Moderation review: Topic drift

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Moderation review: Topic drift

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat May 28, 2011 1:10 pm

Seriously, as much as SWST pisses me off, why threaten him of a ban the moment he'd derail the thread, if Mike and Kor right after the warning, decide to continue talking about Star Trek? Actually, I didn't find it terribly honest from Mike to bring Star Trek in his post and then end it with a threat against SWST for the same behaviour (and at least, SWST brought something about Star Wars!).
This is not how it is supposed to work. Logiclally, Kor should have gotten a warning, Mike as well. This is getting silly. Just try to be consistent in your moderation Mike, please. This is not the first time I'm pointing this out, and it gets tiring that for every single damn point about SW, you need to pull a comparison with Star Trek.
It's even less excusable here, if such a thing could even be thought of to begin with, because this thread has been nailed up the page as an ICS specific thread by JMS himself.

Please start a thread about ships that move big things and we're done.

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Re: List of expanded universe sources incompatible with ICS

Post by Admiral Breetai » Sat May 28, 2011 3:05 pm

yeah the difference is in both cases mike and kor were responding to an organized effort to distort and lie and troll

it's the right of every nitizen to defend his board from such things!

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Re: List of expanded universe sources incompatible with ICS

Post by Mike DiCenso » Sat May 28, 2011 3:21 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Seriously, as much as SWST pisses me off, why threaten him of a ban the moment he'd derail the thread, if Mike and Kor right after the warning, decide to continue talking about Star Trek? Actually, I didn't find it terribly honest from Mike to bring Star Trek in his post and then end it with a threat against SWST for the same behaviour (and at least, SWST brought something about Star Wars!).
This is not how it is supposed to work. Logiclally, Kor should have gotten a warning, Mike as well. This is getting silly. Just try to be consistent in your moderation Mike, please. This is not the first time I'm pointing this out, and it gets tiring that for every single damn point about SW, you need to pull a comparison with Star Trek.
It's even less excusable here, if such a thing could even be thought of to begin with, because this thread has been nailed up the page as an ICS specific thread by JMS himself.

Please start a thread about ships that move big things and we're done.
See Breetai's comments. And it seems that SWST's trolling is working since now you're falling in line helping to disrupt the thread, and encouraging SWST to boot. The fact is I'm being stupid generous here in giving SWST a chance to change his tune without issuing a single warning or ban. I've been constantly warning him that if he/she wants to discuss Slave Ship or his alleged ocean-lifting scene, he needs to set it in the proper thread.

I may as well just go ahead split the thread anyway since expecting SWST to change his tune is like getting a tiger to change his stripes.
-Mike

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Re: List of expanded universe sources incompatible with ICS

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat May 28, 2011 4:28 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Seriously, as much as SWST pisses me off, why threaten him of a ban the moment he'd derail the thread, if Mike and Kor right after the warning, decide to continue talking about Star Trek? Actually, I didn't find it terribly honest from Mike to bring Star Trek in his post and then end it with a threat against SWST for the same behaviour (and at least, SWST brought something about Star Wars!).
This is not how it is supposed to work. Logiclally, Kor should have gotten a warning, Mike as well. This is getting silly. Just try to be consistent in your moderation Mike, please. This is not the first time I'm pointing this out, and it gets tiring that for every single damn point about SW, you need to pull a comparison with Star Trek.
It's even less excusable here, if such a thing could even be thought of to begin with, because this thread has been nailed up the page as an ICS specific thread by JMS himself.

Please start a thread about ships that move big things and we're done.
See Breetai's comments. And it seems that SWST's trolling is working since now you're falling in line helping to disrupt the thread, and encouraging SWST to boot. The fact is I'm being stupid generous here in giving SWST a chance to change his tune without issuing a single warning or ban. I've been constantly warning him that if he/she wants to discuss Slave Ship or his alleged ocean-lifting scene, he needs to set it in the proper thread.

I may as well just go ahead split the thread anyway since expecting SWST to change his tune is like getting a tiger to change his stripes.
-Mike
I'm not encouraging him. The moment he'd derail a thread, I'd tell him to shut up and threaten him with warnings after a while, and I wouldn't accept to catch the bait and even pull Stargate/Star Trek/anything other universe into a thread where it's totally irrelevant.

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Re: Slave Ship and ICS

Post by sonofccn » Sat May 28, 2011 10:08 pm

@Mr. Oragahn: While you are well within your rights to speak up about a misbehaving mod, and here at least a rogue would be dealt with instead of protected like on other boards, as for myself I don't see any issue with Mr. DiCenso's behavior. StarWarsStarTrek brought up the comparison first, Mike merely responded in kind and gave him a "friendly warning" as far as I could tell.

@StarWarsStarTrek:While lifting up an entire freaking world's ocean is mind bogglingly impressive without a timescale I don't see how a proper power generation can be created.

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Re: Slave Ship and ICS

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun May 29, 2011 2:54 pm

Most civilizations have faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar more civilian ships than military ones.

Just for example, how many civilian cars, trucks and other works related vehicles which can achieve anything really military in essence, in comparison to tanks, APCs, armoured and armed humvees, so forth and so on?
sonofccn wrote:@Mr. Oragahn: While you are well within your rights to speak up about a misbehaving mod, and here at least a rogue would be dealt with instead of protected like on other boards, as for myself I don't see any issue with Mr. DiCenso's behavior. StarWarsStarTrek brought up the comparison first, Mike merely responded in kind and gave him a "friendly warning" as far as I could tell.
It's not like I hadn't voiced my concerns earlier on.
The worst of it is as a defense from Mike, I'm accused of encouraging SWST. That's just laughable and asinine.
I was asking everybody to stop derailing the topic. We had done well until page 10, until SWST first posted in that thread and fell the need to derail it with ST. No mod asked people to stop replying to the arguments which were offtopic, and mods didn't smack SWST right off the bat for his misbehaviour.
And then, at a moment when SWST returned to SW, but with something that still was not on topic (his first post and intention was starting a debate against the arguments, which wasn't the point of the thread anyway), Mike replies to SWST with a counter argument based on... Star Trek. Just to show who's got the biggest. And then threatens SWST.
Plus Kor posted right after Mike's warning, replying to the Star Trek part of Mike's post.
This is one of the problems. The thing to do was to put an end to the ongoing offtopicness from the beginning, when SWST first started to post in the ICS thread, and NOT have mods follow SWST's offtrack drivel. THAT encouraged him to continue. It is that tolerance which gave SWST a reason to keep going on. SWST was the one who introduced such derailments twice. Mike even warned him at first. But then after passing off some warnings, Mike came with his own ST does it better own offtopicness.
Guess how we call that?

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Re: Slave Ship and ICS

Post by Admiral Breetai » Sun May 29, 2011 3:41 pm

like a mod and a poster responding to a troll with factual elements and clearing up his distortions before bringing down the hammer and fighting it is fueling SWST and derailing this thread further

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Re: Slave Ship and ICS

Post by Mike DiCenso » Sun May 29, 2011 6:42 pm

I'd asked you to PM me, Mr. O, if you had any concerns over the moderation. When you plastered it over the open forum, especially at a critical juncture as that one which lead to the making of this particular thread in the first place, you actually undermined a mod attempting to deal with someone, and now you have encouraged SWST to further similar behavior because now he/she can and will cling to your arguements so that they can claim they are being unjustly harrassed when he/she is clearly not.

Several other people here understand that correcting someone's assertion, while at the same time warning them of other behavior of an unacceptable nature is not inconsistant. If you want to argue that, argue it where it is appropriate, either in the Technical section or PM me with your concerns, or contact JMS and Praeothmin.

It's bad enough that Mojo's trolling severely derailed previous efforts by me to moderate SWST, don't make things any worse because you inadvertantly project yourself onto SWST having suffered yourself as a result of SBC's badly biased moderation.

Now I hope this is enough of this.

As for the topic, it's really a moot point since not only has SWST failed to provide quotes that his claim even exists, but has failed to provide anything at all which would be helpful in calculating anything remotely like useful power generation for the event. But we don't even know if this event exists at all. It could all be made up. The onus is on SWST here to prove it exists in Slave Ship, and to give full details such as how many ships participated, how long the operation took, and by what methods did they move the water off the planet. In no way is the opposition obligated to help you.

So to sum up: SWST, put up or concede that nothing useful can be made out of this event, assuming it even is a real event in any EU book.
-Mike

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Re: Slave Ship and ICS

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Mon May 30, 2011 12:09 am

Well, what's said is said and what's done is done, and my opinion is called for when there are disputes about whether or not moderation is being done correctly.

Derailing a topic is not an offense that should lead to banning; while we encourage people to stay on topic within a thread, topic drift happens naturally, and is why we have thread split / merge tools. It also usually takes more than one person to cause the topic to drift.

Mike, I'm also getting a very clear "concede or be banned" vibe from how you're phrasing your warnings, and that's also troubling; I hope you're not intending it to come off that way, and I would suggest that if you aren't, that you consider making separate posts for your arguments [as a poster] and your pointing to the rules [as a moderator].

"Prove your case better or shut it" is a perfectly fine thing to say as a poster telling another poster why their argument isn't going to convince anyone, but not so much as a moderator talking about the rules.

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Re: Moderation review: Topic drift

Post by Admiral Breetai » Mon May 30, 2011 12:46 am

honestly JMS a mod should be entirely allowed to say "proof or GTFO" I modded on a comic based debate board for awhile and that was basically a staple way to get trolls

and on the larger debate boards it's about the only way you can maintain order, you wanna avoid an SDN like environment as much as possible I know but you can't cripple your staff and force them to take "niceness" or "effectiveness"

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Re: Moderation review: Topic drift

Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon May 30, 2011 3:48 am

Jedi Master Spock wrote:Well, what's said is said and what's done is done, and my opinion is called for when there are disputes about whether or not moderation is being done correctly.

Derailing a topic is not an offense that should lead to banning; while we encourage people to stay on topic within a thread, topic drift happens naturally, and is why we have thread split / merge tools. It also usually takes more than one person to cause the topic to drift.
The problem is not the usual getting carried away with tangents type fun that we usually see here, it's very possibly a systematic trolling effort. SWST clearly went to far, and continued to press the issue in the "List of EU Sources That Contradict the ICS" thread.
Jedi Master Spock wrote:Mike, I'm also getting a very clear "concede or be banned" vibe from how you're phrasing your warnings, and that's also troubling; I hope you're not intending it to come off that way, and I would suggest that if you aren't, that you consider making separate posts for your arguments [as a poster] and your pointing to the rules [as a moderator].

"Prove your case better or shut it" is a perfectly fine thing to say as a poster telling another poster why their argument isn't going to convince anyone, but not so much as a moderator talking about the rules.
That is not my intent at all. Nowhere did I say, nor imply that was the case. I simply made a point to SWST that he/she needs to put their money where their mouth is, and stop making baseless statements without proof.

But that gets to another issue. Most of my moderations to date against SWST are directed against clear cut cases of dishonesty; i.e. the infamous cut and paste fan art of the Battle of Wolf 359 and the fan made edited video depicting a bombardment of Earth that never happened in DS9. Same thing with the recent two warnings. Unfortunately, we're left to chart new territory here as SWST by most complaint reports that Praeothmin and I have recieved are about dishonesty and it is extremely difficult sifting through what is legitimate concern versus someone just complaining out of anger.
It is very difficult because I cannot and will not make snap judgements based on simply getting a report... from anyone. That makes me kinda unpopular, but I don't want anyone anywhere saying I didn't.

Unfortunately, Mojo used this as an excuse to outright troll and make the sock puppets, which wrecked my efforts with his distraction, so I apologize if I seem a bit tetchy, but if you look at my posts the past 7 days, they've been about 95% moderation-related. That and as I said, I'm moderating things that are brand new territory for us. Someone is not being outright crude and nasty, but they are clearly in some cases trolling the board, which is what SWST is doing.

When is such behavior merely being obtuseness, or trolling? It's a fine line. I've been saying for over a month now that we the users of this board need to start to think about these issues. Previously we've had the luxury of time and small numbers, but no longer. Sooner or later we have to start deciding how we are going to handle this, if this board is to survive.

So, maybe some rules clarifications. the issues brought up here?
-Mike

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Re: Moderation review: Topic drift

Post by Kor_Dahar_Master » Mon May 30, 2011 10:25 am

A warning for me, wtf did i do this time?.

Anyway SWST is a tool and his refusal to address material is a paid but this is not SDN or SB.com so just keep pointing out his dishonesty and ripping his crap to shreads and only warn him for proper violations.

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Re: Slave Ship and ICS

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon May 30, 2011 10:42 am

Admiral Breetai wrote:like a mod and a poster responding to a troll with factual elements and clearing up his distortions before bringing down the hammer and fighting it is fueling SWST and derailing this thread further
*sigh* mods and posters don't have to respond to a troll when the very act of responding could be against the rules. How can it get clearer?
Now if derailing is permitted, fine, but then let's permit it for all. Mike warned SWST for the derailing of a thread, yet practiced this twice as well.
= bad
Besides, responding to a troll is what we call feeding it. If a member may fall prey to such pitfalls, a mod is supposed not to.
So, just figure it out.

@ I must have missed the PM request. I probably actually missed a post somewhere down the road since the thread got diced. Sorry.

I'm not here to defend SWST, I think that's clear enough, don't you think? I don't appreciate SWST's methods at all, and that is also abundantly clear. I'm pretty much the only one who told him to fuck off, politely that is, in that thread he created about all those accusations of ignoring evidence we regularly toss at him.
Mike DiCenso wrote:I'd asked you to PM me, Mr. O, if you had any concerns over the moderation. When you plastered it over the open forum, especially at a critical juncture as that one which lead to the making of this particular thread in the first place, you actually undermined a mod attempting to deal with someone, and now you have encouraged SWST to further similar behavior because now he/she can and will cling to your arguements so that they can claim they are being unjustly harrassed when he/she is clearly not.
Is SWST does that, then he'd be wrong because that is absolutely not what I condemned.
Still, an unfair application of power will be something the defense will see as a good thing for its own cause, but let's again point out that I'm not excusing any of SWST's behaviour. I'm just seeing a problem with a mod derailing a thread twice on his own while asking another member to stop doing so.
So, yes, in a way, it will undermine your moderation, but that's just because of you. It's your responsibility, not mine.
Several other people here understand that correcting someone's assertion, while at the same time warning them of other behavior of an unacceptable nature is not inconsistant. If you want to argue that, argue it where it is appropriate, either in the Technical section or PM me with your concerns, or contact JMS and Praeothmin.
I really don't understand how you can still miss what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with correcting someone's assertion.
I'm also all for people backing up their claims, be it SWST or Herheeto/KSW etc.
It's bad enough that Mojo's trolling severely derailed previous efforts by me to moderate SWST, don't make things any worse because you inadvertantly project yourself onto SWST having suffered yourself as a result of SBC's badly biased moderation.
That's just very low of you. I expected better.

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Re: Moderation review: Topic drift

Post by Praeothmin » Mon May 30, 2011 1:30 pm

Guys?
Can you cool a bit?

I think everyone is edgy and seeing things in other people's posts tha aren't there...

And Mike, I think JMS's idea to separate your MOD posts from your debater posts will help in clearing up your message, which isn't "conceed or you're gone"...

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Re: Moderation review: Topic drift

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Wed Jun 01, 2011 3:52 pm

Praeothmin wrote:Guys?
Can you cool a bit?

I think everyone is edgy and seeing things in other people's posts tha aren't there...

And Mike, I think JMS's idea to separate your MOD posts from your debater posts will help in clearing up your message, which isn't "conceed or you're gone"...
Exactly. When the Serafina mess happened, I wish I'd been in the habit of doing that. She probably still would have generated a fiasco between her and Kor, but it seems helpful to divide the two.

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