Dima wrote:You do? More or less you said? You don't seem so sure..... Why don't you give some recent examples.

Examples are unnecessary. Members who behave inappropriately are first warned (unless the behaviour is blatantly beyond any reasonable limit), then temp banned for increasing periods, and ultimately for ever. The "more or less" refers to the fact that rather than there being a strict and rigid progression, the length and number of temporary bans depends on circumstances - the poster's long-term history, the actual offence, etc.

This is all obvious to the observer except that initial warnings (if not vague general public ones) are done discretely to avoid public shaming at that stage. Bans (and their reasons) are publicly noted in the ban thread.

Another recent and perfect example that is perfectly in line with what i said earlier. That some users think they can do whatever they want since the staff is not doing a good job. Take a look.

I made a thread in the video games section about E3. What do you expect from the show etc. Suddenly someone starts saying something about mods on Skyrim or in other words something that has nothing to do with the thread. Some others users continuing it and we have almost one page with an off-topic discussion.

This is the thread i am talking about.

[url]http://forum.evageeks.org/thread/17385/E3-is-around-the-corner-What-are-you-expecting/[/url]

As of now it has 45 replies and 10 of them are off-topic with the subject. Despite that in the thread we have members of the staff participating (so it's not like they didn't noticed) there are no warnings to stop talking about an off-topic subject. Seeing that nobody bothered to throw a warning and seeing that the other members were willingly to keep discussing off-topic with no stop i decided to kindly ask them to return on-topic.

The answer i got from one of the members who was driving the thread off topic?

''Got a problem?''

And i mean literally. The post is around in the middle of the third page and it was posted from the user soul.assassin.

Now let's get some things straight. It doesn't bothering me the fact that the thread went slightly off-topic. I can understand that sometimes it's very normal the discussion may go in other ways. What bothered me was the fact that an other member replied back to me in a not so appropriate way just because i pointed out something obvious (a thread ready to go off-topic).

I am pretty sure that if it wasn't me and was a mod asking them to stop discussing off-topic his response wouldn't be ''Got a problem?''.

This post/attitude back up perfectly my statement that i made earlier in this thread and i also mentioned in this post in the begging. That some users have the idea that in this forum they can talk and do whatever they want.

Usually if there's issues between 2 posters, taking it to PMs and (trying) to talk things out like civil adults is good. Failing that, that's when it's the time to get Staff involved to help diffuse the situation.

The person who starts a thread doesn't have any sort of ownership or responsibility towards that thread. It's not like it was your responsibility to try to keep people on-topic. If there was a point when it got out of hand, someone probably would have split the thread. Telling everyone that they're going off-topic is, in itself, an off-topic post. Not saying soulassassin isn't being a dick about it, but it's not like we want people to start backseat modding threads either. There's a clear trade-off between telling people to stop talking about something, be it completely off-topic to the current thread, or (like in this case) a slight digression, and letting things go a bit to see if it stops by itself. If you always tell people to stop right away, you could be killing something worthwhile. It's a judgement call that moderators have to make, sometimes it's not the right call, but with the advent of thread merging (which wasn't always part of the forum software), the general attitude has been to let things go a little longer than we would have 4 or 5 years ago when the only recourse it to lock or split threads.

I read that topic all yesterday yet somehow it never occurred to me that it had gone off-topic enough to require action. If I'd had it in my head to compare what I was seeing discussed to the thread title I probably would have said or done something about it, but I suspect my spare cycles were so thoroughly dedicated to the multithreading homework I was worrying about that it just didn't occur to me.

Dima wrote:Another recent and perfect example that is perfectly in line with what i said earlier. That some users think they can do whatever they want since the staff is not doing a good job. Take a look.

Did you try bringing this up to any of the staff before you brought it up in here as an example of the staff not doing a good job? We aren't always readily available to catch an issue when it first arises, and so to an extent we do rely on people coming forward to us with any concerns they might have. The tangent itself would have been taken care of if you simply brought it to a mod's attention and asked us to split it out; in fact, I'm going to split out the modding tangent after I post this, since I think plenty of people might have more to say on that topic. As for soul.assassin's response: it was in bad taste, clearly, and it has not gone unacknowledged.

Sachi wrote:Did you try bringing this up to any of the staff before you brought it up in here as an example of the staff not doing a good job? We aren't always readily available to catch an issue when it first arises, and so to an extent we do rely on people coming forward to us with any concerns they might have. The tangent itself would have been taken care of if you simply brought it to a mod's attention and asked us to split it out; in fact, I'm going to split out the modding tangent after I post this, since I think plenty of people might have more to say on that topic. As for soul.assassin's response: it was in bad taste, clearly, and it has not gone unacknowledged.

No i didn't. I thought it wasn't very important, so i thought i shouldn't bother someone from the stuff and that i could handle it myself. It was my mistake i know. But i understand that the forum is big and you can't monitor anything that's happening. The reason i brought it up mainly was the attitude of soul.assassin and not some guys going off-topic because i said in my previous post that some posts off-topic is normal to happen in a discussion. What i didn't expect was the way soul.assassin responded. Of course i wasn't expecting something like ''i am sorry, it won't happen again''. For me the best response would be.... nothing. Just don't say anything and continue discussing what the thread is about.

It just happened that soul.assassin was both rude and off-topic so that's why i brought it as an example. In case i am not clear i am not accusing the staff for letting many thread getting derailed/off-topic etc. I don't want to accuse anyone because then the subject is getting a lot more serious. My main ''complain'' as i said earlier in this thread in case you didn't read all my posts is not people going off-topic because in my previous posts in case you haven't read them all i ''praised'' the stuff because since it became bigger it's doing a good job handling threads, locking, merging etc.

In my opinion the only thing that the staff should get better is ''handling'' it's members because inmho some are not behaving good towards others. And then Nemz responded to me saying that ''yeah we are doing that'' and i answered him ''no you are not'' and well..... you know the rest of the discussion since you responded right after him.

Dima wrote:In my opinion the only thing that the staff should get better is ''handling'' it's members because inmho some are not behaving good towards others. And then Nemz responded to me saying that ''yeah we are doing that'' and i answered him ''no you are not'' and well..... you know the rest of the discussion since you responded right after him.

We're trying, certainly. I had hoped we were succeeding more. I've personally been a lot more involved in trying to improve people's treatment of each other. Haven't you seen me throwing "" at people?

Monk Ed wrote:We're trying, certainly. I had hoped we were succeeding more. I've personally been a lot more involved in trying to improve people's treatment of each other. Haven't you seen me throwing "" at people?

Yes in fact i saw it this morning!

It was in a graveyard thread. I actually thought ''wow this was fast''.

This is another area where new software packages we're looking into will likely be very helpful, such as a 'report post' button.

NemZ wrote:This is another area where new software packages we're looking into will likely be very helpful, such as a 'report post' button.

This would be really helpful. Maybe even a ''ignore this user'' button? Tho i am note sure if this could be helpful since probably you can still see what the user writes if others quote him, right?

Also i wanted to ask a question. How is the site getting new software packages/equipment since from what i understand it gains no money from the visitors (no ads is sooooo good)? Is the staff paying from their pockets? I remember one time some other user made this question but i can't recall the answer he was given....

Is it possible for the members to donate money?

Dima wrote:Is the staff paying from their pockets?

We use free software packages.

But for hosting and everything else? Yup.

Is it possible for the members to donate money?

We have a PayPal button hidden ... somewhere... and I'm not sure what it even links to.

There are many options in consideration, with pros and cons. If you really want an ignore option now though I believe Tines offered a script to do just that... somewhere around here. Ask him if you're interested.

The forum has indeed been paid for by various staff members. I believe we have a paypal donate button somewhere... but heck if I can find the darn thing right now. I think SSD handled that.

I was actually going to ask about a report system but I went meh, not my problem and forgot.

^ There is a medium-term plan being worked on to upgrade to a more modern version of the forum software which includes a "report to staff" button on each post.

I will say from personal experience the report system works very well when people feel like it's producing results. But if they don't there is an unfortunate tendency to ignore it. I don't really expect that to be an issue on a forum this size but it's something to keep in mind.

I also searched for a donate button before asking but i didn't find anything (seems i am not the only one lol). If somebody finds it either post it here or PM me. I am spending a lot of time in here (mostly as a lurker) so i would be happy to attribute in some way.

Ornette posted the Paypal button (Donate) at the very bottom of FAQ above profile a long time ago.

Tines already made an Ignore User script awhile ago.

Greasemonkey script at

https://bitbucket.org/Mr_Tines/scrapbook/raw/tip/javascript/userscripts/egf-ignore.user.js?at=default

You need to manually edit in the user names, and enable what aspects to ignore

[code:1] // remove the ", //" to enable feature
hidePosts, // = true,
hidePMs, // = true,
hidePresence, // = true,[/code:1]

Pull requests are welcome.