The all new: Ask a moderator about the forum & rules

[Mr Burns]

Can my usertitle be OFP Slut again?

[dmakatra]

What's with the BI Forums policy of having mean mods? Take a look at this thread:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=72474

The guy is new. Maybe he has very little experience with online forums, only being exposed to less serious forums. And he's greeted with a condescending post by the moderator and a lock. And this happens over and over again, more or less every day.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't lock threads like this one. I generally like the moderation policies that the BI Forums have. It's the tone of a lot of the moderators I don't like. Not only is it contra-productive, because instead of setting the poster straight it'll scare or piss them off, but it's also idiotic in a marketing perspective as BI alienates a lot of potential customers.

Is it really that hard to be NICE when you're locking a thread?

[W0lle]

@burns
Username / Usertitle change request thread

@dmakatra
Thanks for your opinion, however it might have been smarter you PM the moderator in question (in this case me) with your concerns instead discussing or questioning the way the forums are moderated in public.

[dmakatra]

Hey W0lle,

I understand. I thought I'd bring it up here since it is no way a single moderator in which this behaviour is common, so I really don't want you to think of it as a personal attack against you. Sorry if it came out that way.

[W0lle]

No worries mate, I will survive it and haven't seen it as a personal attack at all.

I sent the guy a PM explaining why the thread was closed and even answered his question there.

[Scrub]

Hi all,

Just been noticing some new faces around here recently. Thought a bit about how they handle themselves, I understand they're new, but still, posting things that are obviously spam (E.G. easily answerable questions if they just skim some threads/arma2.com). I know I've bumped into several on Youtube, BF2/BF2PR, OFPR, COD and other sites and forums.

My point of this thread:
I'm wondering, besides just the workload involved, is there any benefit - societal, fanbase kinetics, informational - to the forum owner, game or mod developer, in allowing a looser set of rules?

OFPR for one, has many members posting new threads that rehash old news. Everyone either repeats these, or quotes incorrectly and gets corrected. It's busy as if there WAS a new release of info, which would be considered major spamming here (and rightly so). BF2 used to be that way, and CoD forums are most definitely that way... Won't even get into Youtube, as that is another grotesque beast of posting altogether.

So, again, I don't expect this thread to take a lot of time to get to the meat of the matter. Just want to see a general view on the differences good/bad.

My take is it is much more difficult to get hard info from such chaos, and can't see a solid benefit to it.. Other than it becomes a text-based playground that keeps it's kinetics artificially high.

Thanks

[NeMeSiS]

I remember the bungee forums before the Halo2 release, and it was the biggest bunch of crap i have ever seen. Everyone just seemed to make the same 10 topics over and over again, yelling at eachother and having completely pointless and endless flamewars. It was impossible to use the forum in a decent way because every piece of usefull information was buried in 30 pages of bullshit.

I am very glad with the BI forums, they may be overly strict at times, but in the end these forums are 100% userfriendly.

[Placebo]

Quick answer, no we won't start being looser about the rules.
Long answer we're working on an FAQ to be pinned in ArmA2 General.

This could and should have been raised in the Ask a Mod thread. Moving the posts to there.

[Scrub]

Ah, Sorry about that. The intent was not how these forums are run, but the difference in the others society, and what the other BIS members found to be beneficial or not in the other forums style. I prefer BISs' more regimented forums, and can't see (other than workload) what bonus, if any, the others would have for how chaotic they are.

Ahh, NeMeSiS (I find typing OFPForum MUCH easier, lol) Yes, my point exactly. Is that used to keep the energy up on those forums in the absence of hard info? Or could it simply be lack of moderator number, time, care, to reign in? I know, is now wrong thread for such discussion..

Sorry for any misunderstanding.

[Sniperwolf572]

Well, from my point of view, discussing one topic on fifteen threads isn't really benefiting anyone, and it makes it easier to search for info without having to look in those fifteen different places. Having pointless spam-threads isn't contributing to the forums or it's community in any way.

As for the workload, there's a few good things about this community, amongst many other qualities, there's the self-policing () and lack of tolerance for bull. Having active community which doesn't appreciate such posts and frequents the use of the report button makes our jobs that much easier.

On the other hand most people that create threads about questions that have been answered to death before are the ones who are too lazy to use the search function. The spam thread starters will either learn and adapt to the community, or play the "OMG DEMOCRACY! FREEDOM OF SPEECH! I can say whatever crap I want and then defend myself by accusing the moderators to be the oppressors!" card until they get themselves banned or get bored when they realise that nobody gives a damn.