Thanks everybody for waiting.
ActionButler, thank you for going off-script. I appreciate that the initial responses and your extended response are more than you guys usually do.
The fact that it
is unusual is part of the issue. If you guys were just a little more open we would not be having this extended discussion. I might certainly have tried to push a
different discussion, but it would be on a more practical subject with a much more finite length rather than this evergreen one.
Objectively false. As anyone who has received a forum warning should know
If someone
had actually read Giorgio's posts, you could tell me how such a diverse variety of questions seemed to them to be a single topic, and then either I could acknowledge that logic as reasonable or you could acknowledge that logic as flawed. :-\
You instead choose to call my claim false
while deflecting away from it, and then concede more generally that you guys maybe sometimes can be a little uncareful. I realize that this isn't the most comfortable thing for you guys to discuss, but you do understand that you are being unnecessarily evasive and that your evasiveness contributes to the problem?
(And no, before anyone
inevitably brings this up, the criteria for merging the threads is not a private matter. The posts remain public and whatever standard was applied also applies to the rest of the public.)
The "magic number" of mods to evaluate something is a notion worth raising, but - if your purpose really is to understand and note my concerns - please trust me that the discussion of warning and appeals procedure is generally irrelevant and unrevealing. For our purposes here, suffice to say that my experience with the staff, along with the manner in which you raised those points (plus Weirdo's comments later) do not create an image of diverse perspectives.
I am aware that the image may not accurately reflect the reality, but the issue at hand isn't what you're like behind the curtain. It's to do with how you guys interface out here with us.
Now... one issue that I think this concern does raise is how/how quickly those decisions are made when the mods are short-staffed
I appreciate that you guys may sometimes feel shorted, but comparing the Giorgio merge to "racist, profanity-ridden rants" is disingenuous. Surely, no matter where we set the bar, the merging of Giorgio's threads
wasn't something that had to be rushed.
You say you value diversity of perspectives, and recognize that any given opinion - even from a mod - might not be the "best" for BattleTech. Since you feel that having more eyes on a subject is a positive thing, then if an interested third party were to start a thread on a public-facing issue like the Giorgio merge where warnings and appeals aren't a consideration,
why wouldn't you stop and take advantage of that discussion to check and refine your approach? As a more general thing, if the mod staff feel like you don't have enough hands for what you want to do, you ought to consider more than just the "magic number" slider. There may be other factors to streamline, and it may even be possible to diffuse some load from behind the curtain out across the userbase.
Two parts... 1) Again, as anyone who has received a warning should know, there are mechanisms for appealing a decision
Again, that's not the point I'm making. Using this thread as an example:
- my OP falls into what one might call the "best practices" genre of questions
- JHB gives a fair answer, given his knowledge at the time
- your response acknowledges that your original reaction to Giorgio's threads wasn't ideal, but you also emphasize that you have acquired Giorgio's permission to partially remedy your error.
The issue I raised in my OP was never one of
permission or authority. The fact that Giorgio gave you permission to undo some of the damage is irrelevant to the question of how much damage was done or the best way to undo it.
It's fine that you guys have permission and authority to make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes, and this Giorgio merger in particular
shouldn't have been a big deal. What makes it a big deal is this:
- in my next post I point out very plausible, fairly major flaws in your reasoning
- JHB stonewalls instead of engaging with those points or admitting even the possibility of error.
Questions of "how does this make sense" should not ever be answered with "we're allowed to make things worse and you shouldn't question us when we do." If you guys really did think your response to Giorgio was correct and just wanted me to go away, something like "We think our move will get Giorgio more responses and keep regular topics from being pushed off the front page of other boards. It's possible we're mistaken - let's give it a week and see how it goes" would have been ideal. It acknowledges the possibility of error, might get me to wait long enough I lose interest, the thread's probably unsavable in a week regardless, and everybody comes away better informed for the next time.
2) This unilaterally suggests that an error was made in this case, and that is very subjective.
| Posts (pre-merge) from 01 January 2019, 13:26:51 to 02 January 2019, 10:21:06
|
| Posts (post-merge) from 02 January 2019, 16:03:58 to 05 January 2019, 16:34:14
|
Giorgio Thread
| 34
| | 0
|
Forum totals (ignoring users who responded to Giorgio)
|
270-ish
| |
540-ish
|
"I'm new, help me do BattleTech" type threads normally accrue responses over more than a 24-hour period, and most of Giorgio's topics had not reached a natural stopping point by the time of the merge.
So on the topic of whether or not mods can admit fault:
- did you really not know that the move & merge would produce these results?
- do you acknowledge that these results are clear-cut and objective?
- do you acknowledge that these results show clear damage?
- ignoring feasibility for the moment, would reversing these results be something you consider desirable (and if not, why)?
Putting the merged Master thread in Challenges and Gatherings was bizarre and it's good that you took it out. But trying to hold that up as proof of anything
while denying the evidence and arguing that the very idea of "error" is too nebulous for an error to have occurred? You're being evasive twice in a row! You're stonewalling! You get that, right?
I understand that maybe my questions are difficult to address and you might be rhetorically tripping a bit just from the unusualness of it. If we accomplish nothing else today, it'd be
great if the staff could understand how much more productive it is to trip towards constructive, concrete tests of fact rather than into the evasive stonewalling that started this whole thing off.
once more, the “fix” for this situation is a matter of opinion.
Is it? Moving the Master Thread into General Discussion would help a little (getting it out from the "dark corner" of the RPG forum into a place where people will actually see it), but I don't think that addresses the root causes. I think the root causes are measurable and can be identified empirically.
I’m not sure where you got the idea that undoing what has been done is “equally simple”. I can assure that, unless someone is hiding it from me, there is no single button that automaticaly un-Voltrons a thread with one simple click.
You're either presenting a strawman or assuming I know how the backend moderation tools work, and either way it's unhelpful. Surely you're not claiming that you can move and merge those threads,
then also rearrange the OP contents, all with a single click?
The Giorgioverse thread isn't very long. Without knowing the backend tools specifically, I would assume that you can select multiple posts to move as a batch - is that not the case? Can posts only be moved individually, one by one? (And even if that is the case, are you
really saying that editing and culling OPs from the merged thread took fewer clicks?)
You are clearly very attached to the belief that we made a mistake and the the thread should be exploded back out into its component pieces. I would hope that the fact that I’ve taken the time to address your concerns does, in fact, confirm that your objections have been noted.
I started the thread by asking "how does this make sense" and then, when you guys were confronted with the
possibility that your logic might be flawed, your collective response has been to tell me I'm wrong or misguided to raise that possibility. For my part, I am and have always been open to having my reasoning disputed. It's frankly kind of bizarre that you would assume otherwise.
I wasn't even asking you to explode the thread back out into its component pieces. If you ever needed proof that you guys don't read, that's it. You didn't give me enough information to decide anything therefore I hadn't yet decided anything. But the fact
you think that's where we would have ended up just
again makes it look (and again, talking about the appearance out here rather than whatever the truth is behind the curtain) like you guys can't admit when you're wrong.
I'm not saying mistakes are a big deal. I'm not asking you to be perfect, and I'm not asking you to act like
I'm perfect.
If you want to address my concerns and note my objections, the most important is this:
it is not wrong to contest a moderator's reasoning, and moderators should not be so difficult when a reasonable possibility of error has been raised. It was probably the LAM thread
My big 2007 one? My tiff with PerkinsC there is one of my two big embarassments on this site. It's where I learned that content producers (in that case, me) could be unjustifiably difficult when challenged on their logic or material. ;D
My guess (and I'm still not trying to dis those points) is that they're most probably perceptions stemming from behavioral expectations brought over from more free-wheeling communities
I don't mean to single you out, so forgive me for quoting you, but what you've said is convenient to a point I want to make:
Guessing at people's intentions, instead of inspecting the specific points at hand and making inquiries on those tangible points, is part of my problem with the mods' culture here.
I realize that's hypocritical given that my long-time habit when talking to you guys is to guess what you're thinking and then try to talk through each logic branch.
I don't like doing that though. I do it because - historically - you guys have a habit of clamming up instead of responding to even the most basic of points
and you routinely (as ActionButler has above) misconstrue my points. Lengthy screeds have somehow become the
shortest and fastest way to communicate with you guys.
That's kind of awful and I can only meet you halfway.
People actually fight warnings? The one I received last year was very clearly explained, and politely so.
I certainly have, though it was years ago now. Warnings have not always been issued so smoothly, and the system has not always been forgiving.