[Mrs. Patton]

The rules - in particular the embargo on politics and religion. That's a different story. It does feel overly sanitised here at times and it getting a bit grimy from time to time could be an interesting sight.

Politics and Religion should be allowed as long as you sign a contract saying 'I won't act like a petulant whining organism if someone holds a view contrary to my own'.

[Racheal Robertson]

Have you seen the bethesda fan forums topics on that? I don't think after seeing that we can easily talk about those topics.

The fan forums I've been at handled it very well. :shrug: But I see your point.
Still, banning any post touching the subjects is a bit too strict IMO.

[Kayleigh Mcneil]

If I had to do their work.. like police the skyrim board.. I'd be unpleasant.

not that the mods aren't unpleasant, because they are


pleasant. I meant pleasant :hehe:

most of the time. :ermm:




again, I'm chalking up most of their transgressions to then having just come off of the skyrim board, seeing us dike around here, and then them thinking
'christ, you turkeys should know better..' :facepalm:


which most of us do, we just tend to treat CD like an extension of our livingrooms, and so we get sloppy sometimes.


and like a livingroom, sometimes they think
'meh, whatever..' :shrug:


and other times they think
'[censored] it, I'm cleaning this mess up.' :yuck:



I also sometimes think that the cultification (new word! :dance: ) may have caused a slightly swollen cranium here and there, so taking 'em down a notch with a wink and a smile is nothing but my self appointed forum duty.

After all, we watch the watchers :hubbahubba:

[Je suis]

I dunno. Pros and cons: the moderators ensure that it doesn't degenerate into the sort of sewer that Usenet has become, but it's perhaps too far in the other direction.


Isn't the admins' usual line to take it up with the moderator in question?

Well, usually talking to the moderator is the first step. There are times when we've done something accidentally [like include someone's post in a "bulk" spam delete in a thread] that we can fix immediately. Or the poster might be able to explain that even though they said "downloaded" they meant "installed". If, for whatever reason, we can't do something to remedy the situation, we direct people to Gstaff or Nick. Since we log everything we do they have all the information pertaining to whatever the issue might be, and they can make the final decision. For the record, "I just felt like banning them." isn't enough of a reason, despite what some posters apparently believe. There are a few instaban offenses listed in the rules, but other than those, we don't simply ban people for their first offense.

If the admins ever wanted to thin out the forum population in a major way, all they'd have to do is allow political and religious discussion. People would end up banned all over the place. I wasn't a mod then, but I recall seeing the fallout from the Bush/Gore election, which was the main reason real world politics was moved to the "not discussed here" list. It wasn't pretty, and some posters did end up banned over it. The easiest way to get people to react is to attack a deeply held idea or belief and unfortunately both politics and religion are high on that list. When someone is absolutely sure what they believe is correct, having others, equally convinced *their* belief is correct, say they are wrong gets really bad, really fast.

[ZANEY82]

After all, we watch the watchers :hubbahubba:

old Andy how do you always seem to always a charming demeanor about your posts. I mean you always find some way to sound witty in the most of awkward of circumstances.

[Tanya Parra]

I have to ask what exactly you're talking about? When do people give the mods "a hard time"? I've never seen that. Not even once.

Things can be rather, uhhh, unpleasant in the Skyrim forum at the moment, and it only gonna get worse until the game is released in a month from now. And then it gonna get even worse for several more months while people are playing the game!

I do remember when I first joined it was a lot different community forum, and we had quite a few characters we don't have now. Even though the slight controversies over them I do admit it seemed like it was highschool all over again, in a good way. Nowadays it seems like a preschool , not to be demeaning at all. It just feels bland here, Hellokitty where are you now? I am not sure if the moderation got harsher or if the members got more inpatient or dislikes on what we couldn't talked about. I can't remember the last time we had a serious fight or anything. Sure the rivalries and some people who may have been thought of annoying didn't really hurt the community much at all but it gave this place some sort of "spice" to it. It seems like years since I have posted a positive response on this forum. Am I getting old and grumpy from this forum? Maybe I should stop thinking about the past....it is just so boring now.

There are a lot of people who feel like that.

• Joins the forum.
  
• Everything is new and exciting and cool!
  
• The other members are cool too!
  
• Golden forum age! So awesome, hooray for awesome internet friends!
  
• Newcomers arrive, who are they to ruin our golden age atmosphere! And other changes, how dare they!
  
• This is getting really annoying!
  
• Spin-off forum created.
  
• Spends time on the spin-off forum remembering the good old days and talking about how polluted that place has become and sometimes link to a thread to that place to prove the point and laught at their ignorance. Things sure are better here on this spin-off place!
  
• Returns to the forum now and then to make snide remarks about how svcky things are and not being a productive member at all but instead trying to make the forum into some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

This list of events have happened so many times over the ~9 years I've been a moderator here, and I've seen so many spin-off forums being created and seen this pattern in so many members. Heck, it happened to me too when I left this place in early 2002 as lots of newcomers arrived because of Morrowind was closer to release and then returned some half year later. But there is always an influx of new members who will always experience a new personal golden age. And sometimes it's easy to forget that

Although I guess the whole thing isn't very surprising. When you outgrown someone in a relationship, do you still hold that person in high regard or consider the person to be a [censored]? A surprisingly large amount of people really do seem to hate their exes despite all the fond experiences they have shared.

Anyway, I think if politics and religion were confined to their own threads or something it could make for a really interesting discussion, without it destroying every other thread. Failing that, just being able to mention politics or religion without having your post edited or deleted would be nice.

That rule came to be during the US elections 2004. Before the rule, the US elections 2004 was a pure hell. Very few here in CD at the time seemed to be able to repect the viewpoints of others at all.

[Dagan Wilkin]

Meh, as far as I can tell they run a tight ship, no biggie really, I actually enjoy this 'port in the storm' as it were.

[Stu Clarke]

This forum is far too big to go without any moderation. While I don't always agree with their individual actions, they are as a whole a positive and necessary force. In other words, yes, they help the forum.

[Mr.Broom30]

old Andy how do you always seem to always a charming demeanor about your posts. I mean you always find some way to sound witty in the most of awkward of circumstances.

I live in a very glass house, so I throw very small rocks :hehe:

[Yonah]

I like the mods and agree with pretty much all rules, especially the religion and politics ones. They're all nice and generally agreeable fellows.

[Pat RiMsey]

The only reasons I keep coming back is because of the moderation and the community.

The community would not be as good without the moderation.

Yes, sometimes I totally disagree with their decisions but most times, I think they make the right call.

[Sasha Brown]

You know, we can all read your profile name. You don't need to sign your posts.

Anyway, I think if politics and religion were confined to their own threads or something it could make for a really interesting discussion, without it destroying every other thread. Failing that, just being able to mention politics or religion without having your post edited or deleted would be nice.

I can tell you from a lot of posting experience that that would never work. Inevitably, arguments and flame wars that got started on the politics/religion threads would spill over onto other threads as one or both parties stalked each other across the threads, other posters on those threads would join in the mudslinging, and the moderators would be going crazy trying to clean up all the messes that would result. They could probably keep up with it if it were a small forum, but with a forum as large as this one, they'd have no hope of doing so.

There are plenty of forums on the internet where all they do is discuss politics and/or religion. I happen to post on some of the political ones myself, and that works fine for me. Sometimes I like not having to deal with them, and that's when I post here.