Welcome olica (the mod team needs work)

[Scary Guy]

Now go away because you are obviously spam.  We need a mod to remove the spam.

What mods are even left now though?  These days I don't really see anyone posting (who is a mod that is).

Under the staff section you can see everyone who is staff, and  of those listed:

• Stormknight hasn't visited the board for five months now.
• Destroit hasn't visited in over a year.
• *siren* also hasn't visited in over a year.
• Raev hasn't been around for two years.
• Tyger hasn't been around for almost three years.

Torn Asunder was here on Saturday, he's cool because he's active.  Him and Troy are the only ones listed under "staff" that are.

Seriously this is why Tron needs to be a mod.  She's on here more than anyone and can clean house almost instantly.  I also nominate sekhmet2002 since she basically shows up a lot as well and is on top of things.

[TronRP]

I could see that this person was possibly a spammer.  I was waiting to see if they would respond to any messages before totally dissing them.  But there has been no further activity since yesterday afternoon.

Edited May 9, 2017 by TronRP

[TronRP]

Also, thank you for the nomination. 

[Scary Guy]

There's always the chance that it's not spam and a legit user.  However most of the time they're obviously selling something or want to get people's eyes to something.

I'm reminded of a comic though...  https://xkcd.com/810/ (hover over the image for the alt-text too).

On another forum I'm on you can't post any links until you've made 10 posts.  It's a pretty good rule although I still managed to get around it (don't make the URL clickable, and users can still copy/paste it in.  If it rejects that, put in spaces.)

Spam (and ads in general) are just something we live with now.  Hopefully one day people will be able to just tune them out.  But unfortunately they get results, which is the only reason we still see them.  If people boycotted companies that resorted to these business practices it wouldn't be an issue.

[TronRP]

1 hour ago, Scary Guy said:

 

There's always the chance that it's not spam and a legit user.  However most of the time they're obviously selling something or want to get people's eyes to something.

 

That's why I do my own form of investigation.  To determine if they are legit or not, I usually visit the newbie's profile page to see how much information they have filled in there.  Then I send them a "Welcome to DGN" message and wait for a response.  Then I friend them because that will trigger another email on their end.  The amount of interaction and information provided determines how I proceed regarding making them a "Welcome" page or if I just inform Troy to have them removed. 

Nowadays, I've noticed that everything is geared for advertisements.  When cable tv was first introduced, it was so you could watch movies and certain sponsored shows uninterrupted.  Now it's set up where you can fast forward through the shows, but you MUST watch the commercials. 

[Scary Guy]

1 hour ago, TronRP said:

That's why I do my own form of investigation.  To determine if they are legit or not, I usually visit the newbie's profile page to see how much information they have filled in there.  Then I send them a "Welcome to DGN" message and wait for a response.  Then I friend them because that will trigger another email on their end.  The amount of interaction and information provided determines how I proceed regarding making them a "Welcome" page or if I just inform Troy to have them removed. 

Nowadays, I've noticed that everything is geared for advertisements.  When cable tv was first introduced, it was so you could watch movies and certain sponsored shows uninterrupted.  Now it's set up where you can fast forward through the shows, but you MUST watch the commercials. 

 

I did the same thing on coffin-talk.net.  I'd also (since I had admin access) look at their profile's IP address and if it was from an IP block located in Brazil, China, Russia, etc...  that was a pretty big indicator as well.

Our DVR skips the commercials too but on-demand you can't.  This is why I prefer Netflix since there is no real advertising other than product placement in the movies/shows.

Very rarely do I like advertising and I can think of few examples.  I did like when the people behind Mr. Robot got together with USA network and dug up some old commercials for a certain episode.  I remembered some of them and others I had never seen.

Just for fun, here's this too:

 

[sekhmet2002]

22 hours ago, Scary Guy said:

Now go away because you are obviously spam.  We need a mod to remove the spam.

What mods are even left now though?  These days I don't really see anyone posting (who is a mod that is).

Under the staff section you can see everyone who is staff, and  of those listed:

• Stormknight hasn't visited the board for five months now.
• Destroit hasn't visited in over a year.
• *siren* also hasn't visited in over a year.
• Raev hasn't been around for two years.
• Tyger hasn't been around for almost three years.

Torn Asunder was here on Saturday, he's cool because he's active.  Him and Troy are the only ones listed under "staff" that are.

Seriously this is why Tron needs to be a mod.  She's on here more than anyone and can clean house almost instantly.  I also nominate sekhmet2002 since she basically shows up a lot as well and is on top of things.

 

Thanks for the mention, SG. I actually became a mod not too long ago. I'm trying my best but stuff still gets missed by me.

[Scary Guy]

6 hours ago, sekhmet2002 said:

Thanks for the mention, SG. I actually became a mod not too long ago. I'm trying my best but stuff still gets missed by me.

 

Odd, as I don't see you listed http://www.detroitgothic.net/index.php?/staff/

Maybe that just lists global mods/admins?  Which just brings up a security hole of "why do some of those accounts have that much power if they never come around anymore?".  If someone hacks one of those then they have access to the board.  I mean yes there is a backup, however going through that is annoying and time consuming.

Also the spam is currently still there and the account is still visible.  You shouldn't be a mod, you should be a global mod with access to a ban hammer too.

Not that anyone ever listens to me.

[TronRP]

2 hours ago, Scary Guy said:

 

Odd, as I don't see you listed http://www.detroitgothic.net/index.php?/staff/

Maybe that just lists global mods/admins?  Which just brings up a security hole of "why do some of those accounts have that much power if they never come around anymore?".  If someone hacks one of those then they have access to the board.  I mean yes there is a backup, however going through that is annoying and time consuming.

Also the spam is currently still there and the account is still visible.  You shouldn't be a mod, you should be a global mod with access to a ban hammer too.

Not that anyone ever listens to me.

OK...I was with you until that last line.  What do you mean "Not that anyone ever listens to me."  On several occasions I see people (myself included) thanking you for your input.  You have a viewpoint that opens a different perspective to things.  I've noticed that in several members here...who still post on a regular basis.

Then again, I'm not sure you were being serious...you weren't being serious, right...right? 

[Scary Guy]

12 hours ago, TronRP said:

OK...I was with you until that last line.  What do you mean "Not that anyone ever listens to me."  On several occasions I see people (myself included) thanking you for your input.  You have a viewpoint that opens a different perspective to things.  I've noticed that in several members here...who still post on a regular basis.

Then again, I'm not sure you were being serious...you weren't being serious, right...right? 

 

Usually always half serious.  I feel like Doug Stanhope constantly (the social circle part I mean, I'm no comedian).

 

(Also, you're still not on the staff list, and the spam is still there.)

Edited May 11, 2017 by Scary Guy

[TronRP]

1 hour ago, Scary Guy said:

 

Usually always half serious.  I feel like Doug Stanhope constantly (the social circle part I mean, I'm no comedian).

 

(Also, you're still not on the staff list, and the spam is still there.)

I started laughing just seeing the title...but I totally get where he's coming from.

As far as being on the staff list, I found myself laughing at myself with regards to the fact that the rules stated that your avatar must be a picture of yourself.  The thing is, I am, what I call "The Purple Elf" on every form of social media I am a part of.  So everyone (who cares) knows me by my Purple Elf avatar even though they are speaking to me in public.  So I wonder if my current avatar would be a deal breaker...you know, if I decided to actually, probably, go ahead and might try to become a MOD. 

[Scary Guy]

3 hours ago, TronRP said:

I started laughing just seeing the title...but I totally get where he's coming from.

As far as being on the staff list, I found myself laughing at myself with regards to the fact that the rules stated that your avatar must be a picture of yourself.  The thing is, I am, what I call "The Purple Elf" on every form of social media I am a part of.  So everyone (who cares) knows me by my Purple Elf avatar even though they are speaking to me in public.  So I wonder if my current avatar would be a deal breaker...you know, if I decided to actually, probably, go ahead and might try to become a MOD. 

 

Oh, rules for mods, right.  I was thinking site-wide at first and was like "no way that's a rule."

Personally, I think it's a stupid rule and sounds very facebook-y, not that they ever really enforced that either (although I think at one time it was a thing).

[Scary Guy]

Also why is Phee listed as an administrator but not in the staff seciton?

This makes me think that the staff section isn't dynamically updated, but rather manually and should just not be paid any attention to/hidden/deleted if it's not updated.

Other parts of the site (the calendar in Nightlife for example) are broke and also in need of a major overhaul.

I still find it funny that I'm an editor for the DGN page on Failbook.  I hate Failbook, but I'm good at promotion, somewhat.

Anyway, I'd like to see a few other rules.  Like no one can edit anyone else's posts to put words in their mouth or sensor them (just delete the post).  Also, no one who has ever been banned should probably be given any position of power (extra incentive to follow said rules).

Edited May 11, 2017 by Scary Guy

[Scary Guy]

I feel the need to point out that the spam is still there...

[torn asunder]

i'll try to get to it tonight. afaik, all mod changes, including the list, are manual, and they're only changed thru troy's account. troy is responsible for a lot of the "stats' type things online, but his health isn't great, so he doesn't have much opportunity.

 

i know i don't post much, but i never really have, so at least i'm consistent! :-) at one point, i had limited the sign-up to be manually confirmed by mod staff rather than automated, but apparently troy wasn't fond of the idea, because it got changed back (this was years ago). unless that happens again, we're always going to get these kinds of accounts signing up, nothing to be done about it.

 

when they spam, of course we'll delete them - give me a couple hours to get back to this.

[torn asunder]

account is banned. posts are removed with a batch process, so it should happen soon.

[Class-Punk]

On 5/11/2017 at 3:09 AM, Scary Guy said:

Also why is Phee listed as an administrator but not in the staff seciton?

BECAUSE CHAOS REIGNS.

Edited May 17, 2017 by Class-Punk

[Troy Spiral (13)]

On 5/10/2017 at 11:43 PM, TronRP said:

I started laughing just seeing the title...but I totally get where he's coming from.

As far as being on the staff list, I found myself laughing at myself with regards to the fact that the rules stated that your avatar must be a picture of yourself.  The thing is, I am, what I call "The Purple Elf" on every form of social media I am a part of.  So everyone (who cares) knows me by my Purple Elf avatar even though they are speaking to me in public.  So I wonder if my current avatar would be a deal breaker...you know, if I decided to actually, probably, go ahead and might try to become a MOD. 

"the picture"

 Not that I'm a huge fan of facebook but a real "facebook" historically is a book with names and pictures of faces so that , particularly students and faculty at Ivy League universities- could get to know each other easier and would make for a more hospitable environment. Sort of a school yearbook but given out at the start rather than the end of the year.  A lot of thought went into the concept of The Facebook. Some version of it was independently "invented" it was such a good idea, several times through history.  Due to this known issue (anonymity makes for less cohesion / more intolerance)  the  rich people knew it and wanted their kids to be in a better environment than the unwashed clueless masses as it were.  The internet is anonymous enough as it is, but when its completely divorced from anything reality based the social network concept tends to  be just that, divorced from reality, not what we are going for. 

Picture everything from the perspective of a new person showing up. View it from the perspective of the most tentative, would-be poster, not me the veteran poster. The hardcore people come to us, it's the reluctant newbies that are the target audience from a "management" perspective. Articles by major publications often require their writers to have a headshot just for this reason, as another example.  Joe blow doesn't need one, but he is more likely to relate to the "establishment" if they have one. 

Many people WANT to be anonymous , which is fine as a concept, but in actual practice it causes the same social issues that people not knowing each other does.  Theoretically  a mod is a "representative" of a model poster,  a model poster would , more than anything be active.  But a finer point , less important but still there , would be their approachability and seeming to be a "real person". We want to encourage people to be less anonymous having a human picture goes a long way to making posts seem "real".   Not that we have any mods (myself included) that are model posters. I try.

In the decade preceding DGN I still went by some iteration of the word "spiral" but typically just had a spiral as an avatar.  But when I was reading about online communities and various ways to structure things, this particular issue was talked about in various places. So I just started using a real picture as that was pointed to as (one of many) ways to make a community feel more relatable.   The answer was to "encourage" using real pictures but not actually requiring it.  So back to the model poster concept and how it  encourages without requiring, the community as a whole. 

 

[Troy Spiral (13)]

On 5/11/2017 at 2:54 AM, Scary Guy said:

 

Oh, rules for mods, right.  I was thinking site-wide at first and was like "no way that's a rule."

Personally, I think it's a stupid rule and sounds very facebook-y, not that they ever really enforced that either (although I think at one time it was a thing).

See the detailed post directly above this one. 

On 5/11/2017 at 3:09 AM, Scary Guy said:

Also why is Phee listed as an administrator but not in the staff seciton?

This makes me think that the staff section isn't dynamically updated, but rather manually and should just not be paid any attention to/hidden/deleted if it's not updated.

Other parts of the site (the calendar in Nightlife for example) are broke and also in need of a major overhaul.

I still find it funny that I'm an editor for the DGN page on Failbook.  I hate Failbook, but I'm good at promotion, somewhat.

Anyway, I'd like to see a few other rules.  Like no one can edit anyone else's posts to put words in their mouth or sensor them (just delete the post).  Also, no one who has ever been banned should probably be given any position of power (extra incentive to follow said rules).

DGN being an ancient fossil in internet years has a lot of "artifacts" that would take a ton of digging into the arcane to fix, some things I've tried multiple times and given up. The Listings of the "staff" vs "administrators" is a tangled legacy web of overlapping code and display options, some of which don't even exist in the admin control panel anymore, while other new options exist but get applied to old code.  This is a problem on many parts of the board.  The banner at the top of the events section is another example.  (I actually put in a ticket on that one, and the company that makes the software said it was too complicated to fix and to just wipe the whole board if I really had to have it gone).  The actual moderator / administrator PERMISSIONS seem to (crazy i know) be a priority so when they have upgraded over the years the "powers" are worked on till they are accurate. 

Only Phee , Torn and Myself have access to edit the whole board.  Moderators could edit posts individually, one at a time (and the stuff is all backed up at regular intervals) but could not for instance, delete the board or edit user accounts. In previous iterations of the board the admin control panel had "staff' = moderators  "administrators" = not staff but "bosses", now that is not the case, but the data is still in there as such.  Its not impossible to fix, just not something I can bang out in an hour. 

You at least understand the value of promotion which is refreshing. Many do not. Much to my chagrin.  

Some of this is just lack of focus on my part and no one else will do some of it.  I was "on board" gung ho about all the little details before the car accident, now it's hard.  My brain just has trouble focusing on things that are say , the equivalent of a logic puzzle. I try very hard but its difficult to keep at it. Which is funny because I had more help before when I didn't need it, now that I need it more , it's in short supply.  

What does "banned" mean, was (and still is) a bit of a grey area.  Some think it should me "banned for life" while myself I'm thinking its more like "banned for a year / not allowed back if they don't shape up, but actually do WANT to come back, very few people that have been banned have any interest in returning so its not come up very often.  There was a guy named Steven who was an especially abrasive dick on the board (but actually added some food for thought to the political stuff) he asked me at city club ages ago if he could come back , but still after me explaining it like 10 times online and off didn't get the "don't just blurt out random insults that come into your head, dgn is not your personal soapbox" so  I just told him , no you can't come back. 

Your last suggestion is pretty good, although I keep thinking of a ban as a huge spectrum.  There are people that were banned for DDOS attacks on the board, then there are people that were banned for just being dicks one too many times.  The second category I think of as being redeemable (somehow) the first category hell no.

 

[Troy Spiral (13)]

@sekhmet2002

@torn asunder

@Troy Spiral

@phee

@StormKnight

Is the full staff listing now. Not that I can seem to get that to DISPLAY properly.   I left storm knight because I trust him to not do anything asinine even when in a bad mood, same for phee (although phee is more alive than SK who is just straight up MIA (from dgn , not from life I still have some contact with him.  In case of the end of the world he could be contacted like the Svalbard Global Doomsday Seed Vault. I tried to leave him as a mod , but not have his name be visible so no one mistakenly tries to contact him for "board work" as he probably won't see it, but was foiled by the admin CP.  

Phee and Torn are sort of administrators for life.  This vaguely being different than a mod in that they have godlike powers but do not follow some of the more superficial rules, BUT DO IT ANYWHAT M-FERS (teasing).  Administrator being more of a technical job, rather than the actual social interaction work.  (mods couldn't delete the board for instance, admins could.. albeit with difficulty as there is no "kill switch" in the admin control panel, but the accounts have the power to do so, I just am not giving out the nuclear codes.)

The primary impetus in getting rid of the dead weight was SG, I had thought about it many times but kept hoping by some idiotic miracle things might change.  They aren't going to.   Thanks for the extra push there SG.

 

 

[TronRP]

3 hours ago, Troy Spiral said:

"the picture"

 Not that I'm a huge fan of facebook but a real "facebook" historically is a book with names and pictures of faces so that , particularly students and faculty at Ivy League universities- could get to know each other easier and would make for a more hospitable environment. Sort of a school yearbook but given out at the start rather than the end of the year.  A lot of thought went into the concept of The Facebook. Some version of it was independently "invented" it was such a good idea, several times through history.  Due to this known issue (anonymity makes for less cohesion / more intolerance)  the  rich people knew it and wanted their kids to be in a better environment than the unwashed clueless masses as it were.  The internet is anonymous enough as it is, but when its completely divorced from anything reality based the social network concept tends to  be just that, divorced from reality, not what we are going for. 

Picture everything from the perspective of a new person showing up. View it from the perspective of the most tentative, would-be poster, not me the veteran poster. The hardcore people come to us, it's the reluctant newbies that are the target audience from a "management" perspective. Articles by major publications often require their writers to have a headshot just for this reason, as another example.  Joe blow doesn't need one, but he is more likely to relate to the "establishment" if they have one. 

Many people WANT to be anonymous , which is fine as a concept, but in actual practice it causes the same social issues that people not knowing each other does.  Theoretically  a mod is a "representative" of a model poster,  a model poster would , more than anything be active.  But a finer point , less important but still there , would be their approachability and seeming to be a "real person". We want to encourage people to be less anonymous having a human picture goes a long way to making posts seem "real".   Not that we have any mods (myself included) that are model posters. I try.

In the decade preceding DGN I still went by some iteration of the word "spiral" but typically just had a spiral as an avatar.  But when I was reading about online communities and various ways to structure things, this particular issue was talked about in various places. So I just started using a real picture as that was pointed to as (one of many) ways to make a community feel more relatable.   The answer was to "encourage" using real pictures but not actually requiring it.  So back to the model poster concept and how it  encourages without requiring, the community as a whole. 

 

So basically, the Purple Elf is a deal breaker.  Interestingly, back some many years ago, I actually did a real life version of the Purple Elf.  I wore that makeup for 3 days straight until my mother told me to wash it off...she thought the makeup would cause a rash or some sort of breakout.  Needless to say, I was so happy when I was able to virtually recreate that look on IMVU.

If I could, that WOULD be my actual face, but I suppose I could just dress up like my avatar and do a photoshoot because after identifying with that little picture for nearly 10 years, it's hard for me to associate my online identity with anything else.  I have multiple accounts on the web and that avatar is me on each one.  Besides it might be fun to see if I can recreate that look in real life again after all this time.  Of course I know I would have to upload the minus "purple" version in order to qualify if I should sign up for MOD duty. 

[Scary Guy]

Again, I get the reason behind real photos, but I still think it is dumb.  There are enough people who use real photos.  Mine actually is me, although it's a silhouette.  Besides, with the lack of active staff...  well, I guess beggars can be choosers

As far as issues with the site go, if you have FTP/SSH access you can fix those.  I can't imagine it being much harder than phpBB.  You just have a link and some text you need to remove or make the link to point to a location that works.

The problem with having parts of the site that are nonfunctional is that end users see that and think "oh this site is dying, why do I want to invest my time, especially when I can talk to most of these people on Fakebook."  Yes I get that it's hard to keep the machine well oiled and running properly.  Maybe it will take a few hours, but if you chip away at it little by little you'll get there eventually.  If you have another server locally or something that isn't production, test it on that first.  Or have the forum backed up and if it goes tits up then just roll it back.

I'm kind of surprised that the server staff will not help you out with what seems to me should be a relatively easy task.  I mean what the hell do you pay them for?  It's not like you're asking them to recompile the kernel or something.

[phee]

I was talked about on DGN once.... it was great.

[TronRP]

On 5/21/2017 at 8:22 PM, Troy Spiral said:

@sekhmet2002

@torn asunder

@Troy Spiral

@phee

@StormKnight

Is the full staff listing now. Not that I can seem to get that to DISPLAY properly.   I left storm knight because I trust him to not do anything asinine even when in a bad mood, same for phee (although phee is more alive than SK who is just straight up MIA (from dgn , not from life I still have some contact with him.  In case of the end of the world he could be contacted like the Svalbard Global Doomsday Seed Vault. I tried to leave him as a mod , but not have his name be visible so no one mistakenly tries to contact him for "board work" as he probably won't see it, but was foiled by the admin CP.  

Phee and Torn are sort of administrators for life.  This vaguely being different than a mod in that they have godlike powers but do not follow some of the more superficial rules, BUT DO IT ANYWHAT M-FERS (teasing).  Administrator being more of a technical job, rather than the actual social interaction work.  (mods couldn't delete the board for instance, admins could.. albeit with difficulty as there is no "kill switch" in the admin control panel, but the accounts have the power to do so, I just am not giving out the nuclear codes.)

The primary impetus in getting rid of the dead weight was SG, I had thought about it many times but kept hoping by some idiotic miracle things might change.  They aren't going to.   Thanks for the extra push there SG.

 

 

Question, so as a MOD, would I have board editing powers or just parental reprimand powers...if that's a thing...?

P.S. Yes I read the "How to Become a Staff Member. (Rules & Guidelines - Updated)"...it said "substantial editing powers" but never stated what that entailed.

Edited May 24, 2017 by TronRP

[Scary Guy]

15 hours ago, TronRP said:

Question, so as a MOD, would I have board editing powers or just parental reprimand powers...if that's a thing...?

P.S. Yes I read the "How to Become a Staff Member. (Rules & Guidelines - Updated)"...it said "substantial editing powers" but never stated what that entailed.

 

I can't speak for DG.N, but for the other forums that I've ran/helped run mod powers can be heavily customized (at least with phpBB anyway).

So you get a set of (or all) special functions over a set of (or all) areas.  You can edit/move/split/delete posts.  See the fabled hidden "trash can" subforum where posts go to die (and future reference).

As admin you can edit (some) board settings, add/edit/delete themes and smiley/emoticon packs, add/edit/delete ranks, backup/restore the entire forum, shut off the forum (for maintenance tasks), and generally do anything.

You can get a head start by reading the documentation for IPS over at https://invisionpower.com/4guides/how-to-use-ips-community-suite/first-steps/terminology-r7/ (if you're super bored but it will tell you all you want to know and certainly beats my armchair knowledge from a different forum system).

 

EXTRA:  I don't know if you can download a copy of the forum software to run on your own server, but it would be nice to have a test server to play with settings before they go live.  That way no one has to worry about breaking the board trying to fix or add features to it.  Probably cost some cash though, like everything else.  Again, one of the reasons why I like phpBB better is it's free and you pay for support (or you can ask things free on their forum) but you still need your own server to host it (also I know about it so it's easier so I may be a bit biased there too).