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Presenting my thoughts as an unordered list: A) Despite even the recent efforts of the mod team, misinformation and disinformation in the threads is still a problem. Less of a problem, but it's still popping up here and there. The bullshit asymmetry principle tells us that it takes a lot more work to correct the record than it takes to spout misinformation, and the backfire effect tells us that those same attempts to correct the record can have the perverse effect of making the misinformation more widely believed. The most reliable solution to this problem is to prevent misinformation from being posted in the first place. So, (hey I just met you, and this is craaazy, but) if a poster can't stop posting falsehoods and bullshit and keeps getting called out for it, threadban them maybe? B) I think if we learned one thing from the whole Fancy Pelosi business, it's that the assumption of good faith is too easy to abuse and that demonstrating bad faith to the extent that it's actionable is currently too hard to achieve. Fancy Pelosi is an obvious example of a poster everyone knew was a troll but no one could prove it, but this has been a long-standing issue. It took months to ramp posters with rapsheets longer than any D&D post for trolling and being incredibly aggro about it. In a certain, active thread (the mods who read it know of which thread and of which posts I speak), we had one poster edge alarmingly close to holocaust denial and another poster say they could lie and get away with it when asked a question, and when pressed to answer the question, lied in a way that was obvious to anyone paying attention. These posters were not posting while lib, quite the opposite in fact. Neither has been probed. Right now, unless it's undeniable, e.g. admitting you're a troll, no action is taken. This, I think, needs to change. C) I see a problem with threadbans and forumbans, although until there's support from admins and Jeffrey to implement much longer probes or permas, thread/forumbans are all we got. The problem I see with thread/forumbans is that different forums often have threads on the same topic. D&D and GBS both have COVID and China threads and, although there are different emphases on what information is discussed, the posting culture of the threads in each forum isn't that different. I say this because right now if a poster gets threadbanned or forumbanned from one, they can just move their lovely posts to the other. Now, ideally, they would eventually be threadbanned again, but 1) we know that their posting on that topic sucks already, 2) this creates a perverse incentive where posters can just go to the least strict parent (so to speak) and plead to continue posting badly, which ultimately means their posting on the whole doesn't improve at all. I realize this only applies to a limited number of threads that share topics with GBS or SAL or whatnot, but it's nonetheless a weakness of the threadban system that should be addressed. One solution (the simplest one and the easiest to implement and the one most consistent with the history of SA moderation) is to just bring back long probes and permas for bad posting. If that's not an option, open a channel with the GBS mods to share information about who got threadbanned from threads with shared topics, and why, so IKs and mods know to be on the lookout. D&D and CSPAM mods already share a discord, so I assume they do this already. D) There was a lot of discussion about tweets early in the thread. My long-standing position has been that hot takes by twitter nobodies should be banned (if you agree with the hot take, just say it yourself) and summaries of all other tweets should be required, but I see the utility in a blanket ban. A blanket ban is more consistent, easier to enforce, and avoids any possible perception of bias. If the mods go in that direction I won't complain. E) Professor Beetus posted:So no, I'm not going to ban or kick out any layperson who doesn't show up with their advanced medical degree in hand, and frankly if you have a cherished off site without the stink of the teeming masses, maybe that's a better place for you to post anyway. No one is asking for credentialing. That opens the door to doxxing and I'd rather just not. There has been a long-running issue in D&D with field experts getting run off SA because they don't tow the party line or due to general disdain for people knowledgeable in that subject (see the spat about economists a few feedback threads ago), among other things. I just really hope you're not insinuating what it sounds like you are, because if you are insinuating that, then you're part of the problem. F) This is my most important point. The vast majority of people who post in the USNews and related threads regularly don't post to wage forums wars or treat the threads like some ideological battleground. They post to discuss and share information about politics and policy and law. I understand threads outside the USNews sphere have the same posting culture. The "Debate" in Debate and Discussion, in other words, implies a much more adversarial atmosphere than exists here most of the time, and certainly a much more hostile atmosphere than posters actually want. I don't know if moving the forum under the GBS umbrella (as was suggested) is really necessary. However, rebranding back to Current Events, or (if getting new art for the website and app is not currently feasible) replacing Debate with another word, like Discourse or Dialogue or Digression (or whatever) seems like a good way to present ourselves. Hopefully a title that reflects the culture of the place will signal to people how to post before they go full aggro.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:21
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 04:09 |
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fool of sound posted:There's a reason I've made "getting people to make and post in more threads" a goal for the last year or so. There's also a reason prior crops of D&D mods have tried to kill off USpol in various ways. Having a single all encompassing thunderdome thread for the US produces worse discussion than focused threads and is bad for educational utility and accessibility of the forum in general. However, there are a lot of D&D lurkers who read USpol/news as a sort of curated news feed plus editorial section, and who are extremely adamant about keeping it around. The transition to USnews, alongside the new thread-thread and the loosening of traditional D&D OP expectations was supposed to give both us and users more space for focused threads, without the usual cry of "oh and is six pages of arguing about vaping not US Politics??" but we lost a bunch of IKs and mods shortly after the transition and it never really took.
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Oct 26, 2021 22:27
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Jesus man why not a thank you before you just poo poo all over it.
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Oct 27, 2021 05:02
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Cease to Hope posted:wait does this mean we need to give the modship to an obsessive murderous freak who immediately falls into a volcano
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Oct 28, 2021 01:01
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fool of sound posted:I would however encourage people to write useful report reasons instead of little sarcastic messages.
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Oct 28, 2021 04:02
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The Shortest Path posted:I find that the report explanation field isn't nearly long enough to give good explanations, most of the time. And PMing a mod to expand on a report reason feels weird unless it's something really serious.
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Oct 28, 2021 04:08
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Ytlaya posted:It's pretty ironic how you're accusing me of being dismissive, while proceeding to condescendingly insult the other thread way more than I did the polls thread (which I didn't even insult at all, aside from commenting on who comprised its posters!). Do you really not see the irony here? And it's not like "posting a recent poll" is more substantive or usefully informative. It's just the exact same "reacting to stuff in the news" posting (which also occurred in the other General Election thread). Hell, you're the one who likes to complain about people just reacting to tweets, but that's functionally the exact same thing. It's not like some random poll from a presidential election is high-brow serious journalism that can drive any sort of fruitful discussion. It was just window dressing for chatting about the latest election events and drama (which is basically what both threads were doing, only with one having more arguments). Epinephrine fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Oct 29, 2021 |
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Oct 29, 2021 14:31
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Given that some posters have enough disposable income to spend more on avs than I've ever earned in a two week period, and enough disposable income to give away 10x that amount to other causes at the same time, I'd rather not see avs weaponized. Seems like a fast path to giving rich users an easy way to push out poor ones.
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Oct 29, 2021 17:25
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I'm still very much concerned that going back to the old days where each new thing would get its own thread is no longer viable in the long term. Here's what I do when I want to check the forums: 1) I log in. 2) I click User Control Panel to see whether any of the threads I care about have new posts. 3) If I do, I choose a thread and read the new posts. 4) Eventually I get bored and do something else. Maybe, if I still want to read and discuss things before I move on to something else, I check the forum page, but this usually doesn't happen. And I'm sure I am not unique in this. This situation naturally favors megathreads over smaller threads on topics because megathreads are the first thing read and because any new thread, not being on the User Control Panel, and given that people don't always see the forum and skip straight to the thread, will not be seen by anyone who follows the workflow above. I suggested earlier in the year having a thread that links to new threads, but that really hasn't been used, possibly because people don't know the thread exists because its not in their User Control Panel.
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Oct 30, 2021 03:33
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Deteriorata posted:
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Oct 30, 2021 05:03
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 04:09 |
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I can't think of a better way to end this thread.
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Oct 31, 2021 03:46
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