How can we improve RAT in 2012

[Caballo]

Time to start planning the New Year's resolutions for RAT.

How can we (all of us- grizzled veterans, newbies, academics, re-enactors, moderators, lurkers and others) improve RAT in 2012 and beyond?

Please put your reply as follows:-

-We should keep doing.....

-We should stop doing.....

-We should begin doing.....

[jvrjenivs]

-We should keep integrating all ways of studiing ancient life and militairy, with proffesionals and amateurs together on a good and friendly board.

-We should stop attacking others view in an non-scientific way. Give a good feedback on the subject, where you feel encouraged to underline your view with (scientific) reasoning.
-We should stop personal attacks. Always remember it's a public and internet forum, so people can't see your expressions and can ready negative comments badly (and I'm not innocent of this either!)

-We should begin making more use of scientific definitions and work like that. Terminology is made for purpose and therefore has to be used that way. Maybe a 'dictionairy/wiki' would be helpfull in this regard (and yes, I know this kind of wiki has been discussed before).

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Jurjen,

Thanx for the feedback. I'll comment from a moderator's view, because I feel that every idea about how to keep/stop/improve things have of course a practical side to them.

-We should keep integrating all ways of studying ancient life and military, with professionals and amateurs together on a good and friendly board.

. It’s sometimes hard to find a good balance. RAT has always been an educating board, with both room for those with a lot of knowledge as well as the total newbies. The forum was always meant to support that exchange in knowledge and experience. Of course, that balance is not always easy to find. Recently it has been suggested that we have driven professionals away by stifling discussion. However, while that has certainly been the case, the reason, when vented, was a different one, namely either a result of bickering, or an endless attack by members who neglected the methodology and insisted upon non-scientific means of gathering historical information. How do you suggest we ‘protect’ the professionals from the amateurs, with over-moderating the board or stifling discussion?

-We should stop attacking others view in an non-scientific way. Give a good feedback on the subject, where you feel encouraged to underline your view with (scientific) reasoning.

Actually, I think that’s already taken care of, by underlining that every answer should be referenced. Now I know that I do not always do that. I only can when at home of course. Also, how do we keep amateurs on board while trying to ‘upgrade’ the scientific level of the discussion? Should we add yet another rule or tell amateurs to read up before they can add to the discussion?

-We should stop personal attacks. Always remember it's a public and internet forum, so people can't see your expressions and can ready negative comments badly (and I'm not innocent of this either!)

While we have always tried to support open discussion, that discussion can and sometimes will become heated. But this, also, is already covered by the rules. Moderators, if and when they come across such attacks, should be able to deal with this. Of course, it’s difficult to find a balance between open discussing and ‘over-moderating’ the board, as some members accept moderating while others have problems with that.

-We should begin making more use of scientific definitions and work like that. Terminology is made for purpose and therefore has to be used that way. Maybe a 'dictionairy/wiki' would be helpful in this regard (and yes, I know this kind of wiki has been discussed before).

See above: how do we ask this from the amateurs. Also, as noted in this forum before, there are a lot of differences between schools of thought, and terminology varies between different countries. I know the language of this forum is English, but terminology?

[Renatus]

I am going to deal with only one aspect of this discussion.

-We should stop attacking others view in an non-scientific way. Give a good feedback on the subject, where you feel encouraged to underline your view with (scientific) reasoning.

Actually, I think that’s already taken care of, by underlining that every answer should be referenced. Now I know that I do not always do that. I only can when at home of course. Also, how do we keep amateurs on board while trying to ‘upgrade’ the scientific level of the discussion? Should we add yet another rule or tell amateurs to read up before they can add to the discussion?

There can be a temptation, in this and in other forums, to shoot from the hip when one reads something with which one does not agree. The approach that I try to adopt (not always successfully) is to check my facts before posting. I also like to cite references, where I can. This can have its disadvantages: RAT is a very fast-moving forum and I sometimes find that, by the time I am ready to post, the discussion has progressed to a point where I can no longer make a useful contribution. Still, better this than to go off at half-cock. I also have the benefit of having acquired over the years quite a large collection of books and copy articles to which I can refer. Nevertheless, I would propose a guideline (not a rule) that, where possible, those wishing to contribute to a debate take time to reflect before they post, that they cite references for their assertions and that, where they are advancing a personal opinion or theory, or where they cannot give an authority for what they believe, they say so in terms, so that everyone knows the basis upon which they are posting.

[Epictetus]

This is a very good idea for a thread. I think RAT is an excellent forum, and I don’t have any real complaints, but I do have one suggestion.

We [the moderators] should begin to tell the author of an edited post when it is edited and why it is edited.

I know this has just been mentioned in another thread. The same thing happened to me once (that I know of – there may be others), and I honestly have no idea why it was moderated. It was a very bland and unassuming thread with no controversy whatsoever (that I can recall) and I didn’t even know I had been moderated until months later when I stumbled upon it by accident. I carefully checked the rules and even tried to find internet caches of old rules to see if anything had changed, but never figured it out. I didn’t ask anyone because I didn’t think it was a big deal, but it was rather curious.

[D B Campbell]

How do you suggest we ‘protect’ the professionals from the amateurs, with over-moderating the board or stifling discussion?

I suppose that I fall into your category of "professionals", although we are really all amateurs with different levels of knowledge and different areas of interest. As a "professional", I don't feel that I require (or deserve) any special treatment. If I decide to pitch in on a particular topic, I must be prepared to accept replies from others. Like everyone, I expect a little courtesy; not because I'm a "professional", but because I'm a human being.

It has often been observed that nobody can possibly know everything, nor remember everything that he/she has read over the course of a ten-, fifteen-, (gasp) twenty-five-year involvement in the subject. Personally, I welcome the opportunity for others to "remind" me :wink: of things that I have forgotten, and inform me of things that I didn't know, and prompt me to think about things that I should've thought about before. Hopefully, everyone will proceed on the same basis.

In my opinion, there are already safeguards against (for example) ad hominem attacks; we probably don't need any more, although when a post silently "disappears" because someone has taken offence, or because someone is considering whether others might take offence (as happened recently, I believe), it would be nice to inform the poster.

My suggestion: I would dearly love the old "preview" button back again. Is it technically impossible to have that facility in the new system? Like many others, I like to read over anything I "publish" to check for silly errors. (I know I made one yesterday, but I can't be bothered to go back and correct it! :roll: )

[M. Demetrius]

Sometimes moderators will remove a post to a "holding pen" while a decision is reached. I know that we *should* but sometimes forget to put a note to that effect. We're all volunteers here, both the moderators and everyone else. Sometimes time doesn't allow for everything we would like to do to get done.

I do think that it should be an automatic procedure for us to put a note that a post, or part of a post has been edited or removed for cause. As for me, I rarely do that, but have on occasion removed profanity from posts, since that's offensive to some, and a clear rule violation. In those instances, I've put [expletive removed] or something to that effect. We can help keep the peace if we make our actions more clear. Then, if the post is deemed ok after all, to put it back in its original place with an [explanation]

But moderators are chosen from all sorts of positions, from various nations, and from varying political viewpoint. We don't always agree on everything in the Staff Meeting Hall. But we are learning to come to a quick consensus and make things as non-interventive as we can. Some people need more attention than others. We all have to learn to play nicely with each other, right?

[Renatus]

My suggestion: I would dearly love the old "preview" button back again. Is it technically impossible to have that facility in the new system? Like many others, I like to read over anything I "publish" to check for silly errors. (I know I made one yesterday, but I can't be bothered to go back and correct it! :roll: )

I don't know what the old "preview" button was like but there are two preview panes on the toolbar between the "Map" and "Help" buttons which work pretty well for me.

[D B Campbell]

I don't know what the old "preview" button was like but there are two preview panes on the toolbar between the "Map" and "Help" buttons which work pretty well for me.

Hurrah -- the preview button has returned!

[Robert Vermaat]

We [the moderators] should begin to tell the author of an edited post when it is edited and why it is edited.

The thing is, that's what we always try to do, but sometimes mistakes are mdae. Our rule is to either send a PM first to the author with a strong suggestion to change the wording or, if there's more to it, edit ourselves and signify the author by PM afterwards. Sometimes, though, this goes wrong - moderators are as human as members, and haste can mess up protocol. In such a case, which happened to me this week, apologies are made. I have no idea what happened to you, if it was a real moderating action or perhaps a mistake which went unnoted? But as I can only ask of any member, if you feel wronged, complain to the mods. We aren't exactly a democracy here, but we never said we are infallable either.

[Robert Vermaat]

How do you suggest we ‘protect’ the professionals from the amateurs, with over-moderating the board or stifling discussion?

I suppose that I fall into your category of "professionals"

Actually Duncan, you weren't the one I had in mind. No offense, because your level of knowledge is certainly that of a professional. The persons I was referring to are scholars, especially those working in an academic job, publishing only in very scientific journals, and who, most of the time, are only active in a forum unavailable to the general public, being for the staff and some students only. Such professionals, as now and then one joins the forum because their work is discussed here, are always coming under attack by amateurs. And by that I don't refer to those who attempt to read up on a subject, but to those who don't. It's very uncommon for scholars to be attacked in such a way in their own working environment, yet that's always what happens here after some point, followed by complaints to us (but there's hardly any moderating against it), followed by the scholars losing interest and leaving the forum.

So you see Duncan, as a veteran of quite a battle on this forum, why I did not have you in mind... :wink:

[Thomas Aagaard]

Iam pretty new here and the roman army is not my primary area of interest.
(Iam studying medieval and Renaissance archaeology at Aarhus university, Denmark)

I found this forum about two month ago by "accident"
The things that have made me come back daily is the fact that the academic lvl is so high.
Not often you find an open internet forum, that have members discussing the meaning of a word written in ancient greek or latin.

The professionals should offcause use references, but It would be helpful to know if a person writing something is a teenager who really know nothing or is a professor who teach this stuff daily.

Iam active on a forum for danish soldiers. (I served a few years in the army)
There the profiles have boxes for rank, regiment, service history. And it is required that you fill them out.
So when somebody is writing something, everyone know if its just a new conscript or someone who have served 3 tours in Afghanistan.

so a suggestion would be that everyone have to fill the box "education" in their profile.

[joeandmich]

Time to start planning the New Year's resolutions for RAT.

How can we (all of us- grizzled veterans, newbies, academics, re-enactors, moderators, urkers and others) improve RAT in 2012 and beyond?

Please put your reply as follows:-

-We should keep doing.....

-We should stop doing.....

-We should begin doing.....

We should keep this site entertaining...
We should stop taking ourselves so seriously...
We should try to get more women involved...at least in pictures

Call me crazy but I think it couldn't hurt to try

Joe

[Nathan Ross]

Such professionals, as now and then one joins the forum because their work is discussed here, are always coming under attack by amateurs... followed by complaints to us... followed by the scholars losing interest and leaving the forum.

How intriguing! I know there's lots going on behind the scenes that us ordinary types don't get to see, but I can't think when these episodes might have happened. There have been occasions when authors and academics have responded to what might have been thought harsh critique of their work - Conn Iggulden and Simon Scarrow long ago, Miles Russell more recently - but in all these cases (as far as I'm aware) they've been treated with a respect and courtesy quite extraordinary in a public forum like this. I certainly don't recall anyone having their carefully-considered life's work hosed down by adolescent stupidity... but perhaps those posts were deleted?

Actually I've seen far more vicious spats in the pages of august academic journals than I've ever seen going on here. (bit of an exaggeration - but that's just the stuff that gets printed :-) )

[Quintas]

hi haven beenfairly new hear and a complete amateur i believe the moderators and the profesionals need to protect the amituers from them selfs so us lowley ones can express an opinonand feal we will at least be heard