for talking about League of Legends / Dota.

>If you're at a restaurant and somebody starts a drunken conga line around all the tables and ignores the staff asking them to stop or leave the premises, do you expect the restaurant to do nothing?
I do. You guys abandoned the 'spirit of the rules' thing long ago sadly.

Last edited at Sun, Aug 31st, 2014 16:17

>>160966
First time i did was a couple years ago when i perma banned someone from /pony/ for being functionally unable to actually discuss things and constantly provoking shit as a result, this had also been going on for at least a month with the guy receiving multiple warnings to clean up his act.

Banned a few people from /meta/ for similar reasons, but those aren't permas unless they've been banned previously.

Also banned somebody from /gala/ couple months ago that was disrupting threads so much that they always left a shitstorm in their wake with everyone involved unhappy at the end of it.

Like i said, until banning from a single thread becomes possible, i have to settle for banning by board.

It's theoretically possible, but it's probably a bitch to get working.

>>160967
>Like i said, until banning from a single thread becomes possible, i have to settle for banning by board. It's theoretically possible, but it's probably a bitch to get working.

The only way I can see it being possible and effective without having to keep re-specifying which thread the banned poster is not allowed to post on for every thread made, is to enable tagging on /gala/ with radio buttons in the form next to each serial name. I guess that's possible though.

Honestly the solution is to just stop being assholes to each other and communicate your feelings more.

>>160957
>Putting thread do's / donts in the OP has merit, but there's the issue of getting everybody to agree to a set of rules in the first place which puts you back where you started.

Unfortunately my idea works perfectly for any new threads that pop up going forward, which /gala/ does still get some, but for longstanding threads things would really need to be mediated a bit, figure out which threads do what and where people want to be and why they want to be there.

In a new thread, someone has to get the idea for the thread and then make it, so of course that one person sets the rules. At that point the thread already has rules so even if someone else makes the next iteration, they've already agreed with the rules and are probably just gonna copy and paste them in the next thread.

For long standing ones, you'd have to talk with long time members (especially some of the ones we're missing, in some cases) to figure out what they want/wanted from the thread and remake it in that image. For some threads this could be so easy that no change is required, for others it might take a bit more talking.

It'd work out, eventually, people'd just have to talk about things a bit. Which is really already what we have to do, so I wouldn't really count that as an obstacle.

>I dread to imagine what the other 'discussions' were like if thats a brand new idea.

Well usually there wasn't much to discuss. People would act natural and be a bit lewd, other people would get disgusted, a few would leave (usually not permanently), others would get upset because the lewdness scared their friends off. In a lot of cases the offenders in question would apologize and promise not to do it again, but in many cases it eventually came back up anyway. This is the first time it had gotten quite this angry, likely because of the built up frustration of all the previous offenses. Lewdity (there's no good word for this) didn't really have a strong voice demanding that it be allowed at any point, but this time the offenders were people who have very strong voices.

>>160963
>>160965
>>160966

The real issues come about when people can't decide what is or isn't allowed. I mean, some people were enjoying that MOBA-chat and other people weren't too offended by it. Some people appreciated Swiper flirting with everyone who walked into the LGBT Hayride, other people thought he/she was fuckin' creepy as hell. In this most recent issue, the lewd pictures and text in question are usually quite tame, but the people posting in the thread are religious, or just really disinterested, so it causes problems. But who's right, there? Both sides have a fair point. Banning is absolutely not the answer here because you'd have to ban like half a thread. Not something you do at the first sign of trouble, just something you need to have a button for in an extreme circumstance.

>>160970

Yeah, thread bans would really require some backend work, and probably also actual official thread registration.

Which is doable! Technically! But that's a lot of work and I'm not sure we really need it yet. One step at a time, I think.

Could make for some other cool additions, too, though, potentially. I mean I was talking in another thread here somewhere about how each board should really be unique beyond having a different name and stated purpose. Looking at the top boards we have "/irc/", and it's deader than /chat/, but it's definitely very unique. Perhaps /gala/ could eventually use a shift towards some technical changes that really support its purpose as a chatroom collection.

>>160972

Well, yes, that is the ideal state of things, but if things were that simple we wouldn't really need moderators in a lot of cases anyway. We'd all just kind of self moderate and things would be fine.

Really, people not communicating their feelings is a huge peeve of mine, so I will always encourage that as much as I can.

>>160967
I have a strong suspicion that you may be unintentionally downplaying precisely what they've done. Otherwise why was nothing done to resolve the issues of PAD before it collapsed? Why is the Story thread now experiencing some serious conflicts of interest that remain unresolved on the subject of lewdness? There are plenty of issues with serials, but I have never seen it addressed outside of Noble's rash stint.

>It's theoretically possible, but it's probably a bitch to get working.
It's not if it's only /gala/. You could give a new field in OP thread creation and call it "thread password." This password would act as an internal identifier in tracking which thread it is (and, quite possibly allow the reintroduction of the serial directory due to automation.)

>>160982

>why was nothing done to resolve the issues of PAD before it collapsed?

Apparently nobody was aware there were issues in the first place!!

>>160982
>Why is the Story thread now experiencing some serious conflicts of interest that remain unresolved on the subject of lewdness?
Because a lot of the older members of the Story thread (myself not included in most cases, even though I am one of the older members) are not here for lewdness and have mentioned before that they would prefer to not have it in the thread. Newer members (from the ruins of /p/AD don't know that, and they're used to being lewd, so they, being amongst other friends from /p/AD, naturally keep the same posting style. No one is really deliberately at fault; however the newer members of Story should probably try to tone down the lewd. After all, Story is a thread that has existed for far longer than literally any other serial on this site.

Last edited at Mon, Sep 1st, 2014 07:55

>>160982
>>160993

We are already working together on solving that, though.

>>160970
Pretty much what zeke said, i think it's on a tentative to-do list now though.

>>160972
Congratulations, you just discovered the solution to 99% of the worlds problems.

>>160975
>It'd work out, eventually, people'd just have to talk about things a bit.
Hence why i said you'd be put back where you started


So basically no discussion happened previously?

It was just people going "Stop pls", other people going "oki", other people leaving for a while, etc?

I wish i could force everyone to take a basic communications lesson before being able to use the Internet, i swear to god it's the source of pretty much every problem ever had on this site.

>>160982
>I have a strong suspicion that you may be unintentionally downplaying precisely what they've done.
Correct, i'm speaking in generalities because i want to respect people's privacy, as the last time i mentioned the name of someone i banned, they got hounded by people completely unrelated to the issue.
The people involved with the issues probably know who i'm talking about and can dissemate the information as they see fit, but i prefer not to make an issue out of things when the details dont really matter.
The people involved also received multiple warnings before the hammer came down, as per standard bans.

>Otherwise why was nothing done to resolve the issues of PAD before it collapsed?
Because like Tangy said >>160992, i had no fucking clue anything was going on.
I was only in the thread infrequently, and nobody said anything to me when i was there.
I was also in the steamchat practically all the time my computer was on, and nobody thought to drop me a line about things.

And, again it's an issue of being unaware of the problem until it's really fucking late.
I know mods have fucked up in the past, but i like to think i have a decent track record for at least attempting to help people at this point, so i wish people trusted me enough to let me do that.
Granted, i was made aware of a problem within minutes recently, so i'm probably complaining about a nonissue.
I dont really have much of a leg to stand on in regards to that sort of thing anyway, considering the mods response time for things

>>160992

I didn't know there were issues, either. A few spats over things, Noble panicking about the thread dying (while it was still getting 1k posts a day?), and then very suddenly everyone abandoned ship due to Bagsgate.

>>160996
>Hence why i said you'd be put back where you started

Yes, this is not an immediate solution to the problems we have now, but rather a preventative measure for problems in the future so that these problems do not occur again elsewhere.

And no, not a whole lot of real discussion. It never seemed like anyone minded until they suddenly got fed up with something and evacuated. Which is, again, why I'm not as confident about this most recent patch to the system. Other people really want to try it, though, so I guess I just gotta be ready to try to mitigate the next major event...'cause of course the last one had to go down in a span of a couple hours while I was downstairs trying to spend time with my roommate.

>I was only in the thread infrequently, and nobody said anything to me when i was there.

Man, I was in the thread every day for hours and I still had no idea. What it sounds like is that people actually had some old grudges against Bags from a long time ago so they were already upset with him and the stream of LoL pictures just broke the dam? I posit that people are generally just very afraid of conflict. They don't want to argue or debate anything, so they remain as quiet as possible and hope their problems get solved on their own. Strangely, though, even once people get pushed to the point that they're forced into conflict, people don't want to end the conflict, they just want to go back to how things were before, so things don't usually get anywhere or make any progress. People should not be afraid of arguing or conflict, and when something comes up they should push towards a resolution. They've got to define the problems, see what both sides are looking for, and then try to think of a way that both sides get as much of what they want as is possible.

It seems so simple but I don't think I've ever seen it happen.

>"memberships" for serial threads
Why? I can maybe understand thread-specific rules (mostly community enforced, ideally), but do you guys really want to be that insular?

>>160998

Did I ever actually mention memberships? 'cause I sure didn't intend to. I should go double check my wording.

No, no memberships, threads should all still be completely open to whoever passes by.

>>160997
>Man, I was in the thread every day for hours and I still had no idea. What it sounds like is that people actually had some old grudges against Bags from a long time ago so they were already upset with him and the stream of LoL pictures just broke the dam? I posit that people are generally just very afraid of conflict. They don't want to argue or debate anything, so they remain as quiet as possible and hope their problems get solved on their own. Strangely, though, even once people get pushed to the point that they're forced into conflict, people don't want to end the conflict, they just want to go back to how things were before, so things don't usually get anywhere or make any progress. People should not be afraid of arguing or conflict, and when something comes up they should push towards a resolution. They've got to define the problems, see what both sides are looking for, and then try to think of a way that both sides get as much of what they want as is possible.

Man, Bagsgate was the funniest shit I've ever seen. At the same time, it was quite saddening also.

>>161000
>no /gala/thread diamond account
shucks

>>160992
>>160993
>>160994
>>160996
That seems to make sense. Conceded.