Members only off-topic

[grandell]

there seems to be a lot of shit being posted up lately, and the threads seem to disappear completely and everyone just gets angry, instead of just being cleaned up and members told to behave

i know guests can't post in off-topic, but how about making it so they can't view it too? that way noone has to worry about NZH's 'public image' being tarnished if things get a bit out of control

also i'd like to think we're all reasonably mature around here. if people are posting things they shouldn't be posting, then maybe they shouldn't be here

/end my 2c

[Matty]

If you could see some of the utter, utter bollocks that is being cleaned up on a regular basis you might think otherwise. We just don't need to encourage it. It's not so much to protect NZH's image as it is to stop people from driving sharp stakes through their heads to end the pain caused by reading the crap.

[edit] And yeah, some people shouldn't be here. Don't worry, Survivor NZH is currently in filming. [/edit]

[DrRubber]

i would imagine that with the new forum able to have sub forums that probably quite a viable idea........

however i like the lulz

*edit * beaten by mattys answer

[grandell]

just saying that if it was visible to members only then maybe you wouldn't have to clean so much of it up

sometimes a good old bitch fight is what's needed to get it out of people's systems, and eventually things sort themselves out, instead of needing to be constantly cleaned


oh, and i never for a second implied you guys weren't doin great jobs just that if a little more maturity was expected from people, maybe a little more would be given

[BWDOWN]

There is a large list forming of idiots that seem to make a sport of making themselves look like complete and utter tools. Not only on the forum but in real life as well. NZH Survivor is in the works and I'll get into sorting this out soon.

[Trivium]

How much booze do i have to give you John to take me off that list? ops:

[grandell]

probably about as much as Marc



anyway.. i know it probably sounds like i'm bitching and moaning lol, but if people were given a bit more freedom in off-topic then it might stop the spam spilling over into other, more public areas of the forum

BWDOWN, you've seen NZICE's on and off-topic areas, and they seem to work pretty well

[VTAKYO]

Right, well this may not be reflective of all moderators methods/opinions, but this is my input into the topic. I use "we" simply for grammatical convenience .

In my opinion, threads disappear to prevent people being absolutely humiliated for no reason, or if we see and immenent potential for it to lead to such a situation. If we let some of these threads keep going, we would only end up with members hating each other. One of the aspects about NZH which we love is the fact it is a very functional social group. Because of the pseudo-identity people take when on the interweb, feeling they have balls of steel, they are more open to insult people and stir shit. As moderators we have to "think offline" when dealing with issues. Hence we remove some topics to prevent a wormhole effect which shit slowly makes its way towards the fan. Of course there isn't a moderator always online, such as this afternoon... so sometimes things may progress a bit out of control before someone touches it. People may think we are being nazi's about everything, but in comparison with other clubs, we are extremely respectable. You hear how people talk down about other clubs like Rotahavik, but look at them: they have fuck-all control over their forum content, and the club is full of muppets. We don't want to end up like that. AftaDark, Girlspeed, and Evolve for example, I see they have massive scraps online and the moderators become involved in them as opposed to moderating them, which have implications on offline social relationships. Of course moderation can't be totally consistent, although we do try to make it as much as possible through communication between ourselves.

Whether something is in off-topic, general discussion, or whatever, there is and should be no difference in moderation. Every forum has the potential to be spammed or contain abuse. The classification of the individual forums is only for their topic category. 99% of the time it is abuse that ruins a thread, not spam. The only situation where "spam" is a serious issue is really only in picture only threads which people turn it into an Instant Messaging discussion (that's why you have AIM/ICQ/MSN/IRC folks), for-sale threads, and when the amount of useless posting from a single user goes beyond a comprehendable amount. Making the moderation in the off-topic forum more liberal would only result in more abuse, a broken fan, and a room full of shit. Off-topic is off-topic, anything goes as long as it isn't offensive. N00bs may get given a bit of shit, but they do get given a chance, for we were all once a n00b. It is just part of adapting to a new social enviroment. Just like starting a new job, shifting school, going to a new class at uni etc. God, when I started using BBS's back in the mid 90s n00bs got more than a flaming; I got virus's, trojans, etc. My parents eventually got sick of paying to have the computer fixed, so I was left to learn to fix it.

Also, we cannot place absolute control on how mature forum users are, so it is really up to them to use their discretion on how reasonable their actions are. If they are tools, we give them a couple of warnings, and if their is no change - banstick. O yes, and then there is NZH Survivor.

[SK1TZ- EF]

*Lives in fear of being on said List....

[GecKo]

grandell - out of interest, what threads are you talking about that have "just disappeared" - I can't see any that you would have been offended by us removing on our moderator log (Except the post a pic of yourself thread, which was a fuck up by a certain someone trying to remove all of the bullshit)..

*edit* - We allow guests to view our forums for a couple of reasons, so we don't get a false representation of membership, and so search engines can index us properly.

[David R]

I remember once upon a time this was a car-orientated forum and the off-topic section was just a slight distraction where people would post up interesting/wacky/random bits of information (news articles, rants about politics etc). More recently there seems to be a core-group of people who obviously know each other off these forums (if only on the internets and not in real life) and like drag anything into their own personal off-off-topic spamfest about their personal lives or other random shit that 8/10 users couldn't give a shit about.

As far as I'm concerned Off-Topic doesn't mean no topic. Its for talking about non-car-related topics. If you really just want to talk utter shit there's bebo/msn/trademe forums/NZPC forums or even the nzhondas MIRC chatroom, I cant see why we should waste forum space on it.

My 2c.

[Soichiro]

Originally Posted by GecKo

grandell - out of interest, what threads are you talking about that have "just disappeared" - I can't see any that you would have been offended by us removing on our moderator log (Except the post a pic of yourself thread, which was a fuck up by a certain someone trying to remove all of the bullshit)..

Yeah that thread needed surgery, was getting quite nasty.

I dunno, I find a lot of the "spam" quite funny, as long as it doesn't get personal and the intention is taken into account and the person involved is OK with it. I'd worry if I didn't get a bit of ribbing if it's not taken too far. Where there's a noob a bit of leeway should be given, which does often happen and is explained nicely.

Are you going to phpBB3, it has the warning feature on it which would be a good move, or a "please explain", often any misunderstanding can be sorted out to everyone's satisfaction (yep I've been there ops: )

It's the nature of the internet that stuff can get lost in the translation.

[SK1TZ- EF]

Originally Posted by GecKo

grandell - out of interest, what threads are you talking about that have "just disappeared" - I can't see any that you would have been offended by us removing on our moderator log (Except the post a pic of yourself thread, which was a fuck up by a certain someone trying to remove all of the bullshit)..

I think a big issue with the post a pic thread, was that the chicks would post up, then 3-5 guys would say "oh, I ahve seen better pics than taht, cmon, show them" and the chicks just turned out looking like slutty whores...maybe they are, i dunno....just seemed to be getting outta hand, and I knew that a few of the posts were removed prior to it being deleted altogether, and that sorta moderation i do not mind

sam

[BWDOWN]

I dont think it was 3-5 guys more like one or two..

[GecKo]

Originally Posted by Soichiro

Are you going to phpBB3, it has the warning feature on it which would be a good move, or a "please explain", often any misunderstanding can be sorted out to everyone's satisfaction (yep I've been there ops: )

I had done a lot of work on trying to get phpBB3 to do what we wanted to, but we've abandoned that effort in favour of something else. phpBB3 has been in development for so long that even though it's the newest/best open source forum out there, it's ways of coding are too oldschool.

What we end up going to will have a post/user reporting option which users will be able to use however.

[Matty]

Okay, in the interests of openness, here's the last 10 things that have been removed:

• - Two members bickering over how one didn't get laid and the other got laid but acted like a dick. This belongs in PM or Bebo.
  - Someone advertising a business. This isn't allowed under NZH rules, I advised the OP and he was fine with this.
  - Sexual harassment of a female member. This isn't allowed under NZH rules - refer Women are Honda Enthusiasts Too - and belongs on Rotahavik.
  - A Mod being a drunken monkey and splitting then removing both halves of an otherwise ok thread. We won't name BWDOWN in this instance but his punishment is to somehow unscrew up what he's done.
  - Another business advertising their services without NZH approval.
  - A member signing up under another name and posting a BS thread. This is just a waste of time.
  - A post the OP removed all detail from - removed as part of housekeeping.
  - A thread that had been started in 2 different subforums. The removed thread had no further posts in it so served no purpose.
  - Yet another business advertising itself without NZH approval.
  - Several posts about members trying to help each other post some pics. The pics were eventually successfully posted so the thread was cleaned up.

I could go on and on but I think you get the idea by now. This covers the past 11 days.

Honestly, it may seem like we're being Nazis but as you can see the vast majority of times we remove stuff it is generally from threads that are about one post away from a member saying "Can the Mods lock this/clean this up now? It's turning to shit/ib4tl/etc."

Even the people who were harassing females on here didn't (to my knowledge) get a formal warning, so we've actually been quite lenient lately. So I can't really see where the discord is coming from.

[americ_ian]

i admit i contributed in the post your pic thread turning into a president james bashing thread and then it was gone!

i feel bad

sorry james...
love?

[GecKo]

Originally Posted by americ_ian

i admit i contributed in the post your pic thread turning into a president james bashing thread and then it was gone!

i feel bad

sorry james...
love?

Dude, it's all good. You must know I wouldn't remove a thread cause of that, if I can give it I can take it

It was honestly a BWDOWN mistake.. heh.

[trend.whore]

All these business advertising without permission eh.. naughty

[americ_ian]

haha yeah i know i was taking the mickey...



back OT

I have noticed a few shocking calls on posts lately, the forum looks like a freaking MSN convo half the time....

[SK1TZ- EF]

I admit saying things to peeps, esp the WSC in a PM type convo...

my bad

sam

[berman]

Originally Posted by Soichiro

Yeah that thread needed surgery, was getting quite nasty.

Pretty much.

You guys may have noticed some people where too shy to post pics, some people (including females) didn't want to post pics because of fear of lucrid comments, and some of us had no faith and just waited to see how long the thread would last before we posted our own pics.

All it took was one person to post a non-self-pic related post, and everyone else followed suit. Quite sad really, because that thread would've helped with identifying people at meets, and help the shyer people come up and talk

Us mods aren't really Nazi's, it may seem that way sometimes, but we are just here to keep order and help out. GecKo cant run this circus on his own [/mounts unicycle]

We dont mind some fun and a bit of laughs etc, but when it's four pages (possible exaggeration) of spam that isn't even remotely related to what the thread was originally about (and not even funny or Hall of Lol material), it get's a bit tiring a bit quick, if you guys knew how much stuff we pull or hack up, you'd all most definitley agree :wink:

[[QUIKdc2]]

Bit of maturity here and there defintly helps 8)