Warnings on Doomworld. (now suspensions)

29 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

Yeah, and that's the problem - not much feedback, no link to the post, no mod to talk to about it (shadowmodding may protect them from hostility, but it sure sucks for accountability and clarity).

This is a good point honestly.

On my original forum we had to actually give explanations, reasons, and links to the offending user's post(s), and we would sanction the moderators or each other for not doing so. Natural, since it can lead to confusion and all sorts of problems otherwise.

When I got my one and only (so far) warning point I knew why I got it - I got baited into shitposting by Foebane, basically -, but what do you do when the reason isn't clear at all, or looks, say, "personal". It gets more complicated especially when it comes to "meme tier" responses as what happens depends on the situation. If it isn't done in excess or "fits" the situation, a blind eye is usually turned upon, but coming to that conclusion isn't that easy, is it now? Moderators might also get more strict with certain users who have since managed to build a reputation for baiting users into arguments, trolling, or shitposting.

At any rate, to avoid issues, the best and easiest solution is to just not do this kind of stuff at all.

4 minutes ago, seed said:

When I got my one and only (so far) warning point I knew why I got it - I got baited into shitposting by Foebane, basically

???

Sorry about that, must've been one of my Doom Eternal rants, before the game even came out.

9 minutes ago, Foebane72 said:

???

 

Sorry about that, must've been one of my Doom Eternal rants, before the game even came out.

Yeah, one of those, where me and a few others replied with fish images and got our asses handed back to us before the topic got nuked from existence.

1 minute ago, seed said:

 

Yeah, one of those, where me and a few others replied with fish images and got our asses handed back to us before the topic got nuked from existence.

I kind of want to hear more about this. 

13 minutes ago, LiT_gam3r said:

I kind of want to hear more about this. 

You've heard everything that was worth hearing, no point in digging that up, but if you really want to, in a few sentences:

Before Eternal's release Foebane simply made somewhat numerous comments and a few topics on the subject of Eternal being radically different in tone, gameplay, and feel from classic Doom leading to the notion that "it isn't actually Doom, it's just Doom in name really", but without bringing anything substantial to back that up, so most of those posts and topics boiled down to "I don't like Eternal because it's not Doom classic 2.0 in HD". This got users generally upset as it would sometimes look like he was deliberately trying to troll us, and as a result he got some "meme tier" responses from us too. Moderators both agreed and disagreed - we got warned, and the responsible topics, or sometimes replies, got nuked from existence.

And that's the whole story really, nothing special. He's stopped that activity since, and I at least hold no grudge against him, especially since getting mad over something like this is pretty childish, so who cares. I don't.

14 minutes ago, seed said:

And that's the whole story really, nothing special. He's stopped that activity since, and I at least hold no grudge against him, especially since getting mad over something like this is pretty childish, so who cares. I don't.

I don't even recall what I precisely said, I'm sure I threw some Doom 3 into that as well. In any case, thanks. I regret the whole thing, anyway.

22 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

Yeah, and that's the problem - not much feedback, no link to the post, no mod to talk to about it (shadowmodding may protect them from hostility, but it sure sucks for accountability and clarity).

I think you can generally tell who warns you by way of the message that is sent to you.

For instance, Linguica would send you a message containing a .deh attachment that shows DoomGuy falling through the floor infinitely but in a loop, like Portal. It would be a stupid DeHackEd trick, but that would be his way of saying ''Your posts contain the same thing over and over. We get it now. Don't do it.''*

Fraggle, on the other hand, would come up with a way using a virtual IPX setup through DOSBox to have a level tell you to knock it off. It makes little sense, but if it works, it works, right?**

Mordeth would give you one line of the message and you probably would want to know more afterwards because you feel the message-to-be is quite good, but you will have to wait till you get an award with his name delivered to your address, and then you still won't know what the full release is.***

 

2 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

I think you can generally who warns you by way of the message that is sent to you.

 

For instance, Linguica would send you a message containing a .deh attachment that shows DoomGuy falling through the floor infinitely but in a loop, like Portal. It would be a stupid DeHackEd trick, but that would be his way of saying ''Your posts contain the same thing over and over. We get it now. Don't do it.''*

 

Fraggle, on the other hand, would come up with a way using a virtual IPX setup through DOSBox to have a level tell you to knock it off. It makes little sense, but if it works, it works, right?**

 

Mordeth would give you one line of the message and you probably would want to know more afterwards because you feel the message-to-be is quite good, but you will have to wait till you get an award with his name delivered to your address, and then you still won't know what the full release is.***

And Bloodite Krypto will crash the forum after he overflows the "reason" box buffer.

Oh wow, actually I have an update! As it turns out, when you get warned, you get an email that will, at the very least, link to the thread you were warned in. Nominally the email will also link to the specific comment, but of course, that can be removed by the moderator, defeating the entire point of the link.

So what'd I get warned for? The Scanners head explosion GIF, which is no longer in the thread.

The stupidest reasons, I swear...

Bloodite's comment will go down in Doomworld history. I didn't get an email for my last shitpost, so the moderator was probably busy. 

why can't you post memes, though?

8 hours ago, LiT_gam3r said:

Bloodite's comment will go down in Doomworld history. I didn't get an email for my last shitpost, so the moderator was probably busy. 

 

why can't you post memes, though?

This place, apparently, is not 4chan, so even one meme image causes mods' heads to explode.

9 hours ago, Dark Pulse said:

So what'd I get warned for? The Scanners head explosion GIF, which is no longer in the thread.

Oh, this one's super-easy. The gif is gore forced upon the unsuspecting reader. And before you say anything about movies and memes, nope, none of that matters when it pops up on your screen at work. At least spoilering it would very likely avoided the problem.

1 minute ago, dew said:

Oh, this one's super-easy. The gif is gore forced upon the unsuspecting reader. And before you say anything about movies and memes, nope, none of that matters when it pops up on your screen at work. At least spoilering it would very likely avoided the problem.

While I get the point and it is a valid one, there's still some amusement for me if that's the justification in a forum for a series literally about blowing demons into little meaty chunklets.

That said, I'll have to try to remember that for the future.

Also, people should probably be working and not visiting Doomworld at work. :P

It's simpler to have a zero-tolerance policy for meme-like imagery, than to try to decide on a case-by-case basis, whether the response was justified, relevant and in good taste. Having been hit by this policy myself before, like many others here, I too was surprised at first, but now I'm perfectly fine with it. It's easy to follow, both for the users and the mods, it's not a great loss, and it eliminates one possible path for the forums to deteriorate into shit.

Mine was rudeness.

I may have mastered in forum etiquette, but there are times some people get on your nerves so much you just have to call out on their BS. That's how I got my first warning. No, the rudeness wasn't targeted to seed.
 

the rest of the reply I gave was nuked, but hey.

1 hour ago, ZeroTheEro said:

Mine was rudeness.

I may have mastered in forum etiquette, but there are times some people get on your nerves so much you just have to call out on their BS. That's how I got my first warning. No, the rudeness wasn't targeted to seed.

I do feel a little shitty for what I said too, but indeed, sometimes even crappy posts end up bringing out the worst in us. I don't know how that works, it really shouldn't...

6 minutes ago, seed said:

I do feel a little shitty for what I said too, but indeed, sometimes even crappy posts end up bringing out the worst in us. I don't know how that works, it really shouldn't...

We're human. It happens. Apologize, try to learn from it for the future, quit worrying about it, and move on.

Since we're still bringing up warnings and such..

One for "preserving troll spam drama" back in October 2017.

This wasn't a warning but a notification for "Rudeness" in late December 2018. I called someone/something(?) a moron and said something on them being ballless, it very much was either a company or more known entertainment industry individual if I can remember, not sure what.

On 6/27/2020 at 5:45 AM, Biodegradable said:

I really like this place and would hate to be banned for such a feckless reason, so I'm just not going to make joke image response posts from now on since I received both of them after doing so. 

Great, sounds like you got the message then.

The thing to realise is that we encourage people to put effort into the posts that they make on Doomworld. You'll probably notice that it's quite common to see three- or four-paragraph posts here, while on other forums you might see someone posting a single sentence, or even a single word, and in those places that's considered acceptable. Ask yourself how long it takes you to create your posts. If you're spending 10 minutes crafting something thoughtful or insightful that other people are going to want to read, that's exactly the kind of thing we want to see. On the other hand, what we don't want to see are:

• One word posts, or one sentence posts
• People who use the forum like it's a "chat room"
• "Funny" images or memes
• "Funny" Youtube videos

What these all have in common are that they're lazy and don't require a lot of effort. What we ask on Doomworld is that people put in a bit more effort.

Thank you very much @fraggle for clarifying that for me. I felt the Warning Point note was a bit too vague.

22 hours ago, fraggle said:

The thing to realise is that we encourage people to put effort into the posts that they make on Doomworld. You'll probably notice that it's quite common to see three- or four-paragraph posts here, while on other forums you might see someone posting a single sentence, or even a single word, and in those places that's considered acceptable. Ask yourself how long it takes you to create your posts. If you're spending 10 minutes crafting something thoughtful or insightful that other people are going to want to read, that's exactly the kind of thing we want to see. On the other hand, what we don't want to see are:

• One word posts, or one sentence posts
• People who use the forum like it's a "chat room"
• "Funny" images or memes
• "Funny" Youtube videos

What these all have in common are that they're lazy and don't require a lot of effort. What we ask on Doomworld is that people put in a bit more effort.

Ummmmm, this is kinda worrying. It's always been fun to have a casual conversation on Doomworld, but now every single forum post must now be a mini-essay?

...Come to think of it, out of my last 15 posts, 9 are just "one-sentence" posts. So am I gonna get a warning/suspension for not padding them out with useless fluff?

Good one-sentence posts may also take a good deal of time to come up with. It's like poetry. Writing 1-2 lines of good poetry may be harder than 2 pages of prose. Funny Youtube videos that are directly related to the topic being discussed, and provide some insight / extra information are also OK. On the other hand, posts like "Yes, I agree" or random videos of funny cats - well, that's just pollution. I'm much happier on any forum that doesn't have those.

Case in point - I've posted both very short posts and video links from time to time, but I always try to do so in a way that's related and relevant. I never got a warning for those, nor had any of my posts removed. I believe fraggle was just laying guidelines (as in "the code is more what you call guidelines"). For memes, I already shared my opinion above.

It depends on what needs to be said, really. Sometimes a few words IS enough to get a point across. Case in point: My opinion on the Master Levels, which is literally six words: "Some are good. Some are not."

Sure, I could go on into what ones I like and what ones I didn't like, but at that point it's just padding out the text box.

Sometimes brevity is worthwhile. Obviously, both times I got slapped it was for a simple image (probably the same one knowing me, but well, can't check that).

I'd say it'd be better to take the poster's general post history into account when handing these out. Is posting one-liners and meme shit all they do? Then by all means, smack 'em. Are they only occasionally posting some shitpost GIF? Let it ride.

@dr_st "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter."

(There is a difference between thoughtful brevity and lack of effort, of course.)

There has to be one assembly of multiple moderators. In a good administrative system, not a single one can take action without at least one other person's review. This is the best path to justice and the effective minimization of bias.

who are the moderators on Doomworld, because all the ones I know are Linguisa, Mordeth, Fraggle, Quasar, and Not Jabba. are there any others? I guess Durkous, too, but he's never been on the forums, and the last time he was on Doomworld was 15 years ago. 

Another thing to bear in mind is that Doomworld has essentially become the de-facto repository for the history of the Doom mapping scene.  Everything we write here is another entry into one of the greatest, longest-lasting catalogue of video game modding expertise ever compiled.  A longitudinal, sociological record of all things Doom.  Unless a thread is edited out, what we write here is as good as being carved into stone.

Decades from now, people will likely still be searching through Doomworld looking for knowledge and guidance on editing for Doom, or simply to try to learn about what the modding scene was like at a given moment in history.  We are the representation of the Doom scene today - the evolution of all that has come before us, and the foundation for what will come after.

So whenever you post, think about what you want your contribution to history to be.  Do you want it to be a thoughtful and pertinent entry that drives the conversation forwards, or do you want it to be a funny picture of a cat?

1 hour ago, LiT_gam3r said:

who are the moderators on Doomworld, because all the ones I know are Linguisa, Mordeth, Fraggle, Quasar, and Not Jabba. are there any others?

Of those still active (there may be more), my man @Ichor ofc.

I just want to congratulate @Biodegradable as he has only been here for a month, and is already on the leaderboard! Some people never even get onto there, and Bio did it in a month! congrats!

Tbh I just joined the forums yesterday and im afraid to say pretty much anything after a post I was involved with got shut down because they didnt agree with my opinions.(imo it was a constructive conversation.)  Also I dont get it why I can only do a certain amount of posts a day, I assume it's to avoid spamming.  I feel though if I want to get to learn this community better I should be able to get to say more things so I can meet more people.  Yesterday just left a bad taste in my mouth and I hope that doesn't continue for me in the future on these forums.