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Standard Forum Moderation

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Thu, Jan 14 2010 10:30 PM

  Hello,

  These forums urgently need standard moderation, as is obvious from what happens on these pages on a daily basis. One of the most frustrating proofs that this is so, is that carefully written on-topic posts containing valuable improvement suggestions get deleted without warning and for no reason at all. I am resubmitting the below text because it somehow disappeared from the forums, although I put a lot of effort yesterday into elucidating this important issue. Feel free to comment and criticize, but don't post here if all you want is to engage in personal attacks, as is usual in these forums.

  My no. 1 proposal for resolving the spamming/trolling issue is not IP addresses blocking (which would only be a second-tier measure, perhaps not needed at all) but the "moderated forum user / unmoderated forum user" switch, which will put the Moderated flag on every new forum member by default. That will get rid of all spammers, spambots, and trolls with 100% efficiency. WGT's forum software developers only need to develop this functionality, that's all.

  There was a number of misconceptions about forum moderation posted to another thread that got locked prematurely. It is important to set the matters straight, so that other forum users, and even forum developers, are not misled by what was said there.

  • What Crazyman2 was saying repeatedly conflates standard dynamic IP addresses with proxy servers. I know WGT has started banning frequently abused proxy servers, and I commend them for doing so. It's one of the ways to prevent the abuse by spammers/trolls often seen in these forums. And, to repeat: standard dynamic IP addresses usually only change negligibly, in the last 3 digits or so, so that there's little to no danger of banning the wrong user, especially if short-term bans are preferably used, as has been suggested. Of course, the IP ban would only be applied to the forum webpages (this is a bug WGT needs to remove, because currently forum bans mistakenly apply to all WGT.com webpages), so even in those rare cases where the "wrong" IP address got banned, it would be extremely unlikely another active forum poster would actually be affected by this. (Especially because the bulk of all bans would be short-term: for a few hours or days.) It's safe to assume that only 0.00001% or so of users registered at WGT.com ever contribute to these forums.
  • No one is "vying for the moderator position", least of all Faterson for Faterson. Faterson is too controversial to be a moderator. But the same, or similar, can be said about many of the frequent contributors here. Therefore, my suggestion for WGT was: set up some generic usernames for forum moderators. We already have WGTadmin and WGTadmin2 contributing to these forums. Set up WGTmod, WGTmod2, and WGTmod3, and entrust these usernames to people you can trust, either on WGT's staff, or to some of the current forum posters that WGT will trust. WGT will let no one know who exactly is WGTmod, WGTmod2, or WGTmod3. The identity of the moderator is unimportant, as long as he/she is doing the job properly. And, there'd be WGTadmins, overseeing the moderators' work, to ensure they don't abuse their privileges. Forum users could, of course, always lodge complaints about moderators if they saw them "misbehave".  
  • As to the other nonsense and untruths posted in that thread: I know of no one who was "banned from the forums multiple times for multiple breaches of the T&C". However, I do know of at least 2 specific instances of when a person, after getting abused in the forums, requested protection from abuse by emailing WGT, and the response, instead of the protection requested, was a ban. You can read more about those and similar errors that occurred, in my blog article.
  • Again, the idea of charging for forum participation, is side-splitting absurdity. On all standard web sites, users are encouraged to participate, not discouraged by being charged (!) for their input. This is even more ludicrous when it comes to discussion forums on a web site for a game in its Beta stage, when software developers must do everything they can to gather as much user feedback as possible.

• danohi50 1,020 Posts

  Fri, Jan 15 2010 12:56 AM

  You bring up many  good points..

  WGT don't charge for forum participation as that would be bad form..

  Freedom of speech is a two edge sword, while I don't believe in censorship WGT has a right it's there site, to set rules and regulations for it.

  WGT needs to determine threads that should be locked and should provide someone to do it as a representative of WGT.

• ThreeSpot 476 Posts

  Fri, Jan 15 2010 6:37 PM

  Faterson:

  Hello,

  These forums urgently need standard moderation, as is obvious from what happens on these pages on a daily basis. One of the most frustrating proofs that this is so, is that carefully written on-topic posts containing valuable improvement suggestions get deleted without warning and for no reason at all.

  Agreed.

  It seems to me that the simple joy of the game should be the heart of the Forum. Posters are the primary reason this is not so, but unfortunately, the heavy-handed and capricious moderation is a factor as well. Great topics get locked in less than a day - witness AtlantaCoaster's thread on whether to purchase the Master driver, JoelWhite's response about the differences between the Rapture and the G10 meter speeds. It's locked because of subsequent drivel? We can't know, no reason is given. But it's exactly the kind of topic that should be promoted rather than shut down.

  Moderation should be about filtering the garbage. Instead of doing this to improve the quality of topics about the fun of WGT, the moderation is simply anti-anti-WGT and a lot of good stuff gets tossed or locked when selectively deleting a few off topic or rude posts would be so much more effective.

   

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Fri, Jan 15 2010 6:50 PM

  ThreeSpot:

  selectively deleting a few off topic or rude posts would be so much more effective.

  Absolutely! But in order to select correctly what should or shouldn't be deleted, you need time. Because there is currently no one on WGT's staff with enough time to devote to this, the result is today's chaos in the forums.

  WGT really could try and entrust some of the experienced forum users with moderation tasks, using the generic handles WGTmod, WGTmod2, WGTmod3 as suggested above. I have myself done this for years in a forum I manage: I post there under my usual name when I discuss things, but I post there as Admin in the (rare!) cases when the forum Admin needs to speak up publicly.

  I have given myself all the admin privileges for my usual nickname, so I don't need to log out and back in to the forum when performing moderation tasks; that is only needed if the Admin needs to say something publicly (which is rare!).

  In the same way, if (for example) Nivlac were entrusted with the moderator's position by WGT, WGT would give Nivlac the moderation privileges, so that he could silently moderate while logged into this forum as Nivlac; but if he had to speak up publicly here in the forums (which happens rarely), he'd log into the forum as (for example) WGTmod2. We the users would have no idea who WGTmod2 was – but that doesn't matter; the important thing would be for WGTmod2 to perform his/her job correctly. WGTadmins would oversee that, and forum users could complain about WGTmod, WGTmod2, WGTmod3 etc. to WGTadmin(s) if they saw moderators abusing their privileges.

• ThreeSpot 476 Posts

  Fri, Jan 15 2010 7:11 PM

  Faterson, I agree that putting Forum moderation in the hands of one or more of WGT's many even handed and concerned citizens would likely be a cheap and effective solution. On a trial basis, the risk is low and the potential is high.

• SweetiePie 4,925 Posts

  Fri, Jan 15 2010 10:44 PM

  It's the "why" part I just don't get. Please enlighten me as to why anyone should be muzzled from talking freely.

• Faterson 2,902 Posts

  Fri, Jan 15 2010 11:42 PM

  There are web sites on the Internet where total freedom of speech is granted, for example the freedom to call for the extermination of a particular nation or race, or to insult anyone you dislike. I never visit those sites; life is too short to waste any time on anything like that.

  And then there are other web sites who wish for site visitors to discuss a particular issue, instead of discussing each other's personalties, let alone attack one another. I suggest WGT.com belongs to this second category: these forums are meant to discuss this golf game, help users in enjoying the game, and help developers in improving the game. In order for these forums to do that, they need standard forum moderation.

• GITrDONE 701 Posts

  Sat, Jan 16 2010 4:42 AM

  Thats right Faterson.

  Most of the members post an opinion and leave it at that.But we also have people that post they're opinion along with insults directed toward other forum users.

  When I post something it is posted in the forums, everyone can see it.But most of the time I really on care about what WGT thinks about ideas.I don't understand people that feel the need to post only to discredit someone's suggestion.To insult and attack people for they're own personal pleasure while lending nothing of any substance to the discussion at hand.

  They (wgt) should delete post that they find offensive and unproductive.I started a thread yesterday and the first reply was a personal attack and when I got home from work the thread was locked. I didn't even get a chance to discuss what other ideas were posted in the thread.