RWL NEWS UPDATE

[Kilkenne]

 Here is a quick summary of what is happening on the forums these days.

Complaining. Everyone complaining. Even this is a complaint. This is stupid. We are getting to the point where everyone is leaving again because of the people on the forum acting immature. You people can say whatever you want, saying that making those banners peace makes or whatnot is immature, but it is more to go off and complain and cry about things whenever you are insulted in the slightest bit, or things do not go exactly your way.

We are a community that is mostly age 13 - 20, and NOT a community of 6 - 8 year olds. Wait a moment, did you just read that? Why yes, you did! The truth is out, folks! I am sick and tired of everyone acting like it's the end of the world when you are insulted. What do you do in school when someone goes after you verbally? Fight back you git, you are supposed to stand up for yourself.

Big bad Retto had to hire himself some more admins in the last few months. Big surprise, with all rules that need to be followed, we need some more laws, or maybe we need to adopt a new MEMBER-MADE charter that everyone will follow, and we won't have problems like Peace's sig anymore. We will have set reasons to gag people and whatnot if we all make a list of rules that we will follow.

POST COUNT: Whoopdeefreakindoo, you got 1000 posts. Do you want a medal? With the new charter I propose that we reset the forums. Every account must re-register and agree to the terms of the charter. Hazaa. Then we have a reason to gag or ban if at all necessary.

Gagging itself. Good job, Retto, you found a way to talk about people in public and there is nothing they can do about it. It's a real great feeling not knowing what you are "gagged" for. I was "gagged" this weekend, and luckily I was visiting the military acadamy, or I would have been pretty peeved with your deciding to make it so I can only read your grievances against me. Oh wait, they were only against Peace, it didn't say much until there was a post that Ad made about my being gagged and the people started wondering why.

PEOPLE LEAVING: All of this stuff added up. We're making people LEAVE that just came back. The majority of people here have been coming and going, as I myself have, and people who have been here since the beginning are getting disgusted and leaving. This needs to be addressed. And just saying "Oh. They'll be back." Like Menatus is kind of wrong. You either do the good-guy thing and try to convince them not to leave, say goodbye, or not say anything at all. The RWL forums are a pretty substantial part of our lives, those who participate and read them frequently, and leaving them is a pretty big deal. Think about it.



These are just a few of many things that I've thought of, I can write more in-depth when I'm not tired and cold because the heater in the house broke.

If this gets edited, then fine. If you don't want people to hear what others have to say, good, I hope a lot of people read it before you do. Get them thinking a bit.

[Orcrist]

 Kilk- I completely agree with you. We are driving people off because of our immaturity. Our greatest friends and rivals are leaving, and it is doubtful that they will come back in the near future and maybe not at all. We need to grow up, if someone insults you, instead of complaining, either shrug it off or insult them back. It seems like almost everyone in these forums is so spineless that they reread their posts to the umpteenth time so they don't flame anyone. Well guess what, to everyone who does that, it is my opinion that you have way too much time on your hands and therefore are wasting it complaining to other people. Don't you realize that by complaining, it may make you feel better but makes the game worse for everyone else? (*Gasp* I just "semi-flamed" people ((seriously don't edit this, just deal with what I'm saying)))
Another great idea is a member-drawn charter. This way, we all have a set of laws that WE agreed upon (and that's not to outrageous so the admins are ok with them) so that everyone's experience here is improved. We'll be happier if we don't get in these stupid little arguements over nothing but "flames". Dear lord people, deal with it. With a member-drawn charter, we will all be happier, I guarantee it.
Finally- all of you who are too immature to understand my post, if you edit it, I hope that everyone else who has the brain to understand what I'm saying. If you think I'm flaming you, then make a new topic or PM me: I'll be happy to discuss anyone's "hurt feelings" because I'm being blunt and confrontational. My aim is Orcrist2007 if you wanna complain to me even more.

[Peace Alliance]

 I'm pretty sure you all know my stance.

Of course i am 100% behind Kilk and orcist.

But i also have to ask, wouldn't the charter just giver those avid "never-flame-me-happy-happy-oh-my-gosh-that-is-mean-could-that-ossibly-be-a-flame?" people a better chance to make EVERYTHING  flame?

[Menatus]

 I wasn't just saying anything, Kilk, it's a fact. People make posts about how they're leaving so people will be like "I'll miss you!" and then they come back. Of course, that's not everybody, but hey. RWL is addicting. Argue that.

And I'm the one who has proposed over and over and OVER that there should be no post count. but nobody cares about my opinions! Nobody cares about anyone's opinions. All I know is it's probably not gonna happen.

[Kilkenne]

 

but nobody cares about my opinions! Nobody cares about anyone's opinions.

Exactly, that's why you shouldn't post your opinion about what I said here, because I probably don't care. But Orcrist and Peace care, and that makes 2, so that's not everyone. Good one.

Man I'm in a raging mood.

[~>John<~]

 Yes, peace, valid point. We need it to be ALL the members. Explicitly explained rules so people can't point to a part and say " Well, this MEANS that you can't do that." We also need no post count. There is NO point! It used to be a way of seeing how long a person had been here, but with all the pointless posts you can get 300 in less than 2 days.  If not being deleted, at LEAST reset it. On to the complaing: We are NOT too young that lovely should be replaced by lovely.
  WE can [well, most of us anyway, the ones complaining about flames can't] take it if someone makes a banner in their sig about us. Sure, we can make flaming such as " Your an idiot" wrong, but does making the definition of flaming the slightest disapproval really solve anything? I mean, sure, you might feel better at night thinking " That lovely Peace Alliance talked about me and so they gagged him ya, right on!"  But it doesn't SOLVE anything! Peace [sorry for using you as an example] will still be mad at whoever it was, and we'll know hes mad from the warning from the mods, so whats the point!  Just let it read it as it WAS so we can make our own decisions about the matter. So, just to recap, Reset or deletiong of post count, member drawn charter. Theres my 2 cents.


                                                       John Shadeslayer
     

[Menatus]

 What is your PROBLEM with me lately? EVERYTHING you posted here was an opinion. You've been ragging on me all day.

What's the point of this friggin post if you don't want anyones opinions?

[Menatus]

Theres my 2 cents.

Well, apparently John, Kilk doesn't want your two cents or anyone's. Or maybe it's just me.

[Peace Alliance]

What is your PROBLEM with me lately? EVERYTHING you posted here was an opinion. You've been ragging on me all day.

What's the point of this friggin post if you don't want anyones opinions?

I can understand how he is feeling manatus. Being gagged is NOT something most people shrug off.

I think your point

Nobody cares about anyone's opinions

Is a good one. There is very little respect on these forums for the opinions of others. There could be many reasons for that though.

[Ashyra Nightwing]

 I agree with you completely, Kilk. These forums are a mess. Everything's going wrong, and all people seem to do these days is flame each other... I think a member-made charter is a great idea.

[Veranor]

 Here is an interesting article on the use of Complex Systems to Moderate message boards:

http://ai-depot.com/Essay/Moderation-Emergence.html

I think such a system based upon a user and admin made charter would work quite well, the problem comes with how you would implement such a system (there are some examples given that I find satisfactory), and if an admin would be willing to write one or even accept it. Basically, after writing such a system, one could then filter out low rated users so that difficult problem users could be avoided until an admin/mod can take the required actions.

Another problem that would arise, would be the policing of multiple accounts. You would obviously not want someone with 26 accounts to affect someone's "karma" or "rating" in the specific fields, but multiple accounts can be fun to have for other purposes. So perhaps a one rating of a certain user PER ip address. I realize that some people share IPs and blah blah and there are proxies, but that's not really crucial, and an admin could look into such occurances.

Overall I think this would be a very effective system, if an admin is willing to implement it, I'd be glad to help with any aspect.

EDIT: A quick summary of the article for people who don't want to read it all:

Basically, every user would have a rating in specific fields, which would be the traits of a user. (EX: In our case perhaps: On Topicness, Personality (or some variant to represent how much the person flames), and Depth of Knowledge (or something akin to, do they just spam, or do they make meaningful posts)

Then users could rate another user if perhaps, they see a good/bad post made by the user. Users with a low rating may have a limited amount of posts they can make a day, until after a certain time they learn to stop spamming, and really say what they want in a long thoughtout post. Or some other form of punishment (reporting to admins for a possible gag/ban, or something). Also, the charter would include a community standard for rating, and perhaps the rater's standard (as we all have ideas about what is acceptable).

Thus filtering could be applied (such as on slashdot, and at user's choice), for users that have an average rating below a threshhold ( to be set by the user)

Though, that site is great for anyone interested in emergant systems and artificial intelligence... so I'd recommend you to just read the article and some of the affiliate's articles.

[Menatus]

 Yeah, I can understand how Kilk is feeling, but what I can't understand his how he doesn't understand how it's making me feeling.

[The Lady Shael]

 I don't get why some of you think any admin or mod would edit your posts. Granted we've edited other posts before, but only those that broke the rules. As far as I can see, no posts in this topic break the rules.

I'm sorry if I've put a damper on anyone's spirits by editting their posts, but I'm just trying to do a job. If I chose to ignore editting a post, someone would complain, and I'd get blamed again. *sigh*

Sorry, that was off-topic....

[Scarwake]

 Okay, Kilk...I agree with a Member/Admin-drawn charter, its a very good idea and might actually get all this immaturity rating down to a minimum, along with all the flaming and such too.

BUT, Kilk, you've managed to put a lot of the blame on the admins because you were gagged...No, I've never been gagged, yes I would royally be ticked off if I was. No, I don't know why you were gagged, but you are making simple little things such as Retto appointing new admins as something horribly wrong.  In fact, is not wrong!!  Not wrong at all, he made new admins to help control the problems we're all seeing on the forums today.

Sure, your saying how people need to stop complaining and get over it, whereas you yourself are doing it.  How do you expect one to be convinced about what you are saying if you continue to do the samething you are pinning on others?? You don't, that's how...  

If you wanna put the blame on someone put it on the members of this forum for not following rules that were established by the admins/creators of RWL.  You obviously were content with the rules when you first came to RWL, and not many have been changed or added...A few have, I know, perhaps more than a few, but whose really keeping track now??  

The admins/creators of RWL have made modifications and additions to the rules as they see fit to keep the forums a friendly place for all, but members continuously break these rules, so in come the modifications of rules.  The modifications and additions of rules makes the forums stricter, but then we all start to complain because its too strict and "no fun."  

Well, these newer rules/modifications were made because we were making it no fun for others of the forums.  As I see it, these modifications are a type of penalty because members choose not to follow the current rules and then whine because rules where changed.  If people would have followed the rules in the first place none of the rules would have been made/changed to "upset" you all, but nobody could do that, so it was done, and I think it should stay that way until we can all get our act together and participate in these forums in a friendly manner.

[Almkman]

 I agree with Kilk on all his points.Scarwake.But the admins and mods usually don't do anything to stop the flaming and spamming.They will act on certain occasions but most people just get stop that and stuff like that.