Nice reflection. Also, USENET forums are gone now... Is there any kind of replacemente in the WWW? A public one.

On topic: Forum guidelines are generic enough. Then, of course they are to be interpreted. Then, of course people with a penchant for trolling do things like: following the letter but not the spirit of the text describing the guidelines; accusing others of not respecting the letter (even if they follow the spirit) of that same text; getting as close to "the line" as possible, then crossing the line, then crossing the line back again, then loudly complaining about being banned, then loudly complaining about another username being banned... Nothing even remotely new. And they are right. Why? Because so far they have been able to get away with it. And if somehow a ban befalls one of them, it is going to be just what, a couple of months?

Going on a leg, it might be that a part of the concern that nightcraw1er.488 has is about the style of moderation that is going to be used: More people dedicated to moderation sounds good. Will that be enough? Is their moderation style going to be any different from what we have seen so far? Because more moderators might mean less threads left unwatched. Just that. So what then?

What will it take to make the general forum something like what it used to be? As in: less trolly, more useful, better signal-to-noise ratio, more fun to read. And no, trolling does not equate fun, unless you are into it yourself. It is just noise.

Good luck to the new moderators. Hopefully you will always be backed by your employer.

Peace.

its difficult because culture. for example australians seem verrr rude. but then peeps are not robots so y'know mods wll do teh best they can

its all gud

Not sure what to make of that document (published when the tory Theresa May was prime minister) They put together Swastikas with Greenpeace. Hello?

But it is true that avatars featuring symbols related to some of those in the very first section of that document (e. g. akin to that "make Britain great again") have been allowed so far, apparently.

Or that other person is just easily offended.

If I may be blunt/honest: i've had it happen where I was on topic and discussing topics civilly and then was critical of someone's opinions and they got offended....so yes, it was friendly, but it seems some just cannot take criticism(even civil) in today's social climes.

And it's not just me....others who are very obviously not trying to get under the other's skin will say something critical yet civil and be accused of being everything the other can think of as the person who got offended seemingly couldn't discern criticism from trolling/etc.

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If the two week leave I got awhile back for making a cold war joke on a prior leave(to the 2 week one) is any indicator....no, they cannot always do so easily, or they are very strict on their enforcement of such.


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As said above, I was given a 2 week leave for a joke on "old soviet jails" not meant to offend as a one off post to a citizen of said lands who also seemed to be ok with it.

No "hate" intended or seen by the person who it was towards(or anyone else it seemed) and bam.....2 week leave. As such, I feel it's understandably fair to be a bit skeptical that they'll always apply that rule evenly.

Agreed....no one should be alarmist at this juncture.

What if a thread drifts and has exhausted it's topic(or it it stalled for some reason for awhile) and people want to discuss other things? Wouldn't it be better to use that thread if it has drifted that way and already served it's topic/purpose than make a new one and clutter the forums with more threads? Just curious.

Also I want to say nice to see you got a shiny new title.....I hope it suits you well and you serve the "office" with honor. :)
*salute*

In this case, making a new topic would make it easier for people to find the discussion that they're actually interested in.

Also, why do you keep using phrases like "exhasted it is topic" and "served it is topic/purpose", which make no sense in English? (I expanded the contractions for you.)

What if only a few are interested in it and not for long? Why then make a new thread for perhaps a page or less of posts?

Of course server space for such might be more available so that might not be an issue, but with search on GOG not so good it might make it harder to find threads one likes or wants to post to/read.

Eh, just force of habit and a bit of poor grammar on my part...will try to correct it in the future. Sorry about that, btw.

If it drifts and goes silent, then personally I'd let it rest in peace. If interest in the drift is revived, I'd suggest starting a new thread so it can be on topic.

That said, this isn't a hard science. Use some discretion. If it is a minor comment, then a short revival might be better.

Thanks. :)

HAHAHAHAHA


HAHAHAHAHAHA, THE PEACE SIGN IS A HATE SYMBOL NOW, HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

CAMPAIGN FOR NUCLEAR DISARMMENT, DAT SEETHING HATREAD!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHA, BRO, GREENPEACE IS ON DAT LIST HAHAHAHA: LIKe, HAHAHA BBRO, dDID YOU EVEN READ THAT LIST BEFORE YOU POSTED??????!!?! HAHAHAHA

THE NUCLEAR POWER NO THANKS SUN IS ALSO A HATE SYMBOL NOW HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! THE UK IS DONE FOR!!! ITZ FINISHED!!!!! HAHAHA

HAHAHAHA PETA IS ON THERE TOO AND SEA SHEPHERD HAHAHAHAHAHA GET YO ANIMAL RIGHTS OUTTA MY GAMING FORUM, BIGOT!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHA, I CAN' T STOP LAUGHING!!! HAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHA; REPORT ANONYMOUSLY!!! BIG BRUFA IS WATCHING U!!!! THE UK IS FUKD!!! HAHAHAHAHA

I AIN'T EVEN GUNNA DOUNVOTW;BRUV; COZ THIS IS GOLD!!!! HAHAHAHAHA


PS: Extinction rebellion is also on the list. How dah you?!?!?

(╬ ಠ益ಠ)

That would still be preferable to not finding it at all because the interesting discussion is buried on page 37 of a topic that is otherwise uninteresting, or is even the sort of topic one would rather avoid entirely.

Also, what about those who are interested in the main topic of the thread, but have negative interest in the side topic it changed into?

Threads that are only one page long are much nicer to look through then threads with 253 pages, of which you are only interested in pne page.

I think those are mainly symbols that couldbe used by some groups & are possible indicators to watch out for, not that the symbols are all necessarily h*te symbols and/or used only be such types of people, or that everyone using them is bad.

(Also LOL anonymous is on there...all they did IRL that I can recall was to protest scientol0gy and some other minor things.

And since this is a tad political & offtopic I will stop it here)
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Sounds good overall...thanks and thanks for being fair on this and everything else so far. :)

No problem....I know from experience(talking to other site mods) it's a non-paying, often thankless job & you guys/gals often do some good & needed work. Have a good one. :)
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For the former: If it's something only appealing to a few people and only intended to be done for a short time, it's likely better to do it that way & if some show interest or it might need to go on longer then it'd likely be best to make a new thread.

For the latter: People can and often will be subjected to things they dislike reading, sadly....imo we need a hide post w/o low rate button for that, then people could just hide posts they don't want to read(yes they'd still see it for a second or two but it'd help them hide it after they thought to do so, at least).

If possible(and it often is) they should ignore it and post to the ontopic posts they like or the thread topic to get it back on track.

I like long or short threads, as I love reading through a few pages here and there and can also skip to the end of super long threads if need be and start from there. I get some disliking such, though.

Related to the post above, here goes an incursion in literature and history. Read at your own peril:

Had seen sheets like that from the US, on symbols commonly used by gangs, maybe the poster searched quickly for lists of hate symbols of concern and this came up high on the list. In a pinch, he took it, as the first rows seem reasonable.

It might seem that Alan Moore (V is for Vendetta, Hellblazer) and George Orwell (1984) knew a thing or two about their compatriots. A good modern book is A man lies dreaming, by Lavie Thidar (2016).

Back on topic: The problem of allowing trolling, crossing the line, letting them cross back, write a few “serious” posts here and there, then half-crossing, then going further, then back again (without excluding adulation of the moderators), the problem of this is that, a general tone of trolling sets on the forum. It is not the issue of a limited number of fully dedicated trolls now. Instead, it affects and deteriorates the general atmosphere of the forum. Casual trolling seems to be OK then and contaminates a large portion of the exchanges.

Telika was spot on about who is going to be reading the forum. Too many of the old timers who brought in great contributions have left already. Some have expressed why they rarely post: because of the deterioration of the atmoshpere. The community, a strong selling point for GOG in its first years, is not what it used to be.

And yes, there is a petition for a block option in the forum. Reversible and to be employed, or not, at the will of each user. So that users can take the matter of clearing their reading list into their own hands.

Cheers.

EDIT: Brevity

Rager's usage is correct, as the apostrophes denote possession, rather than contractions.

I suspect that Telika has severe sleep deprivation. o.O

Not with "it", though, that would be "its".

Hysteria is cancer as far as I'm concerned.

You've hit another milestone, bruh. -711. If it wasn't for bad luck, you wouldn't have any luck at all. lol

So how is it that a German knows this? lol

Thanks.