Author Topic: moderating - simple rules for what we do  (Read 7595 times)

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Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Topic Start: August 14, 2018, 02:20:22 PM »
There's been a few folks posting questions about starting threads, bumping threads, splitting threads, etc... recently so I thought I write a post about the general guidelines I use and I think others use in acting on posts.  I'll just deal with thread starting, bumping and splitting for now.

The basic guideline is if there's a thread on the same point in the first few pages of a forum, then we lean towards combining those threads.
  This is to keep different topics and discussion subjects hot.  If there are 4 versions of "Gio stinks" on the first page of the Clubhouse, then it isn't going to be easy to find other topics to discuss.

Second guideline is if a topic has more or less died, don't bump it. There's the 120 day warning at the bottom of a thread.  If you see it, think twice about  the bump.  Of course, if it is part of the humor or point, fine - it is a guideline, not a commandment.  For example, bumping a 2009 thread on Lastings Milledge when he wins his next grammy might be funny.  But when it comes to a Tanner Roark Appreciation Thread, and there hasn't been a post in it in 14 months, it is absolutely reasonable to start a new thread and we will not merge it (MtH, what you did was exactly what we want).

Third guideline, if a topic on a baseball subject gets diverted into a page or so of back and forth on poster v. poster and not much to do with the baseball subject, I think most of the mods will split it and stick the side track in red loft or uncensored.  Think of the classic Linty v. BiL stuff that might emerge in a Harper thread.

I'll post other guidelines and rules maybe later, and if The Chief, Tom, or Squab want to add anything, good.  Feel free to post your complaints or questions about how the board is moderated here. 

Online varoadking

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #1: August 14, 2018, 03:26:25 PM »
Don't forget Terps specialty...stealing GDT  :w:'s...

...though that hasn't been much of a concern of late...  :(

Offline bluestreak

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #2: August 14, 2018, 04:29:06 PM »
Seriously though, why delete the Soto thread? It was baseball and Nats relevent, didn't insult anyone, and actually talked about real baseball points. I mean if you're trading Max, you're literally throwing in the towel for a long rebuild, so why not?

If Slate had posted that thread, you wouldn't have touched it. So basically it was deleted because of what? Because I posted it? Because I hurt Spider's feelings and he for some reason doesn't like that I call the board neagtive?

Offline skippy1999

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #3: August 14, 2018, 05:09:47 PM »
Seriously though, why delete the Soto thread? It was baseball and Nats relevent, didn't insult anyone, and actually talked about real baseball points. I mean if you're trading Max, you're literally throwing in the towel for a long rebuild, so why not?

If Slate had posted that thread, you wouldn't have touched it. So basically it was deleted because of what? Because I posted it? Because I hurt Spider's feelings and he for some reason doesn't like that I call the board neagtive?

Honestly yours seemed a joke thread-aspenbubba, whether you agreed with him or not, honestly thought trading Max would make sense for both Max and the team.  You can't honestly say you though trading Soto might be a good idea, hence the reason it seemed you created the thread solely to make fun of aspenbubba. My two cents anyway.   

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #4: August 14, 2018, 05:23:01 PM »
Bluestreak - truth is close to what skippy said.  I honestly did not read your post. I saw your last post in the Scherzer thread about how ridiculous it was to have a Scherzer trade thread, in which you also said something like why not trade Soto? and thought your thread was nothing but doing something you thought was ridiculous to further junk up the board (from your perspective). Truth is, you did this once before when you started about 5 or so threads on various nats problems within about 5 minutes after you got annoyed at a negative thread.

Offline mitlen

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #5: August 14, 2018, 05:25:49 PM »
Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeriste this is like therapy.     :)

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #6: August 14, 2018, 05:26:21 PM »
 :popcorn:

Offline bluestreak

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #7: August 14, 2018, 05:35:16 PM »
Honestly yours seemed a joke thread-aspenbubba, whether you agreed with him or not, honestly thought trading Max would make sense for both Max and the team.  You can't honestly say you though trading Soto might be a good idea, hence the reason it seemed you created the thread solely to make fun of aspenbubba. My two cents anyway.

I absolutely think it would be a bad idea to trade Soto. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed. If as aspenbubba said, we should look at everyone that can improve the team for the future, the we should look at everyone. So to some degree, yeah, I was using some bit of hyperbole to take the point that many others (not just aspenbubba, I wasn't trying to make fun of him) have made to it's logical conclusion. But I don't think it was completely unreasonable to discuss.

And If the bar for posting here is something that you sincerely believe to be true, it's going to make threads a heck of a lot shorter. 

Look, it seems to me that I pissed off JCA for some reasons (see how he didn't quote me, he just blew my comments off as a rant) and thought I was making fun of aspenbubba and summarily deleted my thread.  It seems pretty rare to me to have a non-profane, civil baseball related post that only contains baseball analysis summarily deleted because of who wrote it or the perceived mood of the poster was.  But I'm certain that it would have been left up if it had been any number of other posters. 

But I'm not a mod, and it's not my board. So  :shrug:


Edit: It sucks that you deleted it without reading it though...

Offline NJ Ave

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #8: August 15, 2018, 12:55:27 PM »
I believe threads should be made in good faith, not to troll other people or stir pots.

Offline Baseball is Life

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #9: August 15, 2018, 01:16:30 PM »
I believe threads should be made in good faith, not to troll other people or stir pots.

I agree. I guess the "Trade Soto" thread was meant to stir the pot a bit.

If I was king I would also discourage stupid, whiny threads like the "Stop the Season" thread. What productive purpose or dicussion is that supposed to serve? Was that intended to be humor?

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #10: August 15, 2018, 01:42:24 PM »
I agree. I guess the "Trade Soto" thread was meant to stir the pot a bit.

If I was king I would also discourage stupid, whiny threads like the "Stop the Season" thread. What productive purpose or dicussion is that supposed to serve? Was that intended to be humor?
I also think it was meant to stir the pot, but I think it was in good faith. BS doesn't believe in trading the guy, but he was thinking that, if we are going to discuss trading crown jewels, then why not the guy who could bring back a ton. 

As for the variations of negative-themed threads in the Clubhouse near the top of the forum, well, people are negative now so it reflects the members' views.  We could have a monster sort of Legion of Doom thread and merge some topics, but there's a bit different focus to most of these threads.  Stop the season is more of a humorous blow off steam thread, Legion of Doom is more finding the dark cloud in everything, Fire X, Fire Y, Fire Z are more in the tradition of dedicated threads to different off-field people.  There's a little bit of sense to it.

Offline NJ Ave

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #11: August 15, 2018, 06:46:47 PM »
The negativity of the front page is why I mainly hang out on the politics thread now. For the positivity and good cheer :)

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #12: August 16, 2018, 12:10:45 AM »
The negativity of the front page is why I mainly hang out on the politics thread now. For the positivity and good cheer :)

Post of the year

Offline Mathguy

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #13: August 16, 2018, 05:50:32 AM »
A long Legion of Doom thread is a good idea - particularly for posts that cover topics that are "potential" only.  Perhaps the mods could differentiate between rants against actual happenings in separate threads and put speculative rants into the Legion of Doom.

I also think it was meant to stir the pot, but I think it was in good faith. BS doesn't believe in trading the guy, but he was thinking that, if we are going to discuss trading crown jewels, then why not the guy who could bring back a ton. 

As for the variations of negative-themed threads in the Clubhouse near the top of the forum, well, people are negative now so it reflects the members' views.  We could have a monster sort of Legion of Doom thread and merge some topics, but there's a bit different focus to most of these threads.  Stop the season is more of a humorous blow off steam thread, Legion of Doom is more finding the dark cloud in everything, Fire X, Fire Y, Fire Z are more in the tradition of dedicated threads to different off-field people.  There's a little bit of sense to it.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #14: August 18, 2018, 09:54:44 AM »
Next topic is trying to explain what leads to various disciplining measures.  Some of the ones we use are editing, PM'ing, commenting on tone, warning, muting, and banning.  I'm not going to hit on everything in one post

First, the ironclad rule on images.  In the Clubhouse, Farm, Out of Town Scoreboard, and Red Loft (the public-facing side of the board), no body parts, male or female, that you can't see on network TV without a wardrobe malfunction.  Somewhat looser approach in uncensored, but still no genitalia or female nipples.  Any indication of non-consent will lead to a post being pulled and potential loss of posting privileges.

Second, there's a set of standard warnings that can lead to warning, muting or banning:  Threats, spamming, posting offensive material, and insulting users / staff.  There are lots of room for interpretation of these things - I'm not going to say every time you say member X stinks or anything that someone could construe as offensive (Oh my goodness, you have shown Sean Doolittle's untrimmed beard! As a barber, I find that offensive!) is going to lead to an action.  That said, we try to be very quick and harsh to posts that anyone could spot as racist, for example. 

In terms of insults to other members, there's going to be some hostility between board personas that is kind of natural.  I will insult anyone who thinks chicago tomato pies are pizza, and expect to get some grief about being an east coast pizza snob back.  More seriously, "I'm a better fan than you," use of / rejection of stats, I used to play so my opinion counts more, I follow another team, and the like are going to draw some comments back, and as long as they aren't vicious, most of the time I think we let that stuff go.  If it bogs down a thread, like a back and forth between a couple of folks that goes on for a page that has little to do with the topic, then that's a good candidate to get broken out into a separate thread.  Start blending in references to physical harm, racist / misogynist / sexual relations and roles / ethnicity (basically, the EEO / civil rights statute stuff), and that will prompt muting pretty and maybe banning pretty quickly. 

In terms of what action will we take, if something is a bad word or gif in an otherwise acceptable post, I will sometimes go back into a post and clean it up.  More common for the other mods is to remove a post altogether.  This is often the quickest thing to do.  If there's a back and forth, I will sometimes post in the thread and ask folks to turn it down.  PMs are used by all of the mods to more individually advise members on behavior.  Then we escalate to warnings, muting, and bans.   From our records, we probably go through several months without issuing a warning.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #15: August 18, 2018, 09:57:21 AM »
I broke off a separate post on trolling by fans of other teams.

Pure trolling is something we will take action on but is tough to judge.  Best two examples are Tribetime and the Cubs fan who was on in the playoffs last year.  Tribetime was on WNFF back about 5 years ago. He was a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan and a fan of the Cleveland Indians as well as purportedly the Nats.  He posted a series of obnoxious posts about "we" taunting the Nats and Nats fans at an Indians-Nats game.  That, plus a lot of Indians-focused threads in the clubhouse made it seem like he was just here to troll.  While I remember Tribetime's name, I forget the Cubs troll.  After game 5 last year, he spammed the Clubhouse with a bunch of Cubs Win, Nats stink threads, which led to his banning. 

We also once had a problem with Braves trolls that was my fault, to some extent, back around 2013, when there was some trolling in various threads, back and forth, that I tried to isolate in one thread as an OK to troll each other spot on the board.  That led to a flood of new Atlanta fans here just to troll.  The Chief cleaned up my mess and booted a bunch of new members.  If you hear of a reference to a member who went by something like Dodgers RF Fence (with a picture of Bryce's crash into the the fence), that was this mess. 

General rule now on fans of other teams being members is it is acceptable as long as they recognize this is a board for Nats fans and that they can't taunt or otherwise troll.  We've had good fans of the ChiSox and other teams who have joined and who have worked out because they don't troll. 

And, of course coming from me, there's a fair number of "dual loyalty" fans who are fans of a team in the AL or in another division who are also fans of the Nats.  There's a lot of back and forth about this, but dual-loyalty isn't automatically trolling in the judgment of folks who ran this board before I became a mod and even invited me to be one.  Basically, as long as you avoid Tribetime behavior, this is accepted.

Offline Mathguy

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #16: August 18, 2018, 10:43:31 AM »
JCA - why don't you like Chicago pizza ?

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #17: August 18, 2018, 11:15:02 AM »
JCA - why don't you like Chicago pizza ?
I don't dislike Chicago tomato pies.  I like manicotti too.  I just don't call lasagna even if it has cheese, sauce, and pasta noodles. 


Offline bluestreak

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #18: August 18, 2018, 11:16:53 AM »
JCA - why don't you like Chicago pizza ?

Cubs troll was Gio4ever.  The name should have been a clue.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #19: August 08, 2019, 05:44:53 PM »
Time for a couple more "moderating - simple rules for what we do" topics.

First, we are heading into the presidential election season.  If it isn't obvious by numerous references to the "politics" forum, we have a section in the uncensored portion of the website where we try to concentrate all political back and forth.
  We know we follow a Washington sports team, and that politics and government is a big industry around here, and that politics is big topic for discussion as we head into 2020.  I think we recognize some political references are inevitable, and what may not be obviously political ("gee, I had a nice margarita at tortilla coast") can be taken as a political comment ("that's a republican bar").  We will err on the side of dropping political comments outside the politics subforum.  Derisive nicknames for pols ("Michael 'Joe Isuzu' Dukakis") will get pulled when we spot them. We really do not want back and forth on politics to distract from the baseball conversation.  Discussion of economy and investing (another uncensored topic outside the politics forum) is OK so long as it doesn't bog down into too much about . . . politicians.

Second, just a reminder - do not quote articles in their entirety, especially those that are behind a paywall.  There are copyright rules.  Try to keep quotes to no more than a few paragraphs out of a long piece.  That said, if you are posting news, like so and so has been called up, please post a link if you can.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #20: August 08, 2019, 05:52:49 PM »
FWIW, I've highlighted in red the key points about moderating policies and general rules about acceptable / unacceptable posts.

Offline GburgNatsFan

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #21: August 09, 2019, 02:08:48 PM »
Where are the deleted, salacious photos of naked women kept?

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #22: August 09, 2019, 02:40:38 PM »
Where are the deleted, salacious photos of naked women kept?

you don't have access to the premium section?

Offline GburgNatsFan

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #23: August 09, 2019, 02:51:41 PM »
you don't have access to the premium section?

:clap:

Offline The Chief

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Re: moderating - simple rules for what we do
« Reply #24: October 09, 2019, 12:08:09 PM »
Users will no longer be able to edit their own posts indefinitely.  I have settled on a 48-hour window for now.  Please note that this includes changing topic titles if you are the topic creator.