I tried to make the question and choices as neutral and unbiased as possible.

I personally feel that we currently have to much, and threads are not being allowed to progress in a natural way, especially in the Idiots section, which is touted as the forum for rants and letting off steam, hence it's title.

So I'm opening up a poll. Have at it.

Also see this thread for more discussion:
Thread splitting

Also, I think Moderators shouldn't be allowed to vote. I'm looking at you Shiribot, since you just voted that we need a lot more moderation. Conflict of interest!

I voted for less.

The idiots section is there to rant and let off steam, yet with the overeager moderation there that simply isn't possible anymore. It is one matter to prevent personal attacks, it is another entirely to snip-snap entire threads and put posts out of context.

BUSTED (ok, ok, I'll remove my vote from the count, it wasn't serious anyway)

Shiri.. I've just lost all faith in you.


EDIT: Just for Shiri, that was a joke, I still you and you know it.

I voted a little less, because as much as I see good intention within the moderation, sometimes it gets a tiny bit out of hand

The issue as I see it is that most of our moderators are really good, but the ones that do most of the moderating are particularly bad. So, if you do a poll on each individual moderator/admin, you're likely to get mostly positive results, but when you look at the boards as a whole, you see a developing pattern of overt moderation with the nearly omnipresent threats of locking threads and split threads. I might go back and check the life expectancy of a thread after being split, but I would imagine that it's not good. Then again, I might not.

Looking at the life expectancy of a thread after being split isn't helpful because they rarely get split early in their lifetimes. It takes a while for someone to mobilise and cut it off, by which time it's already run part a significant part of its natural lifespan, or burned out in the case of flame wars. Several of the threads that -were- siphoned off from LoR with only a few posts lasted at least a couple pages.

I'll add that what a thread like this really asks, posted at a time like this, is a question somewhere between "do you care about the Garmr thread being split" and "do you care about Eventru locking a couple threads a while ago." Most of the people who don't care won't vote. As a result, expecting significant changes from a thread like this is pretty optimistic (or pessimistic depending on how you look at it.)

P.S That we need lots more moderation vote wasn't me this time! Go pitchfork mob someone else.

It actually never disappeared. It's still yours.

I'm certain it disappeared, I refreshed the thread afterwards and it was gone.

I've commented on the over eager and excessive moderation a few times now, both in the forums and in game on OOC channels. So it's not just this one incident, it's the constant threat of deletion/closure that I find extremely annoying. I'll try to find my last forum post.

I did note it wasn't just this one incident - Eventru closed a couple threads which people argued about (correctly or otherwise) and it's definitely still in the forum consciousness.

That's why it needs to be nipped in the bud now before it becomes status quo.

So did I, and it never showed 0.

It's a rising trend yeah. I've noticed it too but hoped it was just a passing thing. Seems it ain't.

So please, just stop it.

EDIT: I think I saw it show 0 at one time, Tuek. It is likely someone else's vote. (Who knows, might be krin). Since whoever voted that though didn't comment, I doubt it was a serious vote.

I voted a lot less. But then, I'm of the mind that unless folks are spewing out filth (i.e. nothing but fowl language and so on) or are engaged in vicious personal attacks, there isn't a reason for it.

So what if a thread wanders off course a bit. It's easy enough to get back to the original point if needed. Most folks are capable of ignoring a complete hijack.

I don't want our fun forums to turn into Achaea's boring forums where no one is allowed to use lolcats without being mod-ganked.

Now, I don't so much mind thread splitting, if it really turns out that a conversation is interfering with the purpose of a thread (like in Lack of Rants), but thread closing is BAD unless the thread has become full of personal attacks and foul language or discusses forbidden things like issues or bugs. Those are the only reasons to close a thread when not specifically requested by the OP, IMO.

Except that LoR has no general topic, but rather a lot of different ones. So -every- topic is suitable for it, as long as you want to rant.

I agree. Let us speaking nothing of birds and their ilk.

Meanie. I just woke up, you expect me to use words properly?

Oh, I'm not arguing that, it's just when folks get into long conversations, the rant doesn't fit the purpose of the thread, which is to air quick rants that don't deserve their own threads. Obviously if your post generates more than a random few replies, it could have supported its own thread and said thread should be split off.

ETA: I'm not saying that thread splitting willy-nilly is a good thing! No. In fact, the only time I support it really is in LoR, or as mentioned in that other thread if an Ideas thread starts talking about two completely separate ideas.