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Dman979

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13 hours ago, Souptime said:

isnt it a little ironic that no one under 13 is allowed to have an account, yet unsuitable content for children isnt allowed either?

As far as I know the U13 requirement is from some US law saying that nobody under 13 can have directed-response presence online (like an account) unless there's some consent form filed.  I think the unsuitable content ban makes the fora a politer and nicer place.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Just now, AlamoVampire said:

Ok I was just thinking about the forum games thread “dont click this” and a question popped into my head. When a thread gets locked, is it possible to edit a post of your own as a regular member in a thread that is locked?

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Shouldn't be.  The thread is locked now, can you edit your last post in it?

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2 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

What are you talking about? That thread has never been unlocked. Not once. Ever. :huh:

oh yes my misteak

Another question: what is the angriest you've ever seen someone on the forums?

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12 hours ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

What was the topic of discussion?

Was it something controversial, or maybe political? (those can get bad IRL)

I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek:  as moderators, we often have to deal with people who are upset-- usually with us, sometimes with other users.

Our favorite kind of moderating, of course, is when we get to help people-- for example, finding a post that a newbie has put in the wrong place, and moving it to where it will get the right sort of attention and responses.  Or keeping an eye on the "approval queue" so we can promptly approve the posts of new members who haven't racked up enough posts yet to be allowed to post "unsupervised" (a measure that is, alas, necessary because of all the spambots and scammers out there, who like to prey on forums).  Or getting to do fun things like recognize folks' contributions with Thread of the Month.  :)

I would say that actually, most of our moderating is of this "good" kind, largely because the overwhelming majority of forum members are kind, helpful, friendly, people.  This is a nice place, and most folks get along pretty well, and goodness gracious are we moderators thankful for that.  It's why we stick around.

But unfortunately... sometimes things go sour.  Even people who are normally "good citizens" may be having a really bad day or something and can take comments personally, and end up in fights with other members, where tempers raise to the point of folks forgetting about the rules.  Occasionally, not-so-nice people show up who deliberately troll or otherwise engage in hurtful behavior, and those are always un-fun.

So we sometimes have to step in and correct such folks... and they are never happy about it.  Naturally so.  Everyone always thinks of themselves as reasonable; this is human nature and is hardly surprising.  In cases of conflict, it's always the other guy's fault.  Which means, in turn, that on those rare occasions when we have to take action to correct a person... they're generally not going to be happy about it.  We try to be respectful and matter-of-fact, but nobody likes being told they're in the wrong on anything, and some folks take it better than others.

So reactions run the gamut from apologetic to mildly annoyed to very angry to incandescent rage-- it really has more to do with the individual personality than with the actual topic of discussion.  Some people have hotter tempers than others.  We get yelled at, a lot.  Which of course we don't enjoy, any more than you would-- but we knew that was part of the job when we volunteered.  It can't really be helped, it goes with the territory, and it's worth it if it means we can help keep the forum nice for everyone else.  It's why we do what we do.

As for what the topic of contention may be-- e.g. politics or whatever-- there are all sorts of things that folks can run up against; and in any case, out of respect for people's privacy, we can't give you any examples.  Sorry.  :/

However, if you just take a gander at the forum rules... well, we'd prefer to have no rules if we didn't have to, so every forum rule that's there, is there because past experience has shown that it's necessary to prevent people from doing that thing.  If there's a rule about it, generally that means that it's been done in the past, and was enough of a problem to need a rule about it.

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As Snark says, our rules have been worked out as responses to problems that came up on the forum. If you look at something and think, "That's weird. Why would they have a rule against that?" It's because that problem not only came up but got so bad that we had to ban people about it, so the rule was instituted to prevent having to issue more bans. 

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@Vanamonde out of curiosity how often are the rules adjusted to reflect new norms and are those adjustments announced or do they happen quietly? I personally do not recall seeing changes occur, I mean I do not even recall even noticing when the rules adjusted to reflect Take-Two and their involvement with KSP.

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Edited by AlamoVampire
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1 hour ago, AlamoVampire said:

@Vanamonde out of curiosity how often are the rules adjusted to reflect new norms and are those adjustments announced or do they happen quietly? I personally do not recall seeing changes occur, I mean I do not even recall even noticing when the rules adjusted to reflect Take-Two and their involvement with KSP.

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Just one example, Back when I was a youngun around here, I was officially scolded for posting a reaction meme sans text. Since then, that rule has been reconsidered, and wisely so. Picture is worth a thousand words and all...  :D

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