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RE: Political Discussions Thread is locked

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NexOrigin

NexOrigin

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There were a few interesting threads to read.

And then there were all the threads that were just festering cesspools of personal attacks, racism, false accusations and hatred.

Try going back and actually reading some of the political threads. You'll see all kinds of personal attacks being allowed. You'll see all kinds of people rallying around the hatred of certain individuals. They weren't "respectful discussions".

Maybe if the mods had actually moderated the political threads more heavily (as was claimed would happen in the CoC), and not allowed things to get so bad, things would have ended up differently.

What was done was needed. Things weren't going to change on their own, and things couldn't stay the way they were.

EDIT: Maynne said :
It is some perennial troublesome people spoiling it at the expense of well behaved forumers. Maynne said :
Given that some persistent noisy perenial troublemakers refused to follow the line. They danced to the tune of their own music, and if they are stopped by a mod -- they will just use another throw-away account, rinse and repeat. All the blame goes on the forumers, because no mods were complicit in what was happening, right? :| I'm better than you, but that doesn't mean you're not great! :)

01-Aug-2020 14:07:03 - Last edited on 01-Aug-2020 15:04:01 by NexOrigin

Wilf
Jul Member 2019

Wilf

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Pathetic.


It would be interesting to see how many different users posted on the thread(s) that resulted in this and the amount of recent reports as a result of those threads and if the names of those reporting are those participating



Anyway I look forward to the removal of the forums due to there being better places to discuss runescape

01-Aug-2020 19:06:21

Aeroxmaster

Aeroxmaster

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Well now that other people have spoken further, don't mind if I do speak further myself!

I must say, I'm in agreement with Wilf.

In my opinion, which is an honestly held opinion, I do believe that there has been a conspiracy between F/LMods (maybe not all of them but at least a certain number of vocal ones) and Jagex which resulted in the removal of politics from Off-Topic.

I would not be surprised if my post gets hidden for stating the above, but then again it would only assist in furthering my points. My point here is that this decision was taken without consulting the community , likely behind the scenes, in contrast to when the 2017 Forum Rules Update were discussed with the community first before being implemented. My other point is that it seems that some people/mods are taking offence to things, and then getting involved without knowing the relevant facts and then moderating things.

It is my belief that what happened in OT probably did not result in loads of reports to FH. What likely happened was that there were controversial posts made and some mods taking controversial action, as alluded to earlier in this thread by some other user(s). Sometimes actions were justified, and at other times they were more controversial as it seemed that some were moderating without sufficient knowledge on the relevant topics, acting almost as "forum referees" for the sake of it, when nobody actually raised a complaint about said posts in Forum Help. I believe that the majority of moderation was likely in good faith and a lot relatively fair, but then again I also suspect there to be a significant amount that was done with insufficient topical knowledge.

If people want to debate endlessly, then imo, let them, as long as they are not causing harm to other people and spreading significant disinformation. Intervening because "people are debating endlessly for pages" isn't a valid excuse in itself imo, which I've seen used in some places..

01-Aug-2020 20:14:31

Aeroxmaster

Aeroxmaster

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Similarly to like Wilf said, there have been many times in RSOF history where people have come back on alternative accounts to circumvent bans. There was a time that this resulted in further action being taken against the main account, and indeed I believe that the Forum Offence System thread in Community Home corroborates that. Other action taken also included perm alt removal. Yet seemingly, this isn't being followed and instead, rules that were discussed with the community are being compromised instead without discussion.

If you don't like politics and what other people have to say, then do not engage with those topics or those users imo. It's as simple as that. By engaging with people endlessly in debates when you know you're going to get annoyed, you keep getting back the things you don't want to hear. You have to agree to disagree at some points. I myself participated and took a break, but I did not get angry as such. I just recognised that we were going to have differing viewpoints and left it at that.

This isn't an attack on mods, however I do feel that the way in which this has been handled isn't the best and is more of a cop out. I also believe that part of the reason this has been done is because Jagex are feeling "out of their depths" when it comes to FMR, not knowing how to deal with the threads, so they are just throwing the towel in to make life easier.

I'm not campaigning for Jagex to necessarily reverse this, but what I am going to say is that I am particularly disappointed with the approach that's been taken. That's my main stance, similar to Wilf. This rule change will probably make OT dead again, and I actually enjoyed returning back to the forums and RuneScape after lockdown started and discussing opinions politely with other forumers that also like this game, but also like talking about other more lighthearted subjects too. What a shame. A big shame. Although I know others won't really care about that.

Won't be using forums much now

01-Aug-2020 20:14:40

Aeroxmaster

Aeroxmaster

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On another note, with the removal of politics, you should now consider whether or not to unhide the Off-Topic forum entirely now. The only other controversial subject that's permissible to be discussed in there at the moment is religion, but I won't be surprised to hear about that topic being banned shortly without consultation as well. Seems it's mainly/only the moderators' opinions that count when it comes to Jagex making significant RSOF decisions, as usual and as we have seen throughout RSOF history.

Maybe don't unhide Off-Topics because Jagex won't want indexing of those topics on Google I guess... Either way, doesn't personally make much of a difference to me now anyway.

- Signing out. Thanks while it lasted.

01-Aug-2020 20:22:02

Maynne

Maynne

Forum Moderator Posts: 52,416 Emerald Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Aeroxmaster said :


I would not be surprised if my post gets hidden for stating the above, but then again it would only assist in furthering my points. My point here is that this decision was taken without consulting the community , likely behind the scenes, in contrast to when the 2017 Forum Rules Update were discussed with the community first before being implemented. My other point is that it seems that some people/mods are taking offence to things, and then getting involved without knowing the relevant facts and then moderating things.


Aeroxmaster, first and foremost - I am not hiding your post. I can fully understand why you posted that.

But I can safely say here that fmods and lmods have nothing to do with the decision. It was an exclusive internal Jagex decision. The new policy lifting the leniency in posting political threads in OT was announced to us the same day that the OT thread publicly announcing it was posted.

Yes, people may believe that fmods are influential but the reality is we are just janitors of RSOF day-in, day-out. The real people who decides for the overall direction of RSOF, especially the rules are the Jagex CM employees themselves.

02-Aug-2020 03:27:29 - Last edited on 10-Aug-2020 20:10:40 by Maynne

FiFi LaFeles

FiFi LaFeles

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Sorry to see that you won't be around too much now, Aero. Fare thee well.
I rather think that may be the case for one or two others as well.

I share your disappointment with the change being suddenly implemented without any conversation with the forum community (in direct contrast to the initial introduction of being able to discuss such topics). Maybe it was taking up too much high-end moderation time and we're considered to be not worth the investment.

Just another nail in the coffin of the RSOF, a feature which Jagex have long-since pretty much abandoned anyway, any involvement being extremely sporadic and never of an enriching nature.
Le Chat Guerrier

Bwian's Towel & Grief Shop

02-Aug-2020 10:01:17

Stoat King

Stoat King

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NexOrigin said :

What was done was needed. Things weren't going to change on their own, and things couldn't stay the way they were.
I agree.
I can kinda understand why it was removed without any conversation.
I suspect any such discussion would have simply been another rerun of the breathless accusations found in the problem threads themselves.
What is the upside for Jagex in hosting such a poisonous shitstorm?

02-Aug-2020 11:10:22

FiFi LaFeles

FiFi LaFeles

Posts: 24,106 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Does there always have to be an upside for Jagex?
Sometimes companies/individuals do things or provide things to their patrons without seeing any directly beneficial result to themselves.

They do it as ... thinks of word ... courtesy? favour? Certainly such favours may be withdrawn as quickly and easily as they are bestowed and the users have, essentially, no room to moan since the favour was supplied gratis.

In this case, since the favour bestowed doesn't actually cost Jagex anything - the forums being here anyway - what kind of upside would they have expected from it in the first place?

I rather think that the removal hasn't so much to do with no upside coming from it's remaining rather than it was beginning to cost Jagex a small amount of time and involvement which, presumably, they are not prepared to invest.

Yes, there's no denying the whole thing turned acrimonious on the part of some of the contributors but instead of dealing with the troublesome parties involved Jagex took the lazy route of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Le Chat Guerrier

Bwian's Towel & Grief Shop

02-Aug-2020 12:39:56

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