Agree to disagree A big part of the problem. VERY STRONGLY agreed on this point! That's part of my problem. There is no consistency or standard when it comes to moderation in this forum. Thank you for making this great reply, mean that sincerely. @Cristafari - I wouldn't try to make oscar a victim in any case in this scenario, he went well beyond standards of appropriate behavior on many occasions. I just think that if we had a better, more clear system of disciplinary standards, this might not have happened. Maybe he would have held his tongue more if he knew exactly where he stood. He'd gotten so many temporary suspensions, 24-hour bans, that why would he think he had to stop if he knew punishment was so inconsistent? Make no mistake - I wanted to tell him to shut his trap pretty often. But I can't deny that he contributed quite a lot when he wasn't arguing.
I think the "Forum Projects" section just isn't working and it's having a negative impact on projects. People simply don't go to that section of the board, they go straight to the news or member forums of the groups that they are into. In my opinion Sticky threads were a far better way of getting the message about member projects out. After all that's the point of these projects isn't it, get as many eyes viewing as possible and encourage more people to actively do something to support the members.
I think adding links to whatever project is currently ongoing to the right-hand sidebar of the frontpage (by the twitter/links/who's on etc stuff) would be an easy/better way to advertise them.
The reason for a relative "lack" of a structured discipline system is because cases are not always the same. If you try to write a set guideline that's too strict you get accused of being a "nazi" or users skirt around the system by citing x y and z (eg "you didn't ban member x even though they said this so why should I get banned!"). Moderators and Admins have the final say in all discipline decisions for a reason, every case is different. If someone is consistently toxic to the point that other members don't want to visit the forum than the forum is better off without them. If you've received warnings in the past and chosen to ignore them then you're probably not going to heed further ones. Stage48 traditionally prefers to lean towards the "open and friendly" side of the discipline scale (or "carebear" as our lovely friends as Nihongogo have described it ), though obviously that has the downside of some people getting more chances than they probably deserve. It's a fine balance that we're trying to maintain but it's never going to be perfect. We'll keep trying our best to issue warnings explaining issues as much as we can, but some people just end up not "fitting" our style, so be it. Regarding the projects and lack of visibility, I agree, I'm trying to think of a way to deal with it. The old forum's global sticky system doesn't exist in this software so I'm trying to find a way to replace it. Might also be able to use the alerts system for it. In the mean time I'm happy to send out a tweet on the @stage48 twitter, it's the most immediate solution I can think of. Edit: ok, got the "notice" system working. It's not exactly the same as before (it's basically a custom message display) but it has a link to the project. So if you have a project you need to advertise let me know, I'll keep an eye on the forum.
I made some slight edits to the "notice" system and made it standout - like the donate button Also, I've talked with MrWaffle, and yes! the member-submitted Birthday Banners are good to go. Check the thread here: http://stage48.net/forum/index.php?threads/birthday-banners.8031/
Wow, I came back from vacation to a revitalized stage? Thanks for stepping up for everyone, Waffle and Aezea. That birthday project banner is a nice touch, very visible. I have just put the finishing touches on a batch of "Free Oscar!" t-shirts and I'm mailing you the very first one.
Would like to thank you for you that since I deserved it after being an idiot. Also would like to apologize to everybody here for the stupid stuff that I did last week. I let my mouth do something before thinking (I have that problem). But I will NOT let it happen again. I have people on my block list and I should NOT press the show ignored content again. Even if I want to. But once again. I apologize for the stupid stuff that I did last week and will make sure that it never happens again. Being banned once is enough. I don't want that again.
I talked with @Smilodon and @Afro_Stud online in quite the long meeting this past weekend after the mess that was last Friday and we went over various topics regarding the state of Stage48 and the future of it. Addressing some of the concerns here, we will not be implementing any strike or infraction system. Echoing what @Mr Waffle said, moderation does work largely on a case to case basis. Rarely does anything pop up that falls into clean cut categories where we can follow a pattern of verbal warnings, then 1 day ban, then 1 week ban and so on. One person can have several minor mistakes and it's still very unlikely that we'll ban you for it, while something like what happened in the Battle Arena would immediately warrant a longer ban than 1 day, even if that person wasn't much a problem before. And yes, moderators have now gotten back the ability to ban. In place of an infraction system however, all of us has agreed to using the Warning system more. It's mostly invisible to normal users but for every post on the forum we have a Warn button which allows us to place a Warning on that user's account and send out a private message (PM) informing that user of his warning. We'll also generally personalize the generic warning message so if anyone receives a warning they know exactly what they did wrong and what to avoid doing again. I believe members are unable to see their total number of warnings but it is visible to all staff once placed (and the reason why they were warned) which will help moderators make decisions on how to treat a certain case. For example, if a person hates on a girl (pure hate, not criticism, which is allowed), but they never had a warning for it before, most likely nothing will be done except the post being deleted and a verbal warning either publicly and/or privately through PM. On the other hand, if that person has already had 3 warnings regarding the same issue, then we'll move straight to banning a week or more depending on the severity of the post. A like/dislike system has also already been installed for the staff, but without a way to sort the members by the number of likes past the top 20 (and thus promote members into different groups rather than just Kenkyuusei) not much can be done with that yet. We will continue working to make this system usable. Not really. Twitter is by its very nature public as it's a platform to talk to people. Of course, we're not connected to Twitter in any way but if you have accounts in both places you shouldn't be saying something that you would be ashamed of if it was reposted elsewhere. If they don't want people reading their tweets, they can lock and protect their account. Personal info such as names, addresses and emails on the other hand are definitely not allowed unless that person is sharing it themselves. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That's about it, excluding all the inner staff talks that you might or might not be hearing about later. Each member of the moderation staff was chosen from among the users after careful observation of how they conducted themselves on the forum normally and we determined that they would be able to help run Stage48 smoothly and serve as a guiding presence and model. We do pride ourselves on doing our jobs well, and we will continue to do our best in that regard.
Could you make me a bumper sticker? btw Thanks to Mr Waffle for the project notices, they gave our project an immediate bump
Hi. Just wanna suggest that the OP for the individual members thread be updated. There are some members who are listed as their old team in the OP. Is there anything I could do to help or is this an admin thing? Thanks.
Hi, I'd like to make a suggestion! If the mods delete or move a post, is it possible to tell the user (by Pm) why it was edited/moved/removed? It happened once or twice with me. I don't mind updating the gallery if it has to be updated. If I post pics on a member's thread, I try to make it short by hosting it on another website, and just post as thumbnail. I add some informations, or short opinions. I don't think it's worth to remove it all and transfer only the pics to the gallery. At least I'd like to know why it's not accepted, I've seen photoshoots being posted in full scans (big) is that better? or maybe I should have wrote more text? Is it better if I first post the pics on the gallery, then I quote it on the member's thread along with informations, opinions, etc.? I've read the forum rules, there's nothing about this. It would also save time for mods, to explain to members by Pm why their posts are wrong (so that it doesn't happen again), and to make things a bit more clear, rather than just see your posts dissapearing or being edited randomly, lol. or maybe make a clear rule about this, because I've seen pictures being posted in full, or similar posts to mine (thumbnails), I don't know which one is right. and yeah I think some Op's of members threads still have their old teams, I also noticed the graduated members still have their old team in their thread titles (like "Graduated Team A" Maeda Atsuko) while all other members only have their name + nickname. I guess this could be edited ^^
Hi Mana. This has been suggested a few times before and while it is done, I'm sure that you can appreciate that it isn't practical to do this every time. For example, one word/short pointless posts such as 'lol', 'cool', 'I agree', etc. are removed multiple times on a daily basis. Another common daily occurrence is double-posts being merged because users don't know how to multi-quote or edit their posts. In the cases of posts being moved, this generally isn't an issue as users can almost always work out where there post was moved to and why. Generally users will only be contacted via PM if they are having their posts deleted or moved for the same reason on a regular basis. There are some exceptions to this though. If you are unsure, you can always contact one of the moderators to ask why your post was edited/moved/removed. The post was moved to the gallery because the discussion thread is supposed to be for discussions, while the galleries are for images. This helps to keep things neater as its easier to find images if they are kept separate from the discussion. It also helps prevent the discussion threads from being overloaded with images, which makes it easier to read what is currently being discussed at the time. Users have already raised concerns over some of the discussion threads containing a large number of images. This is because it means that when they attempt discussion in said thread, their post gets overlooked as the rest of the posters just end up commenting on the images instead. Anyway, your post was simply the thumbnails and a brief sentence describing what the images were. This meant that the gallery was the better place for it as it was off-topic in the discussion thread. Thumbnails are definitely preferred as it helps the thread to load quicker for people whose Internet speed isn't as fast. If you're posting a set of NEW pictures, definitely post them in the gallery first. If you want to post them in the discussion thread as well, the preferred method would be to quote your post in the gallery. Please remember to add some content in the form of text in the discussion thread when you do this though. The forum rules are currently in the process of being updated and this is something that we definitely intend on making clear.
Please be careful with this and do this per-context basis, otherwise some threads will look like a clean room and feel lifeless. Sometimes there's simply not a good way to express your reaction to something that happened to your oshimen with a paragraph of meaningful insight. Single 'lol' may be appropriate to be deleted, "That surprised me!" may not be, depending on context and which thread it is. It's annoying that these harmless posts get deleted all the time but clearly snarky and malicious posts that do not contribute to the discussion at all aren't.
@Afro_Stud Ok, I'll try to do that then, post them on gallery then quote them, or maybe have them under spoiler. Thanks for the answer! Yes I agree that short posts like "lol", "agree", "^ THIS" (after a quote) etc. should be deleted. but sometimes I've seen posts who thank for an update (with short sentences), but it's nice, and it makes us know that our updates are appreciated. Yet those posts get deleted too. In the end, the members' threads sometimes look like a lot of updates one after the other, not much interactions. A bit lifeless indeed XD but I also agree that posts who say "I'm surprised!" or "Thanks a lot for the update!" (etc.) could be a little longer. The current rule is: "Contribute, don't just post - "Cute!" "xD" and "T__T" aren't exactly what we would call contributing to a discussion." Since the rules will be updated soon, I think it'll be better to make a more clear rule (that most forums have), the 10 words minimum limit. and let all the users know about it. So it'll save time for the mods & also for the users to know directly that they're doing wrong if they post short sentences.
I don't know, 10 word minimum is pretty arbitrary and you can post something that does not really add to the discussion with more than 10 words. You can also post something very insightful with less than 10 words. The current rule sounds so vague and its enforcement heavy-handed that I think it takes a lot of fun / warmth out of this forum. I think not all threads must be like the AKB Experience thread or some of the release threads where that rule makes complete sense and serious contribution and moderation are warranted.
I agree, this sort of thing is completely over-modded here. Short sentences are not always bad. If a member is constantly posting one-word answers or spamming 'lol' everywhere that's different than if a member does it every so often in specific cases. What if members want to discuss a picture? What if that picture (as OFTEN does) leads to discussion in the member's thread, but oops, the pictures always get moved to the gallery where no one can talk about them? It's one thing to be proud of putting so much work into maintaining a huge gallery for each girl and wanting it to be robust and active, but don't make the tradeoff never being able to post pictures in girls' threads...
The mod dude said if you want to discuss a photo you can quote the post in the gallery thread into the discussion thread provided you provide text for it, but if you are just posting new photos and what not they should go into the gallery as that is its purpose.
I don't remember tha last time I read a discussion about one of the pictures in the gallery thread. I'm afraid most of the members never check it (and many perhaps don't even know those threads exist). Anyway, I believe that 'official' pictures (the ones that are released from time to time featuring only the member) actually belong only to the gallery, but those where the member is with someone else should be allowed in the thread since they may lead to some discussion.
