Moderating in News and Rumours

[Joe]

It's an odd one.

 

One of the great things about B&C is that everyone is able to engage - they can share opinions and gossip with one another about how cool x or y miniatures are, what they don't like about a recent business practice or why they think an alternative decision might have been a better course of action and so forth. Unfortunately, there's a fairly consistent group users who go out of their way to derail threads - insulting other members, intentionally steering the topic into off-topic territory with irrelevant discourse, joining a thread to snipe at a specific army or part of the business that really isn't relevant to the discussion and so forth. 

 

It can lead to a lack of faith in the moderators when a thread is fragged because the usual suspects have come in, derailed it, and as far as can be seen gotten off scott free - and that's including the stuff that goes beyond the norm, i.e. the sexist remarks or disparaging remarks or phrases relating to disabilities that some users seem to think make for appropriate discourse. I don't know if it's simply turning a blind eye to long term members / friends or if it's simply a lack of reporting going on but it's very not right.

I feel people might be a bit more confident in the staff if repeat offenders were more visibly reprimanded in front of the forum for their behaviour - be it a more visible "probation" tag to replace + FRATER + whatever, an enforced avatar change, etc. It's much more fair than fragging a thread because of a few bad apples, and with a little luck the public shaming will kick them back into line.

 

That's pretty much my two cents. General thread moderation can be a bit harsh at times, although that's strictly related to other poor behaviour - and I must admit, I'm not a fan of splitting the conversations off into the sub-forums until post-release, but then again I'm also much more in favour of trying to condense / control the number of threads a bit better.

 

As far as third-party content goes - I don't see why it can't be in News. We're a hobby forum last I checked - we're all about the different things to expand and improve upon the systems that this forum covers, i.e. those relating to the Warhammer 40,000 Universe. It'd be an utter betrayal to our community to frag and disallow it. I suppose the only other alternative would to be to split News into first and third-party sub-forums, but that just creates extra work.

[Taliesin]

I just wanna highlight one suggestion from this poster which strikes me as a great solution to the thread closing problem.

 

 

 

 

Additionally, I think it would help foster discussion in the various forums if instead of locking the existing thread in NR&BA, the thread was moved to the appropriate forum when it was no longer considered news.  As it is now, it is difficult to keep conversation going when you're trying to respond to points made outside of the thread you're in.  And if you missed the original thread and are trying to join in after the fact, it is very confusing and sometimes the original thread can't be found.  Seems like just moving the thread to the appropriate forum (or splitting it into two forums in the situations that is appropriate) would be the easiest way to keep conversations intact.

 

Move the thread from News to the forum if you think its really necessary. 

 

Do I love this? Well I would prefer for the thread to stay open in N&R for a while. Once people lost interest in it, experience tells me that the thread will peter out anyway and it wont clutter the N&R forum at all. 

 

But if you feel you have to move it...better to move it to a subforum than close it.

[War Angel]

But then someone who wants to catch up on what they’ve missed for the last 6 months and they have to go track down all these posts in new sections.

[Ioldanach]

But then someone who wants to catch up on what they’ve missed for the last 6 months and they have to go track down all these posts in new sections.

People trying to catch up might find it easier to just go to the Warhammer Community page and the main Games Workshop page. If they really want to see people's opinions, most of the stuff that takes place prior to product release isn't that helpful. The more informed opinions will come after the product is released and in people's hands, and that discussion should be taking place outside of the news forum.

[Tyriks]

But then someone who wants to catch up on what they’ve missed for the last 6 months and they have to go track down all these posts in new sections.

I'm not sure how multiple broken chains is easier to handle than one intact one that moved.  Especially since the forum itself keeps track of read/unread posts.

[Brother Tyler]

Note that the mods and admins are discussing the feedback that has been given and will provide guidance once we have reached a resolution.

[Zephaniah Adriyen]

I'm a bit late to the party on this, but I definitely feel that this is a forum, not a news site - the news subforum should be for discussion of news more than anything.

[Sandlemad]

I'd second the points alfred_the_great and The Observer bring up about shifting topics to faction-specific subforums. I get the impulse and the idea of directing fresh conversation to what are historically lower traffic parts of the site is a good one in principle but for a bunch of reasons it really does narrow and stop discussion.

[Aarik]

I would also much rather have discussions in News & Rumors be allowed to flow pretty freely.  If people want "just the news," they can just go to the Warhammer Community site and see all the news there.  We're on a forum to discuss the hobby, so let people discuss.  If things go off on a tangent in a thread, that's fine.  We're here to talk about the hobby with other like-minded people.  As other people have pointed out, that same discussion likely wouldn't happen at all if forced to make separate topics for each little tangent.  If the mods do prune certain posts and turn them into a separate thread, however, it would be great if they could link to that thread in their post in the original thread in which they say they've moved X topic to a different thread,

 

Similarly, I don't think that threads about a specific release should be closed or moved immediately after the release of the associated models/books/etc.  Once something comes out, it's not suddenly not news.  And the discussion is often more substantive after people have the actual models or books in hand.

 

EDIT: I also want to say that we all appreciate the hard work that the mods do to keep this place running!  I've been lurking here since third edition, and this forum has consistently been one of the best places to discuss the hobby.  And that is due to the great mods who cultivate and maintain the forum that allows for such great content.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Aarik

[Noserenda]

Aarik raises a good point there, its not like the old days anymore where rumour forums/websites were the source for GW rumours, these days Warhammer community is almost always the Primary source and most of the times it isnt they come up with an article to cover it pretty darn quickly.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

If someone does or are in a new interview that’s definitely news and we should be able to discuss it. We don’t need a draconian attitude being prevalent now.

Edited April 19, 2020 by Black Blow Fly

[No Foes Remain]

I understand the points from both sides and as a suggestion/question. Would it not be possible to have a 'news/rumours announcement' section where threads can be posted then locked to contain the information and just that then a sub-forum where it can be discussed. That way those who just want the meat of the matter can just go to the thread and get what they are looking for there without having to trawl through several pages of discussion when the first post isn't update, and those who want to talk about the announcement can talk about it without 'cloggging' anything up.

 

Just a thought, if its not possible then disregard and carry on.

[walter h]

No foes remain,has an interesting suggestion, that I believe has some merit. It solves the problems effectively.

[Panzer]

I mentioned that option earlier already and also pointed out why it's not very practical for various reasons.

 

• If they let us keep the ability to create new News&Rumour threads on our own it would require the mods to be extremely quick and close those threads before discussion can come up. Mods are people who have stuff to do outside of monitoring the forum so that's basically impossible and will only lead to the already criticised disruption of discussions.
• If they take away the ability to create new News&Rumour threads from us it would greatly slow down things because it would all depend on when  a mod sees the new or rumoured stuff and has time to create a new thread for it (or rather two new threads).
• It would also mean that they have to monitor those second discussion threads even more closely to prevent them from turning into effectively the main source of informations because people WILL post everything new and rumoured they can find out there instead of waiting for a mod to hopefully add it to the actualy news&rumours thread.

 

So in short it would mean a lot more work for the mods. On the Blood Angels Discord server we follow a similar strategy but for a completely different reason. In Forums topics don't eventually just disappear and you can alway add new things to the easily accessable first post in the according thread, but you can't do that in a chat where the news posts would quickly disappear once discussions start.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Panzer

[m0nolith]

There have been so many great topics in the past that have been shut down due to a select few members taking it too far, and I see those same members doing it over and over again for other threads.

 

My vote is that mods should start handing out temporary bans to repeat offenders and permabans to those who just can’t help themselves and be toxic.

 

But that is only my vote, in all honesty I think the best approach to this is if the Mods would create some sort of poll and run it in N&R which outlines what if any changes the whole community would like to see about this matter given the fact that it can drastically affect N&R.

 

This topic tucked away here in the suggestion box where I would imagine not a lot of people go (at least compared to the more popular sub forums) is too big to be kept here where I see only certain users who are commenting and liking each other’s posts, at least compared to the diversity of users that we see in N&R. Maybe just a link in N&R to a poll in the suggestion box.

 

I want to hear from other people as well.

Edited April 20, 2020 by m0nolith

[Indefragable]

I'm going to throw out a question to the folks involved in this discussion - do you feel that the discussion of news has to happen in the NR&BA forum? (I'm deliberately excluding rumours in my question)

 

In my opinion, no*.

 

The * is so long as there's a giant neon flashing arrow that says "buffet this way" so that those inclined to read/participate in the discussion have an easy button on how to get there. 

 

I understand the points from both sides and as a suggestion/question. Would it not be possible to have a 'news/rumours announcement' section where threads can be posted then locked to contain the information and just that then a sub-forum where it can be discussed. That way those who just want the meat of the matter can just go to the thread and get what they are looking for there without having to trawl through several pages of discussion when the first post isn't update, and those who want to talk about the announcement can talk about it without 'cloggging' anything up.

 

Just a thought, if its not possible then disregard and carry on.

 

 

I don't know if my opinion is welcome, because I use this forum only rarely.

 

But on our language-specific forum board we have two topics for wh40k news - one is only pictures & links to wh40k stuff (it's called "only important stuff", and the other topic is called "discussion of news"). Maybe this might help? The discussion could be in news directory or in "generic adeptus" directory.

 

Bolded parts of the above two posts which I like. 

 

From my personal perspective, a couple thoughts on the N&R section:

 

Hidden Content

• I personally am reluctant to ever click NR&A threads because they get so bloated, so heated, and so convoluted so quickly. This is a reflection on multiple forces, some benign and some perhaps not. 
• What I like about @No Foes Remain and @omo667's suggestions is that it allows folks to have their cake and eat it too. The main "billboard" thread that cleanly contains the link, the rumor, the announcement, etc... --ideally which is updated when further pertinent content becomes available--and the only only other post is one that says "Discussion THIS Way" with a link. 
• ...Said Discussion thread would then be far more lenient with what is discussed and the various tangential threads that a certain topic may spinoff into. As others have said, the discussion is after all half the reason we are here. 
• In this model, 3rd party stuff would be similar where there's an announcement thread for each company or whatnot and then a link to a separate discussion thread
• One point I would emphasize as well is that the NR&A section is likely the place where the greatest # of non-registered and/or non-participating visitors to the site most frequently look. There is nothing that gets the 40k community in a tizzy like a juicy rumor and so you have "outsiders" coming to that section more than any other. There is good and bad to this. Good: its B&C's "gift to the world" to illuminate the rest of the wider community on whatever information there is, and it also attracts people to the site where they may the join in the discussion in other parts. Bad: you have the drive-by :cuss -bags that come in, eat all the free samples, spit on the floor, insult the staff, and then leave and only return when the next juicy thing pops up. 
• ....I think a clean, no-frills news/announcment thread with a link to another discussion thread would at once give people the information--and just the information--they are looking for and thus perhaps entice a few visitors to join while at the same time limit the "drive by" jerks by introducing just a one more gate for them to have to go through before they can be their jerk self. 

 

 

 

A note on Bad Apples and Warnings:

Hidden Content

• I am a nice guy who gives people the benefit of the doubt and in life has had a habit of making friends out of former opponents. That being said, there are bad apples on here just as there are other places. There are some names that seem to contribute nothing of value and have been actively hostile to other members at times. The collective punishment routine from B&C needs to get much much tighter. It's really quite grating when threads keep getting locked for everyone because a few --or so frequently, the same few--bad actors keep showing up and ruining it for everyone. There's a difference between decimating a unit because they ran from a fight in cowardice and decimating a unit because that one dude keeps going AWOL. 
• ...but even with the above point being said, the HR guy in me says that--most especially in today's charged climate--we as a community should define what is and is not good behavior here on these forums, with a link to the code at the first offense, a public shaming "hey, we told you to stop and you didn't" on the second, a temporary suspension on the third, and then a longer (3+ mo?) ban for the fourth, on a rolling basis. 4 offenses over 10 years? Ok, maybe not so bad. 4 offenses in 4 days? Yea, show 'em the door. 
• The above refers to derailing threads or other such things...obvious :cuss -head behavior that is harmful to others should get the boot way faster. 
• I also think the user who has a post removed or such needs to know about it and why....I myself have had a few posts moved or deleted and I have been bewildered as to why. If I was in the wrong somehow it would be great to know why so I can learn and move on. Otherwise how is a user ever supposed to understand and correct the error? Good example: I posted something about American football one time to show probability and the equivalent of rolling perfect 6's for an entire game, and the mod removed the thread and told me why and we had some messages back and forth where I made my case and you know what? He was right. It was fair and I get it now; I thought it would be of interest to the community, but he made the case why it was too far of a stretch. Fair, valid, and now I know. Bad example: there was a post in a discussion on one of the Primarchs in the Black Library section and I had multiple posts removed from the thread for "de-railing" the conversation while certain people in the thread were flat out verbally harassing other posters and saying certain people did not "have the right" to contribute to the conversation and they got to stay. Like, seriously? What the frell?!?!?

 

This is a forum. After the Greek and Roman places to meet and discuss great ideas. At its core that is what B&C should be about, focus on, and enable. 

 

However, when things distract from the above, whether through bloat, misunderstanding, or just plain jerks, then such a marketplace of ideas can be counterproductive to its goals. 

 

TL;DR: 

I think it's all a matter of organization, communication, and intent. 

Tweaking the organization of the forum can improve experience for all.

Communicating loud and clear about said tweaks and giving people time to absorb and adjust to said tweaks aids in their adoption.

And communicating the intention also allows others--through all backgrounds and languages--to understand the why of said tweaks.

 

Again, from a personal perspective, where I think B&C stands out from the rest of the field is the balance of community discussion and focus. We are allowed to discuss so many aspects of the 40k setting and everyone can contribute and ask questions etc... On the flip side, there are standards about what content does and does not contribute to our shared enjoyment of the 40k setting. Other places for discussion devolve into memefests and flame wars and just nonproductive bovine excrement. At B&C you have a reasonable expectation of having a reasonable conversation about something (sounds like it should go on a shirt or something). Somehow we just know what is and isn't good content. But that balance has felt out of whack lately, most especially in the N,R&A section. 

 

I think the 3rd party stuff is a perfect example of this: if B&C is geared towards the community then it is in the shared interest of the community to have awareness about 3rd party stuff that's out there. Each of us can choose to engage with it or not, but--despite the ramblings of folks on here from time to time--B&C is not a shill for GW corporate and as such removing 3rd party stuff ultimately deprives the ​community of the opportunity to potentially expand their bits or model collection. 

[No Foes Remain]

Thank you, Indefragable, for saying my thoughts better than I can articulate.

[Lord Marshal]

I assume fear of GW lawyers have something to do with the mod attitudes. Percieved negativity towards gw or speculation seems to get the mods attention. Makes me feel sad.

As an extremely negative nancy myself, I actually think B&C is one of the better boards out there for moderation not acting as a GW Defence Force. There's a lot of criticism of GW being openly spoken of in a way that other places - especially a certain AoS forum that shall go unnamed - would have seen people (like me) banned years ago.

 

Third party content doesn't evoke the same discussion and, in turn, controversial back-and-forth that 40k threads so because people either like it and comment on it positively ("this Kickstarter looks great, I'll back it!") or were never interested in anything unofficial in the first place. Nevermind the passion that goes into the 'official' product versus a third party where if you're not a fan you can just shrug and ignore it in a way you can't with official news.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Lord Marshal

[Sete]

Rumours and speculation go hand in hand.

If you go to a rumour thread, that by nature is speculative.

I suggest going forward, the Rumour/Official News/Third Party etc tags to be added to the title of the thread, so people have a visual aid when clicking on the thread, to avoid complaining about it being a rumour as I have seen last week on the thread I posted for example.

 

My only complaint about moderation is how some passive aggressive behaviour goes under the radar most of the time, but I suppose people should report more instead of answering back, which is an exercise I'm trying to do.

Edited April 28, 2020 by Sete

[alfred_the_great]

Today has been a clear example of why fragmenting threads into single topics is so unnecessary.

 

No widespread discussion on the totality of the reveal, things like the app and general background being split out post by post.

 

All very meh moderation frankly.

[Ioldanach]

Today has been a clear example of why fragmenting threads into single topics is so unnecessary.

 

No widespread discussion on the totality of the reveal, things like the app and general background being split out post by post.

 

All very meh moderation frankly.

 

I completely disagree. Seeing a discussion about each new thing coming down helps us all to get a feel for the number of changes we can see (understanding that there's going to be a lot more). Having a different discussion for each different thing helps keep the discussion focused on that thing - we don't have a single discussion that bounces between seven different things (not to mention all of the tangents and off topic nonsense that inevitably arises in those discussions). Sure, I have to click multiple times to get to different topics, but that's still far better than having a "discussion" that is the equivalent of a crowded room where everyone is talking about something different and I have to figure out who is talking about what and when.

 

Different discussions for each different reveal are so much cleaner - great rules and moderation in making that so.

[Tyriks]

Yeah, when things weren't split up you would get stuff like someone posts "Is that new model supposed to be x" get drowned in posts about something else and so multiple people keep asking the same question because no one sees it and it gets buried in the flood.  I'm personally extremely grateful the Necron thread just has Necrons, because that's my top priority here.  I don't want to keep getting notifications about Primaris stuff or whatever else.  

[Dagoth Ur]

Today has been a clear example of why fragmenting threads into single topics is so unnecessary.

 

No widespread discussion on the totality of the reveal, things like the app and general background being split out post by post.

 

All very meh moderation frankly.

Cannot agree here - today was the perfect example when it should happen and how it should happen.

 

1.) The split happened very, very early on - i.e. before big discussions and so on picked off.

 

2.) There were clear lines along which the thread was split (Necrons, Primaris, Rules, Novels etc).

 

3.) It was all still clearly visible and contained within one sub-forum.

 

Nemesor Tyriks is absolutely right when he says that certain people are here for Crons and aren't at all interested in Primaris (and vice versa) - keeping a thread in such an overbloated state would create a fundamentally frustrating time for anyone in one of those two categories. I think the big issue arises when threads are split/closed and then shuffled off into other, much smaller sub-forums where they die on the vine - or when discussion is absolutely overmoderated and no actual discussion happens.

 

On that latter point - I checked out the "Least favorite HH Novel" thread out in the BL secton because it has been mentioned a couple of times here and I'd consider it a great example of overmoderation. The thread naturally veered into a given direction, most if not everyone was civil by what I can tell, and the conversation was and kept actually being really productive and insightful (or so I found). The moderation's statement along the lines of "state your opinion and move on" is - and I mean no offense here - absolutely nonsensical to me. If one is just supposed to plonk down an opinion and "just move on", then why bother visiting a forum - a place dedicated to the exchange and discussion of opinions - at all?

Kelborn's statement concerning discussion being fine but sticking to the core of the thread has me scratching my head in all kinds of manners - the topic is so open ended and considering how almost everyone was explaining and clarifying their opinions (as one does in a discussion where communication is 100% clear and transparent) I cannot see how people weren't sticking to the main topic of the thread. Yeah, the last 2 or so pages were mostly Abnett discussion but surely that is still a part of the topic - one that happens to be of particular interest to the given group of people discussing in said thread?

Edited May 24, 2020 by The Observer

[Spacecow]

I think the locks have been a bit too heavy and individuals let off personally, a lot of threads are constantly derailed by the same individuals either carrying over grudges about other posters or just heading off down rabbitholes. Id rather keep the threads open but have the posters causing the disruptions get muted/banned as the mods see fit tbh. Please try to leave discussions open until release day, maybe a little after so a discussion can be had.

 

I think its all very well saying carry on in the subforums but some of those are pretty dead and the odd rumour isnt going to restart them.

 

3rd party stuff is fine, especially kept to one thread per company, i just think its the GW threads being shut down the day after they start thats making the 3rd party threads so prominent.

I think you pretty much summed it up for me. Forums are meant to be for an open discussion. :)

[Joe]

Note that the mods and admins are discussing the feedback that has been given and will provide guidance once we have reached a resolution.

 

Afternoon all. \o

 

Have the moderation and administration staff managed to hash out some guidance on the feedback the community have been giving recently yet - or are at least able to give a cursory idea of what's being discussed for the future? It's just a little worrying that we haven't heard anything in over a month now.