Quote:
Originally posted by
Gary
Addressing a number of listed points and concerns: Most meaningful moderation will be handled out of the public view, through the admin and in private messages and emails. The onsite moderation will mainly be helpful suggestions, praise for
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Addressing a number of listed points and concerns: Most meaningful moderation will be handled out of the public view, through the admin and in private messages and emails. The onsite moderation will mainly be helpful suggestions, praise for exceptional behavior, and trying to cool people down when disagreements elevate.What you - the contributors - need to do is simply enjoy the community. You can message us about any concerns or questions, you can notify of us of any post, and you will soon have a very cool 3rd option for communicating with us (and by soon, I mean this week). Flags are in place for major violations, other than that just have fun. I would like to note one thing. Not all threads that look like spam are spam. Not all threads posted together in a short time frame are spam. While this may be a red flag to look at, we often find these to be new community members who have not really acclimated to the community standards. I myself have logged on for short periods of time and posted a few consecutive non-EF threads, and I can assure you that points never played a part of my activity. It is possible that some only spend 5-10 minutes on the site in a sitting. And finally, everyday I see threads that seem like obvious spam to me, and those same threads sometimes end up sparking a lengthy conversation with the community. Not to mention that there are occasionally people here who speak English as a second language that do their best. I am just saying, please keep an open mind. ***A brief update: we have a new Question and Answer program that will be introduced this week that will hopefully provide an opportunity for easier communications between EF & the community. Yes, we introduced the new EoC; yes, we introduced the new forum mod; yes, we are still over our heads in the rest of the project that hasn't come to light, the old project we wanted to launch last week, and still a number of new abuse prevention systems we are trying to set up behind the scenes. PLEASE BE PATIENT! If there was a way to do everything at once, I would be the first in line. To address a question we keep getting: we are working on a Best Practices thread (with screenshots) that will also be used as an email. This will be what we can all refer people to. This Best Practices thread/email will be the sort of unofficial first warning that we send people. We cannot expect people to conduct themselves in a better manner on the forum if we do not attempt to establish what this standard is first.
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I think one major area of disagreement is on identifying spam or point farming. In your example, posting several new threads in a short amount of time may not be indicative of spam, especially if the threads ultimately result in some meaningful discussion. However, I view it differently. When I see a contributor post 5 threads that match the daily point rewards day after day, that is a pattern of point farming, regardless of whether or not one may spark a meaningful discussion. Because it leads to a meaningful discussion does not justify the motive behind the posting. These contributors also rarely, if ever, go back and participate in these threads. Also, I'm not surprised that it may spark a discussion. There are people here dying to have meaningful discussions or are always ready to step up and try to answer questions. When in doubt, most of us default to assuming the person doesn't know better.
This is an area that we somehow need to address because it is one of the major problems cluttering the forums. While EF does not view this as spam, many contributors obviously do. This is why people originally thought EF was not enforcing the new EOC, which is now obviously not the case.
And while people can argue that everyone games the system for points to a degree, no other point gathering activity negatively impacts others in the community as point farming on the forums. Emoticons responses are annoying, but point farming on the forums is about to drive people away. We need a solution that addresses this concern.
