Clan recruitment and moderation

Dustaz

Did i miss a discussion somewhere?

I was gonna pm cherryghost about this but I really think some discussion is needed on this.

Was that dude that posted about his team REALLY shilling? I looked at the site and apart from a very misguided enthusiasm about his team, I honestly cant remember anything else about it. It might have had ads, but i dont actually remember them so they cant have been that bad.

Anyway this isnt about him but more the idea in general.

For some reason this idea of "OMG Mentioning your team is ADVERTISING" has crept into this forum from god knows where. Team Liquid, Sk Gaming and multiple other sites could not exist with the ethos currently being employed here. I find it astonishing given boards history.

EVERY team website is sponsored in some way, telling people they can only post about their team if theres no advertising/sponsorship is not only naieve but its actively holding back development of sc in the country if you believe in that sort of thing.

By the current forum rules, no established team can look for members on this forum. Granted, no established team would actually look for members here but its the thought that counts.


Now this could well be answered with a curt 'moderation of forums should be discussed via pm and on feedback blah blah' but as i said, this is a broader question and im interested in what others think about it.

Rev Hellfire

I think the issue was more about someone coming here without ever contributing before and then smacking a recruitment post down out of nowhere so to speak.

That said you're right people should be able to use boards as a spring board for forming their guilds,clans etc. The question I would have is it reasonable to ask them to contribute a bit first before hand ?

Dustaz

No, not when it comes to recruitment i dont.

Like, If you google irish starcraft, you get this forum. replace starcraft with tribes and its how i got here 12 years ago. If someone is looking for places to promote their team (note, team , not product), then theyll get this place and see theres a community and think heres a place to start.

I think the bigger question though, is when did recruitment posts become such a massive evil?

If we were talking about DATE MANY CHINESE LADIES WAITING NOW (literally word for word the ad i just got on youtube) then obviously this wouldnt be a discssion. But teams are the lifeblood of eSports and Gaming communities.

When did they become such a dirty secret that they need their own sticky tucked away at the top of the forum where noone even looks?

Tenger

As Dustaz says an SC player may not be a boards.ie member but may decide they want to hook up with other Irish players. (as in the guy who posted about his 'hi skill level' team but was snipped by CherryGhost)

If he googles and finds this page then his first post will get him banned. While I can agree with the 'posting of inappropriate content' logic, can we at least allow him to try to contribute to a discussion after their post.

Mods can <snip> the offending links/info if required but still allow a discussion to happen around the content of the initial post.

IRL_Sinister

Dustaz wrote: »

No, not when it comes to recruitment i dont.

Like, If you google irish starcraft, you get this forum. replace starcraft with tribes and its how i got here 12 years ago. If someone is looking for places to promote their team (note, team , not product), then theyll get this place and see theres a community and think heres a place to start.

I think the bigger question though, is when did recruitment posts become such a massive evil?

If we were talking about DATE MANY CHINESE LADIES WAITING NOW (literally word for word the ad i just got on youtube) then obviously this wouldnt be a discssion. But teams are the lifeblood of eSports and Gaming communities.

When did they become such a dirty secret that they need their own sticky tucked away at the top of the forum where noone even looks?

Unfortunately it's one of the grey areas in the boards rules -- advertising is not allowed. On the other hand, if an OP changed the title of a thread "Anyone interested in joining/forming a team?" and then said they already had a team structured and found it then it would be a different story.

As the poster above you said -- coming into the Forum with 0 posts and then making a large post persuading people to join a team is a different story. Boards.ie (especially the SC2 Section) is made up of many different peoples and skill levels. You need to realise that MOST (if not all) are far below competitve SC2 gaming anyway. Trying to form a team that is going to be moderately successful or active on those premises is extremely difficult.

TL;DR: It's the context of the post not the content. If the OP had made a similar post instead of copy and pasting it with a different title it would very well have stayed on the Forum. I personally reported the post because it was a complete sh*t post. Not only was it against Forum rules but it was structured horribly and just reeked of fail and lacked any sort of professionalism (not that I expect it to be a good team, but it DOES need to be edited and moderated for BOTH the audience and the medium it is being delivered on).

Tenger wrote: »

As Dustaz says an SC player may not be a boards.ie member but may decide they want to hook up with other Irish players. (as in the guy who posted about his 'hi skill level' team but was snipped by CherryGhost)

If he googles and finds this page then his first post will get him banned. While I can agree with the 'posting of inappropriate content' logic, can we at least allow him to try to contribute to a discussion after their post.

Mods can <snip> the offending links/info if required but still allow a discussion to happen around the content of the initial post.

If it's appropriately phrased and edited. A DISCUSSION is fine, persuasion is not. I don't think the mod action in the most recent case was inappropriate. The post was a complete heap of sh*te and would not have lead to discussion. I bet the OP hasn't even been back to the site or PM'd any of the Mod's in question.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

whats this about chinese ladies?

Dustaz

IRL_Sinister wrote: »

Unfortunately it's one of the grey areas in the boards rules -- advertising is not allowed. On the other hand, if an OP changed the title of a thread "Anyone interested in joining/forming a team?" and then said they already had a team structured and found it then it would be a different story.

Its not a grey area in the least.

Advertising is not allowed, that post and others like it are not advertising. Advertising pertains to commercial transactions, this is nowhere close to that and im stupified to discover that people think it is.

How changing the title of the thread makes any difference to anything is beyond me.

As the poster above you said -- coming into the Forum with 0 posts and then making a large post persuading people to join a team is a different story.

Why? How? An irish person came into an Irish starcraft forum to look for people for his starcraft team.

Boards.ie (especially the SC2 Section) is made up of many different peoples and skill levels. You need to realise that MOST (if not all) are far below competitve SC2 gaming anyway. Trying to form a team that is going to be moderately successful or active on those premises is extremely difficult.

Ok, now this is getting annoying. This forum isn't team liquid. Noone is coming here looking for people to fill out their roster for the next GSTL.

What people are doing is forming teams for a game they enjoy playing. The way that people did in quake. and cs. and broodwar. and UT. and every game under the sun. It doesn't matter if theyre actually going to be any good. This happens all the time in other forums and it used to happen a lot more, im confused as to why it doesnt happen here.

TL;DR: It's the context of the post not the content. If the OP had made a similar post instead of copy and pasting it with a different title it would very well have stayed on the Forum. I personally reported the post because it was a complete sh*t post. Not only was it against Forum rules but it was structured horribly and just reeked of fail and lacked any sort of professionalism (not that I expect it to be a good team, but it DOES need to be edited and moderated for BOTH the audience and the medium it is being delivered on).

Wait, the context of the post is the problem but you actually reported it for the content?

Why would you report a post that "lacked professionalism" in what you admit is a forum that caters to the non-professional?

Again, i contend that its not against forum rules. If the link went to a website that was a list of google ads or something crassly commercial, then fine. It didn't. It went to a pretty bad but apparently genuine website for a low end starcraft team.

I've seen you yourself make pretty selfaggrandising posts about your alleged history in esports with no links whatsoever. Does this count as advertising yourself?

Should i report them for being "sh*t" posts that "reek of fail"?

IRL_Sinister

Dustaz wrote: »

Its not a grey area in the least.

Advertising is not allowed, that post and others like it are not advertising. Advertising pertains to commercial transactions, this is nowhere close to that and im stupified to discover that people think it is.

How changing the title of the thread makes any difference to anything is beyond me.

As the poster above you said -- coming into the Forum with 0 posts and then making a large post persuading people to join a team is a different story.

Why? How? An irish person came into an Irish starcraft forum to look for people for his starcraft team.



Ok, now this is getting annoying. This forum isn't team liquid. Noone is coming here looking for people to fill out their roster for the next GSTL.

What people are doing is forming teams for a game they enjoy playing. The way that people did in quake. and cs. and broodwar. and UT. and every game under the sun. It doesn't matter if theyre actually going to be any good. This happens all the time in other forums and it used to happen a lot more, im confused as to why it doesnt happen here.





Wait, the context of the post is the problem but you actually reported it for the content?

Why would you report a post that "lacked professionalism" in what you admit is a forum that caters to the non-professional?

Again, i contend that its not against forum rules. If the link went to a website that was a list of google ads or something crassly commercial, then fine. It didn't. It went to a pretty bad but apparently genuine website for a low end starcraft team.

I've seen you yourself make pretty selfaggrandising posts about your alleged history in esports with no links whatsoever. Does this count as advertising yourself?

Should i report them for being "sh*t" posts that "reek of fail"?

Yes, you should.

/thread

cherryghost

1. The poster who advertised the recruitment was a new posted, and as Hellfire mentioned, he contributed nothing, his username said a lot tbh. If a guy who was a regular visitor to the site had advertised it, then I'd have no problem...

BUT

2. The site was a WIP and contained links to selling gear too. So not only did just come on with no prior usage of the site, he also had intention of selling. Call me short-minded, but people like that are not welcome on boards.

Dustaz

cherryghost wrote: »

1. The poster who advertised the recruitment was a new posted, and as Hellfire mentioned, he contributed nothing, his username said a lot tbh. If a guy who was a regular visitor to the site had advertised it, then I'd have no problem...

I understand that when someone has zero posts and they come along and post something, its viewed with suspicion (just yesterday there was aguy posting an obvious ad for a new mmo on games and the mmo forum) but surely its viewed on a case by case basis. There are plenty of lurkers on boards and having zero posts shouldnt be a form of eLeprosy.

2. The site was a WIP and contained links to selling gear too. So not only did just come on with no prior usage of the site, he also had intention of selling. Call me short-minded, but people like that are not welcome on boards.

Again, I can't even remember how many ads were on the website but im pretty sure it wasn't over the top or I'd be tending to agree with you.
Every single website on the internet has ads. Its a fact of life and theres no getting away with it.

www.team-liquid.net
www.sk-gaming.com
http://www.millenium.org/

and heres some you might not have heard of

http://infinityseven.net/
http://www.teamnmx.com/
lgn.the-legion.net

Please dont mistake this as an attack on you cherryghost over that particular thread, its more to do with the direction of the forum in general.

This is the only forum on boards that i still browse that considers recruitment posts advertising. This isn't the first time that this issue has cropped up and theres been a worrying trend each time.

eg:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=70969432

This guy posted a link to his team, recruiting and was banned. The same dude posted a link elsewhere and was fine. He also had a post history on boards and had engaged on lan discussions and other stuff.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=74231119

This one wasn't locked, but the point was raised even though there was no ads at all.

RoyalMarine

You also have to remember there's a large amount of money involved in gaming events, and as such companies such as UV gaming profit from these events.

I understand that it benefits players to get involved in clans etc and they too can profit, but for a company such as UV gaming to advertise, it does breach boards.ie rules.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/faq.php?faq=bie_faq_guidelines#faq_bie_faq_guidelines_advertise

Sabre0001

This really should have been a PM / Feedback thread. There's nothing to discuss because users don't have a say in how moderation works. For example, no one is happy about recent copyright issues and how it might affect site, but its not for users to back-and-forth over what's ok.

One guy called his clan NIGS which is ridiculous and yes, a low (contributing) post count is going to work against you. It's a DISCUSSION forum, not recruitment or advertising. Saying that other forums would do x or y doesn't matter. Contribution is the issue at the end of the day - otherwise you'll have people with no history simply appearing to say "this is happening" and then disappearing until they need to promote an event / team / something again.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

what would the problem with that be, it's not like the forum is awash with new posts every day

Dustaz

RoyalMarine wrote: »

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/faq.php?faq=bie_faq_guidelines#faq_bie_faq_guidelines_advertise

Sabre0001 wrote: »

There's nothing to discuss because users don't have a say in how moderation works.

ad·ver·tis·ing/ˈadvərˌtīziNG/
Noun:
The activity or profession of producing advertisements for commercial products or services.

Contribution is the issue at the end of the day - otherwise you'll have people with no history simply appearing to say "this is happening" and then disappearing until they need to promote an event / team / something again.

Sabre, I find it incredible that someone with your history thinks that promoting events is a bad thing.

Saying that other forums would do x or y doesn't matter.

Just for clarity, when i said other forums, i meant other forums on boards.ie


Look, by all means lock this thread and we can do it via pm or worse in feedback. The reason i started the thread here is that feedback is generally a bad place to talk about things that have a lot of forum-specific dynamics. I would fully expect people who are not au fait with esports websites to spout the nonesense that sinister and royalmarine have come out with, but i didnt expect it on this forum.

IRL_Sinister

This forum needs Chicks back.

Edit: Yeah!!! Boards.ie for e-sports website of the year!!!

deconduo

I don't see what the problem is. Teamliquid, which is probably the biggest e-sports site in the world, has the exact same policy. In fact its probably harsher:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=117332

Here's the important part:

Be cool. Post. If you are new, tread lightly. Contribute to OUR community before you expect us to support yours. Don't make us think that you are using our site as a marketing tool and we wont have any problems.

Dustaz

Theres a pretty massive difference between the boards.ie starcraft forum and team liquid.

Would team liquid delete and ban Mr Chae for publicising GSL with his first post? I sincerly doubt it.

However they also operate under the same ethos of 'dont be a dick'. Its a black and white/shades of grey issue. Im not saying dont ban people who come in, post a link to a gaming themed website thats full of popups and ads. Allow people to publicise their teams and events, thats all. Without them. theres no scene at all. People arent stupid. They can tell the difference between proper events and teams and "MI LAN IS GONNA BE LEET, JOIN MA TEAM OF GOSU" type posts.

Rev Hellfire

Sabre0001 wrote: »

This really should have been a PM / Feedback thread. There's nothing to discuss because users don't have a say in how moderation works. For example, no one is happy about recent copyright issues and how it might affect site, but its not for users to back-and-forth over what's ok.

I'll be honest I disagree, talking over how the users wish their forum to be run is not out of bounds. Sure its not something which should be happening all the time, but if the users of the forum have a grievance we should be able to air it in a calm and constructive manner.

imho etc etc.

deconduo

Dustaz wrote: »

Theres a pretty massive difference between the boards.ie starcraft forum and team liquid.

Would team liquid delete and ban Mr Chae for publicising GSL with his first post? I sincerly doubt it.

However they also operate under the same ethos of 'dont be a dick'. Its a black and white/shades of grey issue. Im not saying dont ban people who come in, post a link to a gaming themed website thats full of popups and ads. Allow people to publicise their teams and events, thats all. Without them. theres no scene at all. People arent stupid. They can tell the difference between proper events and teams and "MI LAN IS GONNA BE LEET, JOIN MA TEAM OF GOSU" type posts.

And you think the boards mods would delete and ban Mr Chae if he posted about the GSL here? Of course not. And if the dude that got banned for spamming posted the exact same thing in TL, he would be banned too. Don't make ridiculous comparisons.

Dustaz

deconduo wrote: »

And you think the boards mods would delete and ban Mr Chae if he posted about the GSL here? Of course not. And if the dude that got banned for spamming posted the exact same thing in TL, he would be banned too. Don't make ridiculous comparisons

You started it dude

Mr Chae to TL is what A local lan is to this forum.


btw, Id like to clear up that after a pm conversation with Royal Marine, Id like to publicly apologise for lumping him in with sinister.

He made a judgement call in the past, which i dont agree with and dont agree with his call on what does and doesnt constitute advertising. However, i respect his calls as a mod of the forum at the time. Its leagues apart from some of the other stuff posted.

IRL_Sinister

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

deconduo

Dustaz wrote: »

You started it dude

Mr Chae to TL is what A local lan is to this forum.


btw, Id like to clear up that after a pm conversation with Royal Marine, Id like to publicly apologise for lumping him in with sinister.

He made a judgement call in the past, which i dont agree with and dont agree with his call on what does and doesnt constitute advertising. However, i respect his calls as a mod of the forum at the time. Its leagues apart from some of the other stuff posted.

No thats a ridiculous stance to take. Why should we have a different policy on advertising just because of the size of the site? In fact, why should the Starcraft forum have a different policy to the rest of the site? No other forum allows one post users to pimp out their website, regardless of whether its for selling things, raising money for charity, discussion boards, etc. There's no reason for an SC2 team to be an exception to a site wide rule.

cherryghost

IRL_Sinister wrote: »

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

If you're not going to bring anything constructive to the table, don't bother posting on this thread at all.

IRL_Sinister

This thread isn't constructive

Sabre0001

Dustaz wrote: »

ad·ver·tis·ing/ˈadvərˌtīziNG/
Sabre, I find it incredible that someone with your history thinks that promoting events is a bad thing.

Promoting events isn't a bad thing. Promoting your own without offering anything else constructive is because it's against the rules that we all sign up for.

Rev Hellfire - I agree that feedback is good...but it has to be either asked for, taken to PM or the dedicated Feedback forum (in my opinion). If moderators are asking it's fair game. If it's PM, the mod can give their stance without people weighing in from all sides. If it's in Feedback, then other mods can give their take on it or the admins can draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not.

Columc

Someone joining to try and promote the Irish SC scene by looking for Irish players for their team, burn them at the stakes!

Someone who had 5 posts can advertise an event organised by a company to gain a profit via a barcraft. Cheer them on for doing such a good job.

deconduo

Columc wrote: »

Someone joining to try and promote the Irish SC scene by looking for Irish players for their team, burn them at the stakes!

Someone who had 5 posts can advertise an event organised by a company to gain a profit via a barcraft. Cheer them on for doing such a good job.

Seeing as the barcraft guy got banned too and his post deleted, you prove my point.

Rev Hellfire

Its worth noting that a sticky thread was created to facilitate people looking to recruit for their clan. So its not like a total blanket ban truly existed.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056563771

Columc

deconduo wrote: »

Seeing as the barcraft guy got banned too and his post deleted, you prove my point.

Captain America Barcraft post got deleted, wow I must be special being able to still see them.....

I'm not saying that its good or bad to allow these events/posts, but What I want is to have it across the board, not to have some posts allowed, but others not, no matter what the post count is.