How does a post being qualified as "low quality"?

[the54thvoid]

So, how, in a thread allowed by @W1zzard to remain open to discuss pros and cons of his decision, do we now have a whole series of posts which are exactly ON-Topic, both pro and against it, that get the low-quality treatment?

You did have one person insulting the other two and getting angry, because they did not agree with his assertions against the subject.

This was not the correct usage of this. That guy should have been handled the old-fashioned way.

This is the absolute error of this system. Our 'mods', and they are our mods because they moderate us, do not have the ability to create a fair and consistent approach to this. @W1zzard - can you not see how this is already getting out of hand? Genuine, innoffensive discussion by @rtwjunkie - who is discussing a point of contention which is the political path of censorship- get's marked 'low quality post'. Your mods wizz are exactly starting to become what many of us are discussing.
I PM'ed you initially because i thought strongly about this. You suggested i post openly - you welcomeed it yet here are your mods marking down posts from regular guys who have said nothing low quality at all. The utter tripe randomness of moderation is TPU's achilles heel. As humble and cool as some of our mods are, they still have not got any structure on how this sytem works. Why on earth can you not simply get serious with serial offenders and have them banned? Tarring all posts that are, like, 5% off topic is moronic.

You have to concern yourself with the notion you're now pissing off a lot of the good guys that keep reasoned discussion (not me - I'm a tool) in place. Once these guys get disillusioned and leave it'll get worse. If you dont figure out a secure system that does not rely on a pre-menstrual mod to work on it, you'll lose visits and hence, income.
As for the moderation? A lot of guys on here seem to take their jobs with a sense of unwanted power (the best way). Others think they are better than the community and their word is law. Your word is law w1zz, yours and your alone. This is your site and all we can do is suggest our take on things and it's quite obvious this has not gone down well. Put your pride to the side with your new experiment and just let the mods impose draconian punishments for aggressive, rude or obnoxious posts. Dont let them destroy TPU by removing random humorous posts or ocassional comedy memes. By instigating low quality posts with absolute abandon, your are allowing TPU to wither and die.

Yes we want a good forum for good folk but thats what moderators are meant to do. I like TPU. I like the general feeling of belonging but the very recent swathe of 'low quality post' demotions surely show you the mods (some of them - again - inconsistent) aren't even allowing open debate on side topics.

Really sad day. Really bad moderation going on. Sorry mods - you get to be omnipotent but you need to take some flack. I'm sure I'll get some great reply but really, my point is irrefutable, humans are not consistent and subjective thread cleansing of 'low quality posts' is a minefield of personality confrontations.

The more 'low quality' markings I see in threads, the less I'll visit. I'm sure I wont be the only one.

 

[bug]

So, how, in a thread allowed by @W1zzard to remain open to discuss pros and cons of his decision, do we now have a whole series of posts which are exactly ON-Topic, both pro and against it, that get the low-quality treatment?

You did have one person insulting the other two and getting angry, because they did not agree with his assertions against the subject.

This was not the correct usage of this. That guy should have been handled the old-fashioned way.

I think it may be because posts were just reiterating stuff already said? Just a guess though. Still, we're 13 pages in, I would think everything worth saying has been said already

 

[Assimilator]

I have one bug report: it seems this feature breaks alerts.

Normally when I click an alert, it takes me to the page in question and scrolls me to the alerted post. But if I click an alert to a post that has been deemed low quality, it just takes me to the page on which that post appears. IMO in this case, it should do the same thing as it used to, plus expand the low quality post.

 

[xkm1948]

I said a few pages back that people seems to have an awful lot of faith in mods. Mods are human. I prefer our AI overlords.

/s


/high quality guaranteed

 

[lexluthermiester]

I have one bug report: it seems this feature breaks alerts.

My bet is that it's not so much a bug as it is intentional.

 

[Athlonite]

Yeah, I give that about 2 hours before someone decides to "get back" at some mod, or someone else, and starts down-voting mass quantities of posts, or even trying to push it over a few days, slowly down-voting more and more posts, which the mods would have to visit one by one.

And if that should start to happen then a warning / 7 day ban from forum use is given to the perpetrator if that does not work then a temp ban from the entire site

 

[yesyesloud]

 

[W1zzard]

because, I am the curious type and will click on them, just because they are there... And, then I get a pissed mindset, as I, just wasted a few seconds of my time clicking and reading a post that was a waste to read anyway. Sucks to be curious, at times.

Happens to me on reddit all the time, but over time I'm starting to learn and ignore those posts

I have one bug report: it seems this feature breaks alerts.

Normally when I click an alert, it takes me to the page in question and scrolls me to the alerted post. But if I click an alert to a post that has been deemed low quality, it just takes me to the page on which that post appears. IMO in this case, it should do the same thing as it used to, plus expand the low quality post.

That's correct. The link anchor (what the stuff in the url after # is targeting) is invisible, so most browsers wont navigate to it

 

[Vayra86]

The more I read the responses and shift in the tone of voice of this topic, I am convinced that if you want the userbase to change attitude, you either use the ban hammer to great effect or you start involving the users themselves in being the better man/woman. To facilitate the latter, I've provided a solid system that requires minimal mod activity and outsources a lot of that to the community, promoting and rewarding positive behaviour.

In the end a forum is like real life: you can create order in two ways: carrot or stick. I think you need both, and I think if you want to not make it a 24/7 job, you need to involve the userbase. Its all about marrying the strong arm of the law with 'teach a man to fish'... Right now a lot of us are fishing in a self-taught way that is capable of clearing out the pond for everyone else - look at the amount of low quality posts per page and how its number grows the longer this topic lasts. Let the community teach itself, and outsource that moderation, and all that's left is ban hammers for those who cross the line.

 

[xorbe]

I find it funny that we had 8 pages of discussion on this topic, and it seems most did not take the point to heart.

Another funny thing, I can't think of another forum where this thread would take place, kind of curious.

 

[sneekypeet]

Another funny thing, I can't think of another forum where this thread would take place, kind of curious.

So are you trying to goat me into something or is there an actual point or question that should be had from this?
W1zzard could have closed it day one once he explained what the new feature was, but he did not. Therefor, since the public is voicing their opinion on the matter, most in a civil manner, why is it then my job to close it?

 

[Assimilator]

That's correct. The link anchor (what the stuff in the url after # is targeting) is invisible, so most browsers wont navigate to it

Well yeah, that's my point. You should throw some JS in the body onload event to check if the URL has an anchor present; if it does, check if the element being referred to is a link; if it is, and its containing element is hidden, show the containing element and scroll to the now-visible link.

 

[xorbe]

So are you trying to goat me into something or is there an actual point or question that should be had from this?
W1zzard could have closed it day one once he explained what the new feature was, but he did not. Therefor, since the public is voicing their opinion on the matter, most in a civil manner, why is it then my job to close it?

It was just kinda a random comment / observation. See that's the challenge with this place, everybody takes everything so personally.

 

[sneekypeet]

It was just kinda a random comment / observation. See that's the challenge with this place, everybody takes everything so personally.

Nothing personal, I am just blunt most of the time, and with confusion being easy to have with text, I was covering all options, as I was quoted. Seems you just wanted me to see said comment. Still for what reason, as I explained above, and since the staff did not start the thread, I still did not get the point of why I was quoted in particular.