|
My feeling is it would be nice if there were more IKs/Mods so there could be a more continuous presence of mods in contentious threads, and more mods/iks available to show up in quiet threads that suddenly get contentious when news drops or someone makes a post that suddenly sparks discussion. Additionally mod engagement helps keep people be on their best behaviour, and generally a is a little freer in how they can engage with a problematic poster. In general following from the above, I've noticed that moderation decisions seems to be inconsistent, there doesn't really in practice seem to be a common set of shared principles as to when buttons are used. In my experience different mods tell me different things and then within days or weeks later it feels like what then happens in practice will sometimes wildly differ from what I was told. And when this affects you this sort of environment can feel kafkaesque. One idea I have, that doesn't really relate to the above though, is that I think some people can feel frustrated when making reports and nothing seems to happen and its unclear if the report was seen, or slipped through the cracks or if it was decided not to act on it etc. The lack of transparency about reports and their effectiveness I think can be a part of the problem in how people approach bad posting. I see two possible suggestions for this, (1) the Mods proactively reach out to posters to inform them if they decided not to act on a report, but levels with them the reasons why and tries to better educate them what would be actionable. (2) Or the mods can say once a week do something like go through a selection of reports and then comment on them on why they were or were not actionable and what people can generally do to improve; while stripping out the identifyable information for both the post that was reported or the person who made the report. I also think there should be a greater explicit allowance for devil's advocacy arguments; the poster making them should of course make it clear that they're playing devil's advocate since all discussion should be voluntary; and reframe from being tedious or trolling as a result. However I think a discussion forum is presumably for people who find it interesting to have discussion and sometimes this requires someone like in a debate club, takes the unpopular position in order to insure a spirited debate. Most importantly this serves a useful purpose in making sure popular positions have been properly vetted and any implications or ramifications have been considered. e to add: vvvvvv The post below me is very interesting. What I'd suggest is that maybe we don't need to rebrand, but perhaps the mods can setup specialized Debate threads which are locked when the debate is concluded with a parallel discussion thread for observation and commentary. Posters are selected to engage in a debate; perhaps a mix of volunteer and being randomly assigned; participation is given a reward (free AV? Custom star?) and are on schedule to post their arguments in an organized debate format, and you're encouraged to stick within a word limit in lieu of a time limit. Opening arguments, rebuttals, closing arguments ala standardized formal debate. e2: To build off of my previous suggestion, maybe actually have forum wide ranging stakes for these more formal debates, like the losers of the debate can't bring up the topic again for a month. Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Oct 24, 2021 |
#
¿
Oct 23, 2021 19:17
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 22:39 |
|
|
A Maine Paineframe says I think short derails on innocuous stuff like food tends to be fun chill "eye of the storm" moments and I enjoy them in the forums scrolling equivalent of listening to a radio or podcast; never know when I might wanna perk up and be like "Hey I know this cool thing about pizza, did you know it was made in Italy?" and get my 2 slices in before something news worthy comes up or we get asked to stop the derail. I think these sorts of derails can be useful in letting people cool off their crusts after a particularly contentious argument. Anyways, I'd like to repeat a point I made which was something I had edited into my original post but since it was an edit maybe it was missed because I think it was said "Almost no one is suggesting bringing back debates" and well, I did, I happened it up. Where that could serve a slightly more productive version of "Take it to a new thread" is rather than expect users to volunteer to make a thread about a specific topic they were arguing tediously over; they get issued mod challenges to debate out the issue, people are allowed to volunteer to be their second on a team and the debate takes place in another thread; winner gets a free AV. As for the broader issue of contentious tedious arguments I think a big issue often comes to many posters just having widely irreconcilable differences in their operating paradigms/ideology. If one person thinks everything is because of class struggle and someone else doesn't think that, there's kinda no point to the argument because often neither person is willing to accept the other person's premise and its often unfun and unfair and too much work to have to for the sake of the argument accept that premise or break it down in order to respond to the root causes of the argument as it underlies it when the other side possibly is either not willing to do the same or feels that their ideology is morally correct and even considering seeing things from the other point of view is just entirely unacceptable. For example when discussing video games, I am willing to acknowledge and respect the side of the argument that is arguing from the idea "All art is political because all art is influences by the pre-existing social context" because its a pretty reasonable framework, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it when discussing a work where I just don't see those political or pre-contextual inferences; the minimum for both people is to respect that there's an underlying difference in frameworks and to keep an open mind about those differences and how they might not be reconciliable. Going into a discussion to declare Final Fantasy 7 can only be viewed from the lends of climate change and late stage capitalism and no other lens is valid and insists on discussing every micro-element of FF7 from their predetermined lens is needlessly antagonistic and that's my analogy for why so many arguments become tedious and overly wrong where even if like in the FF7 example I agree with them it is an uninteresting discussion and sometimes I might want to discuss something new about it because we're on a internet forum and taking about FF7 in a different lens is not going to make climate change worse or uphold the power structures enabling capitalism. I don't know how you can force people to be more tolerant of disagreement; if you are honestly convinced that climate change is going to kill us all and that every second of delay, inaction, or discussion is tantamount of making it happen; some people do feel that there is a moral imperative to act and lash out at targets within reach. I wish more people kept the categorical imperative in mind because an pro-life abortion activist is going to be just as convinced about the rightness of their cause and that it justifies their acts and if you get to live in your world where you can act on what you consider to be the prevalent moral imperative well so do people who you view as abhorrent. That's what it means to be tolerant on some level; and why many liberals tend to believe in things like processes and structures; so the people who feel the most strongly about one thing or another stay at opposite sides of the table and behave because the first one to pull the trigger on their believes will end up lighting the table on fire. That's why I favour having more mods and more IKs, to keep discussion flowing, to engage in discussions to try to defuse them, to give an outlet so the contentious discussions that go on for too long can be diffused when they've run their course; to give people encouragement to post better and more tolerantly. And well if people refuse to be tolerant, that their ideas are the only correct and morally right ideas, well you have the ones who are stubborn and the discussion just goes nowhere, and those who are assholes; the latter should be discouraged more pointedly; and at least in the former the discussion should probably just be put on hold or shunted off to Debate Thunderdome if they care so much about it because at least there's something in it for people to engage them, a bright light, a prize at the end of the tunnel. In short, in a conflict between people who care, and people who do not care; I think that's a crux of the problem, because you can never make someone who doesn't care to care about something; and you can't make someone who does care very strongly pretend to not care just to be polite. I think recognize the root problem might proffer a plausible workable solution.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2021 00:14
|
|
|
A Excel spreadsheet that's like the Postinomicon/Adminomicon/Modinomicon(??? Still workshopping this) that's like a central compedium of modmin notes on problematic users, current thread/forum bans, and perhaps an automated tool like a spreadsheet formula to track ramps and probes would be a useful tool. I also think you could probably set up a JIRA server to accept reports/probes via redirects to create automated tickets for a much smoother workflow for responding to reports and tracking probes/actions etc would also be useful but would take more specialized expertese to make work. JIRA has the bonus that with integration you could probably let posts get reported more than once as a means of determining priority (and to avoid this being gamed by people abusing this; once a report ticket is set to CLOSED/In progress/Etc that additional reports do nothing as its been seen.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2021 00:32
|
|
|
IIRC the mods have said only a tiny number of people abuse the report button; like a couple and they get chewed out for it. The forum just generates a lot of reports from a lot of people.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2021 01:02
|
|
|
I feel that the suggestion to ban conservative view points is just opening pandora's box by giving ammo to the posters with the most extreme viewpoints to redefine moderate views as "conservative" in order to demand mod enforcement action on beliefs or positions they disagree with. I think the core to a lot of the conflict here is that for a good chunk of people they are not able to respect the opinions they disagree with. Most people here agree (as do I) that universal non-means tested government programs are good policy; but this is not a majority view among people in real life. And many people to a varying degree of education on the topic, will have concerns and opposing view points and it should be possible to respectfully Discuss and Disagree with those views in a respectful manner. Because what if they have a good point? People should want to strive for the optimal solution and not just the right solution.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2021 16:46
|
|
|
I don't know currently if its still the rule to not really respond to people; if it is I apologize as I'd like to respond.Elephant Ambush posted:People who call themselves "moderate" are actually conservative. Sorry. And conservatives have never ever had a good point. That question was answered a long time ago. But if they never had a good point, it should be easy to defend your position with words, and to attack their position with those words and it should be equally clear to the audience who is the most right. If you want a place to just essentially quote-retweet an effort post with "lol" that's what twitter is for; can't you just not engage? Otherwise it just seems like you're grasping at straws to find the most trivial fig leafs to dismiss someone's argument that they spent time and effort into crafting without any effort because you believe your opinion is inherently self-evidently right that you do not feel that there is a need to defend it. Like it doesn't matter if some poster here doesn't seem to "agree" with you on some solution, no one here is implementing policy; what happens in Washington DC will happen regardless of whatever consensus you force to happen here. If they don't agree either keep arguing with the hopes of getting them to see it your way or just drop it, why codify nastiness towards people you just have disagreements with?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2021 17:42
|
|
|
TheDisreputableDog posted:But it wasn’t a suggestion, it was a statement from Jeffrey that conservative viewpoints as a whole aren’t welcome here. quote:Serious feedback - codify Jeffrey’s comment in the QCS thread that conservative viewpoints aren’t allowed here into the actual rules at the top of the forum. Always seemed to be an unwritten rule, and it seems like the fairest thing for moderators and the community alike to just address openly. That kinda sounds like a suggestion to me about a change in D&D's rule; and I believe Jeffrey was speaking in terms of making an observation about the fact that if someone identifies as conservative and then posts conservative arguments they are running on a timer until they're either driven out or kicked out. Presumably plenty of conservatives do exist on the forums, they just don't post and D&D has been kinda worse for it as it just lead to infighting among people who agree on 90% of things. It also a bit problematic because clearly some part of the forum is offencive to people on different parts of the forums. Whether its GBS, FYAD, CSPAM, TFR, or ADTWR; drama between some combination of forums that isn't specifically D&D and CSPAM do happen with the sentiment being "This content that is normal in that community is offencive and should not be on these forums". Like I don't think Jeffrey is saying "Ban all Republicans", only that de facto they currently might as well be because they can't abide by all the other rules that already exist; which I believe there's a distinction between that and actually making it a rule. Because the minute you do make it a rule someone will absolutely weaponize it against mainstream Liberal beliefs; which has already happened: quote:People who call themselves "moderate" are actually conservative. Sorry.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2021 18:55
|
|
|
TheDisreputableDog posted:Oh yeah, sorry I misunderstood you. Right, if this is the reality as stated by the owner, seems like a no brainer to update the rules to reflect that. Unless the fig leaf of “open debate” is still something that holds water here. I am pretty sure the entire point of this feedback thread is how to best uphold the ideal of open honest debate. Like I don't think it helps the posters who feel far left views aren't allowed to make it easier to gatekeep what ideas are allowed. Jeffrey posted above what I think is meant to mean that acknowledging that something is the case is not the same thing as stating that it is a policy; which I don't think means we should be jumping to codify it; only to keep it in mind. The Shortest Path posted:It's an America-centric perspective but a very true one in that context. When the two "sides" in american politics are the fiscally and socially far-right republicans and the fiscally conservative, socially slightly-left-of-center democrats, a "moderate" between those two is a conservative. You shouldn't be able to try to box people into easily dismissed boxes when debating with them; that's all this is about. Bel Shazar posted:So I think in this scenario it really matters what your intentions are in the debate. It's possible to run out the clock with rhetoric and I would be happy to see that slapped down quickly. As long as peoples rhetoric is backed up by an elaborated argument that can be engaged with I'm not sure the problem that you speak of. If someone's rhetoric makes their argument unclear and obtuse that should be what moderation is for to ask people to better elucidate their arguments so others don't have to jump through hoops for "access" to their argument.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 28, 2021 19:24
|
|
|
On the other hand there is a danger of defining too narrow a definition; I like that there are a variety of threads with different tones, rules, and content under the umbrella of a broad mission statement. I'm not sure why we can't have both more serious threads and less serious threads; the main thing about respectful discussion is the level of "seriousness" shouldn't change how you treat people.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2021 04:01
|
|
|
Gumball Gumption posted:So you don't want too narrow a definition but do want them to stick to a standard of how you treat people? I'm I misunderstanding? How would you define treating people than? Any set of rules will get calvinballed; you're never going to have a set of rules so clear that you won't need moderators to make difficult calls. Which suggests to me that its a false choice to make in addition to being a completely unnecessary one. The idea that D&D needs to either be the serious or "unserious" forum, these are false choices. Like I feel that your "video games and politics are the same" is a unfair comparison, first of all because all art is political and video games are art so video games are works of political expression and are important vehicles for contextualizing modern political questions. Additionally the AAA video game industry as a whole and the kinds of games being made are litigating important political questions regarding social justice, like the fight for more inclusiveness in video games and more accessibility in gaming and gaming spaces. The alt-right exists on the internet as it does because of the ease they have in infiltrating hobby spaces which shapes the conversation. The mission statement or variations of it that's been posted a bunch of times seems pretty clear to me; don't be an rear end in a top hat; this is a place for discussion and not for winning an argument; people should be able to click on a thread on an arbitrary page and learn something new; many threads exist currently that's pretty close to this, the Space Thread for instance, the Energy Generation thread for another. And these threads and others exists along a spectrum of chillness to seriousness with mods intervening only somewhat. As I've suggested already I think the best way to foster an attitude where people Who Care About Things really want to get into the thick of it maybe the mods should just issue mod challenges for particularly contentious arguments for people to make a thunderdome debate thread to hash it out, winner gets a free AV. You can have forum whose atmosphere exists along a spectrum; because at its core the point of a discussion thread is the expectation of (a) interest, (b) effort, (c) knowledge. You can have discussion where as long as they have all three things can be chill to more stern, the key is people be respectful, to be tolerant of disagreement. And if you can't be tolerant, if you can't be respectful; then don't engage and move on. The problem isn't that there's people who exist in a space who want something "unserious" with those who are "serious", the contention seems to be the standard in which tolerance is to be set; where you seem to be suggesting that we decide whether to be intolerant of either serious discussion, or intolerant of unserious discussion and I think we should be tolerant of both.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2021 04:53
|
|
|
D&D is overwhelmingly leftist, I'm on the left, the idea everyone in D&D is just a liberal tut-tut'ing leftists is a persistent myth. I don't really quite think there is a "hostile thread consensus" problem in USPol or D&D as a whole; most of the time if someone repeats something that other posters disagree with, they just disagree; usually politely; there tends to be more friction if its a talking point; I'm not quite sure what is expected but if someone obviously untrue or something that is more widely by the thread believed to be untrue but wrapped in some fig leaf of leftist theory like "The earth is flat and to believe otherwise is a lie told by capitalistic airliner companies" you are probably going to get more pushback in proportion to how obviously incredulous the claim is but anyone who is abusive about it is usually quickly slapped by the mods. If a lot of people disagree with you, a lot of people are going to voice their disagreement, with a more exasperated tone when its more of a talking point and less merely a misinformed opinion. The closest time there was a problem was the one time someone wanted to talk about ancient astronauts or UFOs in the Space Thread which I thought was an interesting conversation to read. Another example of a enforced cease fire is the de facto rule of "no relitigating the primaries" since it invariable becomes a slapfight between people who walk into a thread and state "The DNC rigged the primaries for Biden" and people who disagree with that assessment; a majority of people who tend to post in USPol disagree with that; the moderation deciding people should just drop it isn't in particularly protecting the thread consensus, but are doing so because the arguments about it quickly cease to be productive or civil.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2021 17:57
|
|
|
Semicolons can, where comma's and periods; cannot. I did not say that everyone in D&D has the same ideology; nor are there no substantial differences between ideologies. There are however extremely wide amount of variety in left-wing ideologies of which I believe D&D consists of a wide variety of posters and posting ideologies; such that I think its improbable that the statement "D&D is full of liberals" can be true. However I think its important to note that never have I seen someone's claim "Oh I'm not a liberal, I'm a leftist" actually be examined or challenged, as that would be inconvenient; I instead always see the claim go "D&D is full of liberals", no one really gets the chance to dispute such a wide ranging generalization beyond the relatively tame "D&D is not full of liberals"; no one can really challenge it beyond "I don't think that's true" since no one can really speak of anyone other than themselves. Also I didn't say I was a leftist I said I was "on the left", I'm more of a humanist as Isaac Asimov was; which is progressive but not necessarily a leftist philosophy. I do not care if the cat is white or black as long as it catches mice. Broadly speaking I think the vast majority of D&D's posters are at a minimum critical of capitalism, believe in egalitarian conceptual structures, that massive economic reforms are needed, and in social justice. I think that's a pretty wide overlap in the venn-diagram in goon opinions that have commonality with leftist beliefs in terms of concrete policy goals. I think the claim, "D&D is full of liberals" is at best, a kind of appeal to authority in how its used, and generally seems more to do with the willingness of some posters to want to discuss the details more and not just accept a position that a leftist or marxist lens of that issue would at face value provide. The claim is always this absurd overgeneralization of an entire userbase and always seems to be conveniently whoever is disagreeing with you and always seems to come paired up with the general desire to be able to "push back" against the liberals who were already conveniently defined to be basically anyone who mainly posts in D&D, it's all very circular in its usage and specific to these forums and doesn't seem to reflect real life politics or any kind of academic understanding of political philosophy at all. As Fool of Sound notes its used in a very tribalistic way, I don't think the distinction between being a liberal or being a leftist has actually ever been critically examined on these forums by anyone in years as its been appropriated towards tribal disputes.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2021 20:33
|
|
|
Its not at odds with the rules to assume good faith to point out when bad faith happens in the appropriate context; the point of the rule is to not have people attempt to weaponize accusations of bad faith to win arguments; just as some people are also saying labels like liberal or leftist also shouldn't be likewise weaponized to score points. It isn't that you can never at any point think someone is not being earnest or honest in their position, nor is it I think universally the case you can never call out someone as being bad faith; but that the grounds for such thinking and claims should be considerable, not trivial, not flippant and easily prone to challenge, or obviously a result of NaCI. The job of moderators is to try to keep on eye for things so people with interesting but unpopular positions can get their chance to make their argument and people who are trolling get the boot without it derailing the thread. A Buttery Pastry posted:Like, I don't have a problem with "taking them seriously but not literally" in this case  Koos Group posted:Depends on what audience. I already said I like gearing D&D toward people who are already fairly experienced in internet arguments and would enjoy something at a higher level that doesn't repeat so many things they've heard before. But I'm absolutely against tailoring it to any particular political group. Part of the problem, either explicitly or implicitly, is that trying to make the forums "not cater to a specific group" has been in of itself criticized as being de facto favouring of liberal positions because it implies there is still a debate between capitalism and socialism.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2021 21:03
|
|
|
The CIA thing is interesting because the best places to discuss topics like that currently in practice tend not to be D&D or CSPAM, like LatwPiat's recent effort post in TFR is the kind of post that's not really possible or all that welcome by a vocal minority of posters in D&D, but in a completely different subforum these posts get made by passionate interested people and actual discussion that's really interesting can actually happen.Koos Group posted:Alright, but if you'll forgive my language, that's stupid as hell and not something to seriously consider when discussing the future of the forum. Right, but that's the argument that keeps happening.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2021 21:15
|
|
|
BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:Hm? Nothing about that post looks like it wouldn't be welcome in D&D. CSPAM wouldn't give a poo poo because nobody who regularly posts in CSPAM is going to bother to effortpost on the validity of a very specific book about a very specific topic when the takehome is "the CIA didn't do a horrible thing," but there have been a good number of history effortposts in both forums. I didn't say it wouldn't be welcome in D&D; but like the Media Literacy thread, someone going for a more in depth and nuanced analysis of the organization will result in ruffled feathers. Bishyaler posted:I thought my point of "D&D will never be a calm debate space due to the innate hostility between leftists and liberals" was going to be harder to prove, but then we had liberals falling over themselves to defend the legitimacy of an organization which kills leftists. We even had one poster concoct a scenario to get mad about where he imagined that I would say "gently caress joe biden for not dismantling it yesterday". I think this is a pretty good example of a fairly toxic post; because it isn't quoting or responding to anyone in particular; its referring to an overly broad generalization of posting enemies without being specific; it's misrepresenting the views of some of the powers, and seems to have settled on the most uncharitable interpretation of an exchange; and then did all of this in order to grand stand and engage in oppression olympics as the implied accusation here is their posting enemies are fine with harm being inflicted to their in-group. e: Thorn Wishes Talon posted:The poster you're quoting was banned from D&D after this absolutely psycho post: That post TWT quotes is exactly why my hackles rise whenever some posters try to gatekeep who is or isn't on the left, for that reason. Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Oct 30, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2021 21:34
|
|
|
Bishyaler posted:So what's worse, the real actual violence carried out by the CIA or the imagined violence in my head? I'm going with the first one. Are Mensheviks, "capitalist roaders" and Trots also only in your head?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2021 21:50
|
|
|
A question I suppose it prompts is what disagreement is (a) ideologically insurmountable (b) that the majority of D&D holds and (c) Justifies labelling the majority of the users Liberals? (d) Why does this difference matter in regards to moderation? (e) Why does this difference mean respectful discussion can't happen? If the criticism of the claim that most users agree on 80% of things papers over insurmountable differences then what are they?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2021 22:40
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 22:39 |
|
|
I think a nice to have feature that could be implemented to somewhat alleviate to the "if a troll tolls under a bridge but no one is there to cross it, did the troll toll at all?" question might be to have visible only to mods in every post a couple of numbers: "This user is ignored by 361 users who have posted in this forum in the past 30 days. This post was not visible to 107 unique users who saw this post out of 809 users." With maybe the background colour of their posts turning a darker green the less people capable of seeing it don't see it but only to moderators so they know to keep on eye on them during the discussions they're in and not just scroll past them because no one is reporting them.Probably Magic posted:My deeply important thing to say to close out this thread is this: Raenir, I'm changing my, "Check out Fena: Pirate Princess because I don't know what to think of it," to, "Check out Fena: Pirate Princess because it's hilarious." If you like Fate, I imagine you'll have some patience for its goofiness. That is all. Thanks! If I have time, I started watching it but stopped because sometimes I'm afraid to commit to good shows because I'm afraid of that feeling of withdrawal I get when the show ends. 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2021 00:00
|
|