I mean, I assume you’re aware that this was voted on less than two weeks ago since you voted in that poll. Your side lost by 2:1 so yes, you’re just supposed to accept it. The people have spoken on this issue.
When this one loses again will you just restart a new RFC in a couple of weeks? At some point it will seem like you’re abusing the RFC system and throwing a tantrum, dare I say it, like you’re in middle school.
Completely disagree with OP.
Not really in favour of 4 hour throttles (too long and they don’t cool heads all the time) but there was plenty of aids on the unthrottled 2p2 before mods would come in and with their bans and then mass-deleting posts.
Yeah, perhaps a compromise is starting with much shorter throttles (if that’s an option)?. I know that occasionally I’ve come back to a thread to make some kind of brilliant cutting reply and found that it was throttled and then like just 20 minutes later I’d already lost interest in the topic or in getting in my perfect retort and I was back do getting things done in my ‘real’ life. Didn’t need anything like 4 hours to move me on.
All banning throttling will do is increase the number of locked threads.
Then it’s gonna be all, “But muh rights. What about muh free speech?”
Mods and admins can’t win no matter what they do.
I agree with the OP.
ETA: Of course I’m also ok w profanity filters and banning anyone who starts shit.
So much whining about 4 hour throttles. Get those stomach acids churning, you’ve all earned it.
No Throttles is better than Four Hour Throttles, but I’m not sure No Throttles is better than One Hour Throttles.
I was very frustrated yesterday to see zara’s inexcusable post in About Moderation, respond to it, and then see jal’s original post get deleted (who did that? Why?) and posters come in confused about the context. I had to PM them what happened because I couldn’t explain in the thread. I honestly considered starting a new thread about it, just like someone did today, which wouldn’t be necessary with a non-existent (or even one hour) throttle.
I voted in it last night when it was pointed out to me, in order to see the results. I was not part of the original discussion.
I’ll admit, I had no idea the previous discussion had taken place when I posted this thread last night. I also think the word choice in the prior thread was bad, as it said throttling a thread requires a community vote. I want to eliminate community votes from modding as much as possible. Even in the case of permabans, I think the approach of banning a poster to let things cool off a bit and then discussing how to move forward from there is the best approach.
I’ll also note that having a straw poll in the OP of an RFC isn’t a required part of the process, and I think is counterproductive to achieving a desired change.
I don’t like throttles at all, but if the forum consensus is that they’re good, then I won’t win this one. Still willing to leave this topic open for discussion to see if other people feel the way I do.
In a world where the moderators here would be empowered to just deal with the forum drama loving nuisances, throttles would not be needed.
But, in the reality that this forum exists in, they have been heaven sent.
I’d go as far as to make them mandatory for every thread that devolves into the usual pattern where the members who get off on their hobby of forum fisticuffs shit on each other for sport.
I guess you whining about the whiners adds so much to the discussion?
If we can’t even discuss rule changes or anything without people coming in to tell them they should stop whining what’s the point of having any type of community based forum?
That gets closer to the nub of the problems here than people want to hear.
I voted in favor of throttles in the prior thread, but I agree with a lot of what you’re saying here. I think they can have some legitimate uses, but they’re just deployed way too often now. It’s the mods semi-explicitly saying that they are unable or unwilling to actually moderate the discussion in the thread, so they are going to smother it so they don’t have to deal with it. I can understand that that might be the best decision in certain circumstances, but if it’s happening constantly, it means something is very wrong.
I have it on good authority that it is completely fine to vote on the same topic multiple times until you get the result you want. (Situationally dependent.) (The “situation” primarily depends on what the mods and their buddies want for a result.)
We currently have an open RFC thread that is throttled. That makes no sense. If people don’t want to completely do away with throttling of threads, I’d hope we can at least agree that some changes need to be made.
4 hours is a crazy long time period for a throttle. The reasons stated as a positive for a throttle are accomplished by 30 minutes. Also, if you’re going to throttle a thread, it should be a temporary solution, used for a day at most. When you permanently throttle a thread, especially with such long time limits, you’re just begging that discussion to spill out all over the rest of the forum.
I agree with this. I didn’t vote in the other poll because I generally dislike throttles but thought that a community vote for every throttle would be overkill.
I can see three potential questions here that are separate from the community vote issue, which could have options like these:
I have a little skepticism of community votes on issues that have already become community flashpoints since I don’t think people will be considering throttles in a vacuum, they’ll be considering throttles as currently used. Folks that see current throttle use as a means of slowing down posters that they dislike will probably be in favor of throttles, rather than considering the general utility of throttles. Basically, “it’s a tool currently used to quiet those that I’m tired of hearing from so I am in favor of them” rather than “I think throttles are a good tool for the community.” That being said, it’s going to be hard to disentangle this for any moderation issue so I don’t have a better proposal than community vote.
For what it’s worth, my votes on the three questions above would be yes, 1 hour (or less, but I think 1 hour was the lowest we can go?), and 1 day, but this would also require some sort of provision that throttle decisions are documented in the log with a specific explanation of why a throttle is needed, in hopes that they would be used very infrequently and not just to quiet one or two posters.
This right here is an excellent post. Thanks for your input!
Can anyone confirm if the minimum time you can set a throttle for using the forum software is one hour as hokie mentioned?