RMB Quality Control

Ruinenlust

Hey, fellow guv’mint ’fishals,

I was wondering if anyone had any general thoughts or ideas about the RMB, given that several of us have tried to address all of the low-quality, borderline spam posts that have been cropping up recently.

I don’t think we’re at a crisis point, but it’s on the level of “rising concern” for me, considering that Forest is such an RMB-based region. I don’t see how it contributes anything to the community when people are going back and forth like “sipping bullsh!t tea” and “blam! u just got hit w/ a bomb lolz!” and other such nonsense. As many of us can personally attest to, this is simply not in keeping with how Forest’s RMB has ever worked, at least since I arrived in August of 2016.

On some level, we were always at risk for this as Forest became larger and larger, but it seems like lately, the Forest of large trees with a nice, open understory has been replaced by a tangle of brush and competing saplings that block the view and choke out much of the real conversation. I don’t have the patience or ability to sit down and figure these things out numerically, but I would suspect that a chart of word count by post by page number might reveal that our word count per post has been in long-term, gradual decline.

Alternatively, maybe this is insurmountable? Maybe I’m just being rigid and uptight about this, and this is “just the way things are” now.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!
R.

Turbeaux

Ruinenlust I suppose that we could actively attempt to shunt the small talk to the #the-light-groves on Discord. It seems like many people are looking for real-time conversation on the RMB. Otherwise, I suppose that it is an inevitable consequence of being a very large region. I don’t like it at all, as I have always found Forest’s thoughtful RMB posts to be beautiful! It is a shame that we have to resort to using the forum to engage in this discussion. @Mount Seymour , what are your thoughts? You should weigh in on this as the Discord boss.

Mount Seymour

It seems like a bit of a positive feedback loop – the more people post small talk and short posts on the RMB, the more new people get the sense that this RMB is like any other. It doesn’t take much to reinforce that perception, because small talk and short posts are the norm on NationStates’s RMBs.

Turbeaux I’d be happy to start constantly redirecting people to Discord if we want that. Even the main discord channel, #the-woodland-glen, could accommodate most of the one-liners that appear on the RMB. We could also make it explicit in the WFE that the RMB is meant for substantive discussions and that small talk should be taken to Discord.

However, I worry a bit that making “RMB is for mature discussions” a hard and fast rule destroys some of the natural draw of Forest. Sure, a nicely manicured park full of thriving native plants and an open understory is more pleasant than a wild forest full of half-dead scraggly vines, but it’s not really better than a wild forest full of thriving native plants and an open understory. Our RMB is special because we’ve developed an especially mature community without any hard rules to mold it that way, and we lose something that’s unique about Forest when our norms are weakened enough that we replace them with fiat.

It’s hard, because even the act of acknowledging that the Forest RMB has different standards and trying to govern it into returning to those standards feels a bit like forcing what should be natural.

So I think the solution may have to be gently pushing the RMB back every time one-liners appear – whether by suppression or by redirecting the conversation – as quickly as possible, but not making the rule explicit lest we lose what makes Forest truly special. The goal should be to make all but the most oblivious of trolls feel like they are trespassing norms (but not like they are breaking the Law of the Government) when they post a one-liner on the RMB.

Turbeaux

Mount Seymour I am going to try to suppress the more inane posts that I see in the meantime and encourage other government people to do the same.

DarthedDroids

This is my reasoning too, a simple suppression of the ineffectual one-liner and a gentle reminder to the offender should be all it takes.

Mozworld

It could just be the time of year, as the last time we discussed this on here was Nov/Dec last year.

To bring something up from the previous discussion, we don’t have anything to point to anywhere to say what the RMB rules are and we didn’t really come up with what they should be anyway, other than spam, threats and insults.

VerdantHaven

I would love to reduce the level of one-liners and nonsense - I just want to make sure people understand why suppression of posts is happening if that’s the way we’re going. Walls of suppressed posts are a hallmark of despotic regions and those under raider control, so without a codified policy, it could be an even bigger turn off to new folks than the spam itself. That said, I think MountSeymour has the right of it - posting strict rules would be against our nature, and most of the issue should be addressable with gentle prodding and a quick response in a better direction.

I certainly wanted to respond with more thoughtful posts to break up some of the spam we were seeing in the last couple days, but unfortunately by their nature, spam posts are quick and I didn’t have the time to sit down and compose a proper post at the moment it was going on! I’m glad Ruinenlust’s post about holiday traditions got some traction - that definitely contributed to breaking up the barrage of low-effort stuff. Maybe we all need to keep a topic or two to post about in our back pockets to help redirect things in a pinch, so the most recent activity when people check won’t just be a series of suppressions, but rather something to engage with more appropriately.

Belevia

Here is an idea: we could create a second region with a password, called something like “Forest RMB 2” and an embassy with it, and people could post one-line posts on its RMB.

DarthedDroids

Belevia
That does nothing to fix the problem. A lot of the people who post the one-liners already don’t pay attention unless they are told repeatedly, and as per this observation would not see the point of the second region at all when all of the activity (and attention) takes place on the main RMB.

A second embassy only makes sense if we somehow spontaneously form a coherent and cohesive, with excellently written and detailed posts, RP narrative that is unfortunately taking up space, and both the RPers need continuity so they don’t have to trawl through other posts and the regulars equally wouldn’t want to see huge multi-paragraph posts about something unrelated to the discussion they were having two pages back. Only TSP’s done that, and their system only works because they have a dedicated RP group that makes an effort to obey the rules.

Turbeaux

Belevia I think that it would be much easier and more effective to plug the Discord server since Mount Seymour does not have a problem with people being brief and non-topical in there.

EDIT: A WFE will not work because I think that the main offenders do not read them. I will have to start linking to it when I suppress posts.
🙁

Mount Seymour

DarthedDroids Only TSP’s done that, and their system only works because they have a dedicated RP group that makes an effort to obey the rules.

This may have been true when it started, but TSP’s version of this proposal (a second region for roleplay-related posts) is basically a failure right now and has not been truly active for quite some time. A second region sounds good, but from my experience in TSP I can say that people really don’t like having to go to another board to make a specific type of post. They end up just doing it on the main board anyway.

DarthedDroids

Mount Seymour
I did say “make an effort to obey the rules”. 🤣

Kinectia

Turbeaux
I’m not part of the government but I’d like to make a suggestion about the RMB norms: One way to redirect easily is to bring up the monthly focus - I think it gets forgotten and periodic reminders would help involve more people. A secondary benefit is that drawing attention to our focus discussion helps promote Forest’s overall eco-conversation to a wider audience because of the RMB followers from other regions. Occasional one-liners are fine in conversation but when they start to feel disruptive a simple redirect to the month’s issue takes only a minimal amount of effort and maintains the tone without becoming despotic.

Turbeaux

Kinectia Good idea! Thank you!