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It is often said that to make a better world one first has to imagine one. C-SPAM has taken the important first step of acknowledging that the existing world is loving stupid and absurd to unbelievable extent. This absurdism is, I would argue, the central ethos of C-SPAM. Whether it's the absurdities of late capitalism, the endless "lol oops thought that was my taser" cop murders, the absurdity of the response to covid, the absurd inadequacy of our response to the existential threat of climate change, the fact that our skies are apparently full of warp drive alien robots, $GME being valued at > $150 a share for months, the richest man in the world shilling dogecoin, TURMBO, whatever. C-SPAM is not, first and foremost, a place to discuss and debate the issues of our day; it's a place to gawk at how absolutely loving stupid they are. I'd say the left politics of this place are an emergent property rather than what truly brings people here to begin with--as leftist politics are presently the best suited for a crack-pinged brain. This absurdism explains a lot about this place, from why so many of us are refugees from D&D, to how the most popular thread for months often went for multiple pages of simply posting every permutation of tumpr, trembo, and turpo. It's also often mistaken for "doomerism". And it's why, I think, this place has such a unique feeling of community. In a world where everything, to us, seems to be off-the-rails loving bonkers, the most uncomfortable thing can be surrounded by people who have a sense of normalcy. Anyway I have no idea how you should moderate this place probably just ban someone randomly every week to keep us on our toes and figure it out later best of luck
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Jun 26, 2021 02:27
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My actual mod take is that no thread needs to be curated and every time a mod has tried to do that it's gone terribly for them and for the people posting. Probe NSFW stuff and address people sending wierd pms and poo poo like that but other than that just let people post.
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Jun 26, 2021 02:28
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I think the COVID thread is an interesting point of discussion. I posted on and off in it and honestly...the thread culture has always slanted more to hyperbole. It is sometimes spot on, but they have been some real bad calls and it can become unbearable. Something like large scale acquired immunity for example...was completely laughed off even after it was very clear in the statistics. Also, the entire attitude toward masking is completely contradictory. That said, I don't think mods can enforce "good opinions" at a certain point especially on subjects that are divisive or at least not completely clear. If a mod came in there and started laying down the law, there would be a violent backlash. At a certain point all you can do is create a space for good faith alternative opinions to a thread consensus. That said it has to apply to other threads as well. I mean if someone started defending the Democrats in the Succ thread, I am sure there would be a riot, but at least in my opinion there at least needs to be the open dissent to happen (even if it may not actually be right). (I am not really talking about obvious trolling for effect, that is easy to spot.) Ardennes has issued a correction as of 02:40 on Jun 26, 2021 |
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Jun 26, 2021 02:33
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maybe you are in good faith trying to get an honest read on cspam but there has been so much nonsense lately it’s hard to tell. even in this thread there is a lot of fake posting imho cspam is a leftist forum that needs light ideological moderation as it’s mostly refugees from overwhelmingly negative liberal moderation .
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Jun 26, 2021 02:36
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idk if they'd want to be mods but i feel like joementum and willa rogers are positive examples of what this forum can be outside of misspelling trump
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Jun 26, 2021 02:39
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i don't think people are being fake, unless you mean they're all posers, which is also the cspam experience
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Jun 26, 2021 02:39
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I would say cspam if anything is a very honest forum, even if it often cloaked in sarcasm and dark humor.
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Jun 26, 2021 02:42
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It feels like 99% of everyone in this thread is pretty much in agreement with things.
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Jun 26, 2021 02:52
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Thoguh posted:Then why are you trying to suggest how to moderate it? This is the same thing trump thread posters were saying before the last 5 pages of the thread turned into a discussion on the ethics of loli porn.
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Jun 26, 2021 02:55
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I also understand every poster in this thread is not representative of the entirety of CSPAM. It's a large space and this thread is very small.
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Jun 26, 2021 02:57
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i think its okay for some threads to be made more focused on some central point by the iron hand of the fascist mod brigade. it just depends on the thread. i remember long ago the dnd image thread had to have a rule that you had to post an image because people wouldn't stop loving derailing it with dumb arguments instead of making a thread about it. it just depends on how focused the thread is, tho cspam in general has s forum culture where the subject matter of a thread is more a guideline than a boundary.
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Jun 26, 2021 03:00
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Athanatos posted:I also understand every poster in this thread is not representative of the entirety of CSPAM. It's a large space and this thread is very small. go the Athenian route, and lasso people in here to contribute..under threat of an rear end kicking
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Jun 26, 2021 03:01
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Athanatos posted:I also understand every poster in this thread is not representative of the entirety of CSPAM. It's a large space and this thread is very small. It's a hell of a lot closer to representing CSPAM than any of the QCS threads about CSPAM have ever been! so that's probably some good progress
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Jun 26, 2021 03:32
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Athanatos posted:I also understand every poster in this thread is not representative of the entirety of CSPAM. It's a large space and this thread is very small. I am cspam. tremble at my might.
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Jun 26, 2021 03:32
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yeah cspam is huge and my experience in avoiding the big megathreads (although I participated in some and bailed after a while) is different than those who just post there a lot. there can be a place for both, I hope. the biggest gently caress up in the last few months has been mod intervention in threads where it's just not necessary. thread bans, unreasonably long probations, just targeting one poster, instead of just letting things run their course. 95% of the time if nothing was done there'd be no problem 24 hours after whatever Incident the mods deem necessary to intervene, so a lighter touch isn't a bad idea, and for the love of god just chill out in general. beyond that it's good to see new, smaller threads. the 1619 thread is nice since it's a subject that popped up in at least 3 threads I read and it's nice to consolidate discussion there. beyond that I've enjoyed interacting with Tiler Kiwi, so keep up the good work there. Ardennes also always contributes interesting stuff, Homeless friend makes me laugh and larry and loving dog take care of most of the dumb assholes who frequent these parts so that's all been positive in my experience the doomposting is a problem but I don't really know what to do about it. goons kinda wind themselves up in megathreads and there's no pressure release except for posting extremely hosed up cartoon porn or meltdowns, or both apparently, so maybe if we could figure out as a community how to chill out a little bit that'd be good. I think ultimately the worst episode of CSPAM was the Posting is Praxis era. No one here is accomplishing anything beyond developing their own neurosises and maybe learning a thing or two they can take out into the world in the best case scenario. I know everyone knows that at some level, but anything that makes posting about poo poo seem important or necessary doesn't belong in CSPAM. imo
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Jun 26, 2021 03:33
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Hello, I am here now to take all credit/scorn for what has been entirely Athanatos' chats with y'all while I was working, sleeping, sleeping in, doing my ASL lesson*, running errands, and deadlifting things. I probably won't a ton to say unless I'm directly asked something, as I'm generally more a lurker admin than a  admin (sup Ath), but I am reading the conversations.I appreciate the topic of "what should mods do here?" being addressed by the community. C-SPAM gets shitloads of reports (not D&D levels, but way more than, say, Games or GBS), many of which are for things like "posting bad opinions," but I've always understood this to be a relaxed rules forum where people are encouraged to post at each other about stuff and only use buttons for slurs or spamming or whatever, so hearing feedback about what y'all want a mod to do is hella useful. I'd encourage anybody else reading to add to this conversation. I will be around this evening. Thanks for having us! *If anybody else is a new ASL student and wants a practice partner, holler.
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Jun 26, 2021 03:40
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Posting yes, but for whom? To do what?
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Jun 26, 2021 03:43
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Athanatos posted:I also understand every poster in this thread is not representative of the entirety of CSPAM. It's a large space and this thread is very small. it's kind of a funny space - honestly, and i don't say this to be cruel to anyone, but you can generally tell how insular and alienated (from the broader board) a given megathread is via the vocabulary used? extremely similar or identical to how it happens with stuff like a small hot dog company or microsoft misjudging how much ram to put in a product, once a thread has developed a unique lingo or suggested posting style they're probably kind of noticeably off beat to the wider board. you can absolutely tell this when someone turns up in QCS and strings together a bunch of very obscure catchphrases that oh, they're from this thread or that. it nearly universally is a negative observation, unfortunately. there are justifications for these little sub-subcultures in some cases - regional threads are an ideal example of a special interest group that would by necessity need their own space - but some of them can seem very strange to an outside observer.
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Jun 26, 2021 03:43
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the forum is fine as is imo
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Jun 26, 2021 04:00
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Shine posted:Hello, I am here now to take all credit/scorn for what has been entirely Athanatos' chats with y'all while I was working, sleeping, sleeping in, doing my ASL lesson*, running errands, and deadlifting things. I probably won't a ton to say unless I'm directly asked something, as I'm generally more a lurker admin than a I am incredibly untrustworthy of this endeavor but I will give my opinion . I am not an expert or have thought about this in any real degree but imho what I would like to see and what I think mods should be aware of is: 1. it’s a forum for leftist political real posting, effort posting, poo poo posting and chat threads hopefully free of liberal moderation which plagues other forums 2. mods should step in to prevent people from being harassed and bullied due to their status as that kind of poo poo can and has easily chased people away and created a less interesting forum . this is more a community development / protection issue I guess 3. be aware of the tremendous amount of “ironic” fake posting aimed at cspam due to its status of a leftist forum. obviously also step in to prevent secret service poo poo to the extent that ever happened which I’ve heard various rumors about who knows
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Jun 26, 2021 04:00
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I think c spam is fine
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Jun 26, 2021 04:01
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I was a c-spam mod for just over a year, during covid, so taking into account pandemic-induced time distortion, I would say that I was a mod for about five years. I'll admit that my modship wasn't perfect, and I hosed up some times, especially at the beginning when I had more of a heavy-handed approach, but I tried to learn from my mistakes, and my ideas of what I should do and how this forum is best modded definitely changed over time. Although in general I loved C-SPAM and still do, there were at times various aspects of C-SPAM culture that I sometimes saw as problematic myself, and different minor crises and problems that emerged. There was the cult of taintrunner, the clashes between different rival cliques, interforum flame wars and the like. I tried my best to handle those things, I tried different approaches, and I tried to learn from my mistakes. At the end of my modship, I had come to the conclusion that I, as a c-spam mod, best served c-spam as well as the forums at large when I did the following things:
Although as a mod, you have to clear reports and probe the people making the bad posts, I always hated that aspect of modding. I think every mod hates doing that, especially in c-spam where there are dozens of reports a day. Even though most of them were bullshit, it's a huge pain in the rear end to do that, and it definitely helped make it more manageable when there were more mods. However, that's not all there is to modding. What I liked most about it, and what I ultimately thought was the best way to do it, was when I was acting as a sort of ambassador between c-spam and the mod forum and the admins, as a sort of shitpost and crisis and clique and dynamic explainer; and when I worked as a sort of community manager, looking over the various communities within c-spam and making sure they have IKs and talking to the IKs, explaining the IKs to the mods and admins and vice versa. I think the forum works best when the mod "power" is decentralized and each subcommunity has some voice and people from within those are moderating the bad posts and pointing them out to others. I think the idea that the chat thread (I dare not speak its true name) is the source of all, or even the majority of C-SPAM's problems is a ridiculous and simple-minded idea. It's a group of posters, and not a particularly hostile one by any standard, and most of those posters post elsewhere and are parts of other groups and communities. Having more small threads is great, do it, but there will always be megathreads, and there will always be lots of loosely oriented chatty energy - I think a chat thread is the right place for that energy to be spent. And I also think that anyone that tells you that such a thread is the devil and spawns sinful posting and bad posters is barking up the wrong tree. It's a chat thread, it's for chatting. There might be some bad posters in there, but dealing with them is a different issue than dealing with the existence of the thread itself send tweet
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Jun 26, 2021 04:02
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I think the COVID thread is actually a good example to talk about moderation. I think gradenko_2000 and Asproigerosis (who are the IKs I see most often in the thread) are doing fine lately. ram dass in hell posted:Maybe the covid thread should have an IK that actually gives a poo poo about it, rather than a joke IK appointed randomly by Jeffrey and who has never done any actual IK moderation of the thread whenever it's derailed by either sinophobic weirdos, delusional nate silver-brained anti-science types, or horny doctors looking to bang hinge honeys in YOUR area. Stuff like that happens but it’s fine IMO. I think it helps as a check to make sure a thread doesn’t become an echo chamber. IT should be fine in CSPAM to tell people to gently caress off because they’re idiots, but it’s also fine for people to disagree with the majority opinion of the thread (even antagonistically so). Even the low effort trolling of people popping in to let the thread know they were getting brunch was fine. If that causes you an aneurysm, you should step away from the keyboard. People shouldn’t be hitting buttons over disagreement or minor stuff. But looking back, there were definitely posters who were being creepy and getting way too personal with things and it took too long to deal with. Thinking specifically of Mourne (who was banned) and Morris Bae (permabanned) and whoever was going nuts and talking about going after peoples medical licenses IRL. I think that split makes sense – it’s fine to tell people to gently caress off etc. but weird posting vendettas that have nothing to do with the thread/post in question, IRL threats, and being a creep should get punished harshly.
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Jun 26, 2021 04:08
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Ardennes posted:I think the COVID thread is an interesting point of discussion. I posted on and off in it and honestly...the thread culture has always slanted more to hyperbole. It is sometimes spot on, but they have been some real bad calls and it can become unbearable. Something like large scale acquired immunity for example...was completely laughed off even after it was very clear in the statistics. Also, the entire attitude toward masking is completely contradictory. well large scale immunity doesn't exist so what the gently caress are you talking about, are you the expert? good opinion?? lol wtf are you saying? gently caress right off with that poo poo, this is why D&D sucks. are you the world expert on covid and you know what is happening and will happen in the future? go break your back sucking your dick lol large scale masking is contradictory? Go gently caress yourself. I can't believe you are a mod you loving suck. I don't give a poo poo about your opinions but saying poo poo like "Mods can't force good opinions" is some backwards poo poo and I'm glad I don't post in your forum anymore. Pohl has issued a correction as of 04:21 on Jun 26, 2021 |
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Jun 26, 2021 04:13
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twoday posted:[*]tried to communicate with the mods and admins in the admin forums and answer their questions about c-spam, and explain the dynamics of the forum whenever someone didn't "get" c-spam. The admins don't really "get" c-spam and I suppose they don't have to have someone who is familiar with their most problematic forums among their ranks (although maybe they should!!! [not it]) but if they don't have that, then they at least need someone who can explain the nuances of it to them when questions arise, and so I tried my best to do that. i feel like smythe definitely understands cspam tho. he would be a reasonable person to consult with about issues that you don't feel able to talk about in public, but want to talk to somebody who understands the context. he doesn't know every thread (nobody does) but he "gets it" and posts here. there are definitely other mods & such that post in here from a variety of other forums, too
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Jun 26, 2021 04:14
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symthe is a cool dude, it's funny how he seems to get on pretty well with some wildly variant goonotypes. being nice, friendly and having a sense of humour goes far.
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Jun 26, 2021 04:18
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Pohl posted:well large scale immunity doesn't exist so what the gently caress are you talking about, are you the expert? whoa I can't figure out if this was a spectacular posting technique in action or an exact demonstration of what ardennes is talking about, very well done regardless
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Jun 26, 2021 04:19
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Jazerus posted:i feel like smythe definitely understands cspam tho. he would be a reasonable person to consult with about issues that you don't feel able to talk about in public, but want to talk to somebody who understands the context. he doesn't know every thread (nobody does) but he "gets it" and posts here. there are definitely other mods & such that post in here from a variety of other forums, too Admin bubble is a different bubble than mod bubble, the relationship between mods and admins has the same degree of seperation as mods and posters, and when the admins retreat into the star chamber to discuss things, there is no voice that "gets" c-spam at the table. I am not trying to say what some posters often say about mods - that there is some sort of nefarious cabal or that they are totally out of touch - I don't think either of those things. Sure the admins can consult with Smythe or a c-spam mod when they have a question. They definitely did when I was modding and they do now, and I think they try their best to understand what c spam folks have to say and factor that into their decisions, but it's just a fundamentally different situation when there is an admin that understands the politics forums vs when there isn't one. And given that about 70% of reports on the forum come from the politics forums, that seems (at least to me) to be bit of an administrative oversight!! twoday has issued a correction as of 04:24 on Jun 26, 2021 |
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Jun 26, 2021 04:22
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dead gay comedy forums posted:whoa he sucks rear end and shouldn't be a mod
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Jun 26, 2021 04:22
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Chill and don't do this in this thread. It's not what it's for.
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Jun 26, 2021 04:27
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Ok I'm chill thank you
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Jun 26, 2021 04:31
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Pohl posted:he sucks rear end and shouldn't be a mod Okay use your words.
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Jun 26, 2021 04:33
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Ardennes posted:Okay use your words. lol an admin says no but you just have to dig in
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Jun 26, 2021 04:35
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Ardennes posted:Okay use your words. Let's not
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Jun 26, 2021 04:35
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Athanatos posted:Let's not More as a illustrated example if anything else, but we can move on, but that type of posting is actually a problem. I would say the Covid thread is an exceptional case but I have seen it show up in the doomsday econ thread as well.
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Jun 26, 2021 04:42
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Ardennes posted:More as a illustrated example if anything else but we can move on, but that type of posting is actually a problem. Condescending antagonism from mods is also a problem, especially in a thread for community feedback.
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Jun 26, 2021 04:43
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Shine posted:Condescending antagonism from mods is also a problem, especially in a thread for community feedback. Sorry I said anything,, but at the same time I am a poster as well so.
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Jun 26, 2021 04:45
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Ardennes posted:More as a illustrated example if anything else, but we can move on, but that type of posting is actually a problem. I can post completely structured sentences and not call names. How is that an example of bad behavior? I guess you didn't like it, but that doesn't matter to me, I don't care.
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Jun 26, 2021 04:46
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is there a way we can discuss the covid thread? maybe tomorrow? I don't want to be antagonistic towards them, either, but I do think it bears talking about
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Jun 26, 2021 04:46
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grieving for Gandalf posted:is there a way we can discuss the covid thread? maybe tomorrow? I don't want to be antagonistic towards them, either, but I do think it bears talking about from what i can tell they seem annoying as gently caress
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Jun 26, 2021 04:48
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