Warcraft II Forum

Help & Support => Website & Forum Discussion => Topic started by: mousEtopher on February 26, 2015, 12:53:03 PM

Title: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: mousEtopher on February 26, 2015, 12:53:03 PM
So as you can all see, we're in the process of making some structural changes to the forum to help improve organization & address the spam/flaming problem. Major changes are summarized below.


Major Forum Changes

1. Created a "Flame Wars" board.
Whenever a legit thread goes off onto a tangent (useless back & forth exchanges of spam/flames) that content will be split from the main thread and moved to this board. Users can continue posting to the split thread or even start new threads in this section if they want, however posts made will not add to total post count. Forum rules do not apply here.*

2. Created a "Forum Affairs" board.
This section is for posts related to the forum, announcements (such as this one) about what actions admins/mods are taking, and for everyone else to post suggestions or complaints about the forum, how it's being run, etc. Our forum users have shown they are very concerned about free speech, fair administration, etc. so this is our attempt to be totally transparent about how the forum is operated.

3. Moved existing threads into these new boards.
I did a quick sweep through the boards and moved the most obvious threads into these two new sections. If I missed anything or moved anything incorrectly feel free to point it out here and myself or another mod can adjust accordingly.

4. Installed a Warning System plugin
The Warning System plugin will standarize moderation activities so there will never be any question of mods taking unfair or arbitrary actions.


* The exception is that porn links/images must still be clearly labeled and/or concealed within a "Spoiler" tag, which is a forum-wide policy.



New Warning System

The warning system will operate as follows:

* Infraction details:
Spoiler
As of right now the forum rules (http://forum.war2.ru/index.php?topic=1383.0) disallow spam, obnoxious pictures, offtopic garbage; "acts of religious, racial, sexual intolerance", and posting porno links, pictures, videos onpage. My interpretation of this:
  • If two (or more) people get into a flame war in a primary board and a mod has to split the thread & move it to Flame board, all parties involved receive a warning.

  • If one person makes multiple low quality (spam/flame) posts within a thread or threads that require their posts to be split, they receive a warning. 

  • If someone makes a post attacking or harassing another person (or a general group of people) based on race, religion, sex or sexual orientation, they receive a warning.
    Examples: "John Doe, you are a filthy Muslim piece of shit." "All Germans are Nazi scumbags." (Here we use race/nationality interchangeably.)

  • If someone links to graphic/NSFW content without labeling it, or embeds it directly into a thread without using a labeled "Spoiler" tag, they receive a warning.



Compound Warnings




Warnable Offenses

The list of infractions that a moderator can issue a warning for:

* Details about use of porn links/images:
Spoiler
Currently the rules state: "Porno links, pictures, videos onpage should cause muting" which we're intepreting as meaning unlabeled links, and images/videos directly embedded into a thread. Therefore, porn is technically allowed if links are clearly labeled as leading to pornographic material, and image/video embeds are concealed in a clearly labeled "Spoiler" tag.

An image/vid embedded in a labeled spoiler is the same difference as a labeled link, in that it gives people the option to not view the content if they don't want to. If anyone feels it's necessary to revise this guideline to prohibit all links/references to porn/graphic content, period, they can raise that issue for discussion and a community vote.


Other admins/mods: feel free to append to this list if you feel it's necessary, but make a public announcement if you do. People have the right to know in advance what they can be punished for.



Censorship

Currently we haven't finalized any guidelines for employing censorship on the forum. Should we do it ever? Should we do it some of the time? Some ideas are:




Revisions
28 Aug 2015
References to poll removed.  Rules finalized.

09 Mar 2015
  • Increased warning duration from 24 hours to 5 days.
28 Feb 2015
  • Added info about compound warnings
  • Added porn exception to the "no rules for Flame Wars" decree
  • Add clarification about correct usage/labeling of porn
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: SmurfKinG on February 26, 2015, 03:59:03 PM
thats all nice.


flame forum will be filled with equinox threads, he wanted his own susbforum now he has it... kinda...lol


there needs to be a 3 mutes = 1 month ip ban.

(i am hoping/assuming this forum has ip ban... otherwise player will just create a new aka and start over again... *cough* eminem)
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart) on February 26, 2015, 04:08:04 PM
Yeah, I agree there should be some sort of "ramping up" for multiple infractions.

And yes there's IP bans. 
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: I hate naggers on February 26, 2015, 04:09:35 PM
awesome changes, i can wipe out my ignore list and start reading war2.ru section again. Yay
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: mousEtopher on February 26, 2015, 08:25:23 PM
thats all nice.


flame forum will be filled with equinox threads, he wanted his own susbforum now he has it... kinda...lol

Sounds like a perfect solution to me. The guy has more lives than a cat when it comes to evading bans, so at least this way all his anger and hatred can be contained in one small, isolated cesspool instead of permeating the entire forum and ruining it for everyone. Making posts in the Flame forum doesn't increase post count, so what's the problem? Let him have his own subforum make 500 posts a day there if he wants.

Compounding punishment for repeat offenders seems reasonable. So if someone has 40% warnings, they break a rule and receive another 10%, they're muted for 24 hours. If they break another rule the moment they're unmuted then they could receive a double warning (20%), so muted for 48 hours, and so on. If they pull that crap 3-4 times, hit them with a 7 day IP ban. Thoughts?

Hopefully it won't be necessary to go to such lengths though; everyone seems to be playing nicely for the moment. c:
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on February 27, 2015, 12:22:28 AM
Oh nice we allowing porn on here now? Nice job keeping the integrity of these forums.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: I hate naggers on March 02, 2015, 02:33:42 AM
is this spam or other kind of unwanted content?

http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,473.msg6687.html#msg6687 (http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,473.msg6687.html#msg6687)
http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,512.msg6673.html#msg6673 (http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,512.msg6673.html#msg6673)

there are millions of these. According to rules:
Quote
If one person makes multiple low quality (spam/flame) posts within a thread


so should I only report him when i see two garbage pics in the same thread? or are they not considered as 'spam'?
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: iL on March 02, 2015, 03:08:21 AM
is this spam or other kind of unwanted content?
Yes, i think it is.
The main problem is there are really tons of such spam messages here on the forum. Moderators should give million warnings to handle that.
My personal point: i appreciate people involvement in forum activity, but i'd be happy to reduce such kind of spam in all sections except flame wars.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 02, 2015, 07:19:45 AM
is this spam or other kind of unwanted content?

[url]http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,473.msg6687.html#msg6687[/url] ([url]http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,473.msg6687.html#msg6687[/url])
[url]http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,512.msg6673.html#msg6673[/url] ([url]http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,512.msg6673.html#msg6673[/url])

there are millions of these. According to rules:
Quote
If one person makes multiple low quality (spam/flame) posts within a thread


so should I only report him when i see two garbage pics in the same thread? or are they not considered as 'spam'?

No its not spam if u want i can write it physically out. I was calling you gay in that one post based on your comment and the other was a famous tv show that quoted Ganz legend comment. Seems to me your just a little butt hurt [emoji32]. And i thought i was on your ignore list?

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 02, 2015, 07:32:56 AM
If its that much of an issue then let a moderator review it and have them move it to the appropriate section. I have no objections.

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: I hate naggers on March 02, 2015, 11:18:00 AM
is this spam or other kind of unwanted content?
Yes, i think it is.
The main problem is there are really tons of such spam messages here on the forum. Moderators should give million warnings to handle that.
My personal point: i appreciate people involvement in forum activity, but i'd be happy to reduce such kind of spam in all sections except flame wars.
i guess that whenever mod sees that kind of post, he should remove it/move it to flame wars + give an appropriate warning %%. All it needs is a clear policy (lets call it "anti-ryu" rule) posted&sticked somewhere, so every moderator would react the same way
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart) on March 02, 2015, 11:31:07 AM
Both those posts you linked, they're low-content but they're directly related to the posts preceding them. That's not really "spamming."  I don't really see that kind of post as a big deal.  why is ganz posting "I AM LEGEND" not spam, but ryu posting a pic saying "Look son, a legend" is spam?  Does it really bother lots of people?
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: I hate naggers on March 02, 2015, 12:04:50 PM
they're directly related to the posts preceding them

http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,492.msg6596.html#msg6596 (http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,492.msg6596.html#msg6596)
http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,487.msg6513.html#msg6513 (http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,487.msg6513.html#msg6513)
http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,507.msg6629.html#msg6629 (http://forum.war2.ru/index.php/topic,507.msg6629.html#msg6629)

thats not even related and hardly "low-content", more like zero content. Even the ladyboys $pace hangs around with have more vagina than those posts have content, you hear me you little brat! this is serious business
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart) on March 02, 2015, 12:15:08 PM
Yeah, a post that's just a smiley is pretty bad, esp. from someone with a history of making low-content posts.  I will warn him for those for sure if I see them in the future.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 02, 2015, 12:22:31 PM
Soo many rules, [emoji33] might need to hire a lawyer.

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart) on March 02, 2015, 12:43:15 PM
I'm a lawyer.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: Delete mine too on March 02, 2015, 12:59:08 PM
How about a reputation for trusted People in the community.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: iL on March 02, 2015, 01:55:00 PM
Both those posts you linked, they're low-content but they're directly related to the posts preceding them. That's not really "spamming."  I don't really see that kind of post as a big deal.  why is ganz posting "I AM LEGEND" not spam, but ryu posting a pic saying "Look son, a legend" is spam?  Does it really bother lots of people?

This:

(http://forum.war2.ru/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=462.0;attach=181)

My personal point of view: it's related to previous post of course.
But that is not related to the main thread subject. And that is not some kind of useful information about any other subject discussing in the same thread. That's just a kind of joke.
And that is what i'd call spam. More precisely: "Spam, obnoxious pictures, offtopic garbage".

I'd be happy to see more quality than quantity of the content here on the forum. Except flame and general sections.

why is ganz posting "I AM LEGEND" not spam

I'd suppose that looks like spam also.
But another side that all that thread is not serious. Nothing to care about the quality of content. So, not a big deal also.

I think we can move that threads to flame wars and don't care of spam there. BTW, 2 of 5 these threads are there already.

That is just my personal point, not an official position.
I'll accept any of your decisions, blid, just need to make these situations transparent, what to do and what not to do.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: I hate naggers on March 02, 2015, 02:10:02 PM
Quote
just need to make these situations transparent, what to do and what not to do.
Quoted for truth, i just brought the matter into mod attention, it's up to you what you decide. All i ask for is transparency and consistency
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart) on March 02, 2015, 02:15:42 PM
The tricky thing is personally im not sure how id determine spam is consistent.  like, if you (claw or iL) suddenly made a post that was nothing but a smiley, that's not your habit and it's just once so it's not a problem.  maybe you have a reason you wanted to do it.  but when ryu makes hundreds of posts of just a picture or just a smiley, then it starts becoming spammy, and some people raise it as an issue.  spam i think is kind of related to volume of posts more than the content or lack of content in a single post.  the only person who i think has made a habit of this is ryu.  i don't know how you'd write a rule to this effect, i think it's more just common sense.  you don't want to stop people from posting the way they want, until the way they want to post starts harming the forum experience for others.  what do you think?
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart) on March 02, 2015, 02:50:12 PM
since Ryu is a person and not a bot i kind of want to be accommodating to him posting here.  so if you want a consistent rule right now what i'd have for ryu would be a) no posts of just a smiley, b) make sure the pics you post are on topic.  that's it really.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 02, 2015, 03:56:18 PM
I post mostly through the phone so its hard to type long novelistic posts. Why I usually settle with a meme or a emoji. [emoji28]

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: iL on March 02, 2015, 03:58:00 PM
like, if you (claw or iL) suddenly made a post that was nothing but a smiley, that's not your habit and it's just once so it's not a problem.  maybe you have a reason you wanted to do it.  but when ryu makes hundreds of posts of just a picture or just a smiley, then it starts becoming spammy, and some people raise it as an issue.  spam i think is kind of related to volume of posts more than the content or lack of content in a single post.
Absolutely agree with that. Had the same thoughts today.
I think it can be funny if about 10% of someone's posts would be some useless smiles or senseless pictures. That just let's people relax.
But when about 90% of posts is that senseless spam (or garbage, or w/e), it just turns forum to something i'd be not happy to see.

the only person who i think has made a habit of this is ryu.
Well, i'd say Ryu is not only one who do that, but i'd address this this message to him at the first time. I'm also not about rules, warnings, etc, i'm just about what i'd want to see on this forum.
you don't want to stop people from posting the way they want, until the way they want to post starts harming the forum experience for others.  what do you think?
Absolutely agree with you here.
And i don't want to talk about the rules now, i want to talk how i want to see the forum of my dream:

here's the big difference between chat and forum:
Chat is 1 topic with no subject, everyone discuss everything they want there.
That's good because you can just post anything you want there and others will see it. That's easy.
But when you (or anybody else) need to find something, it's absolutely impossible. So chat id good to share the information between people but useless to store this information.
Chat is perfect for instant messaging like aim, skype, bnet or w/e. Also perfect for senceless talking about everything.

Forum is many topics structured by many sections. Each topic has it's name according to it's content.
That's mean if you want to say or ask something, you should form your message subject, then try to find the topic with the same or similar subject and then post it there or to create new one if it's not exist.
That's probably more difficult for you, but then your message could be found easily by yourself and others.
Forum is perfect for delayed messaging, when you can post, disappear and then return after a long time. Also perfect for discussing definite questions.

I strongly want to see this forum as forum. With all these well-structured topics, where you can open the forum contents and see a list of topic names. When you click any topic, use see the discussion related to the topic name.

- When some thread going to change it's subject during the conversation, i'd like to see somebody who turned it back to the main subject. Or to split this new discussion subject to another thread. 1 step away from the main thread subject is ok, 2-nd step away (inside the same thread) is not welcomed in general, 3-rd step weans we should eighter stop that or to make a new thread to talk about that different subject.

- When someone asks about something that have been discussed already, i'd like to let him get the link to discussed thread instead of repeating the same information in the same thread. Then we keep the forum structured.

- When someone wants to discuss some offtopic subject appeared in the thread, he is free to create the new thread with according name and post his post to discuss. That helps to keep the forum structured.
- When someone wants to post 1 comment about some offtopic subject or to post a smile, he shouldn't do it. Because it will clog the forum structure.

That is how i see the logic of informational forum part.
Flame section is kind of chat, you feel free to post anything in every random topic there.

My dream is to get well-structured forum with different threads for different discussions.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: tolsty on March 04, 2015, 01:05:33 AM
On many forums flood and offtopic punished. These messages are transported in the flame and are not considered in counting the total number of messages. Immediately lost the desire just to chat.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: mousEtopher on March 04, 2015, 09:00:59 AM
On many forums flood and offtopic punished. These messages are transported in the flame and are not considered in counting the total number of messages. Immediately lost the desire just to chat.

Yes, this is one of our new measures. If things get too out of hand in a thread posts are split and moved to the Flame Wars board, and those posts no longer count towards total post count.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 04, 2015, 09:45:17 AM
On many forums flood and offtopic punished. These messages are transported in the flame and are not considered in counting the total number of messages. Immediately lost the desire just to chat.
Hahaha lol.....dont sweat it [emoji16] [emoji106] As long as you don't act like a Equinox or Claw on a off day u'll avoid mousey cursing at you [emoji6].

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: mousEtopher on March 09, 2015, 07:35:46 PM
Increased warning duration from 24 hours to 5 days to make them slightly less useless. (Decreases at a rate of 2%/24 hours.)
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 09, 2015, 07:58:03 PM
Increased warning duration from 24 hours to 5 days to make them slightly less useless. (Decreases at a rate of 2%/24 hours.)
Give me a warning of 49%, i like to live life on the edge [emoji9]

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: GaNzTheLegend on March 09, 2015, 08:00:46 PM
Increased warning duration from 24 hours to 5 days to make them slightly less useless. (Decreases at a rate of 2%/24 hours.)
Give me a warning of 49%, i like to live life on the edge [emoji9]

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X


give me a 1000% warning while your at it.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: Nox on March 09, 2015, 08:04:01 PM
She dint warned nobody anyway, she just shut her mouth all day long to finnally get out of no where and ban peoples for no reason.

She also lie about her own rules, telling me deleteing account is for spammer and finnaly ban me for spamming.
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 09, 2015, 08:25:15 PM
She dint warned nobody anyway, she just shut her mouth all day long to finnally get out of no where and ban peoples for no reason.

She also lie about her own rules, telling me deleteing account is for spammer and finnaly ban me for spamming.
Nah she warned me...in addition came over my house and sacked me in the nuts with a baseball bat [emoji26]

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X

Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 10, 2015, 09:26:09 AM
Increased warning duration from 24 hours to 5 days to make them slightly less useless. (Decreases at a rate of 2%/24 hours.)
Give me a warning of 49%, i like to live life on the edge [emoji9]

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X


give me a 1000% warning while your at it.
Yes! Back to 20% warning was at 10% yesturday [emoji14] [emoji122].

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X

Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 10, 2015, 10:03:15 AM
Whoa at 30 now :)

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X

Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: GaNzTheLegend on March 10, 2015, 10:21:58 AM
how can you check?
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 10, 2015, 10:25:14 AM
how can you check?
Just look in your profile or check for one of mousey's "delightful" PMs lmao....

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X

Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: GaNzTheLegend on March 10, 2015, 10:27:13 AM
Well I am not being watched anymore, guess I am at 0%
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 10, 2015, 10:28:30 AM
Well I am not being watched anymore, guess I am at 0%
You check your PMs for any hostile mouse messages [emoji32]?

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X
Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 11, 2015, 02:44:44 PM
40 today!! At this rate ill be a billionaire [emoji14] .

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X

Title: Re: Forum Changes Feb 2015
Post by: EviL~Ryu on March 18, 2015, 07:31:51 PM
OHHH SNAP WAS 56%, DOWN TO 48% I CAN POST AGAIN :D FUCK YA!

Sent from my Motorola DynaTAC 8000X