"Why Rules?"

Jake Razor · **Posted:** Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:27 am

It seems like every day you get the same complaints. "This cramps my style! Rules are too confining."
So, to hopefully get the point across, here's the truth: Rules (in their right place) do not reduce freedom. They actually have a far greater tendency to increase it. Let me give an example. A guy named Harry didn't want to wear shoes to school. "They're too confining! They cramp my style!" Finally, his mom caved in and said he could go without shoes. Harry dashed out the door...
and stepped on a broken bottle less than a block from his house. His foot required 20 stitches, and some other guy took his girlfriend to the prom.
This story is, to the best of my knowledge, ficticious. But the analogy is, I hope, clear to see. Rules are there to make sure everyone can get along safely. What would happen if there were no rules about which side of the road to drive on? Or which direction had the right of way at an intersection? Life would be chaos.
For further reference, please look here. viewtopic.php?p=14621#14621

Conay · **Posted:** Thu Jun 26, 2008 12:38 pm

Totally agreed, but here's another story...

My friend from my primary school always was really bad in class, breaking all the rules, in the end the teacher said, "Right your the new teacher." So than he stood up infront of the class, he attempted to teach them about WWII But when he said he had enough he wasn't allowd back, so for 5 lessons he was the teacher, after that he was begging on his knees to become a student again...

I know this may not be involved in this exact topic but it's still slightly the same...

Mighty · **Posted:** Thu Jun 26, 2008 4:17 pm

I know. I hate it when, I tell someone to stop and they keep going. In one ear and out the other. Or in this case, in one eye and out the other.

But I try to keep my cool, when I'm dealing with these people. They do learn after a long hour or two, with a lecture or ban.

Mighty · **Posted:** Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:50 pm

JerseyCaptain wrote:

Mightybalto1925 wrote:

I know. I hate it when, I tell someone to stop and they keep going. In one ear and out the other. Or in this case, in one eye and out the other.

But I try to keep my cool, when I'm dealing with these people. They do learn after a long hour or two, with a lecture or ban.

No criticism or argument intended here, MB, but you do need to understand the fundamental difference between your position at that of a moderator. By name and definition, your duties as a fan news editor take the form of adding new sections to the fan news on the front page of Balto Source, and editing it as needed (including monitoring comments posted by members, I should think). Those duties do not include, as far as any indication has ever been made to the general membership, moderating duties either in the shoutbox, on other sections of Balto Source or Lion King Source, or on the forums of Animation Source. Those, I would imagine (and can logically deduce) exceed the scope of your authority and responsibilities.

A moderator, on the other hand, has discretionary authority and responsibility for a certain area of the site...whether it be keeping the peace and monitoring dialogue in the shoutboxes as the shoutbox moderators do; be it moderating and monitoring the flow of posts in one or more of the forums of Animation Source, as the global forum moderators and section moderators do; or whether it's moderating and monitoring the flow of articles and other posts in the various sections of Balto Source and/or Lion King Source, as the fanart moderators, fan fiction moderators, music video moderators, fan music moderators, fan contest moderators, fan project moderators, gamebook moderators, article moderators, and questions moderators do. (Sorry about the overkill on the word "moderator", but it is part and parcel to my larger point).

Your title does not include the word "moderator". It does include the word "editor". So, in effect, even though your name appears light green in the shoutboxes, you really ought not to be moderating there, anymore than a general member should. Gentle reminders about rules are understandable, but point-on moderating is beyond the scope of your position as I understand it.

That, and perhaps the approach you take with people, may be why some of them are reacting as they do when you moderate. You wouldn't be the first staffer, however, moderator or not, who has angered or offended members by using what they might consider (in their opinion, now...I am not implying anything here) a "heavy hand".

Just as there can be grumbling about having to follow the rules by some people...and defiance of them, so too can there be heavy hands and an imbalance of fairness in interpretation and enforcement of the rules by staffers from time to time. Eventually, some of them learn to settle into their positions, and become good, fair and decent staffers. Others just never seem to learn (again, no direct implication here...but it HAS happened).

Please keep that in mind.

I understand. No hard feelings.

Sushi Roll · **Posted:** Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:41 pm

Rules should be based upon respect for yourself and the others around you.

"One's freedom ends where another's begins."

Now, this means that freedom must sometimes have boundaries to respect someone's else's freedom.

Curse words and sexual content aren't for everyone, more specifically young children. It's within their freedom boundaries that they have the right to come onto this site without being exposed to these kinds of things...Don't tell me, "Well that's the real world." or "That stuff is else where on the net." because really, this site was not created for such things. It was created for Balto...for children. (Of course for other age groups to enjoy as well, but nonetheless, this is supposed to be a children's site therefore there must be an "easy" amount of inappropriate stuff.

But, yes, rules are necessary for things to stay stable. Here there are rules that apply for specific reasons, just like the rules on Sheezyart are less appropriate for younger children.

warriorcat · **Posted:** Fri Jun 27, 2008 4:24 pm

the pattern i've seemed to notice with these types of people on baltosource. thier features in description most likely will include: posts rarely or never showing any meaning or thought put into them(often containing spam and sms), starting fights & flame wars on forums, shout box, etc., getting banned several times(duh!), little or no partcipation in the site(art galleries, image galleries, fan fic galleries, etc.), multiple accounts, and lastly, usually becoming inactive members after short period of time. hmmm, doesn't this all pretty much fall into the defintion of a noob, eh? this is a complete description of a person who doesn't think they have to follow all the rules. accomplished, huh? :roll:

Jake Razor · **Posted:** Fri Jun 27, 2008 8:01 pm

Nice to see I've sparked off so much discussion.

Lux - The Guardian · **Posted:** Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:08 am

JerseyCaptain wrote:

Mightybalto1925 wrote:

I know. I hate it when, I tell someone to stop and they keep going. In one ear and out the other. Or in this case, in one eye and out the other.

But I try to keep my cool, when I'm dealing with these people. They do learn after a long hour or two, with a lecture or ban.

No criticism or argument intended here, MB, but you do need to understand the fundamental difference between your position and that of a moderator. By name and definition, your duties as a fan news editor take the form of adding new sections to the fan news on the front page of Balto Source, and editing it as needed (including monitoring comments posted by members, I should think). Those duties do not include, as far as any indication has ever been made to the general membership, moderating duties either in the shoutbox, on other sections of Balto Source or Lion King Source, or on the forums of Animation Source. Those, I would imagine (and can logically deduce) exceed the scope of your authority and responsibilities.

A moderator, on the other hand, has discretionary authority and responsibility for a certain area of the site...whether it be keeping the peace and monitoring dialogue in the shoutboxes as the shoutbox moderators do; be it moderating and monitoring the flow of posts in one or more of the forums of Animation Source, as the global forum moderators and forum section moderators do; or whether it's moderating and monitoring the flow of articles and other posts in the various sections of Balto Source and/or Lion King Source, as the fanart moderators, fan fiction moderators, music video moderators, fan music moderators, fan contest moderators, fan project moderators, gamebook moderators, article moderators, and questions moderators do. (Sorry about the overkill on the word "moderator", but it is part and parcel to my larger point).

Your title does not include the word "moderator". It does include the word "editor". So, in effect, even though your name appears light green in the shoutboxes, you really ought not to be moderating there, anymore than a general member should. Gentle reminders about rules are understandable, but point-on moderating is beyond the scope of your position as I understand it.

That, and perhaps the approach you take with people, may be why some of them are reacting as they do when you moderate. You wouldn't be the first staffer, however, moderator or not, who has angered or offended members by using what they might consider (in their opinion, now...I am not implying anything here) a "heavy hand".

Just as there can be grumbling about having to follow the rules by some people...and defiance of them, so too can there be heavy hands and an imbalance of fairness in interpretation and enforcement of the rules by staffers from time to time. Eventually, some of them learn to settle into their positions, and become good, fair and decent staffers. Others just never seem to learn (again, no direct implication here...but it HAS happened).

Please keep that in mind.

I agree with what you have said there, JerseyCaptain, but there are a few situations where an Editor or a non-mod staffer (all staffers have the moderation tools - banning included - avaliable) has to take action until another moderator who's within the situation's jurisdiction can look at the action taken and respond accordingly. In equality, Global Forum moderators also share the authority to moderate most of the website with the exception of the jobs of the fan content moderators.

But most of what I have mentioned above would only happen if there were no moderators within the jurisdiction of the area online at the time, in other words during emergency.

Essentially, the shoutbox can be moderated by any mod at any time, although if there is a shoutbox moderator present, his or her decision is final, although we can dispute it.

Lux - The Guardian · **Posted:** Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:00 am

Quote:

That's quite interesting to see you say that. Because I've already seen one specific instance, late last month, where a global forum moderator (UK teh white wolfer), in the English-side Balto Source shoutbox, tried to resolve a little argument/borderline flame war going on, and a Balto Source features moderator - with MUCH less experience and "time served" - who was actually participating in the argument/borderline flame, snapped aggressively and sarcastically at that moderator when she tried to do her job (including instructing the features moderator not to continue with participating in the argument).

Now, call me naive, or maybe even prejudiced, if you want...but I have never EVER seen such an ugly and fractious display by one moderator to another in ALL my time on Balto Source (not as a regular member anyway...I'll have to hold my tongue on another occasion when I was on staff, and I was first-hand witness to something even worse...but were I to mention that, I KNOW it would be edited out of this post).

It's always been my assumption that the global forum moderators are, in fact, of higher authority and "rank", if you will, than any of the other moderators and that, excepting what you said about their not stepping on features moderators in their particular areas, they have the final say (until discussion and arbitration amongst the moderators and staffers privately). Have I been wrong in that assumption?

In any case, it was an ugly display, and petty behavior by that other moderator. And I would LOOOOVE to specify the features section that mod works in (as it would narrow things down a LOT), but I fear that would gain me some measure of reprisal. Still, I must wonder if the incident was ever discussed, argued and/or arbitrated in the super-duper-secret moderator shoutbox. I sure hope it was. Behavior such as that must never be allowed to remain unresolved...and NEVER displayed in front of the general members. On my forum, such behavior would be grounds for dismissal of that mod from his/her position...permanently.

In the event of a confrontation like that, it would be better to send a private message with details, links, screenshots and anything else you deem related to the incident to a moderator (in the case you fear a moderator will delete the report from our shared PM inbox out of personal reasons, send the message to a moderator you know you can trust with being objective in the matter). Even though we try to handle every situation as good and objective as we can, there are documented incidents of information being kept restrained until it would be absolutely necessary - or beneficial - for the one who possess such knowledge to reveal it. Unfortunately, without having reports sent in, all moderators can not be aware of such a situation like you mentioned without having the mod(s) involved reporting it in the moderator shoutbox. I do not recall any discussion of such right now, but I'll look into the matter.

It has always been that the global forum moderators have a higher rank and authority than most of the moderators (with exception of the lead mod). However - from my limited knowledge - their decisions can be disputed by the other moderators and in turn it would be the majority of mods who decide - by votes.

Quote:

It might be worthwhile, and certainly fair to the members in general, if a sticky topic were created on the forum, and a concurrent article or feature were created on the staff pages of Balto Source and Lion King Source, which would CLEARLY lay out the duties, responsibilities, and the scope of authority (including any "tools", as you refer to them) of each and every type of staffer...be they an administrator, a moderator, a fan news editor, whatever. I think we can forego listing steet...we all know he's the big boss, and the scope of his authority is superlative on this site. Because I must tell you, it comes as some surprise to me (as I am sure it would to many others) that fan news editors have the ability to ban people. They are editors, not moderators. I'm not contesting the position or its scope of authority, I am just saying it's a bit disconcerting to me that EVERY staffer, be they a moderator or not, has the same scope of moderating tools available that most other mods do (except very position-specific ones).

Yes, it would be a good idea - but sadly, some members would abuse this knowledge to disrespect the words of a non-mod staffer if no other moderator is present, which then leaves it in the hand of said staffer to try and stop the problems (this being fights in the shoutbox, etc.). Following that member's disrespect, the rest will come to - for they will know that said staffer is out of his/her jurisdiction, which in turn means that the staffer will probably be flamed and/or possibly harrassed by the members and trouble would just brew. You know how kids are =/
Either way, it would create a "follow the wave"-effect, which would mean that moderators who try to uphold shoutbox peace (as an example) who are actually moderators for something else than the shoutbox itself will be told off and disrespected because they know exactly why that staffer isn't really allowed to moderate the shoutbox (and this would be one of the emergency situations) - and thus our PM box would be piled with reports that wouldn't really be taken care of. And it would divert our limited time online from moderation duties to handle and investigate all those reports for nothing.

Anyway, if you believe this should be changed - I am mainly referring to non-moderators having access to moderation tools - you are welcome to suggest it. I will gladly make Steet aware of that too.

Quote:

(...) must not be something anyone on staff cares to resolve, because it goes on unabated. Not constantly, and usually when it is "safe" for those violating staffers to do so, but it IS happening. If anyone (particularly a staffer) were to deny that or argue the point, it would not void the fact that it is happening. And that's one of the things which makes the shoutbox a very unpleasant place to venture into (unless you're in one or more of a few small but tight groups of peers who work together and gang-bully people they don't like or want to flame...and SOME of the people in those groups are well-known members...a few are even STAFFERS).

Everything that every member does is logged by the server (moderators and members included), and the logs usually remain there for six months - plenty of time to investigate such a matter. However, without being given names - or even being notified by reports or forum posts (with the exception of a few you - and some other members have made) really slows down the process. We know it is happening and we are working on it, but remember that there is like a billion shoutbox messages to go through, and even so there are more comments on fan content as well to go through.

As for shoutbox "safety"... well, there is little that can be done with that. The best way to deal with it is to report it and make sure a moderator will recieve the report, either over PM's or IM's...

Animation Source Forums

"Why Rules?"