Architecht

We made a couple of tweaks to the database over the last week. Has anyone noticed an improvement, or is it about the same?

Hi, Yes, we... Took me ages to read that. We are unable to help you with your reading speed. That's just pure laziness. http://www.spritzinc.com/ There ya go.

Hi, Yes, we might have some recent performance issues. It is unlikely to be related to any of those ads. You may notice this line at the bottom of the boards: Generated in 1.765 seconds in which 1.756 seconds were spent on a total of 9 queries. Zlib compression enabled. Whenever that second measurement in seconds is large, it's evident that the database is the bottleneck. I'm guessing that for most of you, the experience is that sometimes the pages load quickly, and sometimes they load slowly. I'm also guessing that when you get a slow loading page, that second measurement is big and the first measurement is only fractions of a second bigger. Ergo, database. Please let me know if that's not your experience. I might be wrong. We're looking into it. Took me ages to read that. We are unable to help you with your reading speed.

Hi, Yes, we might have some recent performance issues. It is unlikely to be related to any of those ads. You may notice this line at the bottom of the boards: Generated in 1.765 seconds in which 1.756 seconds were spent on a total of 9 queries. Zlib compression enabled. Whenever that second measurement in seconds is large, it's evident that the database is the bottleneck. I'm guessing that for most of you, the experience is that sometimes the pages load quickly, and sometimes they load slowly. I'm also guessing that when you get a slow loading page, that second measurement is big and the first measurement is only fractions of a second bigger. Ergo, database. Please let me know if that's not your experience. I might be wrong. We're looking into it.

No. The rule for the boards-only area is that it is for posts that offer items for sale that are only for sale on the boards. The sales advertising area is for everything else. Signatures aren't really relevant. The only rules regarding signatures and other sites are: 1. No graphic banners for promotional entities. Text links ok. 2. No competitors to CCG or CCG initiatives. And of course, all the usual "be nice" kinds of things.

I didn't pull it, someone else did, but I understand the rationale. Pushing traffic to other sites isn't allowed in the boards-only area.

Here is a simplified test for whether it is a lottery: Is a prize being offered? Is there chance involved in the selection of the winner (i.e., drawing a ticket)? Does the consumer have to buy something to enter the contest? (This is called "consideration" by the FCC.) If all three = yes, then you are running a lottery. If you give SOMETHING away to EVERYONE that buys, but the "something" varies in value, and the recipients are randomly selected, then it's still a prize and chance is involved. Otherwise it becomes "everyone gets a paperclip, and one person get Hulk #181" which is bogus. If everyone got hulk#181, or everyone got a paper clip, that's different. Determining the relative value of a bunch of different give away options becomes too subjective. It's hard to tell if you have a paperclip vs. hulk #181 situation or not. Then the moderators want to stab an eye out with a fork. Probably mine. But forget the give-away for a second, let's just focus on the mystery boxes. If you could magically assure that all mystery boxes sold had identical value, then it might be ok. However, that is hard / impossible. So even if everyone gets their money's worth, but someone gets a "prize" of a more desirable mystery box you have a problem. Equal value for equal consideration is the thing that avoids all whiff of "chance". If the boxes vary, but are all sold at a similar price, but everyone could examine the contents and buy only the boxes they wanted to buy (not a random assignment of the boxes) then ok. But that's not a mystery box, that's just bulk pricing. However, although those three questions above are handy, we are not experts in making any final determination on what does or doesn't qualify. Thus, if it SMELLS like a raffle, it's out. And mystery boxes are starting to smell bad.

The problems are: 1. Legal issues with raffles and giveaways. We're not going to deal with them, and yet the mystery box threads keep straying into that territory. 2, It's becoming a frequent source of escalation to determine whether some new innovative marketing twists is creating "lucky winner" syndrome. 3. The high potential for disputes and problems if these formats proliferate because of the higher need to trust the seller to deliver something of value. If someone lists a grade, posts a picture and names a price - the buyers can make their own evaluation of whether it's worth it or not - maybe there is a legitimate case for why that offering is worth $X or worth $Y - but if the buyer and seller don't agree then the transaction never has to happen. It's still not perfect, but there is much less territory for dispute than in a "mystery" box. A man bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day. Come morning, the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry, but I've got some bad news. The donkey died." "Well then, just give me my money back." "Can't do that. I spent it already," replied the farmer. "OK then, just unload the donkey." "What're you gonna do with him?" asked the farmer. "I'm gonna raffle him off." "Ya can't raffle off a dead donkey!" exclaimed the farmer. "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anyone he's dead." A month later the farmer met up with the guy and asked about what happened with the dead donkey. "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at $2 apiece and made a profit of $898." "Didn't no one complain?" asked the farmer. "Just the guy who won. So I gave him his $2 back."

I am having a very hard time right now justifying allowing mystery boxes. Every thread I see that has them has some odd combination of "Prizes for whoever spends the most" or "A private party celebration after the sale" or "Some one MAY get X chase book". These are raffles / prizes / contests, and it's outside of reasonable to monitor handle these. The ONLY version of this situation that I was attempting to allow is that someone might be able to buy a set of low value books in bulk without having to image / describe all of them. But really, it's just turned into a promotional strategy that is ALWAYS tied to a "lucky winner" mentality - which is NOT allowed. Unless inspiration strikes about a good way to easily allow low value bulk purchasing without straying into lucky winner territory, I'm going to ban mystery boxes. Thoughts?

I'd like to hear from more people on this. How would it work? A single auction forum, or a separate one for each age? Would people be allowed only one book per thread or be forced to group them up? Would people get to run more than one auction at once?

At the moment (and feedback is appreciated) I'm looking at it like this: 1. "Lucky winners" need to be avoided. That's what makes it a raffle or a give-away. So those are out period. 2. Mystery boxes have a secondary purpose - which is to move lower value bulk comics that aren't worth the time to parse and sell separately. That should be possible WITHOUT creating a lucky winner kind of lottery mentality. EXAMPLES: VALID FORMAT ------------------------- If someone says that EACH mystery box will include something like X common comics value $A to $B in a grade range of THIS Y collectible comics value $C to $D in a grade range of THIS Z Key / semi key comics value $E to $F in a grade range of THIS And the boxes will always each be worth $xxx Then that seems ok as it's more about selling a random mix of comics without having to list them all separately, etc. I'm thinking about this like a pack of Magic cards that are a random, but always with a similar composition of rarity / value in each pack. The contents are random, but there isn't a "lucky winner" other than if the randomness happens to give you a comic that you personally happen to like. INVALID FORMAT --------------------------- Some of the above mystery boxes get some big bonus books that are exciting "wins" and some of them do not. No. That's a lucky winner thing and people would find themselves buying a mystery box hoping to be lucky. VALID FORMAT -------------------------- I am selling 4 semi-mystery boxes! Each will be worth $XXX. They will be composed as follows: Box #1 -- Awesome Super Hero Tights #1 in 9.8, plus 8 mystery comics worth between X and Y to round out the value of the box. Box #2 -- Alien Mystery Cowboys #17 in 6.0, plus 6 mystery comics worth between X and Y to round out the value of the box. etc. YOU MUST INDICATE WHICH BOX YOU ARE BUYING. This allows the seller to sell some random comics without having to call them out. It makes it clear what the big value book is. It is NOT a random chance whether you get the book you were hoping for that got called out. It dictates that you WILL get FMV for what you pay. It might even allow the seller to "theme" the mystery books in a curated way, e.g. "If you like Awesome Super Hero Tights, you will love the mystery books - specially selected recommendations for people who like Awesome Super Hero Tights." _________________________________ Is it possible for a mystery box seller to pack the box with garbage that they lie is worth X? Yep. But it's also possible for a seller to lie about the grade of a raw book. There is a certain amount of trust and reputation tied up in any transaction. My advice is: 1. Remember you buy at your own risk. 2. Never buy mystery anything from someone you don't ALREADY trust. Make sure that you appreciate their grading skills and pricing skills first, because a mystery box gives you LESS information to judge that for yourself than a normal sale. 3. Only risk the dollars on someone else's judgement that you are comfortable risking based on your own wallet and the trust you have in them as a seller. ------------------------------------------------------ Finally, I will note that, as others have mentioned, the potential for abuse is higher with a mystery box than it is for a normal sale - just by nature. That is not a condemnation of any specific seller, it's just true of the format. That means that if buyers who don't use enough caution, and sellers of a less meticulous nature start transacting, this could become a problem. IF it does, mystery boxes will be gone too.

You quackin', hombre?

Nope. "Gosh I hope I am the lucky winner who gets the $500 box!" Nope.

But wasn't Arch stating that THAT is how they've been handling it. Meaning that comicalgems Mystery Box sales thread was perfectly fine and NOT a raffle. Otherwise it would have been "out" and *poofed* just like a few other recent ones. The survival of a thread is not proof of its acceptability. It just means it may or may not have been noticed / moderated.

I still think your Mystery Box sale would be allowed so why don't you let the Mods sort that out. They said they'd handle it on a case by case situation. I feel like your Mystery Boxes are incentive enough (I'll tell you when I get mine ), but I don't see anything wrong with in addition to the boxes having random books thrown in like you have done. Arch said specifically that they'd handle it on a case by case situation and *poofed* one or more that were active. They did NOT *poof* your thread. I say try it out. If they *poof* it, we'll have a definitive answer. I think it's all about the contents of the boxes. You were very specific in that "there will be a NM #98 and Saga #1" etc. etc. I think people can absolutely show the contents of their boxes. You don't know what you get, but everything is there that you COULD get. Having a big ticket book randomly placed on top - it's still very grey. This sale falls into the "among the buyers there will be a lucky winner" camp. Out. It doesn't matter if everyone else got full value plus more, and the lucky winner really made out. The reason is that it then becomes a debate whether there was real full value or not, and because even a simple give away that has nothing to do with compensating buyers who paid too much for something with the chance of winning much more, still requires things like no purchase necessary. If you'd like to sell ten mystery boxes, and then give away from slab to the lucky winner out of those ten people AND whoever raises their hand and wants in on the drawing for free, then you could maybe do that. But why would you? And frankly, if what you're selling is so good anyway, why would you need to? No "lucky winners" that had to pay you money to be lucky please.

If he chooses to complete his process off-line away from the boards that's up to him. If this was just a rule change because we thought it was better policy to avoid this approach as a preference, I'd let him ride it out. Since the reason for excluding these is that there are legal complications, we've got to cut it off.

It might be kind of fun marketing, and people may even like it - but it can also be for-profit gambling, which is regulated and has legal restrictions. I don't think we can be involved in sorting that out, so they have to go.

Cgcmod0 put those strikes in, not Arch, right? Yes, cgcmod0 posted all of the strikes (except for Mark1). But it seems like all strikes are approved by Arch. Nope. I do not approve them all. I occasionally review them, and check in on request. It turns out a team of other people thought they were warranted.

By the way, if it helps, here's generally how I think about profanity moderation. But I'll add that if we go from an occasional profanity for emphasis among adults to people with a consistent pattern of inappropriate language, then the standards have to tighten to get people to use it with discretion rather than abandon. 5/8/2009 Just so everyone knows, also, my take on masking and profanity is that while masking isn't strictly allowed, getting meticulous about removing all of it is probably a little restrictive and definitely very time consuming. We're aiming for more like PG-13 rather than G. Generally I'm most concerned with profanity use when applied in a derogatory manner. e.g. "now that stuff is the s-hit!" -- not really allowed, needs to be discouraged, maybe not worth any kind of crusade "You explanation is s-hit!" -- Not allowed. Combative. Generally should be removed. "You are a s-hit!" -- Definitely not allowed. Remove with extreme prejudice.

All the above rests on the VERY flawed premise that every person who got a strike or warning was violating the rules as obviously as when one speeds. Why is it flawed? Because speeding is black and white."You were going 61. The limit is 55. By definition, you were speeding, even accounting for variances in speed detection technology." Moderation HERE, however, depends solely on your OPINION, and the opinions of your team. Unfortunately, when you refuse to moderate according to your own policies, when you ignore your own policies, when you are radically inconsistent in enforcing your policies... Well. Your assertion that "every single person was speeding" doesn't really hold much water, now does it...? For the most part, people aren't stupid here. For the most part. People know when they're being overpoliced. They know when they are being underpoliced. They can see for themselves whether or not things are being handled even-handedly, "confirmation bias" or not. For you to claim that every single person who ever got a strike or warning was clearly and obviously "speeding" is ludicrous, because it would make you perfect! Are you really claiming you have been perfect in your moderation here...? I know you're not, and I only need Diggler's "nipple" strike to prove it. You didn't even give Diggler a CHANCE to explain, you just struck him, that's that, end of story. It took a virtual uprising from everyone ELSE to get you to back down and admit that you had issued a strike IN ERROR. And if that one example puts the lie to your claim that "everyone who got a strike or warning deserved it", what else is there that is not so black and white..? The hubris! No. It's not. Is it tedious? Oh yes. Yes, indeed. Is it HARD? No. You treat everyone the same way, equally, all the time, and you do it within the parameters of your stated rules. You do this so that certain areas of the board...like comics general, like the water closet, like modern comics...don't become cesspools of personality, where everyone is on edge, with a hair trigger outlook, where every single post that CAN be taken wrong IS, where people are taking endless shots at other people, and they don't even know why. Otherwise...you get this never ending cycle...going on for ELEVEN YEARS NOW...of over moderation, then under moderation, then people complaining because you aren't doing your jobs so clearly that it's painfully evident to even the sunniest board member, then you have to...AGAIN...step in to say "moderation is HARD!!" You may be able to convince most of the people, Mr. Oz...but some people are capable of looking behind the curtain, believe it or not. Hi RMA, From a moderator perspective, I've put the things you have said above in red that are wording or emphasis that inflame other people. I also highlighted quotes you used that I didn't say. You can extend things I said to mean that, but that extension is more about you artificially teeing up a ball you can hit than about real communication. These things weren't necessary to make your point. Practices like that tend to create boards that "...become cesspools of personality, where everyone is on edge, with a hair trigger outlook". If you talk to everyone like you have above I think you will find most of your time at this board or any other a place you go to be a place where "every single post that CAN be taken wrong IS, where people are taking endless shots at other people, and they don't even know why". Hope it helps in your other interactions and cuts down on the need to not speak, and/or feud with everyone. Apart from that, I'll give a one-time response to your points for the general readership. Moderation is not wholly consistent and especially will not appear wholly consistent without all of the information. These factors guaranty some inconsistency and some perception of inconsistency: 1. The tendency of the community to sometimes and sometimes not notify mods. 2. The way that various violations are buried in very large threads. 3. The individual interpretations of a team of moderators of both the guidelines and their interpretation of the specific intent of the posters. 4. The necessity in a thread that is way out of control to pick off the few worst offenders to rein in back in rather than banning everyone. 5. The application of the pattern of behavior (or lack thereof) of particular posters to the moderation decisions. i.e. recidivists get less leash. 6. The fact that some moderator actions (wrist slaps, private warnings) are not visible to anyone but the mods and the offenders. 7. An observer's own variances in interpretation of all of the above, as well as limited attention to the posting patterns of people. Moderation is based on opinion, yes. Just like the verdicts in courts, the discretion of the police, etc.. There are mistakes, yes. You have cited one that was corrected quickly from a number of years ago - I don't remember how many years. I don't think that necessarily deserves the outrage treatment you give it, but then again your opinion of moderation opinions is based on... opinion. Was that english? Probably not. I'm not speaking in absolutes here. It's too squishy a process. I do think that by and large we try to lean towards a benefit-of-the-doubt stance that means that more often then not if someone get a strike, they deserved it. We do get new mods in from time to time and that introduces additional fluctuation. Ccgmod0 is new, for example. If the rules say not to do something, just avoid doing it. It's really not that hard. If you're going to respond again, RMA, turn the volume on the outrage down. It's not constructive.

You sound like a mod trying to decipher a thread.

I'm going to warn you just once. Don't mess with the duck story. I'm serious. By the way, you could stand to lighten up. I hear rumblings about you being a little too aggressive in your "feedback". Wasn't that nice of me to call it feedback? See? We can all be nice!

By the way, the suspension had already been started. When I checked his account, it was already done. It hadn't been posted yet because we limit who does that.

Actually, it's the old way to moderate. Reading the complete volume of the boards is uhm... time consuming. At 6,527,978 posts, spending an average of 30 seconds per post, that's roughly 18.6 years at 8 hours per day for one person. Yeah... no. That's why we have "notify mods".

Would this apply to say, i dont know, one boardie challenging another to meet him in a certain persons parking lot Yep. Did a threat / implied threat get missed somewhere? That's an easy one. Ummmm, yeah! You guys somehow missed the 50 pages of "meet me at Phils parking lot you internet coward" in my "guess whos back" thread that was deleted?!? That's what you get for starting a silly thread like that. Don't make me come out to Phil's parking lot and moderate. (rolling eyes) I saw the thread and skimmed a few pages. Surprisingly, I didn't read all 1,094 replies. I saw a bunch of references to phil's parking lot, but not the origin.