Originally Posted by lawleypop

I googled it, no results.
What's a jerry can? o_o

YES I CAN.

Originally Posted by temptingf8

If I were to offer my opinion, I think the forum staff are doing a decent job, but could stand to use some improvement. I get the feeling that things are being moderated in a very cold and business-like manner, when in fact MacInsiders is a real community with real students with real personalities. I notice that rules are enforced based on the letter of the law rather than the intent. It would be nice if things were a little more personable.

Case in point, I don't agree with just shoving the "if you don't agree, too bad. the code of conduct is here." Fact of the matter is, we ARE a random internet forum and talking like that is just going to stifle the community into a boring, cold place. So much for "MCMASTER STUDENT COMMUNITY" as it says at the top of the page. That said, there is nothing wrong with running a tight ship and that's definitely a fine line that I think MI staff have to walk.

Do I have experience in big and strong web communities and forums? Maybe. I've been on the most amazing car club forum for over 7 years now and I've been a moderator for the last two. We don't take any shit in terms of disturbances, but we also don't dole out the safety scissors and training wheels. This year alone I've been on two 1000 kilometre round-trip drives just to attend meets and events and hang out with some real cool people. So, just my two cents based on what I've been through.

Cliffs notes? Don't hide behind the Code of Conduct. Use common sense judgement and moderate accordingly. Don't let it become personal and stay objective.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. All feedback is welcome!!! Definitely interested in hearing any ideas you have RoyK, SilentWalker and Temptingf8 of what we can put into our Code Of Conduct based on your moderator experiences with other large forums, or ways we should change things I'm always open to hearing ideas to make the community better. So far there's a mix of people saying we're too harsh, vs should be harsher and give more temp. bans.

Following on some discussion and ideas here, I wanted to note that off-topic discussion is encouraged! MacInsiders is not a forum just to talk about McMaster and school. This is one of the reasons we opened up more subforums under 'general discussion' to try and foster discussions over particular interests our members have. We want MacInsiders to be a place to hang out online for all Mac students to talk and share about anything that interests students. We're also partnering up with McMaster Athletics and Recreation to co-sponsor the sports/recreation forum and bring a lot more discussion and updates about sports and athletics events to MacInsiders, with actual Ath&Rec staff and 'experts' leading discussions.

One of the ideas that has been suggested is having a 'vote up / vote down' option for threads that basically allow users to vote down a 'troll' or comment that you as a user thinks is harming the discussion and not funny or entertaining at all, adding no value, etc. and with enough votes down the post gets 'collapsed' similar to how it happens now when you report a post breaking the COC. Only, moderators would leave that post there as collapsed (unless it is a complete violation needing deletion).

All the staff here want to see MacInsiders be an entertaining and fun forum as well as a positive, friendly, helpful one. Any suggestions please post them here and I will respond to them individually and hopefully implement some of them to help build and grow the MI community to what you all want it to be

Some ideas to add to the discussion:

Moderation
- Vote up/down on posts..
- "Reputation" system that lets you see visually how well respected the user is on the site, either through their number of 'likes' and 'thanks', posts, threads, etc. Vote downs negatively impact their reputation as well as reported posts
- Stricter Code Of Conduct, with more temporary bans handed out to those who post useless garbage posts that have no value - not even entertaining value, while allowing trolling posts to slide if they are voted up or seen as being 'harmless' (to the moderators digression)
- Lighter Code Of Conduct that basically allows a free-for-all (minus anything illegal and swearing) with no moderation youtube-style, posts that are reported just stay collapsed
- Inviting more moderators on board (respected, established members in the MI community)
- Closing threads that get out of hand right away, no deletion of posts, just closed thread so no one can post anymore at all, but can see how the thread was derailed.

Discussion
- More/less general discussion sub-forums
- Promotion of the forums more... break out that forums menu at the top into icons or larger buttons along the header to make forums one-click away
- Heavily promote off-topic discussion on the homepage somehow
- Open up a 'Q & A' answers system on the site that is strictly for questions and answers, (like yahoo answers) and leaving the forums completely for discussions and opinion-related topics rather than questions that can be answered quickly and easily over and over again. Q&A would then be archived and searchable so questions don't need to be repeated or answered over and over
- Having a global chat room on MI that is open to all members. The chatroom would be a free-for-all with no moderation except for spamming/ads/swearing. The chatroom could deflect posts in the forum that seem to happen between users that are short in character count and seem to be more of a chat or discussion about off-topic things than what the OP posted about. Those users can instead chat off-topic in the chatroom instead of in threads. Negative impact of this would be less threads/posts if everyone starts to ask questions and get help purely in the chatroom than posting in the forum (which is searchable and archived to help others in the future vs. a chat which has it's history deleted on a regular basis)

Originally Posted by Chad

Thanks for the feedback everyone. All feedback is welcome!!! Definitely interested in hearing any ideas you have RoyK, SilentWalker and Temptingf8 of what we can put into our Code Of Conduct based on your moderator experiences with other large forums, or ways we should change things I'm always open to hearing ideas to make the community better. So far there's a mix of people saying we're too harsh, vs should be harsher and give more temp. bans.

Following on some discussion and ideas here, I wanted to note that off-topic discussion is encouraged! MacInsiders is not a forum just to talk about McMaster and school. This is one of the reasons we opened up more subforums under 'general discussion' to try and foster discussions over particular interests our members have. We want MacInsiders to be a place to hang out online for all Mac students to talk and share about anything that interests students. We're also partnering up with McMaster Athletics and Recreation to co-sponsor the sports/recreation forum and bring a lot more discussion and updates about sports and athletics events to MacInsiders, with actual Ath&Rec staff and 'experts' leading discussions.

One of the ideas that has been suggested is having a 'vote up / vote down' option for threads that basically allow users to vote down a 'troll' or comment that you as a user thinks is harming the discussion and not funny or entertaining at all, adding no value, etc. and with enough votes down the post gets 'collapsed' similar to how it happens now when you report a post breaking the COC. Only, moderators would leave that post there as collapsed (unless it is a complete violation needing deletion).

All the staff here want to see MacInsiders be an entertaining and fun forum as well as a positive, friendly, helpful one. Any suggestions please post them here and I will respond to them individually and hopefully implement some of them to help build and grow the MI community to what you all want it to be

Some ideas to add to the discussion:

Moderation
- Vote up/down on posts..
- "Reputation" system that lets you see visually how well respected the user is on the site, either through their number of 'likes' and 'thanks', posts, threads, etc. Vote downs negatively impact their reputation as well as reported posts
- Stricter Code Of Conduct, with more temporary bans handed out to those who post useless garbage posts that have no value - not even entertaining value, while allowing trolling posts to slide if they are voted up or seen as being 'harmless' (to the moderators digression)
- Lighter Code Of Conduct that basically allows a free-for-all (minus anything illegal and swearing) with no moderation youtube-style, posts that are reported just stay collapsed
- Inviting more moderators on board (respected, established members in the MI community)
- Closing threads that get out of hand right away, no deletion of posts, just closed thread so no one can post anymore at all, but can see how the thread was derailed.

Discussion
- More/less general discussion sub-forums
- Promotion of the forums more... break out that forums menu at the top into icons or larger buttons along the header to make forums one-click away
- Heavily promote off-topic discussion on the homepage somehow
- Open up a 'Q & A' answers system on the site that is strictly for questions and answers, (like yahoo answers) and leaving the forums completely for discussions and opinion-related topics rather than questions that can be answered quickly and easily over and over again. Q&A would then be archived and searchable so questions don't need to be repeated or answered over and over
- Having a global chat room on MI that is open to all members. The chatroom would be a free-for-all with no moderation except for spamming/ads/swearing. The chatroom could deflect posts in the forum that seem to happen between users that are short in character count and seem to be more of a chat or discussion about off-topic things than what the OP posted about. Those users can instead chat off-topic in the chatroom instead of in threads. Negative impact of this would be less threads/posts if everyone starts to ask questions and get help purely in the chatroom than posting in the forum (which is searchable and archived to help others in the future vs. a chat which has it's history deleted on a regular basis)

That's great and all, but totally up for abuse between the hyper-sensitive people, people-who-think-someone-is-a-troll-but-they-really-just-can't-handle-disagreement, people with no backbone, etc.
(oh wait, it's all the same thing).

Also um...
Can you please, for the love of all things sweet and creamy, can you put a "Last post" button on the threads on the front page (like, directly on the main menu)?

Originally Posted by lawleypop

Can you please, for the love of all things sweet and creamy, can you put a "Last post" button on the threads on the front page (like, directly on the main menu)?

yesyesyesyesyesyes this would make me so happy

Originally Posted by lawleypop

That's great and all, but totally up for abuse between the hyper-sensitive people, people-who-think-someone-is-a-troll-but-they-really-just-can't-handle-disagreement, people with no backbone, etc.
(oh wait, it's all the same thing).

Also um...
Can you please, for the love of all things sweet and creamy, can you put a "Last post" button on the threads on the front page (like, directly on the main menu)?

There actually already is one! (surprise!)

In the 'last post' column you'll see something like this:
1 Minute Ago by sinthusized

See that little square beside the user's name that posted last? Click it. Presto.

Originally Posted by Chad

There actually already is one! (surprise!)

In the 'last post' column you'll see something like this:
1 Minute Ago by sinthusized

See that little square beside the user's name that posted last? Click it. Presto.

omfg wowwwwwwwwwww. >_<
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy but.... wow >________<

lmao thanks.

Originally Posted by Chad

See that little square beside the user's name that posted last? Click it. Presto.

For some reason I'm really proud I already knew this.

I already knew that from other vBulletin Message Boards, but for some reason on this site it only takes me to the last page, not the last post (I still have to do manual scrolling).

And don't say I'm not being lazy; it's not doing what it's supposed to do.

Originally Posted by SilentWalker

I already knew that from other vBulletin Message Boards, but for some reason on this site it only takes me to the last page, not the last post (I still have to do manual scrolling).

And don't say I'm not being lazy; it's not doing what it's supposed to do.

If the thread has been unmodded it'll take you to the post shortly after loading the page if you don't touch it. However if a thread has had mod activity, it will only take you to the last page, as you cannot view the posts. This is another reason I like linear- newest posts first. you just click on the thread and you are always at the newest post without any extra loading, and you will always be able to view the posts.

Originally Posted by Replekia

For some reason I'm really proud I already knew this.

Me, too.
Definitely feeling a sense of pride right now.
Makes life way easier.

I think I saw on another thread an idea where there was a warning about the content of the offensive/flagged post, and then readers could choose to display the post by clicking it or choose to not view it. I think that works well for everyone, that way the thread would have some semblance of continuity after mods are done with it. I'm interested in the sex/love one too, and I REALLY wanna know what those deleted ones say.

I also like the 'Q&A' suggestion as well, that would be great! But I think MI would suffer a little and everyone would ignore the forums if chats were introduced .

Edit: Now I can't see my liked/thanked posts in this thread.... I pressed buttons by accident too...

Originally Posted by resh.jyoti

I think I saw on another thread an idea where there was a warning about the content of the offensive/flagged post, and then readers could choose to display the post by clicking it or choose to not view it. I think that works well for everyone, that way the thread would have some semblance of continuity after mods are done with it. I'm interested in the sex/love one too, and I REALLY wanna know what those deleted ones say.

I also like the 'Q&A' suggestion as well, that would be great! But I think MI would suffer a little and everyone would ignore the forums if chats were introduced .

Edit: Now I can't see my liked/thanked posts in this thread.... I pressed buttons by accident too...

Yea, it says people have liked my posts but it doesn't show the yellow bar or whatever. o_O

Likes should show up now, was testing something.

I currently moderate on a technology-related forum, more specifically one oriented towards one specific type of device. As a result, the rules on there would have been differently targeted. The biggest difference is that the forum probably has 100 times the number of registered users that MI has, and as such most of the discussion is pertaining to said device whereas most discussion on MI is off-topic.

Firstly, one way that this forum maintains order is that there are a set of defined rules, the first of which is 'Use common sense when posting'. This allows a moderator to justly take action when they see fit, even if the offensive post is not observably breaking the written rules. This is very similar to the 'Conduct' link at the top of every MI page, but instead the link is placed on this bar, to show that conforming with the rules is taken quite seriously.

Then it goes one step further by administering a 'point-based system'.

• Every offence adds a certain number of points to the user record. A first offence results in 0 points, and a user warning (which is visible to the public on the offending post clearly explaining the offence).
• A second offence then adds either 1 or 2 points to the user record (depending on the severity of the offence), and results in a temporary ban (ranging from 1 day to 1 month, depending on the number of points that user has accumulated). Again, the offending post is labelled, explaining why the member was penalized. (of course all offending posts are redacted as seen fit by the moderator)
• The number of points are administered also depend on the type of offence. For example, if a user discussed illegal activity - a first time offence - he would be warned (or infracted if the administrator wishes). If the user later flames another user, he would be warned for flaming, not infracted on the basis that he received a previous warning. These types of offending activities are broken down in the rules
• A total of 6 points results in a permanent ban.
• Breaking any one rule more than 2 or 3 times can result in a permanent ban if the moderator sees fits.

The exact ban thresholds are as follows:

• 1 point: 1 day
• 2 points: 3 days
• 3 points: 10 days
• 4 points: 2 weeks
• 5 points: 1 month
• 6 points: Permanent ban

This point-based infraction system is implemented so that the user can learn from his/her mistakes, and so if not penalized for a first-time offence. This allows us to easily pick out the one-time slip-ups from the intentional offenders by looking at their record.

Of course these rules are specifically directed towards the content of the site, so that there may be more instances where one breaks the rules when compared to this site. For example, piracy is an offence (I saw piracy discussion that went undisputed on this site, dealing with a free download of MS Office). Steering a thread off-topic results in a infraction, there there is a lot of on-topic discussion; on MI, the majority of posts/threads are off topic.

Finally, we stick to these rules and rarely ever make exceptions. This way we maintain a standard, most infractions are undisputed, and the moderator cannot take an unwritten course of action due to any grudges or alliance with the member in question.

I have seen a lot of repeating offenders on this site that this system would have fairly and effectively pruned out.

In addition, there is an off-topic section with sub-forums where members can discuss anything, much like the General Discussion section on MI.

_____

Also I think the Q&A idea is very good; and that a chat will probably be too difficult to maintain but, if implemented properly will, keep the message boards a good deal cleaner.

And the reputation system is probably a bad idea. We ditched it years ago because many users just posted for the sake of getting their rep up (such as asking for thanks, likes and +reps).

Originally Posted by Chad

Likes should show up now, was testing something.

lmao wow and i thot it was my computer being slow/internet failing

good to know, good to know