Welcome to the Goats Forums.

Please don't expect us to make you feel welcome. We're here to entertain The Great And Terrible Jon, not be your friend.

Please pay attention to your spelling and grammar. In fact, please pay attention to everyone's spelling and grammar.

Please pay a lot of attention to how other people here say and do things. Notice that there is an almost complete lack of "OMG", "ROTFL", "WTF" and other "intarweb" "slang". We don't do that stuff here.

Please don't get upset if you get flamed. Odds are good that your particular brand of "comedy stylings" is gonna rub someone the wrong way, and they'll jump on you for it eventually. But please do notice that we flame you for what you say or do, not for who you are.

Please don't feel afraid to flame someone. But don't expect it to be good for your Karma. Once you've posted a few hundred times, and you appear to be a member of the community in good standing, then you'll probably get away with it.

Please don't respond to a thread that's been idle for more than a month. In fact, for your first few posts, it's best if you only respond to active threads.

Please keep your remarks brief, at least to start. If you have a Grand Unified Theory about your favorite movie or comic or tv show or physics or whatever, have the guts to keep it to yourself. Goats is "Stupid Comics for Smart People" - so at least one of us has probably already thought of your theory, and discounted it for some reason or another.

Please remember that you can't start a new discussion until you have at least 5 Karma points, if I remember correctly. You get Karma points by saying things that someone else finds interesting.

Please don't post urban legends or rumors as facts - we've got a crack research staff (headed up by Dr. Internet) and we're not afraid to use it.

Oh, and please get over yourself. You're a special and unique individual with many varied talents and life experiences - JUST LIKE THE REST OF US. We've seen your type around here before, and aren't going to be impressed.

Oh, and if we do flame you till you char, it's for your own good. Really. Constant harrasment and criticism builds character.

Cheers,
Graham

In Response to albionsoft (#12288):

mmmmm.....crispy newbies....

In Response to Dynedain (#12335):

tastes like pony...

In Response to albionsoft (#12288):

Yes. You will grow to become an all-around wonderful person... if all the character doesn't kill you first.

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12757):

Oh. I do believe that Zamphir missed sin #1 - posting to a dead thread, aka the 'chowda' effect.

I would say it goes as:

older than 1 month = never
older than 1 week = better be topical and amazingly good
less than one week old = idiots unite!

You probably could replace '1 week' with '3 days', actually.

This sin has nothing to do with the pedantic police, but will result in a fairly swift karma beatdown, as you seem to have experienced. The difference between funny and annoying has a lot to do with timing. Trust me, I know. So don't take it personally.

In Response to deerboy (#12759):

Oh. I do believe that Zamphir missed sin #1 - posting to a dead thread, aka the 'chowda' effect.

Oh, you're right. I did miss that. Guess I'm just not smart, like you.

Please don't respond to a thread that's been idle for more than a month. In fact, for your first few posts, it's best if you only respond to active threads.

In Response to zamphir (#12762):

Boy, you sure have been snippy at me ever since the energy/mass discussion. And not in a fun-loving way. Taking into account your housing situation, perhaps you should reduce the number of stones that you throw.

Apparently that point was supposed to be clear under the morass of other rules you list? It usually isn't worth my time to ready your posts the first time, so I guess I just zoned out.

CCMITGBM

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12761):

I just like being able to respond to my punisher! ;)

OK, I'll give you hint on one of them.

In Response to deerboy (#12767):

And not in a fun-loving way
You aren't having fun?

other rules you list
I don't make the rules here.

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12757):

There are certain actions in any culture that are frowned upon. When you're new to any group, it is only polite to try and work out what they are.

When you break one of those "rules" and someone points it out (either directly, or by modding you down) try and work out what you did wrong. In many cases, highly valued (by me, anyway) members of this community have had these little teething problems, but got past them and proved their worth.

Whining that your behaviour shouldn't be frowned on misses the point entirely, and makes you seem petty and juvenile. Which I'm sure you don't want to be.

My advice : Take a deep breath, read several active threads, and post something that you believe is really, really good.

Oh, and you're getting way too out of shape over Karma. It's numbers generated by any passing idiot. I mean, I lost karma just cos some Tolkien-head didn't like being reminded that Lord of the Rings ain't a patch on Helstrom's Hive, let alone Dune. Don't see me bitching about it public. Er...

Cheers,
Graham

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12784):

Yeah, people will smack you down when you correct them brazenly in public without tact.

...I didn't like it, and said so. . publicly because there was NO WAY to address the person who saw fit to do so.

By the way, they do have metamoderation [goats.com] for a reason.

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12784):

The one time I had something I'd done wrong pointed out by someone (in this very thread, when the 'don't respond to an old post' was pointed out. .in fact this very post was the old one in which I'd violated said rules), I'd thanked the pointer-outer and been quite pleased. It was a good point, and WAS a bit ironic given the thread in question mentioned it ;)

No - that was your error in the "titles" thread. Which is why I pointed you here. Too subtle, I guess.

My specific issue wasn't 'Karma' (though that was an eyebrow raiser), it was the 'labeling' of two of my posts as 'stupid' and 'obnoxious'

You get that the "labelling" is *how* you lose karma, right? When someone decides you deserve to lose (or gain) karma, they get a pretty limited list of possibles word to give as a reason. Often the word ain't a great fit, but a moderation drop down with two thousand words to choose from would be unusable.

good luck collecting souls (you can get them on Ebay!)

Winning them at poker is more fun. And cheaper.

Woke up, and I had a big idea...

Cheers,
Graham

We're here to entertain The Great And Terrible Jon, not be your friend.

i didn't know that this was in the job description...

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12799):

Mind you, I STILL think whoever made said decision is a complete weenie and I question the giving of an ability that can LOOK so bad on a post to someone who isn't going to use it properly. . .especially if they can remain anonymous.

Okay. It may be a bit of a surprise, because there's not a cohesive FAQ or similar to answer these questions, but moderation is always anonymous. Moderation points are distributed at random to the pool of eligible members through a nifty little script. These mod points may only be used in fora in which the moderator has not participated, and subsequent participation removes the mod points from both post and karma (although the most recent descriptor does remain).

That having been said, it's absolutely vital that moderation be anonymous. Without the anonymity provided, moderators would be open to insult, ridicule, or 'revenge' enacted by people who disliked a given moderation. The anonymity requires that, should they publically acknowledge their moderations, the results of those moderations vanish, and therefore any subsequent retribution is made unnecessary. Of course, this is all theoretical, but the type of unscrupulous people who moderate for past grievances are generally not given mod points in the future.

In short: stop whining, already. It's over and done with, and only exemplary [goats.com] members [goats.com] generally have the ability to expect that their complaints will, in fact yield results. That's because they've already proven their general worth (or something) to these fora. Until you've done something similar, don't expect much.

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12814):

that someone was hurt/upset in a way that was utterly and completely unecessary

. . especially since it was completely unnecessary.

I can't find the post where you got moderated as 'stupid', although I suspect it was the one which has now been relabelled as 'pathetic'. Both the moderations you're complaining about were incurred as a result of posting to a dead thread. Result? You probably won't post to a dead thread again, at least without something extra-special to say. So the moderations were not 'unnecessary', they were given out to teach manners.

And yes, the same effect could have been achieved with a brief response, a la Graham. But the fact is that responding takes time and effort, and in the continuing absence of a FAQ, people get sick of posting the same stuff over and over. Moderating is quick, and generally gets the message across.

I'm saying it's a poor system
Tip: if you're walking into cult headquarters, it's not a good idea to criticize the decor. It was usually chosen by the head honcho.

And don't take this stuff personally, really! A brief look at other recent discussions should demonstrate that even long-term members get told when they're being idiots. It's all in good fun. And you honestly haven't been stomped on as hard as some others [goats.com] were when they first reared their heads. Can we spell 'over-sensitive'?

IMHO, bad judgement on the part of said moderator is serious icing on the cake.

Well, that's a matter of opinion. AsphaltBuffet pointed out the existence of metamoderation, which is how these forums self-regulate. If the moderation was truly unfair, chances are it will get meta-moderated up.

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12814):

the only option is to dive in (all unusual and awkward, yes).

and yet again the "September that never ends [astrian.net]"... well it never ends so I guess this is more like proof that it is still not ending..

One of the big things I seem to recall being thrown around back then was that people felt they _had_ to join in on any conversation[1]. There is another choice. Read the stuff, get the feel of the community, watch for a chance to do the exact thing as someone that is obviously respected.

What I like about your post is that you aren't whining and, in fact, have offered Phillip so much of your own time to help him solve these problems that you have noticed and that chunk of sample code from the site you developed was invaluable. It's this kind of respectful and constructive criticism that makes others of us feel like absolute scum for just taking and taking and bitching and whining like little whores. Man, I hate those little whores.

In Response to tynic (#12815):

Both the moderations you're complaining about were incurred as a result of posting to a dead thread

The post in question is in the 'titles' thread (page three). .and my post was a day and a half later than the post I responded to. It was about the sixth thread on the list at the time. I'm not sure a 'new' person would consider that a 'dead' thread. The one I DID post to after it was dead was THIS thread ;) (hence my refrence to the irony of it)

And yes, the same effect could have been achieved with a brief response

And a brief response would have been likely tactful, effective, been taken well, and resulted in no ill will, no posts such as this, and no ranting ;)

How do I say this . .hmm. . ah! The communication that was apparently intended by the 'moderating' system was AMAZINGLY ineffective. I was not left thinking 'oh my! That happened because I posted on a dead thread', it left me thinking 'what a pompous jerk, who the heck did that, and what sorts of mean-spirited people run this site. . WHICH of these people is like this and why do those who moderate let it happen? I can't even defend myself'

I'm GUESSING that the wrong point came across. . If this weren't the forum of perhaps the most hilarious web comic I've ever seen, I'd never have come back I'd have been telling my friends 'read this comic, but whatever you do don't join the forums!'

Tip: if you're walking into cult headquarters, it's not a good idea to criticize the decor. It was usually chosen by the head honcho.

I don't tend to be terribly politically correct in that respect, it's been good for my career ;)

which is how these forums self-regulate. If the moderation was truly unfair, chances are it will get meta-moderated up.

I don't know enough abuot the intrinsic design to say one way or the other, however I can say, with a tremendous amount of confidence, that said self regulation is effective for members with 'critical mass' and generally is VERY lopsided with respect to those who are new. I know that part of the biz well enough, and if I DIDN'T I probably wouldn't have stayed around to talk about it at all.

I.e. even if it DID meta-regulate out, the public-branding component of the system is a VERY serious thing. . and should be used rarely if at all on new members. There's no positive benefit (those who are unfamiliar and not already part of the social system will take it VERY badly, and won't properly register what is apparently the intent)

In my (not terribly) humble opinion, of course.

And hey! I'm a student of the game AND a test subject! Come on people, work with me here ;)

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12818):

and my post was a day and a half later than the post I responded to.

Actually, it was a month, a day, and a half later than the previous post [goats.com]. And it was a month and 12 days later than the post [goats.com] you were actually responding to.

A quick check for how old a discussion is is how far down in the lists it has slipped. But as a student of the game, I'm sure you know that already.

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12818):

the public-branding component of the system is a VERY serious thing. . and should be used rarely if at all on new members

The moderation categories are as follows (you can't assign a moderation without a categorical descriptor):

Normal (this is just used in the drop down list for "no change")
Funny (+1)
Clever (+1)
Informative (+1)
Intriguing (+1)
Insightful (+1)
Compelling (+1)
Pathetic (+1)
Super-Genius (+1)
Obscure Reference (+1)
Redundant (-1)
Stupid (-1)
Obnoxious (-1)
Troll (-1)
Flamebait (-1)
Incoherent (-1)

The moderation system works almost exactly the same as that on Slashdot [slashdot.org]. You can read their FAQ on the subject if you wish.

You happened to stumble in at a point where a lot of people happened to be posting long discussions about relatively serious topics; this is a fairly unusal occurance for these forums. Knowing what you do about the nature of the comic itself, these forums (Hint: One of them is specifically called "Ring of Fire" where flamewars are encouraged), and the comic genius behind it all, you should be able to remedie your situation rather quickly (Hint: Long posts that are Reduntant to your previous ones do not tend to help you ingratiate yourself with the existing community).

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12792):

Well, judging from the info that I've read on the forums, goats follows a slashdot-style system. This means that moderation points allocated every so often to "average" visitors to the forum- i.e. people who are checking the forum an average number of times, not too much, not too little. I tend to get moderation points quite often, but I've been generally reserving them for up-modding (as all the people who need to be down-modded have been given due punishment anyway!!) It's anonymous, I believe, mostly to protect people who've been down-modded from unnecessarily flaming the people who've moderated them (not saying that you'd necessarily do that); or possibly to stop people from participating in karma "deals".

I don't think that the anonymous nature of moderation is a bad thing. I would prefer it to be anonymous rather than not. Also, the forum doesn't work like a workplace; it's much less formal.

I believe there should be a few more moderation titles because there are other reasons why people are moderated- like the whole posting to dead topics issue. So maybe there should be a "-1 dead topic" title, or possibly all topics over a certain age should be locked automatically by the system.

hope that enlightens you

My advice is, you don't HAVE to reply to anything immediately. If you haven't posted yet, chances are, no-one will notice if you wait for a few days without posting. When some moment of comic genius or amazing burst of relevancy finally assails you on viewing a forum topic, THEN post. Don't post any sooner than that. Then wait for another opportunity to regale us with your wit comes up, then post again. Do that for a while and you will begin to get a feeling for the forums and start accumulating karma.

Oh, and don't feel shy about asking regular users for clarification, about why particular rules exist or other stuff. It's more painless for you than making a blunder and having your heart ripped in half by a single down-mod.

Anyway, hope this is of some help and not too -1 redundant.

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12818):

The first time I was going to reply to this, I had a great analogy worked out. I compared forum members to various types of high-school-aged students. Then my computer crashed.

So after I stopped cursing this piece of junk, I ordered some Chinese food, and then I got around to working out what I wanted to say again.

What it comes down to is this: Either you like the way we do things, and you hang around, or you don't like the way we do things and you go back to wherever it is you come from. I don't particularly care either way, and I rather doubt most of the other people here are any more inclined to give a rat's ass about it than I am. (Those of you feeling more humanitarian may feel free, of course, to mod me as necessary regarding this fact.)

But if you want to hang around, don't expect us to change everything just because you've gotten upset about it. That sort of behavior tends to lead to mockery, insults, and other behavior patterns common among social groups when faced with an outsider who refuses to conform. I'm not saying you should become a drone - although it might be preferable to illogical redundancy - I just figure, you don't sign up for the ice hockey team because you're the hottest thing on skates.

See, skates are the internet at large, or whatever part of it you're a 'student' in, and then ice hockey is an activity where the skills you have learned in the precursor activity apply, but are not the only skills necessary to be a functional player in this new activity. So while normal internet skills are useful here - like knowledge of basic HTML - they're not the exclusive skill set required for active members of the forum community. We tend to be fond of things like proper grammar.

I'll even give you a point on that for free - ellipses are composed of three full stops one after the other, like so:
...
without the use of any spaces between them.

We also don't use standard internet abbreviations - emoticons and the 'lol' phenomenon among them - and prefer the use of italics or boldface to all-capital words when showing emphasis. I've also found that the sparing use of emphasis is much more effective, since excessive emphasis simply makes you look hysterical. (This being, of course, in the median definition, post-Greek but pre-modern, so that you seem overwrought and emotional rather than amusing.)

Beyond this, simple observation should suffice. When in doubt, post shorter rather than longer; concise statements are far preferable to long ones.

And yes, I sense the irony in that this post is long. I preferred, in this instance, to overstate, explain, and repeat whenever necessary, so that it would be extremely difficult to misunderstand or overlook my meaning.

In Response to sakuruth (#12809):

In short: stop whining, already. It's over and done with, and only exemplary [zamphir] members [me] generally have the ability to expect that their complaints will, in fact yield results.

Hey, now. First of all, Zampster is an example to nobody, please do not call me a 'member', and, more important, I took downmodgate like a man, with nary a complaint. I believe others (As well as the man behind the curtain) stepped up.

That's the friggin point, though. Whine all you want, newbie (even if you believe them to be 'strong conversation points'). Things around here take care of themselves. Not in a 'customer satisfaction' type of way, but in a small town sort of way. You've been here two days and 50% of your posts are complaints about the system. Why should anybody care about your opinion? Eighteen hundred complaints into it, Zamathrustra still hasn't complained about the system. Speling, yes, but not the system.

I've done online collaboration consulting and the like, so I'm hardly a novice.

Is that like having a PhD in poop?

That's bad customer service, period.

What is this, Wal-Mart?

Frankly, somebody's continued complaints (or justifications or explanations or what have you) make me feel pretty good about my kneejerk downmodding. (p.s. ;) )

What do people want? Uga-chacka, one of us, we accept him?

When I got here, I spent time on concise, funny, poignant posts, so now I don't have to.

Is it just me or is Zamathrustra starting to look like a prophet? It begins with questioning yourself, you know. There must be some connection between the worms and the spice . . .

In Response to deerboy (#12834):

please do not call me a 'member'

Gosh. It seemed so much more complimentary than other euphemisms I can think of. Especially as - to the best of my knowledge - you aren't named Richard.

When I got here, I spent time on concise, funny, poignant posts, so now I don't have to.

Whereas I jumped right into snide criticism of spelling and grammar, and followed it up with mock-informative drivel. But hey, whatever works, right?

In Response to Lears_Fool (#12814):

I've done online collaboration consulting and the like, so I'm hardly a novice.

Yet you've never heard of Slash, one of the more influential and commonly used moderation systems. How odd.

The system ENCOURAGES the problem by not providing any newbie-friendly arena, and the anonymous and offensive nature of the 'tags' (as well as the fact that it's PUBLIC SCOLDING. .frowned upon in the online community world as a first option) makes it worse. And, IMHO, bad judgement on the part of said moderator is serious icing on the cake.

Lets take these one by one :

Newbie-only areas don't work. People who need them don't use them, those who could guide newbies into the greater community don't read 'em. End result : newbies are still newbies when they join the big boys. Complete and utter waste of time.

Instead the accepted method of not making a prat of yourself on first post is to LURK UNTIL YOU KNOW THE RULES. This has been standard Internet etiquette since before the invention of the WWW.

Tags are offensive? Have you read the comic? Or is it only funny when its directed at Scott Biao, not at you? If being called "obnoxious" for making a social faux pas is "offensive" you need to grow thicker skin.

Public scolding? (By the way, excessive capitals are frowned upon by the online community...) How else would a system that has no central moderation deal with the problem? If I can't scold you (in a very, very minor way) publicly, how does the next moderator coming along *know* I've taken action?

There was not "bad judgement on the part of the moderator". Moderators get to do whatever they want. That's how the system works. In the long run, it averages out, and we get the community *we* want. You did something wrong. You lost karma for it. Instead of apologising or just getting on with it, you're whining.

I'm not 'whining'

Oh yes you are. Just like I'm bitching about your whining.

The system here largely works. Occasionally someone goes on a mad "I'm gonna get that sucker" downmodding spree. Occasionally someone whinges about the downmod they got - never yet seen someone say "hey, my post wasn't that good - how come I got modded up?" *grin* On average, those who contribute get high karma. Those who don't, don't. The community ends up fun and vibrant, irreverant, and just a little bit bitchy.

Coming in with your "I know what I'm talking about" and "this is all clearly wrong" attitude is counter-productive. You don't join any community by asking for the rules to be re-written to suit you.

Last (semi-)friendly post. Keep whining and I'm liable to get grumpy.

Cheers,
Graham