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The Oldest Man posted:The years when D&D had the harshest/most punitive moderation were some of the worst for absolute trash-fire-quality discussion. A lot of people were simply frozen out of the forum since the impression of wrongthink = ban became prevalent. So I dunno how either a) that's supposed to be a 'new idea' when it's actually the oldest one in the D&D playbook or b) how that's supposed to generate better discussion when it had the opposite effect in the past.
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Jan 12, 2021 19:24
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fool of sound posted:Because the existing structure isn't conducive to good moderation or even good posting. It sucks the life out of other interesting threads in the subforum and eats up all our moderation time and resources dealing with dumb slapfights that nobody learns or develops from. A lot of people claim to like really lovely threads, but that's doesn't change the fact that they suck and have in this case sucked consistantly for years. Maybe you guys should actually engage in moderation then, and remove consistent problem posters from the forum. This isn't the first time we've brought this up with you, and you seem to have a staggering blindspot here. You seem to think the issue is 'cliques slap fighting' when in reality the issue is 'lovely posters posting like poo poo'. I appreciate MPF noting that the forums are currently going in a less severe direction of moderation, but there is no reason you can't issue forum or even thread bans to individual posters who get probed several times a month, month after month. This won't produce a chilling effect on people posting their opinions as some have and undoubtedly will claim, this will create a chilling effect on lovely posting. Slow mode and breaking out major topics can certainly help as well, but not acting to remove people who go out of their way to make the thread a toxic mess is far more important.
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Jan 12, 2021 19:31
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DTurtle posted:The bolded part came up a number of times. I think it might be good to simply ban "edit replying" to newer posts. If it is something important, then you can reply to it in 10 minutes. If it is something that is stupidly wrong and needs to be called out immediately, then 3 or 5 other posters will do it before the 10 minutes are over. This implies that slow mode is just presumed to be a good thing in and of itself that needs to be respected. It is not, and it will not be. Editing to reply to later posts is a work-around that is going to happen, and instead of coming down on those people, the mods should (and probably eventually will) once again go "ok, they obviously don't want slow mode, and forcing it on the people who post here is just stupid". Slow mode has also, from what I remember some have said before (I have no way of verifying this) not appreciably made moderation easier. It does not improve the quality of posting. It actively discourages people from making good replies merely because they just finished addressing another unrelated topic when the conversation moves on after the timer finally expires, but it absolutely does not discourage people from waiting for their attempt to burn their sworn forum enemies at all. It artificially drags arguments on longer. It is almost all downside, annoying everyone who participates, while only making the thread slightly easier for lurkers to catch up.
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Jan 12, 2021 19:32
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Doloen posted:Maybe you guys should actually engage in moderation then, and remove consistent problem posters from the forum. This isn't the first time we've brought this up with you, and you seem to have a staggering blindspot here. You seem to think the issue is 'cliques slap fighting' when in reality the issue is 'lovely posters posting like poo poo'. Is there a consensus on what posters are actually lovely, though? If everyone agreed it was the same people, maybe that would happen, but I don't think they would.
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Jan 12, 2021 19:44
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Doloen posted:Maybe you guys should actually engage in moderation then, and remove consistent problem posters from the forum. This isn't the first time we've brought this up with you, and you seem to have a staggering blindspot here. You seem to think the issue is 'cliques slap fighting' when in reality the issue is 'lovely posters posting like poo poo'. I appreciate MPF noting that the forums are currently going in a less severe direction of moderation, but there is no reason you can't issue forum or even thread bans to individual posters who get probed several times a month, month after month. This won't produce a chilling effect on people posting their opinions as some have and undoubtedly will claim, this will create a chilling effect on lovely posting. Slow mode and breaking out major topics can certainly help as well, but not acting to remove people who go out of their way to make the thread a toxic mess is far more important. This issue has been repeated over and over in the thread and FOS seems to just ignore any post where it's mentioned. MPF says it's hard to do because the administrators are increasingly in favor of second and third and fourth chances, but Athanatos is here saying that he doesn't oppose the idea at all. The list of proposals for 'reform' are all based around the idea he started with, which is that actual moderation is impossible, and nothing about this thread seems to have affected that preconceived notion. Ironically, 'breaking up' USPOL and encouraging a lot of new threads is just going to result in an even more difficult forum to mod -- the only virtue of the idea is that it gives the appearance that they're doing something about the problem, rather than nothing at all. If the dnd mods don't want to moderate dnd, we should get new mods. eke out fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jan 12, 2021 |
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Jan 12, 2021 19:45
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KillHour posted:Is there a consensus on what posters are actually lovely, though? If everyone agreed it was the same people, maybe that would happen, but I don't think they would. This is why I suggest a 1-week-minimum probation experiment for D&D. The lovely posters will either change their behavior or they will filter themselves out.
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Jan 12, 2021 19:47
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KillHour posted:Is there a consensus on what posters are actually lovely, though? If everyone agreed it was the same people, maybe that would happen, but I don't think they would. The idea that we need a "consensus" on what posters are "actually lovely" is misguided. No consensus is needed; we already know which users repeatedly break the rules and get probated. Hell, the mods themselves most likely already know, too. They are just refusing to acknowledge the problem or do anything about it, and instead desperately want to break up a thread that most people in this thread enjoy and get value out of.
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Jan 12, 2021 19:52
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:The idea that we need a "consensus" on what posters are "actually lovely" is misguided. No consensus is needed; we already know which users repeatedly break the rules and get probated. Hell, the mods themselves most likely already know, too. They are just refusing to acknowledge the problem or do anything about it, and instead desperately want to break up a thread that most people in this thread enjoy and get value out of. If the ur-truth is already known by all and mods then why don't we just skip the 1-week probes and perma all the Bad Posters right now?
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Jan 12, 2021 19:54
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KillHour posted:Is there a consensus on what posters are actually lovely, though? If everyone agreed it was the same people, maybe that would happen, but I don't think they would. Far from me just trying to destroy my posting enemies, the mods have made this clear on their own by probating a small subset of posters for shitposting dozens of times. Mod actions are not inherently good/correct, but if someone's getting hit by mods 2-3+ times a month and just keeps coming back to do the same thing for years, the problem is staring everyone in the face.
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Jan 12, 2021 19:55
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Cefte posted:I'm going to quote myself from October, because I'm emotionally disinvested enough in the forums these days to no longer feel shame. This is a very good post and communicates some of my own thoughts better than I'd probably be able to. Is splitting USPol into multiple threads actually going to reduce the mod workload? You're still going to end up with one fast-moving chat-heavy thread that is going to be a mess unless other things change. Then you'll also need to apply more mod attention to the spinoff threads to keep them on-topic. You can take one huge mountain of poop and sort it into smaller piles, sure. But then you've done a bunch of work scooping poop and the total amount of poo poo you have is unchanged. Absent other significant reforms I don't see how splitting USPol accomplishes much other than investing effort in splitting USPol.
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Jan 12, 2021 19:59
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The thing is, a lot of posters who post badly in USpol post well in other threads. It's not universal, but its common enough that I think splitting off serious debate to other, slower threads might create an environment where many posters are more likely to be constructive.
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Jan 12, 2021 20:01
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fool of sound posted:The thing is, a lot of posters who post badly in USpol post well in other threads. It's not universal, but its common enough that I think splitting off serious debate to other, slower threads might create an environment where many posters are more likely to be constructive. Then make it a week probation minimum for USpol alone. I'm pretty sure the thread will become extremely readable.
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Jan 12, 2021 20:02
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fool of sound posted:The thing is, a lot of posters who post badly in USpol post well in other threads. It's not universal, but its common enough that I think splitting off serious debate to other, slower threads might create an environment where many posters are more likely to be constructive. Isn't this a solid motivation for doing more threadbans, though? If it's possible to post responsibly in the thread, why not just remove the people who have proven they can't handle it?
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Jan 12, 2021 20:02
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The Oldest Man posted:If the ur-truth is already known by all and mods then why don't we just skip the 1-week probes and perma all the Bad Posters right now? I don't think we need to go that far; simple thread-bans would do the trick. After all, this thread is about USPol. I mean, the mods themselves said it: the problem they're having is that USPol is the source of too many reports, and I stand by my previously asserted theory (that should be easy enough to verify with database reporting) that a minority of posters are probably the subject of the majority of reports, perhaps even overwhelmingly so. Deal with those posters and USPol should become far more bearable, not just for mods but for everyone.
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Jan 12, 2021 20:05
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It seems like we're ignoring an option here: keep doing what we're doing. Mods have already said that ramping has started back up, and the rap sheets confirm this. Ramping is a slow process. To use a food analogy, the recipe for Grandma's Secret Ramp Stew says to put the stove on low heat and at that temperature it'll take X minutes to cook. "Ban the bad posters now" is just turning up the heat to max and clearly that'll leave a bad taste in some posters mouths. "Give up and try something else" is, likewise, complaining that because the food isn't cooked now, it'll never be cooked and we may as well throw something in the microwave. Right now most posters I've seen ramped are at the 1-day, 3-day, or 1-week phase. We just put the pot on the stove. If bad posters continue to be bad, continued enforcement of the rules and ramping will either force bad posters to post better, or they'll be ramped all the way out of D&D.
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Jan 12, 2021 20:10
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fool of sound posted:The thing is, a lot of posters who post badly in USpol post well in other threads. It's not universal, but its common enough that I think splitting off serious debate to other, slower threads might create an environment where many posters are more likely to be constructive. Yeah if the problem is people being lovely in USPol, specifically, then how does splitting the thread address that issue? Assuming you are correct (as a mod you probably have a better idea than I) your proposal would then create splinter threads that are slower and better-quality, but USPol would still be a dumpster fire because you haven't addressed the actual problem. You're dispersing the good posting while not addressing the bad posting. Lemming posted:Isn't this a solid motivation for doing more threadbans, though? If it's possible to post responsibly in the thread, why not just remove the people who have proven they can't handle it? Right. If you have cancer you remove the tumor. You don't surgically remove the good parts and let the cancer continue to grow.
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Jan 12, 2021 20:11
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fool of sound posted:The thing is, a lot of posters who post badly in USpol post well in other threads. It's not universal, but its common enough that I think splitting off serious debate to other, slower threads might create an environment where many posters are more likely to be constructive. "This thread is terrible because a lot of people post badly in it, and we know who they are" pause BUT
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Jan 12, 2021 20:13
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fool of sound posted:The thing is, a lot of posters who post badly in USpol post well in other threads. It's not universal, but its common enough that I think splitting off serious debate to other, slower threads might create an environment where many posters are more likely to be constructive. It doesn't matter how they post in other threads. Those other threads aren't your problem. If it's a bad post in USPol, bring down the hammer.
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Jan 12, 2021 20:14
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Deteriorata posted:It doesn't matter how they post in other threads. Those other threads aren't your problem. If it's a bad post in USPol, bring down the hammer. Yep. It doesn't have to be an account ban or even a forum ban either. Threadbans would work. In fact, we know they do work.
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Jan 12, 2021 20:16
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I mean, in the NBA, if you get six personal fouls, you can't play in the game anymore. I think maybe a hard limit - like, if you get six probations in USPol in a three month period, then you can't post in USPol anymore. If people are doing better posting in other threads and other subforums; fine. They haven't been banned and can still post elsewhere. They just had too many PFs in USPol and they're going to have to sit out until an "amnesty", which you could do every time the thread is rebooted (assuming we're going back to seasonal threads every three months - it's been Fall 2020 for a long time now, but it doesn't have to be that way, obviously). I know there aren't forum tools to automate this, but it doesn't seem like it would be terribly onerous for mods to keep a spreadsheet or eyeball rap sheets to enforce it. (E: You could use an image to put in the probation reason, like, the official "USPol Winter 2021 Probe" stamp or something, and then looking at the rap sheet you can easily count the probes in-thread based on that image.) E: This idea (and it doesn't have to be six in three months, other amounts of probes and other endpoints could be good too) also gives people a fair chance to change how they post, if they know that another probation or two is going to kick them out of the thread. This is like how NBA players play softer, less aggressive defense when they're in foul trouble. E2 (or E3, I lost track): I also am not a big fan of minimum week/three day probes, because I saw them, first hand, completely fail to create a good environment in the 2019 Primary threads. Like, really fail, hard. Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jan 12, 2021 |
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Jan 12, 2021 20:17
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fool of sound posted:The thing is, a lot of posters who post badly in USpol post well in other threads. It's not universal, but its common enough that I think splitting off serious debate to other, slower threads might create an environment where many posters are more likely to be constructive. We could just give the bad posters week probes until they gently caress off or post better?
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Jan 12, 2021 20:17
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If thread-specific probations can't be a coded thing, warn people with a sixer and a ramped DO NOT POST IN THIS THREAD FOR A WEEK/MONTH/SIX MONTHS post and if they actually do post again in that time, just queue a ban+[time] for them for breaking the rules This follows the general SA second, third, nth chances vibe while being a serious way to keep troublesome posters out of the thread. Once they come back, they are free to post until they show their rear end again and at which point they get thread-probed again. Gives them infinite chances with longer and longer spaces in between
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Jan 12, 2021 20:21
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Herstory Begins Now posted:We could just give the bad posters week probes until they gently caress off or post better? this is an excellent idea, i think the mods should consider this clever new strategy
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Jan 12, 2021 20:24
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fool of sound posted:OK, so with feedback, here's where I'm at right now:
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Jan 12, 2021 20:36
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Ramping is good and should be applied more (except for when the probe is wrong). But arbitrary three strike rules or whatever are a bad idea. Probes can't be not a punishment sometimes, which is a thing I believe was stated, but then we have to treat it retroactively as one when it's no longer obvious that the posts weren't shitry, the poster was just being asked to take a break from the argument or whatever
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Jan 12, 2021 20:40
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Epinephrine posted:Without commenting on the proposal itself . . . Under this new system, would posters threadbanned in USPOL or banned from USPOL threads be further banned from the spinoff threads? If so, what constitutes a spinoff thread? Off the cuff, I'd probably do 'people who are USpol banned are banned from any breaking news tviv thread automatically, and are fast tracked for other thread bans if they post poorly in them.' As it is, our unofficial standard for a subforum ban is 'thread banned from a major thread already and posting badly elsewhere' or 'never posts anything but poo poo anywhere'.
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Jan 12, 2021 20:43
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fool of sound posted:The thing is, a lot of posters who post badly in USpol post well in other threads. It's not universal, but its common enough that I think splitting off serious debate to other, slower threads might create an environment where many posters are more likely to be constructive. who cares? they'll post well in a week when they get off their probes and maybe they'll actually bring that good posting to uspol. and if not, well, nobody is irreplaceable. if you're not going to hold uspol to the same standards as other threads (post well or get punished) then dont be surprised when people notice and treat it like a shitposting zone I dont understand the reasoning behind thread/forum bans instead of just probations and bans e: like I agree that more threads will get more good posts, it's just that it's obvious uspol is where people go to troll and argue with their posting enemies. so now we'll have more good threads (yay) but you'll still get the same reports from uspol
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Jan 12, 2021 20:56
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Jan 12, 2021 20:58
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sean10mm posted:I mean yeah, it does kind of read like this. or... Epinephrine posted:It seems like we're ignoring an option here: keep doing what we're doing. Mods have already said that ramping has started back up, and the rap sheets confirm this. Ramping is a slow process. To use a food analogy, the recipe for Grandma's Secret Ramp Stew says to put the stove on low heat and at that temperature it'll take X minutes to cook. "Ban the bad posters now" is just turning up the heat to max and clearly that'll leave a bad taste in some posters mouths. "Give up and try something else" is, likewise, complaining that because the food isn't cooked now, it'll never be cooked and we may as well throw something in the microwave. Right now most posters I've seen ramped are at the 1-day, 3-day, or 1-week phase. We just put the pot on the stove. If bad posters continue to be bad, continued enforcement of the rules and ramping will either force bad posters to post better, or they'll be ramped all the way out of D&D.
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Jan 12, 2021 21:15
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This is from many pages ago, but that PM that was sent to Helsing and Helsing's response that abuse is just part of the gig, was pretty... troubling. It would be nice if the other mods and IKs could collectively acknowledge that just passively tolerating this kind of abuse isn't something you should feel obliged to subject yourself to, AND if you let that kind of thing slide it will absolutely erode the culture/norms that we're trying to build
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Jan 12, 2021 21:16
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The reason I don't 'want' to just ban-the-bad-posters-bing-bang-boom is because honestly upon thinking about it I can only come up with a couple that I think would actually be clear-cut candidates. On the other hand, a lot of people periodically post badly but mostly post fine. But the bigger issue is that we are all adults here and I'd like to do my best to structure D&D in a way that makes harsh moderation necessary as infrequently as possible. That's much easier to achieve if serious debate is in slower moving threads that I can actually meaningfully read and monitor.
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Jan 12, 2021 21:20
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fool of sound posted:The reason I don't 'want' to just ban-the-bad-posters-bing-bang-boom is because honestly upon thinking about it I can only come up with a couple that I think would actually be clear-cut candidates. On the other hand, a lot of people periodically post badly but mostly post fine. But the bigger issue is that we are all adults here and I'd like to do my best to structure D&D in a way that makes harsh moderation necessary as infrequently as possible. That's much easier to achieve if serious debate is in slower moving threads that I can actually meaningfully read and monitor. I don't think most people think that there're 20 or 30 people who should be banned from dnd, I think most people would only list a couple of names. Also as an aside, uspol is actively read and monitored by at least 4 or 5 iks (and I think gjb reads it regularly, too?), which is a huge increase in eyes on uspol compared to 6 months or a year ago, so idk if turning it into something that you personally would prefer to read is even really necessary?
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Jan 12, 2021 21:35
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fool of sound posted:The reason I don't 'want' to just ban-the-bad-posters-bing-bang-boom is because honestly upon thinking about it I can only come up with a couple that I think would actually be clear-cut candidates. On the other hand, a lot of people periodically post badly but mostly post fine. But the bigger issue is that we are all adults here and I'd like to do my best to structure D&D in a way that makes harsh moderation necessary as infrequently as possible. That's much easier to achieve if serious debate is in slower moving threads that I can actually meaningfully read and monitor. I feel like what you're really saying is "I don't want to think that bad posters are inherently bad posters, its just that USPol made them that way, so we can't really blame them" which is interesting (and quite leftist in a way I appreciate) but I don't think it rings true in this case. I think that many people who troll USPol 100% know what they're doing. If we're all adults here, then shouldn't people be responsible for their actions?
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Jan 12, 2021 21:48
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A lot of bad posters are bad posters because the uspol atmosphere encourages bad posting... but a lot of that environmental pressure is, I think, due to the tolerance of bad behaviour by a number of the absolute worst posters. So its a bit of both.fool of sound posted:I think compounding the issue is the long standing D&D expectation that OPs be high effort, and while I think that's important for long running threads, it doesn't need to be the case for temporary or experimental threads, and shouldn't be such a barrier to making new threads. I stopped posting threads years ago for exactly this reason. It felt like it wasnt enough to just want to talk about something, if you werent already super well educated enough to make a really good OP you would get a lot of pushback about how you should just post in one of the megathreads. Although now I've mostly stopped posting at all and just lurk. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Jan 12, 2021 |
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Jan 12, 2021 21:48
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fool of sound posted:The reason I don't 'want' to just ban-the-bad-posters-bing-bang-boom is because honestly upon thinking about it I can only come up with a couple that I think would actually be clear-cut candidates. On the other hand, a lot of people periodically post badly but mostly post fine. But the bigger issue is that we are all adults here and I'd like to do my best to structure D&D in a way that makes harsh moderation necessary as infrequently as possible. That's much easier to achieve if serious debate is in slower moving threads that I can actually meaningfully read and monitor. on second thought, i was probably hasty to complain about dnd mods in general, as it seems to be you in particular that has an issue with attempting to actually remove the shitposters from the threads they are making GBS threads up maybe you should instead back off and allow the people who are actively moderating USPOL to do what they are already trying to do, rather than standing in their way and undermining that attempt at actual moderation with performative 'reforms' that do nothing to address the underlying issue
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Jan 12, 2021 21:51
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fool of sound posted:The reason I don't 'want' to just ban-the-bad-posters-bing-bang-boom is because honestly upon thinking about it I can only come up with a couple that I think would actually be clear-cut candidates. On the other hand, a lot of people periodically post badly but mostly post fine. But the bigger issue is that we are all adults here and I'd like to do my best to structure D&D in a way that makes harsh moderation necessary as infrequently as possible. That's much easier to achieve if serious debate is in slower moving threads that I can actually meaningfully read and monitor. When a large group of people suggest the "harsh" move of moving sixers to weeks on a comedy forum and this is what we get in response, this is unfortunately coming down to waiting for you to burn out like all the others and see if the next set of mods actually do something. I've gotten day long probes, even weeks before. Nobody died. Weak moderation has been driving the entire forum and D&D in particular into the ground for years.
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Jan 12, 2021 21:55
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fool of sound posted:The reason I don't 'want' to just ban-the-bad-posters-bing-bang-boom is because honestly upon thinking about it I can only come up with a couple that I think would actually be clear-cut candidates. On the other hand, a lot of people periodically post badly but mostly post fine. But the bigger issue is that we are all adults here and I'd like to do my best to structure D&D in a way that makes harsh moderation necessary as infrequently as possible. That's much easier to achieve if serious debate is in slower moving threads that I can actually meaningfully read and monitor. If there are a few clear cut candidates then like, why not ban those people regardless? It doesn't need to be an exhaustive rule that covers people more broadly, but if there are egregious examples then what's the downside of threadbanning them, even if you don't go on to threadban others?
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Jan 12, 2021 21:57
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Start with a week for completely useless and or off topic poo poo like "page 69/420/666/1337/2021" and the eight thousandth "but what about his horcrux" joke
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Jan 12, 2021 21:58
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fool of sound posted:The reason I don't 'want' to just ban-the-bad-posters-bing-bang-boom is because honestly upon thinking about it I can only come up with a couple that I think would actually be clear-cut candidates. On the other hand, a lot of people periodically post badly but mostly post fine. But the bigger issue is that we are all adults here and I'd like to do my best to structure D&D in a way that makes harsh moderation necessary as infrequently as possible. That's much easier to achieve if serious debate is in slower moving threads that I can actually meaningfully read and monitor. No, this is the wrong perspective because it completely ignores volume. If I make 100 posts a day, and 10 of them are bad, that means 90% of my posts are "fine", but the rest generate up to 10 reports (not to mention decrease the thread quality significantly, due to flame wars and derails, which themselves result in more reports). In other words, someone who "mostly posts fine" can still be a massive problem for the space.
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Jan 12, 2021 22:08
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Harold Fjord posted:Start with a week for completely useless and or off topic poo poo like "page 69/420/666/1337/2021" and the eight thousandth "but what about his horcrux" joke This type of poo poo isn't even any kind of a problem anyway. It's not vitriol, it's not slurs, it's not misinformation, it's just a dumb joke. Like, if we need that to be explicitly against the rules then fine, we can all live with that, but just loving keep scrolling if a joke doesn't land for you. Probe people for calling someone a pedo or a nazi because they disagree. Probe someone for posting @magapatriot8765436's latest bottweet. Probe someone for making GBS threads on Prester Jane out of the motherfucking blue. Probe someone for replying to an effort post with "lol" or "gently caress you bootlicker" or whatever - these are the things that are actually making GBS threads up the thread from time to time
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Jan 12, 2021 22:15
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