I do moderations, but I fly under the radar, so-to-speak.
I think a lot of the little bickering, which escalates into fights comes from a communication misunderstanding. A simple solution that worked well on my favorite car forum(which has NONE of this bickering) is to post sarcasm in red text. I think most everyone has a sense of humor here and would get the jokes if they knew they were jokes, red text allows people to pick up sarcasm and chill out. For example:
Vlad sucks and has no clue how to run a site
If I were to say something like that in normal text it would almost certainly stir the pot and cause some trouble, however, if you knew clearly it was sarcasm you would chuckle, add your comment and carry on with life. Red text makes sarcasm distinguishable online, if we adopted this system I bet a lot of the little bickering will go away.
clearly labeling sarcasm takes away from it… it’s just like explaining a joke… no longer funny. IMO.
I guess it’s hard for me to relate since I take nothing on this site seriously, but it may work for those that are wound up a little more tightly.
You’re so cool I wish I was as cool as you. Can we be friends?
THAT was sarcasm.
:lol
As the forum grows there needs to be a way to discern sarcasm or this outbursts will happen over and over again, eventually the site will implode upon itself. The forum that uses this with great success has over 125k members and adapts to changes extremely well, its one of the oldest automotive forums on the net and is still growing. In fact the forum as a whole is so chill that even though it is brand specific people still stay there long after they’ve moved on, myself included.
I agree it takes away from part of the humor, but with the egos on this forum something has to be done. Could you imagine if you didn’t know the people involved and stumbled on this forum? I know I wouldn’t even register if that were the case. The only reason I am still here is because Vlad’s a good guy and I want to see him succeed with his vision.
I tend to agree with Timmay in the fact that something does has to be done, and mature people (older crowd) will be put off by the amount of immaturity going on here (younger crowd), which inevitably is just the natural mix of people on here (old vs young). And mature people really don’t feel like dealing with silly bs and ego fights going on, and would rather just stay on topic and have real discussion going on.
I’m thinking of isolating every thread that has imature stuff going on in it from real threads where people are actually are looking for help “kindergarden” sort of speak, which is different from Battlefield.
I was caught off guard when I clicked this thread and read the red lit lettering that said “Vlad sucks” by timmay :lol , honorable Idea, which I’m sure is successful on another board, but I’m skeptical on it working here for technical and psychological reasons.
- A lot of people use quick reply which dosn’t have the option to color the text
- A lot of people won’t use it because they don’t know the rules
- It will take away from humor.
Big boards have a luxury of putting off a lot of people, trim the fat sort of speak, for the greater glory, this board on the other hand, is merely an infant and the member amount, even which I’m personally happy about is not something moldable as of yet.
Timmay I appreciate the kind words and the help :thumb
I think if I manage to isolate the goof threads from the good threads like the technical, help about chroming, radar detectors, builds etc, we could have something. I would require more moderation to help in that, but this way we would have
- Mature talk
- Immature section
- Battlefield
adding actual rules to a forum will push people away too. Personally, I would never make my sarcastic comments red cause I think it’s dumb and not needed (although I do see how it could help).
Which is what I think too, the idea is great, if everybody participates, but it only takes one or more users intentionally post comments without being red and then people will assume they actually mean it, or cause more confusion.
Maybe later on in life.
Making people follow the rules isn’t as easy as moderating or controling the crowed. For example it’s a lot easier to move thread to the proper section that making everybody read the rules and post everything in the proper section (even though its self explanatory).
As the forum grows something has to be done or it will remain in a rut and eventually stop growing, when a site stops growing its as good as dead. I can see how red text may turn off people on a smaller forum, on the big forum its not a rule, but it works so brilliantly there is no reason not to use it, its not an official rule it was created and implemented by the members. You can still do it from quick reply, just type it in manually, its how I did it, apparently it works on simple machines the same as it does on Vbulletin.
Something has to be done about the mindless bickering and endless discussions of illegal activity, perhaps a “training wheels” mode in an effort to shame offenders. If it continues from the same offender they get a short vacation, if it continues after that send them packing. All leadership books say the same thing, from Good to Great to Leadership. In fact while I think Leadership by Rudy is a terrible book on leadership there is one valuable bit of information and it dealt with how he cleaned up the city. I’m sure some of us are old enough to remember when NYC was not known for being a cool, hip city, it was known for crime, filth and violence, under Giuliani’s guidance it cleaned up in record time and literally turned the city around. The way they did it was to focus on petty crime, the little things that were previously ignored. Like the squeegy men that plagued the city through the 80’s, they picked them up for J-walking and found out most had records and were wanted men, as they learned they would be picked up for the simple crime and hauled in they stopped that activity almost over night. While this is just an example of a small change that had a huge impact on cleaning up a huge area and is strictly a metaphor here. The example in “Good to Great” is that the great leader sees the vision of the company and will fire his brother if its for the good of the company, the good leader would find a position further down the trough for his brother, after all you can’t fire your brother. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. While I realize that is an extreme example, its just that an example.
baby steps/trial and error.
timmay, your posts are far too long :lol
:lol Its funny because one thing I am not is verbose.