Lack of new people is killing the backroom and the entire forum

[caravel]

I think I should apologise. You are right. It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what viewpoints you held in the past and I was way out of line judging you and undermining your crediblity without addressing the content of your post..

I'm truly sorry for playing the man and ignoring the ball.

I offer you my apologies.

Accepted.

Allthough becoming TWC bis is not a desirable course, imho, that doesn't mean it would hurt to look at their forum and try to learn what they're doing right.

The .org does not need to look at TWC, it can look anywhere and at a vast variety of other sites. It doesn't have to dumb down or turn into a site targeted at idiots. One of the forums I have been to recently has some of the most highly respected and technically able posters I've seen anywhere. They have their own personal avatars (most of which are quite silly, but smaller than the .org avatars and almost of which are animated) and occasionally use mild swearwords. This has not made them turn into drooling knuckle dragging morons that use "leet speak" to converse. The moderators there choose to just ignore swearing that is not directed at anyone, but they could just as easily use a filter. I cannot see them chasing around after every poster trying to edit every word. The result would be that some gets edited, some gets missed and those that get edited resent others "getting away with it". There's also the cultural regional differences with arguments on to what is swearing and what isn't. This also puts off a lot of new members that get done for saying "damn" in one forum by one moderator and get away with it in another. Of course they are going to ask questions. It's not nice to be on the receiving end of a warning when as far as you're concerned you've done nothing wrong.

Then again, maturity is one of the things I like about this place. But strict moderating doesn't always guarantee maturity. Maybe we should indeed allow more frivoulous posting, allow people to stray a bit off topic in certain threads, let them have some OT fun, instead of stepping in and asking to stay on topic.

Strict moderating achieves the opposite. Members need to think for themselves rather than being guided or checked everytime it looks like a thread is going to turn bad. If staff keep stepping in, members learn to manipulate this and simply see how far they can push things or get around the rules.

If somebody loves the new game and finds the AI challenging, then let him. If somebody adores the graphics, then let him, instead of posting a comment à la "Bah! Graphics! Stupid eyecandy! The game is stupid, I don't care about graphics. Bah!"

Yes I am as guilty as anyone of this. The problem is that this becomes a culture thing and it's often in people's nature to be "sheeplike". Before you know where you are, we're all repeating the same things. I think the constant berating of the new games went too far.

Many of the current membership likes it the way it is. Then again, those who like it, can keep their current TW avatar. I guess it's not that difficult to make it possible to let people chose from the TW avatars or to upload their own new avatar (restrictions for size of course). As long as animated avatars are Verboten. Nothing as annoying as that.

Exactly, though why not animated avatars within reason? I remember a former staffer that had an animated avatar. It was ok for him, so why not for others? So long as the animation is not annoying and the image size restriction is set low it won't an issue as only a few frames will be possible in the .gif (not those .gif avatars that take ages to load up and are practically a movie clip).

I agree that making the BR an opt-in forum and invisible for the new members was probably a mistake. Maybe it was justifiable in a time when we had a massive influx of new members; nowadays, it's not and should be open for all.

Absolutely right. What worked then may not necessarily work now or maybe there's a better way of doing things. If the backroom were opened up, more lurkers will read it and be interested - some people might join the .org just to post.

That's inevitable, I guess. Personally, I don't think the current BR staff is doing a bad job. Cases that are not obvious are discussed by the BR staff and I've seen more than one occasion in which a BR mod reversed a warning or reopened a thread, after a discussion with colleagues. All in all, the BR moderation seems pretty healthy to me.

Don't really agree with you here. Every moderator has his own views and his own style. A truly "impartial" judge doesn't exist.

It's not the backroom staff's fault, it's simply how the system they are part of works and has always worked. It's extremely hard to be impartial, especially if you're dealing with a member that has given you grief in the past. Sometimes even when you think you're doing your best, from your own point of view, to do the right thing, that member sees it very differently. You get absorbed into that one issue and problem and sometimes you need to step back for a while to see the truth of it. My point about rotation is that it will prevent grudges and fixed opinions from forming and allow members to be judged more fairly by someone that has not been on their case in the past. It will also help to dispel the "old boys club" that has formed over the years where certain members can get away with more than others due to being on friendlier terms with the mods - that's not "corruption" before anyone start shouting, it's just inevitable on a board like this.

Yes, a passionate, hot topic, will generate lots of posts; but might result in something really nasty. When to step in? Before things get out of hand or wait until it got out of hand really bad? We can experiment with the latter. Also, people have different opinions about what is "out of hand" and what is not. Moderating is not exact science

There are a number of options, but two come to mind:

1) Step in, edit, delete posts, issue warnings and ask those involved to carry on but being much nicer to each other than before, etc.

2) Wait until it gets bad enough, lock the thread politely and explain that it's due to it degenerating into a flaming match. Advise that they are free to start again. Once members see that they've overstepped the mark they won't campaign for the thread to be reopened or start bombarding you with PM's. Treat them like adults and they'll start to behave like them.

In my experience option two works better. There is minimal intervention, you're not hitting member x with a warning while letting member y get off scot free. You're not tampering with posts, interfering and annoying people and you're not taking the chainsaw to their thread and basically killing it in the process anyway.

If members have a minor disagreement, let them get on with it. Name calling is to be expected and they should sort this out themselves. A moderator jumping in telling them to be polite to each other is what I call "moderator pressure". It doesn't just affect those two members either but what about the perceptions of those reading? The .org doesn't have to turn into a flamefest, but it doesn't need to be authoritarian either - telling members how to think, speak and behave. The worst that can happen is a few swearwords or an argument? People need to foul up sometimes - let them.

While it is true that the OT areas should not be our priority, they do need a lot of attention, since they are important for the site.

They need no more attention than any other area and are not as important as the TW sections. The OT areas will thrive all by themselves off the back of the successful TW areas and influx of new blood that this would bring about. They don't need to be worked on or focused on - they will "just work" if the TW sections work.

Allthough I don't think the rules themselves should be changed, it could be true that another approach in the way they are enforced might be at least worth a try. However, I'm fairly sure that having a more laissez faire, laissez allez attitude, will change the atmosphere of the forums. If that is desirable is another question. Then again, it's probably either change and become different, or don't change and disappear.

There are no rules to speak of except the basic Vbulletin FAQ - perhaps with some changes (?) so I agree on the first part. The approach definitely need to change though, but above all it needs to be a consistent global approach rather than that which exists at present.

But it wouldn't hurt to try out a different approach. Change is needed, since the current state of affairs is clearly leading to our decline and will eventually lead to the end of the .Org.

Exactly. You knew this long ago, when both you and I were mods, yet despite numerous threads...

There could be many causes of our decline, and we should keep all options open. It wouldn't hurt to see if maybe a change in moderation style might work. Then again, old habits don't die easily + moderating is not exact science.

The cause of decline is simple enough in my eyes: The .org is far too oppressive when compared with other boards and even when compared with TWC. The staff have lost interest in TW and now the main focus is on offtopic sections and in their hyper moderation. The real focus and direction has been lost. The last staff discussions I can remember about the Shogun2, it's forum and moderators were mostly participated in by by myself and a few others. A large proportion of the staff did not take part presumably because they saw it as not concerning them or due to long term inactivity.

Maybe, maybe not. Our current staff members are a bunch of nice, intelligent and humours people who do care about the .Org. Why wouldn't they be open for another approach in moderating in an attempt at getting this place back on the right track? Maybe your judgement is too harsh.

Some may be open to it, but no matter how many threads they start on the subject and no matter how much they argue for change, change will not come and if it does it will come partially and in very small measures, not enough to make any difference, after a long delay and almost grudgingly. We both know this, so there is not much point in pretending otherwise.

I believe I once pleaded in favour of the JM system, because of "good memories". Looking back at my first posts here, it seems like I hated it not being able to edit or to post in other fora. So I guess the "good memories" of the EH were from the time when I did a lot of meet-and-greet duty as a member. Being a junior in itself, I didn't like very much. So I agree now that we should get rid of the JM.

The last time I was on the staff, the main consensus was to get rid of the JM, it's still here, so what happened?

"Staff pressure"? Well, maybe I don't perceive it as such, since being civil, respectful and diplomatic comes as a second nature for me. You could be on to something, but I can't really judge about it, because I never experienced it as pressure. Doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't perceived as such by others.

You cannot force members to be civil and diplomatic and you cannot change their nature to be so. Yes you can in effect encourage some to make the pretence, but I'm sure if you saw many of these same members antics on other forums you'd be surprised if not shocked. Members need to be themselves and not a template of what the .org expects, this is what will attract new people - diversity, not a few veterans repeating the same things and agreeing with each other.

I wouldn't mind senior membership being abolished, but maybe others would. If it gets abolished, it should be thoroughly explained to the seniors that the title is not taken away because there efforts from the past are no longer appreciated, but more because of other reasons. Some people like status symbols and ranks and stripping somebody from an earned title is a sensitive thing to do. Good communication is necessary when doing so.

As I said earlier Senior Membership could be phased out in this way. Those that are Seniors now could instead be awarded with a token award. An award is different as it does not give or imply any rank or privilege. Any new awards (We'll call it the ".org award" for now) could be voted on by the membership as a whole rather than selected by a small group of staff behind closed doors.

The member rank title could then be changed to simply ".orgah" or similar to add a bit of character. Not necessary but surely better than the dull "member". Every person that joined would then be an orgah, unless promoted to staff, from day one.

We won't know if following your suggestions would work; then again, keeping things as they are clearly isn't working, so it wouldn't hurt to try a few things, I guess.

We have no idea. My suggestions could be disastrous, but the alternative is to continue talking, moaning and slowly declining as has been the case for the last few years. You will never know unless you try.

The implementation of the changes has to be done by Tosa. Doesn't mean he can't consult the membership and discuss matters with the patrons.

I hope he does.

The initiave lies with him? Yes and no. One man doesn't make the site; I think membership and staff working together constructively will have better results. Final decisions and implementation is indeed the admins' job. You don't need to be an admin to take a leading role though. Even a junior member as yourself can take a leading role in changing things.

Tosa holds all the keys, if anything needs to be done it lies with him. The mods can talk all they like, but if Tosa doesn't turn up for weeks on end or choose to simply ignore them - nothing is going to happen. This is also something you're well aware of.

@Shibumi: Yes. I really think people need to read and heed what you've posted.

Perceptions are important: People don't have to come here and they don't have to stay here either.

If Creative Assembly staff members get insulted here when they visit and unofficial fan site, what motivation do they have to come back? They have the official forums if they want to talk to fans.

Calling an idea idiotic is mild and is not insulting CA staff.

Did you need to call it idiotic? Would not simply saying it was a bad idea, and heres why: not good enough?

Call a spade a spade. If an idea is idiotic, call it such. One of the problems with this forum is that over the years the staff have strived to create such a cushioned environment that everyone's senses are heightened. Some members know that even a slight snipe could warrant moderator action so they don't think twice about reporting the post or making a big song and dance about a perceived insult until it gets noticed.