@moderators what is your favorite thread on this forum
RealmEye Forums Moderator AMA [Request]
Doc
#233
Well shoot. Open the link in a new tab. Hey forum: stop making me look dumb when i’m trying to be clever!
HGKing
#235
I don’t really have a favorite thread, but if I had to choose, I’d say this thread. It’d be a easy favorite if people asked more/better questions.
I do, however, have a favorite post.
Septagram
#236
@moderators how come when people are permabanned it’s only until 2044? Is that when a lease on the domain name expires?
######also why did starlias get a ban, a url is not very specific.
Shatter
#237
It’s means for his forum activity in general.
Also what the hell kinda lease do you think last till 2044.
No its 9999 days
OtherBill
#239
Discourse doesn’t really feature a “permaban”, so we have to specify a number of days for the ban duration. “10000” is easy to type.
You’ll have to talk to him about that, sorry…
Xaklor
#240
let me see…
attention-whoring, flaming everyone who didn’t kiss his ass, wildly attacking people who did nothing at all, hopelessly derailing about 70% of threads he posted in, the list goes on.
that good enough for you?
OtherBill
#241
I would’ve greatly preferred that “You’ll have to talk to him about that, sorry” would have been good enough. No need to belabor this any further.
Unban Starlias please
Xaklor
#244
… that seems cryptic and unhelpful. aloof and non-specific is one thing, but hiding the truth is quite another. what if said person had asked him what happened and was either unsatisfied with the answer or wanted this side of the story?
since there will never be an end to “what happened to so-and-so” questions, here’s an AMA question for you:
how would you prefer we answer those questions? shut up and pretend nothing happened? give full disclosure to what happened? give a vague and unhelpful response? ask them to go find the answer themselves?
and what if they keep asking after that? what if they find those answers unsatisfactory?
the other moderators can answer too, it seems that you don’t all share the same opinions on these topics sometimes.
Doc
#245
The rules here are rather vague on purpose, aside from the Hard and Fast rules. If we ban someone for “activity”, the reasons are going to fall into the vague category. Typically it’s when we’ve had enough of a person not going with the spirit of the rules, often continuing after temp bans or several attempts to talk with them about behavior we don’t find acceptable.
As soon as we start laying out specifics we trap ourselves to explain why we interpreted the rules the way we did. We’re happy to speak directly with the person who was banned. However, as I mentioned chances are high we’ve already tried talking with them first, so the conversation is pretty much over by the time the ban hammer gets involved.
To explain why bans happen to a wider audience would mean we would have to disclose private conversations. If they want to tell you then that’s their choice, but we won’t.
OtherBill
#246
I excel at cryptic and unhelpful.
Really, what I was getting at was “There’s no compelling reason to speculate on the forums about why somebody else was banned, or to speak ill of them once they’re gone. If you want to know why someone else was banned, you’re always welcome to track them down and ask them directly—in fact, that’s often a more productive approach.”
Stupidity
#249
Unhelpful to whom?
To the banned party: I would argue that they stand the most to gain by not having their dirty laundry aired out publicly for everyone.
To The interested bystander: I can think of very little that anyone stands to gain by one of the mod team listing off the offenses of someone who has been banned.
The two arguments in favor that I can think of are
- the bystander might have a better handle on what is acceptable and unacceptable and
- there may be a question as to whether the mod action was justified.
As to 1 - the query itself is too vague (“why did X get banned?”) to be useful. If the question was about specific behavior (“is Y acceptable to do?”), the answer would be forthcoming. But a general “I don’t know what that person did wrong” doesn’t really help you understand how to apply the rules yourself.
As to 2 - we have always accepted criticism and appeal. However, this does not seem to be the case when someone is just asking “why did X get banned?” rather than “I don’t think the ban of X was justified and here’s why.” We could probably avert the possibility of accusation by being transparent about all bans all the time, but I believe the trade off is not worth it. We hope that visitors to the forums will know better by having interacted with the mods, and those that don’t most likely would not benefit from the argument.
To the mod staff: Although we could potentially avoid accusations by being more transparent, we would also be opening a can of worms for anyone who wants to rules lawyer for/against some activity by the mod staff. This environment is not tightly controlled - it is a forum for the players, by the players. It is not our intention to set up the rules with careful controls to make sure they are applied meticulously. It is our intention to have decent conversation, and occasionally someone has to clean the place up.
I mean, personally I don’t think that a user who gets banned deserves to be shamed by me listing off their offenses to everyone who asks.
Also, there are these notes here with some further elaboration which generally apply to “Activity” as the reason for a ban: