The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

... and cleansed some filth, as you may notice. In addition, they disabled guest posting for now. Praise Kohr-Ah, for peace is here again, at least for a while.

You may or may not like what I just did, but in my opinion it should've been done a long time ago. I'd like to start enforcing strict policy to ban spammers and trolls without warning as soon as they start get noticeably irritating.

What do you think? Should we moderators use our powers like this to keep things in control? Other option might be to remove whole Starbase Café, if posting quality doesn't get better.

It's a shame you had to resort to this, but I guess it was needed.
Too bad though, this forum was one of the very few that had virtaully no rules, but somehow things magically remained ordered and sane.

Using your Moderator Powers seems like a good idea right now, at least until balance restores itself.
As for other ideas, though compared to the previous state of the UQM boards it may seem like the rise of a totalitarian govenrment, I think your actions and decisions are quite balanced.
Let's see how this works out, eh?

EDIT:
One question: are certain individuals that caused all this banned from the forums, or are they still free to come here?

good idea, im all for it. and i agree, its too bad it had to come to this.

*mika restores balance to the force*

They are banned, and will be banned again if they find a way around the bans.

It's a GOOD thing this happened. Moderating power is there to be used. I've always been annoyed with forums where the moderators are afraid of stepping on someone's toes. An internet forum isn't a democratic institution, people! It's a private social arena where people are granted the right to participate as long as they don't piss off the powers that be. And that's the way I like it, rawr!

As I said before, I hoped things would just cool off without needing this kind of action, but it was 100% necessary. It was the correct decision.

In respect to future actions, I'd say you have to look at each situation individually. Hopefully, things can stay free without anymore insanity.

No Zerg has been spared the flame, En Taro Tassadar! :)

Like I said in some thread that you erased, it will end only when you, the mods, will decide it should end.

Good work!

edit:

Cheer up and stare at my lady as she walks

Cleansing was required, indeed.

Hmm... shouldn't someone tell Luki about all this?
It would be a shame if he checked back here in a year or so, only to see that things returned to normal one day after he left...

Yea, I wanted to inform him but I didn't know what his contact info was. He said some people here knew his email or the like, maybe someone can send him an update on the good happenings of late.

Thanks.

"Should we moderators use our powers like this to keep things in control?"

Yes, in case people don't show self-control someone else should control them.

"Other option might be to remove whole Starbase Café, if posting quality doesn't get better."

Imo, no; there's also good stuff there.

blasphemy! watch what you say, heathen
:P

I believe Luki visits the PNOF forums from time to time.

This is awsome. I was really getting angry by the.. drop in the level of intellegence on this board, and I think that was the right thing to do.
Good job ;D

Done, sent him a PM.
Tough I think an e-mail would be more effective, so if any of the Chosen Ones have some spare time, it would be nice if you dropped him a line.

Yes. The moderators should definitely use their immense powers to kick/ban, however, deleting entire threads and a plethora of other posts is definitely overdoing it. Isn't there an option to close threads, as I've seen in other forums?

I'm a big fan of preserving the past, warts and all, and speaking as a history student here, pretending that the bad stuff in the past didn't happen just isn't the right way to go. I notice that the Soul Shards thread, and multiple others, aren't here any more, and this annoys me for several reasons:

- If they were simply closed, it would have served as a great reminder of how things were, and that we should strive not to let things get as out of hand ever again. Reminders are neat.

- The threads could serve as a warning to moderators of other forums, both on the effects of a "letting it slide" policy, as well as chronicling certain ...annoying posters' history, for future reference. I formed my opinion of Monkeydangs, for instance, only after googling for his postings in other forums. Suddenly one such repository has been lost.

- Some of the threads contained a number of interesting/eloquent/funny/&c postings made by forum regulars, myself included.

- Suddenly, all posts referring to said threads are rendered meaningless to new board members. How much easier to point newbs to a link instead of having to explain when they ask, "who is/was Zanthius?".

- Finally, I'm against the very idea of erasing past mistakes as a matter of principle. Let them stand, and let us learn by them instead, dammit.

Sorry to sound like a sour grape here, but this truly could have been handled a little better. :-/


EDIT: The Hall of Fame thread is gone too? What harm did that ever do? :o

"- Some of the threads contained a number of interesting/eloquent/funny/&c postings made by forum regulars, myself included."

That's about all I miss, personally. Some of those were pretty damn good. :)

Hall of fame is gone? Bother.

The posts could have served as an example for more trolls to create havoc here, had I not removed them. Besides, the situation went way too far, locking should've been done much earlier but Meep-Eep is quite a bit more tolerant than I. But he too would have preferred of not changing the past, so I won't do it again like this. People can edit their posts too, so history is never preserved perfectly.

Hall of Fame probably went away as too-much-zanthius-infected or just accidentally, I wasn't too careful when deciding what goes and what not. I was too pissed about the situation.

Anyhow, this is why I asked your opinion about how to handle these things, so I and other moderators can do better next time.

Err... just use your common sense and you are ok. I think that this it the second time in two years that you have used your mod power. Once to remove my avatar and once now.   ::)

Another good reason not to do anything to any situation when one is pissed. Rash actions.

Well, you could have asked last time as well, and we would have been spared this awkward situation. Oh well, not much to do about it now. :)



Anyhow, in an effort to add some constructive dialogue to this thread, I propose two important guiding principles to the moderators.

1. If any user/poster breaks forum etiquette to the degree where (s)he is actively causing or helping to cause a hostile climate in the forum, and all efforts to calm this user/poster down or reason with him/her fail, his/her IP can be permanently banned from the forum, at the moderators' discretion.

2. If any thread becomes so unruly and out of hand that it threatens to whip even otherwise calm, rational forum regulars into a blood frenzy, the thread can be locked at the moderators' discretion. Only in extreme degrees of hostility or other inappropriate behaviours in a thread should the moderators consider deleting the thread entirely.


My point with these two guidelines: no thread will ever become truly out of hand if the moderators use the power bestowed upon them to perform IP bans or to threaten with it.

Oh god, not a Code of Conduct, pleeeeaaaase!

I think it's a must to always send an official warning to a user before ip-banning them. It will give them a chance to understand that their behavior is not tolerable, and time to correct said behavior if they choose.

In other forums, a temporary ban of roughly a week has been used to good effect. It firmly lets the user know that their behavior is unacceptable, but does not sever them from the community altogether. Most of the time the other posters didn't even realize it had occurred.

Guest posting is disabled? So Art will finally register?

"Guest posting is disabled? So Art will finally register?"

He shall join us or die.

Hey... what about nic (0xDEC0DE)?

As far as I know, nic already has registered. It's a vague memory.
And yes, Art, if your reading this, register and continue to bless us with your divine presence... or something

Nic was registered a while back, but I think he deleted his account, which is why he guest-posts as 0xDEC0DE.