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Notes on Warning Points


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So I received my first warning and was, to put it mildly, very confused by it so PM'd the moderator in question to ask what it was about. He gave me the reason which whilst I disagree with it bought up some fundamental issues in the way warnings are currently issued.

 

- You don't get e-mail notifications about warnings and it's pretty hard to spot them.

- There is no connection between the warning and the post the person was warned over.

 

These two things combined mean the entire thing is very confusing. Especially when I got a generic message in it saying "Posting Spam". As someone that tries to follow the rules and post thoughtfully it left me questioning what I'd actually done wrong as I couldn't think of anything I'd posted recently that was at all spammy. A simple link to the offending post would have greatly increased the usefulness of the warning both to me and other moderators who might want to check out previous warnings.

 

The moderator in question said until Arnie starts paying him he won't be sending out individual messages for warnings as it's a waste of his time (although presumably has to warn individuals one at a time?) so he posted in the thread about it. Unfortunately when I read that I didn't think it was directed at posts left in the thread (I thought there had been some deleted kefuffle) and in itself was very an unclear "Warning points issued for spam."

 

The irony is in replying to my PMs explaining things he probably wasted more time than he saved but there we go.

 

I'm also not sure what you consider spam as a series of snarky on-topic one-liners seems appropriate to an Off-Topic thread and even one of the other Global Mods joined in! Or did he get a warning too? Especially as it petered out by itself long before the mod took action. Anyway the offending post is here.

 

So my general recommendation would be where possible to link the offending post into the warning description. If that's not possible a warning in the thread seems appropriate but it needs to be directed at the people who were warned (e.g. "Chris, Ben and Luke please don't continue spamming the thread or you will be issued with further warning points").

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It's a nice idea, but I'm afraid I'm with the moderator (whoever it was - I haven't looked at your warn points yet).

 

Frankly, this is a voluntary role we serve, and we get a hell of a lot of grief for it.

 

The majority of us have full time occupations and try to fit in the work we do here around that work. We also find that a lot of people breach forum rules despite them being clear and easy to locate and members having agreed to follow them when signing up for this free service we offer.

 

Given a combination of these two factors, we simply do not have time to deal with each thread or start inserting html code into warn notes just because someone forgot what the rules were and needed reminding how they can be broken.

 

On many occasions we do issue warn points for minor things - I'm sure this is the case for you Chimpy, as I'm surprised to even here you have even been warned. Generally I know you to be (on the forums, at least - I don't know you in real life so I can't comment there) quite an intelligent, mature poster. This is unfortunate but often it's the best way of preventing people from embarking on a downward spiral of rule breaking which results in them being suspended. We have learnt to our cost that where former 'personalities' on the forum were given some leeway, their willingness to blatently disregard the rules and make the whole forum a lot less pleasant for everyone else led to them being banned. On this basis I think a minor warn to let members know they're sailing a little close to the wind is much better than giving people enough rope to hang themselves with.

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Its an important issue, people forget that these political discussions that we have in the arnie's airsoft offtopic section are very important, and through the discourse we can really solve all the issues that are discussed, people that spam them have no idea what is at stake..

Edited by Skarclaw
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It's a nice idea, but I'm afraid I'm with the moderator (whoever it was - I haven't looked at your warn points yet).

 

Frankly, this is a voluntary role we serve, and we get a hell of a lot of grief for it.

 

Yeah I'm well aware of the grief you get. I've done voluntary stints as a Global Mod on UKAN, ASCUK and Wannabe.

 

The majority of us have full time occupations and try to fit in the work we do here around that work. We also find that a lot of people breach forum rules despite them being clear and easy to locate and members having agreed to follow them when signing up for this free service we offer.

 

Given a combination of these two factors, we simply do not have time to deal with each thread or start inserting html code into warn notes just because someone forgot what the rules were and needed reminding how they can be broken.

 

So when you spot a post that needs warning points issued for it you cannot right click on the post link in the top right corner that gives a direct link to the post in question, choose "Copy Link Location" and press CTRL-P to paste it into the box you are issuing the warning from (in Firefox). Also if you can't do that it doesn't discount the fact the mod in question notified everyone in the thread but in a manner that was completely obtuse.

 

On many occasions we do issue warn points for minor things - I'm sure this is the case for you Chimpy, as I'm surprised to even here you have even been warned. Generally I know you to be (on the forums, at least - I don't know you in real life so I can't comment there) quite an intelligent, mature poster. This is unfortunate but often it's the best way of preventing people from embarking on a downward spiral of rule breaking which results in them being suspended. We have learnt to our cost that where former 'personalities' on the forum were given some leeway, their willingness to blatently disregard the rules and make the whole forum a lot less pleasant for everyone else led to them being banned. On this basis I think a minor warn to let members know they're sailing a little close to the wind is much better than giving people enough rope to hang themselves with.

 

Well this is nice and all but I only happened to notice my warn level increase by chance and had zero idea what I had done. How would that allow me to modify my behaviour? Another part of my complaint was the lack of notification that you have received a warning at all! Surely this is configurable in the board software?

 

This leads on to the fact that the mod in question ended up having to field my PMs questioning the warning which would hve taken up vastly more of his personal time than simply posting in the link as outlined above.

Edited by Chimpy
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When a +/- warn point is created there's an optional PM blank in the lower portion of the "create warn window" that we can fill out with an explaination and/or notification, usually isn't filled out, usually to save time which is usually canceled out by explaination PMs.

 

While no explaination or notification was given to you when you received the warn I think the post the mod made in the thread seemed a bit obvious, sort of a "you know who you are" rather than naming names since warn points are supposed to be anon. The spam should have been removed from the thread also.

 

I'd be a bit more annoyed with the 2 pages of spam and ridicule on another member that mod created in another thread

http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/forums/inde...t&p=2196191

 

But it's okay when we do it, it's all in good fun and we know how to be fair right?

http://www.arniesairsoft.co.uk/forums/inde...t&p=2196552

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When a +/- warn point is created there's an optional PM blank in the lower portion of the "create warn window" that we can fill out with an explaination and/or notification, usually isn't filled out, usually to save time which is usually canceled out by explaination PMs.

 

Well it's nice to know the forum software supports it nice and simply!

 

While no explaination or notification was given to you when you received the warn I think the post the mod made in the thread seemed a bit obvious, sort of a "you know who you are" rather than naming names since warn points are supposed to be anon. The spam should have been removed from the thread also.

 

My issue was that the warning was posted quite a few hours after I made the post. I did see the mods post in that thread but there was no link made between that and it relating to me as I didn't see the warn for another dayish (plus when I saw it I didn't immediately relate the two as I didn't have the foggiest that my post was considered spam). As I mentioned before I expected the mods post to be about stuff that had been deleted out of the thread.

 

I don't really care about the warn itself beyond me thinking the reasoning was a bit ridiculous. This thread is more of a suggestion to improve the usefulness of the warning system for both the mods and us end users. It's becoming clear that the forum software already supports my suggestions without it being a massive click-fest or time sink for the volunteer involved.

Edited by Chimpy
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If folks are happy with the html link provided as raw text in the warn dialogue (rather than with html tags referenced), I'd concede that I personally would be happy to follow a rule.

 

That said, as I'm merely an admin by proxy, so I'll put this to the rest of the team. If we're in agreement I'll be happy to make it part of the process of implementing warn.

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