The more friendly topic about the forum in The Forum.

[LewisD]

If we banned the C-Bomb again (and it should never have been unbanned imo) and also got rid of the ludicrous nudity rules we've got at the minute (which was actually voted against on old GR, if memory serves).

I did argue against the use of the c-bomb when this place was started up. The will of the majority beat me. Curses!

Jesus man, don't you brown-nose enough as it is?

[LewisD]

gooseberry fool, there's me gooseberry fool stirring again eh?

[chalkitdown]

If we banned the C-Bomb again

I don't understand why you've brought this up. When has the word 'banana split' ever been a problem on here? It's not even an issue.

[Cal]

gooseberry fool, there's me gooseberry fool stirring again eh?

Your 'inside man' been telling tales, Lewis? Or did you get into the Staff Room all by yourself? Either way, you'll know I suspect you've been there for quite some time. Clever boy!

[LewisD]

gooseberry fool, there's me gooseberry fool stirring again eh?

Your 'inside man' been telling tales, Lewis? Or did you get into the Staff Room all by yourself? Either way, you'll know I suspect you've been there for quite some time. Clever boy!

I literally have no idea what you're on about Cal.
The above post was an inside joke between me and Jimmy Shedders

Perhaps it was a bit out of context, I'll leave the in-jokes for TCRT.

[Madness]

If we banned the C-Bomb again

I don't understand why you've brought this up. When has the word 'banana split' ever been a problem on here? It's not even an issue.

It was just nice not having it. I've got no opposition to the word but I just preferred this place without it, to be honest.

[SEP]

If we banned the C-Bomb again

I don't understand why you've brought this up. When has the word 'banana split' ever been a problem on here? It's not even an issue.

It was just nice not having it. I've got no opposition to the word but I just preferred this place without it, to be honest.

Turn on your swear filter then.

[Madness]

Well I don't mind the other swearwords.

I just feel that unbanning it led to a downward slope. Think of the children!

[SEP]

Well I don't mind the other swearwords.

I just feel that unbanning it led to a downward slope. Think of the children!

Bearing in mind that the unbanning coincided exactly with the move to this new forum, do you not think that there is more to the issue than a simple four-letter word?

EDIT: And I think that the real crime, was bypassing the swear filter to use the word. You can't do that now.

[Madness]

Well yes but it was just nice to have it as a bannable offence. There was a certain reassurance anyway; calling someone a banana split on old GR showed that they'd really pissed you off and you were willing to get banned to show them up.

Now it's just another overused insult.

[SEP]

Well yes but it was just nice to have it as a bannable offence. There was a certain reassurance anyway; calling someone a banana split on old GR showed that they'd really pissed you off and you were willing to get banned to show them up.

Now it's just another overused insult.

Put it this way - if it did become a bannable offence, it would not solve the basic problem of a lack of newcomers. In fact, we'd end up losing more regulars.

[Chocolate Jim]

I think it would great if everyone just recognised that the C-word isnt acceptable ... alsmost like an unwritten law so to speak.

[Johnny Ryall]

Lol GR just 503'd, I think you need to sort the backend before worrying about new users.

[Cropolite]

If we banned the C-Bomb again

I don't understand why you've brought this up. When has the word 'banana split' ever been a problem on here? It's not even an issue.

I know, banana split is a part of my everyday language IRL, used in a nice way for negative feelings. That and strawberry float. Why should it be bannable?

If I came out of an exam I didn't like, I'd say "that paper was a banana split, eh?", people then respond in the normal manner. No one stops to say "you dropped the C-bomb!"

[That]

Firstly, I'm going to reference Hugo in this post. Prepare yourselves mentally for this with the knowledge that it is not an attack on him, he's just a convinient example. ... Right:

<serious>

As a resident troublemaker, I would say with honesty that a more transparent and more humble moderating process would do much better at reigning me in than what we have now.

Nowadays if someone gets into an argument with someone abrasive but immune (Hugo is a prime example) you can expect the Mods to come down hard on you if you so much as show frustration at his bizzare behaviour. Yet, to my knowledge, he has never so much have been warned. The process the Mods go by to reach this course of action is a mystery to me, and if I were to complain about it Eighthours (and it is always Eighthours) would close the thread with a witty put-down. Amusing, I'm sure, but not terribly helpful.

If, overnight, the bias in the Mod squad disappeared, the Mods opened up their decision-making process a bit, and certain Greenhats started seeing themselves as servants of the community rather than our overlords, I would treat this place with a lot more respect.

(As an aside, do you think I'd call Hugo on being a bad poster [and he is] if the Mods told him, and made it known that they'd told him, that his style is unacceptable? No, because I wouldn't have to. Do you think I'd adopt the beat-them-into-submission style of debate in GGC if there was a rule against it which applied to everyone, even people the moderators like? No, because I wouldn't have to. Honestly, why can Hugo do it and not me?)

This will surprise everyone, I'm sure, but I've been a moderator on a site that got more users in a day than this place gets in a year, and I'm telling you with complete honestly, without any spite or mal-intention, that the Mod squad are really going about things the wrong way. I'm sure they're trying their best with the structure and way of thinking they have in place, but some kind of reform is needed if I am going to take this community seriously, and if this community is going to take itself seriously.

That's my interpretation of what's wrong with this place. Here's what I'd do to fix it:

Firstly, an attitude change is needed. A big one. In a scenario in which you have banned someone (yes, I am at least partially talking about myself here, but see the following caveat) and there is an upcry, unban that person. You're servants of the community, and until you manage to create a community which rejects, say, threads titled "HERO", or calling Hugo a banana split, you have to serve the community you've got. Sorry, guys, but anything else breeds resentment.

But here's the thing (aforementioned caveat time): If this community was one which respected itself, I would be emotionally invested enough in this forum to care if I was banned. As it is, I'm vaguely aware that HoC is trying to get me banned right now. Yet I don't care, and I think this post sums up why.

Secondly, you need to tailor the Mods to the forums you're moderating. How many people on the Mod squad can look at themselves and say, "yeah, I'm a regular and valued contributor to Ask The Forum"? None. So please, just make GreenGecko an ATF Mod already. I may not agree with him at all times, but at least he understands how it works. I'm not just saying that for ATF, either. We need a couple of dedicated Mods per forum, and they shouldn't necessarily be picked out of the current bunch either. "Global Mods" is a silly concept, frankly, and going through the trouble of setting up forum-specific Mods would go a long way towards addressing a lot of the problems I and others have with these boards. Trust me. There'd be logistics involved, sure, but it'd be worth it.

And thirdly, here's something you can take from my own experience with internet projects I actually contributed to seriously: Don't force, catalyse. Users are human beings. If they're acting up, there's a reason why. If you're opening a PM with "I'm warning you for ..." and ending it with "You'll be banned if you do it again.", you're doing it wrong. Find out why they're doing it and address the problem as best you can, while still setting a boundary which falls within the confines of what you want from this community. You can still warn, you can still ban, but when it's the only thing you're doing, it's a problem.

Note: to have something fall within the confines of what you want from the community, you have to know what you want from the community. I am assuming you want this place to be a Neogaf-lite -- which is fine! -- but once again I don't know because there's no way for me to tell. Again, more transparency needed.

Atreyu is right, by the way: we'll have people posting threads about wanking for however long it takes for Steve to stop posting threads about wanking. I actually like Steve, I think he's a level-headed fella, and he's a perfect poster-boy for the community we currently have, but if we want change then it has to start at the top and he has to start being a better role-model.

So, yeah, it really does all come down to the Mods.

I'm sorry if that post wandered a bit, as it was pretty much written from the stream of conciousness. I am aware that this won't be taken seriously, but this is a serious post. I would hope that at some point somewhere one of the Mods -- I am tempted to refer to you as "leaders" which only goes to show, really -- will actually consider this rather than laughing at it, mocking it, or trying to refute this.

Yeah, don't argue with this. It's pointless. As soon as I hit submit, I'm gone, I'm out, I'm back in GGC being a PC Supremacist. Just read, and think.

I'll leave a closing thought. I and many others are here to have a laugh and extract some fun, forcibly or nay. That is what we see this site as: a pissabout. Changing the image of the site starts with changing the image of the administration. No amount of cracking down, y'all Greens and Blues, will make a damn bit of difference if you can't convince us to care about those actions.

</serious>

Ahh, good, glad that's over. Back to trolling GGC, because we all know there's zero chance of any of that ever actually strawberry floating happening.

Oh look here comes Eighthours to post " " woop woop this is living

hurrrrrrrrrrr

[Madness]

Well no I was just saying what I'd like to see to make the forum a better place for me. I don't really care about new users too much to be honest, we need to make this community a nicer place to be a part of first (and in places it is, for example the USTV thread, which is amazing).

To be honest the worst bit about the community isn't the 'immature' members (they're generally the funniest, to me at least) but the ones who go out of their way to say how, say, a MassWank thread is immature and doesn't belong on the board (and when its a minority in the thread that get annoyed by it, where's the problem exactly). These people could well put their effort into making other threads more worthy of reading, instead of constantly whinging. A community is what the community makes itself, and since we're all overgrown children thats what we act like.

In fact the whole thing gets more ridiculous when you consider that one of the people who pays the bills (Steve) starts the most threads with immature subject matter (Do you stand/sit/crouch to wipe?). If you want more serious banter, start a thread about it or go to RLLMUK (where more and more of my time is being spent anyway).

[LewisD]

Long post

You raise some very good points there Karl.

Forum Specific mods would be a good idea.
And it'd be nice to see a more human side to the mods.

Stu is the perfect mod, I find I can approach him with any problem and feel comfortable that he'll take me seriously and try his best to help me out.
Very approachable, the people's mod if you will.

[Fatal Exception]

tl;dr

[SEP]

I'm not going to quote KP's post, because it's very long, but he makes some very good points there, especially in regards to transparency and leading from the front.

[That]

i am literally a child

you are literally, literally a child. a big gay baby

EDIT: Oh hey I got the page snipe. Everyone who's too retarded to read the end of the last page click here please.