SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

I've calmed down now and re-evaluated the way forward on SyntaxBomb. Apologies for my kneejerk reaction.

What is going to happen :

1.. In the short term I'll be taking more of a back seat whilst I concentrate on personal issues. I'll not be gone but won't be dealing with any member issues.

2.. We need a global forum moderator to have full control over members, threads and posts.

3.. There will be changes to this site starting in the near future as I'd like to realign this place back onto the relaxed fun path it should be.

4.. I have restored the forums to a state from a few days ago.


Who's up to be in charge of things for the short term?

Congratuations to our two new global moderators :

Xerra and Derron 

Thanks for bringing it back up. This place has become a nexus that would leave a big vacuum if it wasn't around.

Thanks for beeing back ! SB is a small island, but it is a 'rich' one with valuable inhabitants.
Like many guys I guess, I was a bit shocked and sad to see it vanished althought I do not come here that often.
Thanks again for you dedication.

Hi Qube,

Thanks for bringing SB back online: it has become home to a large portion of the Blitz community and it was missed terribly.

Hope everything happening behind the scenes gets resolved for you.

I don't get a lot of spare time and I'm not an experienced forum administrator but I'm happy to help in any way I can.

Regards,
Si...

Thank you for bringing the forum back Qube - sorry it has become another issue for you.

I am not an experienced forum administrator either but I do have a moderate amount of spare time. I cannot promise I'll be able to help (an idea of what is involved would be very useful) but if you think there's anything I can do then let me know.

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Thanks for bringing it back up. This place has become a nexus that would leave a big vacuum if it wasn't around.

Absolutely, it was quite a shock to not have the SyntaxBomb Community available.

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2.. We need a global forum moderator to have full control over members, threads and posts.

STEVIE G, Xerra or Derron?

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3.. There will be changes to this site starting in the near future as I'd like to realign this place back onto the relaxed fun path it should be.

Definitely, here was always a chilled place where in-game progress was shown, discussions on code and tech related subjects were discussed and the next coding competition was in people's minds.  A really nice community vibe.

YAAAAAY SB is back. I know I don't comment much but I lurk a lot and I missed this place the last few days

Thank you Qube for bringing the site back. 

Cheers Qube for bringing it back from the brink, I'd like to volunteer but my job during the weeks over 200 miles away, kinda munches my free time.

This site has been an inspiration for me over the last few years.

Cheers 

Thanks for bringing the site back up!

What does a moderator job imply? Does one have to read every post, every day or just some flagged posts? How many hours every day? People are busy but maybe we can figure out a way to do the job or split it into smaller chunks.

Quote from: Qube on February 11, 2022, 02:14:48
I've calmed down now and re-evaluated the way forward on SyntaxBomb. Apologies for my kneejerk reaction.

What is going to happen :

1.. In the short term I'll be taking more of a back seat whilst I concentrate on personal issues. I'll not be gone but won't be dealing with any member issues.

2.. We need a global forum moderator to have full control over members, threads and posts.

3.. There will be changes to this site starting in the near future as I'd like to realign this place back onto the relaxed fun path it should be.

4.. I have restored the forums to a state from a few days ago.


Who's up to be in charge of things for the short term?

Welcome back, Qube. Glad the site is back up and running. Totally get you've got more important stuff to deal with at the moment so I'm up for helping you out anyway I can. Just say the word.

Suggestion: Maybe see who's up for moderating the forums on your behalf then have a vote/poll? I'll put myself forward anyway.

Yep, put a poll up, I've already put 3 candidates forward as possibles.

Quote from: Steve Elliott on February 11, 2022, 22:13:19
Yep, put a poll up, I've already put 3 candidates forward as possibles.

Since moderating involves a lot of effort & commitment on their part, I think the act of stepping up must come from the person themselves, not someone else. Else it's too convenient, right? "I think these other guys can spend their free time to moderate, a thankless job. Not me though".

Many thanks for the kind works on forum and via PM

Xerra - Congratulations, you are now a super site moderator ( will be after this post ).

I would like one more cool heading person if possible. Derron, are you up to helping out?

Quote from: Ashmoor on February 11, 2022, 17:42:40
Thanks for bringing the site back up!

What does a moderator job imply? Does one have to read every post, every day or just some flagged posts? How many hours every day? People are busy but maybe we can figure out a way to do the job or split it into smaller chunks.

For "Germany" laws are this way: if you as a "responsible for the site" person reply to a thread, the "opposite party" can claim you knowing of the content before. So if on page 1 an argument contains some "illegal element" (or eg something sueable for a company) and you just check page 2 there some swearing happens and you write a "calm down guys else we lock the topic" ... you might already create hassle for yourself/the page owner.
This might not be the case here as Qube is not hosting in Germany - yet I wanted to describe a thought regarding "does one have to read every post".

I think - yes, every post should be at least "scanned" by one of the moderators. It must not be done on a hourly base, not on a daily one ... but within "appropriate" time.
If there exist multiple moderators you might end up with trusting "others already checked it" - which might work well but is of course no warranty. You could also split the forum into "sections" with certain sections being under "control" of individual moderators (so they do not need to check all of them).
"super moderators" could exist and are allowed to control all sections. I guess this is what would be the default role for appointed moderators.

Next to this you always should have a controller for the moderators - so that a moderator in an argument with other persons could not stupidly ban, block the users and / or close their threads or similar. So always someone you can "approach to" in case of trouble with the mods.

Being a mod is not that time consuming here as we (for now) do not have 100s of posts each day. Yet it can be kinda boring ("thread not of interest for me") which sooner or later leads to threads being only scanned "very rapidly".


I think it should have way more than just a single responsible person here ... if you have 4-5 moderators this might sound "much" ... but I would see it more as a "community controlled thing" then ... this way even qube can still do the stuff he did before - he just gets assistance.
BUT ... it requires some mod/addon of qube I think: moderator logs - maybe even a public one (not just for other moderators). This way it is easier to detect if one of the moderators does "nothing at all" (while something had to be done) or if one mod goes out of control and into a rampage.

Forum has to be backupped daily to avoid too much dataloss in case of a rampage (mod deleting manually all the threads in their controlled sections) - or simply, an accidental click to delete instead of moving. Think this is set up within 5 minutes for qube... so ... not a biggy.

Also an "team section" for moderators might be useful - in which mods could explain why they did a certain "more severe" reaction ... yet these areas are prone to be ... exposed with screenshots/text copies ... so should never be used to say something "personal".


As I was named before: if above was done (multiple moderators etc) I would not be against gaining additional user rights here to keep stuff more clean here (deleting spam posts here and then etc). But I wont read all the threads as I am surely getting headaches reading certain - either "beginners + bad spelling" or "stuff I just do not understand as it is over my head" .


Edit: as Qube posted before my reply:
It does not need 4-5 moderators "from begin" and also it depends on the activity in the forum - but you need more than just 1-2 because of vactions and other stuff. People do not have time 24/7. Yet I understand that you cannot give everyone moderator rights - as this ends in trouble .
Let's see if some more people step out of the shadow ... and are known for staying kinda "polite and calm".


bye
Ron