Ask a mod

[Messiah 2]

Quote[/b] ]If you think you know the ultimate solution to the situation we're in right now, please PM me

Hire me! I'm an insomniac and seem to be on these forums at rather strange times of the day

(oh... solution you said... I think I'm pretty far from that )

I agree with thinning out the less active mods... 'hire' some new blood, alot of new blood - from different realms of the community so that everyone is 'represented'

looking through the current list of Moderators, I havn't seen head nor toe of the following moderators in the last year or more:

Warin, R. Gerschwarzenge and Edge... a couple of others I don't recognise, but I understand these are Czech moderators, and of course they wont generally stray too far from their forums if their grasp of english is low.

The recruitment of Raedor was an excellent choice of course, and a good addition to the team as far as I could tell.

[JdB 151]

Quote[/b] ]I agree with thinning out the less active mods... 'hire' some new blood, alot of new blood - from different realms of the community so that everyone is 'represented'

Representing "everybody" as you say might very well unintentionally encourage biased opinions. Though it would cause some problems with "not getting the point across", wouldn't it be better to have moderators that are totally new to this forum?

Fresh, not affiliated with any mods or other organisations etc. Sure, it's easy for someone to say that they will never let their own feelings get in the way of their moderating duties, but only very few people actually manage to do so (in my personal experience Placebo being one of them).

[Placebo 29]

Warin, R. Gerschwarzenge and Edge

Warin & R. Gerschwarzenge are currently inactive, hence they've been removed as listed moderators in the forum index, however I recruit moderators based on how well they will do the job, not how often, obviously when a moderator for personal reasons becomes absent it's then the job of the head moderator to spot that gap and recruit the right person at the right time, hence the recent recruitment of Raedor and Edge (Edge is solely a Czech forum moderator as I felt that we needed specific help there).

My policy has always been that someone asking for the job or acting on the forums as if they're a moderator is the wrong kind of mentality for the job, perhaps that's wrong, but the moderators I recruited personally over the past 5 plus years have never let me down.

[chris330 0]

(if anyone knows Grimsby they'll know sitting inside moderating forums is a damn sight more enjoyable than job hunting )

Birkenhead is no better mate. Great if you like shelf-stacking or cleaning toilets. Better yet freeze your balls off loading HGV trailers or pack a few still-twitching murdered chickens at the factory in Deeside.

Had no idea you were from Grimsby, or that you were unemployed. You do indeed have my sympathies, and I mean that in no humourous way sadly, although I'd like to be able to, but having lived through it well...

[blackdog~ 0]

I guess I know whome you´re thinking about and imo the good old "if you got nothing to contribute, do not post" should be perfectly ok for him. His only intention seem to be to bring Arma down and even tell forum newbies to stay away from Arma, which is kind of funny, keeping in mind that he only has the chance to because BIS is paying for it...

I´d like to see him gone soon aswell. He´s not contributing in any way.

It's not just one person, it's a lot of people who repeatedly spam:

I started writing a massive rant a while ago and here's an excerpt:

--------------------------------------------------------------

BEGIN MASSIVE RANT

--------------------------------------------------------------

One of the "spam styles" that really irks me is the way that people pretend to be moderators. This means people who reply to threads with something like "This doesn't belong here! I'm going to use the report this post to a moderator!" I've noticed that whenever people do this they tend not to contribute anything other than their moderating decision to the topic. For example, some guy posts a thread in the wrong forum and another guy replies saying.

Quote[/b] ]You posted this in the wrong forum. You need to right your ways or you will be punished brutally for your eternal sins against the board rules.

And that is all they post.

How does this contribute anything to the forum? Let me tell you how: it doesn't. Just because you got to a topic that a moderator hasn't seen yet doesn't mean that you need to let everyone know it by expressing your personal opinion on how a thread should be moderated, nor do you need to let everyone know that "yeah guys don't worry I've got this post reported to a moderator it's going to be all better soon!". It's not as if the moderators can't make their own decisions on what direction a thread needs to go. If you ask me, the best thing one can do when something is posted in the wrong forum is to simply to wait for a moderator to deal with it. Until then, post to the thread as if it were in the right forum and don't bitch and moan about how it was posted in the wrong place.

Another "spam style" that I really enjoy are posts like this.

Quote[/b] ]LOL

or

Quote[/b] ]

And once again, this is all they post.

Do I even need to explain why these posts piss me off? The forum is not an instant messenger service. It is a highly valuable official communications tool that BIS has kindly been providing to the OFP community for the past 4-5 years, for free. It really gets on my nerves when I have to go through pages and pages of this crap before finding something in coherent English that is actually worth reading.

Coherant English posts that are actually worth reading. Wow, that's another thing that I miss from 2003-2004. I'm being somewhat hypocritical here but may I please refer everyone to the forum rules?

Please avoid using short forms of words e.g. "m8" instead of mate, "u r" instead of you are or your, it may seem attractive to type in such a "shorthand" manner but remember that there are many people on the forums who do not have English as a first language, so it is disrespectful to use bad English simply for the sake of laziness. (Obviously there are common shortenings of words that have been used for many years on the internet that continue to be acceptable, e.g. LMAO, LOL, FYI etc.)

Fortunately, I've only just recently noticed an influx in usage of shorthand like "ur" and such. It's still damn annoying. Stop it!

--------------------------------------------------------------

END MASSIVE RANT

--------------------------------------------------------------

I personally would hope that my flowchart or at least a variation of it could be incorporated into the streamlined board rules. At the moment it is only represented in a textual manner in the rules as:

...ask yourself "does my reply add to the discussion in a way for the discussion to continue further"? If not then think of something "meatier" to add to the thread.

I know I blew a lot of these things out of proportion but they just make me .

[Messiah 2]

Warin, R. Gerschwarzenge and Edge

Warin & R. Gerschwarzenge are currently inactive, hence they've been removed as listed moderators in the forum index, however I recruit moderators based on how well they will do the job, not how often, obviously when a moderator for personal reasons becomes absent it's then the job of the head moderator to spot that gap and recruit the right person at the right time, hence the recent recruitment of Raedor and Edge (Edge is solely a Czech forum moderator as I felt that we needed specific help there).

My policy has always been that someone asking for the job or acting on the forums as if they're a moderator is the wrong kind of mentality for the job, perhaps that's wrong, but the moderators I recruited personally over the past 5 plus years have never let me down.

of course... I'm not throwing blame or fault at their feet... after all its an unpaid job so of course RL etc always comes first - that goes without saying. Didn't know edge was soley czech... could have sworn I'd seen him around these forums before?

I agree with your second statement... It was the same at OFPEC when I first joined, back in the days of tigershark and wolfsbane and when I moderated briefly... untill they realised i was 17 (at the time) and therefore contraveined their rules on who could become moderator. Those with the high and mighty ego are hardly going to do the job well - I don't think you've made a bad choice thus far, although I'm relativly new here.

Quote[/b] ]Representing "everybody" as you say might very well unintentionally encourage biased opinions. Though it would cause some problems with "not getting the point across", wouldn't it be better to have moderators that are totally new to this forum?

Fresh, not affiliated with any mods or other organisations etc. Sure, it's easy for someone to say that they will never let their own feelings get in the way of their moderating duties, but only very few people actually manage to do so (in my personal experience Placebo being one of them)

The problem is there is no such person who is unbiased. Everyone makes their own friends, affiliations etc on a forum, has their own views and intepretations of the rules etc whether they realise it or not. I run a team of 50 or so staff at work as their supervisor, and as much as one trys to be unbiased and fair in carrying out ones duties, every now and then you find yourself, not by malice or by favour, bending the rules for people etc... normally it takes someone else to notice and bring you back to your senses... I've been doing it for 4 years, and still it occurs...

bringing in an outsider would prevent this initially, but give it a few months and they'll be in the same position, plus as fresh meat they have very little idea or prespective on how placebo likes his forum run, whilst the current members have a grasp of it, but obviouslly dont see what goes on behind the scenes

[BraTTy 0]

My email is down if by chance you were looking for volunteers or even some temporary help.

I could handle a area or two

[ralphwiggum 6]

Here is a perfect example of spamming

"Well the mods have to keep at least 500 warning boxes in circulation. When they removed mine they had to find someone to tack them to so the most obvious choices were you and Hellfish. "

"Next time i want a retard talking to me i'll go shopping at walmart. "

[Daddl 10]

And now for something completely different: is there a separate forum layout for reading them on mobile devices like smartphones (usual screen resolution 200x320)? Even using a service like OperaMini that shrinks images its still far from comfortable reading these forums while being away from a normal pc (the main problem being the richness of the interface, not graphics like sigs and stuff).

[shadow 6]

I have no idea. Why dont you get a bigger phone with like a 10" screen and higher res?

Merry Christmas

[j w 0]

Why can't we have a 600x150px image for signature, and nothing else?

[Harnu 0]

Because the rules are a 600x100 pixels maximum for pics in your sig. Large images in signatures cause a bit of clutter on forums, as well as a strain on 56k users when multiple posters may have larger pics in their signature, in addition to whatever may be on that page. As far as why 100 pixel height was chosen as opposed to 50, 75, 99, 101, 150? Well, they had to pick something.

[sickboy 13]

Could this topic be made sticky please?

Already seen a few cases where ppl reported problems that were related to this but didn't find a solution

[j w 0]

I would like to ask you moderator kindly to pin this topic. There are 29 squads in the list, and counting.

Thank you for doing whatever you like

JW

EDIT: Thank you

[shadow 6]

Could this topic be made sticky please?

Already seen a few cases where ppl reported problems that were related to this but didn't find a solution

I suggest you post the problem and solution in this thread.

No need for a pinned thread for only a single issue.

[mr burns 133]

The search function seems to be bugged, at least for the Troubleshooting section in ArmA Forum.

No matter what i search for it tells me that no matches were found.

So i tried the search for an existing thread title ( Mouse lag ) and it didn´t even find that one

And yes, i ticked the "and older" box.

[j w 0]

It worked for me when I clicked in all the ArmA-subforums, but not when choosing only ArmA - Troubleshooting.

Found when searching for Ask a mod in Offtopic.

Wierd :/

[sickboy 13]

I suggest you post the problem and solution in this thread.

No need for a pinned thread for only a single issue.  

Great idea, thanks!

[shadow 6]

The Arma TS part of the database is fubar when searching.

The troubleshooting forum is being troubleshooted.

[hellfish6 7]

Has there been any discussion about adopting new forum software? The more I troll other forums, the more dissatisfied I am with the Ikonboard. I really like the vBulletin and Invision Power Board software. As a user, its very easy to see what threads I'm subscribed to, what threads are new and interesting and they also offer a more friendly search function, IMHO.

[shadow 6]

I dont know what BI have discussed if at all, but I think they are going with an upgrade to the latest IB version.

Personally I like IB alot more than all the php and ubb boards I've seen. Especially from a administrating side.

There are alot of new great user-functions in the latest IB by the way.

[blackdog~ 0]

Is there any chance of a 'thumbs down' post icon being added? Recently (actually since like 2002), I've been having quite a fuss over various things and the ol' 'exclamation point' and 'angry face' aren't cutting it. I would suggest substituting the 'stoned' post icon with it.

[shadow 6]

There are no current plans to do anything about the smilies.

Maybe during a future forum-upgrade.

[action man 0]

No matter what i search for it tells me that no matches were found.

I also tried searching for my answer,alas all to no avail(gotta love this search engine) Any way my question is-when will my warning level dissapear? And what if say for instance you had 1 warning level and 3 weeks later you got another 1 how does that work when it's time for the warning level to go? Just had a thought does the warning level ever dissapear? My warning level was a "gift" from the recently departed good mr placebo! I think he was an unfair act on his part but hey i won't go their

[j w 0]

Who will become the Forum leader now when Paul is gone?

Or are there just going to be a strong moderatorteam?