" Really? You want to have a mod popularity contest every month? You think that an individual moderator's value to the site can best be summed up in a user poll? "
@eroticfishcake: Yeah i hear ya. I just feel that their is almost the problem of sterility with things as they are now. There needs to be more consistency with the moderation, and also more communication between the mods and users. For instance, instead of just automatically shutting down a thread (unless it is obviously troll, spam etc) they should talk with the OP first and see if he can change it slightly to adhere to the rules. I just feel there needs to be a change somewhere. Probably won't happen, but unless you ask you never know.
@erinfizz: People would only vote aggainst Mods, not for them. Meaning half the mods would die a case of obscurity, like I have never seen you before. As for only half the mods being useful, I would remind that half the mods are devoted towards wiki pages and therefore are not as visible. Also, the most any mod can do is ban you. Not to be all Marcus Arrelius on you and say things don't matter, but being banned is not equivilant to the 12th level of hell.
Without passing judgement on our mods, I know their job is hard. I used to mod a forum (and in it's crazy decline, even admin for a while, that was horrible), and yeah it's a fuckin' mess. People want you to take sides on issues you don't care about, people want you to fix this, edit that, delete this... ugh. You feel like the bitch of the forum.
I have my opinions on one or two of them maybe, but honestly, it's a tough job, and at the end of the day, I think they do alright.
@Stang: However you can take issue with a decision when the ToS doesn't seem to be either followed (suggested by the OP for the Yemen thread) or a moderation was taken place over something that didn't seem to be against the ToS (suggested by the OP for the Amazon thread). I think the mods do a great job, but not every decision can be a right one, that's just how it goes, and to me it isn't wrong to question when you think a bad decision was made.
I really want to say some stuff but I'm not gonna. Anyway I agree the topic on Yemen should be locked. I wanted to see people opinions are the discussion I've been watching on the news. But, it turned into an insult here and one there and it went to far and should definitely be locked. I'm sorry for creating so much chaos yesterday. Oh and for the record I never said America should go to war with Yemen. Just wanted to clarify on that.
@extremeradical: Cause if they locked something that needed to be locked the majority of people here would agree and, if like me, probably wanna thank them for getting rid of something so stupid. However, if they lock something that we think doesn't need to be, we need to tell them. After all, we're all here to relax and have some fun amongst some fellow gamers and should be allowed to express our views.
I've seen some recent threads that were locked that I would preferred to see cleaned up since there was nothing wrong with the topic itself but other then that they have been doing a great job.
@AgentJ
said:
" I've said this before a few times. I think the mods here for the most part do a very good job when they are around, but often there is no one on to lock the spam threads as they show up. "
A unfortunate through yes, this is mostly the case when it is around midday in western-Europe. There is not all that much activity around that time but a single malicious thread can do a lot of damage even then if it is not locked down or deleted directly. The FF13 spoiler thread being a recent example.
@Rallier: I don't know where all the Moderators are from, but I agree there has to be some sort of way to try and find moderators from across the planet so that there should always be at least a couple on. There are plenty of non-americans on here so it wouldn't be that hard.
" @erinfizz: I wouldn't call it a popularity contest, but feed back and concerns. eroticfishcake mentioned a 'Kudos' system might work. The fact remains that many users on this site feel that there are some lock-happy mods on here yet many would rather stay quiet cause they don't want to be kicked off. I just don't think that's how it should be. Giantbomb is unique and the best in much that it does, and we deserve it as a community to be able to have our say a bit more on how things run. "
I understand why would you want that in a forum but I just think it's not necessary here, right now I think that could be more bad than good. If someone has something to say to a moderator, just send an PM. This is because I think they are not doing too many "mistakes" to discuss them in public.
" @Rallier: I don't know where all the Moderators are from, but I agree there has to be some sort of way to try and find moderators from across the planet so that there should always be at least a couple on. There are plenty of non-americans on here so it wouldn't be that hard. "
@Bombs_Away: The Amazon thread was locked because it was a question about a specific customer service issue that would be best addressed by contacting their excellent customer service department.
Furthermore, to expand on what Erinfizz said, there will be no monthly "Who is your favorite moderator" polls. It's not a popularity contest, and even Jeff himself said that a moderator who is universally loved by the community probably isn't doing his job.
As always, anyone with specific complaints about a moderator or the moderators as a group can either send a PM to all community moderators, pm the individual moderator you have a problem with about a specific action that was taken, or email gb_community@giantbomb.com.
Wait that Yemen topic is STILL open? I saw that go up and it should have been locked then. I didn't see the amazon thread, but my only guess for why it was locked was because it was seen as violating the no selling rule. As far as the mods in general are concerned, I think the Giant Bomb mods do a damn fine job and are more than fair. There are some you see more than others, but they are all good in my eyes. The topics I have seen get locked deserved to get locked and the mods are very fair and understanding from my experience. Other sites I frequent have mods who would perma-ban you on the spot for creating a topic like this. The fact that that hasn't happened here should be evidence enough to show how good the mods are here. Also, I can't see a popularity poll ever working. It's impossible to actually gauge the mod teams performance unless you stalk them and the site 24 hours a day, which no one does, and in a popularity poll everyone would just vote for their favorite person and not for who did the best job, which is impossible to determine.
@MB: But why can't there be a public board, where people can express there concerns and we, the community, can see your answers. It's all very well that we PM you, but no one else will see that. We need a more public, open system so that we now what is going on. I also find it a bit disheartening that you immediately dismiss any ideas that we've put forward, this is the kind of attitude I'm not happy with.
That amazon thread seems like a very borderline case. One one hand, it isn't breaking any of our strict rules. However, there are far better places to ask those questions (like Amazon's customer services, as MB suggested). And on top of that it seemed like people were starting to spam, by repeatedly quoting the same "I don't know the answer to any of your questions" comment. While it wasn't out of hand yet, there was a good chance it was going to continue into a nonsense spam thread. Sometimes it is better to stop these things before they escalate into a major spamfest.
As for the Yemen thread - we can't deal with what you don't tell us about. We can't look at every thread on the site, so we are reliant on users to report these things to us. Either via the flagging system, or by using the PM all link you can find at the bottom of the Site Rules & FAQ's thread. We have received no PM's about the thread, and no flags. We need you to inform us about these things.
" @MB: But why can't there be a public board, where people can express there concerns and we, the community, can see your answers. It's all very well that we PM you, but no one else will see that. We need a more public, open system so that we now what is going on. I also find it a bit disheartening that you immediately dismiss any ideas that we've put forward, this is the kind of attitude I'm not happy with. "
Please feel free to send your suggestions to gb_community@giantbomb.com.
@MattyFTM: What do you think about a public board, a permanent one, where we can voice our concerns and you can answer us on there. That way the whole community can see whats being done.
" @MB: But why can't there be a public board, where people can express there concerns and we, the community, can see your answers. It's all very well that we PM you, but no one else will see that. We need a more public, open system so that we now what is going on. I also find it a bit disheartening that you immediately dismiss any ideas that we've put forward, this is the kind of attitude I'm not happy with. "
Please feel free to send your suggestions to gb_community@giantbomb.com. "
I'm sorry, but it is this behaviour exactly that causes the friction between us all. Is it really that hard for you to answer a question directly?
I don't see why the mods have to answer anything, jeff, the gang and all the mods can do whatever they want. We don't pay the GB staff for anything. We just lurk around their site that they run and pay for for our own free entertainment because we find them interesting.
We are at the mercy of their decisions and if they fuck up bad they will simply lose users. I don't see where any of us have a right to complain without paying for a service. This could be someone's personal blog and you'd have the exact same situation. Wouldn't it be odd to complain about wanting someone to have a better blog?
" @MattyFTM: What do you think about a public board, a permanent one, where we can voice our concerns and you can answer us on there. That way the whole community can see whats being done. "
It's not fundamentally a bad idea, but I think most people would probably prefer to have a private discussion with the mods about specific issues. When I was an active member of GameSpot, I used to hate having to post on the public "Ask The Mods" board when I had a question about a moderation decision. I'd have much rather discussed it with them privately, but I never got a response to any PM's I sent them. I much prefer how GB deals with moderation issues, through private PM's.
And threads like this that crop up occasionally are fine for gauging less specific concerns or praises that the community has for us.
@slacker4life: That is a very poor argument. Facebook is free, yet that has had many complaints thrown at it for how it works and how its set up and they've changed it. If you set up a site with the intention of creating a community, you need to accept that the community will have to have a say.
@MB: And I'm sure it's not, you have to only create a permanent topic and leave it there. Let people ask away, and you reply with serious responses. To be fair, I doubt anyone would want to ask you anything though with the stance you take.
@MattyFTM: OK then...Well this seems as far it will go then. Thanks for listening anyway Matty, good to know we have some decent Mods on here. Keep up the good work.
That Amazon thread lock was surprising, I know first hand that Amazon customer service can take an age to answer a query. especially if concerns private sellers, and not they're own shit.
yet when there is yet another thread about "Who's your favorite Actor?" or "Do you smoke?" these are allowed to stay.
You forgot "How old are you?", yet another one of those popped up yesterday, and wasn't locked to my knowledge.
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