Completed Forums Rules Revisiting (1 Viewer)

[Madact]

Important - Forum Rules - 04/04/2022

These are the general guidelines to the forum rules, breaking these often could result in a forum ban. So please be respectful to our forums as this is where the community lives. — Keep it English only In the shoutbox it's a little more lax, but please, do consider other forum members as...

www.panda-community.com

I've been wanting to revisit these rules for a while as I've noticed a shift in forum behaviour.

As some of you maybe aware, threads and comments have been removed and closed and nobody is really sure what is going on. I've noticed an increase in comments that are not useful in discussions and are really just to display either a joke or just treat a thread more like an instant conversation rather than a thought out post. A lot of these end up getting deleted without any punishment as after a couple of thread closings and post deleting's the behaviour dies down. This doesn't seem to be case now.

So upon looking at the forum rules there isn't really a base to cover 'unnecessary posts' . There's an inappropriate posts, but this was mainly to stop NSFW posts. This could be expanded.

Also perhaps looking at the latest updated rule on leaving invalid admin apps, reports and appeals to gameserver admins only. It was to decrease confusion at the time that rule came out and it did. Users ended up receiving the correct information on what to do rather than an non-staff member giving out the wrong information. But there have been plenty of non-staff members giving out correct information but only for the OP to be confused and post it in the current thread rather than a new thread.

But anyways everything is up for discussion. Might even poll some things up!
I will be thread reply blocking anybody who makes unnecessary comments in this thread or turning this into a joke. This is a serious suggestion post that I want feedback from the community to just hear out possible improves to the current ruleset.
Not all suggestions here will be used and may be put through Kevin first before approval.

 

[Madact]

Also just to note that 'reaction spam' isn't in the rules either, but is yet enforced.

Declined - spam goose still be abuse rating my crap

now this isnt the first time he abused rated my stuff. infact hes been doing it for a while and someone even reported him: heres the link from the report https://www.panda-community.com/threads/reported-content-member-spam-goose.26417/ and heres the proof that he is still abusing rating my...

www.panda-community.com

Just bringing this up for discussion as well. There was a previous thread about this in reports which got accepted. Anybody feel free to link that here

 

[An0n]

I do agree that the "Inappropriate posts" rule should be expanded to also refer to posts which are pretty much unnecessary as of lates there have been certain people who have been making quite a lot of these and it is, quite frankly, annoying.

As for the other suggestions I don't really know what to say since they don't really affect me.

 

[Spam Goose]

here you go @Madact and it was called rating abuse instead of spam if that changes what it could mean.

Accepted - Reported content: Member 'Spam Goose'

Member 'Spam Goose' by Spam Goose has been reported by Zeprus. Reason given: Rating abuse Content being reported: Member 'Spam Goose'

www.panda-community.com

I agree with the unnecessary posts/threads not being allowed, its annoying to read and just doesn't need to be here. most notably shitposts that have absolutely zero reasoning beyond just being a stupid post.
I do think that rating abuse should be a thing (if it is obviously just targeting someone down for zero reason), however context needs to be read before accepting one. I'm sure I don't need to explain why I'm saying that :^)

 

[Bananawastaken]

Why not hide replies on appeals, let them be only visible to members of staff, and said member of staff chooses to allow it to be seen by everyone else if it's helpful or not, it would probably help a lot with spam and shitposts on appeals that usually turn into a shit show.
Xenforo calls this approving messages or whatever.
I know other communities do it.
And it saves the hassle of inevitable deleting all the replies and locking the thread.

 

[Redspike]

Start banning people who shitpost or spam and then delete their threads. In general put the bar higher on what is acceptable forum behaviour and you will probably see results pretty quickly. As for revisiting the rules - I think adding a clause against excessive shitposting would do the trick.

Also try to not lock threads without giving a reason like the one "drama" thread yesterday. It's pretty rude to the OP and creates a generally unwelcomming atmosphere.

 

[Redspike]

Why not hide replies on appeals, let them be only visible to members of staff, and said member of staff chooses to allow it to be seen by everyone else if it's helpful or not, it would probably help a lot with spam and shitposts on appeals that usually turn into a shit show.
I know other communities do it.
And it saves the hassle of inevitable deleting all the replies and locking the thread.

Making appeals for the eyes of admins only is generally a bad idea, how staff members decide to punish people and what for should be visible to the broader community for transparency reasons.

As I said earlier we should instead focus on having higher expectations on our members, closing down parts of the forum is a last resort option and we should be more ambitious than immedietly going there.

 

[Bananawastaken]

Making appeals for the eyes of admins only is generally a bad idea, how staff members decide to punish people and what for should be visible to the broader community for transparency reasons.

That's not what I said.
I said REPLIES to appeals should be hidden and approved by members of staff first.
Everyone should be able to see it and everyone can reply to it but members of staff decide what's important and what else is just shitposting.
Everyone can see what the staff replies to all I'm saying is replies to threads done by people that aren't members of staff should be hidden and approved.

 

[Madact]

I've notified @Aspect1 about their mistake there and removed the comment.

Sometimes forum user's just don't know how the forums work and with a little bit of explanation hopefully they will improve.
I've noticed this when talking with @YourAverageYarub about putting spoilers on NSFW reports.

So I see @Redspike 's comment and I do agree but warnings will start to be given out after when we've started getting these rules sorted out.

Also just an expansion from 'shitpost' I've noticed some shitpost threads but only in off-topic (sometimes in suggestions but these are deleted) . What do you guys think about this?

 

[Valen]

Start banning people who shitpost or spam and then delete their threads. In general put the bar higher on what is acceptable forum behaviour and you will probably see results pretty quickly. As for revisiting the rules - I think adding a clause against excessive shitposting would do the trick.

Also try to not lock threads without giving a reason like the one "drama" thread yesterday. It's pretty rude to the OP and creates a generally unwelcomming atmosphere.

I don't quite agree with this.

This is a TF2 community. A silly game with silly gamemodes. Why make a forum for a silly game with silly gamemodes boring and bland? Sure, there should probably be some limits on people fucking around, but outright banning shitposts?

Why would you do that? It doesn't make sense. It's not like this is a workplace forum, college discussion, or something like that.

 

[Spam Goose]

Also just an expansion from 'shitpost' I've noticed some shitpost threads but only in off-topic (sometimes in suggestions but these are deleted) . What do you guys think about this?

I think it needs to cross a line to where it shouldn't be here, like not involving our forum/tf2 at all or isn't like a forum game.

 

[Redspike]

I don't quite agree with this.

This is a TF2 community. A silly game with silly gamemodes. Why make a forum for a silly game with silly gamemodes boring and bland? Sure, there should probably be some limits on people fucking around, but outright banning shitposts?

Why would you do that? It doesn't make sense. It's not like this is a workplace forum or something like this. Or a college discussion.

My apologies. I should elaborate a bit on what I mean with exessive shitposting; Creating a meme or banter thread that others in the community can relate to in the OT-section should be okay I completly agree with that. But borderline racist shit like this is generally unwanted. Stuff like that belongs to #memes in a discord server, if anywhere.

 

[Madact]

I've removed @YourAverageYarub 's comment as it is completely unrelated to the discussion. Warning has been given but not formally.

When I talk about warnings, we start off with notification warnings. Which then move onto forum PM warnings. After all has failed, I would hope that it then moves to banned the user either temporarily or permanently depending on the circumstances.

For the thread mentioned in @Redspike 's recent comment, it is one part of other 'shitposts' in off topic. It's just finding that line of where it crosses that is un-acceptable.
I won't remove that thread just yet so everyone can see what redspike is refering to.

Here are some other examples:

admin application

why i should be admin i'm racist i'm rich i hate people i don't do my job i ban random people im toxic i don't listen to orders i hate w*men i hve cool donor colors everyone likes me please consider me :twc:

www.panda-community.com

ownar application!!!!!!!!!!!1!!11!!1!1111!!!!1

username: fardrub (f2pee) steam420 ip or id: 1148051838 age: 69420 hours: i forgor sourceban: too lazy !!!!!!!!! serber: all online time: 2467 hours working mic: ITS A SAMSUNG SMARTFRIDGE IDIOT!!1!1!111!!!!!!11!1111 perbivoius adam stuff: yes all of dem what u say for sootabul candidididididate...

www.panda-community.com

(FUMTY LEEKS FROM UNDJAL DIKSCORD cOomjng VERY soon

HHHH JHC H EY GUYS I will make an epic gamingver Sevrver FOr MY Very good map, Underjail 2 It will have a Very Very Funny Server Icon aNd will it will uhh include maps n like chermal maps like uhhh You know funny scp map and the even FUNNIER Underjail remake It will be ready bY Töx...

www.panda-community.com

I see @Spam Goose 's opinion on this. Anybody else have anything to add?

 

[Spam Goose]

I've removed @YourAverageYarub 's comment as it is completely unrelated to the discussion. Warning has been given but not formally.

When I talk about warnings, we start off with notification warnings. Which then move onto forum PM warnings. After all has failed, I would hope that it then moves to banned the user either temporarily or permanently depending on the circumstances.

For the thread mentioned in @Redspike 's recent comment, it is one part of other 'shitposts' in off topic. It's just finding that line of where it crosses that is un-acceptable.
I won't remove that thread just yet so everyone can see what redspike is refering to.

Here are some other examples:

admin application

why i should be admin i'm racist i'm rich i hate people i don't do my job i ban random people im toxic i don't listen to orders i hate w*men i hve cool donor colors everyone likes me please consider me :twc:

www.panda-community.com

ownar application!!!!!!!!!!!1!!11!!1!1111!!!!1

username: fardrub (f2pee) steam420 ip or id: 1148051838 age: 69420 hours: i forgor sourceban: too lazy !!!!!!!!! serber: all online time: 2467 hours working mic: ITS A SAMSUNG SMARTFRIDGE IDIOT!!1!1!111!!!!!!11!1111 perbivoius adam stuff: yes all of dem what u say for sootabul candidididididate...

www.panda-community.com

(FUMTY LEEKS FROM UNDJAL DIKSCORD cOomjng VERY soon

HHHH JHC H EY GUYS I will make an epic gamingver Sevrver FOr MY Very good map, Underjail 2 It will have a Very Very Funny Server Icon aNd will it will uhh include maps n like chermal maps like uhhh You know funny scp map and the even FUNNIER Underjail remake It will be ready bY Töx...

www.panda-community.com

I see @Spam Goose 's opinion on this. Anybody else have anything to add?

following up to what I said, I would say those are just shitposts. 3 are just memes which would be better in the discord meme section and the one redspike mentioned is borderline/is racist

 

[Zeprus]

Also just to note that 'reaction spam' isn't in the rules either, but is yet enforced.

There have been plenty of cases in the past where Kevin intervened in excessive use of certain features. Mainly mass rating posts, but also spamming pings in the shoutbox if you remember. I believe it's fair to add it to the rules at this point, althought not as "rating spam" but "excessive use" or "abuse" of ratings. Now since Kevin is the only one who can actually enforce it, it would probably be helpful to have him define what exactly counts as abusing ratings.

I do think that rating abuse should be a thing (if it is obviously just targeting someone down for zero reason), however context needs to be read before accepting one. I'm sure I don't need to explain why I'm saying that :^)

I hope you're not trying to say you're not targeting yarub, because that's hard to believe. But I digress.
The reason I reported it as rating abuse is because, in my opinion, there is absolutely no reason to leave 17 negative ratings on one guy in just three threads. Especially considering that had he followed forum etiquette there wouldn't be anywhere near 17 posts to rate to begin with. An admin could've and should've just merged the posts but at this point it's too late. Basically, the ratings were unnecessary because you made your point after the 2nd or 3rd rating on the same guy talking about the same topic in the same thread. I agree that it's not excessive If the posts are obviously shitposts or malicious, however for yarub I do not believe that to be the case. Essentially in my opinion a rating is unnecessary if
a) You're rating a variety of posts by the same guy in the same thread about the same topic.
b) You're going through a variety of inactive threads to find posts of a member to rate.
c) You rate (almost) every single thread of a specific member shortly after it being posted.
Obviously the first point only applies to negative ratings and possibly sarcastic ratings, however that would be tricky to identify. As those ratings are the only ones who might cause a negative forum atmosphere under those conditions.
Though as I said earlier this is probably something Kevin should decide.

 

[Bambi]

sooooo, @Madact what's the outcome of this?

 

[Madact]

Apologies for the late response towards this.
I'm most likely going to just revamp the forum rules or just add onto them to avoid these same issues in the future. If anybody wants to help out with that by maybe purposing even an all ready written rule or even just their own revamp feel free.

At the time of this thread I started enforcing towards warnings particular via forum PM. Although users still end up shit posting those warned ended up calming down or ended up being forum banned. May take some more time to improve this system.

 

[Madact]

Important - Forum Rules - 04/04/2022

These are the general guidelines to the forum rules, breaking these often could result in a forum ban. So please be respectful to our forums as this is where the community lives. — Keep it English only In the shoutbox it's a little more lax, but please, do consider other forum members as...

www.panda-community.com

All done. Thank you everyone your comments helped me out know what you all thought on the matter.