I noticed someone made one of these and then became embarrassed and suggested it be locked when he received criticism. I decided to take it up instead.

Please don't assume I want the forums to degenerate into a lawless post-apocalyptic wasteland of a place just because I think some of the warnings received can be a little bit trivial, I just think it might be worthwhile to discuss it.

I myself got my posts edited with an accompanying PM 'reminder' for posting in a lighthearted quotes thread with quotation marks instead of a coded quote box. The following is an excerpt from the message.

I am not giving you an official warning, as I can tell you are new to the site. In the future though, you may get official warnings for violating the rules.

Naturally I understand that rules must be enforced, but honestly this left me feeling just a little bit confused. Has anyone else had any similar issues? If so, I encourage you to share with the class, yeah? Menewsha made this feedback forum because they're open to feedback and opinions. They can't continue to improve if they don't know how we feel.

But please, remember to be respectful.

The infraction system and the way it is used to notify users of rule breaking has been revamped several times in the past year. I can't imagine a way that it could be made more user friendly than it already has been, short of simply dismissing the rules altogether.

Possibly I'm missing the point of your post, so feel free to clarify.

There are a lot of rules, that is true. And it can be hard to remember them all at times. But as Kinmotsu said, the warning system is very friendly as it is. :yes: Are there any specific rules, or parts of the rules, that you are concerned about? Like the quote rule? I think that the reason that rule is in place is because of the gold system - the gold you receive is based on how long your post is, and anything included in quotes won't go towards that gold count.

edit: Pulled this out of the rules, regarding quotes :) I think it sheds a little light...

To summarize, ANYTHING not written by you must be posted within the quote tabs. This is because you cannot earn gold for anything written by somebody else as that isn't fair.

I agree with you. I can understand there being warnings about a major infraction of the rules, but to get a 'reminder' about putting your post in quotation marks rather than the quote box seems a little much. I agree that every site should have rules and that people should be expected to follow them, but the quotation box one is just a rule that I don't quite understand. When quoting a phrase, lyric, what-have-you, I have learned to put them in quotation marks. I'm kind of confused about this only rule.

It's because if you don't quote then you earn gold for somebody else's work, which is a bit of a no-no. Just quotation marks do not exclude that portion of the post from earning gold.
:sweat:
Besides, if people weren't reminded, the people who don't read the rules every once in a while won't abide this rule and it is a rule, so it should be enforced. Besides, you don't get a penalty (that I know of). It's just a reminder.

I'd rather get a reminder than an infraction.

I'm posting this on behalf of Bartuc, who has been checking in on the forums lately but is still on leave/haitus from Mene (note: I, personally, have no official opinion on this matter as of yet XD; ):

Not trying to undermine the staff here at all. This is coming from a member who use to be a staff member who recently banned himself so he could get a break.

This type of thing I feel for a reminder should not be brought up. A reminder is meant to bring the rules to your attention without any real 'ass-chewing.' It is meant to strengthen the relationship between the staff and the users. The reminder is meant to really show people and remind them that we are all here having fun, but still to be official enough to be like "Hey! read the rules yo!" The staff is here to enforce the rules. As he/I was a moderator for a good portion of my membership time. I have come to realize there is no need to 'chastise' or beat into user's heads the rules. Most realize what is going on by friendly PMs and simple reminders. Now, I am not saying to abolish the rules at all. I am simply saying that by asking to make the forums more 'lax' then they are can be undermining for what this site's purpose is for. If I were on my account and not reading this from my guest visit I do every so often. I would post this same thing, purple name and all, and tell you that what is being asked is simply not reasonable. I could be bias since I have seen the otherside as a staff member. I could be simply being realistic. Its hard to tell anymore. The staff strives hard to keep order but without having to result to hard infractions and even sometimes bannings. They try hard to keep the relationship good, as staff is the real face of the site.

Now, that approach I never did. I was always trying to be friendly yet straight forward. I never wanted people to think "Oh he is my by friend. I am can get away with anything." but at the same time I didn't want to be "Oh he is an asshole." I normally tried to keep it similar to "Hey, this is against the rules. I think it would be beneficial to you if you could read them. It would help you from making any further mistakes. Hope you have a good day." but more drawn out to a system that needs to be done when making reminders.

A reminder is simply that, a reminder. :yes: It's not an infraction, and you're not getting into trouble for receiving one. It's just to let you know that we want you to read and follow the rules. We want to be as friendly as possible when sending out reminders, as they are just to let you know that you did something against the rules, and we don't want you to get into more trouble because you never got a reminder about what you did wrong in the first place. :D

The reason for the quoting rule is, as everyone has explained, because gold is earned by the number of characters in your post. Not putting quote tags around something you didn't write yourself is considered an abuse of the gold system because you're earning gold for something that you didn't write or come up with on your own. Can you see how this would be cheating the gold system?

Say I want to post part of a Wikipedia article. Do you think it's fair for me to earn 15-20 extra gold because I didn't quote that article -- all of which I have just copy/pasted from Wiki with minimal effort? I've seen people spam the place up by posting Wiki articles, or things from other websites, just to earn gold.

Simply, it's an abuse of the gold system and cheating, and we do not allow it because of this.

I hope that makes sense. :D

The reminders aren't really much different to a regular user reminding you it's against the rules but it's from a staff member. I don't see what's wrong with a reminder. With that you know you did something wrong but you haven't gotten in trouble for it and you know not to do it in the future causing you to get an infraction.

If we are on this subject I do have some input on it. You have to remember that a lot of people entering a new site tend to be shy or defensive right off the bat.

That being said I think that mods when nipping and tucking posts should send a PM to the player instead of publicly telling them in the thread they did something wrong.

Yes this may seem like a minor thing but you have to remember how some people think. Remember back when you got called out by the teacher for something right in the middle of class? Even if you didn't get punished and only scolded you still felt like sh*t!

I personally feel mods should fix the issue then PM the person instead of posting in the thread, it just helps the person save face if they are new or ignorant to a particular rule. The PM button is right on a post and it's just as easy to click it as the reply button so there is no extra effort involved either.

I have to remind you that you're undoubtedly a victim of skewed perception in this case. After all, you can only speak for the matters that are actually handled publicly. You have no basis for comparison since the ones handled privately are outside of your observation.

Gary Stargazer - 99 times out of 100, an issue is handled privately via PM, but thank you very much for your feedback! The staff of Menewsha do listen to feedback and try to take it into account when discussing rulings, features; etc.

I'd like to cover the opposite angle with this. Any time when we post in a thread to point out that someone's doing something wrong it's not to show people up infront of others or anything like that, it's a crowd control measure. Why PM just one person when you can make a friendly post in a thread and let everyone who's in the thread at the time know that doing such-and-such is wrong. This is generally why a post will be made rather than a PM sent. It's getting the message across to a bunch of people at once :yes:

Which is especially useful in the debate threads :yes:

That it is! :D

Originally Posted by CK

Gary Stargazer - 99 times out of 100, an issue is handled privately via PM, but thank you very much for your feedback! The staff of Menewsha do listen to feedback and try to take it into account when discussing rulings, features; etc.

That sounded so forced. Like it was read off a cue card. Xd

Anyways I had already considered the presence that is attached with mods doing that publicly however chose to not mention that since it wasn't the point of my concern.

No matter how kindly you word things sometimes putting someone on the spot in public is going to leave them with a bad taste in their mouth like they have publicly been embarrassed to make a point. This is the exception more than the norm thankfully, but it does and will happen.

Originally Posted by Gary Stargazer

That sounded so forced. Like it was read off a cue card. Xd

Anyways I had already considered the presence that is attached with mods doing that publicly however chose to not mention that since it wasn't the point of my concern.

No matter how kindly you word things sometimes putting someone on the spot in public is going to leave them with a bad taste in their mouth like they have publicly been embarrassed to make a point. This is the exception more than the norm thankfully, but it does and will happen.

*rolls eyes*

So, when it is said that 99% of the issues are handled via PM instead of publicly you ignore it. Seems like your entire goal in this topic is to deface and demoralize the staff so that users feel as they cannot trust them. Quite frankly, you need to learn to 'STFU' and stop undermining you staff members. 'Cause from what I have seen and heard, the staff does alot of 'behind the scene' shit. You are just pointing out the few times in which they do things publicly. Which I would love to see you show with links where this happened. Just so it can be shot back with explanations as to why. So, feel free to post these "PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENTS" cause I know myself, as well as a few others, would LOVE to see them.

I can't swear to it, but if I post in a thread I think I generally address people in plural if I can, so no person feels singled out. Unless it's someone's Fresh Meat thread and they're doing stuff like posting 20 emotes in one go. But even then I'll be super laid-back about it.

I suppose it's a matter of perception. Some people are gonna get huffy with you no matter how nicely you say something to them simply because that's how some people are. There's not really much we can do about that, those guys need to learn to not over-react all the time and that's something only they can change.

I don't think anyone should feel belittled by a staff member popping their head into a thread and saying something like, "Watch out for the image spam guys, you're going a bit over-the-top with it :)" or something similar. That to me is far friendlier than getting a PM about it, because a PM can be perceived more as a "you're in trouble" kind of thing. Especially if it's telling you you're doing something wrong.

But like I said, it's all a matter of personal perception :yes:

<edit>Just gonna prune this up and such since the matter has been resolved. no need for it any more.<edit>

because a PM can be perceived more as a "you're in trouble" kind of thing. Especially if it's telling you you're doing something wrong.

I actually had not thought about that, I suppose it's one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations. Xd

Well while the rules could be a little more relaxed in some places, the staff don't bite your head off for breaking the small ones and sometimes an infraction doesn't even occur if it's obviously an accident.

My personal opinion however, is that when I was on gaia with their lack of rules I learned... trolls and spammers are hella stressful... especially when the staff doesn't do anything about it. So for me, I find the rules more relaxing than not because I don't have to worry about reporting 50 (understatement) people a day... =) now I report 0

In menewsha while they have these rules set out, it's okay if you screw up now and then... heck even I screw up a post or post placement from time to time, jelly hasn't beaten me to death with her banhammer yet ;)

But my main point is that relaxing the rules will only bring in other stresses, not only for the users, but it will make the staff's jobs harder to have to keep everyone from breaking the rules.

No user is perfect, and I'm sure that is taken into account.