38 replies to this topic

[Keiya]

And thank you for your input.

[Smasher225]

For me anything secret is bad. I joined a non secret fraternity for that point. I personally think an inner council is bad because its almost like a dictatorship. I came here and have no idea what you do behind close doors, I only know what you choose to release. Yes on the net we have groups already in power I get that but when it's all behind closed doors and we have little to no say on who is on the inner council then I have a problem with that. Yes I understand its there and it will probably always will and since I don't have a voice to change this so I don't bring it up.

With what blood is saying it doesn't matter if you don't play favourites the fact that it can and to some people probably does appear like there is favouritism is the whole problem. How can anyone feel like they can go to a mod/admin/leader if they all are buddies?

[Draco Ny'ade]

i must say that i completely agree with the points raised by all of you. this system isn't perfect but it works and it works to a better extent than most systems. (this is my personal opinion - nothing to do with my position)

[CruciasNZ]

Good morning everyone.

Right so I just want to point out that if Keiya was a friend of Roms for example then he is not allowed to handle any moderation decisions relating to him. Two days ago we had a friend of most of the Mod Team get attacked and it had to be biffed upwards to Zero for that reason; if a person is a friend of the whole Mod and Admin team it get's biffed to Council and handled by committee, if their friends of everyone on there then that's unfortunate but committee is the highest it goes.

We did originally have a council that involved the Leader and XO of every chapter regardless of size but it constantly suffered from bickering. When we did a hindsight review of how the Dern situation was handled we set about improving everything we "just got lucky" with. That resulted in the Inner Council formation where there is a serious self-enforced code of ethics and conduct to follow. As someone said on here, on the Internet you can act anyway you fancy, which resulted in posts being made that probably would not have been if it had been real life. When we set the Council we based our initial influx on the criteria of level and professional leadership decisions/posts and the ability to counter-argue without throwing blunt objects; while it is still feasible that a nominated member can still flip out, it's a seriously reduced issue.

Now I'd completely forgotten to comment about deleting posts so thanks for covering that Keiya. Should we move to a more open archive system in the future, we can always instigate a policy of copying the thread to a closed archive "just in case".

Also all Reported posts are considered in context to other Mod actions, reported posts and current and historic drama. If we didn't do that it would make it a goldmine for "revenge" on people. This same process means someone reporting a now out-of-context post thanks to mod action would not receive any consequences. In the event that they did, there would be consequences for the issuing mod under the Reprimand system.

Thanks for the continued level headed debate. I'll check back for replies later

[Smasher225]

I'm not saying it doesn't but I think that all this closed door inner council and removing of posts hurts the site and things that might negatively effect the site. If you make everything public, eliminate the potential for people to think there is a conflict of interest and quit deleting posts then you can make the site better. Let us as a community know what happens in the inner council and have a say then we won't have something like what happened to Gerhart happening again.

I think as a group there needs to be a time that say two months after something happens then it can't be used against someone if you want to ban them. Who cares what Gerhart did in June, this is a game and a website and time is really fast for the life of a game. Two months could be ten years in relative time of the games life span so holding for that long is pointless and will hurt the game and community since its the Internet and a video game.

This isn't a post against what happened that's over and done its about how to make sure people in the future get treated fairly and have some time when their past actions are forgotten. Even if people go to jail they get to come out eventually and that doesn't have to impact their other trial if they paid their dues.

[CruciasNZ]

I'm not saying it doesn't but I think that all this closed door inner council and removing of posts hurts the site and things that might negatively effect the site. If you make everything public, eliminate the potential for people to think there is a conflict of interest and quit deleting posts then you can make the site better. Let us as a community know what happens in the inner council and have a say then we won't have something like what happened to Gerhart happening again.

We will never agree on the public vs private things unfortunately. I have made some of my reasoning clear earlier so I won't rewrite them.

I get messages from time to time asking for more private areas, some factions thrive on them and others love "clubs" such as Officer Club and Donator Club. We can never please everyone, personally I believe the best way forward is to find a balance between the two.

That said, I am happy to look for a more efficient mod system that can incorporate both public and private archiving. It was actually on the agenda for Council but no-where near the top because it wasn't deemed that important. People are more than welcome to submit their ideas and those will all be collated in a place that can be easily accessed during any reform debate.

I think as a group there needs to be a time that say two months after something happens then it can't be used against someone if you want to ban them. Who cares what Gerhart did in June, this is a game and a website and time is really fast for the life of a game. Two months could be ten years in relative time of the games life span so holding for that long is pointless and will hurt the game and community since its the Internet and a video game.

There was an incident where someone was an Admin of a forum site, they were banned for 6 months and then had a two year stand down period before they ascended back to Admin after recovering everyone's respect. The next day they used their Admin powers to delete the whole site or something similarly destructive. If you want more info on this story ask Keiya since he told me it. My point is that it's easy to hide your intentions and bide your time on the internet.

Our warning system expires after month by default, after 6 months for serious warnings (racial hatred etc, not had any yet). However the Council banning process takes account of everything because it is intended to look for patterns and trends over the long term.

[Bloodbone]

But in truth that warning system is broken then. If you say it goes away after a month unless it is a huge offense then their slate should be wiped clean. However that is false because you look back at their past warnings and hold that against them. So a person may feel safe after a month, but in truth they are not.

[ogreninja]

Let us as a community know what happens in the inner council and have a say then we won't have something like what happened to Gerhart happening again.

what would be the point of having an inner council if the entire community could have a say in what is happening all that would do in my honest opinion is cause more problems than it would solve. it would lead to massive disagreements especially if the person in question had alot of friends that took offence at the way that the council was looking into it then the problem you sought to solve re-emerges but on a larger scale than before where as if it is delt with "behind closed doors" where only 12 people can argue it out and then post the result for the public to see like cru did when he announced the banning of gerhart to the forum then thats a better thing again in my opinion, maybe adding the offending posts would help vindicate the reason so people dont just have what they say but the evidence to back that up as well. Then again this could cause more arguments as people views will differ from post to post so what you find offensive i might find funny, i think an inner council is a good thing for the site even if some dont.

[CruciasNZ]

But in truth that warning system is broken then. If you say it goes away after a month unless it is a huge offense then their slate should be wiped clean. However that is false because you look back at their past warnings and hold that against them. So a person may feel safe after a month, but in truth they are not.

That's a half truth.

• They are safe from the incremental warning system
• They are not safe if they trigger a detailed investigation

I also want to point out if you're convicted your slate is NOT wiped clean for a lot of offences. It still has legal bearing on future cases, for example Arson had future bearing on Arson cases.

[Keiya]

But in truth that warning system is broken then. If you say it goes away after a month unless it is a huge offense then their slate should be wiped clean. However that is false because you look back at their past warnings and hold that against them. So a person may feel safe after a month, but in truth they are not.

A warning for say...using an inappropriate word is excusable.
A warning for openly bashing someone based on race or sexual orientation may be held in higher regard.

A judge isn't going to condemn you to life in prison for running a stop sign, but he may consider it if you've also shot at a police officer or your neighbor.

[Bloodbone]

True but I think you are more aware of that because it is the legal system. I never knew this about the warning system till just now. 
If their is a judge there is a jury selected from the community. Which is not a democracy really. If your going to follow the legal system then you should follow it correctly.

[CruciasNZ]

If their is a judge there is a jury selected from the community. Which is not a democracy really. If your going to follow the legal system then you should follow it correctly.

We don't follow it exactly, but we do have an established "jury" of sorts that now handles it's own.

[Bloodbone]

Oh and thank you Cru for explaining the friend involvement aspect of the council. That was something I appreciated.

[CruciasNZ]

Oh and thank you Cru for explaining the friend involvement aspect of the council. That was something I appreciated.

NP, if you have any further questions or suggestions then feel free to ask/make-em. You'll find making calm reasonable debates like this goes far regardless of the others involved in said thread.

Have a good one

[Bloodbone]

Will do and I agree

[JC 042]

I can’t believed I missed all the civil debates while I was sleeping for 2 days solid (seriously, nearly 48 hours total sleep, even when on coffee)

Having a public forum where everyone can view posts that were archived because of trolling/flaming/blacklist material would be good. Although it would need to remove things completely such as porno, and maybe anything that is likely to offend a large group of people (not just a racial segregation, but smaller, like on a faction size, so if someone was to say "All (insert faction name here) are ******* ****** ***" then it would be removed, otherwise it will only cause future arguments), and if a post does need to be edited in this public archive then it would have to have an explanation next to it explaining why, such as "edited out images related to pornography". But of course this will create a lot of tedious unwanted work for mods.

As for a public debate thing, like we used to have, that would be a bad idea, we all remember how many shit storms there was in public debates during the Dernian Heresy. Inner Council works well but 12 people can’t represent hundreds, that said new members is already being discussed but not yet acted on, current affairs are filling the agenda at the moment.

[Batman2213]

I like the idea of transparency, but it has limitations. If you allow too many people to participate in the decision making process, it can get bogged down and it becomes difficult to get things done. As a hypothetical example, lets say that Batman2213 has turned into a super big and is trolling/flaming/baiting and generally making a nuisance of himself all across the forums. His posts are being reported all over the place, and the council has to decide whether or not to ban him. If a majority vote is required, a council with 20 or so members can get the job done quickly and efficiently. On the other hand, a council of 200 members could take FOREVER. Meanwhile the mods are stuck issuing warnings, moderating posts and generally having to spend all their time doing damage control because of this one @$$hole.

Now suppose Batman2213 has supporters who think he's hilarious and love his sense of humor and the way he just puts people on blast... public oversight of the vote to ban Batman could, in theory, lead to people who vote against Batman getting harassed by his supporters. Now we're going to have to start dealing with THAT too...

This is more or less why things are done behind closed doors. Its not for the sake of secrecy, its for the sake of allowing the council to do its job as efficiently as possible. It also allows us to speak with one voice when a decision has been made. I've already told you that the vote to ban Gerhart was not 100% against him, but by casting that vote out of the public eye it prevents individual members of the council from being harassed for following their conscious and casting their vote according to what they believe is right.

When members of the Raven Guard decided to leave our chapter, I moved that thread into the public eye for the sake of transparency, because I did not want anyone to suggest that I was arbitrarily throwing someone out based on a personal grudge. I handled the situation to the best of my ability, but it probably could have been done better. It was a learning experience though, and somewhere between that and the closed doors of the council, we'll get it right.

[Simonbarsinistr]

I agree batman, those problems with transparency are the reason the council shouldn't have a hand in it. If a post is reported, the mod would read the post in context, decide if it violated the code of conduct, and if it did, issue a warning. And post that a warning was issued. If that user continued to misbehave, they would continue to receive warnings until they got 3 (as an example target number), at which point they would be temp banned. After returning from a ban, if they receive 3 more warnings in 60 days (another example) then they would be permanently banned, or a long term (6-12 months) ban. No council ever needing to step in.

The user would see the warnings, the community would see the warnings, the user would have to control themselves or suffer the clear consequences.

If in the situation where a user with no prior history committed an act so heinous that it required possible ban, then an anonymous community vote would be used. The vote total would be blind until the time limit was up, no users would be released unless they chose to disclose their vote. The outcome of the vote would decide if the user was perm banned, temp banned, or warned. Whatever you want the options to be.

The council could then focus on site development and future direction, without distraction.

[Authrix]

I'll just leave my opinion on how these things are handled here.

I've been quite impressed generally, to be ridiculously blunt. The team (important word) has always made a decision that the majority, as far as I can tell, has agreed with. The removal of some members (read "any member") will meet resistance, especially in the case of members such as Gerhart, who have a lot of friends on Gothic Wars. My point really is that the system works. The team seems fair and just, and the community is never left in the dark for the reasons of someone's removal. A team ensures all viewpoints are taken into consideration, and also means it cannot be a, for want of a better word, a dictatorship. As I said, I've been impressed by this from day one, and see no reason personally to change it. Having said that, I do not know the internal workings of the system, so cannot provide the best opinion.

As for transparency, I think the key word here is discretion. There are situations where it is required, and situations where the less said, the better. I think, as a community, we should trust the council to make the best decisions, as they have done in the past.