Please help keep this forum accessible to the World

[Transmogrifox]

I for one could live with NO avatars and NO sigs (OK, an 80 char sig.. fits on one hollerith card)

I for two...
I don't mind too much either way as I am sitting behind a competent machine on the high-speed internet highway.  Thinking of accessing this page from a dial-up connection, I agree with the effort to keep the "junk" minimal. 

I disagree with RG about giving the boot.  Peter and Aron have every right to give the boot to anyone who does not conform...in fact they have the right to boot anybody that annoys them in any way, "another Tubescreamer question that is answered in GEO and in 100 posts searchable...we'll give you the boot".  I think that would be perfectly just.

Pure justice is inneffective.  Us humans by nature are hypocrites, so the least we can do is show a little mercy and kindness even if some jerk is annoying us with an oversized avatar.

If Peter can get someone to resize an avatar or shorten the signature of their own free will, then there's a good chance they won't sign up under a different handle and repeat the offense.

There always will be some hard-asses that need to be booted.  One bad pig deserves another.   To the greek I am as a greek, and to the Roman, I am as a Roman, and to the hard-ass I am as a hard-ass 

Practically speaking, it's generally better to ramp up the strength of your force until the offender breaks instead of indiscriminantly applying the dirac delta from the get-go.  You don't use TNT in units of megatons for applications where you're actually using TNT as this typically destroys many things you don't intend to destroy.

Please keep in mind most of this post is tongue-in-cheek.  I just had to write an opinion because I'm feeling particularly spunky this evening.  Really all I wanted to do was bump the post again for a little more mercy to those who are ignoring it.

[Peter Snowberg]

'Tis more noble to be a fool than a jerk.

Thanks for the bump.

[nelson]

Change the pic or she will get you.


(its 24.66kb)

[R.G.]

You guys misunderstand me.

I don't mean to necessarily boot them permanently. As we have seen from Peter's attempts to get this fixed, it's harder to get some people's attention than others. There is no pure justice or tyranny here - just a little parenting. Those who have parented a child - or trained a mule - will understand that to get the subject to cooperate, sometimes there is a period where you have to concentrate on getting their attention. In fact, in the face of willfull ignoring the situation by the trainee, getting their attention can be 98% of the problem.

And the TNT/megatons of force analogy does not follow. Getting someone's attention by denying them access until they pay attention to your request to limit the size of the clever, cute picture they put on their posts is in fact pretty pointed - it affects only the person who's making the issue.

There are three possibilties here.
(1) the miscreants are unaware that they are contravening the rules
(2) the miscreants are clueless, and are so ignorant of computers, English, or internet society that they don't know they're causing a problem
(3) the miscreants are choosing to ignore it, and pretending that they are really 1 or 2.

Blocking access until the miscreant makes contact and asks why is a good way to separate out 1's and 2's from 3's. And it's my experience that 3's are very clever about pretending to be 1's and 2's as long as you enable them to be. By allowing them to continue you are reinforcing their decision not to comply.

I'm all for operant conditioning methods - reward good behavior as a training method, create conditions where the behavior you want is rewarded and let the users choose.

Frankly, the issue is simpler. Peter, Paul, me, Andrew, and many others have expressed the real solution succinctly - turn off avatars and pictures in sigs. You can help people who can't help themselves by making the environment such that they can't harm themselves or others. That's not a solution that Peter and Aron choose to take, and that's fine, it's their show. But it is a quick, benign solution.

[GFR]

Unfortunately, not everybody has broadband access yet , so large avatar file sizes make it harder for dial-up users to make use of this place. We want to avoid this problem. For those that don't know, you can check the size of your avatar file (on windows machines) by right-clicking the avatar and looking at the file size which is shown in bytes.

I have broadband at work, but sometimes I access the forum from home with a 56K dial-up connection. I actually think avatars help me to READ the forum faster when I'm on dial-up. That's because I can cheat and use the avatars as a visual aid to quickly filter posters that I'd better skip reading So while it takes a little longer to load the page (as long as the avatars are reasonably sized), I take less time to read, so the net result is less time connected. And I pay for each minute when I'm on dial-up.

[The Tone God]

Firstly I understood that Mr. Keen was NOT suggesting a complete ban on violators. He was suggesting a temporary halt to their participation until they complied.

I tend to not view this situation from a forum participant but as someone who has served previously as an admin/mod on several BBSs/forums, including some very LARGE forums, over my years. Technically suspending the account would only prevent the user from continuing to post with the offending avatar/signature. The user's existing posts would still have the offending avatar/signature thus the issue is not resolved. You want to encourage the user to make the change themselves voluntarily so the changes carry through all the posts and the user does not feel they are being given an ultimatum. The user may choose to not comply and leave thus it would be up to the admin/mod to modify the offender's profile to remove the avatar/signature which is yet more work for our already over stressed admin/mods.

The problem I felt with Mr. Keen's initial post is that there seemed to be the assumption that all remaining offenders are in what Mr. Keen has pointed out in his previous post of case "3". My feeling is that remaining offenders should be contacted to identify of which case they are. I am sure that all of the offenders are of case 1 and 2, from the fact that they are participating and not being disruptive otherwise, and even those of a weak case 3 will adjust if politely contacted by a admin/mod. Only if the person is of an extreme case 3 should the action of suspension be taken although the "write me an explanation" thing strikes me as being alittle too "parental" IMHO.

My other concern with Mr. Keen's post is that acting in such a "unilateral" manner can fester resentment among members of forum which could damage the forum and it's quite excellent "vibe" even if it is just someone deciding to not post. I'm not suggestion it would be the downfall of the forum.

I still would support a removal of avatars and signatures but the option is there to turn it off so I'm indifferent to it.

Just my opinion.

Andrew

[R.G.]

Hey, you know, I realize that I'm being too much of a hard ass. We don't need any kind of oversight or rules. Let's just everyone do whatever they want, and that way we'll have peace and harmony.

Hey everyone! Do whatever you like!

[The Tone God]

Hey everyone! Do whatever you like!

Cool. Goodbye pants!

Andrew

[RDV]

All with avatars shall be flogged to death in thy divine mercy!

RDV

[Transmogrifox]

Hey, you know, I realize that I'm being too much of a hard ass. We don't need any kind of oversight or rules. Let's just everyone do whatever they want, and that way we'll have peace and harmony.

Hey everyone! Do whatever you like!

Haha.  That's the spirit. 

I actually find your second post where you explained yourself to be very reasonable.  I must admit to drawing hastey conclusions in my first post.

I'm still a fan of ramping up the heat gradually.  A thread like this, and the sticky about Avatars and such gets the attention of those who will be courteous and take action on their own before they get broadsided.  Now at this point where nobody who is courteous and responsible has an excuse of ignorance, we can conclude that those who still don't comply (ie "I didn't read the sticky because it's a bunch of BS" people) are guilty as charged.  Then RG's suggestion to give them some "what for" is perfectly in order (now that I understand they would have the option of having their access restored on the condition they be good).  I can't say that I have any claim to authority on the topic of discipline since I have not yet experience being a father...but there's my 2 cents.  In the end, the moderators will do as they see fit and my opinion is just a few bytes taking up space on the server.

Good place to learn about Psychology, and a little about guitar FX on the side.

[The Tone God]

All with avatars shall be flogged to death in thy divine mercy!

I would offer you a hug but I don't know how you would feel about getting a virtual hug from someone with no pants on.

Andrew

[Peter Snowberg]

PMs sent.

Andrew, please put down the horseradish and put your pants back on.

[The Tone God]

Andrew, please put down the horseradish and put your pants back on.

Aww...your no fun.

Andrew