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Rules of the site - Necromancy

Navrin

Navrin

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The basic job of moderators is to enforce the rules of this website, found here. However, the moderators have taken it upon themselves to enforce a Spacebattles rule here: Specifically, that a thread without replies for X amount of time (14 days, I believe, but not particularly important) should not be replied to except by the topic creator.

This is not, and to the best of my knowledge never has been, an actual rule of QQ.

As such, I request one of two solutions be implemented.

First, amend the rules so that necromancy is explicitly made against site rules.

Second, for the moderators to cease pretending that necromancy is against this site's rules and restrict themselves to enforcing the rules that actually exist.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.
 
You can bet I dislike it.

Navrin said:
Second, for the moderators to cease pretending that necromancy is against this site's rules and restrict themselves to enforcing the rules that actually exist..
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I dunno, does common sense need rules?

Because that's what I consider that. When something is months old, years old, what possess someone to think posting on that thread and bumping it is a good idea? Especially when it's mainly for a shameless bump disguised as a one-liner comment?

So yeah, don't think for a second I will consider stopping.

Edit: And to add to that, it's not like I give them anything more than a warning about it because yes, we get the forum newbie now and then. If the behavior was repeated by the same person 3-4 times however, THAT is when I would strike with something harder. And that has not happened yet.
 
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Well, hmm.
I'll confess I dislike necromancy as well, but I don't see much harm from it. Either the thread is dead and truly dead, then it will quickly re-died and pushed down by active threads. Or it will actually galvanized the OP/the discussion, and it will live again.

In short, I believe there are merit for necromancy, and we can't depend on 'common sense' for banning it. Take SV, for example - a good chunk of our userbase is from SV, where necromancy is explicitly allowed. Certainly, the regulars already know QQ discourage necromancy - but what about new users?

So, adding 'no necromancy' or 'necromancy is discouraged' in the rules seems like prudent action to me.
 
It's not a breach of common sense so much as it is of common courtesy, but I feel like either way it's not the mods' jobs to enforce it. If it bugs the thread creator, they're capable of dealing with it. If it doesn't, there's no reason to do anything at all.

That said, if our glorious overlords intend to enforce the unspoken rules, I do agree that they should be listed somewhere. Is there a website somewhere that lists the various courtesies everyone on the internet should know about (as in, be polite, use proper grammar when possible, be aware that you're talking to actual people as opposed to faceless npcs)?
 
Megaolix

Common sense or no, and I am not arguing, or entertaining an arguement of such, it is still OUTSIDE YOUR MANDATE

I am in favour of it becoming a rule if there is any sort of consensus amongst the mods that this is a practice that calls for intervention, and leave it to those mods who give a damn about it to enforce it.
 
Seru said:
I am in favour of it becoming a rule if there is any sort of consensus amongst the mods that this is a practice that calls for intervention, and leave it to those mods who give a damn about it to enforce it.
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You do realize the mod team is me and bii? After that, it's Squirelly, alethiophile and Elgee as Admins.
 
... Huh, I thought there were more Moderators. Well then, I look like a jackass. Have fun enforcing the necromancy.
 
[oppression intensifies]

Now there is a thread necromancy policy. Fairly standard, tbh. Single violations will get frowny faces, repeat violations will get official warnings, followed by bans if continued.
 
So, can we add exceptions to this? Because I'm perfectly fine with people reviving my quest thread. It keeps me motivated, and I'm 100% cool with answering any questions about whether the quest is dormant or abandoned.
 
GiftofLove said:
So, can we add exceptions to this? Because I'm perfectly fine with people reviving my quest thread. It keeps me motivated, and I'm 100% cool with answering any questions about whether the quest is dormant or abandoned.
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That's what PMs or profile comments are for. Maybe throw a line into your sig or something about feeling free to contact you with questions.
 
I must object to this new rule as written, for a number of reasons.

1) There are threads that can be revived by even relatively minor posts. Suppose a quest dies, not from lack of story, but from lack of votes. A new vote, which would not be considered a "significant contribution" in most people's eyes, suffices. Or a discussion can be re-energised by a new viewpoint. Or one of the games in General by a new player.

2) Honestly, as both a reader and writer, I care a lot more about getting comments on my stories (and having discussion of them between readers) than about "getting false hope" of other people's stories updating. And I mean it's not like putting an old story back on the front page for a day or so has no benefit; there are almost certainly going to be people who haven't read it before. On top of that, IIRC the watched thread "new posts" notification tells you who posted first; not much "false hope" there.

3) Chilling effect. Having an explicit necromancy rule is, without a doubt, going to discourage what would end up being acceptable reanimations. Is five seconds of annoyance really big enough of a deal to outweigh that?


I mean, we do have Rules 1 and 5 for people who are being really disruptive about it (posting "update pls" a billion times in the same thread, etc.), and thread locks can be requested if necessary by their OPs. I could see some call for a black-list (rather than white-list, as here) rule telling people not to badger authors for updates, but even that has its pitfalls: "Is that an ending, or will there be more after this?" is a legitimate question for some one-shots and should probably be in the thread so it only has to be asked and answered once.
 
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Woo! Now people can whine about thread necros here too!

Sarcasm aside, apparently the decision has already been made. I will note that thread necromancy doesn't hurt anyone, and can bring threads to the attention of people who had not found them before, and for creative endeavors, if your alert isn't the OP, you have no excuse for thinking it's an update.
 
And as noted above, that's what PMs and profile posts are for. If you're going to poke someone about a story, you can do so without annoying anyone else.

Because I myself get irritated when necros happen.
 
magic9mushroom said:
I must object to this new rule as written, for a number of reasons.

1) There are threads that can be revived by even relatively minor posts. Suppose a quest dies, not from lack of story, but from lack of votes. A new vote, which would not be considered a "significant contribution" in most people's eyes, suffices. Or a discussion can be re-energised by a new viewpoint. Or one of the games in General by a new player.

2) Honestly, as both a reader and writer, I care a lot more about getting comments on my stories (and having discussion of them between readers) than about "getting false hope" of other people's stories updating. And I mean it's not like putting an old story back on the front page for a day or so has no benefit; there are almost certainly going to be people who haven't read it before. On top of that, IIRC the watched thread "new posts" notification tells you who posted first; not much "false hope" there.

3) Chilling effect. Having an explicit necromancy rule is, without a doubt, going to discourage what would end up being acceptable reanimations. Is five seconds of annoyance really big enough of a deal to outweigh that?


I mean, we do have Rules 1 and 5 for people who are being really disruptive about it (posting "update pls" a billion times in the same thread, etc.), and thread locks can be requested if necessary by their OPs. I could see some call for a black-list (rather than white-list, as here) rule telling people not to badger authors for updates, but even that has its pitfalls: "Is that an ending, or will there be more after this?" is a legitimate question for some one-shots and should probably be in the thread so it only has to be asked and answered once.
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I fully agree. Necros don't hurt anyone, but banning them means you'll discourage people from posting - a bad, bad thing on a forum.
 
magic9mushroom said:
I must object to this new rule as written, for a number of reasons.
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None of those are relevant. If a quest thread is dead, it is because the QM is not posting, or has driven off their playerbase with poor choices. In neither case does the thread deserve to be 'revived' by a pointless non-contribution. If you want discussion, either write something worth discussing, or bug people on IRC. There is no such thing as an 'acceptable' reanimation; either people come and yell at the necromancer and he feels stupid because he knows he did something stupid, or (extremely rarely) the QM comes back, writes three updates, then gets bored again.
When quest threads die, they die for a reason, and that reason is always on the QM. Thus, only the QM should have any reason to bring it back.
Starfox5 said:
I fully agree. Necros don't hurt anyone, but banning them means you'll discourage people from posting - a bad, bad thing on a forum.
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It will discourage them from posting useless garbage. A very, very good thing for a forum.
 
dalmedya said:
It will discourage them from posting useless garbage. A very, very good thing for a forum.
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If a post is garbage then the date it is posted will not change it. All you are doing is catering to people who get annoyed at being fooled into thinking there is an update. And those people can simply read their alerts.
 
Megaolix said:
That's a general discussion kind of thread, not a story/quest thread.
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And I mentioned discussions as another kind of thread?


Look, this really rubs me the wrong way. We're here to get along with each other (or so I thought), not to codify dogpiling people for minor etiquette violations that cause five seconds of headache to some people. The first five rules are completely uncontroversial and the sixth while possible to disagree with is still based in avoiding permanent destruction of content. This just seems like a taboo - people complain about it, therefore other people also complain about it, despite any real problem with it having evaporated.
 
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magic9mushroom said:
this really rubs me the wrong way.
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And necros rub me the wrong way.

I wouldn't have put it in the rules and I do not remember actually punishing anyone over it yet, just pointed out the matter. Then this thread happened and some asked for it to be in the rules and here we are. And it's still pretty relaxed as a rule. This only make it official what happen if someone go on a spree, which I would have done before the rule was written.

So, really? Nothing actually changed. Something was just stated as official policy.
 
Megaolix said:
And necros rub me the wrong way.

I wouldn't have put it in the rules and I do not remember actually punishing anyone over it yet, just pointed out the matter. Then this thread happened and some asked for it to be in the rules and here we are. And it's still pretty relaxed as a rule. This only make it official what happen if someone go on a spree, which I would have done before the rule was written.

So, really? Nothing actually changed. Something was just stated as official policy.
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Well, let's see. I was planning to put my policy of "feel free to necro threads for my works if you've something to say to me about them" into my signature before this happened (specifically, I was planning to do it when my next work goes up). Can I still do so?
 
What exactly is wrong with necros? Seriously, what is wrong with posting in a thread about a story a month after the last post? If it's just a question about updates, then that specifically could be banned. But what exactly is bad about necros?
 
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