[COMM/JCC] 'Spam' vs. 'Fluff' - A Critical Distinction

I disagree. In YJCC nothing is irrelevant. No, I take that back. Threads about Star Wars are irrelevent, nothing else. Prove me wrong with evidence.

 

this policy has been working fine until newbie mods and newbie administrators come along and **** everything up, because they're in positions of "power" and want to do something. dear god, i want Vert back. or Kadue. hell, give Sapient the job back.

 

Where is the head admin in all this turmoil and drama? Does he ever post in comms? Is he aware of all the CRAP that goes on?

 

this policy has been working fine until newbie mods and newbie administrators come along and **** everything up, because they're in positions of "power" and want to do something. dear god, i want Vert back. or Kadue. hell, give Sapient the job back.

Can I stay?

 

The head admin doesn't necessarily have to be extremely active in Comms. If we didn't have a dedicated Comms admin, then I'd argue otherwise.

 

But the comms admin doesn't seem to be able to grasp and resolve the problem...so shouldn't someone else step in and do so???????

 

It would be nice if he'd show his face now and then with more than a "great discussion!". All the YJCC mods and all three admins should be in these discussions.

 

Can I stay?

yeah, you can stay. just make yourself head admin. DO IT! i'm being totally seriously. stage a coup de tat(sp?). declare yourself Supreme Chancellor. demote KK. he's active, but he's blatantly incompetent. and keep G-S but strip his "headness" away. he could be competent, i have no idea, seeing he posts once every 3 weeks.

 

Sometimes resolution isn't immediate. The JCC is a difficult forum to come up with set rules. The Comms admin is being very active in here and that's a good thing. Whether or not you agree with him or his logic is something entirely different. Just make sure the distinction between resolution, working through an issue, and not liking the decision being made is clear.

 

ANY mod from the YJCC would be nice.

The JCC is a difficult forum to come up with set rules

The rules were fine until they (certain current mods) got high and mighty and started doing things their own way (whenever they managed to find a way into the forum). Seriously.

 

this policy has been working fine until newbie mods and newbie administrators come along and **** everything up, because they're in positions of "power" and want to do something. dear god, i want Vert back. or Kadue. hell, give Sapient the job back.

When previous members of the administration had the new thread for the JCC posted, evidently it was supposed to be understood that the older rules would still be in effect.

However, it's been six months. They didn't say that anywhere publicly, or clearly for new users to know about it. For six months, anyone who first comes to the JCC has had nowhere to learn what the "real" rules are. All there is is a sticky thread, that has a definition of spam in it. No mention is made anywhere in that thread's guidelines nor in the headers of the previous thread, nor has that older thread been posted in in the past 6 months to bring it to public attention.

For 6 months, the guiding definition that has been posted, and that many users and moderators have referred to, has been that spam is irrelevant or inappropriate posts. The latest rules, the only rules that have been visible and easily accessible to anyone in the forum, send a much different message than what is stated in this thread. Rather than pointing fingers at everyone because it was never publicly clarified what the rules are, The solution is to fix it and eliminate the confusion.

This isn't me or anyone else trying to exert "e-power". It's a real mess created by the past actions not being fully documented and ambiguous messages being passed around.

Kimball Kinnison

 

KK said:
Spam can be either irrelevant or inappropriate.

Yes. It can be. But that completely marginalizes the entire point of discussion, which was that, although the term "spam" can relate to many things across the net, it needed to be specified for it's use within the confines of the JC.

The definition of "spam" outside the JC was merely a starting point. And a starting point that is a long way away from where this thread took us.

And now we've seemingly destroyed the progress made in this thread in a single move.

For 6 months, the guiding definition that has been posted, and that many users and moderators have referred to, has been that spam is irrelevant or inappropriate posts.

It was done in error. A 6 month error. Just because it's been there for 6 months (in error) doesn't mean you're powerless to undo the mistake, and shouldn't correct it now that it's been brought to everyone's attention that the wrong set of rules have been labelled as the current ones.

Please, fix this mistake ASAP. Damage control, Will Robinson. We all now understand how it happened. It requires no more explanation. Get off the laurels and change it.

Vertical

 

Honestly, in this case I don't think you should be the one trying to have to sort out JCC policy, K_K. I respect that you're trying. The answers need to come from the JCC mods.

 

But they are NEVER here.

 

I disagree. In YJCC nothing is irrelevant. No, I take that back. Threads about Star Wars are irrelevent, nothing else. Prove me wrong with evidence.

i love you.

 

Hm... in reading through this thread, a quote from US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart comes to mind:

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . but I know it when I see it"

That's how I see this discussion. What's spam? I know it when I see it. I'll admit I'm a little bit more strict on what I see as "spam", but I still know it when I see it. I mean, there's OBVIOUS stuff that's spam ("tl,dr", or "+1", for example), but drawing out the line that "defines" what is spam and what is not is impossible. It's all subjective. Trying to have a "critical" discussion of what is spam and what is not will go on for pages and pages, but won't reach a conclusion, I guarantee it.

 

Trying to have a "critical" discussion of what is spam and what is not will go on for pages and pages, but won't reach a conclusion, I guarantee it.

Exactly, which is why it shouldn't exist as a buzzword on the JC. If you can't define it, how can you possibly use it as a reason to lock a thread?

Amazing.

 

I think my conclusion was that "spam" as was defined at the time, shouldn't exist. It should all be classified as "fluff", and left alone.

I felt "spam" as a JC term should refer solely to flooding, or solicitation.

But why not just do away with the term altogether, and simply enforce the rules as "no flooding" and "no solicitation or advertisement", and simply allow all fluff in the JCC (and I'm only talking about the JCC here).

Vertical

 

Exactly, which is why it shouldn't exist as a buzzword on the JC. If you can't define it, how can you possibly use it as a reason to lock a thread?

Well... I disagree. I think if a thread is totally clogged with what is very obviously spam (it might be hard to define the very fine line between "spam" and "fluff", but there are some things that are OBVIOUSLY spam) then that can be a legitemate reason to close a thread.

Frankly, I'm personally not a fan of the "fluff" that clogs the JCC, either. I think a LOT (and I do mean a LOT) of it is spam, flat-out, plain and simple. I know a lot of people do think it's hilarious and love to see it (and contribute to it) but I think it's inane. Then again, I neither make the rules nor enforce them, so I tend to simply avoid the JCC.

 

I apologize for my absence in the past several days, both in Comms concerning this issue and in modding the YJCC in general, however I was ill and was unable to be on the computer as much as I would have liked. I have read through the thread and I am glad to see that so many regular users, ex-mods, and current mods are as adament about addressing this issue as I am. As Vertical noted in his original post, the definition of "spam" has become blurred and can be interpreted as meaning several different things in recent years. It is because of this that I feel a generalization and consensus needs to be reached concerning the issue, namely amongst the JCC mods on what we judge as "spam" and "fluff". In a forum like the JCC, the modding must be impartial and seemless among the moderators and a general mindset must be shared by us, the mindset would be in relation to the standards by which we oversee the forum in general. Spam as I see it would be something that is posted with a malicious, vulgar, insulting, obscene, or something that is posted with blatant disreguard to the terms of service.

 

Spam as I see it would be something that is posted with a malicious, vulgar, insulting, obscene, or something that is posted with blatant disreguard to the terms of service.

That's probably the best description of it that I've seen in a while. Though maybe vulgar doesn't belong on that list.

Can we just take that definition, minus the vulgar part?

 

Sounds like as good a definition as I've heard.

 

Spam as I see it would be something that is posted with a malicious, vulgar, insulting, obscene, or something that is posted with blatant disreguard to the terms of service.

Isn't that already trolling?

Amazing.

 

> Spam as I see it would be something that is posted with a malicious, vulgar, insulting, obscene, or something that is posted with blatant disreguard to the terms of service.

Why not save all the confusion, and forthwith refer to posts that are malicious, vulgar, insulting, or obscene as malicious, vulgar, insulting, or obscene, not as the mythical catch-all "spam".

So, in an edit, you would put "Locking, Vulgar content", not "Smells like spam".

The term "spam" should not be used as a reason to lock a thread. You should state the actual specific issue with the thread's content.

 

As many have pointed out before, most of these light-hearted threads end up dying out in a few hours usually and fall back to the 19th page of the forum, never to be heard from again. This is one reason why every single thread doesn't need to be locked.