Talk to the moderation...
 

Rather than making multiple threads to get any moderation issues, or suggestions to the moderation out in the open.
I would suggest bringing anything you like to the attention of the moderation here.
Keep it mature, keep it constructive.
Might actually be a good way to not randomly point fingers back and forth but to give both parties an opportunity to speak and/or explain their perspective; before, during, or after any events/moderation calls take place.

Here's mine
I would suggest to the moderation at first to consider locking threads rather than erasing them while this process is taking place, as this is a temporary measure that may be open to discussion.
Also, perhaps sticky this thread as a reminder that THIS is the place to come to discuss any suggestions or grievances.
IF there are thread closures, I would suggest pm'ing the members involved prior to undertaking any action.

My suggestion to the general forumers would be to not come in here and nitpick every little decision you don't personally agree with...it's not a "have a go" thread, it would be better, and work better if it remained that way.
Also - If you don't get along with a mod, don't bait them...this will not turn out well.

**A "viewable by moderation only" section is very handy...so that if something is deemed inappropriate, it can be moved into said area where it is free from public/nonmember scrutiny while any final decisions are being made.

Those all sound like pretty good suggestions.

I'm surprised, considering some of the things that have been said lately, that nobody's really thrown anything in to here...I mean evidently a few people on either side had something to say.
It's not a call-out, it's a chance to productively air any issues...I had hoped that this would be a positive step.

Maybe it's because of a couple of reasons:

(1) People may be burned out on discussing it as of late.

(2) They may be like me, and have pretty much said screw it, this isn't worth the battle anymore, because it's going to continue and it's not going to be resolved.

(3) They may be scared they will get banned for discussing the issue, in light of recent history.

Just my thoughts.

Yeah, in other threads...allover the place...might be easier for anyone to actually see their message if it were in the one place. To me, this is more of a reason to establish something like this.

But, this here, if handled properly by all parties involved could actually be the start of resolution to these matters...another reason FOR.

Don't think that's happened in a while...sure wouldn't happened if things were approached the right way.

Either way, just thought if anything to get it out of the REST of the forums, and into here.
If there's not enough interest on either side to step forward and maturely discuss matters, it won't work anyways.
Ah well, I tried.

Since this is the thread for it, I would like to say something....

Personally, I feel that since the moderator voting, we now have too many mods. Yes, I said it. There are too many people trying to keep this place under control, and none of them seem to know what the hell the other ones are doing. It has become a clusterfuck.

Yes, some here may have voted. I don't recall voting on this. I'm not even sure I was around much. I personally thought it was a bad idea to have more mods, especially since communicating with existing ones seemed to be a problem in the first place.

No communication = No control

You don't put 6 head chefs in a kitchen for a reason. Too many hands in the pot. I mean seriously, why do we need so many mods? Yes, we have had an abundance of spam lately, but if one, maybe two of the people you have now, were assigned just to doing that, it wouldn't be that big of an issue.

Communication with the mods and among the mods, is starting to be like getting in touch with horror. Impossible.

Look at what happened to the band tournament. None of the mods knew what the hell happened to it, until someone pointed it out. Then there was still no complete reason, for quite awhile.

I'm going to stop now, because my computer is starting to screw up.

I haven't had too much involvement with any of the "new" moderation, in fact I never even bothered to look at who they were.
However, I think that you may have a point there - asking the overall question, should all moderator-related decisions be at their and their only discression, or should these actions (in MOST cases) be "OK'd" by the rest of the moderation, a panel, so to speak.
I'm not talking about deleting spam accounts, or throwing out folks who come in to intentionally cause trouble as has been the case in the past....I'm talking about things like thread closures/relocations, member suspension/banning, the "bigger" decisions.

We know it's been said "you all put your trust in these people", but we also know that there's little to no possibility of any of the "new" and "old" moderation to not have any existing issues with any other members here.

I have seen it mentioned that perhaps grudges have been acted upon (I'm unaware of the issues at hand, so not commenting) which is not great...if some kind of panel-based decision were made by the moderation, this potential problem would at very least be made into a non-issue in the minds of the casual forumer, this would be a good thing.

I'd personally like to see a "re-election", and agree it should be done through a PM system to ensure quality of results.
It should be held through an anonymous and uninvolved party...not volunteering or anything, but someone like myself who has no interest in these things and isn't particularly "friends" or "enemies" with anyone.
(That said...not saying I WOULDN'T, but I'd prefer someone else to do this if they were inclined to step up.)
Because as this has been a major concern to some, the process thus far was not really satisfactory or "honest".
Not to mention, now that some users have insight into the kind of calls and actions taken by the new moderation...a "re-election" of sorts would be more reflective of the actual PERFORMANCE of these individuals, not what we speculate.


I welcome anyone mod or otherwise, to make comment.

Now that, I do agree with.

I also think, that before the re-election, everything about all of the mods that are up for it, should have everything laid out on the table. Good and bad. Not just by them, but everyone.

Personally, I think this would make a lot more sense.

Ha, you got my unedited version there...I read through and things were kinda allover the place, ha, changed the order 'round a bit.

But, see what I'm saying here...it's a place we can get this stuff out there, the mods can read what we've got to say/request/suggest, and are also free to discuss the matter.
We just need a few more to come to the party...

While I think this thread is a fine idea, I don't really have anything to add at the moment. I've spoken my mind and nothing has occured since then that would change my opinion in one way or another.

I'll respond as a new mod.

For those of you who didn't vote/weren't around/didn't care to get involved for whatever reasons, we had a moderator election.

__V__, neverending and myself were elected to the mod board, which essentially leaves us with six moderators. Officially there are eight, but only five on paper, which can get a might bit confusing.

The listed five main mods are, and have been for a while, are:

Allmykids, kpropain, bloodrayne, Austin and zwoti.

Out of these, Allmykids lost the password to her mod account long ago and as far as I know, hasn't been around for awhile. This essentially eliminates her as a mod. Kpro, for one reason or another, is rarely around.

As far as I know (I hope, anyway) the three of us were elected to ease the burden of the new systems filtration (spamalot) problems based on a few factors:

1.) Board frequency
2.) Trust of fairness
3.) Communication skills
4.) Awesome hairdos

Okay, I made one of those up. It's most likely the trust one.

The six of us do the best possible to meet and communicate on decisions. It becomes hard when most of us are in different timezones and two of us are in different countries. I think NE and I are the only ones with the same time schedule.

As far as the decisions that have been made over the last couple of days that have caused all of the ruckus, there are more than two sides to every story. Not all of us are vocal in what we do, and not all of us are there when critical decisions need be made. All I can say is that we do the best we think we can do to continue the existence of HDC with the vague rules that Horror has laid out for us. We don't exactly have great communication with him (Doc Faustus song should follow shortly) and we've kind of been left alone to try to make the best of a situation. Sometimes it can get ugly.

All that being said, anyone who wants to pm or email me are perfectly welcome. I'll answer any questions or concerns to the best of my ability.

Thank you for your time,
-Rikki (Flayed)

Good thread Cheebs....and nice response Flayed. I would like to see ALL the mods chime in here......just to keep the peace. I'm not really sure what went on.......kinda bits & pieces. Apparently threads got locked and threads got deleted.

As far as the NEW mods......my hats off to you for taking the mod responsibility.....no easy task fer sure. I have no problems with any of the new mods....in fact I voted for all of them.

I'm also seeing some real nitpicking and crybaby antics from some of our beloved regulars. Lighten up all.....its just a forum.

Oh you did, did you?


;)

it seems to me - and i'm not trying to continue the controversy here - that when two long-time members are having a disagreement or even a series of snide comments that these should be allowed until such time as they get really over-the-top or personal or hate-filled. now if it is some noobie who is starting crap everywhere, then whack-em, or if someone really goes beyond the pale (racism, sexism, etc.) then whack-em, or if someone is beign sexually creepy (and we all know who i'm thinking of here) then whack-em.

but if everytime a couple of us old-timers get cranky with each other the mods pop in and delete threads, then it is going to be seen s a bit oppressive.

ok - i've had my say - and i'm not trying to be critical of individual mods or volunteering to do the job (I understand it must be thankless and painful).

Question for Moderators
 

Last night I logged in to post my selection on the Five Best Songs thread and since no one had posted since my previous post to ferretchucker I decided to edit it so I wouldn't have two superimposed posts. I've edited posts before and all I ever did was click the save button and it worked just fine. Last night when I "saved" I got a window saying I didn't have the right to do what I just did and that I needed to refresh the page and log in again which to me was crazy since I was already loggen in -- it said so at the top of the page. So I did as instructed and lost an hours worth of work. I thought because I was flipping back and forth with my dictionary (the spell-checker on my toolbar doesn't work) I some how logged out even though the top of the page still said I was logged in. So I rewrote the whole thing without checking my dictionary, clicked the save button and the same stupid thing happened again. Growing madder by the nanosecond I noticed the edit button was still on the screen so I clicked that, was instructed to log in again (which I find infuriating because I WAS ALREADY LOGGED IN) and once I did, wha-la it worked.

To make a short story as long as possible, why was I continually told to refresh the page (thereby losing all my work) and log in again when I was already logged in? Can someone explain this to me so I can understand it? I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

I just now posted the above (having logged in) and was told to log in again. What is going on?

Horror doesn't like you....

You were timed out.

You went beyond the maximum time you can take to make a post. That will log you out automatically and when you want to post your reply, you will need to re-login.

In future, to avoid getting timed out, keep hitting the "Preview Post" button in 5 minute intervals.

I was pretty happy with the mods we chose. One of them I wasn't sure about for one reason, but I think he's since proved that my concerns were misplaced. I don't know if we should have a whole new mod election because of how long it would take, with Horror never being around, but if it were possible to do easily, then I think it should be done. Not because I think any of the mods should be changed, but I think it would satisfy the people here more, as it would be much more accurate.

Thank you. :)

What a tempest in a teapot this whole thing has become.

To put things in perspective: Posts promoting pirated material are deleted here weekly. It's a long standing policy. Bwind's intital post was deleted because of this. He then had a fit and was given SPECIAL PERMISSION to promote a site that streams pirated material through private messages because he's a long standing member.

His thread was left active long enough for any regular member to get the information if they so desired. It was then closed. As Phalanx has so wisely noted, anyone who wants the info knows where to get it.

Even though Bwind was allowed to post info that is normally deleted, and given time to get his word out, I have been accused of fostering some sort of grudge in this matter. When the mod election was being held, the most cited reason many members gave for voting for me was they thought I would be fair. I think V and I have acted in a fair manner in this matter- I won't say impartial because Bwind was given MORE leiniency than others have been given. I stand by my actions and I know V does stand by his as well.

I have been given nothing but support by the other mods who have contacted me. If anyone else wants this thankless job- which btw entails a minimum of an hour EVERY DAY- and often much more than that- and you honestly think you can find others who will do it- by all means convince the mods there needs to be another election. I'll step down immediately.

nah.
The new mods are good..we voted for them.
Lets just say that because they are doing what mods are supposed to do...
your knickers are getting all twisted.
Lets just hunt down thier addresses and kill thier flowers and pets.

Here is one of those rare occasions that you & I completely agree.

I was basically done with this issue but since you are going to rehash it, let's make sure we're getting the story straight. I certainly didn't "throw a fit", but then again you wouldn't know that because the entire conversation took place via PMs between V & I. Here's what happened...

I posted a thread with a link to a site that streams new release pirated movies. After a couple pages, the thread was locked (not deleted immediately, just locked.) V posted a message stating he locked the thread. I sent him a PM asking why. He informed me that I had insulted NE and that since Posher had agreed with me, there was potential for a gang-up so he locked it. He went on to say that he wasn't sure if HDC could get in trouble for having links to sites that stream pirated movies or not and thought best to play it safe. I replied that if I had insulted neverending, it was the most polite insult I had ever dished out, but I could completely see where he was coming from on the legality issues. I then offered to post a second thread without any link and told him I had no problem whatsoever with him deleting the first one containing the link if he thought we might get in trouble. He said that sounded good and that's what we did.

I posted the second thread without a link, kept everything as cordial as possible and even put in a disclaimer that NE doesn't agree with watching films in this manner. Over the course of the thread, the conversation turned to the differences between streaming and downloading. Then the second thread was abruptly locked without any explanation. That prompted me to start the 'What the Hell?" thread to see if I could figure out what was going on. At that point, NE sent me a PM basically stating that he felt there was nothing more to say on the subject so he locked it. Personally, I don't agree with that decision, I sent him a PM stating so and posted in the 'What the Hell?' thread to let everyone know what happened to the thread. My impression was that it was locked because NE didn't agree with what was being said or promoted, not because it was promoting pirated video. That was the last I spoke of this incident until now.

At no point did I 'throw a fit', flame or intentionally insult anyone via thread or PM. If NE or V has any evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it, but they don't because it didn't happen.

My opinion is this... The way V handled the first thread was perfect. I have no problems with a thread getting locked as long as there's a reasonable explanation for it.

The way NE handled the second thread was irritating. Basically, I got the sense that he was willing to sit there and discuss it with us for a day or two but as soon as a few people didn't agree with what he was saying and he didn't feel like carrying on a conversation any more, he posted his last word on the topic and then promptly locked it (with no public explanation as to why it was locked or who it was locked by). I had to start a whole new thread just to figure out what was going on.

Does this mean I dislike NE or that I don't trust him to be a fair moderator? Do I think he was intentionally trying to be unfair? Hell no to all of the above. Not at all. It means I feel like that particular situation could have been handled better. Any of you that have been here a while know that I am not one to mince words so when I don't agree with something, I speak my mind. That is all this was. I certinaly didn't mean to cause a big uproar about inadequete moderation around here. I meant to make it known that I didn't agree with a decision that was made, plain and simple.

Probably at the bottom of page 2 by now and page 3 by next week. I think we can all agree that locking a thread is the same as giving it the kiss of death since it'll quickly slip into the abyss, never to be seen again.

Well, I stand by V's and I just think yours could have been improved with an explanation posted at the bottom of the thread. If there had been an explanation, there wouldn't have been a 'What the Hell?' If there was no 'What the Hell?', this thread probably wouldn't have been created and I doubt any of us would still be talking about this at all.

Personally, I still see nothing wrong with the second thread. We talk about illegal stuff here on a regular basis from drugs to murder to pirated films. Without the link (which I can see the potential legal reasons for deleting), I don't see what the problem is. Are we not free to discuss illegal streaming videos at all?

I, for one, don't think there is any need for a new election or different mods. I generally agree with 95% of the moderatory actions around here. In the times I don't agree, I let it be known but there's nothing stating that we all have to agree 100% of the time so I don't really have any problem with this issue at this point. I've resigned myself to the fact that I can't promote a site that streams illegal films here, even if it's without a link and I think there may be others who enjoy it.

In closing, I don't harbor any ill will towards NE over this at all. I do hope in the future, he'll give an explanation when locking threads.

In general, I have a lot of resepct for all of the mods here because like it's been noted, it's a thankless and tedious task they're performing. Spam control alone must be a massive pain in the ass so cheers to you all for the damn fine job you do around here.

It'd be excellent if we could all drop this now. (Or at the very least, leave me out of it.) I'm over it.

I agree. I was urged by several people that I should state my case here, and so I have.

I stand by my post that this has been blown way out of proportion.

As with anything democratic, if you didn't vote, don't complain. If you did vote and don't think things are fair then voice your complaint and do something about it. I would like to see anyone do a better job than the people we have got. Our mods are all hard working, busy people, but they still make the time to sort out all the mess here. I for one think they are doing a great job and are nothing but fair and leniant.

So without any further ado, I think it's time for the official HDC

http://www.northernbrigade.com/files.../group-hug.jpg.

:D

I don't see why anyone is still talking about this or why people were crying about a stupid link anyways. You act like streaming/dl is like killing a baby.
Kind of funny though that it turned into a huge brawl. I have better things to do than argue about something that is out of my hands.
Let's talk about horror or something and quit whining about things that don't matter.

You just whined.

i have a question for the mods :




where do babies come from ... i mean really ?

Girl parts. :)

To make a baby you need a sperm cell and an egg cell. The sperm cell comes from the daddy and the egg cell comes from the mommy. When the sperm and egg meet, they make a tiny baby that is smaller than a grain of salt. The baby grows in the mommy's tummy for nine months. Then the baby is ready to come out.

oh thats just gross !

anyone willing to tell me the truth ?

You posted this in a thread that's been dormant for more than 2 days. No one is talking about this any more.

what nonsense, don't listen to him.


http://www.bellagreetings.com/dan/birdsandbees.jpg

why on earth would i start now ? :D

They are like fungi. They pop up everywhere.

Neverending: I'm sure you have a good reason for everything you do, but could you at least post a link to the old thread when you close a thread for being a remake of an old one. I bumped the closest I could find to the subject, but I think, that if it's not too much work, that might be a good idea in the future.

Yeah, check out "First Horror You Saw" in the Modern Horror forum. Good jumping off point for your discussion.

You must give me time.

Might be a hard concept to grasp for someone who's intent is to fill the board with as many threads as he can possibly start in one day.

Thank you :)