Forums / Maintenance / Report Problems

I just have to say that the behavior of some users here is atrocious. We all know we like to have fun and post silly threads in JFF. That's perfectly acceptable. But when time and time again there have to be thread locking rampages, you should realize it's getting out of hand.

When a spam of threads are happening in JFF, and you just keep making more, it's highly disrespectful to the mods. You like to have fun? They do too. And having to clean up your shit probably isn't very fun for them.

And during a spamming of crap threads you'll occasionally see the rare "Guys stop" threads. This is also disrespectful because it's just another thing in JFF that needs locking. Some of you have been here for a long time, so you should know better than to be the creator of a thread that's been made 6 times in the same day, like the >Dearpocalypse (which has happened on several occasions). Some of you have been warned time and time again, and still do it.

I just have to say: Please show the mods some respect. They deserve better than that. Especially PimpAbra who seems to be the only mod active during these shitstorms.

To give you guys some idea of what's going on -

Song threads (Just a few of the locked ones)

Made by Sting_auer
Made by Sting_auer
Made by Sting_auer
Made by Kasrkai
Made by Alejandro
Made by Fridge Logic (Although not really his fault as it got derailed)

Yeah…as Kalmo said, I'm sure the Forum and Database mods don't want to have to go through locking the constant repeat threads. So don't jump on the band-wagon of creating threads that are obviously being spammed.

Here's a way to put it: You don't like one-lined self-promoting meme entries? The mods don't either. They waste time, space, and doesn't contribute anything other than the handful of lulz that came from OP.
And we have to waste a few seconds of our lives to deadpool them. It may not seem much, but when you have a flood of shitty entries, we waste a LOT of time.
Bad threads are like this. One bad thread? The mods might frown a bit, but that's it. A ton of bad threads without real content? Every thread takes a little bit of time to lock. And when JFF is full of them, sometimes the mods just want to lock the forums. If you've ever been in the IRC you'd know how much the mods, whether DPF or PimpAbra, hate these threads. They hate them even more than the one-liner entries because the people who created the threads KNOW how the site works, they just neglect to pay attention.

tl;dr Shitty threads are like one-line entries.

I'll repeat what I said in a different thread.

We moderate this site as volunteers. We don't get paid and spend our free time on it. Yet the only thing some of you return to us is bullshit and disrespect. It's not the kind of "thanks" I hoped for. It makes us wonder why we still help out on this site, because with some of you being part of this community, it's simply not worth it.

Lately it's getting worse by the day. I have been resisting to go juggling banhammers with some of you multiple times. I don't know how long I can keep up with that.

We do have a rule against this kind of behavior. Do not Flood the forums with redundant information or posts unrelated to the discussion.
Purposeful thread spam should be bannable. While a terrible thread is just a stupid thread, when users begin to purposefully replicate it they know exactly what they're doing. People can be forgiven for the occassional bad post: nobody's perfect. But when you start to repost content that's already received the response it's going to get, you are essentially a spammer. We ban spambots.
While you have your "fun", the mods have to clean it up and prevent further spamming. This essentially entails hovering over their computer and endlessly looking for threads until they're sure they've locked them all. This is a massive waste of their time; there's plenty of things that they'd rather be doing, or in the case of those with entry powers should be doing.
Chris gets a bad reputation out of this, because he is usually the first to respond to threads that are on the verge of becomming thread spam. He has to lock a lot of threads, and what he gets from that is people complaining that he's a dictator and a jerk.
Most of us do absolutely nothing for the site. I'd personally like to, but I'm not a mod, and that's probably a good thing.
The least you can do to help is think before you post.

I wish there was something I could do to help. I really do. I've been lurking without an account for a long time, and I've seen several spam and derailed threads that need locking. It's not pretty. JFF is a place for games and general fun posting, but it's not fun where everything's gone to spam. I would like to help out, but I really don't have that much free time and probably would suck at being a mod. All I can do is offer my sympathy to the users who's fun is destroyed and the mods who have to waste their time dealing with it.

What is more upsetting to me than crap threads is bumping crap threads, especially bumps that complain about the crap threads being crap. >:C

I'll throw in that it's really frustrating to see some threads and not know what to do with them. I still feel new to being a mod, and I want to be respectful to users just having fun. However, there are probably 3 or 4 threads that I think about locking each day, because there is no topic or because it's been derailed into having no topic. I can't go and find another moderator to confirm the need for a lock every single time I see a user making a poor quality thread or when users go and intentionally derail it. It defeats any usefulness I have, and I want to be useful in helping keep the forums neat, tidy, and fun. But I probably won't think about going to ask anymore nor will I show as much restraint. I'll just go, give a reason, lock it, and deal with the PMs as they come. It will, at least, force some conversation on the issue.

So I apologize for that, other moderators and users. I'll be more proactive in that. You now know my reasoning.

If a thread gets locked and four more show up right after that which I would lock with no hesitation if I saw them, then what's the point? Heck, if you lock those threads, someone else will make them again a few days later along with other threads that don't abide by the "common sense" catch-all rule.

Well, the rules do state that people should, if they have nothing to say on a topic, simply not post in the thread.
So, derailing is technically against the rules.
It's fun, and most people do it. But a thread that has a clearly stated topic should if it's just a bad thread be allowed to cycle into deletion.
In short, people shouldn't post in low-quality threads, even to derail. If people do derail a thread (with a clearly stated topic) then that thread can be locked.
Of course, I'm guilty of doing all this, haven't experienced the frustration the mods must feel, and have no business deciding policy.
And this thread isn't even about policy.
How can we reduce the amount of this behaviour?

After all of this useless thread spam, I believe a rule needs to be in place that will get a user banned for a week if he or she participates in the creation of useless thread. By "useless" I mean threads that are created with no topic, or threads that have been created to be derailed.

Putting in my $0.02, I'd like to say that I neither see any need to lock derailed threads (as I love to point out, "The Internet Can Now Find Stars" was a derailed thread) nor do I see need to tell anyone why I'm locking a thread if it seems obvious to me, such as the sort of spammed threads mentioned here. Chris may be getting a reputation as a tyrant for locking threads, but people should be thankful he at least gives a reason; I've locked plenty of threads without bothering.

I should also mention that spammed threads can eat up even more time of admins than you think. There have been a number of times that I've gone to lock or delete a bunch of spammed threads, only to find that another mod was working on the same thing, and we're stepping on each others' toes, so to speak. So in spamming threads, you may be wasting the time of multiple mods, various readers that have to read through that crap to find out what's going on, the people who end up feeling obligated to follow up with a thread like this to explain for the 50th time why it sucks for everyone, and then you're teaching the n00bs bad posting habits.

It's really a pain.

Putting in my $0.02, I’d like to say that I neither see any need to lock derailed threads (as I love to point out, “The Internet Can Now Find Stars” was a derailed thread)

I think that's an exception. For every thread that gets featured like that, there are dozens, if not more threads, that are generally a pain for me to consider. It's almost like hitting the lottery: On the whole, it doesn't make sens to play it.

And I would default to my previous reasoning. I see no point in having a thread if it can be derailed so easily, and I see no point in having a forum if there is little sense of organization. OP may want to discuss a certain point or go with a certain idea for a thread, but if derails are tolerated too much, then any thread could reasonably be derailed simply out of precedent.

I also think it defeats the purpose of having a forum. If any thread in JFF can move to whatever topic the users see fit, then every thread can become the same thread as long as "people are having fun" or as long as there isn't a flamewar. Basically, every thread becomes a place to comment instead of participating in the topic. Every thread can become a chat. If the mods involve themselves when those elements don't exist, they'd have little reason for it outside of subjective judgement.

I feel like that's dangerous grounds to tread.

I for one, have been thinking on how all these pointless threads must affect the mods. I get sick of going on JFF and seeing pointless threads (in particular, ones that just have a screenshot of a couple of threads from JFF that have titles like "huh"). It's probably because people think that's where you go to post stuff you can't post anywhere else. They think that it doesn't have any rules so you can do whatever you want.

I have to agree with this one. The other day when I pointed out to the spam threads, I got as a return that it was ok simply because "We're having fun" and "We're not causing any harm".

But that is incorrect. It's true that JFF is there to have fun and fool around in. But JFF is not /b/. The "Fun" part is not an excuse to just go spam crap where- and whenever they want. Rule 3: "Do Not Flood" and Rule 5: "Use Common Sense When Posting" are there for a reason.

This is unfortunately way too often forgotten.

I feel like part of the reason why some of the previously regular members left was because of the current problems the forums are having. I'm thankful that other older users are still hanging around to contribute to the site, but I feel like they tend to get pushed aside when torrents of new users drown out their contributions with their own useless and needless content.

I try to contribute to the site in a way that doesn't hinder the mods OR the users, and I can only hope that the majority of the users on the site don't speak and act for the rest of us.

Our biggest problems seem to be that nobody reads the forum rules, or the rules for posting new entries.
Maybe they should be mandatory to read when signing up a new account? Or perhaps we should do something to increase visibility? For example, the forum rules aren't visible unless you find the thread they were posted in or are quoting another user's post via the reply button.
Of course, the people who aren't going to follow the rules aren't going to follow them, but at least we can reduce the amount of new users doing this in the future.

The Forum Rules turn up when quoting or when creating a new thread. So if someone creates a stupid thread, he's just too ignorant. As the rules were right there.

As for normal posting, that's correct. The rules don't show up if you're just reading through a thread.

Instead you get advertisement:

So either we remove one of those bars of advertisement (but this would be a reduce of income for KYM, so I doubt that a solution). Or we place them on the left, where the first social media bar appeared before it was moved to the top.

Both examples in below image:

But as you can see, the rules are too wide. So they have to be smaller first.

Not to forget we're still going to update them (2 weeks late now). One of those new rules is for making redundant threads/posts.