Mod Squad update covering October 30 through November 5 2003

Actually, I had an invitation earlier this year to become an official JCC moderator, which I declined.

So you continued modding JCC?

 

So you continued modding JCC

I continued to moderate in it, not moderate it in an official, forum-wide sense. I leave the vast majority of moderating to the JCC moderators, and just handle JCC moderator requests for help, or other trouble areas that require assistance.

This is derailing the Update, and I'd appreciate getting back on topic. If you want to discuss it further, PM me.

 

> That's news to me but then maybe I knew it and forgot it or it got muddled up.

Evidently. Not only has it been in effect for quite some time, but it is also simple common courtesy.

And it is also covered in the TOS somewhat;

User agrees not to post material that is... invasive of a person's privacy

 

GO ALLLLLLLLLL BLACKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKS


were problem users not discused?

 

If you want to discuss it further, PM me.

I have really no say on the issues of photos being posted one way or the other, but the fact is this issue WAS brought up in the update. Therefore it is worthy of discussion in this thread. You can't derail a thread by focusing on the issues the thread covers.
This hogwash of "PM me" every time a Mod is caught in questionable behavoiur is becoming epidemic and sad.
KW, if you made a mistake or over stepped the boundaries that were discussed here recently is it that hard to admit? Everyone makes mistakes, even Mods.
If there is no issue or deviance to worry about, why must this and every other discussion that portrays a mod or admin in a less that desirable way be censored or made to go away, via PM, instead of being openly debated so the maximum number of users can get a clearer understanding of the TOS and overall harmonic of the JCC and how it should run?

 

Administrator

Everyone go back and look at KW's title again. See that little word? It's not "moderator" or "manager".

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the Administrators help run the entire board, not just their own assigned forums. Personally, I pm KW when I see a problem in the JCC, and none of the JCC mods are currently online.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the Administrators help run the entire board, not just their own assigned forums.

You are wrong. Unless you go by the name Darth Sapient, administrators are only in charge of their specified forums (or areas).

 

I've been doing this for a good while now, and no JCC moderator has ever expressed a problem with it.

i doubt a JCC mod would feel comfortable telling an admin to stay out of their area.

speaking of the photos, i think it's rather silly that mods post their pics ONLY for other mods to see, yet have a cry if those photos show up elsewhere. what's with the mod clique?

oh, and GO THE ALL BLACKS

 

Two things here. One is I don't think we have an official stance yet on how much power admins have to overrule forum mods. I quickly looked through the original announcements on the duties of the various admins from when the newer, better power structure was put into place, and unless I'm missing something obvious, I didn't see anything. This would be a good thing for us to decide, though.

The other is we've long had a system of "quasi-mods" in place across the boards where mods who aren't part of the core group of policy-setting moderators for a given forum but do post there regularly can moderate. All it takes is permission from the official forum mods. For example, the Senate mods told me they didn't mind my moderating there, which is why you'll see me lock Senate threads on occasion. Mace Windy told me when I was repromoted that he would prefer I didn't moderate in NSA because he felt belittled by the fact that I'm smarter, hipper, and sexier than he is and look better in a bikini (*cough* I hope he doesn't read this post ), so I've respected that. By the same token, mods such as Spike, dehrian, and Oakessteve moderate in CT from time to time.

In short, forum mods aren't "forced" to put up with outside presences if they don't want them, as epic suggests - if anything, the current system protects them, because it makes them the only people with the power to decide who's allowed to moderate in their forum.

Can a senior or TPM/AotC mod explain the logic as to why the movie forums shouldn't be combined for three more years?

farrie, my take on it is the TPM and AotC forums still have highly different populations that perceive the films very differently. With the CT, for example, most people now think of the films as an organic whole and primarily discuss issues that span the trilogy. It's rare that we get a thread dealing specifically with one film (unless it's a question or comment on a specific event from one film or another). TPM and AotC, on the other hand, have very different "feels" from one another. They're distinct in fans' minds, many fans like one much better than the other, and the types of people who talk about each are different.

I would say it's not a matter of traffic in the forums but rather the nature of the forum regulars. A merger at this point would be rather forced.

 

One is I don't think we have an official stance yet on how much power admins have to overrule forum mods. I quickly looked through the original announcements on the duties of the various admins from when the newer, better power structure was put into place, and unless I'm missing something obvious, I didn't see anything. This would be a good thing for us to decide, though.

I think I still have the message that was quoted verbatum for the policy, but it boils down to this: other than the Head Administrator/Supreme Chancellor (as the title Vert had), the only time that any of the administrators have a say greater than that of any other forum member is over issues that relate to their area of "expertise", and the very few occassions where they are required to substitute into "Head Administrator" duties.

I can't post the exact wording, but if you want it DLM, I've got no problems if you PM me.



And over the images issue, does that mean that mods and users alike will be held to this new rule and thus anyone caught posting a pic without the person's permission will be held accountable? If so, just disable image imbedding now as the vast majority of images posted here on the JC are done so without the express permission of said person. I can understand the reluctance of some people in relation to a specific page that was only ever handed out privately, but if you think that there is a right to remove any link other than to that page, you are being naive. The minute an image is put on a server that is not access protected, it is therefore free for public access. You agreed to that when you allowed the image to be hosted. I have no problems with any of the images taken of myself to be online, even though they have since been removed from the original servers. Hell, there are 3 freely available pics of me held on servers that I have no right to ask to be removed as they sit on government servers. Every single person gave said permission when they allowed for them to be put on public servers, and unless the image is photo-shopped to make it an insult (and therefore a flame), there is no legal or moral right to prevent them being linked to.

 

Dingo...
"And over the images issue, does that mean that mods and users alike will be held to this new rule and thus anyone caught posting a pic without the person's permission will be held accountable?"

This isn't quite what the concern was. Note, it is not "a(ny) pic" that was under consideration. It is your picture - a picture of you, posted without your permission. If you have a problem with it posted here, your interests will be put first because it is in clear violation of the Terms of Service as it most definitely would be "invasive of a person's privacy."

 

speaking of the photos, i think it's rather silly that mods post their pics ONLY for other mods to see, yet have a cry if those photos show up elsewhere. what's with the mod clique?

epic -- I (personally) am of the mind that it breaks down simply: there ARE certain expectations of privacy that can occur...

For instance, I have several pictures up of myself at a public picture hosting website. The username there is dp4m (as it is 99.44% of places I go). That's clearly public domain and if someone posts one of those pictures (even the half-naked ones ) then I got no problems with that.

However, if someone had a "private" web page -- e.g. a page on their website with no linkage there, and pictures off of that page got displayed. That, to me, is where the difference lies.

And I think, in the specific instance we're talking about for the Mod pics, that's what happened.

 

Note, it is not "a(ny) pic" that was under consideration. It is your picture - a picture of you, posted without your permission.

And that makes any difference to what I said? While I didn't spell it out, I would have thought that the sentence structure would have given away that I was referring to photographs of individual persons, which are things that mods and users alike do imbed. Now, since every one of those is of a specific person, therefore it carries that before doing so, said persons have to ensure that they have the express permission of the subject of the photo to be able to post it.

 

Dingo (was his name-o), as you well know only registered users here are protected by the TOS (yes, this includes indefinitely banned memebers as well).

So if you post a picture of a random, unregistered user -- I think you're fine. It's like cursing someone out who doesn't post here. Perfectly acceptible under the current rules (so long as the cursing is done in accordance with the TOS).

The two grey areas I see are:
a) Any pic of you AND another user...
b) Any pic of a registered celebrity (e.g. Peter Mayhew).

I'd rule that both of those are allowed (personally) but I do not claim to speak for the entirety of the MS on that.

 

i doubt a JCC mod would feel comfortable telling an admin to stay out of their area.

what's the big deal there? it's not like knightwriter just deleted a lot of threads in the jcc, he helped with it -- is that a problem?

 

<li>Mod Pics: The whole issue surrounding the mods' pics centered around the fact it was posted in a private forum and then showed up on a public part of the forums. That's the core of the issue. We didn't post it out in the puiblic domain, yet there it was.

<li> Movie merges: I am also one of those who think TPM and AotC should stay separate at least until Episode 3 is released. We saw a surge in the TPM Forum when AotC came out because, whether positive or negative, people's opinions changed for TPM and they saw things from the first film in a different light. As far as the endgame, I still think there are more reasons to keep the three PT films as one forum and the three OT films as another forum.

 

Dingo...
"And that makes any difference to what I said?"

Yes, actually it makes all the difference to what you said.

Stated again. We are not concerned about any/all pictures of any/all people. We are just concerned about pictures of "you," that are posted to this site without "your" permission.

That is, specific users of this site covered under this site's TOS.

We could care less if you posted a picture of Brad Pitt or Ronald Reagan without their permission. That's not something that's even remotely considered to be a problem.

 

DLmI understand what you're saying but I see no reason to think waiting three years is going to make the merger less forced. I also see no reason why combining three different populations is somehow less work then combining two, and then adding another one after they've had time to get well mixed.

DLM as CT mod you know there are users who fail to like ANH, ESB, and RotJ equally. Some would go so far as to dislike one or more of them. Yet somehow the CT forum manages to survive.

Furthermore, I think the arguement we saw a surge in TPM for AotC is precisely why we should integrate. Lest we forget the Prequel Trilogy is a Trilogy. It's stories build on one another and keeping them seperate is one of the reasons there are highly different populations, if you can use that word to describe continually dwindling numbers of users posting almost exclusively in large threads.

From my perspective out here it looks like the mods know it will be a lot of work and would rather someone else did it so they're procrastinating as long as possible.

 

Furthermore, I think the arguement we saw a surge in TPM for AotC is precisely why we should integrate. Lest we forget the Prequel Trilogy is a Trilogy. It's stories build on one another and keeping them seperate is one of the reasons there are highly different populations, if you can use that word to describe continually dwindling numbers of users posting almost exclusively in large threads.

But the Prequel Trilogy isn't a trilogy yet. It is still two separate movies (with the third in production).

Your same argument about the PT can be used to say that we should just merge all of the movie forums. After all, they are all one big saga. We should just abandon both the CT and the prequel forums (except 3NS and 3SA).

To my mind, that seems kind of silly. Right now they are still separate entities and should be handled as such. After EpIII is released to DVD, people will start to see the PT as a whole, rather than as separate movies. Until then, we should deal with them the way that the fans perceive them.

Kimball Kinnison

 

It is a Trilogy, the fact E3 has been released yet doens't keep that from being true. If LFL went bankrupt tomorrow and GL was last seen escaping into the Outback riding a Kangaroo TPM and AOTC would still have as much need as ANH and ESB to be in the same forum.

Furthermore, we already have a saga forum.

It will be more difficult to combine three forums in three years then it will to combine two now. The only difference is the current mods will in all liklihood not have to do it.

And I dare say right now we could take a poll that asks how many people thought AOTC and TPM were somehow related and I think msot would manage to udnerstand that yes they are. I do not see the populace of this sight as too stupid to realize the Prequel Trilogy is indeed a Trilogy until Episode three arrives.

 

Mods have an obligation to help out in any forum where they see terms of service being vroken whether the mod assigned to that forum like it or not. In fact, if an outside mod has to come and clean up violations that an assigned mod is purposefully ignoring, that assigned mod really isn't doing their duty, are they.
this isn't an accusation on anyone, btw, since I don't know the circumstances that lead to this discussion, I'm just stating the obvious.

 

Mods have an obligation to help out in any forum where they see Terms of Service being broken whether the mod assigned to that forum like it or not.

I would amend that to say, "...if the mods assigned to that forum are currently not logged on or are unaware of the TOS violation."

 

Listen to Ludicrous.

UKS

 

farraday...
"It is a Trilogy, the fact E3 has been released yet doens't keep that from being true. If LFL went bankrupt tomorrow and GL was last seen escaping into the Outback riding a Kangaroo TPM and AOTC would still have as much need as ANH and ESB to be in the same forum."

If LFL went bankrupt tomorrow and GL was last seen escaping into the Outback riding a Kangaroo and Episode III never gets produced (much less released), then it obviously won't be a prequel trilogy any more.

 

It would be a a two part series, whatever the word for that is, and it would make sense to have it in a single forum.