The "Rules and Referee Questions" section

[Goldgar]

Is there any point in posting responses to questions in the new moderated section, "Rules and Referee Questions"? Or are the replies to these questions only accepted when solicited by the moderators?

[Craig]

Replies are reviewed and approved on a case by case basis.

[Goldgar]

Replies are reviewed and approved on a case by case basis.

OK, thanks.

[Mac A. Bee]

Replies are reviewed and approved on a case by case basis.

It would probably take only one denied post or response to dissuade someone from repeating.

[fdad]

It would probably take only one denied post or response to dissuade someone from repeating.

It also allows incomplete and inaccurate approved responses to remain undisputed.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

To provide a bit of clarity: Behind the scenes, there are LOTS of submissions, some from very knowledgeable people. It's not a simple matter where it's just wrong info that isn't getting approved, it's that only posts as complete as possible, as well written as possible are getting approved. There are plenty of great answers that simply weren't quite what's being targeted in this forum. There's a tendency of people to submit things that have the same conversational style they might have in the normal forums-- that doesn't make sense in the new forum, since it isn't designed to be a conversation.

On the other hand, the point of this forum is to aggregate only correct and complete answers from experts. And by experts, in Craig's opening post to that board he set the level as "FOC"- although the best person to answer any specific question may not be a member of the FOC. But that does mean that most members of the board aren't going to be able to craft the answer Craig is looking for on here. If that means most people stop submitting to that forum, well, that makes sense. I personally wouldn't bother submitting anything there unless it had to do with certain aspects of college fencing. (and that's generally out of scope for this forum anyway!)

What I'm not sure about is how follow up questions will be dealt with. Currently, there's somewhat of a delay between good posts being posted, and answers being approved. Now, Craig has brought Bill Oliver in to be a moderator on that forum, but there's going to be a learning curve, because not every moderator feels comfortable judging correctness and completeness on each question.

[Mac A. Bee]

...LOTS of submissions, some from very knowledgeable people...this forum is to aggregate only correct and complete answers from experts...Craig's opening post to that board he set the level as "FOC"...Bill Oliver in to be a moderator.

Outside of Bill, ouiyt and mdstasanos, I'm unaware of "FOC-level" participants, unless you also include FIEers, e.g. Gav (?), downunder. That puts a lot of pressure on the afore-named. Given their rather full in-season schedules, wouldn't that be countre-temps to our usual rapid turn-around? As a counter example, the FOC's most recent post is July 2011.

[prototoast]

I think there's a problem with the way things are working now.

Consider this example: do penalties stop the action?

Now here's a forum member who has just joined, and has a fairly simple rules question. Trying to be a good forum member, he identifies the "correct" subforum: "Rules and Referee Questions." He asks his question, and what happens? Nothing. Now, had this question been asked in the general fencing section, he almost certainly would have gotten a correct answer within a few hours. Maybe then the thread would have wandered off-topic with puns, or Purple Fencer being wrong, but the correct answer would have been there. As it is, this guy's just screwed.

Perhaps a better model is to have the questions posted in an open forum, and then have the questions, and "best" answers extracted to a repository.

[Mr Epee]

I think there's a problem with the way things are working now.

Consider this example: do penalties stop the action?

Now here's a forum member who has just joined, and has a fairly simple rules question. Trying to be a good forum member, he identifies the "correct" subforum: "Rules and Referee Questions." He asks his question, and what happens? Nothing. Now, had this question been asked in the general fencing section, he almost certainly would have gotten a correct answer within a few hours. Maybe then the thread would have wandered off-topic with puns, or Purple Fencer being wrong, but the correct answer would have been there. As it is, this guy's just screwed.

Perhaps a better model is to have the questions posted in an open forum, and then have the questions, and "best" answers extracted to a repository.

Funny you should mention that particular question.

Earlier today, I wrote what I would consider the 'flawless victory' response to that particular thread. I wrote it carefully. It was precisely the appropriate length and tone. I took care to cover all appropriate bases. I answered the questions at hand and several the reasonably anticipated follow-ons. It really was a work of art.

Then I carefully deleted it.

Why?

[D'Art]

Funny you should mention that particular question.

Earlier today, I wrote what I would consider the 'flawless victory' response to that particular thread. I wrote it carefully. It was precisely the appropriate length and tone. I took care to cover all appropriate bases. I answered the questions at hand and several the reasonably anticipated follow-ons. It really was a work of art.

Then I carefully deleted it.

Why?

Because "Read the bloody rule book and try to understand it" may not have been accepted as an answer?

[qatet]

Outside of Bill, ouiyt and mdstasanos, I'm unaware of "FOC-level" participants, unless you also include FIEers, e.g. Gav (?), downunder. That puts a lot of pressure on the afore-named. Given their rather full in-season schedules, wouldn't that be countre-temps to our usual rapid turn-around? As a counter example, the FOC's most recent post is July 2011.

I can think of a decent handful of other FIE refs who read and post on here, although I'm not currently remembering their handles, and I know a number of FOC members who lurk in the wings and might well be more inclined to contribute if there was less of a chance that their contributions would get lost under waves of gibberish.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Funny you should mention that particular question.

Earlier today, I wrote what I would consider the 'flawless victory' response to that particular thread. I wrote it carefully. It was precisely the appropriate length and tone. I took care to cover all appropriate bases. I answered the questions at hand and several the reasonably anticipated follow-ons. It really was a work of art.

Then I carefully deleted it.

Why?

Wait, I know the answer to this one.... The bear was white. Uh, the man was a midget? They were popsicles? The one who lets go is actually his mother???

[Inquartata]

You all just wait until Craig finds out that you are making comments and suggestions in the Comments and Suggestions forum. Only official pre-approved Commenters and Suggestors are allowed to do so!

[qatet]

Another interesting situation from the delayed postings is that the answers don't show up when one hits "What's New." Don't know if there's a way to fix that, either by changing the timestamp of the last post approved or by putting in a placeholder to denote that it was updated. It's not a big thing, but it does contribute to this section being very disconnected from the flow of conversation.

[Gav]

Replies are reviewed and approved on a case by case basis.

I am not getting any notifications that there are replies to approve.

Or am I being stupid?

[MyrddinsPrecint]

All reply posts are auto-moderated without normal mod notification emails being sent out. If you view any of the threads, you'll see posts which could be approved, and then would be viewable to everyone else.

Also, you could go to your Inbox, then on the left, go down most of the way to Moderation, Moderated Items, Posts. Then you'll see the spam, the normal stuff caught in the spam filter, and the R&R posts all together.

[Gav]

All reply posts are auto-moderated without normal mod notification emails being sent out. If you view any of the threads, you'll see posts which could be approved, and then would be viewable to everyone else.

Also, you could go to your Inbox, then on the left, go down most of the way to Moderation, Moderated Items, Posts. Then you'll see the spam, the normal stuff caught in the spam filter, and the R&R posts all together.

Thanks for the patronising tone. Clearly I a being completely stupid.

I'll contact Craig directly.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

I.... what?????

I think you read WAY more into that than was there.

[Gav]

I.... what?????

I think you read WAY more into that than was there.

Ok. Maybe I picked up on it wrong.

[Nick]

Man you love deleting posts