Inspired by Johnny Bravo’s [POST=21929478]post[/POST] in another thread, would it help the moderators if there was a set of functional [NOPARSE][mod][/mod][/NOPARSE] tags that write out the tag names and apply a theme-specific color and font to the text?
For example, here is what the moderator would write:
[NOPARSE][mod]Enough of this hijack.[/mod][/NOPARSE]
And this is what would come out:
[NOPARSE][moderating][/NOPARSE]**
Enough of this hijack.
**[NOPARSE][/moderating][/NOPARSE]
The benefits of this is that it will make it easier for us members to see the moderator’s posts, while not burdening the moderators themselves who already write out [moderating]. A standard color and presence of tags makes it easier to see the rulings at a glance. I believe the current forum software is capable of implementing the proposed [mod][/mod] tags without any changes to the code - saving valuable technical support money - there should be an administrative panel to edit BBCode tags.
If implemented, a rule might be written to prevent normal members from using these tags outside of direct quotes of moderator posts. The tags aren’t too similar to existing tags so I don’t see a normal member “accidentally” using them, but maybe save warnings for repeat offenders.
You could also use [NOPARSE][m][/m] or [moderator][/moderator][/NOPARSE], whatever is preferred.
My opinion is that if someone misses a mod note, or other previous moderation, it is because they haven’t read the entirety of the thread. So they missed it no matter what it looked like.
It should be possible. According to the vBulletin 3.8.7 manual the administrator should have a special control that lets her add custom BBCodes. What I’ve done in this thread could in theory be recreated on that form by writing the following into the “Replacement” field:
[NOPARSE][moderating] {param}
[/moderating][/NOPARSE]
I have no opinion on how easy or hard it would be to do, but I think it would be great if it were done. I sometimes browse threads, and this would make it super-easy to see that there’s been relevant moderation.
On reconsideration, it should probably be written like this:
[NOPARSE]<font color=“red”>[moderating]<br><br><font size=“3”><b>{param}</b></font><br><br>[/moderating]</font>[/NOPARSE]
Tags probably aren’t going to happen. It’s not a question about how easy or difficult they are to add, it’s more about exactly what our owners allow to be modified and exactly who they allow to do those modifications.
As an experiment, I have started using the color red for moderator actions. If anyone has issues with this please let me know, especially if it does not display properly on your device or is difficult to read in any way.
Some threads are long and reading each word might take a few hours. Now obviously, that wasn’t the case in the thread that led to this thread. But if you are scanning each page of a long thread you might miss a note or two. Flashing, beeping text is hard to ignore even when scanning.
I agree that those long threads make it easy to miss things. We have threads here that are thousands of posts long. Just looking quickly, the ‘obivious things you missed’ thread is 85 pages, Simpsons tapped out is 155 pages, the Movie Quotes thread is 427 pages or over 17,000 posts long. Granted those are some of the longer threads, but I feel like posters should be given a bit of a break if it appears as though they didn’t even know the moderation had happened.
I’m sure modding those huge threads is a big job, but I feel bad when a poster says something and gets smacked with a warning for something that was brought up a hundred posts back.
Even in threads that aren’t that big, it’s still easy to miss things. From time to time a thread will pick up steam while I’m not looking and I won’t realize that by clicking on the last page I missed the entire second to last page that happened in an hour or two while I wasn’t reading it.
So someone is supposed to scan multiple pages of a long thread looking for the flashing moderation? That’s not happening for someone who wants to pop in and respond to the last few posts, or even to the thread title.
I’ve recently been noted exactly because the mod understood that the thread was very long, and the previous moderation could have been missed. And that was all it took to set things straight.
Usually, in those super-long threads, whatever moderation is needed becomes irrelevant after a page or three, because people have naturally moved on to non-problematic topics. And if someone did nonetheless violate an instruction that occurred twenty pages back, that’d probably be occasion for a mod note, not a warning.