How about a lively discussion about how ridiculously tight fisted some of the MacRumors moderating is? Seriously, do you need to be THAT persnickety?
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MacRumors Moderation
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Just the use of the word "consequences" really shows the overly-serious and self-important spirit that Im talking about.
How about a lively discussion about people complaining when moderators follow the rules and guidelines that are clearly laid out for the site...
Firstly, just because there are "rules and guidelines" doesn't mean that those are justified.
Secondly, the "following" of the aforementioned is hardly accepteable just because they exist. Such self-reflexive justification is unsound.
Thirdly, the enforcement of those rules is INTERPRETIVE and based on a person's judgement.
These three factors can certainly make it justified to complain, whether the moderators like the noise or not.
Secondly, the "following" of the aforementioned is hardly accepteable just because they exist. Such self-reflexive justification is unsound.
Thirdly, the enforcement of those rules is INTERPRETIVE and based on a person's judgement.
These three factors can certainly make it justified to complain, whether the moderators like the noise or not.
This is a privately owned site and is free to set whatever rules it wants: Whether you think they are justified or not is completely irrelevant
Granted, but the owners of that privately owned domain have an interest in creating a creative, healthy, open, and community-driven culture for their forums. Moderators over-enforcing rules, or being generally disagreeable is not conducive to that kind of culture.
Yea its a law not to jay-walk. But a cop who slaps cuffs on a a teenager going across the street to get the mail is just a female genital cleansing tool.
Yea its a law not to jay-walk. But a cop who slaps cuffs on a a teenager going across the street to get the mail is just a female genital cleansing tool.
Whine! Whine! Whine! The vast majority of forum members are perfectly satisfied with the moderation of this forum. The very few who complain are usually those who either didn't read the rules to begin with, or chose to ignore them, and moderation action was required, which they didn't like. Get over it!
This site is privately owned and operated. It isn't a democracy. The forum leadership is careful to be fair in their dealings, as evidenced by the overwhelming success of the forum. If they were doing a bad job, this forum wouldn't have the membership or activity that it currently has. The results prove that the forum leadership is working quite well.
This site is privately owned and operated. It isn't a democracy. The forum leadership is careful to be fair in their dealings, as evidenced by the overwhelming success of the forum. If they were doing a bad job, this forum wouldn't have the membership or activity that it currently has. The results prove that the forum leadership is working quite well.
Our goals are to keep the forums useful and enjoyable for as many members and site visitors are possible, to require a minimum amount of civility, to be consistent about enforcement, and otherwise to stay out of the way when we don't have to interfere. A few policies, such as disallowing Marketplace sales of unlicensed software or removing hoax threads, help us maintain a good reputation in the online community.
The rules and policies are enforced very consistently when posts are reported, subject to the judgment that is necessarily required to interpret natural language, and we tinker with the wording of rules to reflect what's allowed and what's not.
Technically the rules can be whatever the site owner wants, but in fact they are there for the benefit of the overall membership, and we don't mind talking about specific rules that could be changed to improve those benefits. Trying to avoid common forum problems (like hidden advertising), weed out trolling, protect users from personal attacks, yet allow people to post just about any honest opinion requires a balance among tradeoffs.
If any of you are proposing changes to the rules, what's the proposal?
If you are instead complaining that the rules haven't been enforced as written, that should be the exception, not the rule, but we'll correct mistakes if we goofed. Use the Contact form to provide specifics and we'll review the case.
The rules and policies are enforced very consistently when posts are reported, subject to the judgment that is necessarily required to interpret natural language, and we tinker with the wording of rules to reflect what's allowed and what's not.
Technically the rules can be whatever the site owner wants, but in fact they are there for the benefit of the overall membership, and we don't mind talking about specific rules that could be changed to improve those benefits. Trying to avoid common forum problems (like hidden advertising), weed out trolling, protect users from personal attacks, yet allow people to post just about any honest opinion requires a balance among tradeoffs.
If any of you are proposing changes to the rules, what's the proposal?
If you are instead complaining that the rules haven't been enforced as written, that should be the exception, not the rule, but we'll correct mistakes if we goofed. Use the Contact form to provide specifics and we'll review the case.
If you have a specific complaint then you can send them a message. That way they can review the circumstance and overturn it if necessary.
Okay, I guess my actual beef here is with inconsistency.
All talk of UDID activations have been banned and deleted systematically. The reason given is more or less because this is supposedly against Apple's policy and MacRumors doesn't want to be associated with that.
HOWEVER
There are countless threads popping up all over about iOS 5, its features and glitches and bugs etc etc etc, ALL of which is expressly included in the developer's NDA agreement. It is JUST AS 'against Apple's policy" as the UDID activation threads.
So how is that fair? It seems to me like the forum wouldn't want to forbid talk of iOS 5 which violates the NDA agreement because that would really hurt the forum in terms of numbers of people coming to discuss... Yet the UDID people can get their posts deleted, etc. That's not appropriate.
If you are going to enforce Apple's policies within the forums, you need to do it universally, not just with one particular item that you find annoying or whatever. Be consistent.
All talk of UDID activations have been banned and deleted systematically. The reason given is more or less because this is supposedly against Apple's policy and MacRumors doesn't want to be associated with that.
HOWEVER
There are countless threads popping up all over about iOS 5, its features and glitches and bugs etc etc etc, ALL of which is expressly included in the developer's NDA agreement. It is JUST AS 'against Apple's policy" as the UDID activation threads.
So how is that fair? It seems to me like the forum wouldn't want to forbid talk of iOS 5 which violates the NDA agreement because that would really hurt the forum in terms of numbers of people coming to discuss... Yet the UDID people can get their posts deleted, etc. That's not appropriate.
If you are going to enforce Apple's policies within the forums, you need to do it universally, not just with one particular item that you find annoying or whatever. Be consistent.
I agree here, consistency is an issue and you have a point here with the whole UDID talk
Thanks for being more specific.
It's certainly a tradeoff, and for practical reasons we've had to pick our battles based on what helps or hurts our users (or the site's reputation) and what we find to be the "community standards".
In this case there have been a rash of people who purchased developer access, not to develop software but to try to sell access to Apple's confidential beta software, then joined MacRumors merely to advertise for that purpose. Others may be ignoring Apple's beta license and offering to share merely "to be nice".
We've chosen to disallow all such offers and requests rather than make complicated rules about which are OK and which are not. In the same way, we've disallowed sales of bootleg copies of Apple, Adobe, Microsoft etc. software in our Marketplace forum. We've removed posts where users have asked strangers to buy them items from iTunes because they are in a different country. We've removed posts with direct links to beta or commercial Apple software. We get a lot of complaints about such posts, and that's our measure of community consensus.
At the same time, we can't enforce terms and conditions everywhere they occur, nor even know for certain what all of them are. And we don't get many complaints about discussions of features of beta software. We can't expect to stop those discussions and we don't think the community as whole expects or wants us to.
You'll find similar nuances in our other rules and policies. Example: bootlegging music. You can post that you never pay artists for their music but you can't post a link to bootleg music downloads. You might consider that inconsistent too, but we think it's the right compromise.
Bottom line: We've talked a lot about each of these issues, for years, and we continue to look for the right balance. We see your point that we could have allowed all of these or none of these types of posts rather than drawing the line in the middle and that would technically be more consistent. I don't know which line you'd draw (all such posts allowed or none allowed) but I'm sure we have forum members who would pick the same and others who would pick the opposite if they were in charge.
It's certainly a tradeoff, and for practical reasons we've had to pick our battles based on what helps or hurts our users (or the site's reputation) and what we find to be the "community standards".
In this case there have been a rash of people who purchased developer access, not to develop software but to try to sell access to Apple's confidential beta software, then joined MacRumors merely to advertise for that purpose. Others may be ignoring Apple's beta license and offering to share merely "to be nice".
We've chosen to disallow all such offers and requests rather than make complicated rules about which are OK and which are not. In the same way, we've disallowed sales of bootleg copies of Apple, Adobe, Microsoft etc. software in our Marketplace forum. We've removed posts where users have asked strangers to buy them items from iTunes because they are in a different country. We've removed posts with direct links to beta or commercial Apple software. We get a lot of complaints about such posts, and that's our measure of community consensus.
At the same time, we can't enforce terms and conditions everywhere they occur, nor even know for certain what all of them are. And we don't get many complaints about discussions of features of beta software. We can't expect to stop those discussions and we don't think the community as whole expects or wants us to.
You'll find similar nuances in our other rules and policies. Example: bootlegging music. You can post that you never pay artists for their music but you can't post a link to bootleg music downloads. You might consider that inconsistent too, but we think it's the right compromise.
Bottom line: We've talked a lot about each of these issues, for years, and we continue to look for the right balance. We see your point that we could have allowed all of these or none of these types of posts rather than drawing the line in the middle and that would technically be more consistent. I don't know which line you'd draw (all such posts allowed or none allowed) but I'm sure we have forum members who would pick the same and others who would pick the opposite if they were in charge.
I guess my opinion is, if it isn't hurting anyone then don't bother it. If you are getting complaints about the UDID requests being all over the place, make one thread where they can all be contained.
Those who are complaining not because of that but because of the "principle" are either just developers who are being elitist/or annoyed at the idea of someone getting a feature they paid 100 dollars for. OR they are just straight-edge tight-bums who thing everyone should fall in line with every policy like they supposedly do.
Either way Im not sure why those opinions are really that important. If you want to talk about community consensus, there are people offering activations and people seeking them. I'd bet there are more of those combined than there are people who are really upset about the idea.
imho
And the "buying/selling" outside of the market rule is fine, but not all the UDID posts were mentioning money at all. In fact I started one specifically just about testing apps.
So delete the ones about buying and selling, but other ones leave alone and push into one thread so they dont clog up the rest of the site.
P.S. The fact that the clogging up of the site is a problem just points out how many people are looking for this info (refer to mod's response including "community census" idea)
Those who are complaining not because of that but because of the "principle" are either just developers who are being elitist/or annoyed at the idea of someone getting a feature they paid 100 dollars for. OR they are just straight-edge tight-bums who thing everyone should fall in line with every policy like they supposedly do.
Either way Im not sure why those opinions are really that important. If you want to talk about community consensus, there are people offering activations and people seeking them. I'd bet there are more of those combined than there are people who are really upset about the idea.
imho
And the "buying/selling" outside of the market rule is fine, but not all the UDID posts were mentioning money at all. In fact I started one specifically just about testing apps.
So delete the ones about buying and selling, but other ones leave alone and push into one thread so they dont clog up the rest of the site.
P.S. The fact that the clogging up of the site is a problem just points out how many people are looking for this info (refer to mod's response including "community census" idea)
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uh, you agree to the terms/conditions/forum rules when you sign up, and to the fact that...
if you don't like it, you shouldn't have made an account if you don't consent to the forum rules, MR is not the only Apple forums website
if you don't like it, you shouldn't have made an account if you don't consent to the forum rules, MR is not the only Apple forums website
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LOL
What a typical response. The American "Love it or Leave it" response.
How ridiculous. We all have the right to voice our opinions, and if you like a forum (which I do) I'd rather do that and hope it'll improve than just be a follower and deal with it.
Love it or Change it for the better.
What a typical response. The American "Love it or Leave it" response.
How ridiculous. We all have the right to voice our opinions, and if you like a forum (which I do) I'd rather do that and hope it'll improve than just be a follower and deal with it.
Love it or Change it for the better.
but there's nothing to change for the better here, it's your opinion that the rules are a bit too restrictive (which i respect) but if the vast majority of MR users felt that way then the rules probably would have been changed "for the better," no?
i'm not starting an argument over this i'm just giving my two cents.
If you want to talk about community consensus, you might be surprised at the percentage of forum members that feel the quality of this forum went downhill with all the iPhone related threads, and would like to see all the iPhone stuff go away to a separate forum.
Well I already had one person say they agreed that it needed to be consistent.
And no, given your own response if the majority of people believed it to be wrong they should just shut up and deal with it, so how would we know?
But again, given the number of people trying to talk about UDIDs, it seems likely that there is at least a considerable number if not a 'majority' of users who would agree.
If you really want my guess, the reason this has been delt with the way it has is because the people with:
1. The power to moderate
and/or
2. The greatest number of posts, length of membership etc
are people who are much more likely to be deeply integrated into Apple, etc. People of the sort who HAVE paid developer subscriptions and dont need activation, have jailbroken phone for years and wouldn't want activation, or the like. People who feel "above" all the rambling of the little people looking to 'steal' the convidential software they feel they have a right to exclusively...
As a result of the 'type' of people complaining, versus the 'number', those posts have been deleted.
This is my guess. I think it is an educated one.
And no, given your own response if the majority of people believed it to be wrong they should just shut up and deal with it, so how would we know?
But again, given the number of people trying to talk about UDIDs, it seems likely that there is at least a considerable number if not a 'majority' of users who would agree.
If you really want my guess, the reason this has been delt with the way it has is because the people with:
1. The power to moderate
and/or
2. The greatest number of posts, length of membership etc
are people who are much more likely to be deeply integrated into Apple, etc. People of the sort who HAVE paid developer subscriptions and dont need activation, have jailbroken phone for years and wouldn't want activation, or the like. People who feel "above" all the rambling of the little people looking to 'steal' the convidential software they feel they have a right to exclusively...
As a result of the 'type' of people complaining, versus the 'number', those posts have been deleted.
This is my guess. I think it is an educated one.
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you got me there. i'm just trying to think of it as if everyone felt the rules were too restrictive, then forum activity wouldn't be high so moderators would take it among themselves to loosen it up in an effort to attract a large crowd. this isn't the case however, MR does quite well.
Which is exactly why they won't ban the violation of the NDA concerning iOS5, because it would keep too many people away.
But if they are saying now that the UDID discussions aren't being deleted necessarily because of violating apples regulations (since they want to be able to keep iOS discussions open without being hypocritical), but are instead saying that it is 'community consensus', then why not prove that consensus? start a poll for instance. Or easier yet, have them count the number of complaints they have recieved, and compare that to the number of posts they've deleted! That would be a fair showing of the ratio of complaint to desire.
(Assuming people asking for or offering UDID activation wouldn't complain about themselves)
But if they are saying now that the UDID discussions aren't being deleted necessarily because of violating apples regulations (since they want to be able to keep iOS discussions open without being hypocritical), but are instead saying that it is 'community consensus', then why not prove that consensus? start a poll for instance. Or easier yet, have them count the number of complaints they have recieved, and compare that to the number of posts they've deleted! That would be a fair showing of the ratio of complaint to desire.
(Assuming people asking for or offering UDID activation wouldn't complain about themselves)
like you said, take that up with the mods not me haha, if it's something you think needs to be done then try to get it done. i don't care too much about the topic and i'm not affected by it so i'm not a part of the problem nor the viable solution.
Lol, that's fine. But that's why I started this thread. So if more mods could please explain and clarify if I am somehow misreading things?
you may be better off with the link from the above post than starting a thread if you're looking for direct contact with mods
Well I was hoping to have a discussion with more than one of them, which is also open to other members.
OH i know how to get their attention!
*Stands on soapbox*
yells: ***** IM SELLING UDID ACTIVATIONS!! COME ONE COME ALL!!!*****
hahaha, JUST kidding
OH i know how to get their attention!
*Stands on soapbox*
yells: ***** IM SELLING UDID ACTIVATIONS!! COME ONE COME ALL!!!*****
hahaha, JUST kidding