Major Changes To Forum Policy

zzzLazyDaisy

MSE_Martin wrote: »

So as this entire thread was about changes, to try and improve things - including consistency e.g. the cards. Perhaps you would care to make constuctive suggestions as to how you would like things to change - practical ones though

Martin

Thanks Martin.

In the hope of moving this thread forward to suggestions about how/what changes might be made I am taking the liberty of reposting my post of two pages ago, which rather got lost in the cross fire.

I apologise for the duplicate post, but I'd be interested to hear the views of other MSE'rs ....

Hi, apologies if this has already been raised - I have scanned this thread but not read it in detail.

I like the idea of a newbie bubble - we were all newbies once and it makes me cross when genuine newbies are jumped on. But I would like to suggest an embargo on newbies making pm's while they are in the bubble.

The reason I ask is that from time to time I get pms from newbies with NO post count, asking me for advice. It is often not something that I have any particular expertise in, but might have made a comment on an old thread that they have picked up on. Sometimes these queries are quite complicated - I had one on 17th July, which has prompted this post.

I ALWAYS tell them politely that I don't give private advice, but if they post their problem on the forums, I'll be happy to contribute. However, when I go back and check, fairly often (not always but quite often) their post count is still 0, and they have never actually posted their problem on the forums. I can't be the only person who gets these PMs, and I do feel that at least sometimes they are 'trolls', although I never respond in that manner. At least if they had to have a minimum post count, newbies would have chance to understand how the forum works, and what PM's are for.

Sorry if this sounds like a whinge - it isn't intended that way. I do sometimes correspond with regulars by PM and am happy to do so, but I feel that newbies' questions are better posted on the forums, so they get the benefit of everyone's experience.

Thanks, Daisy :A

uktyler

MSE_Martin wrote: »

So as this entire thread was about changes, to try and improve things - including consistency e.g. the cards. Perhaps you would care to make constuctive suggestions as to how you would like things to change ....

I think that in editing posts the team should refer to the section of the T&C's the poster breached. This should not be difficult to do, as you only need a few cut and paste pieces of text.

The other thing is to inform people of edits, hopefully this will be a part of the new card system. This should not be too labour intensive, as surely this can be an automated system to drop the poster a PM when an edit is made.

The card system looks like a good idea, at least people will be warned if their posts are deemed worthy of editing.

ThinkingOfLinking

Those are good ideas, UKTyler.

Daisy, I did read your post when it was originally posted, but haven't been in your position before so don't feel equipped to really say anything on it. I don't really post in those areas of the boards where people would be wanting advice. I do think some sort of restriction on PMs would be good for newbies though as I heard of newbies signing up annoy people via PM as well as on the board when the Damian Hirst comp was running...

aliEnRIK

it_takes_two wrote: »

Ok ,bring a PPR appeal process in,i'll mediate for free.you won't have to do a thing.I'm not even sure its martin writing these posts anymore

No disrepect but from the way your going on I personally wouldnt trust your judgment

Your also not doing yourself any favours by coming out with comments like that

Poppy9

uktyler wrote: »

I think that in editing posts the team should refer to the section of the T&C's the poster breached. This should not be difficult to do, as you only need a few cut and paste pieces of text.

The other thing is to inform people of edits, hopefully this will be a part of the new card system. This should not be too labour intensive, as surely this can be an automated system to drop the poster a PM when an edit is made.
.

Sorry to say that this sounds like a lot of work to me but then I've never been on the end of having any posts edited that I know of.

I do think since the announcement of removing post counts and thanks counts from DT & Arms that less is going on there. I know a lot of regulars feels as though they are being told their posts are less worthy of this site. I appreciate this is not the intention but just how it has come across. MSA is the best place though to get a question answered if you are not sure which thread it is more suited to.

Tribulation

it_takes_two wrote: »

Why is it when someone does'nt agree with a team member or Martin,you say they are rude and combative, and actually rather offensive.i don't think anyones been any of those things in this thread,just healthy debate where some people agree with some things and others don't.A lot of users won't speak up but when someone does have a different opinion,they get accused of abuse

You have a really good point there. In my opinion (which could of course be wrong) posts that get deleted are often the result of the same handful of PC lefties that don't agree with what's written, can't find anything constructive to say why they disagree, so instead resort to reporting a post as being offensive.

Tribulation

Flickering_Ember wrote: »

eg you garner lots of complaints from other users .

That would be fair enough if we could have it guaranteed that the abuse team take multiple complaints from the same 3 or 4 individuals with a pinch of salt.

eg, someone posts in a thread. It's read by a few thousand people. The same 3 people take offence because the reality is they simply don't like the poster and find offence at whatever they post.

ThinkingOfLinking

Every abuse report is individually looked at and reviewed. I know this as I accidentally misread a post number the other day; I email the abuse email, link to the thread and say which post number(s) and why...anyway, Abuse emailed me back to check the post number I was reporting. And they do have common sense; they can tell what is and isn't appropriate and I'd fully hope and expect anyone deliberately engaging in wrongful reporting would be dealt with for abuse themselves. It's wasting time and resources.

Tribulation

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

I wish people would stop antagonising Martin. I think he has exercised huge tolerance already in calmly replying to these accusations of unfairness. If I was him I'd have blown a gasket by now.

Some time ago there was even the possibility of some of the boards being closed down due to attitudes and abuse. For goodness sake let's not risk his patience getting to that point again.

If you want a rant, go and find a soap box in Hyde Park.

The thing is, while what you say is 100% right and I appreciate the site Martin has created, I am finding the way the abuse team acts to be ruining my experience on this site.

True, I could go elsewhere. If I didn't like the site so much I would do so, but the fact is I find it one of the best sites I know and I absolutely love all the debate that goes on in the DT section.

There seems to be certain people that report any post that expresses views about certain things. People spend a lot of their time posting constructive viewpoints from all sides, then the usual people come along and see it as personal attacks against whatever, report the thread and get it (or most of the posts within) deleted. These people never fall into the demographic they are complaining about, they are taking offence on behalf of others.

I know most the people doing the complaining, they all think along exactly the same lines, I know exactly what they are going to say when things like war etc are being discussed.

I have no problem with their views but do find it getting incredibly tedious when the same handful of complainers seem to be wielding so much power on the site.

A few times in the past month I have literally spent entire evenings forming my viewpoints and posting, only to come along the next day and find half the posts (or the whole thread) gone without any explanation. If I talk to the people taking part in the thread, no one has and idea why it got removed and are all as annoyed as I am.

There was a thread in DT discussing these forum changes. I was debating with others about the reporting process. Over half the posts were deleted, then it was moved to this forum. We then continued to discuss it in a very civil way and today I receive an email from abuse saying

"We have now removed the entire thread as it has become no longer relevant to the board it is on"It was relevant to DT, abuse chose to move it here, then abuse decided it wasn't relevant to this forum, we were having a civil debate with nothing libellous being said.

BallandChain

Hi Tribulation. I posted on that thread last night to apologise to you for misreading what you posted. However I see that was another thread to be axed. Ho hum.