NEW SYSTEM TIME

[Black Squirrel]

Hi

Welcome to phase one. Or phase one hundred, depending on your stance.

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IMPORTANT

We've got a new system and it's in theory brilliant at separating the bad from good. But the real problems at MFGG are those caused by already existing members, so several have been sent backwards to be "filtered".

Some of you will probably believe that they're being singled out, and, quite frankly, you are, but you're advised to keep a level head about it. The moderation team has singled people out for a reason, and that reason is that we don't think these people are quite up to spec when it comes to posting and attitudes. It's an incredibly small minority that have been sent back, less than thirty in fact, and even then many will regain their normal member priveledges in no time. Some however, will not.

The key here is not to make rash decisions and jump on bandwagons before the wagon has wheels. Let this new system run its course and sink in, and though we know this is EXTREMELY STRESSFUL for some of you, it'll make everyone's life easier if you give it some time. Choosing not to may not work in your favour. Perhaps it's not the most brilliant way to go but we'll have no way of knowing until a few months time when it's had chance to work its magic. Don't judge a book by its cover and all that.

If something not-so-great has happened to you it's mostly YOUR fault. Don't take it personally. Regardless you can't afford to waste time moaning about it as you will see BELOW.

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"Phase 1" suggests there are more "phases" to go, but the first phase is the most radical, but I'm sure you'll survive. Only changes to the current forum system are documented in this post. This means your MFGG life that isn't covered by this post is the same as always.

VITALLY IMPORTANT BIT OF INFORMATION REGARDING THE

MEMBER SYSTEM

Casual Members? History.

The casual member system, appointed to award the good and punish the bad, was okay. It did the job reasonably well but in our minds, not well enough. So it has been scrapped and replaced with this oh so lovely new system half stolen from Sonic Retro.

I call it

THE TRIAL MEMBER SYSTEM

This system is significantly more effective than the previous one because it automatically stops the bad from gaining any ground.

We had a post requirement and a badge requirement, but a member who has both of these things doesn't always equal "good". It does equal "not stupid", but there's a stupidity rule to cover that so though the promise of casual memberhood worked on some levels, the only way to increase its effectiveness would be to increase the requirements to get in, and arguably it was already a bit tight for what it was. Aside from this, many members proved their worth well within 250 posts but were not staying as part of the community for whatever reason. By allowing access to the more relaxed boards at an earlier stage, a person is more likely to stay. The GC did dip in and out of good and bad after all.

In actuality the casual member system was only keeping about 10 or so members out of the CCC at one time, and I know for a fact there are more than 10 people at MFGG causing others to raise their eyebrows. Many of these people were hiding about in the CCC just under the mod's radar, ignoring the warnings and continuing to be... well, bad members. Maybe they didn't quite realise it, in which case I hope this is more of a wake-up call to them. Some know fine well they're bad members so it shouldn't come as a surprise that we finally took some action.

From now on members will be dealt with on a case by case basis, the way it should have always been done.

so

THE TRIAL PERIOD

All new members must go through a trial period before becoming full members. Posting is limited to trial members, and when the trial period is over, forum 12 shall decide who shall stay and who shall go and who shall "stay-but-won't-be-able-to-do-anything-for-a-bit". Trial Members have 20 posts in which to make a positive impression, after this figure has been reached, posting will be halted and the member will be shifted to the "Pending" group to be assessed. There may be a delay of up to a week before a decision is made. Obviously that delay should be as short as possible, but we're only human.

There are three outcomes to the trial period

ACCEPT
BAN
REJECT

ACCEPT: The person has been accepted into the vast community that is MFGG. About 75+% of people should fall under this category - the majority. If you're good, you have absoultely nothing to worry about and it'll be exactly the same as before just with a tiny delay in between post 20 and post 21.

BAN: The person has been deemed unworthy by the moderation team and will never have a chance of getting into MFGG. I predict >5% will fall under this category. There's probably always going to be trolls about so I can't see this ever going away. But the figure should be identical to what it is now. Might even be less because they know they can't physically post more than 20 times.

REJECT: "Good, but not good enough". The member may have to wait x amount of months until he/she may try again, but what separates this from the above is the fact he/she WILL get another chance. If you're a nice chap but can't spell or structure a sentence together to make it readable, you'll probably fall under this category, and after a while, yep, you'll be able to post once more. In other words, a very long suspension. We're hoping that within this time you will learn how this side of the internet works and hopefully start using some common sense for next time. Sensible suggestions for better names are welcome.

The trial period is not limited to just new members. In fact, many of you will find that you have woken up to trial membership. We don't need to hear your thoughts on the matter, I know exactly what the common arguements will be and my response will be the same, and I'm guessing it'll be a similar situation for the rest of the mod team. Now it's time for YOU to justify why we should keep moderating YOU. We have been very lenient here and have given many the benefit of the doubt. Several are here because of the Quackers Test results, suggesting that the community does not approve of their behaviour. Some are here because they were already dangerously close to exile (or have come back from exile without showing any massive signs of improvement), and some are here because, to be quite honest, we're a bit sick of your names popping up every few days. Feel free to prove we've made the wrong decision by posting maturely and sensibly, though how you spend those 20 posts is up to you. If you've wasted some posts by not reading this news item despite its capital letters and being at the top of the page... well sucks to be you I guess. Paying attention to things like this is one of the desired skills of an MFGG member.

Top tip though, if you go around posting very simple replies like "that's cool" or "okay"... that's not a lot to go by, and we may have to base our decisions on your previous history instead, which in some cases... isn't too great! (hence why some were demoted in the first place). We're sure some of the people who may suffer as a result of this system are probably nice guys (or gals) but their attitudes have got the better of them to the point where really we need to take action. If passing the test is going to result in the same "it shouldn't have happened to me bad mod" drone, don't bother taking part in it. Whatever happens we wish you people the very best of luck in the future, even if it isn't at MFGG, and of course we hope you're able to redeem yourself in the trial and put all this behind you. I mean the other option in some cases was a randomly dished-out permaban and that surely would be less fair.

Furthermore if you decide to try and bypass this suspension period your suspension may increase or you may be permabanned instead. We also do not want lists of reasons a member should stay, this is our decision to make.

As everything is assessed on a case-by-case basis we can't possibly say how many times one person may go through this test. If your behaviour gets to a stage where the moderators are questioning whether you should still be in the community, you may see yourself in the trial stage, possibly without warning. If you're sent to that stage numerous times we might not let you back in, because we all have better things to do with our time than change individuals' member groups every few weeks.

Oh and no, we're not forcing all of our 4700+ members to take this test in one go because that would be soul destroying and impossible to moderate properly, not to mention the majority don't need a stern talking to (and there's like, 1400 members who haven't even posted). You're welcome to sign up for it if you want... a bit pointless but up to you.

Also worth noting is that on rare occasions there won't be a waiting stage. Membership may come early to extremely good newbies who have proved their worth in less than 20 posts or have some amazing previous history on another local board. But obviously if you break the rules within that time you're probably not going to last either. An extension of that 24-hour permaban rule thing I guess. We're going top down in the sense that forum 12 are the ones making the decisions, not the members. Will members have a say in who stays and who goes? Quite possibly in the future, but we're still ironing out other possible phases that may effect these members so it would be unwise to jump in with that straight away.

If you are rejected you'll probably recieve some sort of indication as to why and how you can improve, a bit like the main site. If you don't get a message for whatever reason ASSUME YOU ARE SUSPENDED FOR A YEAR - the default time. Also we will not lower suspensions unless WE think it is worth doing. Do not attempt to push thoughts into our heads. Coincidentally we will increase the suspension if we start getting harassed about it (though feel free to harass when the time is up in case we forget).

How long will a member have to wait until the next trial period? Well the standard will be a year, as said. This may be shortened if you do something outstandingly fantastic, or if we feel you are able to fix whatever problem you have in less time than that. As long as they're not abused, PMs will be open to all "rejected" members, though the inbox will be limited. Again it's a case-by-case thing. Probably won't be more than a year though, because we might as well just permaban you if it really takes that long to improve.

AFTER THIS PERIOD

As said, the casual membership thing has been dropped. All non-trial members have access to the CCC, and... well everything I suppose (apart from the super-secret forums). Will further measures be put in place to reward the good? Dunno. Might cover that in phase 2. Does the CCC change? No. It's still moderated and looked after as always. With a lack of casual requirement it does mean 3000 more people have gained access, but it shouldn't be too much of a concern. We'll have to see though, because I do honestly enjoy a more calmer CCC.

Note that abuse of either the CCC or General Friendliness could still result in a ban from there. Or you could repeat the trial stage!

Speaking of which, if you are rejected we'll be adding something in your warnlog so we actually know when you're due to come back.

SO IN CONCLUSION

this is the new way MFGG is going to go. Imagine the old times with a great big fat solid wall on one side of the room. Might seem a bit tough at first but after a while it should be a bit less crazy. In fact, a lot of you have got the CCC back in less time than originally planned!

Oh and a few others things

Don't worry, you haven't lost your post counts - the system will only stuff you in the "pending" group if your post count reaches 20 so I had to temporarily reduce the count to zero. You'll get it back once the trial period is over, plus 20. Putting members back into the trial period isn't something I wish to do very often so at the end of the day it's probably not worth finding a happy medium on that one.


So anyway, enjoy it. The forum rules and members' expectation will be getting tuned up to reflect these changes in the near future.

[Black Squirrel]

Updated handy dandy forum user group guide