fiction files redux discussion
Group Creation Stuff
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Moderators, Rules, Guidelines and Stuff
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Wow! I'm glad I'm not a moderator. More power to you all. That's a ton of work. Thanks for doing it.:)
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i think the guidelines you've suggested make a lot of sense! that being said, i'm not sure everybody who has moderator status actually wants to be a moderator -- i was just making people moderators willy-nilly for a while there, since i wanted to give everybody zany titles. :) so before we get to sharing emails and what not, we should probably see who actually wants to do what.
also, if it turns out that everybody who has been made a moderator wants to be a moderator (which would be lovely) then we might be able to split into small groups: for example, i'm an organizational freak, so i would be inclined to want to manage the taxonomy, but if dan and patty, or others wanted to help then we could make sure amongst the three of us that somebody would always be covering that.
so i guess what i'm suggesting is first getting a list of people who want to be active moderators, some who could be back-up moderators if they like, and some who just want sexy titles, like cosmic love muffin. :) even though the group is expanding nicely, it's early days yet, and it would be good if we could keep the relaxed atmosphere that our dear skipper brought to the original group.
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:)"
now that you know you can be a moderator who just wants a sexy title, does that change your mind at all? :)
The word "taxonomy" scares the heck out of me. Even a sexy title couldn't reduce the fear. Although perhaps a snarky-schmucky title might make me overcome the block.
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i suspect this means you intend to increase the snark levels. and i for one, say, why the hell not? of course, this is a democratic forum, and i have only one vote... :P
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what about we replace the word taxonomy with "information architecture"? who doesn't want to be an information architect? jolly good fun, what?
as for snarky-schmucky titles, i believe we have those in abundance. :P
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i forgot to ask: when you say PITA i don't think you mean mediterranean flat bread -- can you please explain? also, is yak pee an aphrodisiac? :)
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Yak piss... remember Jonathan's initial Friday night post about drinking shitty zinfandel?
I know it all looks like a lot of words and responsibility and rules and shit, and I hesitated to post because of the length... but we kinda needed to talk these things through, no? And really I'm just talking about spam, self promotion and organizing threads.
(I'm wordy & constantly second guess what I write, so I end up with lots of qualifying phrases and parentheses. I'm sure I would footnote emails if I could. It's a character flaw that I like to call a feature, not a bug. :-) )
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i suspect this means you intend to increase the snark levels. and i for one, say, why the hell not? of course, this is a democratic forum, ..."
let's just say I'd like to leave my options open
(on the other hand I just accidentally deleted someone's post and now I feel terrible - maybe this is too much power for me)
Mod
(on the other hand I just accidentally deleted someone's post and now I feel terrible - maybe this is too much power for me)
i hope that you wrote the person and told them you were repentant. i could always delete one of your posts if it would make you feel better. :)
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The floating text on this site is something to get used to... very different from the boxed buttons...
(And honestly there should be a more clear prompt before you do it to avoid this situation.)
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So any group member can add a book to the group shelf?Is that a setting that can be changed? Can a moderator delete it?
lets start adding random books to those guys shelves...
ooooh! I'm in. THere's been this one author stalking me, Jeez. we would have to go to thier page and join thier groups and randomly add shit and then quit the group But then they would know how to find us? Unless we became a semi private group with bacon trays. hhmm.
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in our bookshelf It shows each book with date added and by who.
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So it's ientirely possible that Patty is just being a rabblerouser.
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Would we expect anything less? (just kidding, she is a lovely lady)
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how mortifying! thanks for telling me. i'll see if i can rectify this right now, and then go make my apologies. this is what happens when you use real names!
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His avatar was Orsen Welles, but his handle was "The Reverend Doctor Faust". I wrote to him asking if we was coming over to Goodreads, but haven't heard back from him. Is the Rev. amongst us under a new name?
mm
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perhaps we should make a note about wanting people to introduce themselves when they join the group in the description of the group -- I've noticed other groups have such information as well and it might make it easier for us to identify who group member actually are, as well as to stress that you can't just join our group put a book on our bookshelf, and leave. :)
ben, aren't you in charge of the intro? :)
ok, until them, should we still add random books in random bookshelves, anyways? It will be more interesting if manage to add a random book in a random bookshelve who would do this to us in two days...
Mod
It will be more interesting if manage to add a random book in a random bookshelve who would do this to us in two d..."
i am going to start calling you "oro, literary terrorist" :P
I am too lazy to be a terrorist, maybe a teorist would be more suited. Yesterday I was in the public library and they have two different sections, one for research, where the books cann't be taken home and other for readers, where you can take books home. Apparently, you can not take home books that are meant for research (which is silly, some of the books have hundreds and hundreds pages, how would anyone research hundreds pages in a few hours?) so I was thinking about swapping books between the shelves, even because the logic they use to organize the books is not logical at all... So I could find some other logic...
I only just saw this and I am astounded.
So, I take you do not want to add random books in random shelves? It is ok, we can determine which book and in which shelve we are going to add it using some short of matemathical equation. Maybe we may even get rich doing this.
Jcamilo wrote: "So, I take you do not want to add random books in random shelves? It is ok, we can determine which book and in which shelve we are going to add it using some short of matemathical equation. Maybe w..."get rich or die tryin', Oro
well it's not like the government is watching us or anythig.
They are not? We must do something to change it. I demand that at least the Govern of Somalia or Fuji Island to watch over us.
Just kidding. They are always watching.
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Fiji is it? I always wanted to be a Governor of an island...
Sometime ago they were selling an island somewhere near Rio de Janeiro. I didn't tried to buy it, I am too afraid of Pirates because they always kidnap Olivia d'Havilland...
and we all know Pirates can happen to anyone. I don't know who said that. It's one of swanny's quotes.
How come not getting Olivia, she had all that remarkable witt quotes to say to dreadfull pirates. And she was also black and white, which was excentric... I can not remember when my life was that black and white before...
so the search is on for the new Olivia!
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Oh, yeah. Everything was gray about her, hair, eyes, lips... watever... no wonder Captain Blood liked her...
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"The two key points are:
• Anyone who wants to be a member of an adults only (18+) group, must have provided their birth date, and must be age 18 or older.
• Sexual role play is now not permitted in any group or any other part of the site."
HAHAHAHAHA! Those kinky fan fiction groups!
I suppose it's a good thing they didn't define too closely what they mean by 'sexual.' Do i see loopholes on the horizon? And, depending how you look at it, saying that :" Sexual role play is now not permitted in any group or any other part of the site.", seems pretty draconian to me.(Depending on your definitions, i suppose.)
Especially taking into account that one used to be able to create completely hidden-from-view groups...
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Yes, euphemism means one has to creative. Oh glorious celery and joyful pomegranate!
So, here's what I can come up with based on past experience, and knowing that we want to keep this group as open and friendly as possible. And no, I couldn't find a way to keep this thread viewable by moderators. So maybe we move the discussion to emails. I don't know. It's not like I'm reinventing the wheel here, or anything.
1. Flames, Spam, Personal Attacks
This one is obvious, to me anyway, and hopefully we won't have to use it that often. We all should delete these, with followup - let the user know it was deleted and why (we should have a handy scripted email stuck in the moderator's folder somewhere for this so it's simple and fair). Also, let the moderators know that the post was deleted, why you deleted it if explanation is required, so that we can all be on the lookout for that user.
2. Warnings to frequent flamers/spammers/grey area
I think that in the email about the deleted post we should let the user know that they get three deleted posts before we remove them from the group for a week, or permanently, whatever you guys think. I'm thinking about people who promote their books. In groups I've run before, the 1-week slap on the hand works pretty well the first three times you do it, but eventually, you have to throw out a recidivist.
Then there is the grey area. Once upon a time I helped run a big listserv -- there was this woman who routinely posted things that "seemed" to be legitimate (can you guys help me test out this feature? oh, whoops! it's not in beta any more!) but were actually traffic drivers to her site. There are some fine lines here in terms of what's promoting and what's "asking for help." I think that anyone who says things like "check out the writing section in my profile" as the main body of every post they write should get a warning.
3. Mediation
Sometimes two users really go at it, I think we've all seen it. JE was really good at talking people down, I suspect he did it in personal email. We should be prepared to do that on occasion but it shouldn't be the kind of thing where 15 moderators contact a member separately. I don't see this happening often, but it might...
4. Reorganizing/Prioritizing threads
So, pinning topics, ordering folders, moving threads around. Seems to me this is going to be almost a daily task, eventually.
Does anyone think this is a clear line of responsibility that should fall to someone who knows what a taxonomy is? That we all agree to put our threads in the most sensible folders, create folders that make sense, etc., but that if they need to be moved, we let each other know... or other users who might have posted a new thread to General, but it belongs in the Writers folder? Just common courtesy stuff? I don't know what the answer is, here.
In terms of rules for users, I think there are "rules" and then there are "guidelines." I don't want to weigh us down with a ton of these because we've never needed them before and I think they can hamper the culture here.
Rule - no spamming, flaming, self-promotion, etc.
Guideline - stuff like... posts generating more heat than light.
Last but not least, if we can't all email each other in one email from GoodReads, then we should get a list of personal email addresses together and do that. Because if we need to communicate with only moderators, and it turns out to be a PITA here, then we should find another way.