Idiocy and pseudo-racism in the Vestigia Vetustatis.

[Osceola]

.. The VV is one of the few areas of this site outside of the Symposium, that has somewhat of an intelligent track record.

Nowadays things are changing, at first it was all those asinine "vs." threads, and then the "What if's" but now we just have insanely idiotic posts.. and it really is destroying the quality of topics in there.

For example if you go look at the latest "Chinese battles topic" in the VV, you will see a post claiming the Chinese are basically stupider then the Romans.

Not only is this hilariously fallacious, but just the way this post is typed, the briefness of it.. the overall Mudpit quaity of it, is just indicative of a bigger problem in the VV.

I don't know what to do, but maybe we could moderate the VV more strictly, and start deleting alot more threads/posts? Normally I'm against Stalinist moderating, but the VV is different. It was supposed to be where you could go for an intelligent convo with Thiu or someone of his caliber. Now it's turning into.. well go look for yourself.

Actually I think I have a solution..

The VV shouldn't be open to all, make it a post count limit to who can post in there and who can't. Something like 2,100 posts sounds pretty good.

The reasoning is simple. No moron would be dumb enough to spam posts in other sections of the site just to get posting rights in the VV. The attention spans of these types of members just aren't evolved enough.

Typically, in order to stay around here long enough to rack up over 2,000 posts.. you do have to be somewhat intelligent, and for those morons that do slip through the cracks..

Perhaps a 3 strikes your out, perma-banning from VV, for 3 convictions of extreme noobishness.

I think this would work like a charm, and it's worth trying.

[attilavolciak07]

I agree the intellectual debate has gone down a little in the VV, not a dire situation though. However a situation that should be noticed.

[Exarch]

yeh that was pretty of the poster who posted that
but hey, the vestigia will always be politicized i'm afraid...
and now i'm afriad the atheneum is starting to get pretty political as well, sadly.

[Father Jack]

Its a tough balance between freedom of speech and opinions and spam/idiocy. Personally I have found all of the debate forums content to degrade enormously over the past few months and I think there needs to be a tougher crackdown on spam posts etc.

[pannonian]

All these schemes depend on staff being there to implement them. Sometimes, because moderators are occupied elsewhere (hello Mudpit!), or because they're just too plain exhausted to spend any more time on moderating, they don't have the time to react immediately to issues in the VV, or to thoroughly check the threads. During my time as a frontline moderator, and when I was still reasonably fresh as a senior moderator, I set a policy of tougher moderation there than elsewhere (which may not necessarily mean more warnings for all). After I noticed the increased recent activity there, I've stepped in for at least a couple of cases to set out the level of discussion expected there.

[Father Jack]

Well prehaps posters need a little refreshment on what the posting rules are in thouse particular forums and a suitable level of moderation is needed without being too draconian. Afterall we dont want to stifle a debate but it is extreemly annoying to come across posts which have obviously no thinking behind them or posts about blind nationalism.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

.. The VV is one of the few areas of this site outside of the Symposium, that has somewhat of an intelligent track record.

Nowadays things are changing, at first it was all those asinine "vs." threads, and then the "What if's" but now we just have insanely idiotic posts.. and it really is destroying the quality of topics in there.

For example if you go look at the latest "Chinese battles topic" in the VV, you will see a post claiming the Chinese are basically stupider then the Romans.

Not only is this hilariously fallacious, but just the way this post is typed, the briefness of it.. the overall Mudpit quaity of it, is just indicative of a bigger problem in the VV.

I understand where you're heading to, but I beg to differ. F.e. take a look this recent thread, the quality of arguments makes this debate almost academic, especially from page 2, when the Phaleras and other trained historians joined in:
The Most Significant Reason behind Alexander the Great's Success

The VV shouldn't be open to all, make it a post count limit to who can post in there and who can't. Something like 2,100 posts sounds pretty good.

I appreciate that you're concerned about the quality of posts, but I don't think this would be a wise idea.

F.e. one of our Phaleras is conon394 currently with 1991 posts, so he would be banned from the VV forum.

But we could adjust this number, f.e. to 500 posts which seems reasonable enough.

Actually I wanted to make a similar suggestion about the Mudpit, suggesting a minimum character number limit for a post, f.e. 1000 characters. How about that? I think it would make sense. :hmmm:

This post is about 1700 characters (including the quotes), and it's not a lengthy post, so 1000 characters are not that much to type.

It would filter the usual birping and smileying posts like.

Oh yeah, kewl, I agree.

What say you?

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Couldn't members then simply report posts they think are unbecoming of the VV? Maybe staff should give some leniency on what is reported there. What I mean is a user should be able to report a post, even if it doesn't break the ToS, and not be warned for abuse of the report function if he feels the conclusions in the reported post lack logic or are completely asinine.

[pannonian]

Couldn't member then simply report posts they think are unbecoming of the VV? Maybe staff should give some leniency on what is reported there. What I mean is a user should be able to report a post, even if it doesn't break the ToS, and not be warned for abuse of the report function if he feels the conclusions in the reported post lack logic or are completely asinine.

Staff show absolute leniency to what is reported, to the point where we get headaches from the volume of reports coming in for what we feel are clearly insignificant reasons. We have often been tempted to disable the report button for the more over-enthusiastic reporters, but AFAIK we've never gone beyond having a quiet word asking them to be a little more discerning.

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Staff show absolute leniency to what is reported, to the point where we get headaches from the volume of reports coming in for what we feel are clearly insignificant reasons. We have often been tempted to disable the report button for the more over-enthusiastic reporters, but AFAIK we've never gone beyond having a quiet word asking them to be a little more discerning.

Then I don't see where the problem is If you think a post is not up to the standard of the VV then report it. However, I have a question for you pann- will staff act on this if they have time or just let it go and move onto more "urgent" moderation needs?

[Serious Spamurai]

Give TG moderating rights there.

[pannonian]

Then I don't see where the problem is If you think a post is not up to the standard of the VV then report it. However, I have a question for you pann- will staff act on this if they have time or just let it go and move onto more "urgent" moderation needs?

Thanks to the wonders of technology, we now have tags telling us whether a report has been looked at and dealt with, so everything is looked at and dealt with most efficiently. Certainly more efficiently than when I was a frontliner.

[Wild Bill Kelso]

Give TG moderating rights there.

Or give some of us who are involved in science mod rights in the Athenaeum

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

My suggestion was completely ignored.
So I will repeat it.

We could adjust this number, f.e. to 500 posts which seems reasonable enough.

Actually I wanted to make a similar suggestion about the Mudpit, suggesting a minimum character number limit for a post, f.e. 1000 characters. How about that? I think it would make sense. :hmmm:

1000 characters are not that much to type.

It would be technically enforced, so if your post is under 1000 characters, you get a message that it's not enough etc. It would filter the usual birping and smileying-only posts like.

Oh yeah, kewl, I agree. :original:

What say you?

[Wild Bill Kelso]

My suggestion was completely ignored.
So I will repeat it.

We could adjust this number, f.e. to 500 posts which seems reasonable enough.

Actually I wanted to make a similar suggestion about the Mudpit, suggesting a minimum character number limit for a post, f.e. 1000 characters. How about that? I think it would make sense. :hmmm:

1000 characters are not that much to type.

It would be technically enforced, so if your post is under 1000 characters, you get a message that it's not enough etc. It would filter the usual birping and smileying-only posts like.



What say you?

In regards to the minimum of 500 posts:Not a good idea. Long ago TWC decided that this is not the way to go. It was one of the distinguishing features of TWC compared to the .Org.

[Serious Spamurai]

Or give some of us who are involved in science mod rights in the Athenaeum

Or both.

[Chim]

I strongly urge everyone tripping over this problem to report such threads.
We can't be everywhere all the time. And believe me reporting threads/posts does work and we take a good look at all of them.

[Miraj]

Simple solution:

Intellectual cage match with Thiudareiksgunthigg. If he doesn't stick around to debate promptly he gets banned not just from TWC.. but from life.

[Erwin Rommel]

For example if you go look at the latest "Chinese battles topic" in the VV, you will see a post claiming the Chinese are basically stupider then the Romans.

Not only is this hilariously fallacious, but just the way this post is typed, the briefness of it.. the overall Mudpit quaity of it, is just indicative of a bigger problem in the VV.

Ahh yes that post. It certainly pissed me off when I read it.

Hmmm, maybe because european (roman) generals were geniuses for the chinese?

[Miraj]

I mean who takes racism from a guy called "Duda" with any seriousness. I mean his name is Duda. C'maaaaaaaawn.