Confessions of an Absent Moderator

I like this idea and think an awful lot of members do so without thinking, mebbe we just need to focus a bit more/better.

Respect and I owe BRiT MANY beers!

 

Brit is indeed a tired and exhausted mod. 3x cheers

 

Welcome back. While you were away, B3D gave birth to your baby. @London Geezer.

Regards,
SB

 

I also think he's the father. Time travel is so confusing!

 

Good to have you back Shifty.

 

Indeed, it's great to have you back @Shifty Geezer . I've written in public before that one of the reasons I think the forums here work so well is that they're largely self moderating and the community at large really sets the tone and how things go, and the moderators are really just to clean up the larger messes.

I've also not being around much because of work, and have been almost 100% hands off for a long time, letting the mod team handle things in their own way with just one exception in recent memory.

However I can't just let the place rot, so if I can't help with the moderation myself because it's a conflict of interest in some cases, and if the team as it stands isn't big enough despite Shifty's return, I've got no problem consulting to grow the team again and give it more hands on deck. I have some folks in mind, so I'll do some talking and help fix what's up.

I might be busy or have to be hands off and just keep the lights on, but I'm always here to help facilitate any changes that might be necessary so that even if the lights are on, people are still home too and enjoy posting here.

 

RYS LIVES!

This is even better than spotting his name in the video!

Hope you're doing well, hope you're busy in good ways, and I truly hope you're having fun and digging things.

 

"Confessions of an absent moderator."

When can we expect the book? I think it'll probably arrive at the same time as the other book " Vaporware Hell: The inside story on the troubled development of Duke Nukem Forever"

 

He does!! Then where the hell is the PMX590 article he promised us in 2011..........

 

Oh hush you, be nice! He got all busy with a career and such.

 

Yes he's been interviewing people for a position that was his excuse...
Well at least he's thorough

 

I moderate when I see something wrong, but there's the one place I don't go, because I'd need to nuke from orbit and however pretty it is to watch from a safe distance, it's not that enjoyable after the first few times...

 

Consoles? Do I have to get in to consoles just so I can go slap some sense in to people or is it just people being idiots?

 

Now bring back Laa-Yosh

 

He just got fed up with part of the respondents. Another example IMHO showing where senior-led voting would result in the better posters staying and the high-brow aspect of the community growing.

 

I am going to speak on that subject through my personal experience.

In all of my decade long history at B3D, and in the tech world in general, I consider myself extremely good at one thing: detecting patterns and extrapolating accurate conclusions from them, it's a virtue of my job as a doctor (specialty is Neurology and Psychiatry), Medicine and Psychiatry is a science of solving problems after all, piecing a puzzle piece by piece until a grand picture emerges.

In my time at B3D, I have been involved in what I call several grand debates, the first of them was about the adoption rate/usefulness of DX12 (lower level APIs in general) back when they were nothing special, then the adoption rate of 8 cores on PCs, then the spread of APUs vs dGPUs, then Ray Tracing on PCs/consoles and on AMD GPUs, and finally the arrival of Sony PS3/PS4 games on PC.

In all of these debates, my conclusions were spot on, the patterns were successfully identified and correctly extrapolated, and yes, I keep taps on myself (a habit formed from my Medicine practice) to constantly correct course and adapt to the changing times and recognize the constants that were thought to be constants but never were constants.

There are no constants in the tech world (nor the Medicine world by the way), each day brings new research, new ideas, new treatments, new diseases .. etc. You either learn to adapt or you die under the rubble.

But many people don't know how to adapt, that's why they fail to recognize patterns, they hold onto their preconceived notions and convictions, even in a rapidly changing world like the tech world, that's why discussions get heated, that's why they often exercise denial, that's why they get constantly hit in the face by the rising tides, that's why they are quick to fire accusations of bias/marketing bot/working for a company .. etc. When a person lacks argument substance and proper logic, he resorts to seeing the world through a suspicious eye, and instead of detecting patterns, he turns everything around him into a conspiracy, converting random events into the fuel to grow that conspiracy.

I have clashed with persons with conflicts of interest on these matters (whether due to personal preferences, or old convictions), but through it all I kept believing that if they stopped for a moment, ceased resisting the old notions and opened their eyes to see the patterns they would come to the right conclusions eventually. All they need to do is adapt.

Or that's my 2 cents about this matter anyway. Everyone is free to take it or leave it.

 

I can agree with that, and yes, most people can't change, either to see something differently or to behave/respond differently*. The problem I have then is that other people keep trying to make them 'see sense', while meanwhile they are trying to make you see sense; if only you'd stop for a moment, cease resisting your existing notions and open your eyes to see the patterns they can see... There is a pattern in discussion that is apparently lost on everyone and repeated ad nauseum as a result. People get into a debate, the debate escalates, and then they just stick with, keep on talking, never knowing when to stop as there's no actual resolution and the attempts to make the other side see reason are futile. There's an inability for posters to start into a discussion, or notice halfway, "hang on, I see where this is going," and stop before it gets there. There might be some prehistoric "must win!" mentality going on, where people are aware but have to have the last word and can't stop themselves, as per the meme. Either way, self moderation doesn't happen and then the mods have to extract those doomed discussions and spawn them off into never ending, increasingly emotional, back and forths between immovable objects and irresistible forces, until finally putting a gun the thread's head. I guess the winner is whomever gets the last post before it's locked?

In a decade on B3D, you must have noticed the patterns of discussions, yet like every other member failed to adapt because the patterns have remained constant for so many years. Even when the mods keep pointing out the patterns in cleaned-up threads, no-one adapts. We see it beautifully in the NXGamer thread. So many words and so many feels over a rather pointless subject where clearly, the different perspectives aren't going to shift. Which posters are the ones to back out recognising their POV has been said and now reiterating is a waste of time? Maybe, as I found in my sabbatical, it's just a habit of intellectual exercise. That energy to stick with it and try and change perspectives needs be conserved for real topics like racial equality and global environmental devastation; using it to back a platform or IHV or internet personality is just a waste.

* Though a harsh generalisation, it's worth noting people can learn and grow as evidenced by testimonials. We still live in hope!

 

Yeah, I live for that principle, it's my job after all.

 

Yes, understanding a person's POV is not the same as agreeing with a person's POV.

It is not necessary for everyone to agree on something, and I'd argue it is counterproductive for everyone to agree on a certain POV. There is no chance for discovery or innovation if everyone agrees on the same POV and no chance to really get a feel for whether a POV "might" be good, bad, right, wrong, excellent or abysmal. But then much of that is also colored by ones expectations and a host of other factors.

What should be necessary, IMO, and often isn't exhibited is an ability to understand, and at least attempt to fully understand, another's POV whether a person agree's with it or not. And not just understand but respect it as well.

The first, IMO, bad case results in people talking in absolutes when there are rarely absolutes in life or indeed even in tech or even programming (just see the endless debates on something as simple as the formatting of code and which style is "obviously better" than another). There are more people like this (in general not just on this forum) than I would like. There are people like this on both side of any given debate.

The second, IMO, can lead to discovery, acceptance and adaptability. Again, there are people like this on both sides of any given debate, however there are far far too few people like this, unfortunately.

I spend, perhaps far more of my time than I should, attempting to get the first group of people (regardless of whether I agree with the point they're making) to open their eyes and open their mind to be more like the second group. Alas, while there has been success in this endeavor (opening their minds, not necessarily changing their views) the conversion rate is far lower than I could hope for.

And I also appreciate when people point out that I may or may not be coming from too closed minded a view and don't necessarily understand the point they are trying to make while also respecting that I may or may not agree with the the point they are making even if I fully understand their position.

No one is perfect.

Regards,
SB

 

First thing to do to achieve any of those in Britain is to get the fascist UK tory government out of power.