If you haven't heard by now we're well into development of the new SP. This is a significant overhaul and I want to put as much into it as I can to make up for the years of neglect we've some how managed to pull through. I need to know what gripes you guys might have in regards to SP's current state, and how we could fix them. This way I will have a better understanding of the problems we need to address from perspectives I may not have considered. Feel free to state your mind, but please be civil if you're going to criticize anything or anyone. I intend for this to be an open discussion for everyone including moderators. If I don't receive feedback I'll assume that there's nothing to fix and will continue developing in the same direction I have been going in.

This is more than just moderation or site policies, it can be anything related to SP you have an issue with. Currently there are a few things I am planning on improving, these are not guaranteed but only ideas I have been mulling over:

Better Mod System - I think there's a problem with Infractions from a fundamental level. I've always been trying to push for consistency with the mod team but that's difficult especially given that most of the time the infractions aren't in black and white. I want to work with the mods in order to brainstorm a revision or new system for maintaining the forum.

Rules & Policies - Once we've settled on a direction for the new site we're going to revisit the rules and rework them to suit what we want to accomplish. This will include having clear descriptions for potentially ambiguous things like "harassment" and total transparency when a new rule is added.

Staff Accountability - In the current system it's difficult to see why someone was banned or infracted. This seems to create a communication problem and often ends in assumptions being made which can further cause conflict. While we need to maintain some degree of privacy among staff discussion, I believe it's in everyone's best interest if bans and infractions are made public. There is immediate benefit for everyone in this: mods will need to be clear in their reasoning and users can see what's going on and object at any time.

Appeals - Right now we don't have clear recourse for banned users or infractions. I always say that you can contact me about anything and as long as you're not being a dick I'll do my best to help, but it's not advertised anywhere and I can't expect people to just know that. Additionally, how are users supposed to contact us when they're banned? The second account rule is a grey area that seems easily abused. I am designing a better system for filing appeals directly against infractions and bans, which may or may not also be publicly visible.

Serious discussion only please, I will remove posts that I think are too flippant. I would appreciate a minimal amount of respect for my efforts by not shit posting. Feel free to double post if you have more to add otherwise I may not see your edits.

Aren't you reworking stickpage.com primarily though? This all seems a lot to do with the forums which is great, but I was sort of looking forward to news about that portal that's been in the works for like seven years.

The forums and the site will likely be integrated into a more cohesive experience, so everything I'm talking about applies to both. Sorry if that wasn't clear when I first started posting about the new site. I know a lot of you remember SP and SPP as separate entities but we've talked about it and are leaning more towards the integration.

What exactly are the problems you see with the infraction system? Just asking since it would probably be easier to brainstorm possible alternatives if we knew what was bothering you about it to begin with.
instead of taking shots in the dark y'know

So you're going more into the direction of something similar to how HD is set up then? I kind of like the idea of a news feed system, except instead of giving that privilege to everyone you could consider having a group of people or mods who are in creative control over things to make feed posts and advertisements. An example would be if drone tried bringing Friday funk back, he could advertise it to everyone on the front page while linking to each event. That way it isn't full of clutter.

Quote from Arch-Angel

So you're going more into the direction of something similar to how HD is set up then? I kind of like the idea of a news feed system, except instead of giving that privilege to everyone you could consider having a group of people or mods who are in creative control over things to make feed posts and advertisements. An example would be if drone tried bringing Friday funk back, he could advertise it to everyone on the front page while linking to each event. That way it isn't full of clutter.

This is an interesting idea, but wouldn't that be better if it were divided into two feeds, one for site announcements and the personalized social networkish feed kinda deal that HD has got going on

Although this is all probably general SP Discussion stuff right? Should probably move this over there since this thread is about like, mod/rules stuff apparently

I feel like the HD feed is really cluttered like Facebook and people put all sorts of unnecessary things on it. That's my own personal opinion. I don't frequent the site much so I never really got accustomed to it. I prefer the forum experience, and if a portal is in the works I feel like a news feed type system could be incorporated with that for quicker access to the animation and thread like in the old portal. I like the way the dojo portal is set up, but loading videos sucks unless you have good internet.

this is in general though?

I think there is two things that are important to the site to me.
Firstly about what drone and arch said that would be a nice addition since the friend list doesnt make that much of a use at its current state, Mostly a little activity stream but only with your friends while on your profile, Something that is pretty "meh" In my opinion. But Like HD it would be a little too much having it almost like facebook, having something more customizable being able to tell the activity stream what to show and what not to would be a nice approach, That would also help since I for one am someone who always has the activity stream on but i am not so interested in SE posts, while those who play SE might not be interested in the normal animation forum stuff.

Apart from that I have also seen alot of people who are new to the site and get lost easily, maybe some sort of new person friendly approach given to the site would be nice, Making a bit cleaner and having the rules and rhg rules a little more visibility and overall maybe having the sections a bit less clustered? A prettier layout :3
Thats just my opinion.
(Nyah's~ away)

Quote from Drone

What exactly are the problems you see with the infraction system? Just asking since it would probably be easier to brainstorm possible alternatives if we knew what was bothering you about it to begin with.
instead of taking shots in the dark y'know

The problems I see tie into the other issues I have about accountability and unclear rules. Infractions are a slippery slope because they lead to bans, and that can be abused in order to ban members that don't necessarily deserve it. I think fundamentally the system is sound because the idea is to allow mods to keep track of problem users, but I think there's room for improvement on what would qualify as an infraction or how we would issue bans based on them.

Quote from Arch-Angel

So you're going more into the direction of something similar to how HD is set up then?

Well, it's really not much different from how it is now. The main site and these forums are linked to each other and are on the same domain, they're integrated together for the most part it's just the layouts that are different. Having the forum layout and the site layout be integrated are where the similarities would end. I am not going to turn SP into HD, I am actively avoiding that because SP has a different target audience and is culturally very different. I'm designing the site in a way that's appropriate for SP, but I have to stress that we still have no set plans.

Quote from Drone

Although this is all probably general SP Discussion stuff right? Should probably move this over there since this thread is about like, mod/rules stuff apparently

Oh no lol, the points I made are just what I've been thinking about because those apply most to what I do around here lately. This thread is also for anything SP related that you'd like to bring up. I made a separate thread for this specifically so I can keep the discussion contained and organized as I'm going to be referring to this thread a lot and I don't want to have irrelevant posts in it.

If someone accumulated enough infractions to warrant a ban, how did they not deserve that ban? I agree that some if the rules are a bit open ended though, it would be nice to have a few of them more clearly defined since there have been times where we'd go back and forth in the bat cave about whether or not something is or is not worthy of one infraction only to decide that it was breaking a completely different rule entirely

And ohh ok, nevermind then lol, guess I got a little ahead of myself

You guys know how in league of legends or some shit at the end of the game you can rate your team mates with either a positive or negative remark? Is it possible to include a system that let's people rate others posts and either make complaints or leave positive feedback for the community to see or for just the mods to see?

And yeah, don't make this place like HD lol

Quote from Drone

If someone accumulated enough infractions to warrant a ban, how did they not deserve that ban? I agree that some if the rules are a bit open ended though, it would be nice to have a few of them more clearly defined since there have been times where we'd go back and forth in the bat cave about whether or not something is or is not worthy of one infraction only to decide that it was breaking a completely different rule entirely

The second part of your post sort of addresses the first. I pointed out how we don't really make it clear what recourse you have when you get an infraction, I feel that a lot of users may be unjustly infracted in the first place based on some potentially unclear rules. For example I see a lot of off-topic/spam infractions going to people lately for posting in their clan threads which have historically just been a place to shoot the shit with your clanmates. I don't feel like those people necessarily deserve to be banned because they're doing what everyone else is, or in instances where they've unintentionally broken a rule more than once in a short time and they get infracted for each instance instead of one that encompasses all of them. I think we could either try to rework the system so that these incidents can't occur or occur rarely, or we could address the other stuff which might make infractions less prone to that kind of error.

I like the rate posts idea, if it were dine in a similar fashion to the hd portal posts that would be neat, with the seperate lijes and upvotes thing
I remember that one time thevforums changed and we had the ability to upvote posts, everyone really seemed to dig that, it was pretty swell

Edit; I see, I generally feel like clan threads should be used to discuss clan things for the most part, I only really infract conversations that go into like "do you like one piece/I'm eating cake right now it's so good/banter" teritory because the rhg section isn't general discussion.
But I've never been on FA, idk what clans were like there, maybe I'm missing the point.

And if they've broken the rule before, gotten infracted for it and then come back to break the rule again multiple times over, don't you think they should be held responsible for all those times since they haven't learned from their mistake

Quote from Arch-Angel

You guys know how in league of legends or some shit at the end of the game you can rate your team mates with either a positive or negative remark? Is it possible to include a system that let's people rate others posts and either make complaints or leave positive feedback for the community to see or for just the mods to see?

And yeah, don't make this place like HD lol

If we made it so only mods could see, how does that differ from the report system? I like the idea of rating posts but I would be careful about such a system, if I were to attempt that I would make sure that it had no impact on the visibility of posts, it would just be a cosmetic feedback thing. I don't like reddit-style upvote systems because they have the unfortunate side effect of enabling hivemind behavior. The principle behind the system is sound but in practice it often is just used to silence anything that isn't popular opinion.

No, if we could keep the post system the same, but add a few buttons or something to 'report' posts for whatever reason, then that will enable the community to moderate within itself. I believe last time we really talked about how moderation is down now one of the biggest gripes was how the rules are up to each mods own interpretation of the rules and how they're inconsistent.