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cinci zoo sniper
Mar 15, 2013




Jaxyon posted:

I thought you were going to quote your uses of the "fresh argument" rule?

Or was that just you saying you weren't going to quote anything and you were 100% right in all usages so you need give no examples?

You seem to think that mods deliberately issue probations where they denote reasons that they deem inapplicable, which would be a very odd thing to do. Similarly odd is to expect a conversation about alleged problem probations to happen, when no problem probations are offered up for a discussion.

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cinci zoo sniper
Mar 15, 2013




Fister Roboto posted:

I did exactly that. I PMd you specifically, not just to ask why I was probated, but why the other poster hadn't been probated for being a caustic, condescending rear end in a top hat and also posting about posters. I did what you told me to do and nothing happened.

Looking up, I remember that conversation. Your subsequent 3 reports were processed by a moderator other than me, who offered a specific comment for why no action was taken. I'll ping them with the specific report, but it's not up to me to say who that was, or to share their reasoning on my own. They aren't obligated to chime in either, but you're always welcome to PM Koos about this - they'll know which reports you're asking about.

Jaxyon
Mar 7, 2016
I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

You seem to think that mods deliberately issue probations where they denote reasons that they deem inapplicable, which would be a very odd thing to do. Similarly odd is to expect a conversation about alleged problem probations to happen, when no problem probations are offered up for a discussion.

I'm sorry I thought your offer to take accountability was was real, my mistake.

Koos Group
Mar 6, 2013

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

last time we had one of these the moderators had to be carefully walked through why giving money to openly fascist groups was bad, this time we just had to remind one that calling something a gay disease on the basis that it seemed like one to him was bad

progress is being made

only thing i'd raise is the 'tired argument' probes not being paired to 'tired assertion' probes making the issue with them clear: if repeating something you know is contentious is fine, but disagreeing with it isn't, the thing being punished isn't being 'tired,' it's disputing the subject in question.

if bringing up a tired point is acceptable, and rebutting it isn't, you are moderating positions and then pretending you aren't to avoid backlash. either equalize punishment or abandon the pretense.

I've thought about this nuance before, and I agree with you that the rule shouldn't be enforced that way. It should be the opposite. Bringing up a stale argument out of nowhere is worse than responding with one. Or at least, a rebuttal should be judged by how often it's been used for a specific purpose, whereas a bare assertion stands on its own.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

there are absolutely subjects where that's the right call. see, for example, the immediately punished Lets Debate: Are Moderators Subhuman thread, which explained to moderators why certain subjects are not up for debate far better than any well-reasoned argument could. but claiming that thread was shut down for being a 'tired argument' would be a transparent exercise in eliding the actual reason.

As I mentioned in the previous feedback thread, that thread was closed because it was not making its argument honestly or directly. It was, as you say, satire. You could have a thread about qualities of moderators, it would just need to go beyond the scope of SA to something educational, such as a rigorous sociological and psychological analysis (or creative philosophical analysis) of people who accept or pursue internet power in general. Regardless, that decision didn't have anything to do with the stale argument rule one way or the other other.

VitalSigns posted:

Is it?

How is it different from now? Currently if people want to know what is a 'stale' argument they would have to read a bunch of threads and take note of which arguments get punished. Or find out their argument has been judged stale by having a probation dropped on them without warning. And how are new posters supposed to navigate this rule. D&D always gets new people when an election comes around, are they supposed to go through the archives making notes on stale arguments before they post? If a newcomer posts something mods are tired of hearing and get 6 hours off are they going to come back?

Why not warn someone before you probe a stale argument for the first time? Just reply to them in the thread with something like what Koos said above: that arguing, say, one of the two major political parties is ineffectual is a stale argument and from now on should be considered risky. Then you could just note that somewhere (perhaps a post in the rules thread) so everyone knows which arguments have the stale warning applied.

If simply documenting the 'objective' criteria you're already using to punish people anyway is going to make you look like a "Ministry of Truth", then what does that say about the rule and the way it's being enforced?

The easiest ways to avoid making a stale argument are to keep the argument specific, rebutting the particular points someone has made in a way that likely hasn't been done before, or to only make arguments you yourself haven't heard before. It's very unlikely something you thought of yourself will, by sheer coincidence, be considered a stale point because someone else happened to come up with it on the board as well. Usually the guideline hits very common talking points or, as Cinci implies, arguments people in this particular forum are sick of, meaning the people who make them are aware of how many times they've occurred.

VitalSigns posted:

Can I cite Koos' post in the subject itt?

I can't help but notice that the reverse argument "Democrats are effectual" is not mentioned. But it would seem to me that if "not-A" is a stale argument then "A" is as well, right? So are we supposed to infer from this that "Democrats are effectual" is also a stale argument? (The evidence doesn't support it, I have not seen anyone making that argument get probated even though it pops up over and over, but if I'm wrong it should be a simple matter for a mod to show where they've punished it).

I mean, surely it can't be the case that posting "A" is fine, but disagreeing is risky and if you don't manage to disagree in a way that's novel to whatever mod reads the report complaining that someone disagreed with "A" then you get punished. Because that does seem like moderating positions if, as YMB says, someone can affirm one side of the argument without issue but those who disagree have to choose between letting it stand unchallenged, finding a novel rebuttal every time, or getting punished for repeating a rebuttal that had been made before.

Yes. If someone made a post saying "the Democrats are effectual" and nothing else, that would be a stale argument. More realistically, if someone busted into a thread to say "you should vote for the Democrats, they know how to get things done by reaching across the aisle, and they're better than the alternative," without any further support, that would also be a stale argument.

TheDisreputableDog
Oct 13, 2005
I’m not sure how the “serious posts only” rule snuck in, but it’s terrible and should be rescinded. The rules used to explicitly define humor as a cornerstone of SA in general, and any community without the ability to crack a joke is going to hate itself.

Cranappleberry
Jan 27, 2009

Flying-PCP posted:

I think falsifiability should be a big factor in whether an argument is 'stale' or not, if that makes sense.

an excellent idea!

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004

Jaxyon posted:

I'm sorry I thought your offer to take accountability was was real, my mistake.

Even if we find examples of you probing one side bit not the other for staleness, you'll just deflect and blame another mystery mod for lack of action. So convenient

Professor Beetus
Apr 12, 2007

They can fight us
But they'll never Beetus

TheDisreputableDog posted:

I’m not sure how the “serious posts only” rule snuck in, but it’s terrible and should be rescinded. The rules used to explicitly define humor as a cornerstone of SA in general, and any community without the ability to crack a joke is going to hate itself.

I'm not sure that you need to worry about that since your posts are always hilarious.

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

cinci zoo sniper posted:

Looking up, I remember that conversation. Your subsequent 3 reports were processed by a moderator other than me, who offered a specific comment for why no action was taken. I'll ping them with the specific report, but it's not up to me to say who that was, or to share their reasoning on my own. They aren't obligated to chime in either, but you're always welcome to PM Koos about this - they'll know which reports you're asking about.

This is another big problem, and it feeds into the lack of transparency. All the mods don't seem to be on the same page, they all have different ways of doing things. Like, that alone should be proof that the rules are being applied arbitrarily.

Koos Group
Mar 6, 2013
There are a few things I feel I should clarify.

First, the difference between stale arguments and common positions. You don't need to have some sort of contrarian ideology where you are the only person who holds the views you advocate for. Whether argumentation is fresh is about how you advocate for your views. What particular points you make to show something is true or false, good or bad; not whether others have also expressed the thing is true or false or good or bad.

Second, if you feel mods are using gudielines to punish things they disagree with, that is a problem with the mods, not the guidelines. Mods aren't bound by the specific guidelines; they can already punish anything they feel is damaging or failing to add to discussion. Leaving room for mod judgement is necessary for unforeseen circumstances and to prevent rules lawyering, and has been the norm across SA for the entirety of its existence. Trying to come up with rules so careful they are capable of transforming bad mods into good mods is what leads to word filter moderation. If you believe a mod is punishing people for having views they disagree with, your recourse is to PM me and demonstrate it. I will explain to them why a diversity of views is so vital to discussion, then if it continues I will warn them, then if it still continues I will demod them.

Fritz the Horse
Dec 26, 2019

... of course!

Fister Roboto posted:

A couple weeks ago I got in an argument with another poster. I accused them of making a stale argument, and ironically I got probated for "posting about posters" (this is another extremely arbitrary rule). Lots of other people were probated responding to them. I talked to another mod about it, asked why none of the other poster's posts were probateable when they was doing the exact same thing. I was told to report the posts, and I did, and nothing ever came of it. So yeah, just based on what I can see, it seems pretty arbitrary.

Fister Roboto posted:

I did exactly that. I PMd you specifically, not just to ask why I was probated, but why the other poster hadn't been probated for being a caustic, condescending rear end in a top hat and also posting about posters. I did what you told me to do and nothing happened.

Was this the exchange with Discendo Vox in Politoons about a cartoon being gaslighting? June 27-28th? If so I handled some of those reports and also had a PM exchange with you.

My recollection is that cinci issued probes for some reports in that conversation, then later on when I was active I chose to respond in-thread. My post was not a ruling "in favor" of Discendo Vox, in fact I posted his use of "gaslighting" didn't really seem to fit the dictionary definition and asked folks to drop the line of discussion.

My PM to you was explaining that different mods have somewhat different approaches or styles. For example, I don't give out 6ers all that often and typically choose to respond in-thread if a discussion is still ongoing to see if I can steer it back on course or just ask it be dropped if it's not productive.

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004
So mods inclined to probe leftists come on and do that then less aggressive mods come in and forgive centrists
The system works

Koos Group
Mar 6, 2013

TheDisreputableDog posted:

I’m not sure how the “serious posts only” rule snuck in, but it’s terrible and should be rescinded. The rules used to explicitly define humor as a cornerstone of SA in general, and any community without the ability to crack a joke is going to hate itself.

I should clarify further in the rules what that guideline is intended for, because making jokes isn't the main thing it's attempting to prevent. It's to stop posts that are knowingly not making their point rigorously, or only doing it halfheartedly so they don't have to defend it, and then often using humor as an excuse. If you make a joke that isn't actually sneaking in a point, or one that we find genuinely funny (as it already states), the rule doesn't apply.

AnimeIsTrash
Jun 30, 2018

I think D&D is in a really good spot right now, it's probably the best subforum on the forums. The only thing i'd really change is add another mod selected from the most normal politics guys on this subforum.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006

Harold Fjord posted:

So mods inclined to probe leftists come on and do that then less aggressive mods come in and forgive centrists
The system works

in fairness, the last few times a moderator suspected of cspam sympathies was modded the maxes-out-reports-daily crew absolutely lost their minds, so it makes sense that modern moderation is about attempting to appease those people

Koos Group
Mar 6, 2013
We have our first anonymous post:

Anonymous Poster A posted:

lol, lmao

Not quite what I was hoping for.

Fritz the Horse
Dec 26, 2019

... of course!

Harold Fjord posted:

So mods inclined to probe leftists come on and do that then less aggressive mods come in and forgive centrists
The system works

Mmm, I think it's just both ends of the ideological spectrum trying to play the refs against each other, honestly. The more liberal/centrist posters express the same frustration you do but in reverse: we don't probe or otherwise moderate leftists enough.

I believe Koos has mentioned before that one reason lefty posters get probed more is simply because there are quite a few more of them active in US CE. If I had to put numbers on it I'd guess it's about a 2:1 ratio of more left to more centrist posters, ideologically.

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Professor Beetus posted:

I mean people can get probed for either and it's just an example for illustrative purposes? If you think a post has been probed unfairly for ideologic reasons surely you can point to a clear example.

OK I have a few that come to mind that I'd have to go find, although only one that I can think of which covers this specific rule. I was going to wait a bit longer, but since all the mods are here and posting anyway

When I saw how Koos described how the rule is being applied, it was news to me, because I see this go unpunished all the time:

Koos Group posted:

For example, one can hold the position that the Democratic party is ineffectual and not worth supporting, and could make fresh arguments for this by demonstrating it rigorously with the party's current actions or historical actions that aren't widely known. It would only be stale if someone hopped in a thread to post "the Democrats are ineffectual and not worth supporting," without any support or direct connection to an ongoing conversation, because this is an idea everyone's heard.

I really do think this rule is important for the board's educational purpose. If you're reading stuff that's been said many times before because it's rudimentary, you aren't learning anything or gaining anything from D&D. It could be valuable for someone come in with some sort of common misconception and watch it be debunked, but that's why the rule is actually "fresh or falsifiable." One of the things the rule is meant to prevent is the use of boilerplate political rhetoric, because this is often by design not counterable with anything but a contradiction by other boilerplate political rhetoric.


So I decided to look and see if there was anything in the CE thread meeting these criteria but going unpunished, and it wasn't hard. I only had to go back one page to find this (this rule is applied very inconsistently)

Levitate posted:

We get these candidates because people vote for them. Most of the dem voters are still just more conservative than the lefter leaning posters here and are more willing to follow what the anointed Dem candidate is by the DNC

Seems to fit the bill. It's an argument that's been done to death, it's not saying anything new or in a novel way, occurred to everybody, it's boilerplate political rhetoric that invites a reply in kind, it isn't backed up by anything, and isn't stated in a falsifiable way. If conservative candidates must be winning because voters are conservative what more needs to be said.

Now I understand that mods don't see everything, and if a post isn't reported it's not necessarily fair to bring it up as an example of bias (at least by the mods, it may be that posters of a certain political persuasion are more litigious and report posts they disagree with more often, which is its own issue). Which is why, to ensure I found a valid example, I reported this post over eight hours ago, and cited the rules it violated: Rule II.C "fresh or falsifiable" which we're discussing now and Rule I.A.4 "the deception of posting something you don't know to be true or false as though you know it to be true" (the other incredibly subjective rule that I've noticed tends to be arbitrarily and selectively applied).

No action taken so far.

(Sorry Levitate, not trying to get you punished, I don't like reporting posts and almost never do it, just trying to make a point)

A big flaming stink
Apr 26, 2010
To be real, I don't think dnd has ever been in a worse state than it is now. If the goal of this moderation regime is to kill off this subforum for real, then you are succeeding with flying colors. Czs is frankly one of the worst mods I have ever seen and should be confined back to the Ukraine thread.

ram dass in hell
Dec 29, 2019



:420::toot::420:
any plans for you or your team to be less transphobic koos? haven't posted here in months because of it, just wondering if you all have done any reflecting or personal growth and regretted being reactionary bigots at all. cheers.

A big flaming stink
Apr 26, 2010

ram dass in hell posted:

any plans for you or your team to be less transphobic koos? haven't posted here in months because of it, just wondering if you all have done any reflecting or personal growth and regretted being reactionary bigots at all. cheers.

Yeah getting probed for politely asking LT 2012 to stop with the monkeypox poo poo is kind of sticking in my craw still

Fritz the Horse
Dec 26, 2019

... of course!

VitalSigns posted:

Which is why, to ensure I found a valid example, I reported this post over eight hours ago, and cited the rules it violated: Rule II.C "fresh or falsifiable" which we're discussing now and Rule I.A.4 "the deception of posting something you don't know to be true or false as though you know it to be true" (the other incredibly subjective rule that I've noticed tends to be arbitrarily and selectively applied).

No action taken so far.

(Sorry Levitate, not trying to get you punished, I don't like reporting posts and almost never do it, just trying to make a point)

I'll let Koos reply to your larger points, but for the specific post in question the report is sitting in the queue unresolved waiting for Leon Trotsky 2012 (or someone else) to handle it. I did glance at it but it was nothing urgent. I'm not sure if it's an explicit decision from Koos Group but we've been letting LT2012 handle much of the reports from US CE. A major reason he was asked to moderate is he's super active in the US CE thread, he's kind of a super-IK for it I guess? And report volume has gone way, way down the last week or two which is good.

But anyway, it's sitting in the queue unresolved, it hasn't been declined.

edit: LT2012 is sort of a super-IK in the sense he doesn't really post and hasn't been moderating outside of the US CE thread, he's pretty focused on that.

Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Jul 30, 2022

Koos Group
Mar 6, 2013

Fritz the Horse posted:

I'll let Koos reply to your larger points, but for the specific post in question the report is sitting in the queue unresolved waiting for Leon Trotsky 2012 (or someone else) to handle it. I did glance at it but it was nothing urgent. I'm not sure if it's an explicit decision from Koos Group but we've been letting LT2012 handle much of the reports from US CE. A major reason he was asked to moderate is he's super active in the US CE thread, he's kind of a super-IK for it I guess? And report volume has gone way, way down the last week or two which is good.

But anyway, it's sitting in the queue unresolved, it hasn't been declined.

Actually I just made that report a few minutes ago to verify that it hadn't been reported. Which itself is the reason nothing had been done about it.

Fritz the Horse
Dec 26, 2019

... of course!

Koos Group posted:

Actually I just made that report a few minutes ago to verify that it hadn't been reported. Which itself is the reason nothing had been done about it.

Here's the one VitalSigns submitted from this morning that is unresolved, it's for a different Levitate post - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4008715 (mod forum link for Koos)

this is the Levitate post VS reported this morning, I think VS quoted the wrong one above:

Levitate posted:

Obama did fine against Romney and McCain? People were mostly excited about him even for his second term?

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

Fritz the Horse posted:

Was this the exchange with Discendo Vox in Politoons about a cartoon being gaslighting? June 27-28th? If so I handled some of those reports and also had a PM exchange with you.

My recollection is that cinci issued probes for some reports in that conversation, then later on when I was active I chose to respond in-thread. My post was not a ruling "in favor" of Discendo Vox, in fact I posted his use of "gaslighting" didn't really seem to fit the dictionary definition and asked folks to drop the line of discussion.

My PM to you was explaining that different mods have somewhat different approaches or styles. For example, I don't give out 6ers all that often and typically choose to respond in-thread if a discussion is still ongoing to see if I can steer it back on course or just ask it be dropped if it's not productive.

Yeah, and like I said, that's kind of a problem. I and others got probated because cinci just hands out a lot of probes, and then DV gets off with just a warning despite being way more aggressive because you take a lighter approach. It's arbitrary even if you're not deliberately trying to be unfair.

Lack of transparency, diffused responsibility, and inconsistent moderation styles. It all leads to posters having the perception that the rules are pretty much applied at random at best, or along ideological lines at worst. If that's not true, then it might help to fix those things to try to alleviate that perception.

Fister Roboto fucked around with this message at 23:00 on Jul 30, 2022

Koos Group
Mar 6, 2013

Fritz the Horse posted:

Here's the one VitalSigns submitted from this morning that is unresolved, it's for a different Levitate post - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4008715 (mod forum link for Koos)

this is the Levitate post VS reported this morning, I think VS quoted the wrong one above:

Looks like the morning one isn't actionable because it's a direct and original rebuttal.

BIG-DICK-BUTT-FUCK
Jan 26, 2016

by Fluffdaddy
plaeholder

Koos Group
Mar 6, 2013

Fister Roboto posted:

Yeah, and like I said, that's kind of a problem. I got probated because cinci just hands out a lot of probes, and then DV gets off with just a warning because you take a lighter approach, despite being way more aggro. It's arbitrary even if you're not deliberately trying to be unfair.

Vox has been probated more times than you since I became a mod. Although there is an element of subjectivity in what warrants a probie versus a warning, yes. It's based on the quality of the remainder of the post, the severity of the infraction, and whether there is currently an interesting discussion happening that a probation would put on hold.

some plague rats
Jun 5, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
It seems like there's a pretty fundamental conflict about what the mods here are trying to accomplish- is the idea to try and create quality debate, or just to punish every rule breach for it's own sake? Because you've now got a guy, the most active mod here, who from the outside seems to treat moderating like he's got a quota. Not "do these posts really interfere with the discussion" but "okay, that's a 2a, that's a 2.1.c, that can be a 1.1.1, that looks like a 3.1," the kind of broken windows approach to moderating that just makes it miserable to post here because any time you're discussing something there's a solid chance that you or the other person is going to get yanked out of the discussion with a big vaudeville hook for some ticky tacky rear end reason. LT 2012 is actually doing a good job because he seems to be leaning heavily towards not probating instead of "okay which rule should I probate this for".

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Fritz the Horse posted:

Here's the one VitalSigns submitted from this morning that is unresolved, it's for a different Levitate post - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4008715 (mod forum link for Koos)

this is the Levitate post VS reported this morning, I think VS quoted the wrong one above:

No I quoted the one I meant to I obviously reported the wrong one this morning.

Oops.

Jaxyon
Mar 7, 2016
I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

some plague rats posted:

It seems like there's a pretty fundamental conflict about what the mods here are trying to accomplish- is the idea to try and create quality debate, or just to punish every rule breach for it's own sake? Because you've now got a guy, the most active mod here, who from the outside seems to treat moderating like he's got a quota. Not "do these posts really interfere with the discussion" but "okay, that's a 2a, that's a 2.1.c, that can be a 1.1.1, that looks like a 3.1," the kind of broken windows approach to moderating that just makes it miserable to post here because any time you're discussing something there's a solid chance that you or the other person is going to get yanked out of the discussion with a big vaudeville hook for some ticky tacky rear end reason. LT 2012 is actually doing a good job because he seems to be leaning heavily towards not probating instead of "okay which rule should I probate this for".

Agreed

Jaxyon
Mar 7, 2016
I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Koos Group posted:

There are a few things I feel I should clarify.

First, the difference between stale arguments and common positions. You don't need to have some sort of contrarian ideology where you are the only person who holds the views you advocate for. Whether argumentation is fresh is about how you advocate for your views. What particular points you make to show something is true or false, good or bad; not whether others have also expressed the thing is true or false or good or bad.

This is a functionally meaningless distinction that doesn't address the problem people are complaining about.

DTurtle
Apr 10, 2011


Are no context Twitter posts still against the rules?

If so, that should maybe be stated more explicitly and enforced more stringently in the Ukraine thread (which is mostly very good).

TheIncredulousHulk
Sep 3, 2012

Discendo Vox posted:

Which arguments are stale is necessarily a reflection of the current and prior discussion. You are, as others have noted, trying to obligate the mods to construct something for you to attack.

Or hey maybe it's just a vague lovely rule that he wants to see adopt concrete standards if it persists. Not everything relates to your weird bugbear about the Abusers Derailing the Discussion

The "stale argument" rule sucks because as it stands, there is little way to know in advance as a poster if your post will be deemed in violation because it's wholly determined by individual mod druthers, and as a result you cannot reliably self-police your posts unlike every other rule. The only truly reliable way to never violate this rule as constructed is to not post, which is discouraging discussion, which places the rules in violation of themselves

Jaxyon
Mar 7, 2016
I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

TheIncredulousHulk posted:

Or hey maybe it's just a vague lovely rule that he wants to see adopt concrete standards if it persists. Not everything relates to your weird bugbear about the Abusers Derailing the Discussion

The "stale argument" rule sucks because as it stands, there is little way to know in advance as a poster if your post will be deemed in violation because it's wholly determined by individual mod druthers, and as a result you cannot reliably self-police your posts unlike every other rule. The only truly reliable way to never violate this rule as constructed is to not post, which is discouraging discussion, which places the rules in violation of themselves

Exactly so. Several people have stated they find the rules to be arbitrary and stifling, but that wont get probated while "you dont know what you're talking about stay in your lane" will be. Even when that statement is 100% true.

cinci zoo sniper
Mar 15, 2013




DTurtle posted:

Are no context Twitter posts still against the rules?

If so, that should maybe be stated more explicitly and enforced more stringently in the Ukraine thread (which is mostly very good).

Bare tweet posts are fine for the Ukraine thread specifically, as long as it’s new information or something that otherwise adds to conversation in a reasonably apparent matter. Part of its intended purpose is to aggregate relevant situation updates, and embedded tweets are one of the more convenient ways to do that.

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Well anyway, good example of how difficult it is, with the opaque reporting system, to put the onus on posters who have no visibility to provide examples of bias. Even if I had reported the right post, apparently another mod was supposed to look at it, so nothing was done until I brought the report up in here. We can always litigate individual posts, and I have no access to data about how many posts get reported etc. Meanwhile it's not hard to find other positions that are stomped on immediately.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

And the Democrats are far more likely to throw the election and self-destruct the party like UK Labour did to Corbyn rather than let anyone remotely leftist within a whiff of the Presidency anyway.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)



And "stale arguments" like the one I cited pop up all the time and nothing happens to them. I only had to go back one page in USCE to find one! So if mods are applying the rule equally, maybe they could cite some examples of times they've punished posts like that, if there are so many if should be easy to remember?

Or if they can't maybe it's because posts like that one never get reported while other positions do. But if so many instances of this rule go unreported, is it really a useful rule? Is it helping anything? And what should I take from this, that if some positions are getting punished more, it's because they get reported more, and therefore that I should just go through and report every single one I can find to even the score? That sounds awful for both me and the mods. A lot of extra work all around and what is it accomplishing anyway.

If an argument keeps coming up there's obviously interest in discussing it. What's wrong with having a thread for it, like we used to have a "does voting matter" thread, why not have threads for subjects with recurring interest, then I think it would generate a lot less pushback if mods just gently told people to take their argument there. Well if they don't keep closing the thread all the time like they did with the voting thread.

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jul 30, 2022

SpiritOfLenin
Apr 29, 2013

be happy :3


VitalSigns posted:

If an argument keeps coming up there's obviously interest in discussing it. What's wrong with having a thread for it, like we used to have a "does voting matter" thread, why not have threads for subjects with recurring interest, then I think it would generate a lot less pushback if mods just gently told people to take their argument there. Well if they don't keep closing the thread all the time like they did with the voting thread.

I remember in earlier feedback threads (early in Koos' reign I think?) there were people complaining that creating new threads for stuff like this and telling people to go there was shunting off discussion to die elsewhere.

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

SpiritOfLenin posted:

I remember in earlier feedback threads (early in Koos' reign I think?) there were people complaining that creating new threads for stuff like this and telling people to go there was shunting off discussion to die elsewhere.

Yeah some people didn't like it but if the goal is pleasing those people I don't see how punishing the discussion instead addresses their objection. Seems even worse.

I generally liked it, except for the #MeToo stuff which was very obviously only shunted away when a Democrat president was accused.

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Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Regarding the "sloppy assertions" thing, a fundamental issue with trying to insert "objectivity" into these discussions is that most political arguments (at least in a thread discussing current events, which is most) center around "the prediction of future events" (and are impossible to prove or disprove in the present). Attempts to objectively/quantitatively prove these things result in bullshit pseudoscience more often than not (like a semi-recent thing where someone cited a decreasing "percent of votes aligning with Trump" to prove that a politician had "moved left," which is frankly a comically stupid argument that is nevertheless taken seriously because it has the superficial trappings of "supporting an argument with data").

Seriously, think of pretty much every common argument. They generally center around "do I think Democrats are going to do _______." There is no data that can be provided to resolve this. The closest thing is references to history, which are off-topic.

Ultimately, the arguments that pop up tend to center around far deeper disagreements that aren't tied specifically to current events. You can't bring these up in the current events thread due to them being off-topic (which I don't even disagree with; the point of the thread is "commentary on recent events so it makes sense to keep it focused on that), but it's also fundamentally impossible to resolve those arguments otherwise.

I think I've brought this up in past feedback threads, but it never stopped being true. The closest thing I can think of to a solution is a permanent "actually debate the basis of your worldview/ideology" thread. It would probably end up looking similar to the past Thunderdome threads, but what's wrong with that? People can argue to their heart's content and would no longer have any excuse for doing so in other threads. It's actually kind of weird that such a thread doesn't exist.

Edit: btw, I can't speak for others, but the recent moderation is the thing that finally got me to stop posting in d&d. Not because it's subjective/ideological (that's always been the case to varying degrees), but because I'm genuinely uncertain how to avoid getting zapped for things like "stale argument." I used to have a pretty solid grasp of "how to not get probed in D&D." I may have thought that many rules/standards were dumb, but I at least understood them and could navigate them.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Jul 31, 2022

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