I really can't believe that it's being even remotely considered.
Isn't it generally considered that cliques are a
BAD thing? Don't all of you still in high school - or who can still remember high school - have enough of that crap to deal with in your day to day lives?
[sarcasm]Oooooh, I hope I'm cool enough to be awarded the golden link to the mystical secret HMRCWG thread. I'll be crushed if I don't make the cut. I'll be your best friend if you give me the password.[/sarcasm]
To put a velvet rope and a big burly guy with sunglasses across the door to this thread is idiocy. It does nothing positive and does many things negative. First off, the secret will stay secret for about 37 minutes, if that. Second, it creates alot of animosity between 'in' and 'out'. And for what? Because a small group of people want to feel cool and chat among themselves?
News at 10: there are private messages, email, and IM for that. Imagine - AIM will even let more than two of you have a chat together
all at the same time. Isn't modern technology wonderful?
Personally, I think that the HMRCWG thread does its best duty as a magnet for postwhoring in order to try to keep it all in one place. There's one district in every city where the hookers are safe from the police, because it keeps them out of all the other neighborhoods. So it should be with the HMRCWG thread.
I hate to say it, but the culture here encourages postwhoring in several ways:
1) by emphasizing high post counts with special avatar and status privleges;
2) by catering to a younger crowd (I know, not all young people are immature, not all older people are mature; it's just a general tendency); and
3) by lack of enforcement of the AUP.
If post whoring is seen as a problem, then it should be dealt with by having teeth in the AUP - and by using those teeth. In my first day here, I saw the HMRCWG thread. It was filled with thousands of one-smilie posts and "hey, X" messages. I posted 10 or so one word posts to get some count up, and literally within minutes I was politely but firmly corrected by NocturnalPS. I gave him some guff about it (since it seemed like 97% of the thread was just like that), and I didn't know he was a moderator, BUT I figured if it had attracted such quick attention that I should stop doing it. So I did. End of story.
Let me preface this next part by saying I'm one of 4 or 5 administrators over at
www.neons.org, a forum of similar size and volume as GTP. I've got the power there to delete or edit threads, ban users, and use the megaphone to make announcements. This is not bragging, but it is meant to demonstrate that I know what the job entails and I've done it myself for about 5 years.
This ties in with a post I was going to make in the km "Is it just me" thread. The quality of this forum is a two-sided coin. On the 'heads' side, each user needs to have a modicum of self-discipline. They are responsible for their own posts and the reactions those posts generate, and that needs to be understood by each person here. If everybody was mature, reasonable and intelligent, there would be very little need for moderators, obviously. It would also be a very different place.
On the 'tails' side of the coin, though, is the mod staff. Good mods are like parents - they give you reasonable rules, they turn you loose to grow on your own within those rules, and they correct you when you violate them. We pretty much have the first part - the AUP has its limitations, but overall it's enough that anybody who's not deliberately trying to be obnoxious can understand and follow it.
The second part is what it is. People, especially young people, need to find their own way in society. People need to figure out how to get along with others; how to earn respect and how to pay it. Some people are so overcome with excitement at seeing their own words that they just can't stand it, and some people just need to be the center of attention.
This is where the third part comes in: enforcement by the mod staff. Do parents who skip the 'correction' part raise good kids? No. For the most part, they raise obnoxious whiny brats. Boombexus has explained a simple 4-step process that moderators can use to perform their duties. It's really as simple as that, but it needs to actually be
done if the moderating is going to be effective. Give people a polite comment first. If that doesn't work, make it a little firmer. Then a PM warning to obey the rules or expect consquences. Then ban 'em. Everybody tries to avoid that situation, just as cops would much rather help people than arrest them. But sooner or later it has to be done in some cases, and there is no point in avoiding it if the situation calls for a ban.
Consistent moderation is the ideal, and the closer the staff can get to that, the better this place will be. There is no chance of improvement if the rules are selectively enforced. If the mods are clear, fair, and firm, they and the rules will be respected by the vast majority of users. Users who refuse to do so should be invited to leave - and then be escorted out if they don't take the hint.
The thing to remember is that boards such as this are
not a public forum like a park or streetcorner. This is Jordan's house, and he makes the rules. He invites us to the party, and he makes sure the rules are reasonable, and he is a gracious host to 7,000 strangers. But nonetheless it's his right to set the standards, and his right to see that those standards are met.
That leaves me with, what? 2 options? Asking people nicely to quit posting stupid crap(which never works because people never take me seriously), and to just delete the stupid posts. Deleting 90,000+ posts on 56k is not possible.
