[COMMS] Improving Communications

It's been a while since we had one of these threads, and it seems like right now is the perfect opportunity for it.

How can we improve Comms? What steps could we (users/mods/admins) take to make things better?

I am about to be demoted and banned (for security reasons) while I go on my honeymoon. Because of that, I would like to leave this thread available while I am gone. I would ask that moderators try to avoid this thread (other than watching for TOS/rules violations), and that everyone who replies try not to respond to what others say, but instead simply post your own thoughts on the current state of things, and how we can all improve. I don't want this thread to become a debate, but instead a brainstorming session. It's a place to present ideas, not to shoot them down.

If you prefer to PM your comments, feel free to send them to me, and I will read them as soon as I return. I will then provide a "condensed" version of those comments to the thread.

Please don't just talk about what the problems are. Propose solutions. It's easy to say "something should be done about ________". It's a lot harder to actually come up with and implement a solution. Let's work towards solutions together.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Two things come to mind right off. One is that moderators tend to go on the defensive the instant there's a thread about the forum they moderate, and that leads to problems. Yes, I understand the reasoning behind PMing moderators first about things in their forums, but just because that doesn't happen isn't a reason for the mods to become defensive. Sometimes people don't realize the protocol, or sometimes they think that having an open discussion is a better idea than doing it by PM. Just because a thread in comms deals with a specific forum doesn't mean the moderators in that forum are under attack. Mods should be open-minded when they go into threads, regardless of which forums the threads are about. Defensiveness doesn't work. Comms isn't a battleground, though it seems to be one. Part of that is, no doubt, because of the users' attitudes about things, but it's made worse when moderators automatically take any thread about their forum(s) as an attack on them.

The other is that some moderators, not all, don't take a professional attitude in here. They respond to comments with sarcastic or snippy retorts, and that also causes problems, or exacerbates them. This should be a professional forum. Q & A, mature discussion, etc. are appropriate here. Sarcasm, joking and the like have their place, but not in this forum. An occasional joke to lighten the atmosphere is fine, but continually... not so much.

Not only that, but sarcasm doesn't always carry over very well through posting. It's often difficult to tell if someone is being serious or sarcastic, and that complicates things considerably.

Going hand in hand with that, moderators need to remember that while some users post everywhere, a lot don't. Fanficcers tend to stick to their forums, movie people stay out of EU and lit forums, EU people sometimes avoid movie forums because they don't want to risk getting into arguments. Because of this, not all users are familiar with all moderators. Maybe a mod takes a certain tone all the time and users in his or her forum are familiar with his or her attitude and can tell when s/he is joking or serious, but not all can, and when a mod is dealing with users who aren't familiar with him or her, joking and sarcasm are problematic.

As far as users, the biggest problem I've seen is the attitude many users take toward moderators. As problematic as it is for mods to instantly go on the defensive, that approach is not without a reason, and that's because, often, threads (whether they start out that way or not) become an attack. For example, the thread about whether there should be fewer threads locked in comms ended up being an assault on Kimball. Mods are defensive from the start because they're so used to being attacked. Users need to take it easy and be less confrontational.

I think the thread about whether fewer threads should be locked was a good start, because that showed that you as Admins wanted input from users and, clearly (evidenced in the unlocked threads), you listened. The big problem between users and Administration is that (1) users feel like their being ignored and (2) they feel like they're being shut out of issues. While I completely understand that MS needs to be a private forum (I mod another, smaller board and we admins/mods definitely need our own place to work on things), I think a greater degree of transparency is called for.

For example, in the last MS Update, surlygurlie wrote:

Discussion of images that walk the line of acceptable as ?family friendly? took place.

But none of us users has a way of knowing what that actually means. Was it discussing whether to tighten the policy? How to deal with these images (bans, warnings)? What the line actually is, and what falls on either side of the line?

At the same time, I think a great example of this increased openness is in here:

As is the case here in Comms, discussion is continuing in the MS regarding moderator titles, and whether variations outside of standardized titling should be allowed.

You're having that d

 

Thanks for opening this thread.

I think a comms index might be good. I know stickies aren't really attention getters, but it might be usefull. When a new sticky is posted, maybe use different color text or uppercase letters or something to get people's attention.

I think something needs to be done to get more people posting in here. I didn't even know comms existed for several months after a started posting here. Granted we don't want new users coming in here and spamming the hell out of the place, but we need to do something to make more people aware that this place exist. We also need to encourage people to come and post. If you look at a lot of the comms thread the main people involved in the discussions are mods, ex mods, and a few concerned users from each forum. MAybe if a general annoncement was made about this place in each forum, more people would get involved.

I also think all of us need to keep making, or in some cases start making an effort to be more civil in here. It's not like people are calling each otehr names or anything like that, but SOME times people's bad attitudes come through clearly in tehre post. This can be a turn off for a lot of people who are not used to posting in here.

 

I think it's fair to suggest that some discussions had by the mods be shared with the general users, if only to keep us informed on decisions, or allow for further input.

 

The first thing I would do is not make such an important thread a sticky thread. I don't know about anyone else, but I completely missed this assuming it was part of the other group of stickies in this forum that I never read. And I think the fact that this is only the fourth reply in six days bears that out.

That said, I would like to see mods resolve issues openly in Comms. No more "We'll discuss it in the MS." Discuss it out here, with us. Unless it's about another user and someone's privacy is at stake there's no reason not to. You shouldn't run away to hide every time something comes up. Telling us you'll discuss it sounds like an incredible blow off, especially when there's no follow up.

That's really it. Not that hard. Use this forum for what it's for, improving the JC. It's not here to throw us a bone and make us think we have a say when we don't.

Amazing.

 

One thing I have noticed, some mods, not all, seem to spam a lot. Now I am not going to say whom is doing this or where this is happening, but it is in one particular forum especially, and it is kind of annoying.

That is all I have to say for now. I may think of something later.

darth_nemisis

 

darth_nemisis posted on 5/28/05 12:00am

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One thing I have noticed, some mods, not all, seem to spam a lot. Now I am not going to say whom is doing this or where this is happening, but it is in one particular forum especially, and it is kind of annoying.

That is all I have to say for now. I may think of something later.

[color=red][hl=black][b][i]darth_nemisis[/i][/b][/hl][/color]
[hr][/blockquote]

Your comment will make comms a better board. Well done.

 

One thing I have noticed, some mods, not all, seem to spam a lot. Now I am not going to say whom is doing this or where this is happening, but it is in one particular forum especially, and it is kind of annoying.

I'm sure they'll get right on that.

Anyway, I think B pretty much hit the nail on the head. Getting rid of the "We'll discuss this in MS" quick-fix would be quite simple and yet would produce excellent results. As he said, if a topic doesn't pertain to a problem with a user or an issue of board security, there really isn't a need for it to be in private.

 

I'm sure I said something similar Therefore I agree with B

 

Courtesy of a new feature that zerosleep is testing, this thread should be unstickied sometime soon.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Please understand it's difficult to work on, "Some mods on certain boards spam in certain threads."

 

Courtesy of a new feature that zerosleep is testing, this thread should be unstickied sometime soon.

I noticed several of them around the board doing that.

 

The thing that has me rolling my eyes in comms recently is mods being dismissive of certain topics they think are not worthwhile. So they jsut spam or troll the thread. It may have stopped now, not sure.

 

If an issue is important to a user, it should be to a mod, as well.

 

If an issue is important to a user, it should be to a mod, as well.

Within reason, yes.

 

What I don't like is a user can bring up a valid point, and some of the mods/admins can just shoot it down at once. They won't even consider such an idea. To me that is a very negative thing. It seems as if all decisions are made in MS (nothing wrong with that) and some mods are not willing to think of any option not presented there. As if comms is just a show, that nothing discussed here has any actual importance.

-Seldon

 

I would suggest discussing policy in a public forum rather than in a private forum. I can understand not wanting to air out your dirty laundry, but secret discussions really do have a chilling effect on communication between the moderators and users.

What likely happens is that a policy discussion takes place in the private forum and a decision is reached, probably after some argument. The decision is announced in the public forum, and the users want to discuss the policy; likely bringing up some of the same arguments which were put forth in the moderator-only discussion. The mods claim to have considered these points already (which they may very well have, but who knows) but the user feels his point has been dismissed out of hand. In essence what happens is all the mods (even those who may not fully agree with the final decision) are providing a united front in the public forum to defend the new policy, and it quickly becomes a user vs mod discussion with users saying "you never listen to us," and mods saying "yes we really do listen, trust us."

I don't really post in this forum, because I always thought it would be a useless effort. It is sometimes entertaining to read, but I am not sure that user input is taken seriously. It may very well be that user input is actually discussed in the private forum, but the only people who will know this for sure are the mods themselves and perhaps a few friends.

There are a couple of options I see to resolve this:

1. I think the best way would be to make all policy discussions open to everyone in a fully public forum. Since not everyone is going to agree with whatever decision is made, it's not going to make everyone happy. But at least the process is there for all to see, and users feel they are part of the process. There may be some discussions that would be more appropriate in a private forum, but that should be the exception not the rule.

2. If that is too unwieldy, another (less attractive) option would be to make policy discussions in a moderator-only forum, but granting all users read-only access to the forum. That way we could at least see the process even if we are not truly part of it. This still would serve as a communication gap between users and mods and would probably just encourage a whole lot of users to PM the mods participating in the discussion in response to what they've read.

I think the best option is to make the discussion fully public. This probably won't cut down on the drama, and may well increase it in some cases. But at least a reasonable person can see clearly that all reasonable options are considered before the policy is decided, which is not the case currently.

 

Comms does have its up and downs. Seeing how things have been run in the past year, I think there are more ups than there are downs.

Mod Squad Update
Quite useful but more and more is themed for our enjoyment. Most of MS team make the update informative, prompt and enjoyable. The MS team could reveal a bit more and keep to schedule. I know you all have lives outside the JC, but I look forward to the update every Wednesday. I try to stay on schedule with my CBC (despite recent events), but IMO, punctuality shows what type of leader you are.

Icons Thread
Tracy's done a wonderful job with this, however I'd like to see this tied with Fan Art forum. Since photoshopping falls under the criteria. I'd like to see some input from members who want the perfect icon. Like in Fan Art, maybe they can work with the photoshop-artists on a one to one basis.

Technical Error Thread
I see no real problems with this. If an MS member recognizes a problem, they should report it so we don't have to read 50000 posts about the JC going through routine maintenance. If it's something not caught by the MS, then it should be up to the poster.

Comms in General
I'd like to see a more organized Comms. Index the MS updates and the Mod promotions. I would say have Comms be like ROTS, where the admins turn on and off the post new topic button, but emergencies do happen. Encourage PMing a MS member instead of airing out your feedback laundry in the open if its not essential to the entire JC community. Take what you want from it, hope anything and everything helps.

 

I would help compile an index, but look at this thread, as a sticky, it only got 4 replies. Why should the mods or anyone else go through the trouble of making a comms index if people will ignore it?

Is there a way we can make sticky threads stand out more? What about changing the color of the font in the subject line?

 

GriffZ posted on 5/31/05 3:31pm

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[i]If an issue is important to a user, it should be to a mod, as well.[/i]

Within reason, yes.[hr][/blockquote]

Well, of course. I was just saying that if a liable issue is presented, mods shouldn't just make us "talk to the hand".

 

I'm tired of mods locking threads when they think that there is no more discussion to be had. If people are still talking then obviously more discussion is needed.

Also, this is comms, as in communication. The mods do very little of that. All I see is "we're discussing it." Everytime I see that I roll my eyes.

Also, some mods like to pop into threads and make stupid comments for no apparent reason. You know who you are.