Enough. We have had plenty of ideas from you and they will be considered. Please do not repeat yourself or start arguments. At the end of the day the only thing we've had from you is complaints. A lot of which isn't constructive criticism. If you don't pay attention to what I'm saying then don't expect to get let off lightly.

1. I don't know that the majority supports it.
2. Correct.
3. That's a patronizing description of the idea. (Bonus suggestion to the mods: be polite to all suggestions in this thread, even if stupid. Otherwise, people are less eager to share.) The blurb fails to take into account two phenomena: members get annoyed when they start threads that are then locked (due to existence of similar threads), and (that happens because) most members won't search. Please, consider the idea - it has no downside, it has worked elsewhere, and (if the right 'classic' threads are listed) it will make the site more active.

Threads are only locked if members start it off with a generic comment such as 'who likes this band' otherwise they are merged with the existing thread.Not our problem, it says to do this in the rules.

Yes but it doesn't mean it can't be controlled. I did say in the original post not to comment in here if you're just going to comment on another member.

I've never noticed that rule myself, but it does become everyone's problem if it isn't heeded.

Anyway, remind in that magical thread of classics to search for other threads on subjects the reader likes or to start a new thread (which sometimes newbies are slightly scared of doing).

Could you kindly translate this sentence to English?

Which is why it's mentioned in every forum & sub forum in both the music forums and off topic forums, and also mentioned every time we do end up closing a duplicate thread.

If people still fail to understand after that I think it's more an issue their end rather than ours.

The "Global Announcement" in every forum? I honestly don't see "search" mentioned in that. And that's the kind of thing almost no one reads more than once. I could make a technical suggestion about how to drill "Search first" into people, but it seems no technical ideas will be implemented.

Yeah, people get told that upon thread closure, but that probably just ticks them off.

Near the bottom of my fantasized sticky thread, perhaps in italics:
There are many other good threads. Please search on keywords that interest you, and you might find some of them. If you cannot find such a thread, we welcome quality new threads.

Let's not forget that "classic" as sop wants to call them threads may very well be dated, and so not that relevant. Would anyone really post in a thread that said "What does everyone think of this new lot Nirvana?" or "Who thinks Dave Mustaine will stay with Metallica?"

I personally think it's a bad idea, discouraging new threads being made, comes across as lazy and also gives rise to the terrifying Attack of the Zombie Threads, which I'm sure none of us are adequately prepared for..

I think anyone who doesn't search for a thread topic before making it (I'm certainly guilty) should not be annoyed their thread gets closed or merged, but in my case I tend to be just D'Oh! and a little embarrassed. It's no big deal though and it teaches you to be more careful in future.

Also, what classifies a thread as "good" or "classic"? That's another call mods would have to make. Maybe if sop were to undertake this task himself, but I get the distinct feeling it's all just talk and he wants everything done by other people, or am I just being too cynical here?

sop´s suggestion isn´t really necessary because all those old musical-discussion threads are already freely available to any member who is interested. Either you can search for a topic, or do what I´ve done sometimes; enter a music forum and click on the "last" index page. Personally, I quite enjoy reading a bumped thread or rooting around in the archives to discover some forgotten band. As people may have guessed, I like the idea of continuity or connection with the past. The only depressing thing with old MB threads is that you´re usually reading the opinions of people who have long gone - and of course, as TH says, some threads just aren´t relevant any more:-

^ :laughing: You make that sound like too much fun, TH, stop giving me ideas !

It's not fun at all, Lisna! You think about it: do you really want a rampaging bunch of ancient resurrected threads that can't be stopped bursting into your house, holding you hostage, taking all the music knowledge from your brain and then discarding you as they run off to search for other vulnerable members? I know I'm glad I have a shotgun! Any thread older than a year that tries to get through MY door is gettin' both barrels! :ar_15s:

Speaking of ancient threads, some newb or someone else has been going around reviving polls that were last posted in like 7 years ago. Is there a way to stop those threads from being bumped?

Can a mod still close the polls on old threads?

Yeah, as well as just locking the thread. It's just annoying because they can't all be closed at the same time. Maybe I'm just lazy lol

^ Yes, those threads that get bumped just because someone adds a vote are kind of annoying.

^ Yeah, perhaps you´re right -it´ll only take a couple of us to be bitten by a zombie thread and we´ll all end up shuffling around like, well, like zombies.

I remember this gripe from a year ago or two years ago or one and two years ago. It basically ended with people asking if poll updates could be made to not bump threads, but of course that's a technical change so therefore impossible.

You understood me perfectly, Hufflepuffster.

More specifically, I feel it helps the site greatly when moderators don't let members gang up like a lynch mob on another member and call him a troll to invalidate his responses because those members don't see the value in his opinions and want to squelch them.

Also, I feel the more polite that moderators can be while dealing with people whom they feel are violating a rule (whether trolling, or disrupting the community in some way), the better it is for the site. When moderators do feel someone is trolling or disruptive, I really applaud the times when they remain polite in their public responses to members and don't try to shame them.

I imagine that staying emotionally detached and rather impersonal as a moderator can be hard to do when frustrated and feeling criticized, but I think that such moderation best encourages people to share their opinions at MB.

The part in bold is great!

I'm concerned more about preventing outright name calling rather than implied putdowns, but I can see how the gray areas are difficult and next to impossible to moderate, yet can lead to escalating tension and ill feelings among people.

Do you and other moderators feel that the moderation team might benefit from having a clearer, agreed upon way of dealing with issues you face here, such as how to reduce tensions/drama?

For example, if I'm understanding Janszoon correctly, he doesn't feel that preventing people from calling a member a troll is something moderators should do, yet you yourself have deleted such posts, which I feel was a great example of moderation:

^ I feel that your deleting posts by members who were calling another member a troll was the perfect decision to try to deescalate the increasing tension. Thank you, Urban.

I'm not ignoring the entire post but thought I would address this point first.

I think that members who feel the need to insult or do name calling really need to take a step back and learn some discipline. It's impossible for anyone here to predict when somebody is going to make an offensive remark in order to be able to prevent it from actually happening. If they do happen, they are swiftly dealt with as Urban stated. There is that gray area between complete censorship of negative opinions and freedom to express those opinions, and yes, this is what members tend to exploit, through baiting and instigation of drama starting with insulting remarks.

Again, it really comes down to self-discipline on the part of every member here.

When have you seen this happen in any instance where the offending member has not been summarily banned for being a troll? I can think of this happening with Dirty and Sopsych, and the reaction to start off with wasn't harmful - people only began calling them trolls when it became very clear that they were. The namecalling and outrage only ESCALATED, because the mod team were nowhere to be found and the troll in question continued to do exactly that.

You're just inviting the moderators to be ignored. They're not politicians. They don't live and die based on whether you think they're the nicest thing since sliced bread, their job is to stop trouble. They're not here to be your best buddy, the fact they're friends with us at all is a bonus.

I'm sick of people requesting the mod team be nicer and nicer and nicer and less and less confrontational. How forgiving do you want them to be? You saw the sopsych situation grow and spread out of all control until it dominated all chat on the forum, the plug.dj, and the thread was an unholy mess. It survived for over 40 pages and 7 whole days of ceaseless, fruitless argument and even when it WAS finally resovled the person at the center of it wasn't banned.

How about this? Instead of asking the mod team to be pandering, personalityless, weak-willed buffoons whose policy is to give everyone a million chances and ceaselessly champion the cause of doing nothing, we advise them to stand up and take responsibility for the job they're actually tasked with doing - Stopping trouble before it takes over and causes problems?

If anything should be clear, it is that right now the mod team is not doing that, possibly CANNOT do that, for fear of a major backlash over the idea they might actually enrage some of the self-entitled, arrogant fuckstains that this forum currently calls regulars.

The frustration you're talking about is roughly 80% Urban and Janszoon, pointing out in no uncertain terms, that the community here will backlash against anything they do because people are idiots and can't recognise what the mod team is actually supposed to do. People complain that people like Dirty get banned here. Can you understand how completely demotivating that is for the mod team, to see people arguing that Dirty should have been allowed to stay, to see them plead that he should be allowed back?

And the worst thing is that none of this actually gets taken onboard over time - There are people on this forum that to this day maintain they enjoyed having Dirty around. Why? HOW?

As a Mod, that must be the ultimate slap in the face - To have banned a member, who has then singularly demonstrated his ABSOLUTE unwillingness to contribute, his COMPLETE lack of morals, and his worryingly, SCARILY obsessed mindset, by having made SCORES, if not *HUNDREDS* of new accounts just to troll the **** out of these forums. - Over a TWO. YEAR. PERIOD. That's years, not days. Not Months. YEARS.

And then people ask you to get back in bed with the guy. They ask you to give him another chance. They say he wasn't that bad. They accuse you of doing your job badly for getting rid of him. Other people accuse you of doing your job badly because you didn't get rid of him MONTHS ago.


What leads to escalating tension and ill feelings among people is this namby pamby, bleeding heart approach to conflict management. The mods can't ****ing DO anything, because someone like YOU, who has for literally YEARS been advocating the lesser and lesser efficacy of the mod team, always crops up to tell the mod team they're being too harsh, too unforgiving, too hardline.

That leads to this pathetic, messy state of affairs where the members themselves can scream blue murder at each other until they're blue in the face, yet the mod team can't do anything about it because they're not giving people enough chances, not letting people take responsibility for their own actions.

Stop suggesting the mod team needs to be nicer. Its complete, total bull****. What the mod team needs to do is get back to a position where someone, ANYONE on these forums has any respect for them. Right-Track never would have taken ANY of this **** about not banning people, and he's to this day the forums most loved mod or ex mod. Precisely because he knew what he was talking about, and didn't take ****. When RockGuitar101 tried to incite forum rebellion Right-Tracks response was to show him up as the charlatan he was. To mock him. To incite others to mock him. In one fell stroke he brought the forum together behind him before he swung his mighty mancunian axe down upon the head of the filthy troll, and the people REJOICED IN HIS BRUTALITY, CONFIDENT IN HIS RULE.

And the result was that it created what is to this day STILL the best thread anywhere on musicbanter.

The mod team hamstrings itself by attempting to kowtow to everyones ideas of how the mod team should run. Yes, they do need an agreed upon way of doing things, because the fact is the mod team we have right now is completely unable to act when needed, and instead shows up after dozens of pages of trolling have already taken place and everybody is already pissed off at everyone else. I think half of that is that half the mod team are way too passive and want to give people all the chances in the world, and the other half want to get **** done right the **** now. That's why people who are causing trouble seem to only get temp bans instead of perms, many days and pages too late into threads. - Because every ban is exactly what none of the mod team seems to want - a compromise that fixes nothing and takes so long to come to that nobody is happy.

I should also point out, this whole discussion on whether members should be allowed to accuse each other of trolling, is so, so, so far away from being anything useful.

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...40/276/e77.jpg

1 - People aren't complete wankers. They're not going to call someone a troll unless the person is actively participating in a debate in such a way that they are both disruptive and questionably sincere. Specifically, in their opinion, which they must hold confidently enough to MAKE THE ACCUSATION, the belief must be there that the other party cannot possibly be serious.

That isn't a decision people jump to to invalidate another's position, it's a position people take because they HAVE ALREADY TRIED MANY TIMES TO RECONCILE THE OTHER PERSONS ARGUMENT WITH LOGIC.

Yes, people who are butt**** stupid will call the wrong people trolls, HOWEVER, if it is clear to people that the person is NOT a troll (IE, Me being accused), then a simple warning that the accusation is wrong can be made by anyone on the forum and will hold EQUAL if not greater weight, than if that warning was made pre-emptively.

2 - To say someone is trolling, you are not throwing out some internet buzzword nobody understands or can reconcile with its meaning - It's not like accusing someone of being "A brainwashed cryptofascist apologist", where people might have no idea what that is or means. To say someone is trolling is a shorthand for saying one very simple thing:

"I believe that you are insincere in this debate, and out to cause trouble by adopting a stance calculated to offend others".

(I'll give everyone exactly one guess to think of a member who does that ABSOLUTELY ALL THE DAMNED TIME.)

To try and put a ban on people taking that position is to completely doom ourselves to a forum where nobody can be accused of seeking to cause trouble. Where the only method of even having that position taken into account, is the report button, so that the mod team can assume all authority over whether the user fits the bill of "troll".

That's not discussion. That's not self governance and it's not going to help one little tiny bit. (Unless you're actually a troll, in which case you're pretty much by the letter of the law being protected against anyone who might point this fact out in any manner which isn't carefully and specifically worded).

All it would do, in fact, is turn normal, reasonable members, into the bad guy, for voicing their opinions of a controversial or disruptive member. And in the process, it would take attention away from the actual problem of said controversial or disruptive member - IN OTHER WORDS, it sends the mods on wild goose chases to stop people being errantly mean to each other, in order to safeguard any special snowflakes feelings being hurt by mean people on the internet.

And all the while the people who are actually the damned problem get to play victim.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/9c6824f91...hvv2o1_500.gif

I agree with pretty much everything GB said

I do too, and he has such a way of taking the time to spell out each point in detail so nobody can possibly misunderstand him. A shining example.

I, too, am tired of Vegangelica's eternal crusade on behalf of what she sees as the underdog. You know, like they said in the Simpsons once, sometimes people are just jerks. You don't defend jerks. If you can get rid of them you do. I quote once again the wise Vulcan: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one."

Words to live by.

My god some of you guys are offended by everything. This is the internet not a house of god, people will have differing opinions and like real life sometimes someone will annoy the masses and get picked on because of it.

If you cant deal with that i dont know how you get through life...maybe in a bubble.

"Needs of the many"? This site feels like a club, but it's actually set up for the general public. In theory, it should be the dominant music forum, but look at how few people are active and how lousy the music discussion is. Only a few times per month do I see any music thread worth replying to (granted, there are some sections I don't follow). It sounds to me that was the underlying point by Duga and Pedestrian, and it certainly is mine. I doubt anything will really change unless the sheriff orders it. I could be long gone, and the same old [bleep] will be happening. Wake up.

Oh? Meanwhile, it seems like people can hurl insults regularly and never get banned. "Trolling" becomes a cop-out, sweeping under the rug. Real trolling includes insincerity. Nothing I said was bogus. Every point was reasonable enough, and it was said in the right part of the site for that. There's some weird, unhappy stasis in Music Banter, like Congress.

I'm logging out to avoid temptation.

I'm still baffled by the fact that most posts I have seen from you are criticizing the site and apparent lack of uninteresting music threads. Uninteresting to you, perhaps, but not to others. That's fine, there are threads here that I am not the least bit interested in either. But you keep going on and on and on about how terrible and uninteresting this place is and how you're going to start amazing threads that are better than everyone else's. You seem awfully keen on being MB's white knight.

I'm guessing your ban wasn't enough of a wake up call. I'm surprised it even got to that point because I expected you would have flounced by then.

No time was wasted getting right back into things lol.

You and 216 can enjoy tea and crumpets together on my ignore list. I'm sick of seeing your posts and yet you do nothing to help the forum but complain.

How do you add someone to ignore? And do all the old posts not show up?

Go to profile > user lists (below name) > add to ignore list.

And yes, anything that isn't quoted is hidden based on the person you want to ignore.

Cheesus there's always some drama here, why can't we all just get along? :(

If you look closely, there isn't a whole lot of drama going on now, and if it's happening in this thread there is only one person instigating it.

yea but that guy sopsych is now banned

Then we can all be happy. Hurrah.

I understand coming into this thread and wanting to comment about certain posts in it but this thread should really be more about the constructive ideas. It's fine to come in and say you agree or disagree with someone's idea but just to throw in a general statement like that isn't really what this thread is supposed to be about as dedicated in the OP.

GB, you make many points and I can tell how passionate you are about this issue of the manner in which MB mods and the community handle members viewed by some or even a majority of people here as disruptive.

I have read your and others' posts in response to mine, but I want to focus on your idea that I feel is the best way to prevent rising escalation among members at MB when some feel another is trolling or breaking an MB rule: When members believe someone is trolling, rather than accuse that person in the thread, use the report button. The mods can then make the decision.

^ This is in line with our community rule: "If you feel that someone is in violation of the forum rules and you wish to report it please use the "report this" located below each post."

About my wishing mods to be "nice" while moderating:

Mods can be effective and act quickly while also being polite, as they often are. The brutality that you relished with RT isn't necessary for a site to function and in my mind is not desirable because many people don't want to participate in a community where brutality is used by those who have power.

I'm very thankful to the mods here whenever they politely and quickly handle problems. I don't always agree with their decisions, and so I'm also thankful that they consider the opinions of regular members, which they do even though the rules clearly state that "the staff reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way, including removal of content and user bans."

About how to handle the situation when members feel someone is trolling:

I know you and others feel very passionately that sopsych is trolling. And yet I know with 100% certainty that he is not trolling: he is well-intentioned. However, his opinions about the quality of music posts are not held by many people here, except perhaps Duga.

The important point, I feel, is that people should be able to express opinions about subject matter, even when their opinions aren't popular, without risking a ban. For example, I believe that feeling fully satisfied with the music discussion here isn't or shouldn't be a requirement for being part of this community.

I understand how some members can get tired of feeling that an individual is often critical of discussions they value; when that happens, I recommend they use the ignore button so that people can more easily co-exist here on MB. I'd rather see many people here with a variety of controversial opinions rather than a few people who all agree.

Thanks for your reply, Burning Down. I agree with your wish to find a middle ground between complete censorship and allowing people at the site to express negative opinions.

My suggestion is for mods to tell members they need to follow the MB rule: "If you feel that someone is in violation of the forum rules and you wish to report it please use the "report this" located below each post."

^ I *think* this would cut down on name calling and abusive treatment among members. You might get a lot more posts reported, but at least then threads wouldn't end up with members bashing each other or, worse, ganging up on one member in post after post when they believe he has broken rules or they are of the opinion that the person is a jerk.

i already gave my constructive ideas in this thread
i just don't understand how all the attention is always on the disagreements.. i mean, is that what it takes to get heard around here?
and it just keeps escalating untill ppl get banned or ppl start hating each other so yea.. my simple statement of wanting ppl to get along is a constructive idea

Veg, your ideas have precisely nothing to do with the effective moderation of the forums, and everything to do with crying like a little baby when someone doesnt phrase their posts like they're trying to win a popularity contest.

I don't think you have any idea whatsoever of how to moderate people or discourse and youre focusing only on the things least likely to actually help anyone. All your thoughts are based around feeling and tact and discouraging anyone having to actually ****ing deal with a negative, impassioned or otherwise polemic statement.

It is my sincere belief that the only problems any of your suggestions solve, is that it mollycoddles people who have no business getting involved in a serious debate in the first place, by asking everyone to kowtow to the idea that a good debate is one where everyone talks to each other with all the respect and good will and utter lack of forcefulness of a Disney film singalong.

People do not, never have, never will, and should not work the way you think they should and accepting that is precisely why we have moderation in the first place. It is also why police forces don't waste their time pandering to wasters, stoners and criminals endlessly justifying their actions or making insincere apologies for being a little bit rough - they have a job to do, and doing it with carebear stares, hugs kisses and invites to birthday parties is not how that job will ever get done.

Now will you PLEASE shut up and/or accept that the mod teams demeanour or attitude has precisely fuck all to do with how good they are or can be at their job.

Oh, and how about you address my other points, like how I point out that your ideas just turn normal members into the bad guy while protecting trolls and allowing them to play victim.

Oh, and to boot - it doesn't matter if sopsych is trolling or just a deluded, insane, arrogant misfit hellbent on attacking the mod team. He was a disruption, and clearly at the center of a massive ****storm that HE started. that's reason enough to remove him from that discussion and other similar discussions before we even consider whether it was his intent or not.

Its not against the rules to ban someone just because they're a gigantic dick that everyone hates. in fact, that's a good thing, and allows the mod team to make sure the community not only works but works well. there is a grey area regards whether someone is disruptive enough to actually be banned for it, but there should be no rule laywering around whether them believing what they say absolves them of responsibility for the ****storm it creates. it does not. The responsibility lies on the member with the controversial opinion to put it across without being a complete dickhead about it. If they can't do that then they have the option of not doing it, trying to convince people less aggressively, or being asked to leave. Or forced to.

it is absolutely none of the mods business to ensure that someone with a controversial opinion is allowed to espouse it and receive a favourable response, or even a polite one. Their job is to ensure that them espousing it doesn't start outright fights and that if it does, then the person or persons responsible for that fight are dealt with and the fight stopped.

Which is **** all to do with letting sopsych dig his own grave for 40 pages versus absolutely everyone else who cared to read, then trying to say "But he was only trying to help!" - well yeah, but, without wishing to invoke Godwins law, Hitler only wanted to help Germany. It doesn't excuse what he did to achieve that.

You know it doesn't work like that in the real world BF. There are people that will just forever not like each other for whatever reasons whether it be warranted or not. Just saying "let's all get along" is a pipe dream.

This is a serious question. Do you use the internet anywhere outside of MB? Post on any other forums or even read through comments on any other sites?
There is a line between having a negative opinion that people disagree with and taking said opinion and constantly repeating it while ignoring everyone else in the process and tooting your own horn.