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!
Confessions of an Absent Moderator
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
- Start date
Silent_Buddha
Legend
(or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Ban Hammer)
After my unexpected absence, I’m back but not entirely sure in what capacity. The reasons for my departure are a perhaps not-insignificant feedback for B3D. In short, the time investment to moderate was considerable and yet it wasn’t able to get discussion quality to what I liked about B3D, so I just popped out for some fresh air…
When Rys took me aside and handed me my first ban hammer (the Mark II with the limited edition cyan trimming; a more delicate hammer for considered ne’er-do-well removal), I was already a very active participant of the console discussions, so my role as Mod placed me slap bang in the middle of the conversations I was also a part of. Being self-employed and working from home, I could spare plenty of time participating and moderating. Okay, I couldn’t really spare that time, but I did anyway. We got to a very comfortable point, IMHO, where moderation was minimal and I was mostly just engaged in discussion.
As time rolled on and the population changed, the amount of moderation increased largely around the same personalities conflicting. Additionally, the number of active mods on B3D has always been low because most aren’t self-employed and working from home and wasting their mornings on it, but fitting in moderation around their Real Lives. Even with Rys promoting new members to Moderators, there remained basically three of us, BRiT, AlStrong, and myself. And frustratingly we hit the same problems over and over again. This feedback forum has plenty of topics started about what’s tricky in maintaining the B3D standard, but nothing particularly changed. To underline the point, upon my return now I see an outstanding Report that is exactly the same people as always!
So one day I’m feeling grumpy at the amount of bickering and cyclical arguments and how emotional people get over whether they are right or wrong and the amount of time and ridiculous number of words I’m spending mostly arguing about the discussions rather than the topics, and I’m thinking, “I really need to finish my game!” and I install a site blocker into Firefox. Over the next week I’m really aware how habitual B3D was, that I’d keep going to visit it between coding down moments, and the blocker gets a good workout. And this frees up loads of time! Not only do I get more development work done, but I even get time to play games a bit more. Ni No Kuni was a fabulous week’s break.
There was no plan or intention beyond what was needed at that moment. My gaming interest was well served by EuroGamer, with small, short lived topics and zero responsibilities. In particular, as a mod I felt it necessary to read pretty much everything in the Console space including members who rubbed me up the wrong way, whereas on EG I’m happy to just ignore people or drop conversations. A couple of B3Ders waved at me there which was nice. One asked if I was going to return to B3D – I didn’t reply and didn’t really know what that answer was.
Still, there were moments I missed the decent technical talk, such as the new PS5 with its downsized cooling solution (I’m sure Mr Fox has something to say about that!), and I knew it’d be nice to be involved in that again, but I don’t want to be dealing with console wars crap or GPU vendor wars crap. And I really mustn’t talk so bloody much!
So now I’m back in the room, and I really don’t particularly want to be moderating. It also appears Al has disappeared
Welcome back. While you were away, B3D gave birth to your baby. @London Geezer.
Regards,
SB
I also think he's the father.Welcome back. While you were away, B3D gave birth to your baby. @London Geezer.
Time travel is so confusing!Billy Idol
Legend
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.
. 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.
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.
He does!! Then where the hell is the PMX590 article he promised us in 2011..........
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Oh hush you, be nice! He got all busy with a career and such.
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?
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.
DavidGraham
Veteran
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!
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!
DavidGraham
Veteran
Yeah, I live for that principle, it's my job after all.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
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
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