Spill Your Guts: What You Really Think About MB members

Guybrush · 05-13-2012, 06:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urban Hatemonger

If people think I'm going to sit around shaving pixels of people's avatars because they're too big rather than do something more constructive, like post on the forum then they can forget it.

You want to complain about 2mm of avatar on a forum that's supposed to be about music then go ahead. I think that says more about the person complaining than the mod.

As it's been said, this place has guidelines not rules, And i'm so bored of having a rule for this, a debate for that blah blah blah when just a bit of common sense would do just fine. The whole point of the avatar guidelines was people were asking for avatars that were about 5 or 6 times bigger than what people have now, they succeeded in doing that, so the guideline worked. So why do we need another fucking drawn out debate over basically fuck all.

When it comes to your specific case and your avatar, it really doesn't matter that much (to me) because your name is already wide enough to widen the avatar/user info box into the space for the post area. The same goes for WWWP. Had your names been shorter, decreasing the width of your avs would pretty up the threads you post in, but decreasing your av sizes now just won't do much.

But otherwise, I find your comment on rules vs. guidelines interesting. A thing about rules or guidelines is that if a forum has rules or guidelines that everyone has to adhere to, then everyone is an equal. If special groups on a forum have special privileges, then that itself can be a source of tension and discontent (f.ex mods and regular members). I don't think it's dangerous to have some flexibility, like a difference in privileges between newbs and regular posters because it's the regular posters who are around to make up the community. But I do think it's a bad thing if different groups of people within the community enjoy different privileges. So in general, I think treating rules like guidelines is fine as long as everyone gets to treat them as guidelines.

So that means if a mod pushes those guidelines, it should be fine for everyone else to push those guidelines. Then it becomes a situation of whoever manages to stretch those guidelines the furthest, while still being considered to behave acceptably, is the one who sets the standard for what can and can't be done on the forums. He or she defines the moral tideline. That's something I consider a flaw of guideline thinking vs. rules because it will contribute with creating a more hostile environment.

So because of that I think it's better to have defined rules with mods doing their best to adhere to those rules. I think that helps nurture a friendlier community environment (which I personally prefer).