People posting in threads they don't care about to make irrelevant points.

Nova

Shit posts outside of the wonderpost category ARE a strike towards banning.

Alkthash

What's the difference between a shitpost and a wonderpost again?

Nova

They are the same thing.

All Nines

"Any emoticon, ever."

Well, if that's all there is to a post, yeah, that's bad. But I don't think there's a problem with using them within a post that already has content.

And the rest of your list, I agree with.

"3 strikes doesn't seem like much...if this was enforced fairly strictly, I could see a large amount of our userbase being banned. I mean we have, what? 14 regular posters? 20? If we ban just one permanently, we've lost a significant portion of our number."

I can see how banning someone in such a small community would be damaging, but at the same time that's not an excuse for bad behavior. I don't know about you, but I don't think I want to give the impression that the moderation team is a bunch of pushovers who let people continue to hurt the community. If we let people continue to behave poorly and wreck threads when people have already called them on it, where's our claim to quality?

And I'm pretty sure we have more than twenty people who post often enough to keep this board alive. For Pete's sake we have seven moderators.

Nova

To be fair, I rarely ever see three of them do anything, and Glenn only rarely. In fact, going back 10 pages, I find five threads locked- two by me, two by you and one by INUH.

All Nines

Yeah. I thought of that when I posted, but at the same time the mod-normal member ratio is still pretty small, in my opinion.

MillerCross

3 strikes doesn't seem like much...if this was enforced fairly strictly, I could see a large amount of our userbase being banned. I mean we have, what? 14 regular posters? 20? If we ban just one permanently, we've lost a significant portion of our number.

Better reason to start behaving, then.

Nova

It is, at that.

Noimporta

Another thing to ask is why the community is so small. It's certainly not because of a lack of influx of users, I'm sure there must be around a hundred or so registered. But it certainly fails to catch people's interest, and part of it is because it hasn't guaranteed them an environment where to have good discussions, in that sense, banning problematic people might actually encourage the activity, since it's a display of the site's willingness to clean up its act.

MillerCross

I'd say that rep plays a big part as well. Seriously, how many times has IJBM II been referenced as a shithole in TvT?

I know at least one is gonna say "Bah, we don't care about them", but TvT is where most of our userbase came, comes and will come.  It would be ridiculous to not care about that. 

I agree with Noimporta. What the place needs is tougher moderation. Mods will probably be disliked by it, and I say to them "Keep doing it. As long as you're doing it right and this place starts to get better, then don't care about people whining about the fact that their posts are thumped"

All Nines

Sounds good. I think I'm already disliked anyway. So, next time a shitstorm rolls around, we'll see what happens. I can't exactly guarantee any bans, though.

It kinda sucks that we rely so much on TVT for our userbase, though. We have yet to become large enough to grow independently.

MillerCross

With that said, this doesn't mean that I think you should ignore us and shut us down completely, but if the complaining isn't valid, then don't care and thump away. (Other posts, not the bad complaining, I mean...>_>)

Nova

I like you Everest

MillerCross

It kinda sucks that we rely so much on TVT for our userbase, though. We have yet to become large enough to grow independently.

We don't have to do so. Many of us visit many different forums. We should be able to pimp this one in those places.

OTOH, this place is indeed to niche. (Remember we are basically a zombie forum, revived by some magical spell GMH and Longfellow found in the darkest chapters of the necronomicon in order to revive IJBM I's nuked and radiation filled body)

LouieW

Juan_Carlos,

I agree with you about how the reputation of IJBM II plays a big role in difficulties trying to get new membership here from TV Tropes. However, I think that part of the issue there is that people who disliked users who were banned on TV Tropes do not want to come here because those previously banned tropers happen to be here. I do not want moderators to ban people on IJBM II just because they are unpopular or were banned on TV Tropes though since I think that would be unfair.

I am not really sure how to boost IJBM II's reputation either, perhaps that is grounds for another topic. I admit that I find it a bit strange when people talk about how horrible this place is on TV Tropes because I just do not really see it. I might just be oblivious to that kind of thing though.

Everest,

I wonder if this site will ever really be able to grow independently from TV Tropes. It seems to me that the site's status as just a general discussion forum ultimately limits its reach.

 

All Nines

^ There's that "banned users come here" point, yeah. But we, as moderators, don't treat other users based on popularity (if we did, Chuggles would probably be down for the count by now). But there's reasoning behind bans. If people act like they did when they got banned before, they're going to get banned again.

^^ They do? I don't visit any other forums. I considered MyAnimeList's forum, but I don't think I like the community that much anyway. And I went to one forum so I could get free uncensored Asobi ni Iku yo! downloads. I've wanted to join another community, though. Maybe Giant in the Playground, but they know so much more about D&D stuff than I do that I would be utterly lost and have too much learning to do.

^^^ Thanks, Cygan.

Nova

I visit a few. Mainly LBGT ones though, and anime/webcomic/yuri forums.

MillerCross

I agree with you about how the reputation of IJBM II plays a big role in difficulties trying to get new membership here from TV Tropes. However, I think that part of the issue there is that people who disliked users who were banned on TV Tropes do not want to come here because those previously banned tropers happen to be here. I do not want moderators to ban people on IJBM II just because they are unpopular or were banned on TV Tropes though since I think that would be unfair. 

I don't think anyone here should be banned because they are unpopular there. That'd be ridiculous.

What I do think though, is that we have several users who have not got better post ban and who have not tried to change their ways. I consider this a problem that should be taken into account. We can't house banned people for the sake of having banned people.

And most importantly, I'm sure that's not the reason. the real reason is that the banned people in question keep causing the same problems that caused them to be so widely disliked in the first place.

MadassAlex

Concerning the size of this forum:

I essentially think it's a good thing. Not all forums need to strive for size. As far as I can tell, the entire purpose of this place is to replace what we lost in the Great IJBM Purge of TvTropes. The moderation here is good, we can shitpost and everyone knows everyone. Personally, I'm pretty happy with this place.

MillerCross

I don't mind the size of the place, what I do want is variety.

Everything lately has been Ponies, Homestuck, Lolis.

I believe that a big userbase wouldn't be bad. And I'm unhappy with the moderation. We've seen threads getting derailed and locked because nobody fears moderation, and nobody cares about how other people are being affected. 

How many thread locks will we get till we have some modicum of civility around here? Because, honestly, it's starting to look as if we'll even have to ban subjects, such as the ponies and lolis in order to keep this place going.

MadassAlex

The issue isn't moderation, the issue is an attitude in the userbase. We should encourage contribution rather than punish whimsy.

I do agree about variety, though.

MillerCross

The issue isn't moderation, the issue is an attitude in the userbase. We should encourage contribution rather than punish whimsy. 

I don't see how they are mutually exclusive. And we've tried to encourage contribution and civility, thousands of times, quoting the rules, being soft on them, but they don't care. If there's no punishment nor penalty for breaking the rules, then why should they care in their first place?

glennmagusharvey

@Vorpy > Hell, it took me AND Bob to get Chagen's sympathy trolling thread killed after 4 or so fucking pages of maximum shitposting, but evilneko killed a pretty civil thread in less than one. Holy fuck.

We moderators are solely a volunteer group; moderating isn't our 24-hour paid job, y'know.

@Vivi > Or you could not lock so many threads Cygan. I think you do that too much.

Or I could blow your cover.

@Cygan > We do not have the ability to tempban, Juan. Only ban, I am sorry.

Well, we could ban with a note to lift it after a certain time.  It's just that the software doesn't have built-in temp-ban capability.

@Vorpy > And then there is the whole "Hey they are banned lets talk shit about them before their ban lifts" attitude that is conveyed.

And they can read all of it anyway.

@Vorpy > My opinion on the locked thread: Discussion was over, I won't miss it.
@Juan_Carlos > ^ Agreed. Not like it matters. The point was more the method involved and that the thread was thrown down the shithole again because some posters can't just stop doing stupid shit again.

@Cygan > I'm the most active mod.

My apologies for making you a mod.

@Everest > but 3 days is really not that scary, come to think of it.

3 days is enough to have someone calm down from either shitposting or whining rampages.

@snowbull > 3 strikes doesn't seem like much...if this was enforced fairly strictly, I could see a large amount of our userbase being banned. I mean we have, what? 14 regular posters? 20? If we ban just one permanently, we've lost a significant portion of our number.

I actually think we have a pretty significant number of regulars and semi-regulars here; I don't think we'd be missing much by removing a handful (maybe 5 or so) of the more persistently annoying members.  Remember that this is just a website for idle entertainment involving complaining about whatever.

@LouieW > Do you think you could clarify what "meaningful" means in this context? I am having some trouble understanding this portion of the rules, but I am not sure if I just have a different definition of meaningful or something. I can understand that rule if meaningful just means "not garbage and image spamming," but if it is subjective at all (i.e. meaningful posts are what moderators consider to be good posts) then I am not so sure.

I'm willing to let slide one-off jokes and responses, such as me too, meme images, and stuff, PROVIDED THAT THEY DON'T DERAIL THE THREAD.  If you have caused the thread to become such that someone else who comes in wanting to actually talk meaningfully about the topic of the thread feels unwelcome, then this is a problem.

@Noimporta > I'm sure there must be around a hundred or so registered. But it certainly fails to catch people's interest, and part of it is because it hasn't guaranteed them an environment where to have good discussions, in that sense, banning problematic people might actually encourage the activity, since it's a display of the site's willingness to clean up its act.

We have over 300 user accounts, but some of them are spammers, sockpuppets, and duplicates.  So I'd say around 100-200 distinct members, as a first guess.

And yes, I am concerned about that last point too.

@Everest > But there's reasoning behind bans. If people act like they did when they got banned before, they're going to get banned again.

And one person banned from TV Tropes has also been banned here.

glennmagusharvey

And yes, I like that 3 strikes thing, though it would take a bit more moderating effort.  Though I guess we could coordinate that between us mods.

MillerCross

Yay, a mega GMH post. The best kind of mega post.

...

No Juan quotes were taken except for one that applies to Cygan more than me.

Y U NO QUOTE ME, GLENN?

Nova

My apologies for making you a mod.

Why?

MadassAlex

I'm not saying don't punish those who break the rules, mind. Whimsy can go too far. But keep in mind that this forum is a surrogate for the most chaotic subforum on TvTropes, so being overly harsh on whimsy is counterproductive to its initial aims.

Ideally, we want contribution and shitposting fun to coexist in peace. Neither one is worth losing the other.

I do realise how difficult it is to balance this in practical terms, though, especially given some of the userbase you have to work with.

Noimporta

Or I could blow your cover.

>Implying there's anyone who doesn't know already.

All Nines

This thread kinda has me on edge.

"Or I could blow your cover."

OH SNAP! But if I may ask, how is that relevant to their opinion on locking threads? [For the record, I know what he's talking about, with the cover thing.]

^ Or do you? No, honestly, I'm curious. Not trying to be snarky or anything.

MillerCross

I actually don't see how that's relevant to what Vivi said.  Damn it, ninja Everest, Imma put a bell on your neck.

^^^ I agree with that, actually. Couldn't have said it myself better.