For the past several months, maybe as far back as a year, I've notice this section slowly deteriorating. I'm sure plenty of members here have noticed it as well and have their theories and opinions on how and why it's been happening. Basically it doesn't matter because nothing has happened in this section that hasn't happened in the majority of sections that I've modded. Cultural or otherwise.

I moderate 15 different sections and I'd say at least 85 - 90% of the reports I get are from this one. That doesn't necessarily mean that this section is the only one that has it's problems. There are a couple of others where the members there make no reports despite rampant flaming, trolling, racism, etc. But I've noticed a pattern with this section which has been extremely annoying and I'm completely fed up with it.

Regular members quoting, provoking, responding, and arguing with trolls, especially blatant trolls, and then taking the time to report it. I've lost count of how many reports I've gotten from members in this section only to link to the complaint and find that the reporter has spent the last 2 or 3 pages arguing with or outright flaming the individual they're making reports about. This is not helping and it seems to be getting even worse.

It shouldn't take a genius to figure out that the main reason that trolls come to this section is because they want attention and they like pissing off people who get overly sensitive off of what they read on the internet. If you see someone is trolling, then ignore them and report it. Don't give them the attention that they want. So I'm going to give fair warning for what's going to happen from now on when I get reports and see members engaging in that behavior or just see members engaging in that behavior on their own:

1. If I see members here quoting, provoking, responding, and arguing with trolls they're going to get warnings and will eventually be temp banned if they keep it up. This doesn't mean that every time someone argues with some ambiguous troll and realizes it later they'll be warned off the bat. But it's pretty obvious when someone comes here, has 10 posts, and all of them are basically anti-Korean/inflammatory you need to just ignore that person. Believe me I've been doing this long enough where I can tell if someone is just making things worse or just doesn't know a person is a troll.

2. If I see members outright flaming individuals because they don't agree with them they're going get warnings and will eventually be temp banned if they keep it up. I'm tired of getting reports from individuals who complain about flaming and trolling only to see them doing the exact same thing. Especially with trolls who are just provoked even further.

3. If I see members responding to racist/nationalistic/anti-Korean trolls with their own brand of racist/anti-whatever rhetoric they're going to get warnings and will eventually be temp banned if they keep it up. If the only way you feel you can defend or take pride in your race, ethnicity, or whatever is by degrading and attacking the race/ethnicity of an individual who slighted you then you might want to question how strong that pride really is. Regardless if you see someone exhibiting any of that type of behavior I suggest you swallow your pride, ignore the individual, and report them. Just because this is the "Korean Chat" doesn't mean it's some sort of free for all to bash whoever you want if you're Korean. There are forum guidelines and members in this section have to follow them like everyone else.

4. No anti-white/gypos commentary. This has been bad for awhile, especially the former. And I take partial blame for this because it's been so rampant in this section for so long that for the most part I've just ignored it unless someone directly complained. Not anymore. If you want to talk/complain about ESL teachers or Asiaphillia fine. But keep the racist generalizations out of it. I've seen enough people in this section get up in arms over what some nobody from Dave's ESL says regarding Koreans and at the same time act as if it's their god given right to say whatever racist comments they want about whites.

Now here are some things I do NOT want reports about:

1. Do not make reports about foul language. Unless someone is flaming or is a troll who does nothing except swear at individuals I really don't care. I'm sure most of us here went to high school and college. If you could deal with foul language there without telling the teacher every time someone said something you wouldn't say to your grandparents, you can deal with it on an online discussion forum.

2. Do not make reports because someone disagrees with your opinion about history. I'd say most of the flaming/trolling that goes on in this section, and a few other cultural sections, stems from individuals having different, or just outright contradictory, point of views regarding history. Deal with it. I've been a moderator on this forum for over 3 years now and have seen dozens if not hundreds of arguments over history, geopolitics, warfare, inventions, etc and so on. And I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually seen an individual say "Hmm. I guess maybe I was wrong about that. Nevermind." The number is actually 0 but I'm going to assume someone here has seen it at least once since some members spend a majority of their time arguing and doing nothing else. If someone doesn't agree with you the first time you say something, you can post all the sources in the world, link all the maps you can find, waste as much time on them as you want and 99% of the time you're not going to be changing any minds. If it gets to the point where you're sick and tired of what a member is saying or posting, there's an ignore feature which many members are more than welcome to start taking advantage of.

3. Do not report the same troll 2, 3, or 4 times for the same thing in the same day. If there's a guy who obviously needs to be banned, report him once as a troll, I'll go through his post history to see if it warrants being banned and that will be the end of it. Making multiple reports for the same account, for pretty much the same thing, and on the same day isn't going to do anything except give me MORE reports to read through and waste my time.

Here are some things I would LIKE to see more reports of:

1. If you see someone with less than 20 posts who has been a member for a couple of days, if that, and is basically pissing people off or being inflammatory report them. DO NOT RESPOND, FLAME, OR QUOTE THEM (see consequences above)

2. If you see someone you THINK is a troll *and you have an ex/banned member you think they might be* report them and include all their possible aliases so I can check against IPs. There are more individuals who troll this section than people think even taking proxys into account.

3. If you see a regular Korean Chat member breaking the general rules or some of the rules I mentioned above REPORT THEM!! I don't expect this one to be that popular or that widely used but keep in mind that there are members here who are not trolls and they cause problems, break the rules, and generally make things worse just the same. If you see a member engaging in racist, inflammatory, etc behavior keep in mind reporting is completely anonymous and no one knows who's made reports except the mods in that section (or the members who publicly acknowledge they've reported an individual anyway).


That's pretty much it. If I can think of anything else I'll add it later and feel free to give your opinions. I know a lot of people won't be happy about it but this section is extremely pathetic compared to how it was when I first joined back in Jun 04. And don't think this means that I'll be any lighter on trolls than I have been. The point is to stop trolls altogether, or at least slow down the amount who seem to be engaging in it on a daily basis, by not giving them a reason to come back. Unfortunately a lot of members in this section, even the well intentioned ones, are not helping with that and are making a bad situation worse. I might bump this topic every now and then to make sure it doesn't slip through the cracks but eventually I'm going to try to get Ben's permission to pen it. If anyone has any suggestions also I'm open to those always.


I'd also like to add that more often than not I don't announce when I've warned or banned or someone. If you've reported someone and haven't seen a mod say that they've been warned or banned, don't assume nothing has been done. I'd say maybe about 10 - 20% of the time some of the reports I've gotten I found weren't worth a warning, ban, or topic close but the other 80 - 90% of the time one of those three things happens. And even then that doesn't mean another mod won't do something where I didn't. I usually only announce that someone has been warned, banned, or why a topic has been closed if I have gotten multiple complaints about a situation and want everyone to know they can stop reporting, that a topic was requested to be closed, or if I close a topic where the reason might not be so obvious. Regardless of whether action is taken or not, if a report is made I'll have read it.

Thanks - and it's gyopo (or kyopo), not gypo. And just so you know not all gyopo are like what the posts here would lead you to believe.

Moderating this forum must make you feel like a JAL or Thai Airways stewardness trying to get the passengers to stay seated in their seats while taxi-ing around Incheon International after landing, eh.

nice

Good to know where the MODS stand - whether I agree with all of your points or not.

I'll admit that I'm guilty of playing with trolls. I'll knock it off.

I just don't like racism or racists and I'll call them out if I see it.

Should this be a sticky?

I asked Ben if I could pin it in about a week or so. Since people don't tend to pay much attention to pinned topics I figured I'd give individuals a chance to read it here for awhile. If Ben gives me permission to pin it that is. Although I don't see why he wouldn't. But it's up to him.

Wow he got back to me already. I'll pin this in about a week or a week and a half.

Oh wow. Thank you so much for the time and effort that you put into moderating the forums. I haven't been around on AF for very long but I do know how much work sifting through all the reports and post history and all that stuff is. Thank you again and good work!

heh.. good timing. im taking a break from AF because i was feeling bad to be white when i was on here

Jasel, it may help if you post the people you warn or ban on a sticky thread, if it's not too much of a burden. Perhaps you can use this thread to do it.

Is there a list of banned posters somewhere?

I'm curious, because there have been so many that have come and gone, I'm not always sure who is who.

No, not to my knowledge.

A maintinaed list of banned members may help keep track of certain trolls that keep coming back and back.

Aye, the names might change, but a list could possibly help us to reconize the MO.

thanks jasel. i appreciate it.

It's good to see Mods trying to clean up Korean chat!

If I see a troll post that is discriminitory or slandering, I'll probably still make a rebuttel. But I definately won't milk or provoke it any further than 1 or 2 posts.

thankyou

Can I copy and paste this into every single culture section?
Seriously been painful modding as of late.

Well said though. ^^

cool Jasel~! Keep up the great work! (;

What I would like is a faster reaction time by the moderators. A lot of the times the troll topics and posts are left unchecked for hours before something is done about them, during which time a lot of members (especially me) can respond to.

lets see if this helps the korean chat, I hope so

lol

If things start to slow down (I'm already noticing a significant decrease in reports but it's still too early to tell if it's as a result of the new rules or just some other indirect reason) then I might consider doing that. Right now thought I'm still banning a ridiculous amount of people. It'll probably be easier on me and people who do keep track of that information if we wait till more banned trolls just stop coming back and then we can track them when there are fewer.



If it's someone who has been here awhile and just hasn't been banned yet that's fine. But don't start arguing with people who have been here for like 2 days, have 6 posts, and all of them seem like they're going to wind up pissing at least someone off. Just ignore them and report them



It should. Would probably help the Chinese Chat. Maybe



Which is why I'm going to start warning people who do respond to them for just that. We're not on AF 24/7. Alot of us have school, work, and social lives. I won't even been in town for 3 days this following weekend. That's why we need the members to help by ignoring trolls and stop giving them attention. Because it's really annoying when a troll makes 4 or 5 offensive comments, and then members start talking to him and it turns into 60 or 70 posts of flaming, trolling, and racism back and forth. Sometimes there are going to be huge chunks of time before a moderator sees reports sometimes. Not because we're lazy and just don't care, but for the reasons listed above. So since we can't be here all the time to stop every troll within 5 minutes after posting, we need members to help make sure that it doesn't turn into 7 hours of posting on their part by just ignoring and reporting them.

I think it would be good to give a list of some of the common methods used by trolls on this board.


1. If you try to engage in discourse with someone who avoids all of your questions yet continues to address you, you're probably being trolled. Time to ignore them. Why continue to talk with someone who is just trying to incite you? You'll get angry, and they'll sit back and laugh at you.

2. If you're being accused of something that is obviously untrue, you're probably being trolled. Time to ignore them.

3. If your race / ethnicity / gender / religion / sexual orientation / etc. are being insulted, you're probably being trolled. Time to ignore them. Racism isn't tolerated here, so /report and leave the conversation.


Jasel, feel free to delete this. But, I just thought it would help some people realize when they are being trolled so they can quit before it becomes three pages of the same thing.

this should be followed in the whole damn forum.

banned

banned

Just reminding everyone... don't respond to the recent wave of trolls... and DON'T quote them - it takes mods a heck of a lot of time to erase the buggers then.

It takes the better man or "woman" to walk away. As I get older, I realize things like that are not even important. Sure they try to damage one's image by using teh interweb as propaganda for their own agenda, but it's mainly because of insecurity issues they have themselves. I mean, if you weren't insecure about yourself, why would you talk bad on another race? It's quite obvious. Let them speak, this is their psycho therapy.