Ask the Mods questions about the Forums!

[The Minmus Derp]

What would happen if you thought I was typing bad things and breaking the rules, and I got a ban, but It was really someone else that hacked into my account? I wouldn't be able to tell you, because I would be banned.

[Dman979]

1 hour ago, The Minmus Derp said:

What would happen if you thought I was typing bad things and breaking the rules, and I got a ban, but It was really someone else that hacked into my account? I wouldn't be able to tell you, because I would be banned.

We can't really answer that, since we don't want to make any potential hackers aware of our procedures and tools.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Dman979
Changed wording.

[Snark]

2 hours ago, The Minmus Derp said:

What would happen if you thought I was typing bad things and breaking the rules, and I got a ban, but It was really someone else that hacked into my account? I wouldn't be able to tell you, because I would be banned.

Well, first, anyone can always contact us, even if they're banned. Just send an email to [email protected] (and someone who doesn't happen to know that email address can find it fairly easily with a bit of googling-- it's posted on kerbalspaceprogram.com).

Getting banned just keeps people from talking in the forum.  Doesn't stop them from talking to Squad.

As Dman points out, we're not going to publicly discuss how we analyze the behavior of bad actors. 

It's worth emphasizing, though, that you are responsible for securing your account.  Cases of actual "hacking" are pretty rare-- it's fairly hard to break into an account that has a well-chosen password.  Having a forum account is a responsibility-- it's your job to make sure that you pick a reasonable password, that you don't share it with anyone, and that you take reasonable steps to secure your account (e.g. don't leave yourself logged in at a public place, etc.)

Of course we understand that accidents happen, and if something bad happens to a user's account, we do want to try to work with them to help secure matters.  But we also expect our users to take reasonable care and exercise basic responsibility.  So please do be careful with your account.

[HansonKerman]

How do you do the things you do? Like, is there a big button that says Lock Thread, merge, etc.?

[The Minmus Derp]

17 minutes ago, HansonKerman said:

How do you do the things you do? Like, is there a big button that says Lock Thread, merge, etc.?

You don't. Only moderators can do that. 

My question: Why, exactly does the addon releases forum not have different categories to post threads in, like, say, Utility, parts, planets, etc.

[HansonKerman]

Just now, The Minmus Derp said:

You don't. Only moderators can do that. 

My question: Why, exactly does the addon releases forum not have different categories to post threads in, like, say, Utility, parts, planets, etc.

That's...

not what I meant.

Also this is my notifications cap for today.

[The Minmus Derp]

I see. sorry

[Snark]

12 minutes ago, HansonKerman said:

How do you do the things you do? Like, is there a big button that says Lock Thread, merge, etc.?

We get bitten by a radioactive... um... no, never mind. 

Yes, pretty much what you just said.  When a forum moderator logs in, we get a UI that's slightly different from what a regular forum member sees.  For example:

• You know that "Edit" link you see under your posts?  We get that for everyone's posts.
• We have an options link on each post for  removing it, or splitting it to another thread.
• We have an options button for each thread, allowing hiding it, or locking/unlocking it, or moving it to a different sub-forum.
• The area at top right, where you see a couple of little buttons for "notifications" and "private messages", has a third icon for "open reports".

...And a few other bells and whistles here and there, but you get the idea.

Actually, it kind of freaked me out, on the day I ascended to moderatordom:  I knew they were considering it, and was nervously awaiting the decision.  Then one morning I logged on and there was this scary-looking "exclamation point in a triangle" icon with a bright red "badge" on it.  My immediate reaction was "Oh noes, I've just gotten a warning or something!  I must have really screwed up, I'll never be a moderator now!"  Practically had a heart attack.

Then I calmed down a bit and looked closer and realized... oh.  I'm a moderator now.  That's just how the forum looks now. 

[HansonKerman]

Ah. Okay.

[The Minmus Derp]

3 minutes ago, Snark said:

We get bitten by a radioactive... um... no, never mind. 

Yes, pretty much what you just said.  When a forum moderator logs in, we get a UI that's slightly different from what a regular forum member sees.  For example:

• You know that "Edit" link you see under your posts?  We get that for everyone's posts.
• We have an options link on each post for  removing it, or splitting it to another thread.
• We have an options button for each thread, allowing hiding it, or locking/unlocking it, or moving it to a different sub-forum.
• The area at top right, where you see a couple of little buttons for "notifications" and "private messages", has a third icon for "open reports".

...And a few other bells and whistles here and there, but you get the idea.

Actually, it kind of freaked me out, on the day I ascended to moderatordom:  I knew they were considering it, and was nervously awaiting the decision.  Then one morning I logged on and there was this scary-looking "exclamation point in a triangle" icon with a bright red "badge" on it.  My immediate reaction was "Oh noes, I've just gotten a warning or something!  I must have really screwed up, I'll never be a moderator now!"  Practically had a heart attack.

Then I calmed down a bit and looked closer and realized... oh.  I'm a moderator now.  That's just how the forum looks now. 

Hmmm, interesting. That last bit was also very silly.

[Snark]

1 hour ago, The Minmus Derp said:

Why, exactly does the addon releases forum not have different categories to post threads in, like, say, Utility, parts, planets, etc.

For a few reasons.

First, because categories are hard.  Different people categorize things differently, so coming up with the "right" categories would be far from obvious.  Also, mods don't necessarily fit into neat little pigeonholes.  No matter what list of categories one comes up with, you can have mods that don't quite fit into any of them-- or might fit into multiple ones.

Second, because having multiple sub-forums like that would make life more difficult for everyone:

• Harder for users, because now if you want to search for something (or just see "what's new"), now you have to search in multiple places instead of just one.
• Harder for modders, because now they have to figure out how to categorize and place their mods.
• Harder for moderators, because now we'll have to waste a lot of precious time moving things around from subcategory to subcategory when people get it "wrong", and also need to step in to resolve things when people get into arguments over where a mod belongs.  Which they will, because "categories are hard" (see above).

The current system is simple, it works, and "don't fix it if it ain't broke." 

(There's also the little practical matter, that if we were to introduce something like this, we'd have to move literally thousands of existing mods one at a time to get them sorted into the proper categories.  It would be mindbendingly tedious and take an enormous number of hours of our time-- bearing in mind that there aren't all that many of us, we're unpaid volunteers doing this in our spare time, and we already have our hands full with actual, y'know, moderating.  So this one thing here would be a complete showstopper even if we otherwise liked the idea, which we don't.)

[adsii1970]

15 minutes ago, Snark said:

The current system is simple, it works, and "don't fix it if it ain't broke." 

Yes, this... !

 

[The Minmus Derp]

So, is there an 'invisible mode' where people can see you posting, but cant see you on the online members list? Also, how are you guys doing?

[Dman979]

11 minutes ago, The Minmus Derp said:

So, is there an 'invisible mode' where people can see you posting, but cant see you on the online members list? Also, how are you guys doing?

Yes. I'm using it now.

[The Minmus Derp]

How does it work?

[Dman979]

It's a cloaking device. It's magic.

Spoiler

When you sign in to the forums, check the box that says "Sign in anonymously."

 

[The Minmus Derp]

I see. I see.

[CatastrophicFailure]

16 minutes ago, The Minmus Derp said:

I see. I see.

No you don’t, that’s the idea. 

[The Minmus Derp]

So. I've seen a few posts that have a box that says 'sorry, we cannot let you view this comment because you do not have permission to see it.' how do you do that?

[Snark]

34 minutes ago, The Minmus Derp said:

So. I've seen a few posts that have a box that says 'sorry, we cannot let you view this comment because you do not have permission to see it.' how do you do that?

Most likely it's a post that got hidden or removed for some reason.

[The Minmus Derp]

Uh, but it was something like this: So i did 

[cannot see box]

yesterday and will update today.

[Gargamel]

3 hours ago, The Minmus Derp said:

My question: Why, exactly does the addon releases forum not have different categories to post threads in, like, say, Utility, parts, planets, etc.

We very recently went through the motions of discussing this and working out a tag system for mods.  It was met with a deafening roar of 'meh'. 

[Ultimate Steve]

Purely hypothetical, just curious.

Say someone infiltrated a writer's account and edited their posts to nothing, basically deleting a story. Do you have an "undo edit" button or feature or something? Or once you edit a post is the original gone forever?

[Snark]

1 minute ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Say someone infiltrated a writer's account and edited their posts to nothing, basically deleting a story. Do you have an "undo edit" button or feature or something? Or once you edit a post is the original gone forever?

Edit history is preserved, though visible only to moderators.  (This is important, otherwise trolls could get away with gaslighting people.)

Restoring it would be very very tedious, though.

[Ultimate Steve]

Just now, Snark said:

Edit history is preserved, though visible only to moderators.  (This is important, otherwise trolls could get away with gaslighting people.)

 Restoring it would be very very tedious, though.

Okay, then! I know I have *most* of my stories backed up on Google Drive, but I should probably make sure I have all of the chapters at some point. And save it physically to the computer. And print it out. And launch a copy to Mars.