OK, we're gettng a little annoyed here!

[Piratecat]

Goodness! Your sarcasm is incisive and biting!

Actually, that's not entirely fair. You're in here because you care about the site. Sarcasm doesn't become me, either.

I think the moderators are guilty of allowing too much latitude. After the announcement, we really wanted to let people express themselves without cracking down in a hard-core "you must thing THIS way" attitude. They just had to do so politely. By doing so, however, we haven't done ourselves any favors in terms of site cohesiveness. Opinions have gotten more entrenched in a lot of cases, and that's made civility more challenging.

I'm reading this thread with interest.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I'm reading this thread with interest.

Hopefully you don't see IP adresses, you might discover a horrible truth.

 

[Gumby]

Count me in on public bannings. People here need to see what is considered unacceptable by the mods. Don't rub their faces in their bannings like other sites do, but make it clear to others what they can't get away with.

Earlier, the subject of passive-aggressiveness was brought up. This is a huge problem here - there are many whiny babies here who can't take criticism of their views, even when they're completely vapid and distract from good discussion.

If there's a problem with people not being nice to each other, then a policy of "remind everyone to be nice to each other" just isn't going to cut it, and will just lead to more whining about how Steve wasn't nice to Josie and such. It's very nice to be high-minded and tolerant of every idea or poster that comes down the path, but it doesn't make for a well-moderated forum.

 

[Blackrat]

Count me in on public bannings. People here need to see what is considered unacceptable by the mods. Don't rub their faces in their bannings like other sites do, but make it clear to others what they can't get away with.

Me too. That could work. Another thing that might help a bit, at least with all the new members, is to fix the rules announcement. It's been broken at least two months, and a few of us have told about it in the meta. Or if fixing can't be done, (I believe Michael is bit swamped with EN2 right now) then sticky a thread with the rules to the top of the page.

 

[Melan]

Cadfan and Imp have made very good points in this thread (so have others, but I agree with these two. ). However, I'll quote Garnfellow:

Up until six months ago, I have never really understood the purpose of all the Nutkinland/Nothingland/Circvs Maximvs variants. Over the years I've checked them all out, sampled a few threads, but never really understood the point. Occasionally I would see some good stuff, but I kept asking myself the same question: Do I really need to use poopy words to talk about my half-elf bard character? And do I really need that so badly that I have to go to a special D&D board where such naughtiness is allowed?

But I've found, over the last six months, much better discussion of 4e over at Circvs Maximvs, where Gramma's gone and it's no holds barred. And I think that's directly due to the fact that really, truly stupid stuff gets called out for ridicule, and quickly.

I think ENWorld's signature politeness -- normally, a wonderful thing -- can become a detriment during really uncertain periods like the one we're experiencing right now. The politeness allows some low-grade stupidity to perpetuate on and on and on and on. Individually, maybe none of these types of posts rise to bannable or even warnable offenses, but cumulatively it drags the whole discourse down.

Really, I think a lot of people on ENWorld have rose coloured glasses about the way this site was in the beginning. Back then, discussion was often heated and sometimes positively vitriolic. I don't remember a strict grandma rule, but I remember Ruin Explorer, Karin's Dad, Ashtal, Crypt King and others flaming the crap out of each other. What's more, I have stacks of archived threads to prove it. Back then, there was no "Nutkinland" or "Circvs Maximvs"; all of that Grandma-annoying stuff happened right here on Eric Noah's forums. Hell, people were flaming Gygax and he was flaming them right back!

Of course, it all got more tightly enforced and civil later, mostly to the satisfaction of the community. However, we are once again in a period when opinions become heated and conflicts cannot be avoided. That's the rules of the game, that's what happens when the biggest game in the hobby changes editions. Also add to this that a lot of people who have contributed a lot to this community, to its discussions, now feel they have been slighted by the changes. Others are eager to embrace new things, and are just as vocal about it. In this kind of situation, you can't expect every discussion to be perfectly self-moderated. What is more, you can't enforce it - if you try, you'll only get the sort of poisoned climate and passive-agressive behaviour people are already warning mods about. This sort of thing has been detrimental elsewhere - for a time recently, RPGNet was suffering from too much moderation.

I think it's a temporary but very unfortunate situation. The only suggestion I would have would be to wield the banhammer earlier and more often. It's not Gramma's way, but I don't know what else could be done.

I think different. I think that temporarily, the mods should let the reins out a little. That doesn't mean they shouldn't maintain a certain standard of civility (e.g. personal attacks should be a no-no), but they should realise the wisdom of intervening a bit less until things calm down a bit on their own. Sometimes the best course of action is refraining from doing something.

 

[Garnfellow]

"I'm sorry, you're too stupid to post. Out of the thread!"

Maybe not polite, but I bet it's remarkably cathartic...

Over the years we've been really pleased that people take responsibility for their posts; the self-censor before they ever hit send. That's been suspended by some people, and we're seeing the results.

You know, the image in my head of this site's Grandma was always one of those sweet, unbelievably polite midwestern grandmothers. The kind of lady who would look at the floor in silent embarrassment if you said something rude at the dinner table. The potential shame of hurting her feelings is more than enough to keep you in line.

But there are all kinds of grandmothers out there, aren't there?

Strong, proud, fierce grandmothers who protect their house and aren't afraid to call their grandchildren damned fools when it's warranted. You toe the line with these grandmothers because you know that she's not afraid to whup your ass, and good.

Everybody's got two grandmothers. Maybe it's time for this site to come under the rule of "Eric's Nanny."

 

[Garnfellow]

Really, I think a lot of people on ENWorld have rose coloured glasses about the way this site was in the beginning. Back then, discussion was often heated and sometimes positively vitriolic. I don't remember a strict grandma rule, but I remember Ruin Explorer, Karin's Dad, Ashtal, Crypt King and others flaming the crap out of each other. What's more, I have stacks of archived threads to prove it. Back then, there was no "Nutkinland" or "Circvs Maximvs"; all of that Grandma-annoying stuff happened right here on Eric Noah's forums. Hell, people were flaming Gygax and he was flaming them right back!

Ah, memories. I had forgotten a couple of those names, and your post made me recall a number of other choice former posters as well as some really radioactive threads from those antediluvian days.

So, yeah, sure there were some real assmunches posting back in the day, and for that matter there have been plenty of assmunches on this board ever since.

And yeah, there was turmoil in the beginning. (When did the Grandma rule first appear?) But I think your characterization is all wrong: for the vast majority of this site's life, it has been an exceptionally tolerant and polite place. You will find exceptions galore, but that's to be expected in a site of this size and age.

The difference between any flamewars in the past and what's going on right now is that most of those past, epic battles took place between a limited number of people in a limited number of threads. It was always easy for me to avoid that crap even without an ignore feature. I'd just have to look at who started the thread, the title, and how many posts it had, and I could make an informed decision about whether or not to read it. The problem then was always isolated.

The problem now is that the flaming seems pervasive across the board. Any thread right now (and it seems, nearly any poster) could possibly be trouble. I'm not sure I'd call the problem endemic right now, but it might be close.

 

[D.Shaffer]

For what it's worth, as bad as it sometimes might seem to get, all it takes is a few minutes viewing the Wizards board for me to see how much worse it could get.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Anyway, which is more likely? That the group dynamics of the EnWorld community as a whole have changed, resulting in a community that is harder to moderate. That a fairly large number of disconnected posters have suddenly stopped being who they've always been, and changed thier personality in the same way at the same time? Or that the moderator culture itself has changed, tolerating and encouraging things it might not have tolerated before, while discouraging or deligitimatizing things it might have previously tolerated, resulting in a community that is more annoying to moderate?

Speaking for myself and from personal experience, it's that this is a time when there are a lot of new posters here with very heated, very stupid opinions. It overloaded my self-censor.

And yes, I do believe that people need to be publicly called on the carpet from time to time-- as I did.

And as was quickly done to me, by a mod.

The time-out did wonders for my attitude.

Scratch that: It didn't help my attitude, but it did reboot my self-censor.

Many, many times since, I have spent minute upon minute typing and retyping brutally eviscerating replies, only to delete them at last. It ain't worth it.

So I guess I am coming down on the side of heavier enforcement after all. :\

 

[Whisper72]

Stop being fair about bans. Make them public, arbitrary, and random. Just grab any somewhat uncivil person you see, temp band them, make it public you temp banned them, and don't give any justification for why they deserved it more than the other somewhat uncivil people.

This is kind of how China accomplishes the almost impossible goal of censoring the internet. Rather than come up with an official list of bad sites, they arbitrarily send people to jail. This causes all the ISPs to very diligently self-censor.

The point is if there are clear lines you can always go right up to them and play around. If there aren't, and you know you could be punished unfairly, you'll stay as far away as you can.

I admit I did not read the entire thread, so maybe someone already jumped on this, but there is a seriously good idea in here. Make it clear that someone had been banned. Somehow add some tag to the sig / avatar area of someone, showing this person has been banned, how often, and for how severe a misbehaviour.

Take away a bit of the anonymity. Just a thought.