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Not that Lego already has more than enough stuff to do, but here's a new idea:

Some people may have noticed that in the last few weeks a lot of Newbies showed up on Dakka. That is of course not a bad thing, not at all. What is a problem is how some of those guys behave. I notice that some of them get warned frequently, but not much else. So here's my idea: Introduce a "point" system to Dakka. Instead of some MOD just saying, "stop doing that, you have been warned!", they get a "point" for bad behaviour. Right now I can't come up with a better name. And when they have, I dunno, 5 points, they get suspended for a specified period of time. It sounds a lot like school if I look at it like this, but some people don't seem to care about MOD warnings *coughcoughadinator1cough*, so maybe we need something a bit more drastic.

Your thoughts?

We give people a couple of chances. You'll notice your cough has cleared anyway.

The current system is pretty good but takes a lot of manual coordination. There is something called a 'banality button' for the mods on the near term drawing board, but it is a mod only function so I'll stay hush hush for now. I dont mind saying it is fairly similar to what you describe, except users will never know their own score.

Yeah, I thought that especially if they would know their "score" it might help to keep them in line. Did that sound to harsh?

PP boards they have a warning level. I don't know how effective it is.

I made fun of him a few times in off-topic trying to establish a report and he sent me that thing. I desisted.

How does this system work against situation say veteran of board vs new members?

Surely there would be biased opinions on punishing the newer ones while letting the veterans *slide.

I know im new and not many people know me to label me as someone good , or a trouble maker. But during the past few days i have some bad experience with a guy,
and have received pm to *watch out because the one bothering me was a vet.


or better example. say SAME situation happens between 2 different people.

the newer one would be branded as a troll. while dealing with the vet, people will say stuff like
" oh thats how he does things, just give some time and you'll get used to it, hes a pretty nice guy if you get to know him "

I have to say I agree that not warning people about their violations is pretty rotten idea if that alone can lead to a ban. I mean, say five mods click it regarding one post, and the offender never gets warned? If two strikes can equal ten counts of punishment before a word of warning is spoken... you can see where I'm going, right?

Here's the thing folks:


We *DO* currently track bad behavior in that we have a private moderator forum where we keep 'case files' on users who have issues. However, for the most part the warnings and suspensions we issue to people are done via PM. This is how I think forum moderation works the best because in my experiences when you publicly humiliate someone with warning and/or disciplinary actions it only ever leads to resentment and claims of being treated unfairly.

If we are really interested in convincing people to behave better than doing it personally through a PM will always accomplish that goal without any of the negative stigmatism that comes with public disciplinary action.

While this is the overall guideline, obviously moderators are people and therefore have different opinions on how exactly best to interpret this goal. This means some moderators do indeed do more public discipline and others stick more behind-the-scenes. But rest assured that we do get your moderator notifications and we do track problem users and eventually they are permanently dealt with if they do not improve.


I would never consider implementing a rigid 'warning' system that leads to a boot because I have found through experience running this site that, especially when dealing with multiple moderators who all have different opinions of discipline is that as soon you have a rigid system in place you will quickly find yourself backed into a corner where someone now 'deserves' to be banned even though most of the moderation team doesn't actually feel this is correct. Then you have to essentially 'break' the rule or just ban the person and lose a member of the community who may not really deserve to be banned.

Ultimately discipline needs to be a fluid tool that can be used at the whims of the moderators/administrators for the best interests of the site. As long as the people running the site have this ideal as their goal, the disciplinary action taken will generally always be appropriate.

yakface wrote:
I would never consider implementing a rigid 'warning' system that leads to a boot because I have found through experience running this site that, especially when dealing with multiple moderators who all have different opinions of discipline is that as soon you have a rigid system in place you will quickly find yourself backed into a corner where someone now 'deserves' to be banned even though most of the moderation team doesn't actually feel this is correct. Then you have to essentially 'break' the rule or just ban the person and lose a member of the community who may not really deserve to be banned.

Ultimately discipline needs to be a fluid tool that can be used at the whims of the moderators/administrators for the best interests of the site. As long as the people running the site have this ideal as their goal, the disciplinary action taken will generally always be appropriate.

Exactly, this is why we will contact people as necessary and not leave it to an entirely automated tool, automated tools are for our guidance only. Dakka is certainly more liberal with moderating than most other wargaming forums and it gives us a lot of benefits, it just means that some of the more annoying people dont get instantly banned as they use up their few chances.

The way you two put it makes a lot of sense. Thank you for your time

I believe warning levels are private on the PP boards as Yak and Lego
indicate, they are in communication.

Funny that they haven't figured out how to ban me yet.

Thats because you're holding our socks hostage Malf.

And by socks he means...

malfred wrote:And by socks he means...

John Rambo. Duh!

Yeah, that's all fine. I've never received a disciplinary 'warning', discounting pre-gallery when I used an attachment to post a non-wargaming image, not realising it would jump up on the homepage as a recently uploaded picture, yada yada.

I also agree that PMs are the way to go, and I was under the impression that the system was as liberal as yak/lego have inferred. The mention of this 'banality' button was all that I was worried about.

To add my 2p, a point system is a bit mechanical and can't reflect the nuances of user behaviour.

It's a bit like when you get 3 points on your licence for driving in a bus lane by accident, or 3 points on your licence for driving at 40mph in a 20mph zone.

It's not really fair and it annoys people.

I'm happy to put in the extra effort to bring a human face to moderation. It pays dividends in the long run since every user who receives a well-meant PM and reforms, becomes an up-standing member of the community.