Ask a moderator about the forum and the rules

[Sniperwolf572 758]

@W0lle: No, there's no 'problem' with it, but that's not the point. I think it would be nicer if they would be removed.

I tend to agree with you, because I value the content of the posts more than someones post count or the date they joined, but I have nothing against titles, avatars and signatures (If they're reasonably sized of course).

With that said, I don't think such change is even possible at this moment, forums/database are fragile enough as is.

[raedor 8]

If we don't have data on the users, we have to deal with newbs as hard as with our spam experts... If you have a low post count or a recent register date, you can expect to get away easier with rule violations.

[hardrock 1]

If we don't have data on the users, we have to deal with newbs as hard as with our spam experts... If you have a low post count or a recent register date, you can expect to get away easier with rule violations.

That's a good point, although I have to agree with karantan. The "Groups" and "Posts" part is pretty useless, IMO it would be enough to have the stars and join date only to see approximately how active one member has been so far. As has been said, the rest only leads to prejudices (concerning members with low post counts) and unappropriate division between members (concerning the groups - who of all the real mod makers is in group Mod Maker, f.i.?).

[shadow 6]

With the elitistic nonsense I meant deviding the forum's members on "addonmakers", "modmakers", "CWR team" and such. I'm just surprised there's no any "missionmaker" or "cutscenemaker", or "childrenmaker".

I only see members, modmaker and cwr.

The reason why some people are in different groups is because of their forum access. Right now CWR has its own forums. Modmaker is no longer a "special" group anymore. It was used for the beta testing of the tools for OFP.

edit: I have deleted Modmaker and OFPN Team. The members of those groups are now regular members.

[karantan 0]

Aha, there's some agreeing with my proposal, now all we need is the willing for the changes.  

As I already said, IMHO the following 'atributes' could/can be removed without any fear that the forum would 'suffer' any shakedowns because of it: "Title"(above the avatar), Stars, "Group", "Posts", "Joined".

So gentlemans, just give it a thouth ...

[kronzky 5]

While it is true that the post-count (or number of stars) alone doesn't tell you much about the quality of the posts, it does give you some indication about the history and experience of the poster.

That information can be quite useful if you're trying to answer technical questions, or if you have to make a decision about a rule violation.

Join date alone doesn't really tell enough, because somebody could've joined the forum during OFP times, realized it's not for him, and disappeared for a few years, only to pop up again when ArmA comes out. Now, if he comes up with a basic troubleshooting question, and I only see his ancient join date, my first impression would be to assume that he might've stumbled over a bug. If I know, OTOH, that he's never every posted anything on the board, then I might assume that the problem lies with the "operator"...

The same applies to rule violations, as raedor already mentioned. If I see somebody joined a week ago, and is breaking some rules, I'll probably just send him a friendly reminder and link to the rules. If it's a veteran with hundreds of posts under his belt, I'm probably not quite as lenient.

Or is that why you want to get rid of those indicators?

[Silent N Deadly 0]

I think you're just jealous cos you don't have a 733t post count like me

Placebo

+1WL for not writing in proper english language.

§13) Write in English

In the English part of the board please write in English and in the Czech write in Czech. Try avoiding writing in any other language or (internet) slang since the majority of the members most likely won't understand.

To post at least something on-topic:

I see no problem with that "data-junk", it's definitely not "elitistic nonsense". I can't remember that anyone before brought that to speak.

OK maybe the postcount could be removed as it really doesn't says anything. The usertitles must stay, same with the usergroups.

I would like to ask that this moderator not be allowed to attempt comedy. Thank you for consideration, sorry english no so good. I don't believe comment like that should be shot at Placebo. Thanks you!

[karantan 0]

While it is true that the post-count (or number of stars) alone doesn't tell you much about the quality of the posts, it does give you some indication about the history and experience of the poster.

That information can be quite useful if you're trying to answer technical questions, or if you have to make a decision about a rule violation.

Join date alone doesn't really tell enough, because somebody could've joined the forum during OFP times, realized it's not for him, and disappeared for a few years, only to pop up again when ArmA comes out. Now, if he comes up with a basic troubleshooting question, and I only see his ancient join date, my first impression would be to assume that he might've stumbled over a bug. If I know, OTOH, that he's never every posted anything on the board, then I might assume that the problem lies with the "operator"...

The same applies to rule violations, as raedor already mentioned. If I see somebody joined a week ago, and is breaking some rules, I'll probably just send him a friendly reminder and link to the rules. If it's a veteran with hundreds of posts under his belt, I'm probably not quite as lenient.

Or is that why you want to get rid of those indicators?

Nope, my 'motives' for this lies elswhere, I think this is obvious from my previous posts, but shortly it could be said that I'm alergic on the things which do deviding the people, and ruins the equality amoung them, especially where/when this is not necessary.

Yours and Reador's arguments (for the keeping of those indicators? ) are looking logical and on place, but from my point of view they're somewhat weak, hollow, and sometimes even not valid, so again shortly as I see the things:

- Post count: this is just a number, which don't tells anything, it is not an expirience indicator nor the member's history indicator, and it does not determines the quality but the quantity of the posts; it is responsible for the birth of the spamming as we know it on the internet.

- Join date: I didn't had anything against this ,,, until recently when I saw(read) how some 'veterans' in their posts are exploiting and misusing this information (even combined with the "Group" membership) to/for giving 'in nothing' some 'greenhorns', and to place themselves above them. Typical and a primitive prejudice and the elitism, borned from this indicator. And all mentioned 'incriminated' indicators are baring/hiding such seeds inside! A joined date can't be and it is not an indicator of someone's whatever expirience and/or maturity.

And for the end, just because as I see you're looking on those indicators strictly thru the moderator's glasses (professional deformation ); all the members should and must be equal regardless on the post count, join date and all that junk. What for God sake's the termin "Advanced Member" means for instance? And if someone comes out with the basic troubleshooting question, and you see his ancient join date ,,, so what, an ancient join date, a huge post count, an exotic title nad a five stars don't makes someone smarter or for an expert. You see, even you as a moderator are couth into this web, making preasumptions based on those indicators.

And if someone is breaking the rules; the weight or the seriousness of the 'offence' should determine the weight or the seriousness of the 'punnishment', not those indicators.

[Messiah 2]

I agree that post count, join date etc is indeed no indicator of maturity - You only have to look as far as some of our, ermmm, older members here to see the level of maturity they display.

but I can still see the logic/use of the post count coupled with the date so to gauge the member's experience in the forum. It's normall quite obvious that if a member posts a 400kb image, in the wrong forum and types in capitals, and it's his first post and he joined yesterday, that he evidently hasn't stumbled across the rules yet, which while ignorance shouldn't be bliss, is something he can be pointed towards instead of being slapped so early on.

obviously these indicators are only of use to the moderators, so why not have them only visible to the moderators, or in the profile of the members... assuming these boards allow it.

[raedor 8]

Silent N Deadly, +1WL for obvious spamming and lying. How smart, after 1500 posts of correct english...

[kronzky 5]

It is correct that post-count and join-date are not perfect indicators of somebody's experience, but they do give you some indication of this person's history with OFP/ArmA.

And this is not just useful for moderators, but for regular members as well. Before I became a moderator I found it quite useful to know, when answering technical questions, how long a person has been around (or how active he's been). Most newbie questions are based on lack of knowledge, so all they need most of the time is to be pointed in the right direction. If you're a more experienced player, and are perhaps posting the same question, then it is normally appropriate to assume that the problem may lie a bit deeper than just ignorance.

And, yes, on other boards people may try to jack up their post-count via spamming, but as the above example demonstrates, that doesn't really work here. So normally, somebody with a high post-count will probably also have a high level of experience.

Now don't make the classical logical fallacy of also drawing the reverse conclusion: This doesn't mean that somebody with a low post-count has low experience. It only means that a high post-count normally goes together with a higher level of experience.

And, yes, people can try to abuse it. Like they can try to abuse anything. But that's what the moderators are for - to keep the discussions on a civil level, and to put a stop to abuses like that.

[Silent N Deadly 0]

Silent N Deadly, +1WL for obvious spamming and lying. How smart, after 1500 posts of correct english...

I sorry Kind raedor. I lie about other 1500 posts. This post true. And Stand firm in my belief, thank you, I no spam.

Kind Regards,

SilentnDeadly

[Billabong81 0]

It is actually 1600 posts now mate. Get your numbers right.

On a serious note, I do think post count should correspond to how respected a forum member is.

[brataccas 0]

Silent N Deadly, +1WL for obvious spamming and lying. How smart, after 1500 posts of correct english...

I dont think you should bully Snd cos he is teh ROMANIANZZ not english! LOLZZZZZZ excuse my englush but IM SCOTTISH! just cos u have moderator status for such a cold/shit forum doesnt mean you can just boss ppl around

[franze 196]

brataccas, +2WL for rather obvious flaming and publicly questioning a moderator's decision. You've been here long enough to know better.

Now, if you asked nicely....

[baddo 0]

Hi all,

I have to say I completely agree with karantan about the post counts etc. garbage. I have a distant memory that I brought this up here some time ago by the way...

One good article directly related to this subject:

Setting Up Useful Forums

I will quote the article here in its entirety so it will stay readable over time on this forum.

Quote[/b] ]<span style='font-size:19pt;line-height:100%'>Setting Up Useful Forums</span>

As well as working on Stick Soldiers 3 directly, I spend some of my time working on fan-base-related activities. I recently spent half a day making last-second changes to the new Stick Soldiers Forum. In this article, I am going to explain some quick, but very important changes that you should make if you are running (or planning to run) a public forum using off-the-shelf software.

Joel (on Software) has already written an article in a similar vein. He writes:

Small software implementation details result in big differences in the way the community develops, behaves and feels.

If a forum administrator is limited to setting an example and enforcing rules, then trying to generate a particular kind of forum culture requires ongoing effort, with generally little success. By making the right changes to the forum software itself, long-term changes can be made to community culture that don’t require constant upkeep.

My knowledge about setting up a forum comes from two successful forums. I’ve been a moderator at the large GameDev.net Forum for 4.5 years and I’ve been running the Stick Soldiers Forum for about two years. On both these forums I’ve been able to explore how decisions about forum setup impact the community.

This article is based upon these two forums, so the forums you are setting up or running may have differing goals and require a different setup. However the primary goals I focus on are fairly universal. They are:

* Reduced ongoing cost for administrators (â€self managingâ€)

* Improved signal-to-noise ratio (â€high quality/valueâ€)

* Emphasis on the content that users write

These goals are well suited to most forums. It is unfortunate that most off-the-shelf forum software comes with default settings that leave every feature enabled (sometimes with no easy way to disable them), despite their negative consequences for the average forum. This means that much of this article explains what you should turn off - at least until you are able to make an informed decision about what features your forum actually needs.

<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>Post Counters and User Titles</span>

The first issue is a simple and obvious one. Most forum software will display the number of posts a user has made in a “mini-profile†next to each post. Unfortunately this only conveys information about the quantity of posting, not the quality. When displayed with such prominence it encourages people to post for sole reason of increasing the number.

Newer software makes this worse with the addition of “user titlesâ€. This is a textual label and sometimes a number of stars that are displayed in the mini-profile based upon the number of posts a user makes. A person with a single post might have one star and given the much-despised title of “newbieâ€. Someone with 500 posts might have five stars and be labelled a “super memberâ€.

This gives new users a huge incentive to post as much as possible (while still giving existing members plenty of encouragement). When these features are active, it usually presents itself as (mostly new) users replying to every post on the front page of each forum with very content-sparse responses, often a simple “lol†or “yesâ€. Depending on your users, this can be anything from an occasional annoyance to the majority of your forum’s posts.

The easiest way to disable user titles is to simply delete all but the base-level one (and then giving it a better name than “newbieâ€). To disable the display of post counts will often require removing it from your forum’s template or skin.

<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>Signatures</span>

In theory, signatures are supposed to be a small bit of text, or a politely sized image, attached to meaningful posts (not one-line responses) that give a user space to give information about themselves (such as their website and email address) and add a little personalisation.

In reality signatures are often large, garish, attention-grabbing images (or *shudder* animations) attached indiscriminately to every single post and are tantamount to large banner advertisements that advertise little more than the fact “CoolGuy203″ just made a post.

If you were to give advertisers unlimited, free advertising space between every post, then only advertisers would want to use your forum.

While virtually all software supports signatures, very few provide technical measures to reduce signature obnoxiousness. Without ongoing manual regulation, a forum can quickly turn into an arms race to see who can create the most excessive signature. By disabling them you can save yourself a great deal of time and vastly improve the quality of your forum.

Quality, in this case, can be expressed as the “signal-to-noise ratio†of your forum. The most obvious way that signatures obliterate this ratio is the huge amount of repetitive, unnecessary cruft they add - it is not unusual for a signature to be repeated several times per page, hundreds of times over a forum. Another way is that they encourage people to post for the sake of showing off their signature (or spamming it, to use an advertising “termâ€).

Most importantly, though, is the fact that people will write content that matches an existing signal-to-noise ratio. This could either be from people mentally matching what they see on the forum or that noise-adverse people, who would write high-quality posts that improve the average, take one look at your forum and run away screaming.

On many forums, signatures are applied on a per-post basis at the user’s option. Both GameDev.net and the previous Stick Soldiers Forum have this setup. The checkbox to display a signature was on by default, and the result was that no one would bother to turn it off.

On GameDev.net, we decided to experiment with changing the initial value for this checkbox to “offâ€, so that adding a signature to a post involved a deliberate action. It was interesting to observe that after this change almost no one attached a signature to their post manually (which greatly improved forum quality). This means that the value people get from having a signature attached to a post, is less than the effort that is required to click a single checkbox.

I made a similar change on the previous Stick Soldiers Forum (which involved editing the template to force the checkbox to default off) with the same result, greatly reducing the need to run around deleting very large signatures.

The software that runs the new Stick Soldiers Forum doesn’t have any per-post signature options - a user’s signature is indiscriminately attached to every single post. The easiest way to stop excessive signatures was to simply remove signatures from the forum’s template. This is a workable alternative that provides almost identical results.

If you do disable signatures on your forum, you should try to provide another method of displaying a user’s information (website, email, etc). Most forums give the user a set of predefined fields that will be displayed as appropriate buttons with each of their posts. Avatars are a superior way to allow personalisation that I will discuss later.

<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>Side-box Mini-Profile</span>

This is the box you find to the left of each post that generally contains the user’s name, avatar, and other (often useless) information, such as their post-count.

The problem of side-boxes is that they impose a lower-limit on the on-screen size of a post. This means that very short posts (assuming you’ve not got obnoxious signatures) will be given the same page real-estate as a medium-sized post, as well as additional whitespace.

By making the side-box as small as possible (by removing excess information and limiting the size of avatars), you will ensure that posts are given a visual importance to match their length. This makes the forum easier to read, and it provides a small incentive to put the time into creating a longer post.

On GameDev.net we turned the side-box into a small, aesthetically pleasing bar above each post. This means that a post will never be given excess whitespace. It also provides greater visual emphasis on the post’s content.

<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>Avatars</span>

An avatar is generally a custom image that is displayed next to each user’s post in their mini-profile. Providing they are not huge or animated, I find that they provide a positive benefit to the social environment of a forum.

As well as taking up the signature’s function of providing space for a user to personalise, they provide a good visual indicator of the author of a post. As users spend more time on a forum, they can quickly identify the author of a post without having to stop to read the poster’s name.

On the technical side, I recommend a forum that allows users to upload avatars and allows administrators to set limits on their dimensions and file size. A maximum height of 64 pixels is plenty, much bigger starts to draw attention away from the content of posts and causes the large side-box issue. Being able to block animated images is a useful feature, but I am yet to see any off-the-shelf software that supports this (GameDev.net does, but it is custom software).

<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>Rating System</span>

GameDev.net added a (very fancy) rating system in the last big update; the software that runs the Stick Soldiers Forum comes with a (less fancy) rating system. Adding a rating system to both of these forums has had a generally positive impact.

A rating system’s primary use is to encourage good forum behaviour and discourage bad. It acts as a reward for people who are helpful and friendly, while letting other users know when they are being irritating and annoying. Users who find their rating dropping will hopefully change their behaviour or leave.

The biggest problem with rating systems is that they can generate complaints, particularly from the most annoying members with the lowest ratings. The best way to deal with these is to explain why you have a rating system, and that it is entirely possible to reverse a bad rating with a little effort (there have been several examples on GameDev.net).

Another potential issue is people creating fake accounts to boost ratings. GameDev.net’s software prevents users with similar ratings from affecting each other as well having extensive administration tools. The New Stick Soldiers Forum prevents people from making ratings unless they have posted something. How you combat this will depend on your own forum software.

Because the general community determines the assignment of ratings, a rating system will only be successful if the majority of your community share your goals for the forum. Therefore it is best to add a rating system after your forum is running successfully.

Follow Up: Read about about GameDev.net’s study into the effects of The Lounge (the off-topic forum) on ratings.

<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>Mis-Features and Miscellaneous</span>

The very first “feature†to be removed from the new Stick Soldiers Forums was “personal textâ€. This is like a textual avatar, with no advantage of quick, visual identification. The reason to remove this should be obvious from these first few examples I came across in the new forum when it was opened:

* Badadada its Mr.Plow!

* !1!1shift+1buttonlol!two!1

* Hm.

* ph34r moi

* (>^(>O_O)>

If your users have a personalisation option (be it signatures, avatars or personal text), then they will feel compelled to put something into it. Therefore it is important that such an option provides value regardless of its content (eg: avatars), or it requires that users enter only useful information (eg: “my website†links).

Another “feature†to remove is text effects. The worst is marquee, which is animated. Glow and Shadow are still available in the new Stick Soldiers Forum, and time will tell if they need to be removed (I have seen forums where people write entire posts with these turned on).

One option that can sometimes be good and sometimes bad is “Quick Reply†or “Fast Reply†- a reply box located below the thread listing. These make it easier to post, especially smaller impulsive posts. Whether this is good or bad depends on your forum’s community and if you have taken steps to discourage “lol yes†posts. It is best to turn this off to begin with, and add it once you think it would be useful.

<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>Complaints</span>

It would be unfair of me to write this article without giving you this fair warning: People will complain. Most complaints will come immediately after you make a change (especially when you turn something off). So, if you are starting a new forum, make these changes first to avoid a barrage of complaints later. If you’re already running a forum, be aware that complaints will happen for a few days after a change, and be available to handle them.

You will find that, soon, most people will not miss the old features, and many who complained will actually appreciate the changes.

You will sometimes get complaints out-of-the-blue (â€why don’t we have signatures?â€), particularly about rating systems (â€ne1 tel me y my ratings low?â€). Depending on how successful you are at making your forum self-managing and explaining why your particular setup exists, these will often be dealt with by your existing user base.

The important thing to remember is that it is your forum. You should make a conscious decision about the goals you have and what steps you can take to guide it in that direction. These are choices that shouldn’t be left up to software developers who like to add “cool stuff†or complaints from vocal forum members.

Good luck, forum administrators!

I think this article hit the nail in the head multiple times. Administrators of this forum could use the measures mentioned in this article to improve this forum, but of course, only if they want to do so.

Best Regards,

Baddo.

[brataccas 0]

+2WL for rather obvious flaming and publicly questioning a moderator's decision.

woot! you are too kind and to answer anyones question placebo is NOT the predator, at least not anymore

[raedor 8]

Silent N Deadly, +1WL and 72h holiday for blatant lying (just use the search button and search for your member name).

@hooahman: I was not sure if I can count in every post, there could be some spam...

[Dwarden 1124]

baddo that feature lists + many others (related to search) are my dream for this forum ...

i cross my fingers for future

[brataccas 0]

Ive showed my sis this thread and she is utterly disgusted with the noob mods on here, its predujice against dyslexic ppl and the likes

[raedor 8]

brataccas, to prevent you from further spamming this thread you get +1WL and 24 PR. Nobody here's interested in your sis; we all know that Placebo is not the predator...

[Rhodite 3]

It is actually 1600 posts now mate.  Get your numbers right.

On a serious note, I do think post count should correspond to how respected a forum member is.

While in some cases that may be valid, giving people "cudos" for the number of posts is not a sure way of discerning someones value to a community.

Quality not quantity I believe is what I am saying here.

[Maddmatt 1]

I like the idea of a rating system . It can be pretty easy to abuse though.

You mods sure love giving out warning levels and PRs

[Messiah 2]

isn't that because we love breaking the rules?

[Ironsight 1]

isn't that because we love breaking the rules?

No, it's because we are not allowed to have a little fun.