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

[primetime]

I will never be censored. The mods can't touch me. Unbreakable, unbannable, untouchable. Now move this thread to the political forum where it belongs, peasants.

 

[Ian]

The increased censorship is something you assured us was not going to happen.

It's not an issue of censorship, and it's a fine line when it comes to trying to stay fairly loose with the majority of posts while trying to keep this place somewhat civil. And honestly, according to the mod log, not many of yours tend to be deleted. Especially compared to some others.

I think you’re going to have the place a bit over-moderated here, brother. I hope it works out for you. In the end, you’re the one who has to deal with it, so it’s your call to make. I also think you’re going to put a lot more work on your plate by encouraging the reporting of posts. You’re going to get a lot of pure **** reported that doesn’t violate the rules that you’ll have to sift through and it’ll create hurt feelings when you don’t remove those posts.

The report tool is already used quite a bit in here, which I'm fine with because it provides a record for us to point us to posts where we can try and make sense of things, especially since it's tough to review absolutely every post in every thread.

It makes it easier to quickly be able to review posts that might be an issue. However, not all reported posts are necessarily deleted as sometimes it's obviously just someone who might be upset over a post but it's not something that warrants being removed. But it puts the potential offender on our radar and while the reported post might not be dealt with, follow up ones from that poster may be - which also tends to happen.

 

[TB_Helmet]

I think you’re going to have the place a bit over-moderated here, brother. I hope it works out for you. In the end, you’re the one who has to deal with it, so it’s your call to make. I also think you’re going to put a lot more work on your plate by encouraging the reporting of posts. You’re going to get a lot of pure **** reported that doesn’t violate the rules that you’ll have to sift through and it’ll create hurt feelings when you don’t remove those posts.

I think the current state is just about right. Sometimes you'll have blow-ups like this weekend but that's to be expected. I've seen boards that were heavily moderated and that gets annoying and mostly reflects the mods on a power trip. But I've also been on boards that weren't moderated at all and they descend into 50% trolls and other vile, toxic content that's not at all related to the board's purpose. They become landing spots for people with literal mental disorders who have a platform to say whatever they want to a wide audience. It can happen to any board including this one and some level of moderation is needed to keep that in check.

Anyone who gets their feelings hurt about moderation on a football message board needs to reassess their priorities in life.

The only thing I don't like here is that words like moron (mo ron) are censored, it hurts my ability to talk about Chiefs fans and Terrell Suggs.

ETA apparently that's no longer the case!

 

[maust]

No political talk, but I can't speak for the person you're mentioning. James White seems to like him, so I don't know what else to tell you there

Saw what you did there. Bet you thought making it football related by mentioning James White would keep your post from getting deleted. But you made the mistake of quoting my post, as soon as Big Brother sees the exchange reported by the Illuminati lying doggo in the weeds your post is headed for the ash heap right along with mine smart guy.

Now you'll have to excuse me while I busily get to work figuring out some new deviltry to stir up further eddies in the dust of rage

 

[Tony2046]

I think the current state is just about right. Sometimes you'll have blow-ups like this weekend but that's to be expected. I've seen boards that were heavily moderated and that gets annoying and mostly reflects the mods on a power trip. But I've also been on boards that weren't moderated at all and they descend into 50% trolls and other vile, toxic content that's not at all related to the board's purpose. They become landing spots for people with literal mental disorders who have a platform to say whatever they want to a wide audience. It can happen to any board including this one and some level of moderation is needed to keep that in check.

Anyone who gets their feelings hurt about moderation on a football message board needs to reassess their priorities in life.

The only thing I don't like here is that words like moron (mo ron) are censored, it hurts my ability to talk about Chiefs fans and Terrell Suggs.

ETA apparently that's no longer the case!

You moron.

Sorry. Just testing.

 

[Deus Irae]

It's not an issue of censorship, and it's a fine line when it comes to trying to stay fairly loose with the majority of posts while trying to keep this place somewhat civil. And honestly, according to the mod log, not many of yours tend to be deleted. Especially compared to some others.

This board has two problems which have been worsening in recent years. One is that it's being over-moderated. The other is that the censorship has ramped up. I've kept mostly quiet about them until recently, but it's been glaringly obvious that both have been happening.

Years back, you reached a point where you thought the confrontations were going too far. You asked me to pull back. I've done so, a lot, as my posting history shows, and I've put a lot of people on ignore when I'd rather just blast the hell out of them. But it's now gone way too far in the other direction. As for the censorship, its increase is obvious. I'm clearly not the only one who's noticed these things.

It's your house. It's your rules. We accept that by remaining here. But running the place as if everything has electronic hospital corners is not what this place used to be about.

 

[Ian]

I think you’re going to have the place a bit over-moderated here, brother. I hope it works out for you. In the end, you’re the one who has to deal with it, so it’s your call to make. I also think you’re going to put a lot more work on your plate by encouraging the reporting of posts. You’re going to get a lot of pure **** reported that doesn’t violate the rules that you’ll have to sift through and it’ll create hurt feelings when you don’t remove those posts.

Following up on this same topic, I will say that there is a decent percentage of reports that come through that don't warrant attention. That means that just because someone disagrees with a post, it may not necessarily be addressed. Only ones that are either off-topic and/or potentially offensive are the ones that are dealt with.

Again, I think a few people might be getting the wrong message. The goal is to not have to moderate at all and we try and do it as little as possible. But if something flares up, that's when the original post and subsequent ones are deleted for the sake of trying to salvage the thread.

 

[TB_Helmet]

You moron.

Sorry. Just testing.

Hey at least I’m not a ****ing mother****er *******.

Yup still works!

Surprised ‘mother’ is left in honestly.

 

[Kontradiction]

I think the current state is just about right. Sometimes you'll have blow-ups like this weekend but that's to be expected. I've seen boards that were heavily moderated and that gets annoying and mostly reflects the mods on a power trip. But I've also been on boards that weren't moderated at all and they descend into 50% trolls and other vile, toxic content that's not at all related to the board's purpose. They become landing spots for people with literal mental disorders who have a platform to say whatever they want to a wide audience. It can happen to any board including this one and some level of moderation is needed to keep that in check.

Anyone who gets their feelings hurt about moderation on a football message board needs to reassess their priorities in life.

The only thing I don't like here is that words like moron (mo ron) are censored, it hurts my ability to talk about Chiefs fans and Terrell Suggs.

ETA apparently that's no longer the case!

No moderation is more closely reflective of an open forum that encourages all individuals to participate. I am relatively certain that is the point of a discussion forum. And the beauty of free speech, even in the context of an online message board, is that you can call people out for saying some dumb stuff. You can also get called out yourself. An over-moderated forum is one that, ultimately, does not want a flow of free thought nor does it encourage anyone aside from a simple subset of the fan base to join. That’s why forums tend to go downhill when they become over-moderated.

 

[Kontradiction]

Following up on this same topic, I will say that there is a decent percentage of reports that come through that don't warrant attention. That means that just because someone disagrees with a post, it may not necessarily be addressed. Only ones that are either off-topic and/or potentially offensive are the ones that are dealt with.

Again, I think a few people might be getting the wrong message. The goal is to not have to moderate at all and we try and do it as little as possible. But if something flares up, that's when the original post and subsequent ones are deleted for the sake of trying to salvage the thread.

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.

 

[maust]

Now move this thread to the political forum where it belongs, peasants.

I take offense to your cavalier and insensitive application of that word. You clearly have no understanding of my people's struggle.

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

This board has two problems which have been worsening in recent years. One is that it's being over-moderated. The other is that the censorship has ramped up. I've kept mostly quiet about them until recently, but it's been glaringly obvious that both have been happening.

Years back, you reached a point where you thought the confrontations were going too far. You asked me to pull back. I've done so, a lot, as my posting history shows, and I've put a lot of people on ignore when I'd rather just blast the hell out of them. But it's now gone way too far in the other direction. As for the censorship, its increase is obvious. I'm clearly not the only one who's noticed these things.

It's your house. It's your rules. We accept that by remaining here. But running the place as if everything has electronic hospital corners is not what this place used to be about.

It would be unfortunate if Ian had to leave a garrison here.

Regards,
Chris

 

[neuronet]

Not easy. This is by far the best forum I have ever participated in. I have personally run a couple of forums, and it is really, really hard. My most active one got about 20 messages a day, so it was child's play and the biggest problem was keeping out obvious spam. People should probably be accepting of a certain frequency of false positives and false negatives. It is impossible to be perfect as a moderator of a forum, but this forum gets a lot more right than it gets wrong.

Now merge this thread into another thread, mods.

 

[primetime]

I take offense to your cavalier and insensitive application of that word. You clearly have no understanding of my people's struggle.

Reported for character attack, hope you enjoy your show trial

 

[Kdo5]

Not easy. This is by far the best forum I have ever participated in. I have personally run a couple of forums, and it is really, really hard. My most active one got about 20 messages a day, so it was child's play and the biggest problem was keeping out obvious spam. People should probably be accepting of a certain frequency of false positives and false negatives. It is impossible to be perfect as a moderator of a forum, but this forum gets a lot more right than it gets wrong.

Now merge this thread into another thread, mods.

I admin’d at a forum years ago. It had several thousand members and was quite active and it was a royal pain in the ass trying to moderate it. It’s a thankless task where people are always complaining. Patsfans is much bigger than that so I’ve gotta give credit to the mods here and hope they don’t change anything they’ve been doing.

 

[Ian]

This board has two problems which have been worsening in recent years. One is that it's being over-moderated. The other is that the censorship has ramped up. I've kept mostly quiet about them until recently, but it's been glaringly obvious that both have been happening.

Years back, you reached a point where you thought the confrontations were going too far. You asked me to pull back. I've done so, a lot, as my posting history shows, and I've put a lot of people on ignore when I'd rather just blast the hell out of them. But it's now gone way too far in the other direction. As for the censorship, its increase is obvious. I'm clearly not the only one who's noticed these things.

It's your house. It's your rules. We accept that by remaining here. But running the place as if everything has electronic hospital corners is not what this place used to be about.

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.

 

[maust]

Reported for character attack, hope you enjoy your show trial

The persecution continues yet the tribe survives

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Could not agree more with the site policy against political discussion. There have always been a few snide political remarks. If I don't see it as humorous, I just hit a rare Dislike and move on. Tangential occasional political references aside, this is the wrong forum to hash out politics & religion. If it went that way. I'd ignore the forum except for on topic breaking football news.
I could not care less if any of my posts get deleted by a MOAB hitting way off discussion.

 

[Ian]

No moderation is more closely reflective of an open forum that encourages all individuals to participate. I am relatively certain that is the point of a discussion forum. And the beauty of free speech, even in the context of an online message board, is that you can call people out for saying some dumb stuff. You can also get called out yourself. An over-moderated forum is one that, ultimately, does not want a flow of free thought nor does it encourage anyone aside from a simple subset of the fan base to join. That’s why forums tend to go downhill when they become over-moderated.

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.

 

[Ian]

Not easy. This is by far the best forum I have ever participated in. I have personally run a couple of forums, and it is really, really hard. My most active one got about 20 messages a day, so it was child's play and the biggest problem was keeping out obvious spam. People should probably be accepting of a certain frequency of false positives and false negatives. It is impossible to be perfect as a moderator of a forum, but this forum gets a lot more right than it gets wrong.

Now merge this thread into another thread, mods.

On this same topic, we're cutting back on thread merges, that was a point of discussion prior to the offseason as we're trying to eliminate the mega threads. We tried that and it makes breaking news/reports harder to find, so that's one of the changes we've made this offseason.