Thread: There we go again.

  1. #76
    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shawn Belcher
    and when should the mod take action? for exzample I sent a few pm's nothign has happen, now somehting may I'll admit i dont know whats going bhioned the scences.
    but lets say nothing dose then what?
    should they be required to warn the user any time a pm is sent?
    ect
    I have not responded because I have been reading and re-reading this thread, and my conclusion is as before: it takes two hands to clap.

    I can see where you were coming from with your reply to AndrewHunter: you may be indignant at being "blamed" for the thread closure. But remember my reply to your question if you were involved in the flaming? I deliberately did not name anyone as culpable because I was looking at the posts made and what I judged would be the continuation. It was not a particular "X posted x and Y posted y. Flamewar! Close!"

    As you mentioned, you reported to me the behaviour of some people in this thread. When I look at the bigger picture, you are also to blame. You should not have bothered to post your post #16, and then you should have stopped as promised at post #27. But I don't want to play a blame game and hand out official warnings like Christmas presents.

    If Mario F. requests it, I will delete the off topic posts in this thread. In the future, please resist the urge to go off topic in an attempt to get people to get back on topic. For now, let's move on with the discussion.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
    I get maybe two dozen requests for help with some sort of programming or design problem every day. Most have more sense than to send me hundreds of lines of code. If they do, I ask them to find the smallest example that exhibits the problem and send me that. Mostly, they then find the error themselves. "Finding the smallest program that demonstrates the error" is a powerful debugging tool.
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  2. #77
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewHunter View Post
    I was under the impression that that system was in place as well. However, evidently my guess is the general populace wants to change that. If everyone can be happy about just PMing the mod let's stick with that. If, and it appears this is the case, people want to change it; how hard is it to post in a thread warning people to get back on track? I don't believe that will need to happen that often anyway as this place stays pretty busy.
    I've been mum on the whole warn before closing suggestion, but I'm not against it.

    So if the mods do a little more and we give the mods more feedback I think we have a perfect storm brewing. If we have this conversation again, let's read the record so we have an objective account of history and something to hold the mods to.

  3. #78
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    Quote Originally Posted by laserlight View Post
    I have not responded because I have been reading and re-reading this thread, and my conclusion is as before: it takes two hands to clap.

    I can see where you were coming from with your reply to AndrewHunter: you may be indignant at being "blamed" for the thread closure. But remember my reply to your question if you were involved in the flaming? I deliberately did not name anyone as culpable because I was looking at the posts made and what I judged would be the continuation. It was not a particular "X posted x and Y posted y. Flamewar! Close!"

    As you mentioned, you reported to me the behaviour of some people in this thread. When I look at the bigger picture, you are also to blame. You should not have bothered to post your post #16, and then you should have stopped as promised at post #27. But I don't want to play a blame game and hand out official warnings like Christmas presents.

    If Mario F. requests it, I will delete the off topic posts in this thread. In the future, please resist the urge to go off topic in an attempt to get people to get back on topic. For now, let's move on with the discussion.
    I fail how to see #16 is wrong, it gives my opinion on what we need to fix this (a cheep post froum\thrad)
    how ever very well I will repsect that and agree
    as for #27 well me and AndrewHunter where having a debate on the TOS, that to me added something to this if not I am sorry for that to.
    but you are right I have some blame in this, but almsot everyone in the thread dose, almost not all of course.
    English is my first language, I'm just not any good at typing\writing it, I can read and speak it just fine.

  4. #79
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    Quote Originally Posted by whiteflags View Post
    I've been mum on the whole warn before closing suggestion, but I'm not against it.

    So if the mods do a little more and we give the mods more feedback I think we have a perfect storm brewing. If we have this conversation again, let's read the record so we have an objective account of history and something to hold the mods to.
    Sounds like a good plan and I would tend to agree. I honestly don't really even know why the topic was brought up. So what if a thread gets closed off for too much joking? It's not like the conversations don't follow from thread to thread around here, including the jokes. *cough*quzah's tutu*cough*
    Quote Originally Posted by anduril462 View Post
    Now, please, for the love of all things good and holy, think about what you're doing! Don't just run around willy-nilly, coding like a drunk two-year-old....
    Quote Originally Posted by quzah View Post
    ..... Just don't be surprised when I say you aren't using standard C anymore, and as such,are off in your own little universe that I will completely disregard.
    Warning: Some or all of my posted code may be non-standard and as such should not be used and in no case looked at.

  5. #80
    ATH0 quzah's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shawn Belcher View Post
    I fail how to see
    Go on Chuckles, keep trying to win this argument. You're doing great.


    Quzah.
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    Not goin to even repsond to the guy above.

    My main conceron as always is the rules, are some rules in fact not followed? this is really improant as I will follow the rules and if they are not followed be mods then I need to know
    English is my first language, I'm just not any good at typing\writing it, I can read and speak it just fine.

  7. #82
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shawn Belcher View Post
    Not goin to even repsond to the guy above.

    My main conceron as always is the rules, are some rules in fact not followed? this is really improant as I will follow the rules and if they are not followed be mods then I need to know
    Start a new thread and link this one as reference.

    EDIT: Not to step on anyone's toes but this appears to be a topic that Shawn wants to discuss and it is quite different from the scope of the original conversation.
    Last edited by AndrewHunter; 09-22-2011 at 03:04 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by anduril462 View Post
    Now, please, for the love of all things good and holy, think about what you're doing! Don't just run around willy-nilly, coding like a drunk two-year-old....
    Quote Originally Posted by quzah View Post
    ..... Just don't be surprised when I say you aren't using standard C anymore, and as such,are off in your own little universe that I will completely disregard.
    Warning: Some or all of my posted code may be non-standard and as such should not be used and in no case looked at.

  8. #83
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by laserlight View Post
    If Mario F. requests it, I will delete the off topic posts in this thread. In the future, please resist the urge to go off topic in an attempt to get people to get back on topic. For now, let's move on with the discussion.
    I definitely would love to request that, if it wasn't much of a trouble. I don't normally like to see posts deleted because they interfere with what I consider the preservation Cboard's history. The good and the bad. But this has gone so blatantly off-topic, i'm sure if Polybius is reading he has scratched it from his notes already.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  9. #84
    the hat of redundancy hat nvoigt's Avatar
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    If something bothers you, do not use your moderator power to do what no other person on this forums can, unless you got a specific request to moderate a thread by one of the persons involved.
    While moderation on request is certainly neccessary, every user can request moderation because this is a public place. As soon as somebody feels it's inappropriate, we will decide how to moderate.

    Besides, what's up with this? Do I smell the foul stench of democracy? The sick odor of free will? The frosty breath of freedom? This is a dictatorship! We enjoy torturing others and when we aren't eating babies or killing kittens, we close threads just to be able to let out an evil laughter in front of our monitors. We are the webmaster's evil henchmen. We always were, even back when we were alive *muahahaha* *rattle*. Doing evil deeds is part of the job description.
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  10. #85
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by nvoigt View Post
    While moderation on request is certainly neccessary, every user can request moderation because this is a public place. As soon as somebody feels it's inappropriate, we will decide how to moderate.
    Yeah. I didn't construe that statement you quoted well. What I mean to say really is that a user request for moderation does entail immediate action (if you see fit, of course). I'm comfortable with that. It's when no such request exists that a moderator should use more caution when feeling the need to moderate. Unless there's something very obvious going on, I'd really prefer if the moderator announced its intentions prior to take action. It's the least they could do. Otherwise their behavior is just plain rude.

    Quote Originally Posted by nvoigt View Post
    Besides, what's up with this? Do I smell the foul stench of democracy? The sick odor of free will? The frosty breath of freedom? This is a dictatorship! We enjoy torturing others and when we aren't eating babies or killing kittens, we close threads just to be able to let out an evil laughter in front of our monitors. We are the webmaster's evil henchmen. We always were, even back when we were alive *muahahaha* *rattle*. Doing evil deeds is part of the job description.
    I was not entertained. I could be, if you hadn't tried to make a point with it. However, I don't see how your authority is in any way questioned if you take the time to actually moderate instead of just using its tools.
    Last edited by Mario F.; 09-22-2011 at 06:04 AM.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  11. #86
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    As to the moderation, may I make a couple of suggestions?

    - If a topic degenerates--or starts to--into a flamewar, publicly ask that all members stop and get back on topic (PM is never a good idea since only the receiver can read it and by doing so, other people reading the thread will not get that message, especially lurkers). Failing that, start deleting offensive posts and hand out warnings.
    - If a side topic appears in a thread, not related to the discussion, split it into a new thread. No point stopping a good discussion.
    - If a topic is hijacked (another question, jokes, etc), split it. Let people have their fun / question.

    Well, that is my take on the whole.
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    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
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    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

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  12. #87
    &TH of undefined behavior Fordy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    As to the moderation, may I make a couple of suggestions?

    - If a topic degenerates--or starts to--into a flamewar, publicly ask that all members stop and get back on topic (PM is never a good idea since only the receiver can read it and by doing so, other people reading the thread will not get that message, especially lurkers). Failing that, start deleting offensive posts and hand out warnings.
    - If a side topic appears in a thread, not related to the discussion, split it into a new thread. No point stopping a good discussion.
    - If a topic is hijacked (another question, jokes, etc), split it. Let people have their fun / question.

    Well, that is my take on the whole.
    I'm going to try give more warnings before closing a thread from now on, but there are occasions where that just wont do.

    It would be nice to think that I can issue a warning and prune a few posts and that that will put things back in order, but its rare that one poster is the sole problem when a flame-fest begins and sometimes closing a thread and allowing people to walk away is actually a good remedy - I've had "offending" members PM me later and thank me for closing a thread that had got out of hand and got everyone's blood up. This might result in a loss of adding to what was the main body of the discussion, but sometimes its for the best.

    It can also take a fair amount of time and effort to sift through all posts and judge what's flame what's off-topic and what's valid especially when a single post contains a good mix of the three. Whatever judgement call you make, you can guarantee that the poster of the thread you prune will think otherwise.

    Also, there are some threads that are just blatant rule-breakers (hacking related stuff) and they need to be closed. Personally I find a lot of the potentially non-legitimate topics interesting, but the rules on these subjects are the rules and they have been longer than I can remember (if not as written rules then at least as the "culture" of these particular boards).

    I'd also like to add that if anyone has anything to say about a moderation decision, you can always contact the moderation via PM and discuss it. Contrary to what some of you might think, we aren't (all ) power hungry killjoys and I'd say we were open to reversing a decision if we could see it was wrong.

  13. #88
    Master Apprentice phantomotap's Avatar
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    Also, there are some threads that are just blatant rule-breakers (hacking related stuff) and they need to be closed.
    O_o

    I'll stay out of the other argument, but I have to say, I'm right with you on that bit. That last thing CBoard needs is to become known as that sort of place.

    Soma

  14. #89
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fordy View Post
    It can also take a fair amount of time and effort to sift through all posts and judge what's flame what's off-topic and what's valid especially when a single post contains a good mix of the three. Whatever judgement call you make, you can guarantee that the poster of the thread you prune will think otherwise.
    I agree pruning threads isn't always easy or desirable to do. Neither I'm happy with the idea of a moderator having to go through a lot of work in the course of their responsibilities. That's up to you to decide of course, but for what it's worth I don't think that should be a part of the job description.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fordy View Post
    I've had "offending" members PM me later and thank me for closing a thread
    Something I've done myself just recently. After reading the last post on it, I was sure I would be requesting that thread to be closed. Especially considering the thread title. I would gladly have taken the argument elsewhere. Just not that thread. So I thanked the moderator who closed it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fordy View Post
    I'd also like to add that if anyone has anything to say about a moderation decision, you can always contact the moderation via PM and discuss it.
    You are right. There's so much this issue can be debated in a public manner until it becomes awkward to moderators and users alike. I'm done.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

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    I must admit I find discussions of what moderators should or should not do rather tedious.

    A basic fact of life, in any community, is that there is a percentage of members who will ignore the rules, deliberately break the rules, or even accidentally break the rules.

    Without some group (be it a police force in a city, or a moderator team in a forum) to limit such behaviours, any community will become an anarchy. In an anarchy, the one who can force his or her will on others will prevail in any argument and there will be regular power struggles as someone or some group seeks to dictate the community norms.

    When there is such a group, there will always be some other group who insists that the policing should be restrained more. These might be the folks who resent not being able to force their will on others, they might be the "treat us as adults" crowd, or they might even be people who have experienced the consequences of an honest mistake by a moderator..

    Much as people insist otherwise, there is always someone who will pick a fight, someone who will insist on imposing their will on someone else, someone who thinks the rules don't really apply to them. So moderation or policing always becomes necessary.

    Sure, there is always potential for a moderator to abuse their powers. That is why there is value in a diverse moderator team. About the only requirements to be an effective moderator are a willingness to put the interests of the community "at large" above personal interests (which is actually really hard to do), a willingness to stand by unpopular decisions, but still be willing to listen to reason. For people willing and able to do all that, being a moderator is not a privilege. It is a burden. Moderators also need to be willing to accept that there is some proportion of members who deem that moderators do not have a right to participate and others who deem that any minor human failing in a moderator is a sign of malice or incompetence.

    No active community will ever be perfect so moderators are always necessary. People are just too contrary for that. It is fine to discuss tweaking the rules, but moderators must often deal with some circumstance (or member behaviour) that is not covered by the rules. If a rule is put in place to stop a moderator doing something (like closing a thread) then eventually more behaviours will emerge that make it necessary for a moderator to act.

    In the end, just accept that no member is perfect, no community is perfect, moderators are human. Let the moderators get on with their job as long as they don't over-do it. Question what moderators get up to, certainly, but look long and hard at your own behaviour before worrying about what moderators are doing right or wrong. Try and lead by example. If enough members do that, there will be less need for moderation. With less need for moderation, members will tend to be happier, and moderators will breath a sigh of relief at having a lower workload.
    Right 98% of the time, and don't care about the other 3%.

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