Note: Suspension

[marshwiggle]

One possibility for an online community is for it to be completely "by invitation only". Even if people can sign up independently, they can be "voted off the island" by the community. That would require no specific moderation guidelines; anyone who lacks sufficient community support would simply be ejected. (All that would be needed would be a process to initiate someone's removal.) Any takers?

[Katrina Gulliver]

One possibility for an online community is for it to be completely "by invitation only". Even if people can sign up independently, they can be "voted off the island" by the community. That would require no specific moderation guidelines; anyone who lacks sufficient community support would simply be ejected. (All that would be needed would be a process to initiate someone's removal.) Any takers?

That sounds like a nightmare for moderators to run. Are all votes equal? Would someone who joined 3 weeks ago have as much stake as someone who has been here for years?

[marshwiggle]

One possibility for an online community is for it to be completely "by invitation only". Even if people can sign up independently, they can be "voted off the island" by the community. That would require no specific moderation guidelines; anyone who lacks sufficient community support would simply be ejected. (All that would be needed would be a process to initiate someone's removal.) Any takers?

That sounds like a nightmare for moderators to run. Are all votes equal? Would someone who joined 3 weeks ago have as much stake as someone who has been here for years?

You don't need moderators; as long as your process for signing up eliminates bots, then every account is equivalent, and each account gets a single vote. Everything can be handled algorithmically with no human intervention.
(You could even make the process to register require a vote of existing members before someone is let in. It would get cumbersome as the membership increases, but things like suggested usernames could prevent people being accepted if they appear to be a threat to the community.)

[Caracal]

I find these discussions difficult because I have no idea what people have in mind as to what should be moderated.

What I would find useful would be if people gave examples of posters they *frequently strongly disagree with but who have not crossed any line that they think should apply.  It's really hard to tell whether people want to moderate behaviour or ideas. The first is reasonable; the second is not.


(*For instance, there are lots of people that I've disagreed with; I have no idea whether any of my posts would have led to being removed under "stricter" moderation, and if so, on what grounds. Without any more concrete grasp of what is being advocated, I have no idea whether I'm in favour or not.)

I often disagree with you, but I can't recall any times where you've crossed the kind of lines I think should apply. You don't make personal attacks, you engage in actual conversations and discussions and I've never gotten the sense that you are trying to provoke anyone. I sometimes am annoyed at things you write, but that's not something moderation should try to solve. I'm sure I'm irritating to some people too...

[Parasaurolophus]

Honestly it was such a bizarre and creepy thing to write that I felt more...icky, than personally attacked, unless there was something else I missed. I went back to my normal policy of not clicking on that person's posts.

I actually think he was referring to a real piece of manufactured right-wing outrage (i.e. a real post somewhere in the right-wing intarwebz about a faked controversy; not surprisingly, however, it's not something I'm particularly interested in investigating more closely). The 'you' was, I suspect, more generally aimed at "libz" than you in particular. Even if that's so, however, it's a good illustration of public meaning outstripping intent, a phenomenon he was keen to deny.

I find these discussions difficult because I have no idea what people have in mind as to what should be moderated.

What I would find useful would be if people gave examples of posters they *frequently strongly disagree with but who have not crossed any line that they think should apply.  It's really hard to tell whether people want to moderate behaviour or ideas. The first is reasonable; the second is not.

I'm frequently at odds with dismalist; I don't think he's crossed a line. I've very vocally disagreed with ruralguy, bacardiandlime, secundum_artem, and even occasionally mamselle and Puget. I don't think any of them has ever even come close to the line. I can't remember much about writingprof's posts any more, save that I almost never agreed with him. But I don't think he skirted the line much, either. Polly, I think, tended to walk with her feet astride, rather than on, the line. And I think that you have a penchant for sea lioning, but you mostly don't cross the line--certainly not in the same spectacular fashion, or as frequently, as the subject of the the post that started this thread. Does that help?

I don't think anyone who has more moderation in mind wants us to leap to bans. I think what we have in mind is more like a system in which we start with a verbal warning (e.g. a post to steer back to the topic at hand or to slow your roll in a thread veering too far off-topic and into heated waters) or perhaps locking a thread if circumstances seem to warrant it, followed by an official warning (a karma smack, if you will), with some number of karma smacks (say, three over a reasonable period of time) resulting in a temporary suspension. (That's taken from a defunct forum I used to frequent, by the way, not made up out of whole cloth. It was a much larger community than this one, and worked well for the twenty years that the forum was around.) As for what would rise to the occasion: I think we can probably agree to a fairly minimal set of offences which would probably include personal attacks, slurs, and obvious threadjacking. Probably something about stirring the pot by starting endless new threads on the same topic, too.


FWIW, the reason I embroil myself in most unpleasant discussions here is to publicly register dissent. It's been my experience that when everybody in an online community just ignores threads they find problematic or unpleasant, it gives the impression to newcomers that everybody there agrees with what's going on. And, in my experience, that's been bad for the health of online communities. Most people (understandably!) don't much care for an internet fistfight. Having grown up with them, I mostly don't mind, so I wade in--although I'll admit that my patience has worn thin in recent months. The key is to know when to let go, and I'll admit that I'm not great at that.

That strategy may, of course, be perceived as just as big a part of the problem. If that's so, then you're all welcome to PM me and let me know. If enough of you think so (say, more than just a couple people), then I'll be happy to try something else for a change.

[marshwiggle]

I find these discussions difficult because I have no idea what people have in mind as to what should be moderated.

What I would find useful would be if people gave examples of posters they *frequently strongly disagree with but who have not crossed any line that they think should apply.  It's really hard to tell whether people want to moderate behaviour or ideas. The first is reasonable; the second is not.

I'm frequently at odds with dismalist; I don't think he's crossed a line. I've very vocally disagreed with ruralguy, bacardiandlime, secundum_artem, and even occasionally mamselle and Puget. I don't think any of them has ever even come close to the line. I can't remember much about writingprof's posts any more, save that I almost never agreed with him. But I don't think he skirted the line much, either. Polly, I think, tended to walk with her feet astride, rather than on, the line. And I think that you have a penchant for sea lioning, but you mostly don't cross the line--certainly not in the same spectacular fashion, or as frequently, as the subject of the the post that started this thread. Does that help?

Actually, it does. Thanks. It's important to me that heated debate doesn't automatically become something to suppress.

I don't think anyone who has more moderation in mind wants us to leap to bans. I think what we have in mind is more like a system in which we start with a verbal warning (e.g. a post to steer back to the topic at hand or to slow your roll in a thread veering too far off-topic and into heated waters) or perhaps locking a thread if circumstances seem to warrant it, followed by an official warning (a karma smack, if you will), with some number of karma smacks (say, three over a reasonable period of time) resulting in a temporary suspension.

The off-topic issue is tricky. If a thread veers off into an argument between a few posters, other people probably lose interest and don't follow it. But at other times, "off-topic" may result in something that gets a lot of engagement from lots of people, even if it has little or no relation to the thread title. Should "moderation" in a case like that involve forking a new thread with a more appropriate title, or simply closing off the original?

(That's taken from a defunct forum I used to frequent, by the way, not made up out of whole cloth. It was a much larger community than this one, and worked well for the twenty years that the forum was around.) As for what would rise to the occasion: I think we can probably agree to a fairly minimal set of offences which would probably include personal attacks, slurs, and obvious threadjacking. Probably something about stirring the pot by starting endless new threads on the same topic, too.

I'm not sure about the "endless threads on the same topic" issue. Would moderation involve just eliminating them, or simply lumping them into a single thread, like "Colleges in Dire Financial Straits" which allows new instances of the same phenomenon to be discussed?

[Istiblennius]

I appreciate reading everyone's thoughts here; I have noticed the slowdown on posting. I have been frustrated by how so many threads that begin with genuine questioning, requests for ideas and input, or just "here's a fun story" kinds of things have devolved into the same same two topics over and over and over again, and then folks migrate away from what could be a useful thread.

Even prior to the personal attacks the outright various -isms that were appearing more regularly were turning my stomach. I think most of us tried to ignore, or divert, but I agree that it has had the effect of chilling discourse, driving people away, and maybe even giving the appearance of tacit approval.

I think some more robust moderation that addresses that constant derailment, could be helpful. The RIP thread comes to mind - there was a brief kerfuffle about how to use that thread for remembrance and that commentary on the socio-political related to the deceased could and should be posted in a different thread. Totally reasonable and well-handled by the community and moderators and could be a model for threads that get derailed by conspiracy theories and such.

[Caracal]

I actually think he was referring to a real piece of manufactured right-wing outrage (i.e. a real post somewhere in the right-wing intarwebz about a faked controversy; not surprisingly, however, it's not something I'm particularly interested in investigating more closely). The 'you' was, I suspect, more generally aimed at "libz" than you in particular. Even if that's so, however, it's a good illustration of public meaning outstripping intent, a phenomenon he was keen to deny.

Yeah I think the "you" was actually because he was criticizing my use of pronouns. But, like you say, it really doesn't matter at some point.

[Puget]

I find these discussions difficult because I have no idea what people have in mind as to what should be moderated.

What I would find useful would be if people gave examples of posters they *frequently strongly disagree with but who have not crossed any line that they think should apply.  It's really hard to tell whether people want to moderate behaviour or ideas. The first is reasonable; the second is not.

I'm frequently at odds with dismalist; I don't think he's crossed a line. I've very vocally disagreed with ruralguy, bacardiandlime, secundum_artem, and even occasionally mamselle and Puget. I don't think any of them has ever even come close to the line. I can't remember much about writingprof's posts any more, save that I almost never agreed with him. But I don't think he skirted the line much, either. Polly, I think, tended to walk with her feet astride, rather than on, the line. And I think that you have a penchant for sea lioning, but you mostly don't cross the line--certainly not in the same spectacular fashion, or as frequently, as the subject of the the post that started this thread. Does that help?

Actually, it does. Thanks. It's important to me that heated debate doesn't automatically become something to suppress.

I don't think anyone who has more moderation in mind wants us to leap to bans. I think what we have in mind is more like a system in which we start with a verbal warning (e.g. a post to steer back to the topic at hand or to slow your roll in a thread veering too far off-topic and into heated waters) or perhaps locking a thread if circumstances seem to warrant it, followed by an official warning (a karma smack, if you will), with some number of karma smacks (say, three over a reasonable period of time) resulting in a temporary suspension.

The off-topic issue is tricky. If a thread veers off into an argument between a few posters, other people probably lose interest and don't follow it. But at other times, "off-topic" may result in something that gets a lot of engagement from lots of people, even if it has little or no relation to the thread title. Should "moderation" in a case like that involve forking a new thread with a more appropriate title, or simply closing off the original?

(That's taken from a defunct forum I used to frequent, by the way, not made up out of whole cloth. It was a much larger community than this one, and worked well for the twenty years that the forum was around.) As for what would rise to the occasion: I think we can probably agree to a fairly minimal set of offences which would probably include personal attacks, slurs, and obvious threadjacking. Probably something about stirring the pot by starting endless new threads on the same topic, too.

I'm not sure about the "endless threads on the same topic" issue. Would moderation involve just eliminating them, or simply lumping them into a single thread, like "Colleges in Dire Financial Straits" which allows new instances of the same phenomenon to be discussed?

Likewise, although I think we disagree on just about everything politically, I've found you to generally be reasonably civil here, and you contribute to discussions of academic topics and not just a few hobby horses. That's the sort of discourse we want IMO.

I think "Start a new thread rather than take a thread wildly off topic" and "Use an existing thread rather than start a new thread on substantially the same topic" are completely reasonable rules that aren't just aimed at line-crossing but just generally improve the usability and searchability of the fora. Reasonable posters will respond to a simple reminder to do so, unreasonable ones can be warned if they persist.

[Caracal]

Polly, I think, tended to walk with her feet astride, rather than on, the line. And I think that you have a penchant for sea lioning, but you mostly don't cross the line--certainly not in the same spectacular fashion, or as frequently, as the subject of the the post that started this thread. Does that help?

I don't think anyone who has more moderation in mind wants us to leap to bans. I think what we have in mind is more like a system in which we start with a verbal warning (e.g. a post to steer back to the topic at hand or to slow your roll in a thread veering too far off-topic and into heated waters) or perhaps locking a thread if circumstances seem to warrant it, followed by an official warning (a karma smack, if you will), with some number of karma smacks (say, three over a reasonable period of time) resulting in a temporary suspension. (That's taken from a defunct forum I used to frequent, by the way, not made up out of whole cloth. It was a much larger community than this one, and worked well for the twenty years that the forum was around.) As for what would rise to the occasion: I think we can probably agree to a fairly minimal set of offences which would probably include personal attacks, slurs, and obvious threadjacking. Probably something about stirring the pot by starting endless new threads on the same topic, too.

I think it would be important to have a mechanism where patterns of behavior could be considered, not just individual posts. A single post that steps over or skirts the line can often just be dealt with by the people involved. I've apologized to people for things I wrote when it was pointed out to me that it was unkind or unpleasant. However, if someone is constantly tiptoeing up to the line or standing astride it, at some point that suggests they are operating in bad faith.

[marshwiggle]

Here's a simple suggestion:

Make the "no double posting" a rule, rather than a guideline. Advantages:

• If no-one responds to a post, the thread is effectively dead.
• If non-one responds to a poster on any thread, the poster is essentially *silenced.
• It could be done algorithmically, and is completely content-neutral, so there's not any specific ideas, viewpoints, etc. that are suppressed.

(*Note that the poster effectively gets literally "the last word" on a topic, but it only matters if someone is willing to respond, so even that poster's views aren't censored.)

[Parasaurolophus]

The off-topic issue is tricky. If a thread veers off into an argument between a few posters, other people probably lose interest and don't follow it. But at other times, "off-topic" may result in something that gets a lot of engagement from lots of people, even if it has little or no relation to the thread title. Should "moderation" in a case like that involve forking a new thread with a more appropriate title, or simply closing off the original?

I think it could go either way, depending on what's actually going on. If it's a substantive second discussion that has its own merits, then forking seems like the thing to do. Closing a thread seems like the sort of thing that might be necessary when things are spiralling out of control., or possibly when there's no longer any substantive discussion going on, just a back-and-forth between a couple posters over a clear red herring.

I'm not sure about the "endless threads on the same topic" issue. Would moderation involve just eliminating them, or simply lumping them into a single thread, like "Colleges in Dire Financial Straits" which allows new instances of the same phenomenon to be discussed?

Lumping or closing both seem like fine responses to me. I don't have robust intuitions about when to prefer one over the other, however.

[little bongo]

All the discussion seems pretty reasonable. There are three posters on my ignore list whose overall tone and attitude I find somewhat poopy--the person suspended wasn't one of them, but I can see how they went too far. It's challenging to maintain a robust forum; trial, error, further trial, and occasional annoyance seems to go with the territory.

[namazu]

I don't think anyone who has more moderation in mind wants us to leap to bans. I think what we have in mind is more like a system in which we start with a verbal warning (e.g. a post to steer back to the topic at hand or to slow your roll in a thread veering too far off-topic and into heated waters) or perhaps locking a thread if circumstances seem to warrant it, followed by an official warning (a karma smack, if you will), with some number of karma smacks (say, three over a reasonable period of time) resulting in a temporary suspension. (That's taken from a defunct forum I used to frequent, by the way, not made up out of whole cloth. It was a much larger community than this one, and worked well for the twenty years that the forum was around.) As for what would rise to the occasion: I think we can probably agree to a fairly minimal set of offences which would probably include personal attacks, slurs, and obvious threadjacking. Probably something about stirring the pot by starting endless new threads on the same topic, too.

Yes, please.

I think it could go either way, depending on what's actually going on. If it's a substantive second discussion that has its own merits, then forking seems like the thing to do. Closing a thread seems like the sort of thing that might be necessary when things are spiralling out of control., or possibly when there's no longer any substantive discussion going on, just a back-and-forth between a couple posters over a clear red herring.

Yes, please.

I think "Start a new thread rather than take a thread wildly off topic" and "Use an existing thread rather than start a new thread on substantially the same topic" are completely reasonable rules that aren't just aimed at line-crossing but just generally improve the usability and searchability of the fora. Reasonable posters will respond to a simple reminder to do so, unreasonable ones can be warned if they persist.

Yes, please.

No to "no double posting" as a general rule.  Double-posting is not always bad, and such a rule would make it harder to enforce the "use an existing thread rather than start a new thread" rule, and it would probably also have collateral damage for relatively uncontroversial threads like "Look! A bird!"

[marshwiggle]

No to "no double posting" as a general rule.  Double-posting is not always bad, and such a rule would make it harder to enforce the "use an existing thread rather than start a new thread" rule, and it would probably also have collateral damage for relatively uncontroversial threads like "Look! A bird!"

The thing to keep in mind is that one single rule  by itself would allow the community to self-moderate with no intervention by administrators. For the non-controversial threads, anyone simply *acknowledging another person's post would allow the original poster to continue. That seems like a pretty easy way to deal with the restriction.

(* Just like many posts now that quote and then simply add "+1".)