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Old 8th September 2010, 19:29   #21  |  Link
GodofaGap
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Originally Posted by Doom9 View Post
Why is it not enough?
Because it doesn't bring transparency, which is needed for interpretation of rules and better expectation of future moderation.

Again, you can choose to ignore this but then all of this pointless.
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Old 8th September 2010, 19:35   #22  |  Link
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I was hoping you and DS are willing to leave this argument behind
I've been willing to for some time, but vile attacks are still being made on me at Doom10 (controlled by DS), so I will defend myself as long as it continues.

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going separate ways is all what's needed and I don't mean separate boards but rather separate threads.
I don't follow your point. I will continue defending myself in this thread until the attacks on me cease.
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Old 8th September 2010, 19:39   #23  |  Link
Doom9
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Because it doesn't bring transparency, which is needed for interpretation of rules and better expectation of future moderation.
And what moderator or administrative experience lead you to that conclusion? It's easy to say you can do better.. but you should be provided to back that up with actual experience. Just because you think something should be done differently doesn't necessarily mean it a) work out at all, and b) end up being an improvement.
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Old 8th September 2010, 19:51   #24  |  Link
tremens
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my interpretation of his post was a failure to recognize the idea of “'free' as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'". there's nothing wrong with making money from gpl or lgpl software. look at google. correct me if i'm wrong.

btw, can you give me your interpretation of rule 8? like an example of how it could be broken?
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Old 8th September 2010, 19:55   #25  |  Link
GodofaGap
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Originally Posted by Doom9 View Post
And what moderator or administrative experience lead you to that conclusion?
I've been moderator on two different forums, and if you really need to ask why it could be better if members of this forum get a better understanding of how the rules work through transparency around decision making that results from these rules, this conversation just hit a dead end.
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Old 8th September 2010, 20:17   #26  |  Link
Doom9
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btw, can you give me your interpretation of rule 8? like an example of how it could be broken?
I assume you mean moderator rule 8. Suppose I were a mod and still active in megui development. Somebody comes along and calls megui a crappy software written by braindead idiots. So, now both myself and my work is under attack. Now, I'm still permitted to ask why it's crappy... but if feel the normal "I need to defend my honor" feeling most human beings get when confrontent with the braindead idiots statement, then that's the point where I need to let cooler heads prevail.

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I've been moderator on two different forums
And those forums would be and did you have the same username on those?
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Old 8th September 2010, 20:42   #27  |  Link
tremens
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ok, what about this:

lets change the roles a little.

imagine stax was a mod/dev and you were just a dev. stax says within his own thread that megui is crappy software written by braindead idiots and when you go defend yourself, he immediately deletes your posts.

it's really only slightly different.
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Old 8th September 2010, 20:50   #28  |  Link
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imagine stax was a mod/dev and you were just a dev. stax says within his own thread that megui is crappy software written by braindead idiots and when you go defend yourself, he immediately deletes your posts.

it's really only slightly different.
No, it is very different. I instructed him in my capacity as a moderator to put his post in a new thread. He refused and repeatedly posted in my support thread, even after being warned in a PM.
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Old 8th September 2010, 20:54   #29  |  Link
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i'm talking about a hypothetical situation here. stax didn't really say that about megui.
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Old 8th September 2010, 20:55   #30  |  Link
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Yes, and I didn't really delete anybody's posts to shut them up.
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Old 8th September 2010, 21:22   #31  |  Link
Bi11
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Doom9, I am trying to understand the workplace analogy you keep iterating, despite giving no justification for its relevancy.
What makes you think business policy is appropriate for a community-driven forum?

Using your workplace analogy, the Administrator is the boss, moderators are employees, and forum users are clients.
If a client is unsatisfied with the way they were treated by an employee then they can discuss the matter with the boss. There are 2 possible outcomes from the client’s perspective: satisfied, unsatisfied.

If the client is satisfied (or eventually satisfied) with the measures taken then there isn’t much else to discuss, so that’s the end of the “satisfaction procedure” with the halting state being ‘satisfied’.

However, how exactly does the “satisfaction procedure” eventually halt in a state of ‘unsatisfied’, or has the halting problem been realized?

As a thought experiment (note I am not proposing this as true), in the case of grievances between a user and a moderator, I can think of a simplified court system analogy, say ‘State vs user’.

The judge presiding over the matter is a human being and has a life that also exists outside the court system. As such, the judge (who is fair most of the time) has certain predispositions about certain matters that appear before him. The judge does of course not acknowledge these predispositions.

The user is aware of the judge’s predisposition and knows it will affect the final outcome of the case. The user can draw on past cases where the judge was biased; though such bias was never acknowledged by the courts, (presumably because the judge is very valuable and taking action against the judge would have some negative impacts on the courts not worth risking).

The outcome of the case is as expected. The user goes against the odds and calls the judge’s fairness into question by opening a case against the judge. So now, it’s ‘user vs judge’.

The head judge (Chief Justice, Court of Appeal, Administrator, whatever, you get the idea) presides over the case. Despite the biased judge and the head judge being more than good friends (the head judge relies heavily on the biased judge’s dedication to the courts), the user continues with the case.

However, some of the rules governing the powers of a judge are intentionally overly general in order to allow for flexibility of powers in good faith (e.g. moderator rule 4 – “blow up in our faces”, moderator rule 11 – “side of caution” which contradicts taking proactive measures to "fish-out" downloaders of pirated content (which imo seems futile since the uploaders are the real 'criminals'). This means the head judge necessarily interprets those rules on a case-by-case basis, because they are too vague to be interpreted objectively.

Thus, the head judge is free to bend or even break those rules for a judge without the user having any recourse but to accept the ruling and associated consequences.

Notice I have simply presented a problematic scenario without suggesting how you should run your forum.
You speak about being civil as if this forum is a civilized society. If so, then the courts analogy may be more appropriate than the workplace analogy.

IMHO, there is a fundamental difference between the workplace analogy and the courts analogy. Business clients are considered independent entities with no knowledge of each other. A court system serves justice to users of a community; those users necessarily interact with each other as part of being members of the community.

Community members look out for each other, clients do not! Your workplace analogy completely ignores the organic nature and dynamic relationships that unfold as the community evolves.

P.S. I am not trying to take sides; I am simply questioning your application of workplace policies to a community-driven forum.
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Old 8th September 2010, 21:34   #32  |  Link
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Interesting set of rules. Were the rules formally written before or only now due to the mess that that occurred?

To be clear the mess that I am referring to seems to be that DS reported N2 for some violation of license with his software. N2 feels betrayed that DS didn't tell him first. N2 takes out his frustration in the forum at other software. N2 bans DS from the forums for chastising him publicly about spreading false information. DS is now mad that N2 has banned him without good reason. You did not state whether N2's actions were appropriate or not and now DS is mad at you for poor managerial skills.

The business model that you alluded to earlier was not used in this situation, as most people that studied business can tell you. Keeping the customer happy is paramount. If an employee offends a customer due to inappropriate behavior, the boss should reinforce that to the costumer that the employee’s actions were inappropriate and assure them that they will take appropriate actions to ensure it will not happen again. The specifics of the actions can remain hidden between the boss and employee, but the customer should feel their complaint was validated and not ignored. I take it DS just wanted confirmation from you that N2’s actions were not appropriate in this scenario and should not happen again. You are correct that a boss should not yell at his employee in front of the customer or even enact disciplinary measures in front of the customer. It is disrespectful to the employee and can backfire by making the customer feel awkward or responsible and quite simply it is just plain unprofessional. The boss’ role in the end is not to protect the employee, but the business. Keeping the customer feeling safe about doing more business with them in the future is his true goal.

In some sense it is unfair to the employee as the customer can be somewhat uncivil and the employee just has to suck it up. That is why most businesses try to hire employees not easily offended if their job involves regular contact with customers. It seems N2 was a little too reactionary/thin skinned in this situation and caused a mountain out of a molehill.

N2 has good work ethic and seems to be very reliable, but he needs to work on his thin skin. DS is a customer and not much can be done to change them. If you do plan to get more moderators in the future, try following the business model of picking people based on personality with costumers.

Last edited by HJRodrigo; 9th September 2010 at 20:34. Reason: Fixed my crappy spelling
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Old 8th September 2010, 22:00   #33  |  Link
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@HJRodrigo

Your account is a total misrepresentation of the facts and you do nobody any good by posting it and thereby creating new controversies that don't exist.

Last edited by Guest; 8th September 2010 at 22:12.
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Old 8th September 2010, 22:13   #34  |  Link
PhrostByte
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I don't think it fits to treat this community as a business. Moderators should be volunteering for the community that they are part of, and be respected and held accountable by that community. Businesses cover up wrongdoing by employees because, for better or worse, they don't want clients/shareholders to perceive them as having problems. There should be no need for cover ups here.

I wonder if Doom9 could make a couple of the more active people into moderators. If there are more moderators, it would be easier to avoid conflicts of interest, and hopefully allow the moderators to talk frankly among themselves to keep each-other in line.
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Old 8th September 2010, 22:22   #35  |  Link
Hagbard23
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Your account is a total misrepresetation of the facts and you do nobody any good by posting it and thereby creating new controversies that don't exist.
Says who?

That exactly is the point:
You misuse your mod status to make your ->opinion<- a objective truth, which is not always right. And that leads to a habit which is causing problems.

That's what i meant with: "Arrogance" - i bet you have read only a few words of the whole post of HJRodrigo.

I Totally agree with B11,tremens and godofagap.

BTW: The Business of Dark Shikari is a lot more friendly to the scene, than your way - at least this is my opinion.I can find nothing offending in his offer. Burn me for that.

Anyway, before i got deleted i shut up - nothing to win here for democratic senses.
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Old 8th September 2010, 22:34   #36  |  Link
Doom9
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imagine stax was a mod/dev and you were just a dev. stax says within his own thread that megui is crappy software written by braindead idiots and when you go defend yourself, he immediately deletes your posts.
Well, assuming that we still operate under the same set of rules as in my example, I do have two options
1) I ask stax why he's calling me a braindead idiot because I feel that that is in violation of the forum rules. I also ask why my response was deleted. If I'm not happy with the response, or god firbid if I should get a strike for me asking, then
2) I would contact the administrator and ask the same questions (plus if I got a strike ask if it was appropriate).

If the outcome of the above was not satisfactory, then it depends. If other than that one statement I never had any issues, I'd probably let it go because the forum is still important for what I do and pretty much all my users are here. If I were being constantly harassed, then I'd have think hard whether it is worth the hassle. But, even if I dediced it wasn't and I had the power to take megui someplace else and the users would come with me, I would state my reasons for leaving politely, and then leave it at that. A couple of years ago, I would not have taken it so well but I believe that it's just not worth the effort to hold a grudge. Also, (now we're going hypothetical..) if my professional work would involve coding and I was using megui as part of my resume, I would be concerned that my online conduct with regards to megui would be considered by prospective clients and / or employees - so, retaliating in kind would probably not be in my best interest.

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I wonder if Doom9 could make a couple of the more active people into moderators.
Oh absolutely.. if their previous conduct on these board shows that they are up to the task. I already have two names under consideration.

I'm afraid that's all I can respond to for today.. it's way past my bedtime again.
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Last edited by Doom9; 8th September 2010 at 22:36.
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Old 8th September 2010, 23:02   #37  |  Link
Nic
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Hmmm, I think back and forth bickering and "what if" questions between mods and users (especially those with post counts lower than 100) is probably going to be pretty unproductive.

Not that a low post count means an opinion is worthless, but just that it's probably hard for such a user to understand how these rules have evolved and the issues we have had in the past when they are not strictly enforced.

I think Doom9 has been more than clear and, afterall, it is his forum, not ours. Can we not draw a line under this now? Close this thread and move on?

I would suggest to those that really do disagree with the approach and rules as outlined here by Doom9 to either try and get along with them as best as they can, or perhaps even, sadly, move on. As, I'm sure this is getting tiresome for all involved.

-Nic
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Old 8th September 2010, 23:07   #38  |  Link
Bi11
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Originally Posted by Doom9 View Post
If other than that one statement I never had any issues, I'd probably let it go because the forum is still important for what I do and pretty much all my users are here.
So you make a decision based only on your own needs; you think only about yourself. What if a megui user/evangelist defends megui in stax's thread and got banned, would you turn a blind eye?

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IMHO, there is a fundamental difference between the workplace analogy and the courts analogy. Business clients are considered independent entities with no knowledge of each other. A court system serves justice to users of a community; those users necessarily interact with each other as part of being members of the community.

Community members look out for each other, clients do not! Your workplace analogy completely ignores the organic nature and dynamic relationships that unfold as the community evolves.
Corollary: Employees are the driving force of a business; they do all the productive work. Community members, not moderators, are the driving force of a community-driven forum; they do all the productive work.
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Old 8th September 2010, 23:49   #39  |  Link
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you forget one thing. doom9 forums are not a community. the forum has an owner (doom9), the webspace has an owner as well.
doom9 forums are a private space made available for the public. that means you can browse the forums and learn from ppl.
on the other hand if you want to post something you have to abide the rules of this forum.
there is no democracy here since this is NOT a community. obviously everyone has the right to choose if they can accept the rules of this forum or not as well as everyone has the right to leave or stay.
keep in mind this is a private place where you have no rights to make the rules. the rules are made by the admin.
that said, the admin has the "power" of deciding on every user on this forum (i mean warn, suspend, ban, etc.), moderators included. if, for example, he wants to shut it down you can do nothing about that... coz it's HIS forum.
so, all this mumbo jumbo is pointless. the reality is this forum exists and has rules, if you can accept them then you're welcome, if you cant, there are plenty of other spaces with different rules, doom10 in first place.

Last edited by Sharktooth; 8th September 2010 at 23:58.
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Old 9th September 2010, 00:12   #40  |  Link
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Jeez, how has this thread evolved into the animal that it's become. Just close the beast. Doom9 is Doom9's to do with as he pleases, and I for one think he's doing (and done) a pretty damn fine job.
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