Personal pages, social groups and the like

[TosaInu]

We are allowed to talk about anything on our profiles. I talked about torrents and illegally downloading various pirated software and bovi visited my profile at about the same time, our conversations is practically harmless. Not only this, but TosaInu and Ludens visited Methuselah's profile at the same time as we were discussing the various illegal ways I could transfer my games to him. Finally, moderators will never visit your profile unless you entice them yourself by PM-ing or Visitor Messaging them, which is what Meth and I did to attract those mods. It is as if it is against the moderator's unwritten rules to visit other profiles.

Hello,

I copied above from a public conversation. To make it clear: you are not allowed to talk about piracy, nor porn like in some other conversations nor hurl (rude and/or vulgar) insults at each other.

It's not that it's allowed or even condoned. I suggest every member cleans his own conversation pages and social group pages from all such material. It has to be done by Thursday this week.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

While were on the topic of social groups, might I suggest it be an idea to regulate them all a little more strictly? Possibly even get rid of them. Some have become part of a little group of "spam havens" filled with groups discussing trivial or ridiculous material which would automatically be closed/removed from the off-topic forums.

[caravel]

Before vBulletin was last updated, we didn't even have these groups/features. IMHO they are not needed and should be totally disabled. We hadn't needed these before and I very much doubt that we need them now either. As a TW forum, I don't see the addition of this pseudo social networking layer as beneficial in any way. Those that want to form such groups/cliques can do so off site using the vast array of tools/sites available.

Post content is best presented in the main forums where it is supposed to be. This gives the largest possible audience where all can benefit and contribute. Omanes is correct in that the social groups and profile visitor pages mainly take the form of spam/chat. The "friends" system is also a flawed one as it encourages cliques and groups to form. and I feel that this is not what the .org is all about.

[Lemur]

Given how some of our members have helpfully demonstrated the abuse potential of both social groups and personal page comments, I agree that both should be disabled.

[Strike For The South]

Disable. The ORG don't need that bad pub.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Agreed. I just don't see the need.

[seireikhaan]

I actually rather like the profile pages. However, the social groups are pretty much pointless.

[Lemur]

I actually rather like the profile pages.

Nobody's saying we should disable profile pages, but abuse of the comments section of profile pages has been rampant with some Orgahs. Disabling the comments would be helpful and wise.

[Gregoshi]

I'm for shutting them down. I always felt uneasy about the "underground" culture it promoted and the nightmare it must cause to even try to moderate it. Besides, Warman's profile background nearly destroyed my sight.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

The social groups are very useful. Remember the days of the old Imperialist Club, Conservative Club, and so on in the Backroom? It creates a place for those to go without taking up space in the debating area. Granted, some people do abuse it, but far more people abuse the profiles. If we must disable anything, it should be comments on profiles, not the groups.

[KukriKhan]

It's not that it's allowed or even condoned. I suggest every member cleans his own conversation pages and social group pages from all such material. It has to be done by Thursday this week.

The law - and the deadline, has been stated.

Reasonably.

"I suggest every member..." is politely reminding us all to be responsible, accountable, upstanding org citizens. Let us show that we have no need of coversations about piracy, pr0n, or the personal denigration of other members.

We are allowed to talk about anything on our profiles. I talked about torrents and illegally...

...Finally, moderators will never visit your profile unless you entice them yourself by PM-ing or Visitor Messaging them, which is what Meth and I did to attract those mods. It is as if it is against the moderator's unwritten rules to visit other profiles.

The author misunderstands benign tolerance of minor infractions, with the Org's thrust: we don't allow such coversations, because they are illegal, and WE DON'T NEED THEM. And don't want them.

In this place, this Org, we rely on personal honor and individual integrity; our opponents on the virtual battlefield CAN BE TRUSTED to not use cheats, go-rounds, or red-zone movements.

A victory here is more a matter of well thought-out strategy, than 'net-informed quick tactical move. And we all endure both victories, and defeats. And learn from both.

Hence, the org "way". Our bushido. Our enthusisatic welcoming of newcomers, our encouragement of member 'product': be it game-mod, playing tip, hardware trick, or political outlook. Every member's contribution is valued.

Which puts the onus of value on the contributor, I think. In this free place of honor, we must insure that our contributions are worthwhile. Valuable to our broader audience. Helpful to someone.

[Mouzafphaerre]

.

Before vBulletin was last updated, we didn't even have these groups/features. IMHO they are not needed and should be totally disabled.

Given how some of our members have helpfully demonstrated the abuse potential of both social groups and personal page comments, I agree that both should be disabled.

Leave my group alone will you? Deal with the spammers as you wish and don't involve decent orgahs!
.

[pevergreen]

They are not needed. Spamming of all forms should be discouraged.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Before vBulletin was last updated, we didn't even have these groups/features. IMHO they are not needed and should be totally disabled. We hadn't needed these before and I very much doubt that we need them now either. As a TW forum, I don't see the addition of this pseudo social networking layer as beneficial in any way. Those that want to form such groups/cliques can do so off site using the vast array of tools/sites available.

Post content is best presented in the main forums where it is supposed to be. This gives the largest possible audience where all can benefit and contribute. Omanes is correct in that the social groups and profile visitor pages mainly take the form of spam/chat. The "friends" system is also a flawed one as it encourages cliques and groups to form. and I feel that this is not what the .org is all about.

That, for the social groups, IMO, would actually be the most ideal solution - I was trying to compromise a little, but, since it seems that widespread public support is against rather than for, I don't really need to do that any more.

As you have said, the friends list is also rather pointless, but it functions as an extension of v3.5/3.6's buddy list (highlighting those you want to see when on line and giving you a quick list to PM from) and is henceforth fairly harmless. Maybe the visibility of whose friends with who could be dropped - we couldn't see who was on each others buddy list under the old system. I'm not sure about the possibility of this though - I haven't read the vBulletin manual since v3.7 was released.

I'm less certain about profile pages. This probably sounds ridiculous, but it feels more socially acceptable to chat there fairly pointlessly if only just to say hi, ask what the owner's up to, what they are doing at the weekend e.c.t.

To resolve the idea that its a world hidden from the watchful eyes of the moderators, I'd probably say that self-moderation should be in place there - the member looks after the page in accordance with the rules. If somebody breaks the rules, the offender is punished and the page owner is warned that it is their responsibility to keep their page clean (in PM rather than WP format). For the sake of fairness, the page owner probably should only be "told off" if they've been active since the message was first sited. As well as all this, it could be a good idea to allow AMs to moderate pages to increase the number of staff able to watch them (as far as I know, I, at least, cannot do that).

On another note, themes on some profile pages are definitely irritating, but that can be easily fixed by flicking a switch (button is found slightly to the left of the centre on profile pages with customisations enabled - below the user rank, Member for example. You can click that again to turn it back on).

[Noir]

Both are not needed in my view - i wouldnt shed a single tear if they were botched.

Groups and cliques that form around activities that are relevant to the org but not taking place at the org can stay where they happen. Grouping trends although perfectly normal can be potentially harmful under certain conditions.

Noir

[Tribesman]

Get rid of them, the forum was fine without them

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Keep them. If members abuse it, give them warning points. I don't see why Mods can't check out the social groups and that. It's not un-common for Moderator's today to have to Moderate 2-4 different sub-forums, so it should not be a big deal spending a few minutes checking out the Social Groups. Profiles on the other hand, are different.


Greg, I know, I killed a lot of eyes with my profile

[Tribesman]

Block them entirely , if only to stop that silly child warman from being a prick so often

[Rhyfelwyr]

I like the profile pages at least, it makes it a lot easier when you have to contact a lot of people regularly for IH's or whatever.

Although I suppose a lot of the social groups are a bit spamtastic.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Yes. I argee also. It makes it easier with the IH's, plus, do you really want to waste PM box space by PMing someone a simple thing as "Check the IH"? Plus, if the person's PM box is full and he/she forgets..... Then what you going to do?

Social Groups, stick 1-2 people in charge of looking over them. For profiles, If someone reports something, have a Moderator check it out. That's what they there for!

[Thermal]

The majority of forumers can use the public profile pages responsibly along with social groups, I see little reason why they should be closed down because a few incompetant Orgahs feel the need to talk about porn, illegal downloading and spam.

Many of the members who say down with the profiles and comments are the people which haven't had any comments for years, or at all, they don't account for people who do communicate via public profile.

It is anything but spam, it doesn't add to your post count and it makes messages feel a bit more personalized to that member when sending ti to there profile, all orgahs should get the option as to whether they keep there space for talking or not, as some members see it as a reliable source to spread information without clogging up your PM box.

It is also a great place for people to add compliments to your profile photos and get to know you better, and much quicker than pm's, if people are abusing this privilege then they should persoanlly be warned and face the consequence, however i don't see why good orgahs who are respectful on public profiles should suffer that bit more too.

[Emperor of Graal]

I See nothing wrong with user pages and social groups.
Whats wrong is the Porn and illegal downloads etc
Points and warnings for that methinks...

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Yes, but the question is, what is the the point of them? As Caravel said, what do they nurture that a forum thread could not? If you want to start a "Conservative Club" or "Lefties Group" or something like that you've got the Backroom. Anything else, such as discussing your stamp collections or Britney Spears music albums you've bought or something like that, you've got the Frontroom. History you've got the Monastery, technical stuff's got the Hard & Software forum while the Arena deals with non-TW games. Finally, spam has got the infamous back-stage "Bin" forum for staff to dump where it can rot in peace.

I do see the purpose of profile pages, but not social groups.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Good point Omanes, but do we need to make a thread like you suggested for every thing of a legal nature? Why not a Social Group?

[Emperor of Graal]

Good point Warman
The social groups stops the Orgs forum being Filled up.
Doesn't it?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Good point Omanes, but do we need to make a thread like you suggested for every thing of a legal nature? Why not a Social Group?

To repeat what has already been said, we did before - it's not as if the .Org died from excessive thread levels. If we go two pages before the update (about three/four weeks) in the Frontroom it's not as if anything has changed by their introduction.

[Emperor of Graal]

That is true..
The Org would be dead if it was suffering..

[drone]

I'm ambivalent about the groups and profiles, I can see the potential uses as well as abuses. I'm no fan of MySpace/Facebook, but the profiles are a nice touch and let you express yourself a little more than a simple sig could. I would assume that social groups are handy for modding teams and multiplayer groups/clans. Both have the advantages over threads, which can quickly get out of hand or shunted off the front pages as time goes on.

I don't know how the forum code works, but I'm assuming that moderators are tied to their specific sub-fora, and only administrators have the ability to edit members' profiles and give warnings accordingly. The staff can't be expected to keep track of every members' visitor messages and groups' spammation (although I assume a DB tool exists that could easily show recent additions).

When in doubt, look at the Guild FAQ page, title: Forum Rules. Next, look at the URL of the member pages, https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/member.php. Look at the URL of the social pages, https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/group.php. Look at the URL for the wiki, https://forums.totalwar.org/wiki/. They are all part of the forum, and therefore contributions need to follow the forum rules.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I'm ambivalent about the groups and profiles, I can see the potential uses as well as abuses. I'm no fan of MySpace/Facebook, but the profiles are a nice touch and let you express yourself a little more than a simple sig could. I would assume that social groups are handy for modding teams and multiplayer groups/clans. Both have the advantages over threads, which can quickly get out of hand or shunted off the front pages as time goes on.

Hidden mod forums exist to serve mods and Tosa probably would grant one of them regardless of the mod's status. A solution for clans could be an interesting addition - "Hosted Clan Forums" maybe. If there were the demand, I'm sure the administration would be happy to act on it, anyhow, I digress.

I think that reports from social groups and the such like go to all full, and certain elements of the assistant, mod staff. This makes them all moderators, but doesn't mean that they have to go through it all with a fine tooth comb.

[Thermal]

Social groups are also useful in my opinion as it selects the destined group of people so you can all talk about things you all mutually like, without the criticism of the back-room for example: An Xbox360 fan group will consist of members setting up xbox live games, sharing there thoughts of games and having good conversation, an Xbox360 thread would likely be filled with spam and lots of PS3 supporters booing the thread instead of keeping it positive, basically what i say is social groups can be useful for extracting a desired audience, and saves those who don't like the topic having to comment on it. Some social groups may be a little pointless however, perhaps implementing the need to ask a moderators permission to open a social group (and the groups topic mentioned) could be used to allow useful social groups and disallow profitless ones.