On 64D discontent

Posted by kevboh on Dec. 17, 2006, 8:01 p.m.

Lately there has been a lot of blogging about the problems with the community at large. See <a href="http://64digits.com/users/index.php?userid=Arcalyth&cmd=comments&id=11549">this</a> and <a href="http://64digits.com/users/index.php?userid=REZ&cmd=comments&id=11224">this</a>. That's just the stuff I could find in a two-second search, but yeah.

I want to address mainly the people who:

1) complain about new users

2) complain about moderators

3) complain about game acceptance

4) complain

So here is my opinion, mainly in reaction to the comments in arcalyth's blog (first link).

There should be 1 game moderator. Game acceptance should be community based, centered around a vote system and weighed with community participation. That way, standards are incorporated through the common belief, and users are motivated to become active in order to be able to lend a stronger vote towards acceptance. The one game mod only serves to handle users who abuse voting rights or to weed out imitation games.

The same goes for blogs on the front page. Let users gather together to cast some sort of "off the front" vote. If enough vote, it's off. Blogs wouldn't have to be censored at all that way, because if they were short/rant/unwanted, they would be confined to the user page.

Frankly, the main reason that I can see for people's current discontent is that they are not used to the site as a large community, and instead of treating it as such, they just place the blame on arbitrary reasons. If any problems lie in the way the site is moderated, it is a reaction to the way users act. And users, especially new ones, act based on what they perceive to be the norm.

Thus, no one- old users, new users, mods- should have special blogging/commenting privileges. We tend to overlook stupid comments by old members because we perceive it as old hat, but new members see it as how they should comment.

Basically, yes, there are problems in how the site operates on the moderator level. However, these problems are exacerbated by the actions of people who would rather critique the site than lend to it, and these people are pushed to extremism by the very users they influence.

Comments

Flea1991 18 years ago

I agree with everything you just said.

-Flea

DFortun81 18 years ago

You're lucky you can use HTML. =(

kevboh 18 years ago

Quote:
Uh, no. 1 game mod would eventualy slack off.

The thing is, it wouldn't matter. Their job would not be to accept games, just to make sure the vote system runs smoothly.

Quote:
Are you saying no HTML for me? D=
Partially, yes, because that causes division. Mainly I meant that if old users or mods make short blogs or useless/bannable comments, they are ignored or downplayed.

kevboh 18 years ago

Also, with 64bb, html here has almost no use except in very specified cases. The very great majority of the html I see used is completely extraneous, not to mention ugly.

melee-master 18 years ago

Yeah. I've thought about a system like that before as well.

Polystyrene Man 18 years ago

Quote:
There should be 1 game moderator. Game acceptance should be community based, centered around a vote system and weighed with community participation. That way, standards are incorporated through the common belief, and users are motivated to become active in order to be able to lend a stronger vote towards acceptance. The one game mod only serves to handle users who abuse voting rights or to weed out imitation games.
Yes, I like this idea. Two problems:

  • It'll be popular in the begininng, but how are you supposed to maintain that excitement? People will get lazy and lose interest, and then who will be blamed? The mod.

  • People will rush to vote for anticipated game releases or for authors that they favor. People who use this site only as a file manager won't get as much attention when it comes to voting.

    Quote:
    The same goes for blogs on the front page. Let users gather together to cast some sort of "off the front" vote. If enough vote, it's off. Blogs wouldn't have to be censored at all that way, because if they were short/rant/unwanted, they would be confined to the user page.
    No, I disagree with this idea. It'd be too easy to pick on a hated user. Anyone who is unpopular on the site could have every one of their blogs voted off the front page, regardless of the content/size.
  • Arcalyth 18 years ago

    What you could do is have the users vote, but let the moderators have a much, much larger say, since mods are supposed to be unbiased.

    kevboh 18 years ago

    Hmm, that sounds good.

    Also, I realize that this plan is very idealistic in its approach. Users who gather group distaste definitely could be abused.

    Perhaps another layer of acceptance, where the game mod approves/vetoes the user decision?

    Cesar 18 years ago

    PM, that'll also allow people who are hated to have their games on the front page, like Kafei's, for example, NINE of his games have been accepted O_o

    Arcalyth 18 years ago

    Even if they're annoying, they're still pretty decent. At least better than some of the crap that's been getting accepted lately.

    I personally enjoyed Kafei's Halloween game.