Is it time we changed the rules here?

digiman

I know the soccer forum has a requests section were you have to get 3 people to nominate you before you can be let post there. In the last month this forum has become really annoying to read with people starting nonsense threads, derailing other threads etc. Basically everyone knows what I am on about.

I'm going to add in a poll on this.

BiffoBeater

This doesnt make any sense. How are new memebers expected to know 3 other members before they even join.:pac:

By your mesure this forum will only contain the regs from the live dublin scence and a few other random people who are in the know, i for one shall be voting NO:mad:.

Conbro

No. As much as Im irritated by the arrival of certain new posters, I loathe to support any action that hands extended powers to the moderators. Compared to other forums Ive vistied, boards is probably more heavily policed than any of them. The right to free speech cannot be denied, even if it seems that people are deliberately trying to waste our time.

Ace2007

hmm - maybe you saw my post in the BBV, but i had thought of the exact same thing.

CHD

What would this mean for people now how do you decide whos in and out?

zuutroy

Conbro wrote: »

The right to free speech cannot be denied,.

There's no free speech on boards. Owners are responsible for everything published.

hotspur

This is so weird I was thinking the exact same thing about 5 seconds before seeing this thread. But tbh I'd almost prefer if we could just vote for certain people to be kicked out, but we can't. I can't remember ever before here reading numerous posts utterly decrying posters and wanting them gone like we have had very recently with the likes of DBC and Biffobeater today.

But yeah this forum has become very frustrating recently due to the very very low quality of posts from some of its newer members, which is a great shame. I had thought maybe it was just me, glad to see that others are as annoyed by it.

Ace2007

chdpoker wrote: »

What would this mean for people now how do you decide whos in and out?

I reckon something along the lines of - mods in first, mods decide who should get in, and then everyone else has to get a referal from someone else, and if you refer more than 2/3 people who get banned then u get banned to - hence u won't risk it. basically everyone has to go through the same process, regardless wheather you have 10,000 posts or 10

digiman

Well it wouldn't be fair to kick people out now or anything, but all new people joining should have to be referred. In fairness there isn't that many new people posting up here and the most recent people have been trolls

Conbro

I reckon something along the lines of - mods in first, mods decide who should get in, and then everyone else has to get a referal from someone else, and if you refer more than 2/3 people who get banned then u get banned to - hence u won't risk it. basically everyone has to go through the same process, regardless wheather you have 10,000 posts or 10

I cringe at the thoughts of this. Sounds like a seedy little old mans club, where you have to be a third generation member to be even considered. Nobody new ever comes in, nobody challenges anyones views, we all just sit around patting each other on the back. If this is the best alternative we have to "enjoying" the company of biffobeater and the like, Ill gladly keep them.

Lurker1977

While the past few days/weeks have been frustrating and I am leaning towards some form of method for curtailing trolling/LC posts, how does someone who has no connection with any poster in here get access?

Perhaps an initial temporary access should be granted for a period of weeks and at the end of the period if the poster is obviously here to partake in serious discussion/debate and is not trolling then they can get permanent access?

YULETIRED

Silly idea, instead have a monthly drinks session, where we all meet up and kick the crap out of each other.....

Im due a hiding myself, its been weeks

Conbro

There's no free speech on boards. Owners are responsible for everything published.

On the contary, free speech can always exist, in company with your second point rather than in place of it.

digiman

Ace2007 wrote: »

hmm - maybe you saw my post in the BBV, but i had thought of the exact same thing.

I actually hadn't seen it but I just thought enough is enough.

Fighting Irish

the referring thing prevents nothing, limiting access to the forum might help. let the mods decide who can post and who can't

Ace2007

Conbro wrote: »

I cringe at the thoughts of this. Sounds like a seedy little old mans club, where you have to be a third generation member to be even considered. Nobody new ever comes in, nobody challenges anyones views, we all just sit around patting each other on the back. If this is the best alternative we have to "enjoying" the company of biffobeater and the like, Ill gladly keep them.

ok the idea may not be the best, but in the past week how many thread have started and got derailed - not one is getting banned from what i can see, having something similar to the soccer fourm(i don't know what it is btw) could be the answer, it may not be, but no harm it suggestions.

as for a newbie not getting in cause they know no one - there are always ways around these things.

AdMMM

Bad idea.

Ste05

Conbro wrote: »

The right to free speech cannot be denied, even if it seems that people are deliberately trying to waste our time.

There never has and never will be a right to free speech on boards. But we certainly don't stop you saying whatever the F you want outside boards. Get a Blog and link it in your sig if there's things you wanna say that you think won't be allowed on boards, that way if you defame someone it's nothing to do with boards and you can take all the legal ramifications that may or may not come from it. If you look at the top of every single forum on boards, you might get an idea about why there can't be complete Free Speech, unless of course you want boards closed down.

As for giving us nazi mods more power, do you think we want to go trawling through hundreds of applications?


As for the idea itself:

It's an interesting idea, but how would it work in real terms?

What would be the criteria for entry? A certain number of posts outside Poker to see that the poster isn't just a moranic troll? I'm not sure how the referral system would work as Poker is kind of a more specialised area then Soccer, i.e. I'd say we have a much higher % of posters that don't post anywhere else on boards, in comparison to Soccer which probably has lots of people who post in AH and everywhere else, so it's harder for new posters who want to post about Poker to get to know people in a reasonable time in order to get a referral, and then they'll just go post on 2+2 or whereever else, we do need new posters and hope to get lucky with the next Hotspur or a replacement for Fuzz, etc and the other really good posters that have stopped posting.

While the latest troll infection is a problem, but keeping new posters coming in is important, all new posters aren't trolls and we do get the odd really good poster every now and again. So it's kind of a balancing act...

CHD

Just click ignore poster if you dont like someone.thats what its there for.DBC2007 is banned now and everything will ba back to normal soon,

CHILL OUT!!!

the whole year inn

What a terrible idea ,this is the whole idea of a public fourm this is too get different views wheter you agree or not.If the mods do there job correctly there should not be a problem.The way I see it take what you want from these fourms its never going to be perfect.

digiman

chdpoker wrote: »

Just click ignore poster if you dont like someone.thats what its there for.DBC2007 is banned now and everything will ba back to normal soon,

CHILL OUT!!!

Well how long before DBC2007 joins with a new name? Giving people a trial isn't the best idea either because once their trial is over they will just get a new name and be back on again on another trial.

Ace2007

digiman wrote: »

Well how long before DBC2007 joins with a new name? Giving people a trial isn't the best idea either because once their trial is over they will just get a new name and be back on again on another trial.

In theory the trial isn't that bad of an idea - as mods can track ur ip address i think - so they would be able to see if you are using more than one screen name.

Ste05

digiman wrote: »

Well how long before DBC2007 joins with a new name? Giving people a trial isn't the best idea either because once their trial is over they will just get a new name and be back on again on another trial.

He'll then be site banned. If he comes back with a new persona then we may turn a blind eye to it, but if it's just more of the same, he'll be banned from Poker and reported to higher-ups for a check over and a complete Site Ban.

Rb

I voted yes but have to agree with Ste regarding how specialised an area it is in comparison with soccer so have changed to a No.

However, I wouldn't object if the mods here got a little more heavy handed. As is it is definitely the most lightly moderated forum on the website, something which a lot of users here don't seem to realise as they only use the poker forum. The "problematic" posters of late would have been kicked out of any other forum a lot quicker, but the poker mods are a lot more patient and this attitude has made the forum what it is today, it's just unfortunate that there's a few clowns who are taking advantage of it.

So I'd say no to an entrance system but yes to less tolerance of personal abuse/muppetry/trolling particularly from newer users.

Ste05

Ace2007 wrote: »

In theory the trial isn't that bad of an idea - as mods can track ur ip address i think - so they would be able to see if you are using more than one screen name.

Just FYI, we can't, but higher ups can.

All us lowly mods can do, is check what different accounts have posted from the same IP address. So while we can do what you're talking about we don't know anyone's actual IP address, but it can be got by Admins, etc.

Conbro

ok the idea may not be the best, but in the past week how many thread have started and got derailed - not one is getting banned from what i can see, having something similar to the soccer fourm(i don't know what it is btw) could be the answer, it may not be, but no harm it suggestions.

as for a newbie not getting in cause they know no one - there are always ways around these things.

The dreailment of threads is a recent phenomenon and I wouldnt be surprised if the different members causing obstruction are actually the same person. Im sure that once this person has had his kick and got his attention[ as were giving him here], he'll be off and we'll never hear of him again. Giving moderators the power to ban such obstructionism would be a draconian measure though in my opinion. The usefulness or otherwise of somebody's contrbution to this forum is a totally subjective matter and decisions like these should'nt be made by unpaid volunteers. We are practically handing over to them the right of admission to this forum based entirely at their discretion. As I already said, this forum is already very heavily policed, as long as nobody is passing remarks of a sexually perverse or racist nature, or making comments that may be deemed libelous, then moderators interference should be kept to a minimum.

Rb

digiman wrote: »

Well how long before DBC2007 joins with a new name? Giving people a trial isn't the best idea either because once their trial is over they will just get a new name and be back on again on another trial.

If he re-regs to evade the forum ban he'll have all his accounts site banned. The smods are pretty quick at picking up re-reg'd accounts anyway, although if they were banned for something lighter than spam/threats and they come back and keep their heads down they'll usually be given a chance.

Can't see DBC doing that though tbh.

Edit: What Ste said.

Rb

Conbro wrote: »

As I already said, this forum is already very heavily policed, as long as nobody is passing remarks of a sexually perverse or racist nature, or making comments that may be deemed libelous, then moderators interference should be kept to a minimum.

As I said above, this forum has the most lenient moderation on the website. People get away with the odd bit of personal abuse, elsewhere they'd be banned immediately for it (personal abuse is a bannable offense site wide and it's up to the mods to determine what deserves a banning and what doesn't).

A lot of poker forum users don't use the rest of the site so aren't really aware of how things go.

digiman

Rb wrote: »

Can't see DBC doing that though tbh.

I actually agree with you on that, but whats the odds that Giostarvas and the latest troll are the one person and I wouldn't be surprised if they were a member of here already

Rb

digiman wrote: »

I actually agree with you on that, but whats the odds that Giostarvas and the latest troll are the one person and I wouldn't be surprised if they were a member of here already

Well, I've sent a few usernames on to Ruu and he's either checked them out or will check them out. Anyone with two accounts will be autobanned, anyone re-reg'ing and taking the píss will be sitebanned too.

One of the mod functions, as Ste said, can cross reference accounts to IP addresses so if someone has two accounts from the same IP, it'll be detected and dealt with.

They also check for things like similarities in usernames, email addresses, IPs etc etc.

Macspower

I've gone from hardly posting anymore to hardly even reading anymore... always ejoyed the bb section but to have to dreg through pages and pages of crap is not my idea of fun..

ban all the idots I say... I've had enough!

Conbro

However, I wouldn't object if the mods here got a little more heavy handed.

I shudder at the thought. I totally disagree and have made my reasons pretty clear.

YULETIRED

Rb wrote: »

Well, I've sent a few usernames on to Ruu and he's either checked them out or will check them out. Anyone with two accounts will be autobanned, anyone re-reg'ing and taking the píss will be sitebanned too.

One of the mod functions, as Ste said, can cross reference accounts to IP addresses so if someone has two accounts from the same IP, it'll be detected and dealt with.

They also check for things like similarities in usernames, email addresses, IPs etc etc.

hangs head in shame and makes way towards the door....

damn you amateur trolls your scent has led them to me

Rb

Conbro wrote: »

I shudder at the thought. I totally disagree and have made my reasons pretty clear.

Can you give examples of how this forum is "heavily policed"? I.e actions taken by moderators that you'd consider to be over the top or heavy handed?

YULETIRED

Macspower wrote: »

I've gone from hardly posting anymore to hardly even reading anymore... always ejoyed the bb section but to have to dreg through pages and pages of crap is not my idea of fun..

ban all the idots I say... I've had enough!

in fairness though the bb section would be tedius if it were just bad beats

you are just missing the attention mac.....:D

Rb

YULETIRED wrote: »

hangs head in shame and makes way towards the door....

damn you amateur trolls your scent has led them to me

I think DeV has a soft spot for you and R4AD tbh.

zuutroy

YULETIRED wrote: »

in fairness though the bb section would be tedius if it were just bad beats

you are just missing the attention mac.....:D

Like random stuff is fine but 5 pages of politics or soccer or whatever just gets annoying to a lot of people

cardshark202

Ban everyone imo. You're all idiots anyway.

cooker3

zuutroy wrote: »

Like random stuff is fine but 5 pages of politics or soccer or whatever just gets annoying to a lot of people

Bad beats are boring, nobody cares about any of them. BBV has only become fun since people started using it for any other topic forum which is sort of what it has become. If I never seen another bad beat posted there I'd be happy.

As for the idea, I don't think it's really needed, the really trollish posts are something that happened this week. What I don't get is why dbc wasn't banned within 10 posts of him arriving. He is/was clearly a troll with nothing to contribute. But if the forum continues along the lines of the last week then something will have to be done but I am hoping it was just a temporary thing.

Conbro

Can you give examples of how this forum is "heavily policed"? I.e actions taken by moderators that you'd consider to be over the top or heavy handed?

Well obviously I cant quote any posts that led to interference of moderators as they have been deleted so thats a silly question. However the daily threats, locking of threads and editing carried out by the moderators of this forum is totally at odds with the policy of open and free speech exercised by other forums I visit. In my opinion, of course. To say that the forum needs to be policed more heavily is, at best repulsive. If I was going to be honest Im sure I could find a much stronger term. Light hearted banter and mild personal criticism is too often seized upon by moderators as an opportunity to exercise their personal control over the forum. In my opinion the members, who make this forum what it is, do not need these discretionary powers further enhanced even if it is at the cost of putting up with some of the more irritating newcomers.

Rb

Conbro wrote: »

Well obviously I cant quote any posts that led to interference of moderators as they have been deleted so thats a silly question.

The mods rarely delete posts tbh. What I meant by examples is topics that were locked that you felt shouldn't have been, people who were banned that you think shouldn't have been i.e incidences in which the moderators have acted "too heavy handed". As I said, it's rare for a mod to delete a post, they will in the case of spam but that's about it and surely spam isn't something you want?

Conbro wrote:

However the daily threats, locking of threads and editing carried out by the moderators of this forum is totally at odds with the policy of open and free speech exercised by other forums I visit.

Threats? Examples?
As for locking of threads, examples of threads that you think shouldn't have been locked?
I don't know of one forum that allows "freedom of speech", by doing so one is only asking for trouble. 2+2 certainly does not encourage free speech either.

Conbro wrote:

In my opinion, of course. To say that the forum needs to be policed more heavily is, at best repulsive. If I was going to be honest Im sure I could find a much stronger term.

So people such as DBC should just be allowed carry on with their trollish ways? He remained unbanned for quite a while, due to the lightness of the moderation here (imo), he would have found himself banned from any other forum on the site a lot quicker, so do you think that those types should just be allowed to run amuck until they overstep the line which you determine to be appropriate i.e at racism, perverse?

Conbro wrote:

Light hearted banter and mild personal criticism is too often seized upon by moderators as an opportunity to exercise their personal control over the forum.

They're not exerting "personal control" over the forum. Moderators are comparable to forum janitors, they're here to keep things running smoothly and clean up the crap. Personal abuse is not tolerated anywhere on the site, with the exception (currently though it's under inspection) of the Thunderdome. They're merely enforcing the rules that have been set by the site owners.

Light hearted banter is certainly accomodated on the Poker forum, elsewhere there are more rigid rules about staying on the thread topic but here it's quite lenient. What DBC & co are/were doing was much more than "light hearted banter" though, it was pure thread de-railment, attention whoring and trolling. Of course that's not going to be tolerated, sure look how many people it píssed off!

As I said though, personal abuse isn't tolerated anywhere on the site, although it is to a small extent here given that a lot of people know eachother offline. These aren't forum rules, they're site rules set by the owners of the site and I suppose if you're not happy with their rules, go elsewhere. The majority of people are pretty happy with them though.

Conbro wrote:

In my opinion the members, who make this forum what it is, do not need these discretionary powers further enhanced even if it is at the cost of putting up with some of the more irritating newcomers.

The powers are there already and are at the discretion of the mods to use them, so apart from some kind of entrance system they can do pretty much whatever they feel necessary already, so there's not really any "enhancement" in asking that they clamp down on muppets and trolls.

This is the forum charter and as you can see in the title, ignore it and face a banning.

I don't think there's anything OTT in the charter, and along with the site wide rules the mods are merely here to enforce them and as I said, if someone isn't happy with that they may go elsewhere, there's nothing binding them to the site.

Lurker1977

cooker3 wrote: »

As for the idea, I don't think it's really needed, the really trollish posts are something that happened this week. What I don't get is why dbc wasn't banned within 10 posts of him arriving. He is/was clearly a troll with nothing to contribute. But if the forum continues along the lines of the last week then something will have to be done but I am hoping it was just a temporary thing.

+1

Grafter

I didn't know 1, never mind 3 boardsies when I joined, and was vocal about the clique factor, so I'm against the secret handshake idea.

However, I was surprised today when an obvious ???? who clearly knew a lot of regs quickly built up 80 posts on their first day, so I'd be all in favour of a probationary period of x period with only 3 or 5 max posts per day.

Most trolls won't have the patience to build a new character a month in advance. Those that do, may even manage to inject a small amount of entertainment (or so their make believe girlfriend writes in their blog).

Blip

I cant see how a referral process would work, it would only slow down the rate of new members in the long term. The probation idea might work better.

How about a sin bin kind of thing, crap/trollish posts are placed in a sin bin sticky for all to see and if a poster accumalates say "10" or more then they get some sort of tempoary/full ban, ah i dont know something along those lines anyway. Whatever is done the work load for the mods is going up, but something needs to be done. I hope cooker3 is right.

pokerstud

not sure if its my place to say as im only a newbie but you could just introduce the simple yellow/red card system. where if there is an insult made then a yellow sign gets placed beside his name? this way is pretty simple and wouldnt be much hassle to introduce.

just my 2.14cents:)

Rb

pokerstud wrote: »

not sure if its my place to say as im only a newbie but you could just introduce the simple yellow/red card system. where if there is an insult made then a yellow sign gets placed beside his name? this way is pretty simple and wouldnt be much hassle to introduce.

just my 2.14cents:)

Well there is an infraction system, which is kind of like a penalty points system. It leaves a mark on peoples user profiles but are only visible to the mods.

Dub13

Bad idea.

Plus the OP has obviously not been around the Soccer forum recently as we dropped the nominate system a long time ago now.

Conbro

Despite the time and effort you spent replying to my post you failed to disrpove or even convincingly reply to any of the points I made.

The mods rarely delete posts tbh. What I meant by examples is topics that were locked that you felt shouldn't have been, people who were banned that you think shouldn't have been i.e incidences in which the moderators have acted "too heavy handed". As I said, it's rare for a mod to delete a post, they will in the case of spam but that's about it and surely spam isn't something you want?

Yes they do, take any sample 10 threads and I can assure you that you will find edited materaial. Im not just referring to spam either it seems that moderators intervene totally at their discretion and without any consistency.

So people such as DBC should just be allowed carry on with their trollish ways? He remained unbanned for quite a while, due to the lightness of the moderation here (imo), he would have found himself banned from any other forum on the site a lot quicker, so do you think that those types should just be allowed to run amuck until they overstep the line which you determine to be appropriate i.e at racism, perverse?

If its a question of allowing a perceived troll to continue participating in this forum, or handing the powers to the moderators to selectively choose who can or cant post on this forum, I know which side of the fence Im on. As I said, its an entirely subjective matter whether somebody is trolling or not. Personally Im of the opinion that some of you moderators arent qualified or competent enough in this area to make them decisions.

The powers are there already and are at the discretion of the mods to use them, so apart from some kind of entrance system they can do pretty much whatever they feel necessary already, so there's not really any "enhancement" in asking that they clamp down on muppets and trolls.

In case you havnt noticed, the purpose of this thread was to propose stricter requirements on a persons qualifacation to membership of boards.ie. It also suggests giving moderators furthers powers to ban people at their discretion. I maintain that any measure taken, that hands further discretionary power to the authorities of a public frorum where people log on to expresss and debate their views is totally at odds with the spirit and raison d'etre of such a project . And yes they are an enhancement of moderators powers. The current charter sets out guidelines that you the moderators should refer to during decison making process. Discretionary powers would allow you make decisions based on subjective matters and personal feelings.

Lafortezza

We've tried Reign's of Terror in the past, they just didn't work.
Some people liked that the mods set a higher standard for content and that the mods were stricter on off topic posting and mild personal jibes. A different bunch of posters preferred a much more laid back approach and thought we were being way to harsh and that we should let the banter flow more.
You can't please everyone.

As for DBC2007, he never actually really broke the charter until the personal abuse in the BBV sticky. He waffled and had lots of low content posts that were off topic, but so do a huge amount of posters on here. DBC just had more waffle per post.

If you compare the poker forum now to the way it was a year ago, and then a year before then, it was very different.
HJ, fuzzbox, NFR, robinlacey, and loads of other really good players were regulars and posted alot. There was some legendary strategy threads where people really learned good stuff about poker. Lately these have been missing imo, which is a huge loss.

Then again, there's alot more general chat and a big social aspect to the poker forum, it's probably the busiest forum on the whole website after After Hours. Up there with Soccer and Motors.

I'm kind of at a loss lately, the mods are damned if the are strict and damned if they aren't.

Dub13

Over the years the poker forum has always had a more laid back approach to how the mods operate and it has worked by and large.You cant blame the mods for bad/low content posting.

We choose to say things where everyone can see and we choose to stand by those things we say. Most of the people here know who the others are and there is an accountability not just within the forum but within a wider poker community.

To limit access to this forum would be a terrible idea. The reason, in my opinion, why some forums require limited access is because of the popular nature of their subject matter. This leads to a huge number of potential posters which would make the topic impractical to moderate.

Poker has a much smaller pool of potential posters and, due to the unique nature of the community which tends to supply them, a much more familiar pool. In order for us to be able to enjoy this forum as we do we have to be willing to accept that sometimes we shall have to wade through pointless posts.


As for what Macspower said referring to the BBV thread. Personally I think it has grown beyond it's initial mandate and has become the social thread in the poker forum which is inevitable given the obvious community nature of the forum. So many of us know and socialise with one another that a thread where we can talk about things outside poker but amongst ourselves is a fine addition to a unique forum on boards.

I, for one, am glad that I can come here and ask help and advice from players from all around Ireland. I think us closing that door to new players would be a terrible waste.