Meta-discussion is discussion about discussion, like this topic will be. I've been thinking lately that this forum, and the sandbox still has a problem handling such discussions and my post guidelines, while mitigating the problem, haven't been fully effective in promoting higher quality discussion. As I see it there's two problems that these two boards, and the rest of the board to a lesser extent, is that meta-discussion interrupts conversations such as when the staff call people out for rule breaking in a post, people calling each other out, and references to other threads. The other problem which is unrelated, is just the inherit quality of posts being poor because they're bad posts and not necessarily meta. There's two solutions to curbing the problem and I think each should be put into place and they are as follows:
1. Instead of making a post to get back on topic, that a user was violating a rule, and directing users to the PM system edit the message with a citation.
For starters I was guilty of this while I was a mod here. Second, for a while staff members would edit the message with a citation as to the problem with it. This was directly requested to cease, since it is no concern of the general community what discipline users receive. I agree with the sentiment, and it makes sense. The problem is, however, users respond to staff posts about their behavior and thus creates an off-topic reply chain. The other problem is that verbal warnings do not help the very sentiment of not citing posts, since they are public and even more visible than the text in the edit box. Third, using PM is far better way of handling disputes yet it should happen before a moderator gets involved. I don't believe mods should be wasting their time by directing people to PM after seeing posts (which are publicly visible) that already should have been in a PM. I do believe mods should delete the posts if it's early in the chain, and PM the users involve and tell them to finish the conversation privately, or ban after a long chain (which shouldn't happen under my post guidelines) with a message to use the PM feature next time. Lastly, users will speculate about the staff's disciplinary actions no matter what. While a good reason for not citing posts, is to not give fuel to the fire by letting users see warnings, and make topics complaining; it does not solve the problem of speculation. People shouldn't, and that's only narrowly enforceable here since the best that can be done is directly prohibiting such speculation on this forum, and publicly announcing that people should not care. Instead, a space specifically for such discussion in a (sub)forum with reasonable rules to prevent the flame wars and drama that used to occur in this forum prior to my guidelines. This helps to prevent people from going on other platforms and spouting SMBX drama, when it can be contained in a (sub)forum with said reasonable rules. The rule set is basically already done since my guidelines work well, and my idea still sitting in the staff forum about requiring polls for topics that deal with these issues to keep things objective could be put into place.
2. Allowing users to change their names via UCP
This will help with call outs to a degree. The logic behind this, is that if people can change their names enough it will be harder for people to keep track and be unable to prejudge users and act towards them in a certain way. People treat each other differently around here, and that's expected in any non-anonymous community.The problem is, is that people will react negatively in a thread because a certain user created it or posted in it. This becomes meta-discussion because the negative response's subject is based on the user posting and not the user's post. It can be said that the staff should just be expected to take care of this, but the problem is that never really happens. For one, meta-discussion is not against the rules on any of the forums so there's no reason to look for these posts. Also, if a post is negative but doesn't break rules it will just fly under the radar to the staff, because there's no reason to report the post or for the staff to notice and take any action while browsing on their own. By no means is the strategy of constant name changes a final solution to the problem, and I'm open to other suggestions - besides just telling people to judge posts and not users and leaving it at that - but it helps slow down the problem so that it is more difficult for people to react as they do now to other members. People tend to react more politely to new users who come, and post in the introductions thread. While I would chalk this up to just common courtesy, it does raise the question as to whether or not this common courtesy could be extended if people were less familiar with people they don't associate with and make it harder to hold biases. Also, ranks, post counts, avatars, and signatures will obviously give away that a user isn't new however I already support removing ranks, post counts, and signatures to some extent but avatars and signatures can be updated just as easily in the UCP as names would be. This doesn't apply to staff members though since name colors are put into place (which an be changed ;)) so they will have to still deal with the issue of negativity based on the user accompanied with post and not just the post.
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Meta-discussion and meta-posts
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Re: Meta-discussion and meta-postsAllowing users to change their names via the UCP was used for a while, but it was taken back because so many people abused it by continually changing their names, for example.
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Re: Meta-discussion and meta-postsThat's the point of re-allowing it. |
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Re: Meta-discussion and meta-postsAs you may or may not know, I like the idea of "praising in public and reprimanding in private". However, I realize that sometimes a public reprimand is appropriate.
That being said, I PM people more than I reprimand them in threads. PMing people is appropriate not because it doesn't derail the thread, but because it's only the business of the user and the staff. A simple "Please don't do that" as a reply to the thread does not derail the thread at all. The staff is allowed to do that. However, I wouldn't encourage it until after multiple offenses have been made by one person or successive offenses by different people all in one thread. That's typically what I do - if PMs don't get through to them, I may start reprimanding them just in the thread. What derails the thread is the string of people that respond to the staff member's comment. I don't want to make it seem like this happens a lot, though, so would you mind pointing me to a few examples of where this has been happening if you think it's a big issue? We are absolutely not going to make a subforum for people to speculate on other members. The problem is not that speculation happens in the wrong place; it's that it happens whatsoever. This is the same argument as "we should have forum games so people have a dedicated place to shitpost because they're going to do it anyway". Obviously members may speculate in private about stuff (which is still bad if it happens too much, but we can't control it), but we're not going to allow it here because it's not the right thing to do. As you pointed out that I said, people shouldn't care. Also, about usernames: I see where you're coming from in that username changes can slow down the process of prejudice, but...this is a really, really radical way to fix a simple problem. Users shouldn't make themselves subject to prejudice, and users on the other end shouldn't overreact and break the rule of respect. As a side note about reported posts - can you direct me to an example of a post that "doesn't break the rules and went under the radar"? I don't doubt that this happened, but I bet it was because nobody reported it. Just because somebody does something that doesn't specifically and strictly violate a rule doesn't mean that it isn't wrong. The rules aren't strictly interpreted, but rather loosely interpreted. |
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Re: Meta-discussion and meta-postshttp://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 20#p174411 + following posts on page 4 (yeah, it's this thread again) http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 43#p169587 http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 42#p165942 http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 36#p156036 http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 09#p155609 http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 30#p150731 Some recent examples. Maybe 'derailing' is a strong word when describing these situations, but 'off-topic' and 'unneeded' fit fine. These again won't be complete derails, some go back to my point about making users PM beforehand: http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 05#p175082 http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 60#p172760 http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 39#p168739 http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 90#p167377 http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 60#p164005 http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 74#p153677 I think the example of meta-discussion being like forum games is a false equivalency. People naturally engage in meta-discussion and it bleeds into constructive discussion, while forum games aren't an inherit part of general discussion (it's often times the complete opposite). I don't know how far you expect to get with telling people what they ought and ought not to do. Creating a subforum for topics about meta-discussion, beyond just the scope of user speculation, centralizes the discussion into one place so that reasonable rules can be put into place to prevent problems that originate on this board from spreading to other forums, boards, and chats. Again, people shouldn't care as much, but they do. The whole reason for this proposal is to deal with that problem since it is happening when it shouldn't be. Again this is true, but what I'm proposing is a way to fix the problem when it shouldn't be happening. You're stopping at "this shouldn't be," and not "how should I fix this" is what I'm getting at basically. I don't think the suggestion is as radical as you make it out to be, but it is a bit out there and indirect with a solution to the problem. It's the only thing I could think of, since I am not aware of any plugins to make users anonymous so that their posts are the only thing that can be judged. It's not a final solution, it's just the best I could come up with. It goes under the radar for a reason. I really can't find specific examples for this happening to other users, since I would have to go back and bring up posts that were negative while being meta-discussion and I can't really view every post from the perspective of the user being responded to. I only bring it up since it's what leads to biases and prejudices, and really has more of an effect on the tone and attitude of a message rather than the post itself. If I were to give an example it would be a post that looks fine when it stands alone, but the person who made the post linked it and just attacked the person privately. Like if someone asks a dumb question that should be immediately obvious, and someone answers with the solution but is short and dismissive then proceeds to link the thread calling a user retarded. It happens all the time, but that's a lot of digging I would have to do to get links for examples like I did above when I could just illustrate the scenario as it happens. |
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Re: Meta-discussion and meta-postsI do admit, I need to start PM reprimanding a little more. However, I don't see how a "Get back on topic" post is unnecessary if many users are off topic and therefore derailing the thread.
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Re: Meta-discussion and meta-postsIt might be necessary then, but not if it's one or two people. Editing the post with the edit reason being the problem, is a better alternative in this case. It can't be quoted to go off topic to begin with, and it's not as in-your-face as a typical post is. |
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Re: Meta-discussion and meta-postsStaff members posting in threads to let people know to stop breaking rules is not conventionally going off-topic and it's something we will continue to do when necessary.
To make my view on the points here concise: it's clear that you, Aero, are trying to come up with ideas to make the community a better place, but all of your ideas involve changing something fundamental about the forum system rather than the userbase itself. That's just dodging around the actual problem, which is the users. |
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Re: Meta-discussion and meta-postsAgain, not disagreeing. The users need to improve, and I believe that with my suggestions for these changes, this will help make that happen. I don't know how you intend to deal with user base problems besides stating the issues and saying they should be changed. Not everyone is going to take the personal responsibility, not everyone is going to listen, and nobody ever thinks they're the problem otherwise this wouldn't be the case. While it's true that my suggestions don't fix problems with the users, it does give a framework to address systemic problems with the board.
If you want user problems to be solved, they all come down to: age + maturity, forum experience, and social skills. You already know my opinion about kicking kids out, and I already know yours so I won't focus on that. With forum experience, that's already somewhat being tackled with the "lurk moar" bans, but more could be done by compiling a better FAQ than the default or something. And with social skills, that's also tied into age to a degree and is pretty much a life skill and not the duty of a board staff team to help with. |
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Re: Meta-discussion and meta-postsIt may give a framework to address problems with people on this board, but not the board itself. The board isn't broken, so we're not going to fix it. I realize that I sometimes embrace fixing things that aren't broken but it's not going to happen here.
I'm willing to make policies on younger users more strict (lurking, etc.). |
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