FFtF topic quality

[Arch]

Your just walking away? I hate to say it but that's really weak. The majority of this debate was about how you did your job and your just going to pretend it never happened? These are legitimate complaints Fox, you can't just ignore them. You need to address the discontent among the members and show them that your worthy of the mod's badge you carry, not just walk away from the issue. If you can't do that then I can't say that you deserve that badge.

Edited November 29, 2008 by Arch

[Florete]

If you're just going to walk away and not care, then perhaps you shouldn't have that job in the first place, and give it up to someone else that does. Nothing personal, just if you really cared about Serenes Forest you would either at least acknowledge it's a problem and say you're going to at least DISCUSS IT with the other staff members, and not just tell us to deal with it, or give the job to someone else who will.

This is about what's best for the forest in the long run, not about the satisfaction of the few.

Who said I wouldn't discuss it with the staff? Perhaps there is a problem. If it turns out there is, I'll see it sooner or later. Until I find it or am shown it, I'll get on with my life.

Don't you dare accuse me of not caring. I got this job because I care about this place. I care about this place more than I probably should, and I won't tolerate anyone questioning that aspect of me. You can call me retarded, tell me I shouldn't have my job, and hate me all you want, but you don't you dare demeen my love of this forum.

[Cynthia]

I will admit, I am not a very siding person. I won't side with someone just because they are a friend. In fact even if I am siding with them, and they cross the line, I tell them to take a step back, as I did tell Blue Fox when he was going too far. But when I see someone makes a point and they are right about something, I WILL side with them. Just as if I thought Red Fox or Zeph was right, I'd side with them no questions asked.

I carry a policy of, I'll only stand by you if you're right. I won't stand by you simply because you're a friend, because friends can be wrong too.

But I have to say that I am going to have to side with Arch, Blue Fox, ZXValaRevan, Death, and Tino.

[lolDeath]

Who said I wouldn't discuss it with the staff? Perhaps there is a problem. If it turns out there is, I'll see it sooner or later. Until I find it or am shown it, I'll get on with my life.

Don't you dare accuse me of not caring. I got this job because I care about this place. I care about this place more than I probably should, and I won't tolerate anyone questioning that aspect of me. You can call me retarded, tell me I shouldn't have my job, and hate me all you want, but you don't you dare demeen my love of this forum.

You can't love it that much if you ignore the fact that you're a moderator at your own convenience. But you got your job based on interest and not ability? Thanks for the information, good to know.

[TLSothe]

Sorry, but that is the worst way to get a Staff job. You should have experience in a serious forum, or you shouldn't be a Staffer. I honestly am concerned at the way VASM elects Staff members.

[Arch]

Who said I wouldn't discuss it with the staff? Perhaps there is a problem. If it turns out there is, I'll see it sooner or later. Until I find it or am shown it, I'll get on with my life.

In your defense you never once said you would discuss it and you still deny there is a problem! Here's some advice, you'll never find the problem if you always avoid it, take a look around FFtF for once maybe you'll see what we've been complaining about.

Edited November 29, 2008 by Arch

[Cynthia]

By God, I can't take this anymore. Rejoice, you all "won the debate." I no longer care. I'll continue doing my job, you can continue complaining.

Looks to me like you said you don't care. You don't care about an issue that was brought up. An issue that happens to be a concern for this place. How much can you love it if you don't care if other people are upset with things that are happening here.

[Florete]

In your defense you never once said you would discuss it and you still deny there is a problem! Here's some advice, you'll never find the problem if you always avoid it, take a look around FFtF for once maybe you'll see what we've been complaining about.

I just admitted to the possibility of a problem, yet never stated I wouldn't discuss it, did I?

As for those questioning my position, fine. But don't insult Vincent. He doesn't deserve that. Maybe I should have clarified; part of the reason I was hired was because of my dedication.

Looks to me like you said you don't care. You don't care about an issue that was brought up. An issue that happens to be a concern for this place. How much can you love it if you don't care if other people are upset with things that are happening here.

You're right, I did say that. But I shouldn't have, and I regret saying that the way I did. I could say I've had a long day, but I don't think any excuse matters at this point.

Edited November 29, 2008 by Red Fox of Fire

[lolDeath]

It honestly sounds to me like she just likes having the power of a moderator without doing the work, I know the type.

[TLSothe]

I didn't insult VASM. I just don't think he elects staff in a good way. That doesn't mean I don't like VASM, or you. Just that I disagree

[Cynthia]

It honestly sounds to me like she just likes having the power of a moderator without doing the work, I know the type.

I have to say it DOES sound that way from what I've been seeing in here...

However as you said, to each his/her own right?

[VincentASM]

Everyone, just take a step back for a second.

Honestly, I think the discussion hasn't really gotten anywhere since the opening post. I appreciate that members have their own valued opinions on how to help, but it's more or less useless until you give the staff time to consider everything.

I'll be closing this so that everyone can re-gather their thoughts. Dunno if it's necessary since it seems nobody's on right now, but whatever. I'll re-open it later with my own thoughts, unless another staff member wants to post something in the interim.

Edited November 29, 2008 by VincentASM

[VincentASM]

My personal opinion is that, besides the rule-bending and arguments, FFTF is fine the way it is. I created it as a spam board for that reason. Yes, many of the topics and posts in there aren't worth reading, but what do you expect to see in a board for, er, spam?

On one side, we have the people who have IMO high expectations. Some people have mentioned that FFTF has reached GameFAQs-level of stupidty. If that's true, I'm actually quite fine with that. It might be because I actually frequent GameFAQs and thus I'm more tolerant of post content. However, if many members aren't fine with it, then that's something we'll have to consider.

On the other side, we have the people who make the spam in FFTF. What do they think of the situation? I think it's only fair if we got a representative for their side to comment about their thoughts.

Everyone, stop jumping on Fox. We're here to talk about the quality of FFTF. Not the quality of Fox's moderation duties nor the quality of my staff decisions.

TLS, no offense, but we didn't need any of your comments in this topic.

I agree. Spam is one thing but the level of idiocy in FFtF is too much. It's some of the worst I've ever seen. And the bad thing about idiocy is that it tends to bleed into other areas. If members can get away with being totally idiotic and then watch the moderators try to ignore the problem and let it continue is very encouraging. Especially since this forum has a track record of not fulfilling punishments. It will bleed into other areas and thus render intelligent discussion difficult to obtain. Then you and the rest of the mod crew will have a huge mess to clean up and you will have to try to force good posting habits on your out of control members (which doesn't work). If you stop the idiocy now you will not only not have a huge mess to clean up, you will create a slew of new members with great posting habits, who doesn't want that? Now the cleanup of FFtF will be a good sized job, but it's nothing a team of decent moderators shouldn't be able to handle.

That sounds great in theory, but don't you think you're being a tad too idealistic? Imagine that we did tone down FFTF, there's no guarantee that any of what you said would actually happen. Isn't that correct? There's also the (ever so slight) possibility that the bleeding of spam could get even worse. Of course, I'm not implying that we shouldn't try it.

And therein lies the problem. How often do members actually report things? I know on my forum there are hardly any reports from members. It's the staff's job to police the members, not the members job to police themselves. You can't expect to have members report things to you because they won't because it's not their job to do so. It's a moderator's job. Now, maybe I just have a high standard for moderators, my staff is extremely good and devoted at their jobs. They don't rely on reports from members to weed out rule-breakers, they go and hunt them down. That's what makes a good moderator, someone who is good and devoted at their job. Now, nobody ever said you had to be alone. That's why there are multiple mods. Mods are supposed to work together as a team to solve problems, just because you have people working on things doesn't mean you can slack and let them take care of it, help them to get the job done faster.

Sorry, Arch, I have a good amount of respect for you and your forum, but what you do on your forum doesn't have much to do with ours. My expectations of the staff likely differs from yours and also SF is quite a lot more active than FEU. Hence the two forums are obviously going to run differently. If, on the other hand, SaS was to comment, I'd probably take his account more seriously.

Anyway, in my view, it is the member's responsibility to report posts; the report button is completely useless to moderators. If members don't report posts, we're not going to shout at them of course. However we do expect members to try and co-operate with us, by reporting posts, wherever possible. Also, we do actually get a relatively large amount of reported posts, which is a good thing, and a bad thing I guess.

But basically the smart have little to no power, while the village idiot controls the show. We can't keep bending things to please the spammers. If we stop some of the spamming now, and start getting people into good habits and behavior, we won't need as much moderation.

Basically, we want it so that just because members who post this idiocy outnumber us, doesn't mean they should be allowed to do so and trample us over because they have superior numbers.

Are things seriously that bad? Are you referring to FFTF redundant topics outnumbering the "interesting" ones, or spam bleeding into serious parts of the forum. Either way, I think you're exaggerating just a little. I'm sure there's always a way for the smart to hold back the idiotic, since the smart are "smart" right? However that's not to say I'm ruling out your account or anything.

... I didn't say they shouldn't spam. As has been said many times, there's a difference between regular, fun, funny spam, and posts like "lol", or "". That contributes NOTHING at all. It only serves to waste people's time and bandwidth. I like spam, and I often do spammy things, but Spam shouldn't equal complete wastes of time and energy.

I'm assuming this sums up everyone's thought on spam in FFTF. I'm sure many of you know what spam stands for: Stupid, Pointless, Annoying Message. So why shouldn't spam equal "lol", "" or waste time and bandwidth and energy?

I'm getting the impression that the reply is "we deserve better!". From a spam board, seriously? o__O

Personally I'm with Fox on ignoring the spam topics. That is, you, the members.

Yes, it's no secret that many of the moderators ignore most of FFTF, but that's a different story. Do you really expect moderators to patrol a spam board? I'd think that's something not even a saint could do. Since, previously, nobody really complained about FFTF, we assumed things were going mostly splendid there. Of course, when alerted, we would moderate any signs of trouble and it seemed everyone was happy. But I guess not...

TL;DR/finishing comment:

The staff will discuss this in detail. However, don't you think you're taking FFTF too seriously yourselves? ^^;;;

Also, how much would a "Social" board (i.e containing day-to-day stuff, random stuff that's not really spam), improve things in FFTF?

[lolDeath]

GameFAQs member thinks it's fine, it must be fine. That was worth my time for sure.

[bunny: spider bitten]

Pointing fingers is fun because I'm a jerk.

Anyway. While I don't think a character minimum for topic names and first post is beyond unreasonable, it's not god awful as is.

And I thought that harrassing Fox was kind of sad because most people who did it aren't really the best people to go to in terms of judging her of her job.

[VincentASM]

GameFAQs member thinks it's fine, it must be fine. That was worth my time for sure.

Okay, that didn't really have anything to do with anything. That derserves a warn, don't you think?

I already stated that I'd consider delving into the matter even thought that's what I personally thought.

Edited November 29, 2008 by VincentASM

[lolDeath]

I don't think that deserves a warning if all of the other things all over this forum do not, but if you want to abuse your power, sure, to be honest some people were already expecting one of the staff members to do it to me.

Edit; Thank you for proving us right.

Edited November 29, 2008 by Death

[bunny: spider bitten]

You've bashed the moderating staff the entire topic and expected to get away scotch free? On the self titled important forums. And it's not the first time. You more than deserve the warn. And frankly, I think the complaint proposed in the topic is ultimately worthless because whether it completely changes or doesn't you probably won't post there and you don't have to read the topics.

[lolDeath]

Not my fault a moderator derailed it, and I am not alone.

[Arch]

I'm going to have to vouch for death on this one, warning him for THAT is positively stupid. It was relevant to the topic because you (a gameFAQs user) said you thought it was fine. Maybe the ending was a little harsh but it certainly wasn't "spam/whatever", I think it was actually quite deserved, he and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning debating this and then two staff members of all people are our main opposition.

[bunny: spider bitten]

Why does it matter how many people back you up? My point still stands. Unless you're posting there and reading the topics, don't whine about it.

[lolDeath]

Your point? And I am not speaking of people backing me up, I am speaking of people seeing the same problem.

I find it highly ironic that the only warning I get for spam in the last 4 years is on this forum of all places, this might as well be locked.

[VincentASM]

I don't think that deserves a warning if all of the other things all over this forum do not, but if you want to abuse your power, sure, to be honest some people were already expecting one of the staff members to do it to me.

Edit; Thank you for proving us right.

No problem : )

You knew the rules, and you broke them. That's all that matters to me, not "all the other things in the forum", which are an altogether different story.

I'm going to have to vouch for death on this one, warning him for THAT is positively stupid. It was relevant to the topic because you (a gameFAQs user) said you thought it was fine. Maybe the ending was a little harsh but it certainly wasn't "spam/whatever", I think it was actually quite deserved, he and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning debating this and then two staff members of all people are our main opposition.

Sorry, I don't care. He even said he saw it coming, although for possibly different reasons.

If you guys are so bothered, take it to me in PM, not in this thread. That's how warns are usually debated.

[Tino]

Why does it matter how many people back you up? My point still stands. Unless you're posting there and reading the topics, don't whine about it.

Spam is supposed to be funny, and sometimes annoying, but it isn't supposed to be disturbing to those who actually want to read some somewhat meaningful or funny conversations (or post in them), which it effectively is at this very moment.

[canas is back]

perhaps as a compromise limit most of fftf more but still allow people to post whatever they want in ultima (reborn will be glad to hear that one)