Animation Source Forums

Think about the options here. People have found ways to look at the mod box and/or pry information out of someone who can view the mod box.



Don't pretend I'm the only person on this site. I'm talking about letting people go on the site who are in constant swear and insult mode on the shoutbox and are let go as soon as they "promise not to do it again."



I will admit some things I was banned for were alright, but how often do you see me on the banned box whining about it? Hmmm...very rarely.



Oh was that Him? Oh then I can only apologize that that handy little trick isn't working, because last time I checked whenever, say, a certain mod suggested everyone stop doing...whatever they were doing, she was very much ignored. Again, someone's saying there's nothing wrong with themselves. Nothing they can improve on. They're perfect.

You know? Why does this topic exist? The mods are perfect. They can't do anything wrong, no matter how many times someone says they do. It could even be the majority and they're still right all the time. Shame on you, Hrry, for making the mods have to defend themselves or even pick out something they can improve on when there's NOTHING THERE. Shame on you for thinking steet can't pick out every mistake on this site! For shame! For SHAME!

Some people tend to not understand what a mod is supposed to do. Mods are supposed to track down rule breakers and obviously ban people who must be banned. There is no "evil-meter" by which one can tell when to ban and for how long, so sometimes some people feel mistreated. Well mods are human beings, they do make mistakes and do face ill judgement. But then simply don't break the rules in the first place...

As for "all mods being perfect" when have "all" of us every said anything like that? We are open to intelligently critical suggestions, and will hope to follow them. Not all the people on the world can be made happy...

As for mistreatment and misleading behaviour in the mod population, of course it happens. Someone will always be the type to work better for friends and not place themselves with a neutral look on the members.
Had enough experience with that.

Yes, the current mod population could be improved by a bit. Or by quite a bit.. But look at it this way: what if there were no mods? What would everything look like then? The non-moding shoutbox member would obviously generally not know because the mods are definitely providing a "cleaner" environment by freeing it of such unwanted things as obscenities.

This however does not mean that all of them are providing a better environment but there's always a price to pay. And the more member come, the harder it gets. And the members themselves create a situation where their accounts must be suspended, and themselves increase the number of limits on such places as the shoutboxes, themselves making their experience worse.

Understood. I didn't say that you seemed like you were doing that, but I guess I was just... stressed when I typed that up. (again, I'm human and somewhat prone to stress). I had been talking in the mod box with some other mods who said something similar, and I had agreed with him, and I felt I needed to say that. Although, now that I think of it, it probably isn't 100% accurate, But yes, it is possible, but I don't think entirely likely, now that I think about it with a more clear conscious.
And I do understand the difference between constructive criticism and just plain rude criticism. I guess I've just seen a lot more people who clearly don't respect the mods than people who do.

And one thing about the banning system: we are clearly instructed to not give out the URL of it to anyone. Now, even if I did, you'd still need a password to get into it. But I can tell you how it works:
When you get there, you type in a username, and then an IP address if you so desire. Then you select the type of broken rule for the member being banned, and then how many times the user has been banned before then. Then you can elaborate more on why the user was banned that time, and then you click "ban this member" and the person gets banned. The reasons are varied, but include "art theft" "RP talking on the shoutbox" "Talking on the RP box" "Spamming" "Swearing" and a few other things I can't think of right now.
I think the only reason we're not allowed to give it out is so that nobody would try to break into the page and ban people themselves. I theoretically could show screenshots and edit out the URL, but I don't know if I'm allowed to do it. (if I wasn't allowed to type that, then feel free to delete it, mods) The main reason why we can't show people the banning page is probably because it's possible that people might figure out how to hack into the page or something and then ban/unban people themselves.

If I hear another "stop blaming the mods, what if there wasn't any" I will pull my hair out. No even sparsely-active site goes without moderators, period.

Just my honest two cents.

You make a good point, publicity is not worth risking the site's security. You'll always have to strike a fair balance between openness and security, and in this case security indeed overrules the openness - even though this might not be true in other circumstances. But you say it is in this case, and you being better placed to evaluate it, I'll follow your word on it.
However, shouldn't it be able to come to a compromise wherein a minimum level of openness is possible? Something along the lines of a regular topic posted on the all accessible part of the site (no need to open up the mod-section) - probably in the "announcements" segment - where mods manually post (correct me if I'm wrong, but if you want to keep the mod section and this one disconnected, you can't rely on the banning-mechanism on the mod section to trigger an automated post) a short summary of "the type of broken rule for the member being banned, and then how many times the user has been banned before then" (copy-paste could do wonders here). Obviously, you'll want to make sure members can't reply to those posts because that would create quite some friction (not technically impossible, I hope).
Now, there are some arguments to be made against this suggestion:
-technical difficulties (I wouldn't know, that ain't exactly my cup of tea)
-added workload for the mods (then again, this is connected to the previous point - and it might always delegated somehow)
-complaints from members; if members see what happens, they might complain. Now, this could be minimized by issuing a new no-complaining rule, but that isn't desirable as it might be too much in regards to limiting free speech. I guess you'll have to count on the fairness and reasonableness of us members for that, and you won't know unless you try - and I urge you should. I Think it's worth some efforts, as we members clearly care about this issue.

I propose we appoint someone (or someone steps up) with the necessary technical skill to try and find a solution wherein we both have security and some kind of public display of banning information.

Sorry, but that will never happen. If we made public all of our banning reasons, we would be embarrassing the one banned in most cases, in front of all the other members. We don't want that. Will never happen, period.
At least, I don't want that. I'm sure many of the other mods share my view.

Rather, it would be an extra incentive to not break the rules in the first place, Flux.

Then you should let us know about those two :S By not telling us who you're talking about, you're making our job even more difficult.

I'm a he, thank you very much. Other than that; exactly what I meant.