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David Bailey
28th-March-2007, 03:13 PM
How much should thread creators define the parameters of that thread?

As the moment, threads are moderated for "on-topicness" (!), and individual posts are moderated for content, but nothing else. And frankly, given the regular outcry about thread splitting, I'm not desparately keen to increase the moderation load.

But it's been suggested that thread creators should be able to define who should and shouldn't contribute, and what is / isn't a sensible vote in a poll.

Is that reasonable, or is that too much control?

straycat
28th-March-2007, 03:25 PM
[THE CONTENTS OF THIS POST HAVE BEEN DEEMED UNSUITABLE FOR THIS THREAD]

GIVEN REASON: "That **$%£ Straycat again"

[PLEASE CONTACT A MODERATOR IF FURTHER EXPLANATION IS REQUIRED]

SilverFox
28th-March-2007, 03:26 PM
As the moment, threads are moderated for "on-topicness" (!),Unless it's David James posting irrelevance.
and individual posts are moderated for contentUnless it's David James using the f word in a childish manner.

But it's been suggested that thread creators should be able to define who should and shouldn't contribute,Has it? I would ask you to qualify that statement, but you don't let little things such as the truth and facts get in the way of your little personal grudge as proven twice already.

Sparkles
28th-March-2007, 03:27 PM
But it's been suggested that thread creators should be able to define who should and shouldn't contribute, and what is / isn't a sensible vote in a poll.

I don't think that this has "been suggested".

I think what has been mentioned is that it seems irrelavant to post on a topic that one is unlikely to be involved in the subject matter of, and that it might be counter productive to answer every single option on a poll when it is pretty unlikely that every option could apply to one.

:flower:

straycat
28th-March-2007, 03:29 PM
blah

Did you remember to stamp your foot when you said all that? :whistle:

SilverFox
28th-March-2007, 03:32 PM
Did you remember to stamp your foot when you said all that? :whistle:Haven't you got some patch of grass to go and scent?..:wink:

David Bailey
28th-March-2007, 03:38 PM
I don't think that this has "been suggested".
Yes, you're right - a suggestion implies a positive contribution. Sorry about that.

OK, then, it has been implied that thread creation should provide a greater level of control of "who can post", and "what's a sensible vote", how's that?


I think what has been mentioned is that it seems irrelavant to post on a topic that one is unlikely to be involved in the subject matter of
OK, but to be clear, do you think that thread creators should be able to define / control this sort of thing, or not?

For example, if you created a thread "Cake suggestions for Jango", or whatever, would you want me (or anyone from, say, Scotland) not to post on that thread simply because it's unlikely we'd eat them?


and that it might be counter productive to answer every single option on a poll when it is pretty unlikely that every option could apply to one.
Well, we've had plenty of other silly votes before - yes, often by me, usually on the "who's going where" polls - but I've not seen thread creators get all up in arms about it previously however... I've certainly never had a thread creator tell me what I can and can't click on.

In fact, lots of polls have a "click" option for that very purpose.

(Although RobD's now wised up on poll creation strategy so we can't multi-click on them alas :tears: )


Did you remember to stamp your foot when you said all that? :whistle:
Ahhh, the bliss of a properly-working ignore function :wink: - :worthy: to Franck.

SilverFox
28th-March-2007, 03:55 PM
OK, then, it has been implied that thread creation should provide a greater level of control of "who can post", and "what's a sensible vote", how's that? Again, a load of old tosh. Here's the original post with nothing implied or suggested about thread creation providing a greater level of control. It merely questions David James' dubious motives.


We were actually after the opinions of those who were likely to attend a UTOPIA all-nighter. I do apologise if Rocky didn't make that clear in his first post.

I fail to see why you have joined this debate seeing as you emailed us stating that you would never attend another UTOPIA event (PM if you want the details folks).

In post number 14 you also make a sarcastic reference to the fact that even though Rocky is on your ignore list, you can still see this thread.

To top it off you then sabotage the poll by childishly voting for every option.

There is a good debate going on here and it doesn't need to be hijacked by a moderator with a personal grudge.<!-- google_ad_section_end -->



OK, but to be clear, do you think that thread creators should be able to define / control this sort of thing, or not?Why the question to Sparkles? It's only David James who's made up this non existent statement.

EDIT: This is just to clarify to the more intelligent members of this forum what David James is going on about.

Martin
28th-March-2007, 03:55 PM
How much should thread creators define the parameters of that thread?

As the moment, threads are moderated for "on-topicness" (!), and individual posts are moderated for content, but nothing else. And frankly, given the regular outcry about thread splitting, I'm not desparately keen to increase the moderation load.

But it's been suggested that thread creators should be able to define who should and shouldn't contribute, and what is / isn't a sensible vote in a poll.

Is that reasonable, or is that too much control?

off-topic, makes the thread so much more interesting... until of course it gets split and you cannot find it............:grin:

LMC
28th-March-2007, 03:57 PM
*wonders whether there will soon be a whole new forum meaning to "Sack the DJ"* :devil:

Sparkles
28th-March-2007, 04:20 PM
OK, but to be clear, do you think that thread creators should be able to define / control this sort of thing, or not?

For example, if you created a thread "Cake suggestions for Jango", or whatever, would you want me (or anyone from, say, Scotland) not to post on that thread simply because it's unlikely we'd eat them?

No, I'm not saying that at all, I think if you want to post then you should post.
I'm not speaking in specific terms here, merely general ones; and as I'm sure you can understand, ticking every option on a poll adds little to a debate or decision making process, and if a post on such as thread as you have suggested above said something along the lines of "I think a roast dinner would be much better than cake because cakes are pathetic" I'm sure you can understand that I might consider that post to be a waste of time, especially if the person posting it was not even going to be at the event.

Clicking every option and posting things that have little relevance are similar in a way to graffiti - it's an eyesore (generally) and helps no-one.

I am not saying that you or any other individual person has done this or is doing it; and if someone did I'm not saying that they shouldn't... I just didn't like what people have written elsewhere being taken out of context and put in a new thread, because that's how arguments start, and I hate arguing :nice:

Sparkles
28th-March-2007, 04:26 PM
Having just said all of that, I go back and read a thread that proves me wrong and that some people do think they should be allowed to control who posts what on their threads :rolleyes:. I guess you can't win 'em all.

Just for the record, no, i don't think a thread creator should be allowed to control who posts what on their thread. If they don't like a particular post they can report it to the moderation team and that's all.

FoxyFunkster
28th-March-2007, 04:31 PM
*wonders whether there will soon be a whole new forum meaning to "Sack the DJ"* :devil:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

David Bailey
28th-March-2007, 04:34 PM
No, I'm not saying that at all, I think if you want to post then you should post.
Thanks :)


I'm not speaking in specific terms here, merely general ones; and as I'm sure you can understand, ticking every option on a poll adds little to a debate or decision making process
Yes, it's silly, but almost all forum polls are silly - and if you think about it, the fact that a single vote can "skew the results" shows how unrepresentative the results are.

The only polls that I think are generally useful are the ones with significant numbers of votes - e.g. the "age" one.


, and if a post on such as thread as you have suggested above said something along the lines of "I think a roast dinner would be much better than cake because cakes are pathetic" I'm sure you can understand that I might consider that post to be a waste of time, especially if the person posting it was not even going to be at the event.
Sure, but my point was not so much about one post, whether silly or sensible, more about ownership. God knows, there are enough silly posts in most threads as it is.


Clicking every option and posting things that have little relevance are similar in a way to graffiti - it's an eyesore (generally) and helps no-one.
Which, again, lots of people do and have done in the past. And for that matter, spoiling a ballot paper is a long-standing and legitimate action in polls.

But, again to be clear, do you think this is something that should be moderated, or something you think should just be generally disapproved as poor etiquette?

For example:

*wonders whether there will soon be a whole new forum meaning to "Sack the DJ"* :devil:
How dare you post this nonsense on my thread :mad: :na:

David Bailey
28th-March-2007, 04:36 PM
Having just said all of that, I go back and read a thread that proves me wrong and that some people do think they should be allowed to control who posts what on their threads :rolleyes:. I guess you can't win 'em all.
You know, you're not going to get anywhere on here by being all reasonable, rational, and - heresy - admitting when you;'ve made mistakes... :rolleyes: :D

Stop her, people, before it catches on!

Martin
28th-March-2007, 04:37 PM
has this thread been split?

oh ****

...

David Bailey
28th-March-2007, 04:48 PM
Just to clarify, this is related to something I was thinking about a while back with the "Gold Members" thread (http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/forum-technical-problems-questions-suggestions/10536-gold-membership-good-idea.html).

The concept was that a putative Gold Member could have a bunch of funky features, possibly including more control, moderator-y level, of "their threads".

So, when I said, in that thread:

Weeelll.... I dunno, but how about some level of control over threads you create? I'm sure a lot of people would love to share the whole joy of the moderation experience.
That's the sort of thing I was thinking about.

However, people weren't generally that enthusiastic at that time - have people changed their minds?


has this thread been split?

oh ****

...
YOU'RE DOING IT AGAIN! IT'S MY THREAD! STOP IT NOW!! :na:

LMC
28th-March-2007, 04:53 PM
How dare you post this nonsense on my thread :mad: :na:
Just wanted to check you weren't ignoring me :innocent:

Oh, er, thread ownership. Right. OK.

Wot Sparkles said :yeah: :respect:

straycat
28th-March-2007, 04:53 PM
YOU'RE DOING IT AGAIN! IT'S MY THREAD! STOP IT NOW!! :na:

The funny thing is - you take one loose thread. And you pull it.... you know you shouldn't be doing it, but you just can't help yourself....

... and before you know it, the whole forum starts to come unravelled! And STILL the compulsion continues, and you keep picking at that one loose thread - you might even be threatening the whole of existence, but you just can't stop yourse*

Trousers
28th-March-2007, 05:06 PM
How can any sensible person in a public forum initiate a thread and expect to exclude certain people or groups from replying?

It's discrimination, on grounds yet unknown but simply discrimination.

If the Forum had Interest groups as a subset of the membership then that could by virtue of the fact that the interest group was not open to all the forum members, as a right, be used to direct threads at a more focused group. You could have groups like Lovers Corner for DT, Gav, Beo etc; a Grumpy Old Men Corner for DJ and ermmm yeah ok for DJ. I'm sure that the Franckmeister could get his web designer to create these membership groups and allow or disallow visibility of threads to those in or out of the groups like the registered members can see stuff OUTSIDE but spiders and bots can't.

It does however hint at elitism even more than just being a member of the forum to those who know of the forum but are too scared to join. A Virtual Cliquey Talented Corner to coine a phrase.

More importantly though the initial point DJ raised was about Thread Ownership and he alluded to other discussions ongoing and current in the forum. I feel it should be highlighted that the Idea of Thread Ownership would not have been raised but for the trend of Thread Splitting which hoists unbidden Thread Ownership on the unsuspecting poster, who may have possibly wandered one post too far from the initial subject.

Rocky
28th-March-2007, 05:10 PM
How much should thread creators define the parameters of that thread?

As the moment, threads are moderated for "on-topicness" (!), and individual posts are moderated for content, but nothing else. And frankly, given the regular outcry about thread splitting, I'm not desparately keen to increase the moderation load.

But it's been suggested that thread creators should be able to define who should and shouldn't contribute, and what is / isn't a sensible vote in a poll.

Is that reasonable, or is that too much control?

Your thread actually came out of my post on this subject so actually it's not your thread it's mine - so that clears that up as you seem intent on claiming ownership on my idea:rofl:

Thread 'ownership' is of course entirely reasonable when one considers that it appears that a very small number of forumites only purpose in life is to post fateous and irrelevant comments at every opportunity.

In this case if someone is known to you as having put you on their ignore list it makes absolute sense that you should have the opportunity to not allow them to post on a thread you have created. Lets face it, if you create a thread by definition your posts would feature quite heavily. If the person that has put you on their ignore list chooses to post they then do so in the knowledge that they cannot see a large part of the debate - so how relevant and informed can their comments or opinion be?


*wonders whether there will soon be a whole new forum meaning to "Sack the DJ"* :devil:

More like sack the moderator...

Actually now there's an idea.. can we have a poll Lory please on whether the forum as a whole consider DJ a worthwhile moderator to have on the Forum? That would be entirely democratic and would give us all an opportunity to really see if it's just myself and SF who are being unreasonable or whether the members of the Forum think so too.

Maybe someone would also like to quote my post so that DJ can see it and also vote - would be interesting to see if he votes in ALL the sections on that poll too:rofl:

Dreadful Scathe
28th-March-2007, 05:11 PM
Its ridiculous. Whoever suggested this should be banned from the forum :)

Just because someone starts a thread does not mean:

they know anything about the topic
e.g. I could start a thread on law and try to steer it a certain way but my knowledge is very small - to say the least. It would be better for all concerned if some truth and experience came out in threads.

they want to claim any ownership of it
some people are more attached to a post than they are their own left bum cheek, others start a new thread and never even read it again :)

Martin
28th-March-2007, 05:26 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin
has this thread been split?

oh ****

...

YOU'RE DOING IT AGAIN! IT'S MY THREAD! STOP IT NOW!!

Sorry thread master..........
Once upon a time,
I could insult Trampy, coz every one else does
I could flame Andy, coz it is fun
I could cuddle LL (coz he is always nice to me)
I could insult Mikey (just coz we go back many years and he knows I don't mean it)
I could show :awe: to lily and :yeah: to DavidB coz we are friends
I could neg rep Lorraine, just coz I was trying out neg rep and how it worked (even though I love her lots)

ho hum, the old days.................

Ghost
28th-March-2007, 07:50 PM
While I wouldn't be interested in "banning" certain people from my threads, I did suggest (http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/forum-technical-problems-questions-suggestions/7071-off-topic-posts.html)a while ago that the thread creator could use the thread icons (I've used a light bulb for this post)


So the author could show that the thread was important (at least to them) and so respectfully ask people to not start wandering off (the benefit with the icon is that for certain people who feel they may not be able to resist, they could just not look at the thread.)

So the option for determining how heavily moderated a thread is may be of interest to some. I've no idea how practical this is though.

David Bailey
28th-March-2007, 08:11 PM
So the option for determining how heavily moderated a thread is may be of interest to some. I've no idea how practical this is though.
Oh yes, I keep forgetting about those icons... Well, I don't think it could hurt, certainly.

Magic Hans
28th-March-2007, 11:31 PM
Mines a big 'NO' to individual thread ownership. As far as I'm concerned, any thread, once commended to the forum, is the property of the forum.

There will, no doubt, be serious and non-serious contributions ... and maybe some malicious 'bullying' type posts/responses. Nastiness is, of course, up to victims to report and moderators to address.

If a thread is steered off by contributers then so be it! ... that's kind of tough really! [certainly it's happened to me at least once ... I tried, in vain, to steer it back to the original topic] It clearly suggests that the forum is not interested in the topic presented.

As for doing a poll on any particular moderator, that's too personal and out of order from my point of view. Moderators as a whole? Good idea!

It seems that the mods do a pretty good job overall.

Well done chaps!!

:respect: :respect: :respect:

[reputation in my back hand please!! :D ]

PS ... any chance of hyper linking split thread to the original?
With to posts saying: Thread has been split to [Hyper link to first post with title]
Thread has been split from [Hyper link to last relevant post with title]

Ghost
28th-March-2007, 11:56 PM
PS ... any chance of hyper linking split thread to the original?
With to posts saying: Thread has been split to [Hyper link to first post with title]
Thread has been split from [Hyper link to last relevant post with title]
I was going to ask something similar, but I think all you have to do is click on one of the quotes in the first post to be re-driected to the original thread (though I haven't actually tested this yet)

Lory
29th-March-2007, 12:31 AM
I could neg rep Lorraine, just coz I was trying out neg rep and how it worked (even though I love her lots)

ho hum, the old days.................

Hey, I remember that :what: It was worth it, for all the making up though! :wink: :D

DavidY
29th-March-2007, 07:38 AM
I was going to ask something similar, but I think all you have to do is click on one of the quotes in the first post to be re-driected to the original thread (though I haven't actually tested this yet)But that only works one way. If you're on the original thread, it's not always easy to find where the split posts have gone to.

David Bailey
29th-March-2007, 08:46 AM
PS ... any chance of hyper linking split thread to the original?
With to posts saying: Thread has been split to [Hyper link to first post with title]
Thread has been split from [Hyper link to last relevant post with title]
There's no automated way of doing this, although it's probably a good idea - maybe someone who knows about vBulletin could answer?

We could do it manually, of course, and I think possibly we should - it's more work for us, but it's not as if we split threads every day anyway - maybe a few times a month is all.

So yes, I'm happy to put both forward and back links - back links as edit comments at the "thread start" point, and forward links as a separate post in the original thread.

Gadget
30th-March-2007, 08:27 AM
As soon as you start "allowing/dissallowing" people from posting on a thread, you will destroy the forum community. It's a public forum with doors open to everyone and anyone - similar to the dance that spawned it.

And similarly; if you only allow access to specific knowledge by the colour of underwear you show, then prejudice and lots of "isms" will make this a very small band of people who think on themselves as the 'elite' who's opinions are law... actually we are treading close to this line already...

TA Guy
30th-March-2007, 10:52 AM
The only thing in my mind that I would guard against is the off-topic one.

Whilst it might be great fun for two, three, maybe more people to chat about their nose hair in a thread discussing what's on next week for example, it can get annoying to those not taking part in the nose hair discussion. At least that's how I feel.

If people want to chat about whatever pops into their heads, use the chat forum. It's what it's there for.

Constant derailing of threads is something 99.99% of forums guard against for good reason.

Just my 2 cents.