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Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

CAT INTERCEPTOR posted:

One of the big issues is that rational discourse with divergent views in the politcal sphere has completely and utterly lost their loving minds in the last 6 years - both left and right but most especially the right. D&D being a more narrow set of sane or at worst vagely sane politcal views is an unfortunate side effect

Unfortunately that has only resulted in smaller and smaller differences becoming the source of vitriol and conflict between posters.

Main Paineframe posted:

Most of the time, when someone tries to do "funny" shitposting in D&D, they're either regurgitating tired jokes they saw on @lib_destroyer_420's Twitter feed, or belting out incomprehensible in-jokes that no one will understand unless they've been reading a specific politics thread consistently for at least three years.

That said, it's not like telling jokes is completely verboten in D&D, you just have to tack them onto a post that's otherwise worth reading.

And what MP is talking about here is a good part of the reason why I personally stopped checking in on D&D the past few years after being semi-active here for almost two decades. Seeing a post like one of the ones described above (or even just directly hostile and insulting) get quite a few bites before the probes came around made me less inclined to keep checking up on the thread. Even moreso when invariably there would be a bunch of new names pop up complaining about the initial probe but none of the others. Of course this almost always results in derails of multiple pages and increased aggression between many posters.

At this point I think if nothing else trying to litigate a probe in a thread, especially after the probe period is over, should not be tolerated.

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Staluigi
Jun 22, 2021

thermodynamics cheated
question for those who have smart math numbers, if they exist (they probably do not)

what percentage of posters who copped a forumban in D&D are now permad or inactive after ban

what percentage of posters who copped at least one threadban in D&D are the same

Fritz the Horse
Dec 26, 2019

... of course!
I don't feel like actually counting and I don't think being that specific is really helpful, but just glancing down the (maybe a few months out of date) forum and thread-ban list:

Staluigi posted:

what percentage of posters who copped a forumban in D&D are now permad or inactive after ban
Most, maybe two-thirds or so of forum-banned posters went on to get perma'd or are inactive under that username after a ban.

quote:

what percentage of posters who copped at least one threadban in D&D are the same
The opposite. Most posters who are threadbanned in D&D remain active elsewhere on the forums.

gurragadon
Jul 28, 2006

Koos Group posted:

To be clear, I would not be splitting a thread based on different perspectives. As you say, that would defeat the point of debate and discussion. The division would be to facilitate discussion with a different focus. For example, if you believe anthropomorphizing AI is justified, or it isn't, both of those perspective would be welcome in the same thread (the philosophical one).

As for subjective criteria for moderation, it is sometimes necessary. A goal of D&D's is to have interesting discussion, and "interesting" is not an objective category. We have rules that can be enforced objectively to support this end, but human judgement is still required in some cases.

I can understand that you think that subjective criteria such as interesting or stupid should be considered when moderating a thread. I think a good compromise would be that when a thread is gassed, the person who gassed it should be required to put their reasoning in the thread as the last post. If a moderator can't describe why they are gassing a thread than they should reconsider and consult with somebody more familiar with the thread. They also should be legitimate descriptions, preferably maybe even quoting some bad posters, this is a forum with some standards with referencing. But really it shouldn't be snarky reasons or just this stupid smiley :chloe:.

I mean obviously a threads like "LOL MOds are so dumb" doesn't need some big reason, but any thread that's been around for at least a week or two should have explanations.

When Second Quarter 2023 Feedback rolls around everyone can then refer to the thread and have a clearer understanding of what happened and what was decided in whatever threads were issues. That allows a chance to review decisions, but it also gives the community a sense of what the moderation staff finds stupid or interesting, because if you keep those criteria they need to be known or at least generally understood.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

cinci zoo sniper posted:

It was

Or if I had to explain it to someone who doesn't know anything about the subject, like all 3 louder posters in the thread had a lacklustre grasp on the subject, and kept liberally mixing technical details with folklore. This in itself is not a problem, however that being the most “searchable” D&D thread about ChatGPT, a novel and highly sought after topic, was a concern, since the purpose of D&D is educational, and the thread had no warning signs, e.g., in the title, that it's just people chatting about whatever they think of AI in general, rather than treating ChatGPT and other modern LLM applications with some kind of consistent rigour. It did further not help, and, unfortunately, I have no delicate way of saying this, that the same posters weren't really the posters the D&D would send as its champions to a would-be RSF Grand Tournament. And so, I hatched a plan to see if I can get everyone to pull up (it failed as I had misjudged people's interests), and if not to then rename/move/close/gas the thread (in descending order of probability, settling on a rename as the least destructive option eventually). However, that plan also failed, since I was too slow to enact it before the thread just experienced a normally-thread-gassing meltdown with multiple people pulling the knives out and trying to shove the most active regular into a dumpster, as right or as wrong any of the involved goons was.

As to why gas and not just probate my way through a meltdown – I couldn't see that bearing any lasting effect, as the target regular in question didn't distance themselves from the conversation quickly enough to not get branded as the goon whose interest in large language models boils down to a new age academic plagiarism instrumentation.
Thank you for your response. Given the ostensible purpose of the forum and such a thread within the forum, and your perspective on the thread, I can understand your approach. I'm not sure I entirely agree that it really falls under the embarrassment clause, but it makes sense under a strict rigor clause.

That said, I would argue that some of the most interesting D&D threads I've read have been the pet project of weird eccentrics, whose positions were hardly compatible with reality - but which were fertile grounds to think about a subject conceptually/philosophically, rather than focus on "the facts". Though reading your later post, it seems like your suggested “prove to me that my slide rule is not sentient” thread would actually be that exact sort of thread.

Here's a suggestion based on the above: Enforce more rigor in thread subjects. Make it so you have to make the focus of a thread clear, from basic "Chatting about the news with proper punctuation" to "Philosophical arguments ahead, no facts required, only logic".

Thorn Wishes Talon posted:

These posts remind me of the poster who revealed that they had a PhD in economics, and within minutes they were compared to a cop and a drone bomber.
The poster quoted themselves brings up the cops and the military as sources of interesting perspectives. uninterrupted is completely justified in expanding their list of "professions that should not get undue respect in D&D simply for being supposed experts" to include those.

fez_machine posted:

why not just post in CSPAM about this stuff?

Why D&D?
I don't think it's right that D&D should pretend like a neutral judgment of the facts has a consistent liberal/status quo bias, which is what the blind credentialism people seem to be suggesting would result in. At least based on how it has previously been weaponized in D&D. I think that's something people need to recognize and reconcile with, that other posters have had quite terrible experiences arguing in D&D based on the exact logic they're seemingly promoting. While I can understand the desire to get to a more rigorous debate forum, the demand for rigor must only be scaled up as fast as the mods can be proven to not exhibit undue bias in their enforcement of it. Something which was a big problem not long ago, though the mods responsible for that are no longer in positions of authority within D&D.

e: Just to clarify, the opposite argument of "This people are just making GBS threads threads up for fun" is definitely also true. Just not as often as some people claim.

Timmy Age 6 posted:

I also don’t think probations are as ideologically driven as is sometimes claimed. Like, Discendo Vox gets hit semi-regularly, as did Evilweasel when they posted in D&D a few years back. I just don’t think that “don’t be a dick” is, or should be, an insurmountable ideological barrier to posting.
The severity of the hits and how often they come relative to others is the matrix to use, not whether someone gets hit occasionally. It is in fact possible that both DV and Evilweasel should've been hit 10 times as often for condescending and dismissive posting. Note also that the "ramping" system of moderation makes the number of probes you get escalate punishments, which can exacerbate bias immensely.

Fritz the Horse posted:

one thing that's often lost in discussions about what D&D is vs. what it should be is that it is a very international userbase

you don't hear much from the regional threads because they're mostly chill doing their own thing, it's US politics that both demands and results in the most moderation. but, for example, the UKMT gets a similar number of posts per day to US CE. by comparison, CSPAM is more US-centric.
I appreciate that the mods realize this. There's a reason why you sometimes get suggestions to prohibit US politics chat, because that's largely the actually contentious part of the D&D-CSPAM conflict. If you don't participate in that, the distinction between D&D and CSPAM is much reduced, though it does happen that this tribal conflict is recreated in threads that are ostensibly bigger picture. (See the Media Literacy thread)

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Mar 28, 2023

exmarx
Feb 18, 2012


The experience over the years
of nothing getting better
only worse.

Gumball Gumption posted:

100% legit I would like to see them have a chance to try their ideas and on paper I like their ideas.

his ideas are dog poo poo but it would be pretty funny to watch

socialsecurity
Aug 30, 2003

Timmy Age 6 posted:

I also don’t think probations are as ideologically driven as is sometimes claimed. Like, Discendo Vox gets hit semi-regularly, as did Evilweasel when they posted in D&D a few years back. I just don’t think that “don’t be a dick” is, or should be, an insurmountable ideological barrier to posting.

Yeah it's this and people mostly know it, it's why the people who claim it keep refusing to post any sort of receipts. I mean I don't even post that often anymore and still get hit all the time.

There is room to disagree without being a complete fuckstick, I've had my mind changed here on all sorts of topics. Hell if you go back 15ish years you will find posts made by me supporting the Death Penalty and thinking White Privilege is overstated because I was young and dumb as gently caress and this forum set me right.

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

socialsecurity posted:

Yeah it's this and people mostly know it, it's why the people who claim it keep refusing to post any sort of receipts.

I did post an example though. For a while after we were told that the only reason the moderation seemed biased is that opinions which conflicted with the majority were reported more (which is its own problem. Mods have this big rulebook that they can't actually enforce so the resuIt is a heckler's veto. Posts with unpopular opinions get reported more, posts with popular opinions don't just by weight of numbers because people tend to be fine with minor rules violations if they agree with the poster. And this is only natural but in aggregate it creates the appearance of bias)

So I gamely tried reporting for a while but usually no action was taken even on egregious rulebreaking. I didn't keep a spreadsheet of every rulebreaking post that was ignored while other people got hit for piddly stuff, but I remembered the one that was egregious enough that I just gave up.

Koos also said itt that he ignores his rule about no sarcasm or jokes as long as he or the other mods think it's funny.

There was also the time he said he allowed someone to troll the China thread (and elsewhere until it got "too much")

Koos Group posted:


How are u trolled too much. While I respect his trolling in the China thread, doing it here is very much the he's already dead Simpsons meme.

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Mar 28, 2023

socialsecurity
Aug 30, 2003

VitalSigns posted:

I did post an example though. For a while after we were told that the only reason the moderation seemed biased is that opinions which conflicted with the majority were reported more (which is its own problem. Mods have this big rulebook that they can't actually enforce so the resuIt is a heckler's veto. Posts with unpopular opinions get reported more, posts with popular opinions don't just by weight of numbers because people tend to be fine with minor rules violations if they agree with the poster. And this is only natural but in aggregate it creates the appearance of bias)

So I gamely tried reporting for a while but usually no action was taken even on egregious rulebreaking I didn't keep a spreadsheet of every rulebreaking post that was ignored while other people got hit for piddly stuff, but I remembered the one that was egregious enough that I just gave up after

Koos also said itt that he ignores his rule about no sarcasm or jokes as long as he or the other mods think it's funny.

There was also the time he said he allowed someone to troll the China thread (and elsewhere until it got "too much")

No you didn't, you posted an example of a post you felt should of got probed but didn't which isn't even close to the same thing, not every single post is going to get reviewed so a single one not getting probed isn't proof of mod bias or anything else really. What people keep claiming is that people get probed solely for their opinions because they aren't liberal enough, which is something keeps getting claimed but never shown even a sliver of evidence for.

VitalSigns posted:

Oh I could provide examples, but only if you are really interested, because I don't keep like a spreadsheet of posts I reported for breaking the rules, and I gave up on bothering with reports that won't get acted on anyway a long time ago so it would take some time to hunt them down.

But I do remember the individual post that made me conclude that reporting people who break the rules while agreeing with the mod teams' politics was a waste of time, and that "well nobody reported them" wasn't why they weren't being punished for stuff that anyone else would get hit for.

(This was from before this person was made a mod btw). Seems to break like every rule. Posting about posters, assuming bad faith, meeting effort with no effort. :shrug:

Rigel
Nov 11, 2016

VitalSigns posted:

Posts with unpopular opinions get reported more, posts with popular opinions don't just by weight of numbers

It only takes one. There is always a very quick report for any post that can be interpreted by that poster's collective forums enemies as stepping out of line.

edit: there is no "extra-bad credit" for a post getting reported multiple times. Whatever the first report is, that is what gets read and the mod who chooses to take the time to deal with it also needs to take the time to investigate.

Rigel fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Mar 28, 2023

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

socialsecurity posted:

No you didn't, you posted an example of a post you felt should of got probed but didn't which isn't even close to the same thing, not every single post is going to get reviewed so a single one not getting probed isn't proof of mod bias or anything else really. What people keep claiming is that people get probed solely for their opinions because they aren't liberal enough, which is something keeps getting claimed but never shown even a sliver of evidence for.
That's a subset of the "D&D mods are biased" complaints, with the larger pool including people who complain about precisely what VitalSigns is talking about. Not people getting probed, but people not getting probed for repeatedly breaking core D&D rules because they do it in a way that aligns with moderator biases. Like, I don't even disagree that a lot of the posts you're probably thinking of deserved a probation, given D&D rules and what it's supposed to be - but then that thinking should be applied universally.

That said, this might have gotten better with the new crop of moderators? I tried to give the serious discussion threads a shot a while back, but it was, respectfully, like trying to argue with a brick wall. No rebuttals were acknowledged, and the mods didn't care, so I just crawled back into the far better for discussion regional threads. If it has gotten better, then it'll probably take a while for people to really notice, given that (previous) bad moderation encourages people to not try again. That said squared, I would kind of expect there to have been some poo poo storm as a result of the mods cracking down like they needed to do, which makes me think it hasn't happened.

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Mar 28, 2023

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Rigel posted:

It only takes one. There is always a very quick report for any post that can be interpreted by that poster's collective forums enemies as stepping out of line.
Yeah but that's the problem right. People I agree with are laying down some righteous truth, people I disagree with are making GBS threads up the discussion.

That's why the best strategy to avoid punishment on here is to disengage if your opinion is too unpopular because you'll have like 10 people trying to find minor infractions to report, PMing mods, running to QCS, etc. The easy way to clear the report queue is to remove the unpopular opinion right.


socialsecurity posted:

No you didn't, you posted an example of a post you felt should of got probed but didn't which isn't even close to the same thing, not every single post is going to get reviewed so a single one not getting probed isn't proof of mod bias or anything else really. What people keep claiming is that people get probed solely for their opinions because they aren't liberal enough, which is something keeps getting claimed but never shown even a sliver of evidence for.
You asked for an example, I provided one. Koos agreed it broke the rules, no reason was given why the report was ignored. If you guys don't care about it, fine, I don't know what else you want me to do. I could spend the time finding the other ones I tried reporting when I was briefly doing that I guess but like what kind of sample size are you asking for.

Am I supposed to keep a spreadsheet of reported posts and actions taken on an internet comedy forum. Nobody is going to do that, because that's weird obsessive behavior and if I had that I'd be mocked for it.

And of course there were examples of Koos saying he let people troll when he thought it was funny, while there's a big rulebook for everyone else.

People notice, they're not going to keep grudgebooks of all the discrepancies in enforcement, they're just going to decide it's not worth it and make this place an even narrower chamber of thought than it already is. But maybe that's not a bad thing, certainly would be easier to mod.

Rigel
Nov 11, 2016

VitalSigns posted:

Yeah but that's the problem right. People I agree with are laying down some righteous truth, people I disagree with are making GBS threads up the discussion.

And that is the biggest takeaway I'm personally getting from all this: I need to be more aware of the possibility of my own bias when I'm deciding how to react to reports.

socialsecurity
Aug 30, 2003

VitalSigns posted:

Yeah but that's the problem right. People I agree with are laying down some righteous truth, people I disagree with are making GBS threads up the discussion.

That's why the best strategy to avoid punishment on here is to disengage if your opinion is too unpopular because you'll have like 10 people trying to find minor infractions to report, PMing mods, running to QCS, etc. The easy way to clear the report queue is to remove the unpopular opinion right.

You asked for an example, I provided one. Koos agreed it broke the rules, no reason was given why the report was ignored. If you guys don't care about it, fine, I don't know what else you want me to do. I could spend the time finding the other ones I tried reporting when I was briefly doing that I guess but like what kind of sample size are you asking for.

Am I supposed to keep a spreadsheet of reported posts and actions taken on an internet comedy forum. Nobody is going to do that, because that's weird obsessive behavior and if I had that I'd be mocked for it.

And of course there were examples of Koos saying he let people troll when he thought it was funny, while there's a big rulebook for everyone else.

People notice, they're not going to keep grudgebooks of all the discrepancies in enforcement, they're just going to decide it's not worth it and make this place an even narrower chamber of thought than it already is. But maybe that's not a bad thing, certainly would be easier to mod.

I asked for an example of someone getting probed for being not liberal enough, you know the accusation made many times in this thread. If it happens so often as people are pretending it shouldn't be hard to provide one, you don't need a "spreadsheet" or whatever.

Rigel
Nov 11, 2016

socialsecurity posted:

I asked for an example of someone getting probed for being not liberal enough, you know the accusation made many times in this thread. If it happens so often as people are pretending it shouldn't be hard to provide one, you don't need a "spreadsheet" or whatever.

I'll go ahead and just help VS out by saying that anytime there is a post that falls well outside the traditional liberal orthodoxy or is even just the least bit spicy, it will get reported. You guys might be underestimating how often posts get reported.

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

A Buttery Pastry posted:

That's a subset of the "D&D mods are biased" complaints, with the larger pool including people who complain about precisely what VitalSigns is talking about. Not people getting probed, but people not getting probed for repeatedly breaking core D&D rules because they do it in a way that aligns with moderator biases. Like, I don't even disagree that a lot of the posts you're probably thinking of deserved a probation, given D&D rules and what it's supposed to be - but then that thinking should be applied universally.

Pretty much yeah. There's a big rulebook plus a bunch of unwritten "vibes" rules (see above CZS bolding some anodyne little sentence in a big thoughtful post because it said something like "this theory you guys love to hate" which is apparently a pet peeve of theirs), so there's a lot of enforcement but simultaneously a lot of rulebreaking ignored, and that's a fertile ground for unintentional bias. People naturally look harder for fallacies in arguments they disagree with vor arguments that make them angry.

socialsecurity posted:

I asked for an example of someone getting probed for being not liberal enough, you know the accusation made many times in this thread. If it happens so often as people are pretending it shouldn't be hard to provide one, you don't need a "spreadsheet" or whatever.
I don't think anyone claimed that there are lepers colony entries that say "not liberal enough", that's not how bias manifests. I know this, you know this. Although allowing trolling that mods agree with is close to that, if I probe someone for trolling but only because I disagree with them, while not probing people I agree with, what is the probation really for.

What you're doing right now is a good example of what makes this forum so tedious to post in though lol so thank you for providing an example of that.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

socialsecurity posted:

I asked for an example of someone getting probed for being not liberal enough, you know the accusation made many times in this thread. If it happens so often as people are pretending it shouldn't be hard to provide one, you don't need a "spreadsheet" or whatever.
Accusations of mod bias can be satisfied both by people NOT getting probated for poo poo because they align with mod biases, and people getting probated because they do not. VitalSigns is not responsible for arguing the latter, if they feel like the issue is the former, just because you've lumped them in with a larger group of malcontents.

socialsecurity
Aug 30, 2003

Rigel posted:

I'll go ahead and just help VS out by saying that anytime there is a post that falls well outside the traditional liberal orthodoxy or is even just the least bit spicy, it will get reported. You guys might be underestimating how often posts get reported.

Oh I'm sure all sorts of dumb poo poo gets reported, are you auto probing every one of these posts? I think the reason I'm sticking to this is I find the endless aggro posting exhausting and it's always a group of people that act like assholes who suddenly come in here saying they are only getting probed because they aren't liberal enough not because they can't stop being dicks.

socialsecurity fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Mar 28, 2023

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Rigel posted:

I'll go ahead and just help VS out by saying that anytime there is a post that falls well outside the traditional liberal orthodoxy or is even just the least bit spicy, it will get reported. You guys might be underestimating how often posts get reported.

Does this surprise you? The rules and practices mods set up ensure this outcome. I'd have been shocked if you told me any different.

Is this what you guys wanted?

(In case tone doesn't come through in text, these are not aggressive questions, I'm genuinely curious what your/yalls thoughts are on this)

silence_kit
Jul 14, 2011

by the sex ghost

VitalSigns posted:

Pretty much yeah. There's a big rulebook plus a bunch of unwritten "vibes" rules (see above CZS bolding some anodyne little sentence in a big thoughtful post because it said something like "this theory you guys love to hate" which is apparently a pet peeve of theirs), so there's a lot of enforcement but simultaneously a lot of rulebreaking ignored, and that's a fertile ground for unintentional bias. People naturally look harder for fallacies in arguments they disagree with vor arguments that make them angry.

I don't think anyone claimed that there are lepers colony entries that say "not liberal enough", that's not how bias manifests. I know this, you know this. Although allowing trolling that mods agree with is close to that, if I probe someone for trolling but only because I disagree with them, while not probing people I agree with, what is the probation really for.

What you're doing right now is a good example of what makes this forum so tedious to post in though lol so thank you for providing an example of that.

It is unreasonable to expect fair moderation in D&D, for all of the reasons you have just listed.

If you post a minority opinion on this message board, you should post with the expectation that someone WILL tattle on you to the moderation staff, and that the moderation staff WILL prosecute you to the full extent of the law.

Rigel
Nov 11, 2016

VitalSigns posted:

Does this surprise you? The rules and practices mods set up ensure this outcome. I'd have been shocked if you told me any different.

Is this what you guys wanted?

(In case tone doesn't come through in text, these are not aggressive questions, I'm genuinely curious what your/yalls thoughts are on this)

From what I've been told (obviously my experience is not vast), report volume is not really related to any kind of mod policy, but more on how much American politics takes over our daily lives. But even when it all slows down closer to normal, we will still always have the eternal struggle on D&D between sworn posting enemies with reports on all sides.

If you are an active poster here with a strong opinion, rest assured that a lot of reports have probably been made against you, mostly responded to with a mod going "nah" (unless of course you obviously broke the forum's rules, which is not nearly as often as everyone's forums enemies think).

Rigel fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Mar 28, 2023

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

socialsecurity posted:

Oh I'm sure all sorts of dumb poo poo gets reported, are you auto probing every one of these posts?

From what I understand it's probably more logging in on Sunday and here's a big report queue, gently caress looks like so-and-so is riling people up again, and even if the reports are dumb there's a button to just make them stop for the next 6/12/18/24 hours.

It's why really the only way to go is to disengage if too many people start arguing with you, if you dig in and defend an unpopular position you're playing with fire because someone is going to report every post you make, especially once people start baiting you with the usual sarcasm, condescension, etc.

And it's understandable, I'd probably do that sometimes if I were a mod, easier and more pleasant to remove the unpopular opinion than to read 10 pages of arguing that you don't care about.

But idk at some point the whole team might want to step back and ask is an environment where "anytime there is a post that falls well outside the traditional liberal orthodoxy or is even just the least bit spicy, it will get reported" something that we should try to change? It's a tough question though because how do you go about it, but also I'm not sure if mods even agree it should change, maybe it's what they want?

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

silence_kit posted:

It is unreasonable to expect fair moderation in D&D, for all of the reasons you have just listed.

If you post a minority opinion on this message board, you should post with the expectation that someone WILL tattle on you to the moderation staff, and that the moderation staff WILL prosecute you to the full extent of the law.
Yeah I agree.

I don't think it's unreasonable for mods to be aware of it (and I'm not sure they are), and to acknowledge it, and try to mitigate it, that's why people bring it up.

But they are only human, it will never be perfect, but maybe it could be better?

I think it's a problem though that exceptions are made when mods like it. I mean what is this supposed to be, a serious debate space of respectful tone and intellectual arguments, or shitposty laugh at nerds who get too riled up space. It can't be both.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

VitalSigns posted:

Yeah I agree.

I don't think it's unreasonable for mods to be aware of it (and I'm not sure they are), and to acknowledge it, and try to mitigate it, that's why people bring it up.

But they are only human, it will never be perfect, but maybe it could be better?

I think it's a problem though that exceptions are made when mods like it. I mean what is this supposed to be, a serious debate space of respectful tone and intellectual arguments, or shitposty laugh at nerds who get too riled up space. It can't be both.
I think it can, just not at the same time. Do what someone else suggested and define threads as either debate or discussion. Instead of the law getting laid down according to who the offending poster is, do it based on what type of thread it was defined as in the OP.

Discussion threads get to be a little looser, mostly by giving everyone the same leeway in posting style no matter the opinion presented. Basically, if you can post "lol Republicans" then you can also post "lol Democrats" or whatever, which seems to be the main point of contention. Apply reversals of fortune here if people reporting poo poo are posting in basically the same way, until everyone understands how this poo poo works.

Debate threads on the other hand is where you can't do poo poo like dismiss a position by proxy, by creating a daisy chain of connections until you eventually reach a person sort of related to the original position that can't be defended, or any other rhetorical tricks. Ideally this would be where the majority of reports were, which would be easier to handle if the volume had gone down. Would obviously help if the report system was better so people could more adequately describe why a role was broken.

socialsecurity
Aug 30, 2003

VitalSigns posted:

From what I understand it's probably more logging in on Sunday and here's a big report queue, gently caress looks like so-and-so is riling people up again, and even if the reports are dumb there's a button to just make them stop for the next 6/12/18/24 hours.

It's why really the only way to go is to disengage if too many people start arguing with you, if you dig in and defend an unpopular position you're playing with fire because someone is going to report every post you make, especially once people start baiting you with the usual sarcasm, condescension, etc.

And it's understandable, I'd probably do that sometimes if I were a mod, easier and more pleasant to remove the unpopular opinion than to read 10 pages of arguing that you don't care about.

But idk at some point the whole team might want to step back and ask is an environment where "anytime there is a post that falls well outside the traditional liberal orthodoxy or is even just the least bit spicy, it will get reported" something that we should try to change? It's a tough question though because how do you go about it, but also I'm not sure if mods even agree it should change, maybe it's what they want?

You are still acting like mods auto probe posts based on the number of reports or something, this entire argument feels like you are inventing a whole ecosystem of nonsense instead of just accepting that people posting like assholes gets you probed sometimes?

Jarmak
Jan 24, 2005

VitalSigns posted:

Yeah but that's the problem right. People I agree with are laying down some righteous truth, people I disagree with are making GBS threads up the discussion.

That's why the best strategy to avoid punishment on here is to disengage if your opinion is too unpopular because you'll have like 10 people trying to find minor infractions to report, PMing mods, running to QCS, etc. The easy way to clear the report queue is to remove the unpopular opinion right.

You asked for an example, I provided one. Koos agreed it broke the rules, no reason was given why the report was ignored. If you guys don't care about it, fine, I don't know what else you want me to do. I could spend the time finding the other ones I tried reporting when I was briefly doing that I guess but like what kind of sample size are you asking for.

Am I supposed to keep a spreadsheet of reported posts and actions taken on an internet comedy forum. Nobody is going to do that, because that's weird obsessive behavior and if I had that I'd be mocked for it.

And of course there were examples of Koos saying he let people troll when he thought it was funny, while there's a big rulebook for everyone else.

People notice, they're not going to keep grudgebooks of all the discrepancies in enforcement, they're just going to decide it's not worth it and make this place an even narrower chamber of thought than it already is. But maybe that's not a bad thing, certainly would be easier to mod.

This is kind of a good microcosm of the issue. Someone walks in with a hot take from the gut that annoys people, get's asked to provide evidence/support, and instead we get pages of tedious poo poo like this. Tangential at best evidence, along with a hyperbolic misrepresentation of what evidence is actually being asked for/would be required to support the original positions, and a mish-mash of insulting misrepresentations of the counterarguments being made.

The next steps are a derail about how those misrepresentations are technically accurate if you ignore what words mean, the OP finally getting probated, and then the OP claiming it was because the original hot take wasn't liberal enough.

Edit: When people talk about "effort" in D&D it's not about sourcing posts like a thesis. It's about putting in some effort to discuss the actual event in a factually correct way. It's not about having a bibliography, it's about taking the extra step of validating whatever random gut feeling you have, and being willing to back it up if someone challenges it. It's about wanting to have a discussion among reasonably informed people who have an interest in getting a deeper understanding of events, rather than arguing with the idiot at the bar with big opinions about everything and nothing to back them up.

Jarmak fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Mar 28, 2023

cinci zoo sniper
Mar 15, 2013




skeleton warrior posted:

So my biggest pieces of feedback is, get more mods and get them soon.

It's on the agenda, yes. The subforum is active as it has been since I've joined the website basically, as far as people familiar with the word “seasonality” are concerned. Coupled with ongoing changes in availability of the current team, that has us looking for 1-3 new full mods at the moment, before we even consider the election year. In addition to the ongoing maintenance of (ideally) making sure that there is an IK or a mod interested in actively posting therein for every seminal thread.

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004

Jarmak posted:

This is kind of a good microcosm of the issue. Someone walks in with a hot take from the gut that annoys people, get's asked to provide evidence/support, and instead we get pages of tedious poo poo like this. Tangential at best evidence, along with a hyperbolic misrepresentation of what evidence is actually being asked for/would be required to support the original positions, and a mish-mash of insulting misrepresentations of the counterarguments being made.

The next steps are a derail about how those misrepresentations are technically accurate if you ignore what words mean, the OP finally getting probated, and then the OP claiming it was because the original hot take wasn't liberal enough.

Demanding obsessive keeping track of posts like this is weird to make a condition of presenting an argument.

A lot like the point Turg is making

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

socialsecurity posted:

You are still acting like mods auto probe posts based on the number of reports or something

I did not say that and I don't think that. If you read back what I said again it is significantly more nuanced than that, but thanks again for being an example of one of the problems of discussion in D&D lol, someone just takes the most simplistic and uncharitable reading of what you say and starts screaming at you about it. (Yes I recognize I have been part of the problem too)

Look man no offense but this is a feedback thread for the mods, I've given them my perspective, you can give them yours, I'm not going to argue with you or with your inaccurate interpretations of what I said.

Jarmak
Jan 24, 2005

Harold Fjord posted:

Demanding obsessive keeping track of posts like this is weird to make a condition of presenting an argument.

A lot like the point Turg is making

That's not what was asked

Cpt_Obvious
Jun 18, 2007

I am happy with the moderation of the Ukraine thread. The seemingly draconian ruleset is necessary with such a spicy topic as white people dying in a war. Otherwise you get the same poo poo you saw early in this thread.

Also very funny for posters loudly wondering " why did all the experts leave!?" and several experts respond "You. We left because of you".

:munch:

cinci zoo sniper
Mar 15, 2013




gurragadon posted:

I think a good compromise would be that when a thread is gassed, the person who gassed it should be required to put their reasoning in the thread as the last post.

That is done more or less consistently where the decision to gas a thread is not straightforward. No one is going to bother with that when it's like a goatse or some other obvious problem, like when the thread just devolves into a worthless brawl, which the ChatGPT thread got gassed for.

Turgid Flagella
Mar 18, 2023

Cpt_Obvious posted:

Also very funny for posters loudly wondering " why did all the experts leave!?" and several experts respond "You. We left because of you".

:munch:

Yeah, Rigel ultimately is responsible for making me feel unwelcome to share my perspective on Dem politics and priorities as a worker within their fundraising apparatus, and Koos and Fluff daddy drove the point home. Some experts are clearly more equal than others!

cinci zoo sniper
Mar 15, 2013




A Buttery Pastry posted:

Thank you for your response. Given the ostensible purpose of the forum and such a thread within the forum, and your perspective on the thread, I can understand your approach. I'm not sure I entirely agree that it really falls under the embarrassment clause, but it makes sense under a strict rigor clause.

That said, I would argue that some of the most interesting D&D threads I've read have been the pet project of weird eccentrics, whose positions were hardly compatible with reality - but which were fertile grounds to think about a subject conceptually/philosophically, rather than focus on "the facts". Though reading your later post, it seems like your suggested “prove to me that my slide rule is not sentient” thread would actually be that exact sort of thread.

Here's a suggestion based on the above: Enforce more rigor in thread subjects. Make it so you have to make the focus of a thread clear, from basic "Chatting about the news with proper punctuation" to "Philosophical arguments ahead, no facts required, only logic".

Yeah, I would have had nothing to say about an explicitly philosophical thread on the subject, or even one where the philosophical simply did have an easier to disentangle overlap with the practical for a different, less relevant and better understood real-world thing.

As for the bolded, this is what I am trying to do in the war thread, which is my primary focus. Some of it is in rules, but a lot of it does also boil down to simply posting consistently in a supportive manner, for a long period of time.

cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Mar 28, 2023

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Jarmak posted:

Tangential at best evidence, along with a hyperbolic misrepresentation of what evidence is actually being asked for/would be required to support the original positions

If we're going to do this could you state succinctly
1) what evidence is actually being asked for, and
2) in your own words what do you think the "original positions" are

socialsecurity
Aug 30, 2003

VitalSigns posted:

If we're going to do this could you state succinctly
1) what evidence is actually being asked for, and
2) in your own words what do you think the "original positions" are

silence_kit posted:

There will always be a bias where posters who hold the thread majority opinion will be treated with leniency, and posters who hold a minority opinion will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

It is unreasonable to expect fair enforcement given human psychology, the nature of SA forums moderation & the post reporting system, where the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

This is the post that started most of this argument and is a common complaint in these threads, there are many people claiming that having the minority opinion will get you probed. Yet no examples of that have been posted beyond a single post from Rigel that you are mad didn't get probed which doesn't really mean much of anything.

cinci zoo sniper
Mar 15, 2013




VitalSigns posted:

I did post an example though. For a while after we were told that the only reason the moderation seemed biased is that opinions which conflicted with the majority were reported more (which is its own problem. Mods have this big rulebook that they can't actually enforce so the resuIt is a heckler's veto. Posts with unpopular opinions get reported more, posts with popular opinions don't just by weight of numbers because people tend to be fine with minor rules violations if they agree with the poster. And this is only natural but in aggregate it creates the appearance of bias)

I wonder how you reconcile the purported moderation by popular vote with your continued ability to post in D&D.

Ither
Jan 30, 2010

I only read the USCE thread. Under this moderation scheme, it's been great to read. A remarkable improvement.

Good job.

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004

socialsecurity posted:

This is the post that started most of this argument and is a common complaint in these threads, there are many people claiming that having the minority opinion will get you probed. Yet no examples of that have been posted beyond a single post from Rigel that you are mad didn't get probed which doesn't really mean much of anything.

It seems like you are getting different parts of arguments mixed up, and this was already pointed out. Evidence of a different thing is being used to argue the different thing.

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Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

cinci zoo sniper posted:

I wonder how you reconcile the purported moderation by popular vote with your continued ability to post in D&D.

Bait left out to make the others think it's safe, obviously.

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