Improving the Offtopic section.

[Acidbaron]

Hello, as i see it the off topic section is manageable but due to a lot of interest in topicality, subjects can get heated and some people are unable to often control themselves this results into those people being banned and the process merely repeating itself, while they are not problematic on other forum sections, also from time to time you have new accounts being created by either banned people or by people to troll, ban avoid or just spew their opinion.

So i propose an idea to improve the situation, quality of posts and content there and in long run make it easier on moderation there initially it will be more work, an idea that is shamelessly stolen from another major gaming forum of the BENELUX region (dutch speaking) called 9lives.

Maintain the off topic section or create a subsection for all subjects around topicality. Require people to register separately to engage in that section using the Group memberships option available in vBulletin, what i believe these forums are based off if i'm not mistaken.

This sub-section requires people their account to be at least 3 days old, there are stricter rules in terms of language used and topics created, not in sense of censoring subjects but those know to bait and create controversial subjects which contents i won't repeat here can face removal of that section.

Once removed there is no expiration of when the member is allowed back in, they are only allowed back in purely on good will of the moderators that lead the moderation in that section. Moderators do not require to give any explanation why a person request to join has been denied.

As you can see the general idea is to allow topics that will happen to be commented on in a more normal atmosphere.

[Simulacrum]

Sounds boring and obnoxious, with more cons than pros.

If you already know a forum that has these rules in place anyway, then why not just go there instead?

[Acidbaron]

Sounds boring and obnoxious, with more cons than pros.

If you already know a forum that has these rules in place anyway, then why not just go there instead?

Discussions aren't less heated there, neither are they therefor boring. What con's would there be other than being an asshat who lacks the social skills to communicate on a normal level those being removed.

Since it's a dutch speaking forum and not an international one? that's a rather silly question.

[Tziva]

If you're interested in using another site for non-gaming discussion, have at it since that's not our primary function. However, I don't see it as reasonable or realistic for us to create an alternate ruleset and special functioning board just for the off topic area of our site. It sounds like your primary complaint boils down to new accounts. If you think a new account is an evade or just a troll account, you'll welcome to report it for us to handle. We don't allow either of those things.

[Acidbaron]

If you're interested in using another site for non-gaming discussion, have at it since that's not our primary function. However, I don't see it as reasonable or realistic for us to create an alternate ruleset and special functioning board just for the off topic area of our site. It sounds like your primary complaint boils down to new accounts. If you think a new account is an evade or just a troll account, you'll welcome to report it for us to handle. We don't allow either of those things.

It was merely a suggestion as i have seen it work elsewhere, it's not so much a different rule set it's more about an lower tolerance towards those breaking rules and being unable to discuss heated topics in a normal way. It took time but it cleaned up the forums a bit while allowing people to still get sucked in heated debates.

As i said merely a suggestion

[spinner981]

So if I am reading this correctly, mods will have to create sub-sections for every single type of possible discussion that can be had on the off-topic forums?

[Super Kami Dende]

The best way to improve off-topic would be removing Endus as a moderator.

His bias is so fucking obvious compared to any other Moderator on this site.

[Acidbaron]

So if I am reading this correctly, mods will have to create sub-sections for every single type of possible discussion that can be had on the off-topic forums?

Nope it's one section about things related to topicality.