Moderation

Dear staff,

Please delete derailing/offtopic replies the moment they occur in threads which contain valuable information. I am sure you have enough moderators to go around.

Its a common theme here and very boring, very high noise to signal ratio.

Example:

Discussion about code reflection turns into a discussion about dbpro and shaders.

there's another option, used by other tech forums. Have an "accepted answer" option. So that it's obvious which reply was the best answer. This helps filter out noise.

I'm an admin/mod for the biggest MSX website on this planet. Whenever someone goes out of line (we have a thick skin tho) we edit such post and leave behind a {moderated}. Whenever a thread goes into the wrong direction we simply state a friendly request to stay on-topic or otherwise start a new thread. Rarely gets a topic locked, and only in a very very rare case are whole threads deleted (usually they were all flame and zero information). That's a far more relaxed way of moderation we think.

I think that's because everything to be said about reflection has been said, and the conversation proceeded in another direction.

I think that instead of deleting off-topic posts, a thread should be split into another one (unless the off-topic posts are worthless, which is probably the case most of the time).

No
A discussion about Mark worklog turned into one about reflection, (and hence would have been culled be you), then turned into one abot DBpro and shaders

But I agree anyway, 250 odd post in one thread is too many anyway.

If someone's flaming, fair enough to cull that, but if you kill a thread every time it 'evolves' (I'm not talking about blatant thread-jacking, here), you make for a very boring forum.

I dunno, its a good idea, but you may get a wild spawing of threads like this:

Subject: @whoever re:"something"
Post: You mentioned in thread http://www.blitzmax.com/Community/posts.php?topic=72882 that "this widget" is better than "that gadget". This is untrue because of blah blah blah.

Also many a boring thread have evolved into healthy debates that are encouraged and participated in by the original poster. Agreed, flaming does suck but debating doesnt, unfortunately it can be a fine line between the two.

The last days quite some topics releated to "the next bmx update" have been merciless deleted already. So I think the moderators are trying to keep the discussion on topic and focused in one thread.

Furthermore keep in mind that this is a "general discussion" subforum and not a specific subforum related to programming. If you're looking for exact and reliable information e.g. on the bmx update, check Mark's worklog or the front page. - The rest is mostly pure speculation.

I see no need in blaming the moderators / staff for not doing their job properly. - Do you have any idea how much time it consumes to read through all topics/posts in detail, let alone decide whether to delete them or not?
I prefer a debate instead of mindless censorship. Keeping a 250+ post on exact ONE topic is nearly impossible.

So what do we learn from that? Instead of hijacking a thread. Why not create a fresh one about "Reflection" and take the discussion over there (via link), leaving the original topic intact? This would make the moderators job a bit easier.

I prefer it the way it is now and less restrictive due to that's how a natural discussion, like if you would be sitting at a table, evolves. The thread also never started as a pure "code reflection" thread. It was opened more as a "look that's the new worklog" thing. You also can learn a lot more if a discussion swings around.

I think it stinks the Lows (Rob Cummings) has started this thread complaining about moderation, derailing threads and threads going off topic when he himself is guilty of all those.

Take the Jeff Minter thread as an example. Lows comments derailed the thread in to a total mess which left GFK banned and for some unknown reason Lowcs still posting.

Hypocrite?

Like a good football referee, a good moderator is one you hardly notice unless one or two people get really out of hand. Unless it's a technical thread and it's interfering with serious answers, I honestly couldn't care less if people want to hijack my threads, particularly the humourous, curious or just plain philosophical ones. Often times people hijacking my threads end up making a much more interesting conversation than I had started, so good for them. I for one wouldn't want some kind of military regime with people giving name rank and serial number in response to my question. If I wanted that much control over a subject ( again, technical help threads aside, because I don't like to see someone with a serious question they need answering subjected to five or six consecutive dopy posts demanding the media or telling people to kneel before their God - no names! ) I wouldn't post to an open forum which has people with free will and minds of their own.

As a lowly mod, we try, we aren't perfect, we try and keep things on topic and lock / delete where appropriate.

There aren't many of us, we aren't full time, we can only react to what we see.

I personally have the rights to delete or edit an individual post which I have done on many occasions to cut out insults / swearing / derailing. However, I cannot vet every single post.

The 'Mark Has Spoken' thread has got too long to moderate really, and I'm sure it'll burn out pretty soon anyway.

?

Lowcs, you've made 8 posts in the last month and now you feel the need to complain about the moderation, bit extreme don't you think? As has already been mentioned above, that thread you give as an example wasn't about reflection to begin with.

Topics should be allowed to evolve to some extent and most mods here do a good job IMO.