[Discussion]N&P Cleanup

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2008-08-28 03:07pm

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:Is there any way that, like some other boards I've been to, we can set a requirement into the board software for posts to be of a certain length? We could for instance dictate that a post with less than 100 characters (and spaces and links don't count) cannot be posted with such software. This would improve the quality of the board enormously right there, by forcing people to at least string a coherent sentence together.

Or it would increase verbal diarrhea. One can make a perfectly good contribution without being verbose.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2008-08-28 03:52pm

Knife wrote:
The Duchess of Zeon wrote:Is there any way that, like some other boards I've been to, we can set a requirement into the board software for posts to be of a certain length? We could for instance dictate that a post with less than 100 characters (and spaces and links don't count) cannot be posted with such software. This would improve the quality of the board enormously right there, by forcing people to at least string a coherent sentence together.
Or it would increase verbal diarrhea. One can make a perfectly good contribution without being verbose.

100 characters, not 100 words. I challenge you to find some way to make a contribution to a news or politics subject when using less than 100 characters. Notice that this post of mine contains substantially more than 100 characters. We're literally simply demanding that people either write a long sentence or a short paragraph. That is NOT hard, and it is NOT going to increase "verbal diarrhea." We're not asking people to write 100 words, I'm just proposing 100 characters minimum.

Post by **Coyote** » 2008-08-28 03:55pm

Well, if they don't really have anything to say, then forcing them to unspool a string of BS will at least give enough for them to hang themselves...!

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2008-08-28 04:00pm

I'll try to comment more on this later, I dont realyl have time, but I would like to say a few things:

1.) depending on the actions we take, this will be a fairly far-reaching task, and probably take time to implement, so we're going to want to break it up into tasks. I suggest focusing on the moderating staff (doubling at least, perhaps tripling it for that forum alone) The fact it is more active pretty much means that it should receive a greater proportion of active moderating. The vast majority of other forums (sci fi/fantasy and the art/games/fanfic forums) are alot more stable, relatively speaking.

2.) To implement some of these changes, we'll definitely need more proof. Which in turns means we're going to have to both dig into past debates to find some (but no more than a a few months to a year at most if we can help it - people do change, and if we go back deeper it should only to be establishing patterns for serious crimes like accusations of vendetta.) Second, we'll have to keep an eye on current threads if we can and take note of the bullshit that occurs. Both of which will be time consuming, so we may want to get as many people as possible looking, mods and Senators.

As an added benefit, fact that those in N&P know its being watched for bullshit (spamming and whatnot) may further encourage a decline in such behaviour, at least in the short term.

3.) we're going to have to be willing to keep up on this for awhile if we hope to make any lasting changes. A few weeks of activity and discussion alone probably won't do much. And I dobut many people if anyn can devote mor ethan a few hours a day to actually making changes anyhow (another reason why this could be a very slow long term process - I dont want to ask anyone to take major chunks of time out of their lives to deal with this.)

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2008-08-28 04:02pm

I believe SB has minimum character post requirements, so I think it shoudl be possible to implement here. It doesn't have to be huge though a line or two of well thought out dialogue would work (40-50 characters?)

It would also likely limit alot of the "picture only" responses. The Bugs bunnyn sawing away florida thing was funny for awhile, but its gotten tiresome. (and certain people are well known for doing that.

Moreover, if they decide to do the "verbal diahhrea" bit simply to circumvent that limitation (or to conintue their spamminesS) a rule could be enacted to make it a punishable offense - at least in N&P.

Publius · Post by **Publius** » 2008-08-28 04:22pm

The elimination of lurid "true crime" and general human iniquity-type posts from N&P is desirable. The fact of the matter is that man has been a horrid beast for millennia, and particular instances of this behavior are not "news." What's more, the subject matter is not fit for debate; it will not generate reasoned discourse, as little more than condemnation is possible (without straying from the topic, at any rate; one supposes one could discuss the psycho-chemical irregularities that might spur a serial killer, but this is hardly "news" in itself).

Bandwagon behavior is undesirable, and should be discouraged. A parade of myrmidon condemnations of President X, Senator Y, and Person Z without meaningful content is wasteful, and adds nothing to the board except post count. It rapidly degenerates to a ritual of flagellation, no different from mindless ridicule of Star Trek characters or tropes. Not every post on the board should be a reasoned argument, but a series of posts containing nothing but vitriol is rather less than ideal.

The question arises, how ardent should the regulation be? It may well be the malaise can be treated by nothing more than rigorous moderation (summary deletion of offending posts, locking of threads, etc.). A robust moderating staff with a low tolerance for nonsense may be the best solution, in which case one hastens to add that the moderating staff should probably include people who are not forum regulars (if their task is solely to enforce rules, a lack of involvement may include a healthy sense of detachment from the issues and the participants).

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2008-08-28 04:30pm

though Publius phrased it more nicely, I'm afraid I might think that might be best for dealing with the current and long term threats. THe habits developed in N&P have been allowed for too long, and I'd bet at least some of them won't change easily. Putting more mods in there and giving them a freeer hand to crush such nonsense in the short term (not sure how long that would be, but my mind says a few months maybe?) may be neccessary.

I'm still hoping knowledge of close scrutiny might help, and the threat of punishment might also deter (Who ever thought the Tarkin Doctrine might be useful)

Long term we can work on other measures, assuming the interest and desire for reform actually lasts that long, but long term only works if we actually identify the problems at stake, and that requires research. And I'm not sure how many senators will be interested in digging for specific examples of what we should address.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2008-08-28 08:32pm

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:
Knife wrote:
The Duchess of Zeon wrote:Is there any way that, like some other boards I've been to, we can set a requirement into the board software for posts to be of a certain length? We could for instance dictate that a post with less than 100 characters (and spaces and links don't count) cannot be posted with such software. This would improve the quality of the board enormously right there, by forcing people to at least string a coherent sentence together.
Or it would increase verbal diarrhea. One can make a perfectly good contribution without being verbose.
100 characters, not 100 words. I challenge you to find some way to make a contribution to a news or politics subject when using less than 100 characters. Notice that this post of mine contains substantially more than 100 characters. We're literally simply demanding that people either write a long sentence or a short paragraph. That is NOT hard, and it is NOT going to increase "verbal diarrhea." We're not asking people to write 100 words, I'm just proposing 100 characters minimum.

It's not going to make a single iota of difference how many characters you impose, and I will prove it here.

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Read between the lines. This measure is so easily defeated as to make no difference at all. Even without this cheat, technological limitations on post sizes are not going to force people to post substantive things, all it's going to do is prevent people who are making concise points from being able to conveniently contribute. The problem is more accurately solved by routinely meting out consequences for unwanted actions, and in the process trying to keep things as fair as possible. If there is a general air of favoritism or impropriety, then the denizens will become restless and generally malcontent.

Publius's suggestion to limiting the types of stories has merit, but I would think that drawing the line might be harder than it initially seems. In reality, any news story can end up being something that sets someone off and starts a flamefest if it's a hot-button issue. Rather than limit the types of stories, I think it best if we more ruthlessly enforce the "me-too" and "internet tough guy" restrictions.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2008-08-29 01:11am

Curtailing alot of the "current" data posted (blogs, opinion articles, etc.) will be a big part of it, but the other big part (and the harder one) is to curb alot of the habits and mentality that forumgoers in there have developed, because that's where a good deal of the problem lies (and it amkes me wonder if it doesn't "bleed over" into other forums as well.)

Another thing someone mentioned to me we want to end is the "internet tough guy" nosnense, becuase I still believe it happens, and even when ti does it becomes a magnet for abuse (Because not everyone obviously falls for it, but they'll dogpile anyone who shows it certainly...) and that just doubles the problem.

So what we also need to do is to start listing behaviours we want curtailed, possibly with inflicting appropriate punishments when they get exhibited (certainyl not permbanning, but we get more excessive about it.)

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2008-08-29 01:13am

Anonymous suggestion from a forumgoer:

Not sure if this is worth posting in the Senate or not as a suggestion, but there's at least one thing I'd like to see get a harsher crackdown on. I realize that sometimes stories get posted in N&P that might not be completely newsworthy, but far too often there's assclowns that like backseat modding and asking "why is this newsworthy" or "what's the point of posting this" like what they say matters, when they're not a mod or even a senator. I'm kind of amazed this isn't dealt with the same way other backseat modding is since it comes off as a quick way to brownnose and get an easy +1, and wouldn't mind seeing stuff like it get treated much more harshly than it is.

Frankly I think its a valid point.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2008-08-30 12:49pm

I think we need to take this both in stages and with a heavy eye towards not overdoing things. Yes the board as a whole has grown much larger over the years and traffic is up but at the same time N&P in paticular has some huge growth drivers right now. Between elections in the US, continued tensions in the middle east and the re-emergence of Russia there is a LOT of valid news to go along with the every day junk. I think we must be cautious about trying to fix something that won't be broken in another 6 months after we accimatize to a new US presidency and settle in to accepting new Russian influence in its traditional sphere.

So with that in mid here ar emy more concrete thoughts:

1) N&P should definately get its own subset of rules to eliminate 'true crime" and "human interest" stories. As a broad outline valid posts should include political speeches, position statments and gaffes; major international inidents, conferences and agreements; news about major domestic disasters (but not the everyday crime spree stuff) and opinion pieces that serve as a launching point for scholarly discussion. In all those cases posts should be clearly labeled AND the general board should be made aware that the mdoerators are the sole determinants as to the newsworthiness of a post.

2) In order for the Mods to be mroe effective we need more but not THAT many more. I don't think there shoudl be any paticular qualification aside from the normal ones for being promoted to moderator. My concern is with moderating in general on this board that there are a lot of folks who are already taking on two or three forums and if they take on N&P s well then we aren't adding as much mdoeratorial weight as we could by bringing someone with less of a oad. The other concern is that we are putting quite a bit of weight on the admins to do this because hell we till haven't gotten moderators for History. So to that end since I don;t know what goes onin the mdo forum I would suggest, and suggest only, that a full and frank discussion go about as to who should and can moderate what and who should be added to the ranks so that it isn't just down to the Admins and Mike to figure everything out.

I think those two steps (the first of which is easy the seond of which is harder) should be implemented as soon as practicable. After that I think some finer points are advisable:

3) All of the +1 spam should be tossed into a single thread so that a) its there as a reference for those who want to know what it looks like b) If the author feels there was some positive weight they can find it easily and dispute the removal from thread c) after 5-10 pages ship the whole thing off to testing and let it die a natural death there.

4) Take polls out of N&P. Not sure if this is compeltely feasible but it should be a forum fo discussion and if you want to take an opinion poll of everyone then go over to OT. A lot (not all) of polls seems little more than an excuse for folks to one-line themselves onto the thread just by indicating support of one position or another. Its the most pointless form of me-tooing I know of and it adds literally nothing.

As a total aside I know that could be seen as criticism of the Senate Vote threads. I will point out that I measure a vote as being cast if you receive your vote notification PM. Therefore fellow Senators there is no need to indicate in the thread whether you have voted or not so long as you have opened your vote spam. If I had a perfect world the vote threads would have two posts: the opening post and the closing post indicating the results.

So there are my thoughts.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2008-08-30 03:13pm

I know that I get neurotically irritated by PMs, so I like to post to the thread announcing that I've posted simply to avoid getting one, so I'd rather not see that tradition end.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2008-08-30 04:17pm

Wilkens is right, we should take this in stages. We could write a "N&P Policies" post now with just an initial handful of things, and then add policies once we get the details worked out. The three I think we could do right away are:

1. No more crime or human interest stories.
2. [Op/Ed] tags on Op-Ed threads
3. No polls

That's assuming there's general agreement on everything. If there aren't any objections, perhaps we could put those three up for a vote tonight.

Post by **Surlethe** » 2008-08-30 04:53pm

RedImperator wrote:That's assuming there's general agreement on everything. If there aren't any objections, perhaps we could put those three up for a vote tonight.

I seem to be hearing the same consensus. I'll second a motion to vote.

Edit: Also, I hear, as part of the consensus, that there should probably be new, additional moderators for N&P. Is that sort of change to board staff open to "official Senate resolutionsTM"? If so, we could add that to the vote.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2008-08-30 04:58pm

Wow, N&P being cleaned up? Seriously?

I'm all for it, and the above suggestions are a good start. I'd also like to add to the trash bin (or "Off Topic") the BMFOTW (Bad Motherfucker Of The Week) stories. Slightly interesting, but not anymore newsworthy than Bigfoot sightings, IMHO.

May as well throw out any religious stories about the stupid shit radical Muslims or Scientologists do as well. Because you're going to get one asshat in there derailing the thread anyway with the tried and true, "Well, Christians...." Yeah, we KNOW radical Christians are dumbasses too. Thanks for that important memo.

I think it goes without saying that the idiotic "posted without comment" footnote to news stories should be gone for good. It seems to have died a natural death, after being raked over the coals in Testing, so hopefully, it won't be back either.

Post by **Coyote** » 2008-08-30 06:05pm

RedImperator wrote:Wilkens is right, we should take this in stages. We could write a "N&P Policies" post now with just an initial handful of things, and then add policies once we get the details worked out. The three I think we could do right away are:

1. No more crime or human interest stories.
2. [Op/Ed] tags on Op-Ed threads
3. No polls

That's assuming there's general agreement on everything. If there aren't any objections, perhaps we could put those three up for a vote tonight.

HEAR, HEAR!!

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2008-08-30 08:29pm

I'd also suggest we look into what constitutes an actual newsstory when it comes to reporting data. For a while, for example, we got the requisite threat every time the price of oil went up an incremental amount, with the usual suspects doing a little mariachi dance on all of our graves and histrionics. I'm not sure reporting another data point on a trendline that's well been covered on the boards counts as news. I'm not saying that the topics themselves aren't important, because they are, but new threads should actually add something to the subject, not be excuses to retread the same ground again.

The above reforms, like eliminating polls, no more "true crime"/"BMotW" stories, and adding an Op/Ed tag are good starts and I fully endorse them.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2008-08-30 11:10pm

I don't see the need for banning all polls from N&P. True, posts that merely say "I voted x" are pointless, but they can be discouraged. A poll is an easy way to see the general opinion of the board on a particular issue. Plus there simply aren't that many of them. For the month of August N&P has had 5 pages of threads, but only 3 threads actually have a poll attached.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2008-08-31 08:33am

Frankly I think the board is continually getting more and more bogged down with bullshit rules and procedures and directives. No more crime or human interest stories, do you have any concept of what more than 75% of news is?

Look through a newspaper, watch a fucking news broadcast, you will find that a good percentage of both is always concerned with crime and human interest.

I can get behind the notion of op ed articles being so marked, but frankly that's about the limit of useful contribution from this thread.

We could move to a pre-moderation software...after all the senate could then vet every thread before it's posted and preclude any that dont meet with the high intellectual standards set by them.

You do realize that people post here for enjoyment and entertainment, it isnt a fucking job. If people want to discuss something who the fuck are you to decide that it isnt a worthy use of bandwith? There's only one person here that has the right to do that, and that's because he fucking pays for it. The rest of you seem to have an increasingly large stick up your collective arse about raising the tone of the board...if you dont like a thread, dont fucking participate in it, if others dont want to either, it will die of its own accord without the need to ban or delete.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2008-08-31 09:01am

I think the objection is to trivia.

Let's look at which of the following is suitable for N&P:

1) Water main break in Bumfuck, Iowa - NO
2) Boxing Day Tsunami coverage - YES

A) Thunderstorm knocks over mailbox - NO
B) Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans - YES

i) Man steals box of cookies from grocery store - NO
ii) DC sniper shooting people at random in US capital - YES

a) My neighbor sneezes and blows his nose - NO
b) Outbreak of bubonic plague kills 300 - YES

I think you get the idea.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2008-08-31 09:12am

As I said, if you dont like the topic of a thread, just ignore it and it will vanish of its own accord. If other people find something to discuss about it then good for them. If you find it trivial then just ignore it.

After all, if there are a half dozen poster from Bumblefuck Nowhere, then the events there might actually be of interest and generate a discussion. There is nothing forcing you to participate in threads you find trivial.

The very notion of objecting to trivial subjects on a sci-fi themed message board is astounding...

Something that is trivial to some can be important to others...I've seen quite a few yearning for some golden age that never actually existed on the board and dreaming up rules to create their little digital utopia where every thread meets their personal likes and dislikes.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2008-08-31 10:44am

Its not an objection to trivia, its the objection that trivia doens't belong in News and Politics. The same goes for polls and a lot of the "true crime" stories. Yes we individually could certainly stay out of them but this is a large board and there will always be a lot of new posters me tooing trying to get their faces shown and names recognized as part of the crowd. I don't think there was any sort of "golden days" back in the early life of the board. Hell way back when things were very loose and organic but the story of the board is also the story of real life...it either grows up along with the posters or it stay the same age and the posters start turning over. There aren't a lot of options in between. I know several folks have spoken at length away from the board about the dearth of subjects where they can even read a thoughtful thread for all of the crap that gets slushed in between. Truthfully for myself I still get in to N&P and OT but I post in maybe 2 threads a week because there is just so much clutter.

Yes this is adding more rules and regulations but really if that's the only objection, no more rules because we don't want more rules, then what the fuck was the Senate created for in the first place? We are essentially the citizen's advisory committe for board policy. Yes an excess of rules can bog things down but for starters we are talking about a single segment of the board and second we aren't talking about eliminating the content but rather re-directing it. The rules we are proposing are designed to steer each forum into a clearer presentation of the discussions that should be within. This isn't designed to eliminate "true crime" posts but rather redirect them to OT. As stories go they are human interest, they can be fun or interesting to read, but what they most certainly don't do is open the door to thoughtul threads of discussion about current events. Lastly as rulemaking goes I don't think we are really getting all that excessive. Each of the forums has its own rule set except that N&P's currently seems to basically be "don't hold grudges" Setting an actual policy for this forum just as all the other forums have simply makes sense.

Complete and total aside vote spam will continue and I will in no way be enforcing some sort of "don't post" rule (that statement was advisory only). Also since my home computer is currently on the fritz I do not have the Senate Roll Call which means any vote taken for the next week or two until I fix the durn thing will have to proceed without PM notification.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2008-08-31 11:20am

Keevan_Colton wrote:Frankly I think the board is continually getting more and more bogged down with bullshit rules and procedures and directives. No more crime or human interest stories, do you have any concept of what more than 75% of news is?

As Greg said, the proposed rule change will not eliminate them, it will put them in another forum.

Look through a newspaper, watch a fucking news broadcast, you will find that a good percentage of both is always concerned with crime and human interest.

Look through a newspaper and watch the news, they're clearly organized into sections with similar stories or themes in each section.

I can get behind the notion of op ed articles being so marked, but frankly that's about the limit of useful contribution from this thread.

Cool.

We could move to a pre-moderation software...after all the senate could then vet every thread before it's posted and preclude any that dont meet with the high intellectual standards set by them.

There has been a lot of static for the last few months about the uppity Senate. Really it's a bunch of bullshit, considering the few things the Senate actually does. We discuss a lot of issues but even then a majority of things discussed that doesn't include ban-polls rarely get implemented.

The Senate was created to get a different view on board policy and so we discuss it when it comes up. The fact that most of the time nothing really comes from it is often forgotten by people bitching about the uppity Senate.

You do realize that people post here for enjoyment and entertainment, it isnt a fucking job. If people want to discuss something who the fuck are you to decide that it isnt a worthy use of bandwith?

Uhm, the people chosen to discuss such issues. We have no executive power to implement but we sure as fuck have the right to discuss it, hence this very fucking forum we're discussing it in.

There's only one person here that has the right to do that, and that's because he fucking pays for it.

Funny enough, he created this forum and signed off on the Senate. Your point is?

The rest of you seem to have an increasingly large stick up your collective arse about raising the tone of the board...

Must have broken off of the branch shoved up your ass.

if you dont like a thread, dont fucking participate in it, if others dont want to either, it will die of its own accord without the need to ban or delete.

Sure, I don't think many here are advocating other wise. That said, nothing says that such a thread can't be in another fucking forum than where they are currently put. This shouldn't be an odd concept, you mods have been doing it since the creation of the board.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2008-08-31 11:53am

Keevan_Colton wrote:Frankly I think the board is continually getting more and more bogged down with bullshit rules and procedures and directives. No more crime or human interest stories, do you have any concept of what more than 75% of news is?

Look through a newspaper, watch a fucking news broadcast, you will find that a good percentage of both is always concerned with crime and human interest.

Which is why they're not being banned, just moved to OT.

I can get behind the notion of op ed articles being so marked, but frankly that's about the limit of useful contribution from this thread.

We could move to a pre-moderation software...after all the senate could then vet every thread before it's posted and preclude any that dont meet with the high intellectual standards set by them.

That's a fine idea. We can start with your posts.

You do realize that people post here for enjoyment and entertainment, it isnt a fucking job. If people want to discuss something who the fuck are you to decide that it isnt a worthy use of bandwith? There's only one person here that has the right to do that, and that's because he fucking pays for it.

As I recall, he created the Senate exactly so we could have discussions like this. He also directed the mods to clean up N&P, an effort which, bluntly, failed. He's been on the board the last several days and undoubtedly knows about this thread; if he didn't like these ideas, he can say so, and he'll be happy to veto anything he doesn't like. I think Mike is perfectly capable of deciding what the Senate can and can't do without your help.

The rest of you seem to have an increasingly large stick up your collective arse about raising the tone of the board...if you dont like a thread, dont fucking participate in it, if others dont want to either, it will die of its own accord without the need to ban or delete.

We're not prohibiting any discussions, you idiot, just moving some threads to a different forum. I don't recall you getting all butthurt every time a mod moves, say, a Star Trek topic from OSF to PST.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2008-08-31 12:26pm

Keevan_Colton wrote:Frankly I think the board is continually getting more and more bogged down with bullshit rules and procedures and directives. No more crime or human interest stories, do you have any concept of what more than 75% of news is?

Look through a newspaper, watch a fucking news broadcast, you will find that a good percentage of both is always concerned with crime and human interest.

I can get behind the notion of op ed articles being so marked, but frankly that's about the limit of useful contribution from this thread.

We could move to a pre-moderation software...after all the senate could then vet every thread before it's posted and preclude any that dont meet with the high intellectual standards set by them.

You do realize that people post here for enjoyment and entertainment, it isnt a fucking job. If people want to discuss something who the fuck are you to decide that it isnt a worthy use of bandwith? There's only one person here that has the right to do that, and that's because he fucking pays for it. The rest of you seem to have an increasingly large stick up your collective arse about raising the tone of the board...if you dont like a thread, dont fucking participate in it, if others dont want to either, it will die of its own accord without the need to ban or delete.

What a shocker, one of the shittiest posters in N&P gets upset about people talking about cleaning up N&P.