Daimonin MMORPG
Project => This website => SMF Forum => Topic started by: smacky on 19, September 2007, 12:56:40
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So lets have some opinions -- hopefully sensible ones -- on the Off Topic board. Clearly it is being used and, except rarely, is being used properly (if a bit unexcitingly), although there is still a bit of posting on topic threads in off topic.
So that's good as far as it goes.
As said above, I want to expand the Off Topic board to a community-oriented category of boards (not to be mistaken with the current community category which is just server-player stuff). This should be very possible on the new site.
The question is what kind of boards would go in this category? I don't like a catch-all 'Off Topic', partly because those words seem to be often read as 'Spam'. So some ideas:- Board request board -- where posters can request, discuss, vote on (if you must) new boards for the community section.
- Per language boards -- where posters can post in foreign (obviously not much use for suggestions, etc which should be posted in English (or close enough ;)) to the suggestions board, and so on, but possibly good for the community (non-native English speakers whose English is bad can express their ideas in their mother-tongue and have a bilingual community member translate and post to the appropriate board, easily find a language-specific subcommunity, etc) though this idea could also backfire horribly (that said other forums do it). I mentioned this on IRC and the person I mentioned it to thought it was unnecessary. Is it?
- (Broadly) topic-specific boards -- so instead of Off Topic, maybe have Politics, Players (for My Pic, birthdays, other announcements of note about community members -- although I think the new site will handle the first two itself by a different mechanism), and what else?
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Don't worry about moderation or not -- I'll need to see what the new site is/isn't capable of first -- and for ****'s sake don't start posting about boards in which you can/are required to swear, flame, etc
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(1) Board request board.
Why not just create a sticky in the 'this website' board? It is the relevant board and a whole board for what could simply be a topic seems a bit over the top. If you want public discussions of whether a suggested board would be wanted or not, simply create topics with a poll in this board too, and don't bother with a sticky, maybe an announcement to let people know that it is encouraged?
(2) Per language boards
Difficult. How many speakers would you want before you create the board? A board for 2 or 3 people to discuss Daimonin in Swahili seems over the top again, but I know there are alot of players that would be able to discuss the game better in German, French or another common language. I see the point about whether or not it is necessary though. In order to find and play daimonin, most people would have to speak English, or know someone who speaks English.
(3) Topic Specific Boards
Easy. Until the Off Topic board reaches/surpasses the level of topics/posting that Dai general/server general reach, I see no need for this to be added. I suspect we have quite alot of time to go before this happens.
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Well re #1 and a bit #2, AFAIK the number of boards is really irrelevant in terms of the amount of space it uses in the db. I stand to be corrected but I don't think there is a technical limit (OK, there's probably a limit of 32k or 64k or something total boards, but in real).
Of course there is a human limit. No-one wants to navigate 17 levels of category and sub-category and sub-sub-category and so on to finally reach the board they want or have to find just the right highly spe****ed board in a cast of 1000s.
Similar confusion could come with stickies or topics in this board to request boards and it could be argued that board requests is a distinct enough topic to warrant its own dedicated board. Also, it's for requesting new boards in the community section not in the forums as a whole (and also re #3, I'm still pondering how to make the community section community-driven and not Smacky-driven). So from that POV it makes sense to have a dedicated board.
But I'm really asking the community to say what it wants. Of course there are technical constraints -- all forum software is written with the assumption that ultimately everything will be pretty directly controlled by moderators (frankly, with reason). But I think we can still achieve something within those limits.
But my heart's not set on any of this, so if the consensus is that it's a bad idea or not needed, fair enough. Less work for me. :)
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Language boards: a good idea imo where people who have poor English can converse and get explanations from other players with a better grasp.
My initial suggestions for boards that would reflect the player base as far as I am aware:
- German
- Dutch
- French
- Spanish
- Czech/Slovak
- Polish
- Russian
Oh, and Hungarian for Die to talk to himself :) (don't know of any other Hungarian speakers)
Plus a general board where players can post requests for a new language board if they can show there is sufficient demand for it.
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ive seen like 4 or 5 hungarian but not on forums and didnt make so much lvls so i dont think there is more...but im special in something anyway :)
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ive read the first page of this thread and that is all
i would like to comment on the off topic board now, as i see it there was many players off subject in and out of the game hence the board being created i speculate
i believe it is nessasary to delete older threads and 3 days seem a great time, if the off topic posters cant shout it in game they can simply direct attention to the off topic board for there views to be seen (of course as long as it abides by the rules ;))
A wise old birdie once told me through a PM that i cant please everyone and i believe this to be a living (erm.. written) example, and i hope you remember that quote my lil birdie :) (glances at a random wall closest to her)
im not a expert on what im about to say, but of course it is but an opinion, i believe if there were a excessive amount of key words such as music as (i believe) smacky posted earlier, the search about this keyword would bring up a massive amount of results, thereby slowing the forum down
another opinion would be that this is a daimonin forum the permanent posts should be daimonin relevent shouldnt they? and anyway if there was a possible issue in the handling of the off topic forum, why not simply post in another forum on a different site specifically for those kind of threads
im sure if you find another gaming forum they would have strict rules on a off topic board (if not at all a board for that kind of information) <of course i was generalizing and i cant confirm this 100% :p>
~missy
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I pretty much agree with Subaru, but deleting posts in Off Topic forum makes it totally worthless to me...basically it would be something like IRC, but I have IRC for that... (forum is like a blog to me)
Unfortunately it isnt easy to make forum non-indexed by robots with current system (PNPHPBB) AFAIK...
I hope on the new website this would work... (also disabling counting of posts in some forums; btw I dont see a reason why post are counted anyway...)
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Language Boards..good idea. I'd hate to play a game in a second language ( especially one I'm not good at ) and not actually be able to communicate easily with ANYONE...and I've seen communities go nuts when people talk in another language ( why is beyond me, since that's what most of us are doing to them ).
Sub-boards...I'd keep it as simple as possible. Politics, humor ( although these two are almost the same ), languages, Smacky-bashing ( since he seems to get the brunt of the abuse )...too many just makes people end up posting in the wrong forums anyway.
Edit: I almost skipped over this topic since I thought this topic was dead months ago and someone just wanted to re-hash a dead issue...
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Yeah sorry guys. I recycled an old thread which probably has caused confusion.
Re deleting OT posts: well I turned that off after Trep and Anchak (and maybe some others) complained. My reasoning for having it auto-pruned was pretty much what Sub says, but it seems that this won't be a problem on the new site as forums like OT can apparently be taken out of the main db so they won't appear in search results or the new post index or anything. I understand that it may be possible to exclude them from search engines too.
So therefore it should not be necessary to delete all the crap. ;) We don't need to worry about that I think. Just say what you'd like instead of/as well as OT (or you might just want to keep OT). To give the forum a section focussed on the community rather than the game or the project.
I agree with Frosty.
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I split this thread now, to hopefully prevent confusion.
I have just been playing with the new forums and I am quite confident that the changes to OT I want to make/have been discussed here will all be possible. :)
It can be set up so that, for example, all members with >= X posts to their name (say X = 50) have certain moderation permissions on OT only.
For example, all such could lock, split, or merge OT topics.
I think it will be best to keep topic removal restricted to global moderators (there is a 'call moderator' button). OTOH removed topics go to a recycling board from where global moderators can either delete them finally or restore them, and all moderating is logged anyway. So abuse can be tracked/fixed, but it is a hassle for global mods (really I am trying to pass off as much work as possible ;)). Or we could have a higher level of OT mods. So 50 posts gets you lock, split, merge and 100 gets you remove, for example.
And yes, the risk is that basing things on post counts encourages spam and necroposting, so maybe the global mods will need to take a harder line on that? Or perhaps there is a better way? What I don't want is a situation where global mods make the decision about who gets OT mod permissions. That seems to defeat the purpose. It should be that by default these permissions are attainable by anyone, and can be removed in cases of abuse.
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i think its fine as you stated, but OT mods should not have the ability to unlock threads or post to locked threads (as we can). This will prevent "i don't care i have seniority, lock, and lastword, you loose".
The other side of things, you can get 50 posts in a day. Easily. I think it should be 200+ for lock, split, merge, and 500+ for remove. Of course vols should already have these permissions by default.
just my thouhts.
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It is possible to get 50 posts in a day, but if spam/necroposting is looked after sufficiently then it is not realistic.
Higher level of post counts for remove is a good idea IMO.
Where would global mods come in with abuse accusations though? Would it be possible for these powers to be removed, regardless of post count? How would these accusations be proved/disproved? AFAIK posts deleted are permanently gone...how would we know that it wasn't a vendetta against the modded account? Can I think of any more questions?
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@TPK: Indeed. Only global mods/admins can post to locked threads (in fact, this is yet another option, and there would be a board-specific group of mods who could also do this, but only in their boards).
I'm not clear yet on whether locking ability means unlocking too, I agree, it is preferable if it doesn't, otherwise you get tit for tat locking/unlocking battles.
@Talw: Yes, about the spamming. But maybe 50 is too low. Whatever, we can tweak that value later on.
I am not clear on removing the OT mod powers. From a quickish look, I think this can be done in a slightly roundabout way. Really I want a nice simple exclusion list. So everyone can attain this by default, but global mods can disable individuals if they're being tits. What I want to avoid here is banning members from the forum entirely simply because they got carried away in OT.
As to proving/disproving abuse and deleting posts:
removed topics go to a recycling board from where global moderators can either delete them finally or restore them, and all moderating is logged anyway.
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Umm sorry for playing dumb, but:
I have just been playing with the new forums and I am quite confident that the changes to OT I want to make/have been discussed here will all be possible. :)
These are what?
It can be set up so that, for example, all members with >= X posts to their name (say X = 50) have certain moderation permissions on OT only.
For example, all such could lock, split, or merge OT topics.
Why you want that?
Is it from lack of moderators for moderating OT forum? If so, then I haven't noticed the lack, anyway wouldn't it be better to make more OT forum moderators who aren't tits, then give basically everybody the power and then have problems with the tits?
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the idea is to make less work for the devs/mods by having a community that is a) self-serving, b) self policing, and c) growing (and by growing, i mean growing in personal sociological health. Where people realize they have power because of their seniority, and choose to not abuse it, because they are morally sound. Instead they choose to use that power to show other people the way out of the cave. [go Plato/Socrates!])
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Ahhh if you will a language board, please put the Portuguese language in it, i saw some brazilians in the game, and i think that is good to make some boards abouts birthdays and pics from players, so you can catch this pics, and change the pic of the day in the main site, that pics doesnt show many things about the game for the visitants
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Well not really just to make less work for mods (arguably it won't do this anyway), but also to give the community more self-determination. So, for example, it doesn't fall to me or Longir or whoever to impose our opinions on what is and is not acceptable for the community to discuss. Rather the community can make this decision itself.
It might not work. Perhaps as a whole people need a recognisable authority to tell them what to do. I'd like to think not, but the worst that can happen is the end of civilization as we know it, so what have we got to lose?
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Anybody know what www.sendspace.com is? It just tried to set a cookie on my computer when I opened this thread.
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Hehehe, sendspace is a upload site, this site doesnt have virus, i tryed to put a image from this site link, but didnt work, i'll fix it now :D
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@Anchakor: The new website is nearly finished and MT exported these forums to it. The changes planned are listed in the root post: per language boards, board request board, and topic specific boards. The addition is the ability of community members to moderate the off-topic forum (self-policing community).
I have been admittedly lax in moderating for quite a while now, but I have other things on my mind/occupying my time. I'm sure other mods have demands on their time as well. Giving the community a voice in what happens is not a bad thing (imo), but the final decision will still rest with the global moderators/admins.
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I've typed this post 5 times now, and erased it and started over each time. Everytime I get done, it sounds too critical and negative, and I do try to be positive about most things.
Change is a good thing, but isn't this just changing the problem around a little? isn't it just switching the job of moderating the forums from what it is, to moderating the moderators moderations ( now that's a mouthfull )?
Or is this more of an experiment into what the community can handle on it's own?
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We probably see all the side effects of the situation, thinking up worse case scenarios and such. But really, I think this gives a chance for the community to have their very own input in responsibility. So yeah ... it sounds pretty experimental, but it's worth a shot IMO. :)
Frostyglen, I see your point. But because the Off topic forums is community based, we (the community) are looking at making it the community's responsibility.
http://www.daimonin.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=1334 - this thread was made solely for people to show their pics. However, I think there should be a "About me" board where people can introduce/say stuff about themselves (I think the "My pic" thread should merge with this). Another suggestion is to have a board where people can talk about educative things, or nonfictional history (although I think these might fall into the category of Topic specific).
Otherwise, those are my ideas for a constructive purpose. ;)
Cheers,
Anich
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@Frosty: Dunno about you, but I know English and can pick out a few words from a couple other languages. Should we recruit someone that can speak a language for moderating one specific board or should we let those that speak that language fluently and use that board handle it? The same with the rest of off-topic but let the community decide what is acceptable on it. In a way, it's the forum equivalent of Vol, GM, DM (community off-topic moderation, global moderators, admins).
EDIT: Sorry if it sounds harsh, it's earlier than my usual wakeup time and I only have a few sips of *instant* coffee in me.
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2nd one. Big mods (and Theoris) will still handle all the forums, except OT (or however we organise it). Big mods (and Theoris) still can moderate OT and indeed the more powerful moderation (such as deleting/editing individual posts and replying to locked topics can only be done by big mods (and Theoris).
The idea is to have, as near as possible, genuine community-centred community boards where, within reason, the community talks about what and how the community likes. Of course this was always the intention of OT in the first place and that hasn't exactly been an overwhelming success (a large number of posts are just about Daimonin anyway and should be in DG or MSG or something and a sizeable proportion of others are complete crap. But sometimes it is used as it was intended.
It's kind of interesting how underused it is, considering the kickups over freedome of speech and various high-falutin' topics of discussion this time last year.
Anyway, despite the lukewarm reception I am thinking, rather than to abandon the idea, to give the community more control over the board(s) by making them largely community-moderated. Chances are the increased permissions will also go nowhere in the end, or lead to a few people storming around officiously 'moderating' everything in sight, or just lead to utter chaos as everyone works against everyone else. I guess we'll see.
EDIT: And what Longir said.
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Chances are the increased permissions will also go nowhere in the end, or lead to a few people storming around officiously 'moderating' everything in sight, or just lead to utter chaos as everyone works against everyone else. I guess we'll see.
If OT mod powers are handed out to random people, then yes this is bound to happen. Therefore I think it is crucial to only hand out OT mod powers to familiar, reasonably responsible people - before submitting OT mod powers to someone, make a vote/pole to what the community thinks about that person being granted OT mod powers. This means that this will also be based on your social reputation. It will be dangerous to hand out such powers to flamers and spammers. (We could probably split this one into a board?)
Cheers,
Anich
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Well there are three ways to do this as I see it:[list=1]
- Base it on post counts. The idea is that, generally, more posts = more trusted/dedicated member of the community. The question isl what is a 'golden number' of posts?
- Base it on polls as you've suggested.
- SMF gives posters a 'karma', starting at 0. Other posters can then smite (karma -1) or applaud (karma +1) the first poster, supposedly on the basis of a particular post. Thus it is like an informal poll on that poster (it literally is a popularity indicator) so we could says x karma gets you y permission. But thiis also means the permissions can subsequently be lost (as you are smited).[/list:o]
The problems with #2 and #3 are that:- IDK if it is possible to automatically assign permission on these bases. Having to do it manually is a hassle for the administrators.
- These are popularity contests whereas #1 is a (imperfect) suitability test.
All three methods are of course open to abuse.
A fourth possibility is to give certain members (perhaps decided with one of the methods above) very limited admin powers (SMF can do this I think) and then have them elect OT mods. But really this is just repeating the situation we have now, in miniature.
I prefer #1 because it means anyone can achieve the permissions. However, I also find the idea that the community can remove permissions (ie, #3) quite appealing.
Anyway, in the end we need to make whatever method is used nice and simple, or no-one will boother.
I missed your post after Frost:
http://www.daimonin.com/index.php?name= ... amp;t=1334 - this thread was made solely for people to show their pics. However, I think there should be a "About me" board where people can introduce/say stuff about themselves (I think the "My pic" thread should merge with this). Another suggestion is to have a board where people can talk about educative things, or nonfictional history (although I think these might fall into the category of Topic specific).
This can, and I think will, be handled in a much better way than a forum thread on the new site. :)
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Smacky: can you do a combination of 1 and 3?
Say they need 150 posts in a board to me an OT moderator in that board. AND they need a karma of 50+.. Or something...
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Yes, I will find out more about #2 and #3 (and combining the methods) tonight (unless I don't ;)).
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As experiment it sounds fun...
Anyway I don't think it will result in greater freedom of speech, because it would be rule of majority...
Also for example what if die hard republican and die hard democrat meet on forums, each deleting the other ones posts (possibly hundreds a day or even more)?
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Then die hard big mods (or Theoris) step in and kick arse. :)
There is also a 'call a moderator' button on each post (or thread maybe) so any member can easily bring something to the attention of a big mod (or Theoris) if the community really can't cope with itself.
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Hehe, No Longir, that doesn't sound harsh at all. I know I'm not qualified to mod a board written in portugese(sp?), Sanscrit, or Yittish.
While I try to stay positive about things, it doesn't stop me from seeing the worst that could happen. It just takes me a few minutes to choke that lil' monster down and see the sunshine.
Seeing as how I can't see a better alternative ( other than said extra mods ) I'm all for it. I understand that there will be a mod behind the...er, beginner mods...to keep things on an even keel.
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Smacky: can you do a combination of 1 and 3?
Yes, I will find out more about #2 and #3 (and combining the methods) tonight (unless I don't ;)).
So which combination are we talking about? IMO #2 and #3 are almost the same thing, they are both popularity based. Karma, or poll, which ever way works, combined with #1 sounds like a good flow to me. This way, it's more of a test, to separate the responsible ones from the irresponsibles. People will try to increase their post counts, therefore encouraging them to spam and necropost. But, by doing this they are risking their social reputation, they will lose karma points and not make OT mod. The responsible ones will take their time and build their social reputation - a reasonable OT mod. Although it's quite biased, and it'll probably cause an uproar at first, but whatever the heck ...
Cheers,
Anich
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Yes, good reasoning Anich. The problem (possibly) is permissions are allocated to a membergroup, not an individual member. While belonging to a particular membergroup can be determined automatically based on post count, I am not sure if karma can affect it. Polls certainly can't.
The difference between karma and polls is that polls are one-vote-per-person whereas I can smite you many times (at a default rate of one smiting per hour). Which means that polls reflect community opinion (if at all) at one particular time, while karma is an ongoing thing. So if at first I vote yes in the 'do we let Anich mod?' poll but subsequently decide you're an idiot, the only way to express this opinion is to start a new poll and vote no. Which, besides spamming, requires everyone else to be interested enough to vote. Which they won't be if polls keep popping up on exactly the same issue. Also, then Frosty puts up his own independent poll on you at the same time. You, bitter and twisted with rage, put up a poll questioning my popularity, and so on. It quickly becomes ludicrous.
With karma these polls become constant and 'invisible'. There is always one poll per person. Anyone can vote on any of them multiple times. So it's still a popularity contest, but at least it is relatively accurate over time and not a cause of spam.
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So if I've done this right, on community chat everyone has certain mod privileges based on their post count.
Well, combat dummies and small ants don't.
Giant slimes get the ability to split and merge topics.
Ancient bone dragons can also lock topics and polls.
Lesser moroch avatars can also delete or edit other peoples posts, topics, and polls.
Demonic Priests of Moroch also get a few more moderation privileges, such as being able to post to locked topics.
This only applies to the Community chat forum.
Furthermore, new posts in that forum do not add to your post count. So to get the mod privs you need to post daimonin-related stuff to the other boards.
Also, all moderation actions are logged, so don't abuse it. ;)
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wow very nice plan smacky, i love where you have tooken this!
this new system seems to be a giant leep for the OT board, and im sure there will be people to abuse it but it seems like you have that under control as well
let me know if theres anything i can do to help :}
~missy
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Yes! Yes! Where is Ultimajoe? :D
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hehe I haven't seen a way to link this to karma yet. AFAICS karma is just for fun.
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so im a warlord of moroch army that means i can edit/delete/lock...*thinks of evil things* nah i wont abuse it im not that bad guy :)
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hehe I haven't seen a way to link this to karma yet. AFAICS karma is just for fun.
Ageree, if karma will do anything else then ppl will just start smiting eachother including MT :D
so im a warlord of moroch army that means i can edit/delete/lock...*thinks of evil things* nah i wont abuse it im not that bad guy :)
I'm working on it too :D I hope i'll catch you soon. For now i'm depressed since after changes i can't edit your posts :-\
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Nicely handled, Smacky.
Cheers,
Anich
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Anich, wth happened to ur avatar?
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Nobbit: lol yeah. There seems to be a small problem with avatar management mentioned here (http://www.daimonin.com/avatar_and_profile_management-t6644.0.html). I recently got my diamond back.
Do Global Mods have all mod privs on CC? Or is it entirely based on post count?
Anich
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Global mods have all mod privs on cc, but I'd prefer them not to use them unless absolutely necessary. Ie, delete a blatant advert, resolve some problem where community mods get in a petty fight, etc.