• If you were supposed to get an email from the forum but didn't (e.g. to verify your account for registration), email Wes at [email protected] or talk to me on Discord for help. Sometimes the server hits our limit of emails we can send per hour.
  • Get in our Discord chat! Discord.gg/stararmy
  • 📅 February and March 2024 are YE 46.2 in the RP.

NTSE Issues

Status
Not open for further replies.
One thing I realized this morning is that, once approved, people can just edit their posts, right?

It's not really a concern, since nobody has ever posted in a submission just to be rude or obstruct it, so it's not like we're going to see people trying to skirt the process by editing.

I think the point I'm trying to make on the heels of Fred's Xenforo tutorial is that this is cool but it's also just a placebo. If that placebo works, great. But it's more constant responsibility for the mods and staff, as Fred pointed out, and little is actually different.
I think it's possible for Wes to change edit timers he might be able to make it so that people without moderation power for the NTSE board, just simply can't edit in the NTSE board.
 
I know that, but that's a pretty insane measure to take care of an essentially unfounded concern.

Kind of like needing this whole thing in the first place. Hasn't inconvenienced me whatsoever, and I can't speak for Legix and Frost (let's be real, this was targeted toward us), but it doesn't seem like they've been impacted either.

Not naysaying. Just echoing that repeated concern others have of "yeah, but why is this necessary?"
 
Because trust has pretty much been destroyed on this site and people don't trust the idea of calrifying the rules and having them actually enforced. But action needs to be taken. So this has become the compromise that does the least damage to the identity of the site.
 
I can't help but remember the comments made towards the NTSE mods as to them not being able to cover enough articles in a timely manner, and a similar issue suddenly got shelved on me, but not on a submission-to-submission basis, but a post-to-post basis.

So basically, you have the articles being submitted, and there's an additional submission process for everyone that wants to contribute too. Which means I have to do the homework of looking at the posts in moderation, jump in the threads to actually see what's going on and figure out if it's fine or not (if it's not obvious enough at first glance) and then decide to approve or not.

Which means there's wait-times. Hey, I can procrastinate just as much as anyone else. And then, if people keenly care about giving contribution but still don't see their post as approved, they'll bump me. "Hey Fred, do you have some time to look at my post and approve it?" Anyone posting will believe they have a good reason to do so and they might think themselves justified... but all of that is going to rest on my opinion! I'm going to have to make hard calls, and say NO to some people (for whatever reason: too blunt, I think it's rude, you're just agitating, etc...). those people won't be happy, will have friends whom will sympathize, and this will balloon up.

I'm now literally the speech police for the NTSE... and what do people usually do with speech police?

They hate it, and accuse it of all sorts of things. Staff is biased. Staff can't be impartial. Current staffers are bad, we need new ones. Etc...

I'm getting Déja Vu now. >_>;

It'd be a good plan, if I was somehow not a fellow roleplayer and that I pursued this professionally. There are community managers in official videogame forums that have careers built around that sort of work. But Wes and I don't have that kind of time, experience and professionalism working for us.

To me, it seems like a formula for disaster. Just another kind. Raz is correct; this is a placebo, not an actual solution.
 
Honestly speaking I wouldn't so much call it a placebo. It's not the best solution and time will increase some. But there are two kinds of complaints about the amount of time it takes NTSE. One of which I don't think is valid. 1 Is when the NTSE takes a long while to notice notice the thread or to respond. That is kind of a problem, but sometimes that just happens and nothing you can really do. The second complaint is when people complain because the approval is taking so long because of constant changes. This second kind of complaining is honestly just dumb. If people want their stuff approved fast, they need to make their submissions as close to approval ready as possible -before- it's approved. To do that, it'll likely involve those without much knowledge doing what they're supposed to, and talking to knowledgeable people and asking for help getting their ideas into a format that is SARP worthy -before- they take it to the NTSE.

This isn't the optimal answer, but it's not a placebo, it'll fix the big problem people have, and it'll keep the site's identity. Also every NTSE mod should have the ability to look at these post and moderate. Honestly speaking the NTSE logically -should- be maintaining the peace in whatever thread for approval they are working on. To separate that job from the NTSE is just clunky and inefficient.

I could go on, but in short. Because of how little trust people have, there will always be complaints about NTSE mods until that trust is restored. And if we want to maintain the site's identity and clean up the NTSE it's going to at some level take more work than is being done. That's a given, you can't just have it fix itself. There might be other ways but not that I can think of, unless we scrap part of the site's identity, that'll preserve our level of 'work' but it'll remove something that makes the site what it is.
 
Unfortunately, I don't seem to have the possibility of approving a thread to be moderated within its context. Which is kind of a pain. All I can do so far is look at them all listed out of context in the moderated queue.
Just quoting so Wes knows how much I agree but I think you may have mixed up words. To clear up any confusion, when you said thread, you meant post, right? I agree with that.

Fred edit: That's correct Ame. Thanks for the heads up; I corrected that in the original tutorial post.

Ame edit: :>
 
Last edited:
If people want their stuff approved fast, they need to make their submissions as close to approval ready as possible -before- it's approved. To do that, it'll likely involve those without much knowledge doing what they're supposed to, and talking to knowledgeable people and asking for help getting their ideas into a format that is SARP worthy -before- they take it to the NTSE.
This has been said a ton because it's true and important. All it takes is a few PMs or DMs. And the FM/GM board exists. Or you could go FULL TOSHIRO and solicit public input throughout the whole process on everything you do. It's about comfort levels, tbh, and private messaging a few people beforehand is about as comfortable and non-confrontational as you can get.
 
Yeah there's a reason that all my stuff has hardly any changes done when I make it. Usually it's just a matter of fixing formatting, grammar and technical stuff. I spend a lot of time on each article, and sometimes I even leave an article alone for like a month and then come back to it with a fresh perspective and check if it's balanced, talked to other people and see if they know anything like it and how htey'd use it, make sure I'm not repeating a product the company already has, and making sure it's comparable to other products like it out on the market. That way by time it goes to the NTSE, it's just a matter of detailing and it's ready.
 
Xenforo has an edit history where moderators can see edits to posts and we can also see the edit history of each post and revert it if we need to.

Moderators approving posts have the option to remove any insults/bitterness and approve a nice version of the post, too.
 
Yeah there's a reason that all my stuff has hardly any changes done when I make it. Usually it's just a matter of fixing formatting, grammar and technical stuff. I spend a lot of time on each article, and sometimes I even leave an article alone for like a month and then come back to it with a fresh perspective and check if it's balanced, talked to other people and see if they know anything like it and how htey'd use it, make sure I'm not repeating a product the company already has, and making sure it's comparable to other products like it out on the market. That way by time it goes to the NTSE, it's just a matter of detailing and it's ready.
I mean, this is literally what I kept repeating when bias was leveled at being given to me. I'm sure everyone can recall the like last 4 months that led to the Warlock. Then there was the ZARCNAM, which was shown off over the course of about 1-2. And then the Jackdaw that was about a month-ish. This is why I understand the idea we pushed for, but I still quote it not being the best compared to the most reasonable idea that I've proven already works.

People just need to be entirely transparent before they start and aim for realistic goals if they're not (such as a variant of X versus the creation of an entirely new thing that doesn't do anything like other things on SARP).
Xenforo has an edit history where moderators can see edits to posts and we can also see the edit history of each post and revert it if we need to.

Moderators approving posts have the option to remove any insults/bitterness and approve a nice version of the post, too.
Personally, this second part is what concerns me. Especially when we consider the fact that people's skins are so thin as is. People will very likely misconstrue blunt/direct feedback as insults or bitterness and potentially cloud-up/make it harder to understand the message that might have been initially conveyed.

I just think it'd have been better to do a sit-down, better outline the rules for determining bad behavior, and then just promoting better enforcement of punishment. But we chose this very bad shovel to dig the hole, so we just have to hope that the "placebo" and the non-optimal method is going to work.
 
Though I'm sure we all have our concerns of how this may fail, I suggest we hope this succeeds while waiting to see how it will turn out. We only just started.
 
Well, looking at things, @Fred 's tutorial thing doesn't seem to apply to me, since I don't seem to have the mod tools necessary @Wes . I have the banner and standard NTSE Mod permissions back now that I'm on the job again, as well as the ability to see unapproved posts, but I don't have the ability to approve them.
 
I checked and the setting for viewing the moderated posts is already enabled in permissions for the setting submissions moderators.
 
Have you tried checking the selection box in the posts and choosing "approve posts" in the dropdown menu?

upload_2017-12-17_18-39-6.png
 
I hadn't thought to click the checkbox, but now that I have - thanks Wes - I don't see the options to approve or unapprove posts, though I do see the other ones.
 
@Wes: Are submission reviewers allowed to go into their friend's submission threads and essentially bully the submission reviewer - the one actually reviewing the submission - into acquiesing to the submitter's demands?
 
Frost that is something that is obviously against the rules. You don't even need to ask that. And before you say "Well it happens" a point that was brought up here already was lack of enforcement of rules in the first place.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
RPG-D RPGfix
Back
Top