How the forum is doing (non rant)

[Azunara]

I agree, mod notes could be a good thing. I know, the one time I ever did anything too exciting in the RP forums (I stickied a thread. Whee.) I let them know. But that just seemed kind of a, "Well, yeah." thing to me. If you're going to change someone else's stuff, might as well let them know, so they know who did it so they can PM that person if need be.

More mods...Mmm, I can see where it helps so something like this doesn't happen again. [... ] when you have such a powerful job, and the same thing as in the Gears thread was going on, well...I'd lock it down, too. That many people, all pointing their hate at me? It'd make me a bit worried. So I can see how more people to help shoulder the burden and to help back you up and make choices would be an extreme help. Luckily, the RP forum is a very quiet, very tame (I seriously love you guys there. Thanks a bunch for being amazing.) and over all, I've never had to face what the other higher end mods have had to.

I think I'm just rehashing what others said and rambling at this point, so I should probably be quiet now, huh?

(Self Edit): Just wanted to add, no matter what happens, I just want to tell you mods and Mania, that even if you have power, scare me, and can ban me to oblivion, you're still awesome and get a thumb's up from me.

[SgtMakkie]

I have been around these forums for quite some time now and I would just like to say, what Makkie has written is just perfect, I could not have written it better myself. Thankyou Makkie.
SB.

Why thank you, Bows

In a perfect world moderation wouldn't be needed. So in my eyes the need for moderation is more a fault on the poster!

[Mozag]

In a perfect world moderation wouldn't be needed. So in my eyes the need for moderation is more a fault on the poster!

I agree, but not for the same reasons. In a perfect world moderation wouldn't be needed, because most things would be fine to talk about, and people wouldn't have some misguided opinions on what children/young teens should and should not be witness to.

Whatever the case may be, moderating the forums is a big job, and I would hate to point fingers at specific people. I hope most of us are grateful and appreciative of the work they put into it. The whole rant thread issue got out of hand, with rogue moderations, and everyone exploding about it. I can see why those posts were edited, but I don't see why the tags to the thread title, plus the earlier moderator comments (which Tyger kindly linked) had been added in the first place. I guess the problem here is that we don't have any clue what the age-limit is meant to be on these forums. I'm sure had we been told that this is a PG-10 site, nobody would have posted anything about their lady-bits (or used swear words or spoken about faeces, though this is seriously the first time I've heard that faecal matter is a PG-18 topic!).

[Adam-Savage]

Wow..I never expected this thread to explode like this so quickly. To much to read before I go to work. I shall have to read the rest after.

[Sarayana]

Thank you for making this thread Adam and Mania. Talking about things is always the best medicine.

I've been on these forums since it was attached to Mania's blog, and I have to say that there have been a few times when I felt like not logging in again. I love the people here, I love how open and mature the conversation is, how level-headed... and then we have these episodes where everything turns into a mob-mentality-fueled public bashing [...]. We all make mistakes, but [...] everyone ganged up [...] instead of taking a step back and saying "you know, this pissed me off, I don't want it to happen again, perhaps we should talk about it so it doesn't happen again" (granted we're talking now, which is one more reason I love you all ). [...]

Sgt. Makkie and Golden, the two of you said it perfectly. I agree with you Mozag, that censorship (even when self-imposed) shouldn't have to exist, but as things are we need it to some extent. And I completely believe that most everyone here is mature enough that it will only have to be minimally mod-driven.

[cowmuflage]

I don't see why we can't post mature things if we put warnings before it. If a [...] kid (who really shouldnt be playing wow it is a T for teen game after all) reads the warnings and keeps reading and then gets in trouble its his/hers fault and not the sites.

Allso I think a post in the art section about nudity would be great. About what we can and can't post. I'm sick of getting pms by people who think my work is porn and that it should get taken down becose Mania would not like it. Even after I send them a copy of the PM Mania sent me saying it was OK! becouse it was not sex and was only nipples some still bug me about it!. [...] PLease for the love of god put something abut that up I'm sick of self modding my work.

[SgtMakkie]

I'm sorry Cow, but I really disagree. Do you think said under 18 minor is really going to bother reading said post ?

As mature members of a community we have a responsibility to ensure the safety and well being of anyone that visits Petopia, each and every one of us. Not just the Moderators or Admins!!!! While WOW might be rated a teen game (remember ratings vary per country), we all know that many 12+ or younger kids play. With Petopia being so well known as THE go to site for all things related to Hunter Pets, we have no excuse to be shoddy just cause the title says NSFW or Mature content. These titles are more like honey to a bee, than a reason to move on and click on the next safe link!

If you want to discuss anything that breaks the idea of Teen content then really, in my opinion Petopia is not the place for you for that topic.

Also wanted to clarify, as it might seem my views are heavily swayed in a overly Conservative/ Christian way. I'm neither, so my views are based on respect and fairness. We have no right to impose our desire to converse in a certain way on minors who do not have the cognitive ability to reason at our level. I hope I don't tread on anyone's toes say that but it really is, to me at least, fact.

The Internet has become the springboard for freedom of speech, however, that still doesn't mean we should forget our responsibilities!!!

So my questions are,
1) What is so important about being able to say what you like, in any way you like? Over being a bit more mature and keeping certain things off a site where it has no place. Or simply writing them in a way that reflects the maturity of the person posting.
2) What gives you the right to impose your views in a way as to bring discredit to Petopia and/or desire to show questionable material on this site?

I don't mean to be offensive or negative. This thread was originally started to gender conversation and hopefully give a clear understanding of how people perceive this site. [...]

The ironic thing is, if it had been Mania that had acted in exactly the same way as Kalli, would the storm against Mania even of gotten started or would people of simply swallowed it as it was Mania herself?

[TygerDarkstorm]

You know, the MMO-C forums do just fine and I know [...] that people under 18 read that site. Their forums are full of way worse things than ours and yet they haven't been shut down and they don't have any issues. So why is it our forums, which seems to have a more mature community than theirs, have to be controlled [...] so that we don't post mature stuff?

If someone makes a mature post/thread and it has all the proper disclaimers, if a parent sees a kid reading it anyway, then that's not our fault or the site's fault. This is the internet, we don't have a responsibility to anyone but ourselves and seeing that the community gets correct information about hunters and their pets. Just because we post mature content doesn't mean that Petopia suddenly turns into a garbage dump.

The ironic thing is, if it had been Mania that had acted in exactly the same way as Kalli, would the storm against Mania even of gotten started or would people of simply swallowed it as it was Mania herself?

Just as I put my honest opinion here, if it had been Mania making rogue edits and deletions without saying anything to us about it, I would have said something just as I said something when Kalli did it.

[Vephriel]

I'd like to point out that my initial post others keep making reference to was written before things started going downhill. At the time I was casually noting that a legitimate mature topic might appear in that thread and as long as people were sensible about it, there shouldn't have been any problems. We'd never had trouble with members using common sense about these factors in the past, so it was a non-issue in my mind. Again, that was my personal thought previous to the entire blowout and I had no intention of that remark being an ironclad ruling. The situation changed, so that commentary cannot be applied to what arose afterwards.

We found ourselves thinking about the entire maturity topic, suddenly needing to establish a set of guidelines to follow. For future discussions within the topic, a blanket disclaimer tag within the thread title was what we decided on. Now, the whole situation would have been much easier to resolve if there wasn't such an immediate backlash to the simple addition of a Maturity tag to the the thread title. That is what the moderators decided to put in at that point in time since we couldn't know exactly what sort of rules/guidelines Mania would have liked to be created. After the initial mature post that started this whole train of thought, we realized there was the possibility of future mature subjects popping up. A quick tag added to the title was simple decision until we could take the time to sit down with Mania and work out the details. Not only was this decision violently opposed, but people afterwards also thought it would be a good idea to rebel against this by purposely pushing the limits and seeing just how far they could take it; coming up with graphic replies just because they could get away with it. Things could have been handled much better overall if ideas and thoughts had been presented in a logical fashion rather than angry vocalizations and deliberate sabotage attempts. Kalliope was on her own while these increasingly questionable subjects poured into the thread, taking advantage of our previous statements and intentionally going out of their way to make the most of the seemingly 'free reign'. I would have been just as stressed as she was in that situation, having to make split second decisions on what to allow due to the unforeseen abuse of the mature subject matter.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again. We're only humans. We're not infallible, but when we try to make new decisions for the community don't make things harder than us just for the sake of rebellion. It gets us nowhere and only leads to messy situations like what ended up happening here.

[Adam-Savage]

Ok my turn to say my thoughts..

[...] To what started the uprising..In my defense for the really nasty post I was putting up I was trying to prove a point and the point was that it had a tag and we where given the ok to post whatever we wanted. So I decided to test this and I pushed it right to the limit. [...] I would say I at least deserved a warning. At the same time I didn't get told, your going to far so can you knock it off or anything like that. I even said I was going to find some gross picture and post it. Nothing was said and it was enabled.

So I posted the pic and that's when I got banned almost right away. [...] The 2nd point of I was trying to make and was eventually seen was that ninja edits are just not cool. Nobody likes them and there was simply no need for them. That entire uprising may not of ever happened had one of the mods [...] simply put in a edit note explaining the reason for the edit. This caused a very loud protest from Saturo who made it very clear she was not impressed with the edit and requested several times it be reverted. So she eventually got fed up and changed it herself. The result was a ban from one of the mods. This didn't help and only made things worse. I understand why Vephriel locked the rant thread at the end as it was getting out of hand very quickly. I think she panicked and it was the only thing she could think of to stop it for the time being.

So in closing I admit I did go to far with my post and I apologize for it and for those who happened to read them. What was done is done and it's in the past. At the end of the day the only thing I would like to changed is a mod note to explain an edit they did. Also if a member is doing something they mods do not agree with then at least give them a warning first before giving an outright ban. Had I been told to knock it off with my gross post in the rant thread I would of.

So these are my thoughts. Feel free to comment.

[SgtMakkie]

You know, the MMO-C forums do just fine and I know [...] that people under 18 read that site. Their forums are full of way worse things than ours and yet they haven't been shut down and they don't have any issues. So why is it our forums, which seems to have a more mature community than theirs, have to be controlled [...] so that we don't post mature stuff?

It might well, does it make it right? Does it lower the tone of the site? Just because A site does X, doesn't me we have to. [...]

Well said Vephriel [...]

Nice post Adam.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I agree with what Adam said. The uprising happened because stuff was happening without us being told. [...]

And while Adam may have been purposely trying to push buttons, I'm pretty sure that Cow wasn't, and I know I wasn't in replying to her. I wasn't sure whether to PM her since the post had already been made in the thread, so I offered my help there. There was nothing graphic about it [...]. They were about 3-4, maybe 5 posts and then we moved on.

[TygerDarkstorm]

It might well, does it make it right? Does it lower the tone of the site? Just because A site does X, doesn't me we have to. [...]

Well said Vephriel [...]

Nice post Adam.

Why do we NOT have to have mature stuff here? We ARE mature people after all. The threads that are about getting information to the community about pets and whatnot, those should remain clean. But why should an off-topic thread have to follow the exact same rules? Especially if it's equipped with the proper warnings.

Like I said, if you're on the site as a minor and you get caught looking at something you're not supposed to, that's your fault.

[Golden]

At the same time I didn't get told, your going to far so can you knock it off or anything like that. I even said I was going to find some gross picture and post it. Nothing was said and it was enabled.

The thing is... You can't assume us to read every single post on the forums mere minutes within posting, to react to 'threats' (really bad word for it, but can't think of a better one) that may be between the lines somewhere, or even think someone would actually make those 'threats' reality.

Now, I wasn't around when the gross image drama happened and I do not know how clear this 'threat' was and how long it took you to actually go to the images, but I just wanted to point out that we are no Big Brothers watching everything at all times. A silence shouldn't be taken as a permission to do something.

[cowmuflage]

I wasnt trying to push buttons with my post in the grind my gears thread I just needed to vent and maybe ask for help on the subject as I know theres a bunch of older women on here. I put warnings up I did my best. [...]

[Vephriel]

Again, it all comes down to the fact that there was no protocol for any of that at the time. We were waiting on Mania, but others felt the need to continue discussing the topics as we tried to figure out a good rule of thumb. We were forced to change our minds continuously as the situation evolved, and no one would listen to the gentle prods to just use common sense for now until something more concrete could be decided on.

We're not saying no one can ever post anything mature ever again. We simply needed to wait until Mania herself returned in order to figure out exactly what she wanted to be done. No, the situation was not handled ideally. However members were not making it easy to deal with at all, so the mess just escalated. The phrase 'at our wit's end' comes to mind. Now that Mania's back we can outline basic rules to follow so that there are no misconceptions in the future.

[Golden]

I wasnt trying to push buttons with my post in the grind my gears thread I just needed to vent and maybe ask for help on the subject as I know theres a bunch of older women on here. I put warnings up I did my best. [...]

Aww don't feel bad. :( [...] your more-mature-than-normal discussion simply happened in the middle of other mature drama and was taken in simply for being there at the wrong time.

[TygerDarkstorm]

We're not saying no one can ever post anything mature ever again.

Thank you for that. I was starting to get the impression that we're not supposed to ever post anything mature, especially after reading Makkie's posts.

[SgtMakkie]

Like I said, if you're on the site as a minor and you get caught looking at something you're not supposed to, that's your fault.

[...] I never said any mature content either, just it seemed to be the idea of a few to swear, curse etc and post images regardless of who might look. Why isn't it our responsibility to be smart about how we handle things? Like I said right in my first post, where do we control age etc?

Everything you write here is your responsibility.. Yes you have no control over who can read it, as the Petopia forums are open. However, does that give you any right to ignore the above (i.e. being smart)?

[Adam-Savage]

Like I said, if you're on the site as a minor and you get caught looking at something you're not supposed to, that's your fault.

Well unless we have people here that are like 8 or something then I'm sure anything that could be said here is nothing they have not heard/said/is around before..Just because someone is 14 or 15 doesn't mean they need to be treated like there a child. My guild is like that. You really have to watch what you say because we have "minors" in the guild..