A thought on "rules"

[Stradawhovious]

How about, charge five dollars to flag a post?

This place would make millions.

[princewally]

Give the people who sell stuff in the marketplace the ability to "moderate" their own sale threads. Problem solved.

Then the bad sellers would delete all of the posts calling them out.

[gunforhire]

Seems the best way to eliminate the drama and the complaining on all fronts is to eliminate the marketplace

Or just get rid of the market place rules, or majority of them. That way it wouldn't require much moderation, and people could argue, go off topic, bump or go about trying to sell/buy/trade things as they see fit.

True. Let the Marketplace run itself "free market" style. If people are that butthurt about it then they'll stop visiting or posting items for sale. Somehow, I doubt that it will have much effect. Maybe run it as a two month test? A nice little contest to see just how horrible the anarchy is.

I can see alot of these guys getting filled out

[chudrockz]

I sympathize with the job of trying to moderate a forum, though I've not had any experience doing so (thank God).

That being said, there are a couple of things which I think might help reduce the amount of needed 'moderating' which I've found useful on another forum I frequent. One is an "ignore" feature whereby someone you find sufficiently irritating will go into a trash can where you won't have to read their garbage.

The other is a "reputation" system where you can give either positive or negative rep to a member regarding any particular post. It displays that rep under the name/ avatar. If someone's rep is crap, folks see that. If someone's unimpeachable, that is also noticed.

[rtk]

When I grew up we always had rules, sometimes we didn't like them but we followed them or else we payed the price.

[GunGoogler]

True. Let the Marketplace run itself "free market" style. If people are that butthurt about it then they'll stop visiting or posting items for sale. Somehow, I doubt that it will have much effect. Maybe run it as a two month test? A nice little contest to see just how horrible the anarchy is.

The problem is that the statement in bold isn't accurate. What will happen is that the inbox of the moderators will fill up with endless complaints from folks who are butthurt, but refuse to stop beating their head into the proverbial wall and go somewhere else. Either that, or time and time again someone will start a thread, much like this one, where the complaint is voiced in the open forum and everyone piles on. This results in the moderators either trying to redirect the butthurt, address the butthurt, or add to the butthurt by being a jerk, respectively.

Then the moderators adjurn to their little back room where nobody can decide which way to best handle the situation because nothing is really ever good enough for a mass of people who confront each other throuth the relative safety and anonymity of the keyboard. This causes the moderators to get irritated even further, and now the whole forum just synced up on their menses cycle.

Sound familiar? Happens about once every 6 months here.

What the forum needs is either heavier moderation, which some of the folks here would welcome, and some of the folks would throw a fit about........

Or no moderation. Which some of the folks would welcome, and some of the folks would be pissed about.

Both ways have been tried, and both ways have failed. This, coupled with a fundamental and terminal disagreement with some of the folks in a position of "power" here are the reasons I'm no longer a mod here. If half the folks complaining about this would spend a week dealing with the same **** the mods deal with, you would have a better understanding of just how difficult intranetz folk can be.

You can't please all the people all the time..... but you can get drunk and watch the show.

Very fair point. Ah the wonder of theory over reality.

[Pat Cannon]

You can't please all the people all the time..... but you can get drunk and watch the show.

I am on my way to the liquor store now.

[ttousi]

Seems the best way to eliminate the drama and the complaining on all fronts is to eliminate the marketplace

Are you actively TRYING to kill the site? There's a large number of people who come here for the marketplace and stay for the interaction.

One solution is to take the ball and go home. One option is to see every issue as a need for more rules and enforcement. Somewhere in the middle is a solution that doesn't stifle the back and forth of a fun and active forum with draconian zero judgement zero tolerance BS.

just throwing out an option at the far end of the spectrum..........

how bout an edit............"Seems the best easiest way to eliminate the drama and the complaining on all fronts is to eliminate the marketplace"

Better?

Are you actively TRYING to kill the site

[ttousi]

Somewhere in the middle is a solution that doesn't stifle the back and forth of a fun and active forum with draconian zero judgement zero tolerance BS

I look forward to your complete written solution

[plblark]

Have you met an issue that didn't require some new rule, policy, and enforcement? Sometimes the medicine is worst than the symptoms and Zero tolerance really IS zero thought.

Seriously, Just kill off the marketplace sounds remarkably like a Joel solution which is why I asked the question.

Somewhere in the middle is a solution that doesn't stifle the back and forth of a fun and active forum with draconian zero judgement zero tolerance BS

I look forward to your complete written solution

Put it back. There, simple?

Seriously, a lot of my complaint was solved by telling me what I did and where so I could know going forward. The terse "Read the rules" or "Don't make me tell you what you did wrong" or "You know what you did" isn't helpful especially with posts moved out of public view or deleted. Thank you Cobb for the clarification and explanation.

The good:
The 72 hour Bump rule seems liveable. Wherever you set it, the people you're trying to correct are going to bump one minute after. the rest are just going to be inconvenienced.
The bump it and leave it (No deleting previous bumps!) I don't get especially in conjunction with the x hours bump rule. seems to clear up thread clutter, right?
Completely Unrelated BS and thread drift ... discard it in marketplace, I don't care. Well, except it's subjective and between you and Cobb, you're absolutists so I'd bet we'll disagree on that judgement call.

The Bad:
The Nice guy, Good seller, Great price, Good product, I've shot this gun comments have some value and I miss them. (IDK how to handle negative reviews of sellers or products, the old way seemed to work.)
The updates go in the original topic until the 72 hr bump rule has passed is inconvenient when part of a package deal sells or there's a significant change in the sale (price drop, what's included, etc)

yeah, I can see how those could be abused. Short of draconian zero tolerance it's difficult to craft policies that can't.

There, those are my thoughts. That and $4.99 will get me a coffee.

[ttousi]

thank you

[TH3180]

The good:
The 72 hour Bump rule seems liveable. Wherever you set it, the people you're trying to correct are going to bump one minute after. the rest are just going to be inconvenienced.
The bump it and leave it (No deleting previous bumps!) I don't get especially in conjunction with the x hours bump rule. seems to clear up thread clutter, right?
Completely Unrelated BS and thread drift ... discard it in marketplace, I don't care. Well, except it's subjective and between you and Cobb, you're absolutists so I'd bet we'll disagree on that judgement call.

The Bad:
The Nice guy, Good seller, Great price, Good product, I've shot this gun comments have some value and I miss them. (IDK how to handle negative reviews of sellers or products, the old way seemed to work.)
The updates go in the original topic until the 72 hr bump rule has passed is inconvenient when part of a package deal sells or there's a significant change in the sale (price drop, what's included, etc)

yeah, I can see how those could be abused. Short of draconian zero tolerance it's difficult to craft policies that can't.

There, those are my thoughts. That and $4.99 will get me a coffee.

I agree with that 100%

[cobb]

Am I to assume I'm not going to get an answer to my question?

Sure, but I thought you would have figured it out. Basically you are free to leave anytime you want, nobody is keeping you here, that's all.

[Paul]

The bump it and leave it (No deleting previous bumps!) I don't get especially in conjunction with the x hours bump rule. seems to clear up thread clutter, right?

As one of the two folks that members constantly complained about for this very reason, prompting the rule change, I can understand why you don't like it.

Remember when I gently tried to tell you that folks were finding it annoying? All you had to say that it isn't against the rules. So... We had to make a rule because folks couldn't reasonably moderate themselves with subtle guidance.

Thanks.

[TH3180]

Am I to assume I'm not going to get an answer to my question?

Sure, but I thought you would have figured it out. Basically you are free to leave anytime you want, nobody is keeping you here, that's all.

I've read my post a few times and I didn't say I was going to leave if things didn't change or anyhing like that. I gave my opinion. Is that not allowed anymore or is that your way of saying I'm not welcome here anymore? You prompted me to post what I thought and I did. Thank you for clearing that up, I think.