Cropolite wrote:People saying until you change, I'm going to misbehave need to grow the strawberry float up. Do you realise how childish that sounds? It has to start somewhere.
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That's quite a way away from what we're actually saying, though. What we're saying is
essentially this, though I feel that any 2-line summarisation of the issues here aren't going to do them justice, as there are many complexities (hence why I felt a very long post was appropriate): The community is always going to be a reflection of the site's self-image.
People are always going to act in accordance with what is considered acceptable within the community, and they are also going to naturally rebuff percieved injustices in their own way. In a community in which the "leaders" are unapproachable (because they put themselves on a pedestal, because they're unprofessional, because they're unhelpful and not understanding, or a mixture of all three). There are two parts to that, and I'll address the first first.
A community is always going to be a reflection of the principles on which it is run, and on a forum on which the moderaters are unaccountable and inconsistent and on which the admining process is completely opaque, the community is going to be disrespectful, fragmented, and err on the side of immature. This is exasperated when we don't know what we're trying to be. Are we Gamefaqs or are we Neogaf? Are we Something Awful GBS or are we Something Awful FYAD? Right now we've got the Mod squad complaining about obnoxiousness when the head Admin is spamming threads about who's a "wanker". That's not a complaint at either party, merely an observation.
To reiterate very clearly: Steve, if you read this, you're alright, dude.
Now that the average GRcadian has, and I think I'm not presumptious in saying this, somewhat
lost faith in the Moderators, you're going to get people doing whatever, taking the piss, pushing boundaries because they don't give a gooseberry fool anymore; it's natural and it's expected and it's not something bannings or harshly worded stickies will change. What's needed is a change of attitude, and I think I've explained that well enough already in my
previous post.
Please, I'm not trying to offend anyone, and God knows that after tonight I won't give a gooseberry fool anyway, but frankly ... at the moment, I feel sorry for the Moderators. I know you all just want what's best for the site, dudes, but you're doing it so, so wrong. All I ask is that you
read the post and consider it rather than making reactionary comments such as cropolite's up there.
For the record, I think Peter's on the whole a pretty approachable Mod, he just has no idea about how to deal with disruptive people. He's not understanding in the least and I've always found him to be extremely condescending. I'm not going to be
told what to do on a forum which holds no respect for me. It's cyclic and it's interlinked and something is going to need to change drastically for anything to change.
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You're strawberry floating retarded.
Cuttooth wrote:Getting where? We have one side thinking the rules should be stricter because we just can't be trusted with them and the other side thinking the whole thing needs a complete overhaul.
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They're two sides of the same coin, in my opinion. If the Mod Squad can achieve the level of transparancy and professionalism needed for the forum to not consider
itself to be a joke (and that is essentially the problem we're facing, isn't it?), then I'm in full support of stricter rules. Something Awful is stricter than this place, but it handles things so much better. It has a system which
demands respect. It is utterly fair in all respects, yet actually quite harsh as well.
I really do think that with a few changes of policy this place could implement a system which works just as well.
Like I say, the change on this is, in my opinion, going to have to come from the top. Mere stricter rules won't cut it. Mere warnings won't cut it. What's needed is a change of how the community views
itself, and while warnings and new rules and all that mallarky can certainly come into it, at the core has to be unbiased mods who know the forums they're moderating, who care about their users, who don't hold themselves higher than the average forumite, and who possibly most importantly have a transparent process for decision making.
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