ANNOUNCEMENT OK - So here's the deal regarding moderation. Pull up a chair.

Tony2046 said:

You moron.

Sorry. Just testing.

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festy1986 said:

I've only encountered 3 times with a mod that resulted in disciplinary action. All GDT.

I do wish the mods can remove their personal feelings a bit more toward what you gotta say about GDT stuff and not over moderate it.

Because being called a troll and threatened removal from a thread because you said a player did a cartwheel instead of running straight for a first down is ridiculous.

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Ian said:

Again, I agree 100% with this. And the goal with some of the changes was trying to stop the problem of deterring people from wanting to join in who may not be quite as knowledgeable as other people in here, which was part of the reason why some of the initial changes took place. Everyone should be able to have an opinion and participate. But there's a difference with calling someone out with facts in a way that keeps the thread going vs getting personal.

Now again, oftentimes the person being called out (generally because sarcasm doesn't always translate well online) is the one behind the problem because they take it the wrong way and start getting too personal and that's usually the start of where it gets difficult. These situations suck because when they escalate, the more we let them go, the worse the thread gets. There's no perfect way to handle it and like you said, we don't want to remove anyone just because of a difference of opinion, even if we also don't agree with it.

However, at the same time, new people do need to fall in line with how things work here and I spend a lot of time behind the scenes PM'ing people to try and get them on the same page with the people who have been here a long time.

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Ross12 said:

Thank you @Ian for this post. Just wanted to mention that as mods, we're all one team but we are also all different people with different experiences and points of view, so we don't always all approach situations in the exact same way. There's no "Moderator Handbook" or strict guidelines for what to do/how to handle every single scenario. I just ask that if you have questions about how/when something was handled, ask. You can message Ian, but you can also message myself or another mod too and we can try to answer your questions. In the vast majority of circumstances, post deletion is simply about either removing inflammatory/inappropriate dialogue or getting seriously derailed threads back on topic. It's not a personal thing at all.

Would much rather be able to discuss this type of thing with the concerned poster when it happens rather than have them get upset and leave over it. We're people - we post here right alongside you. I make a fair number of stupid sh*tposts myself. I really don't post any differently than I did before I became a mod, I don't try to act any differently and I would say my peers are the same way. Again - if you have questions or concerns just reach out, the report tool is great for highlighting active issues but is not the only way to reach us.

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Ian said:

Those situations usually come about from the same person saying it multiple times. It's O.K. to complain or be frustrated, but obviously it's difficult when someone keeps saying it over and over again when everyone else is rooting for the team to hopefully find a way to win. So that's usually when that problem tends to occur. I've reviewed some threads and I've seen where we probably jumped the gun a little too early, but again, that's not an easy gig and everyone here does the best they can with handling it. And it's much, much harder than you think.

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Tony2046 said:

I don't even know who you are anymore.

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Ian said:

Again, I think you're reading a little more into it and I get it due to the contrast of now and previous years, which is where I let some things go on too long.

If there's a thread about a certain topic going on and two people start getting into a war of words (or more specifically, whoever can get the last word), the thread starts shifting toward that (because other people also start chiming in) instead of the original intent of the thread. Now, that doesn't necessarily warrant deletion of anything, but it usually is the starting point where something will happen to push it over. When it does, either myself/or the mods delete that war of words (and sometimes the entire interaction between the two) to get the thread back on topic. If we don't, it spirals out of control.

But disagreements about the topic, honestly, aren't the issue. There are plenty of arguments where two sides are presented and each person battles about whether or not their take on the situation is the correct one, which is obviously fine and it's what makes the threads interesting. No one is expected to agree with everyone else.

There are even moments where it starts to get a little personal, which we usually sit back on because while we're hoping it doesn't bubble over, it sometimes does. Once it does and someone goes a little too far, that's when the posts are removed - when it starts shifting from the argument about the original topic into becoming a little too personal.

Previously, that wasn't addressed years ago and those exchanges derailed the thread because people would start piling on and it would become a mess. The other problem with those exchanges is the fact that it reached a point where things were so ugly, it made it impossible for myself or the mods to punish either person because both people - by that time - had each said some things that really weren't necessary...and on and on it went.

So disagreeing/arguing is fine and nobody has an issue with that, in fact, that's what makes this place so great and it makes the threads more interesting to read/discuss things in. When it starts to get nasty, that's usually the only time any of us get involved. Again, the goal is to moderate as little as possible, but these are obviously the situations we've been trying to at least limit compared to previous years.

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borg said:

Are mods compensated for their work here?

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Tunescribe said:

@Ian, I'm curious how you feel about someone who cherry picks "facts" and fashions them to incessantly push anti-Patriots negative agendas. You may or may not know who/what I'm referring to here, but it casts a pall on many otherwise fair-minded football discussions and defies the spirit of what this site represents. When I have challenged this person on his abject negativity he comes back with "What is wrong in what I said"? Alone in a vacuum the facts themselves are benign, but swathed in his horrid negative attitude the posts become toxic and he posts daily. Why should this be tolerated? Yes, I'm aware of the "ignore" function but the fact this behavior is allowed to continue mystifies me.

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Ross12 said:

Yeah - to piggyback on this line of thinking, GDT moderation is not only about removing trolling but also largely in the "keeping the thread on-topic" bucket. It's already an extremely fast-moving and busy thread as it is, so when you've got posters that (at least seemingly) are trying to flame others or start a discussion about how McDaniels is the worse than Anthrax and he should be fired and who do you guys think the new OC should be? - sometimes the trigger gets pulled on just cutting bait on that post before that sinkhole has a chance to open up even if it may not have ultimately been a sinkhole.

We're definitely not perfect but we do our best. @ashley1992 has taken up the mantle of the GDT Empress and I think she's done a fine job using her best judgment. I'm sure there are some she'd like to have back but there are others she's left up that I may have deleted that ultimately were fine to leave be. It's just in-the-moment judgment calls trying to keep a speeding Maglev train on the track that's carrying traincars full of people jumping all over the damn place.

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Ian said:

I'm not going to get into this too far but I will say I'm aware of a handful of people who fall into this category. I'm not going to get into it publicly, but I do plan on privately addressing it.

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Deus Irae said:

Y'all went way the hell over the line with the GDT moderating, IMO.

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KontradictioN said:

Again, it’s your forum. Just offering my opinion. But I’d have to imagine that this played a good part in a certain well-known poster (not PJ) departing. His style directly conflicted with one of your numbered points in the OP.

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Deus Irae said:

I appreciate all you've done, and you've been nothing but great to me, but we have a fundamental disagreement here. Where once this place allowed for a nice, spirited flow of ideas and arguments, you now want hospital corners and safe spaces. I despise that ****. You want increased censorship. I find that abhorrent. This place has effectively been neutered, and you're happy with that, while I hate it. We're not going to agree on this.

Nor do we have to. It's your place, and you make the rules. I'm just one (doubtless) pain in the ass poster, and I'll be gone soon enough. But as long as I'm still around, I'm going to call out censorship and bad moderation (which are mostly two sides of the same coin) on occasions where I find it particularly offputting. If that gets me banned, such is life.

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