What can we do to Off-topic to make it...something that's not this?

[MoanaLisa]

Why would one would help moderate a site that makes profit for free?

Pay the mods, more will apply.

I'm happy enough to be a volunteer. Being paid wouldn't help and would likely do more harm than good. They couldn't pay enough to make it worth being a part-time job (never mind the legal hassles that would need to be addressed writing a paycheck to people living all over the world) and the idea of having a regular or irregular shift when I would be "on duty" is cringeworthy. Finding people is apparently a problem but paying people anything I have to believe would make it worse and more of a revolving door.

The bigger problem from my experience is the burden that hiring a moderation staff would put on MMO-C. It's a significant thing when you start to talk about taxes and stuff. I can't imagine starting a 1099 (self-employed company) to contract with MMO-C for that. That's what would need to happen though. It's just crazy.

[MrExcelion]

I have around 50 people on my MMO-C ignore list, and I usually never see any problem threads.

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Actually I just counted and I have exactly 75 people on my ignore list. Some might be spam bots, but for sure others are people who have made dumb threads or posts.

Just wanted to highlight this post. Ignore feature is severely underrated, though I get it feels weird to suggest the idea at all, like if I was a moderator I wouldn't want to suggest it, but I can say it as a regular user

Without specifically posting your ignore list, since that's basically public shaming, can you post a screenshot of what your OT looks like with a proper ignore list?

On a side note, I think it's worth mentioning that there's a lot of other sub-forums besides General OT itself where you can talk about stuff. Wish there were more anime threads for me to post in. Gen OT will always be a sort of wild west, like The Vestibule on IGN (one of the few forums still around from the early 2000s). With that said, it's worth it to filter the board with an ignore list since its so active. Target thread creators rather than comment repliers

[breadisfunny]

If you and I know what bait threads are, then moderators can also figure it out. There is also the same 5 people posting inane shit all of the time, or shit that is designed to be inflammatory.

My suggestion is to cap started threads per account in OT to 5 a month (if you want to give people an incentive to buy premium accounts, you could raise or remove this cap with an annual purchase).

this is a really terrible idea.

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Nothing will make it perfect, but here are some ideas that would help improve it:

1. Recruit more mods. As far as I can tell, they have added exactly one new mod in the past year. He was active for about 10 days, and hasn't been heard from since. He hasn't logged in in over 2 months. We recently had a blatant bait/troll thread that made it to 30 hours and nearly 20 pages before a mod logged on to finally close it. Note I'm not blaming the current mods at all, they are volunteers and have their own lives, I obviously don't expect them to make this a priority.

What I do expect is for MMOC admins to realize that Gen-OT needs more mods than just a single guy who was active for less than 2 weeks before never logging in again. Maybe take that as a sign that your recruiting process could use some changes? Maybe give promising applicants a trial period with limited moderator abilities to see how well they do before making them a full mod.

2. Use perma-bans more often. There are some posters who are clearly here for the sole purpose of turning the forum into a shitshow, and yet MMOC still thinks they might change and learn their lesson after their 30th ban. Is whatever ad revenue these people generate really worth it?

3. Find some way to finally deal with posters who get banned and then post on burner account after burner account. I don't know exactly how to do this, but one idea is to make it so posters have to reach a certain number of posts or time period before they can make a thread in Gen-OT. Another idea is to shadow ban burner accounts to at least make it a little more frustrating for them.

i definitely agree with number 2 i can think of at least 6 or more people who deserve a immediate permaban.

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Same, I applied and wasn't chosen. Now, I had only applied because I thought OT was low on mods and my posts are...what they are (how does one rate yourself?), but I do at least try to post constructively.

meh your posts are ok.......(for a draenei.) i never bothered to apply cause i know i wouldn't be accepted since i'm far too abrasive. i have absolutely zero tolerance for people's bullshit. both online and irl.

[Eveningforest]

The problem I see with GEN-OT is not political disagreements (we have a political sub forum that is for the most part very civil), the problem is full on trolling, hate and bigotry. The amount of racism and misogyny that slips under the moderators' fingers in that forum is unbelievable.
Politically oriented threads do sometimes get moved to the Politics subforum, and for the most part, that seems to work out ok. It in noway addresses the other issues which seem to be the real problem here, however.

You want a simple solution? Keep "Politics", get rid of the more general GEN-OT. This site already has a sub category for most things gamers can possibly be interested in. GEN-OT serves no real purpose.

[MrExcelion]

You want a simple solution? Keep "Politics", get rid of the more general GEN-OT. This site already has a sub category for most things gamers can possibly be interested in. GEN-OT serves no real purpose.

While I fully support keeping Gen OT, when I was typing my post yesterday I was wondering if there were any suitable categories to splinter off Gen OT, but it seems like everything's covered. Couldn't think of anything. After all, the splinters are basically safe havens. So with that said, other than the ignore feature people should check out the other categories more than just Gen OT itself

[Ringthane]

If you and I know what bait threads are, then moderators can also figure it out.

You would think, wouldn't you? But I saw a mod give someone an infraction for trolling, when his was pretty much the most on-topic, relevant post in the thread. So don't get your hopes up.

I don't even go in that section. Too much toxic spewing. I'd advise anyone else to do the same.

[GreenJesus]

I have a suggestion. Perm ban people like sarahtasher and Elba.

[MrExcelion]

Here's a couple of other angles for some middle ground:

1) Thread creation limits for the Gen OT forum. Not site-wide, but just for that one particular board. This could entail X threads in X time along with requiring a certain amount of reg date or total posts to make a thread at all. This might already be in place in some form.

2) This idea isn't as good as #1 - There could be a second general OT forum for MMOC Premium users (though myself am not one). Threads should be viewable to the public so they see it's not dead but not postable unless Premium. I'm skeptical of making this a selling point of Premium because people are inevitably going to get banned from it too and the experience probably wouldn't be better. And it might be dead anyway. Obviously it keeps some of the troll accounts out but just might not be active in general. Worth an experiment though and just delete the board if its dead. Basically just emulating what IGN did with Insider back in the day if anyone remembers that. The insider only boards ended up dying off though because nobody wanted to pay 20 dollars a year for paywall boards, but they were certainly more quality over quantity

Both my ideas kind of suck tbh. If people want to post about socio-political stuff, what can you do, the masses have spoken. Filter accordingly with Ignore

[Blueobelisk]

I agree with the sentiment that the way MMO-C choosing mods being too selective. I also applied a couple of times (literally like 6 years ago, which is a long time) and was never chosen.

If MMO-C thinks full moderator power is too much to give out, then make different tiers of mods or something.

Without specifically posting your ignore list, since that's basically public shaming, can you post a screenshot of what your OT looks like with a proper ignore list?

Sure. This is what my Gen-OT looks like:



And it's not like I went on a purge to create my ignore list. It's just that, over time, if I see a post or a thread that looks really retarded or baity, I ignore the person.

And there's no hard feelings, it's not like I dislike (or even know) the people on my ignore list. They just typed dumb stuff that I don't want to read. No big deal. I probably wouldn't even recognize 90% of the names.

[MrExcelion]

Thanks, was just curious

[schwarzkopf]

Other forums I visit have got rid of 'Gen-OT' completely and replaced with specific OT forums.

e.g. Sci-Tech, History, Lifestyle, Movies and TV Shows etc etc.

The specific list could be worked out by moderators, and then moderated by the same GenOT team as the total mod workload would drop.

[the game]

It's not hard. If you don't like it then don't go into the off topic forums or the politics forums. Stop being a snowflake.

[Travis B]

It's not hard. If you don't like it then don't go into the off topic forums or the politics forums. Stop being a snowflake.

That's pretty funny coming from the guy who created a thread suggesting the removal of the forums just a couple months ago:

Lets face it. The general off topic and the political forums are cesspools. This forum would be much better off if they were removed permanently.

[NoiseTank13]

Punishment does at times feel fleeting at best in the Gen. OT, and it contributed to the air of 'anything goes lol' atmosphere, to the point where any genuine desire of having a conversation is overpowered by the feeling of 'they'll just nitpick one dumbass thing and won't shut the fuck up about it for 23 pages so it's just easier to be snarky and call them fucking stupid using a lot of words'.

[Belize]

But many get banned and just make new trash accounts, constantly.

Proper IP/Hardware banning would solve that.

[Noomz]

Proper IP/Hardware banning would solve that.

IP masking and VPN protect against that.

[Belize]

IP masking and VPN protect against that.

Hence hardware banning.

CPU IDs are unique, create a table with user's CPU IDs when they log in, when banned check against it.

[Noomz]

It's not hard. If you don't like it then don't go into the off topic forums or the politics forums. Stop being a snowflake.

There are plenty of topics I like in the OT section. I never go to the political section.

It's not simply about disliking some posters and topics, it's about how an entire section of the forum gets filled with nonsensical garbage. I don't want to be "protected". I want to be able to have a normal fucking discussion without people, like you, insulting me. It's especially ridiculous considering you've suggested entirely removing parts of the forum the exact same reasons. So who's a fucking snowflake? Sod off.

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Hence hardware banning.

CPU IDs are unique, create a table with user's CPU IDs when they log in, when banned check against it.

Wouldn't a VPN hide that?

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Here's a couple of other angles for some middle ground:

1) Thread creation limits for the Gen OT forum. Not site-wide, but just for that one particular board. This could entail X threads in X time along with requiring a certain amount of reg date or total posts to make a thread at all. This might already be in place in some form.

2) This idea isn't as good as #1 - There could be a second general OT forum for MMOC Premium users (though myself am not one). Threads should be viewable to the public so they see it's not dead but not postable unless Premium. I'm skeptical of making this a selling point of Premium because people are inevitably going to get banned from it too and the experience probably wouldn't be better. And it might be dead anyway. Obviously it keeps some of the troll accounts out but just might not be active in general. Worth an experiment though and just delete the board if its dead. Basically just emulating what IGN did with Insider back in the day if anyone remembers that. The insider only boards ended up dying off though because nobody wanted to pay 20 dollars a year for paywall boards, but they were certainly more quality over quantity

Both my ideas kind of suck tbh. If people want to post about socio-political stuff, what can you do, the masses have spoken. Filter accordingly with Ignore

Well there could always be a larger sub section of off-topic. But that might mean a need for even more moderators. I was hoping we could eleviate site load, rather than make it heavier.

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The problem I see with GEN-OT is not political disagreements (we have a political sub forum that is for the most part very civil), the problem is full on trolling, hate and bigotry. The amount of racism and misogyny that slips under the moderators' fingers in that forum is unbelievable.
Politically oriented threads do sometimes get moved to the Politics subforum, and for the most part, that seems to work out ok. It in noway addresses the other issues which seem to be the real problem here, however.

You want a simple solution? Keep "Politics", get rid of the more general GEN-OT. This site already has a sub category for most things gamers can possibly be interested in. GEN-OT serves no real purpose.

I have to agree, though I'd still like to have a place to talk about science and such. The problem is that wherever political discussions are heavy, you get these same types that all bring down the leveling of all discussion. That level is poo-flinging even monkeys would think is too much. It's because political discussion is becoming so polarized by absolute nitwits. Everyone smart or normal just leaves because nobody wants to deal with the stubborn, ignorant hate-mongers.

[Thage]

Keep all left vs right political crap in the politics section, and infract anyone that derails an OT thread into a left/right thing like many tend to do.

I like this idea. We have a Politics subforum, start handing out heavy infractions when people drag politics outside it.

[Belize]

Wouldn't a VPN hide that?

No, VPNs reroute your traffic to make it look like you're in another country. The website can still request specific information, it'll just look like they're shitposting from Timbuktu instead of Bumfuck, Kansas.