My rant about backseat moderation.

[FuriousFox]

It probably wouldn't hurt to have an extra person, but then we'd have to go through the process of deciding who would actually be good at doing it. They'd also have to be on the Dev Team, since they'd have access to HPZ. I'll just leave the admin deciding to Mystic and SSNTails unless they ask me for an opinion or something. They might not even feel we need more people.

Please, no one beg me (Or any other Admin) to be an adminstrator. It will only hurt your chances.

 

[Bigboi]

It probably wouldn't hurt to have an extra person, but then we'd have to go through the process of deciding who would actually be good at doing it.

It'd be worth it.

Then again, it'd have to be someone active in this forum, who's on the dev team. That's the main problem, IMO.

 

[Prime 2.0]

A "report abuse" button is a good idea. Project Jenova(first MB I ever went to) had a "report post" button, and it worked out there. It provided a link to the post, and prompted the sender of the report to provide details of the rule abuse. Also, you can be warned and/or banned for abusing the report post button, which helped curb frivilous and unwarrented use. And when you consider that n00bs might use them, that gives the admins an excuse to exclude them from the MB, so I don't see any problems there.

 

[Bigboi]

Honestly, I don't think we need a feature like that for such a small forum.

 

[Prime 2.0]

Hey, it's better than backseat moderation.

 

[Blitzzo]

Honestly, I don't think we need a feature like that for such a small forum.

I said when it gets bigger.

 

[Mystic]

New Guy: hy guy's im new here so dont yel at me ok
Veteran user: Please use proper grammar.
Another user: Yeah. You could get banned for that.
New Guy: I guess you're right. Sorry for acting like an idiot before.

Yeah, except it almost never goes down like that. This is the more likely scenario:

New Guy: hy guy's im new here so dont yel at me ok
Veteran user: Please use proper grammar.
Another user: Yeah. You could get banned for that.
New Guy: hay do u gyz no wer i can get shdow i rly like him hes my fav char
Veteran user: ...Someone just ban this idiot already.
New Guy: who u callin idiot i own u
Veteran user: Please, somone!
New Guy: **** u man u suk tell me were shadw is i ned it !!!!!1!!!!111!!!!11!!!!

If people won't listen to Administrators, who have to ability to take them off the board forever, what makes you think they're going to listen to someone who has absolutely no power over them? Most idiots just tend to not listen to anyone. Trying to step in and be the Admin yourself usually only leads to the n00b and the backseat moderator flaming each other.

This is the exact thing I'm talking about when I refer to "backseat moderation". If you're calling for administrative action, such as a lock or a ban, you're backseat moderating and you need to stop.

However, things such as politely telling a newbie that his grammar could use improvement, or suggesting improvements in a constructive way is fine. In fact, I kinda encourage that.

In review:

Allowed:
"You know, it's rather hard to understand you. You should improve your grammar and spelling."
"Honestly, I don't get the point of this topic. What are you trying to accomplish?"
"There is a topic for this exact purpose already existant here: Link"

Not allowed:
"Can we ban this guy? His spelling sucks."
"Lock this topic please."
"Shut up, n00b. Ban him now."
"I'm just posting this to add more work for Mystic when he locks the topic because I like to get my two cents in before he locks the topic."

There is a fine line there, but I think the examples make it a little more obvious what is and isn't acceptable.

With that being said, on the point of reporting obviously horrible topics, please do not reply to them. At all. It makes it much easier for me or any other administrator to deal with if you simply don't reply to obvious spam, spambot, or trash topics. Then I can just lock the topic with a warning, I don't have to delete excess posts, and it just simply makes my life easier. As much as I KNOW you all like to get your two cents in, it just makes my life harder and doesn't really accomplish anything. Let the administrators do our job, no matter how slow we may appear to be.