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FamiTracker
Hey, all,
Here are some of my ideas for forum guidelines. These are not meant to be enforceable rules, but rather, etiquette. Ideas? Anything important I missed?
Forum Guidelines:
1. Be polite. No flaming or harassing of other members.
2. Try not to clutter the board.
a.)Before you ask a question, check the famitracker help file, the wiki, or even google.
b.)Before posting a new thread, check to see that there isn't already a thread on the same topic.
c.)Before posting a reply, think "Is what I'm about to post helpful in any way?" If not, then don't post.
d.)Spend time on your post. Be clear, specific, and include an example if you think it would be helpful.
e.)Don't over-post. Make fewer, high quality posts rather than many quick/sloppy posts.
f.)Read posts CAREFULLY before responding.
3. Research the problem at hand before trying to assist anyone. Posting incorrect information may lead to greater problems.
3. Research the problem at hand before trying to assist anyone. Posting incorrect information may lead to greater problems.
Here are some other points I'd add:
4. Don't post external links using shortened URLs.
5. Before posting in an old thread, look at the last post's date. If it's one month old (or older) & you have no valuable information to add, don't post anything.
Anything else?
_______________________
Technology: the one thing that's hated & cursed at by all engineers, technologists, scientists & technicians!
* The Famitracker administrators and webmaster (jsr, slize106) reserve the right to alter or delete any post, member name, signature file, image or related content on its boards at any time, without prior notice.
* Should a violation of the rules result in a user being banned, any new accounts created by the user will also be banned.
* The boards are moderated, but sometimes things (objectionable or otherwise) can stay on the boards for a while before someone catches them. We are not responsible—and by entering you agree not to hold us liable—for any message posted in these forums.
* If you wish to contact a member of The Famitracker staff (jsr, slize106) regarding board issues, please email or private message (PM) a staff member.
* The Famitracker administrators and webmaster (jsr, slize106) reserve the right to ban any member without warning, reason or justification.
[quote=Mex]The Famitracker moderators and administrators reserve the right to alter or delete any post, member name, signature file, image or related content on its boards at any time, without prior notice.[/quote]
are you serious
you realise you guys were made moderators for only one purpose right? and that was to keep the request list and bug reports in check, since dafydd didn't have time anymore. you weren't put there to police the forums.
we don't need extensive/overzealous rules, the community isn't big enough. with the exception of a couple of ridiculous things mentioned in the thread the rest falls under common sense anyway, and issues that arise can be broached on a case-by-case basis, which has been fine for the last 4 years. why should anyone who's been around for that length of time have to listen to someone who's been here <1 year tell them what to post and what not to?
[quote]If you wish to contact a member of The Famitracker staff regarding board issues, please email or private message (PM) a staff member.[/quote]
you are not "Famitracker staff". you are being pretentious.
Well, Dave, fair enough... I did really want to know what everybody thought about the idea. Guess I know now--We're not all in agreement.
I've just been frustrated lately at the lack of common sense shown by some new members here. I don't see how having forum guidelines could do any harm, except when used as a weapon by moderators on power-trips.
While we're on that topic--I wouldn't want to see anybody permanently banned from these forums simply from breaking etiquette. What would be better would be a lock that keeps them from posting for a few days. I don't think that will be necessary in the near future, though.
There [i]are[/i] unwritten rules of forum etiquette. I personally think this is a good idea. I can think of countless forums that have these things listed. I think it's already in place here as well somewhere, if I am not mistaken...
I think this should be used as some sort of a reminder to keep things in order so people don't have to jump in all the time, imo.
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You now process Dracula's Rib. Good luck processing it...
* Be aware of words in your post. This forum has no personal or global word censoring, and there is hardly any need to use the foul ones.
Use of bad language will not earn you any warnings, but if it is irritating, then avoid it. A post full of sh**s and f**ks will only reflect your own attitude.
Ok there seems to be some misunderstanding about what the moderators are supposed to do. First, just to be clear: it's not allowed to arbitrarily remove any posts at all, unless it's clearly spam or contains illegal material. The reason for that is because threads becomes confusing and useless and it's also disrespectful to the poster, so it's one of the things I really don't like when it happens on forums. (However if a post contains offensive language then it might be a reason for edit.)
If you think someone misbehaves, first tell him what you think is wrong, and if that doesn't helps then please tell me about it and I'll decide what to do. This applies to both moderators and users. In my experience it's often enough to tell the user what's wrong. (I've banned only one so far over the years)
The main tasks of moderators is to organize (like Dave said). That includes stuff like splitting/moving threads when necessary, locking threads upon request and keeping things like the request list updated. This was what dafydd did and I think it worked well (and see no reason to change this so far), this place is not very large so I prefer to keep the amount of moderation to a minimum. You are welcome to PM me if you got any further questions or want to discuss this.
However I do realize that some kind of rules are necessary to assist users, since common sense apparently isn't enough in all cases. Tadpole's list is a good start and I'll find a way to put it on the site later.
I never claimed I was part of the FamiTracker staff, I was referring to jsr and the webmaster.
Maybe if you took the time to look over my points carefully you would have noticed that I noted that point was only applicable to the administrators, not the moderators.
Perhaps some clarification would be nice though, I'll edit my post.
You know what; Mex's suggestions should be included.
Just as JSR said, common sense isn't enough at times. The only way to knock some sense into certain people is through some show of power in the hands of mods & admins. Mex's idea is a great start for such a display (even if tadpole laid down the bare-essential ground rules).
Anyways, if you want to see something rudimentary, you can consult my forum's rules:
That said, tadpole established a great set of rules to start off with & Mex has done an excellent job (in my opinion) of warning users of the consequences of their actions.
_______________________
Technology: the one thing that's hated & cursed at by all engineers, technologists, scientists & technicians!
[quote=TechEmporium] common sense isn't enough at times. The only way to knock some sense into certain people is through some show of power in the hands of mods & admins...
Mex has done an excellent job (in my opinion) of warning users of the consequences of their actions.[/quote]
[quote=Mex]* The Famitracker administrators and webmaster (jsr, slize106) reserve the right to ban any member without warning, reason or justification.[/quote]
As jsr and Dave said, we've gotten along fine until now without ever needing to ban anybody (except for one person). There are probably less than 50 active members on this forum and we don't really need our mods to police it at this time.
I don't see the point of warning people that they might be banned without reason or justification. And I don't want anyone to use this list as an excuse to ban anyone. I think it's a good idea just to have these guidelines set up so everybody knows good famitracker-forum-etiquette. And so we can refer people to the list if they seem to be lacking in such etiquette.
This is basically a list of things to follow if you don't want people going "you suck and we hate you." Not a "you'll be banned if you don't do this" thing, unless it's taken waaay too far, like if ninkinwhatever his name is had started spamming like 20 threads a day in "retaliation" then yeah maybe banning is good there... but he wasn't originally, just kinda being misguided.
[quote=tadpole]except when used as a weapon by moderators on power-trips.[/quote]
this is what's concerning... guys getting too excited about being mods and finding any excuse to make use of their ability. no offense intended, but it is is very very typical of 14-16 year olds. i was one once and did the same thing. i mean, one of the new mods didn't hesitate in flaunting his newfangled badge of honour in his signature. attitudes like that can be problematic/lead to power-tripping, though due to this discussion i doubt we'll have any problems now. tldr: administrative pride is bad, mmkay.
[quote=Mex]Perhaps some clarification would be nice though[/quote]
I can assure that people won't be banned just because there are rules, even if those would be broken once or twice. The only case so far was this guy who spammed all over the forum about LSDJ a few years ago (some of you might remember) and refused to stop even after several requests, so I had no choice then. (Even he would be welcome back if I know he'd stop but I haven't heard anything from him since then.) So that's about what's needed for a warning & ban for you who wonder, I can't say it's very different from any forum.
The list looks good now and I'll add it to the site in some way (I'm kind of busy at the moment so it might take a couple of days).
) 
