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Greetings. It's time for this quarter's feedback thread. Here you are encouraged to tell us your thoughts on how D&D is going. As always, you can give feedback by posting in the thread, PMing me, or you may post in the thread anonymously by PMing me the post and I'll make it for you. D&D rules will be relaxed here somewhat, since we're talking about the forums rather than educational subjects, so citations will be less valuable than normal, and personal opinions will be more valuable. All I ask is that you continue to present your ideas with honesty as you would in normal D&D, and that you don't spam the thread, by which I mean posting the same thing repeatedly to increase its exposure at the expense of other posters. Unfortunately, you must refrain from posting here if you're forumbanned, and refrain from giving feedback about threads in which you're threadbanned. You can however PM me if you think it's been long enough and you'd like to appeal either one.
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Mar 25, 2023 02:31
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I'll kramer some war thread business in here, to have it all contained. Unfortunately, the timing of this feedback thread catches me at a busier period IRL, so I'll be brief and unlikely debating the feedback raised particularly thoroughly, if at all. I will, however, read it all before implementing the rules update for the war thread – which is not going to happen at least until April, to keep expectations clear. That sounds like a good change. I was considering something similar for D&D as a whole. We already have the "explain sources you cite" guideline but I thought about making it "make your own points, using sources and links only to support them." Linking editorials and Youtube essays is simply not valuable, and being able to use them in an argument yourself demonstrates you understand them. The problem is, as you say, news articles spark discussion by themselves, so I might want to make an exception for them or figure out a way to conceptualize this idea without them being included.
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Mar 25, 2023 17:48
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Timmy Age 6 posted:I mostly lurk, but D&D is my primary location of "mostly lurking" and has been since whenever my regdate says. I like the fairly nuanced approach to discussing issues and the fact that there are posters who know the subject matter. Koos's reign of terror has been pretty good for lowering the temperature and cutting out some of the more predictable back and forth screaming matches, so I am in favor of continuing that broad style of moderation. Thank you. The D&D rules are formulated not just with posters in mind but also with readers.
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Mar 25, 2023 17:49
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Hannibal Rex posted:I understand where you're coming from, and it would be nice if every post was made with the intent of sharpening one's own debating skills, but on a very basic level, I view the thread as a hub for noteworthy news articles and expert analysis. If that's being commented on by posters with relevant experience, it's a bonus, but I don't want to see that as a pre-condition for posting. As I said, I recognize that there are some links that are good in and of themselves, which don't require significant addition from a poster. The issue is that, there are also links where that is not the case, because as Cinci said there is some expectation in D&D that everyone follow all the arguments that are made in a thread recently before posting there. If you are having someone else make an argument for you, and that argument is an hour long video of an unhealthy man talking, then you are putting an onerous burden on the thread. Perhaps the useful distinction here would be news or information (such as a scientific paper's abstract) vs. editorials or other opinion pieces. Kavros posted:The end product of the interforum brigading was that 90% of the drive by posting was exasperating poo poo. I also like when people are being a dick while arguing well — but that's not what you got. The ratios were really poor specifically because of the incentives involved. Being a dick while arguing well is, at least, not punished as harshly. An unwritten D&D rule (or implied rule, since it's also an unwritten rule of SA in general) is that you can get away with more if you're posting better. Note that "arguing well" does not mean being on the correct side of the debate, but presenting your argument in a way that's interesting, rigorous, creative, or funny. Thorn Wishes Talon posted:I greatly resent the debate-club style application and enforcement of rules that ignore any and all context. It's what people used to mock D&D for, and Koos and his team have ironically turned it into a reality. Or maybe it was cynically done on purpose. I did do it on purpose, as a joke. Main Paineframe posted:D&D's US politics threads and general-subject threads are probably the best they've been in a decade. People are actually having an enjoyable time having interesting and informative friendly discussions, instead of endlessly miserable shouting matches with people who made up some spicy fiction and belt out weird-rear end accusations at anyone who asks for evidence. Thank you.
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Mar 25, 2023 22:16
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silence_kit posted:Pretty obvious example: if you read USPol, it is loaded with low content rants and posts about how Republicans, rich people, corporations are evil, and so on. The rants aren't really made against any particular thing someone has said, are often loaded with exaggerations and falsehoods, etc. No one enforces the forum rules here because huge numbers of posters in USPol use the thread as an outlet to vent about how much they hate The Bad Men. I assume you mean USCE, and not the USPol thread in CCCC. Either way, that's likely due to how enforcement works with regard to reports. If those posts were reported, they would be dealt with, but I assume because the vast majority of posters have politics from centrist to far left, they aren't. You are welcome to report them yourself, and you can have me personally take a look at them by notifying me when you did so.
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Mar 25, 2023 23:24
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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. I agree that this post was breaking rules and should have been probated.
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Mar 26, 2023 17:07
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Turgid Flagella posted:my specific expertise as part of the Dem fundraising machine 
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Mar 26, 2023 17:09
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Discendo Vox posted:Speaking both to this proposal and koos' broader follow-up, this will be the third or fourth time that some variant of a "provide context for mediated material" rule has been proposed. You can ask members of previous moderation teams on this, but my impression is they keep getting dropped because mods keep not wanting to be responsible for telling whether or not the user sharing something is misrepresenting it, because it requires reading the mediated material. ...However, the rule keeps being reinvented and reintroduced because, in fact, mods do have to read the mediated material to tell whether it's being misrepresented. There's no escaping that problem, and either not having such a rule, or not doing the legwork it entails, just creates an especially easy route for a user to ruin discussion on a whim. Relying on the user's own words as "load-bearing" will not relieve you of reading what they cite. We already have a rule that sources require some explanation if they're being used to make an argument. As well as one that users must not misrepresent the source. We do read sources when a user is reported for this, which you should know. What Cinci and I are proposing is more along the lines of not letting sources make your argument for you, but only using them as a "see also" sort of reference, or a citation for a fact. For example, it's burdensome when a poster says "oh, BeardedBedroomMan made a video about this. Check it out, and debate him: [link]." We would prefer something more like "That is incorrect, because blah blah blah blah. To give credit where it's due, I originally learned about this from BeardedBedroomMan [link], though watching it isn't necessary to understand or respond to my argument."" Discendo Vox posted:Existing "guidelines" should be formalized and treated/enforced consistently as rules. The absolute last thing the moderators should be doing right now, of all times, is adopting the freedom caucus "what can we cut this time" approach to their responsibilities. It's been true for a literal decade that inconsistent enforcement is weaponized against the general concept of moderation. I'm not sure I understand the analogy to austerity. The reason that standards implied by D&D's three rules are called guidelines rather than rules is to emphasize that they aren't exhaustive. If you act in bad faith, the rule you're breaking is the one to not impede discussion. And there are other ways you could break this rule that aren't enumerated, as well. The guidelines are simply the most common things that come up. VitalSigns posted:Yeah that too I don't get why you don't have it open for a week so everyone has a chance to weigh in. One thing I'd like to try, is keeping it open until no new users have posted for 6 hours, or whatever time frame.
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Mar 26, 2023 22:15
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VitalSigns posted:While this is open I have a few small pieces if feedback. Proof by contradiction doesn't run afoul of that guideline as long as you clearly state that is what you're doing, so that your line of logic can be followed and addressed by other posters. VitalSigns posted:-You shouldn't get probated for "assuming bad faith" if you merely point out a mistake someone is making, like strawmanning your argument. Strawmanning can, and often is, done unintentionally through misunderstanding, saying "hey X is a strawman my argument is Y" shouldn't be treated as an accusation of bad faith. If you believe someone is strawmanning your argument, you should assume they've simply misunderstood it and clarify. The normal definition of strawmanning includes intent, so it is a form of bad faith. VitalSigns posted:-Is sarcasm allowed or not, this rule is enforced especially inconsistently and seems to just come down to which side of the discussion the person moderating the thread comes down on. Which is partly human nature, a sarcastic quip from someone I agree with is clever and funny, a quip from someone I don't agree with is glib and unserious and annoying, I get that sure. But like either ban it and go zero-tolerance or don't. Punishing it selectively is just going to drive out differences of opinion because people with unpopular views get tired of being mocked while getting punished if they respond in kind. As with all non-serious posting, sarcasm is allowed if we find it funny or harmless, and punished if we are annoyed by it. You do it at your own risk.
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Mar 27, 2023 19:51
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:Assuming good faith is part of D&D's rules (specifically, rule I.B.) , and mods should be required to follow them as well. Mods are not required, and indeed cannot be required, to assume good faith for the purposes of moderation (though they still should when arguing). This is because posting in bad faith is against the rules and needs to be moderated. The reason the rule exists is that when an accusation is made in the thread, the quality of the argument quickly lowers to posters attacking or defending each other in a way that's not interesting to read or conducive to healthy debate.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:04
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gurragadon posted:I would really like to hear Koos Group explanation for this? I'm not overly concerned with gassing threads for being "embarrassing," though if a thread has some sort of deep-seated issue that is preventing good debate and discussion from taking place, the fact that someone might see the thread and be less inclined to post in D&D as a result is something reasonable to take into consideration.
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Mar 27, 2023 20:08
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Discendo Vox posted:I don't want mods to be part of the community. I want them to moderate. 
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Mar 27, 2023 20:08
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Zachack posted:Here's my actual feedback: I agree that a willingness to admit one is wrong is very helpful for keeping debate productive. That's why I always try to do it myself. If a poster is conclusively shown to be wrong about a specific fact, and doesn't even acknowledge it, that is demoralizing to the person who went to the trouble of debating them rigorously, and we try to punish it. I must also point out, however, that it is very difficult to apply this to broader arguments as opposed to very specific facts. While it would be nice for anyone to concede when their opponent crushes their position, it is not actually feasible because positions are often so deeply held. It's also very difficult to moderate this as a case of 1.A.3 because, as I'm sure anyone who's spent long enough time debating on the internet or elsewhere knows, it is possible to come up with some sort of argument for any position. gurragadon posted:Could you explain that? Deep-seated issues are usually related to one or more posters having strong opinions on a topic. It is a blessing and a curse to get rid of those posters. Sometimes a topic lives on life support until the next big thing comes around to bump it back into the general conversation and only the real dedicated people follow it. Examples of deep-seated issues might be an OP that frames a topic in a way that makes discussion difficult, a subject that the vast majority of posters are too invested in to debate in a civil manner, or a subject that is too vague to be rigorous or well-trod to be interesting. And in any of these cases posters would find a thread that's stupid, boring or frustrating and be less likely to read or contribute to D&D if they get an impression that it's like that. As for the ChatGPT thread in particular, I haven't read much of it. Based on what Cinci and posters here are saying, it seems like it may have been more reasonable to split it into a "technical" thread about ChatGPT or other AIs that contains specific and verifiable information for those curious, and a "philosophical" thread where one can discuss issues that are more hypothetical, or have to do with broad concepts and how they apply to AI. Koos Group fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Mar 27, 2023 |
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Mar 27, 2023 20:32
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gurragadon posted:Wouldn't most of those be handled in a better way than removing a well-established thread? OP's can be changed after the fact, if debate can't happen civilly then probations for not following that rule or thread bans, interesting is so vastly different to everybody that you as a moderator or anybody else have a right to close a thread for that. I have no interest in 99.9% of the threads on Something Awful and nobody has interest in everything. There isn't a process for determining whether a thread's embarrassing. It's not a word we use in moderation discussion amongst ourselves or one that appears in the rules. All I said was that if a thread is making D&D look like a place that is stupid or otherwise uninteresting, then that would be a factor in how we decide what to do with the thread, which could be closing it or just trying to moderate it differently. The fact that different people might have different perspectives and interests in regard to ChatGPT (and AI in general) is precisely why it seems like it could be better to have two threads. If you're interested in AI news and the nitty gritty, you could go to one, and if you're more interested in AI philosophy, you could go to the other. There wouldn't be a hard ban on discussing one area in the other thread (that would be practically impossible) but there'd be an understanding of what its focus was.
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Mar 27, 2023 22:52
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gurragadon posted:If you split people into different threads when there are different perspectives on an issue that is just further splitting any community that has formed. A community isn't always in agreement but a Debate and Discussion forum worth anything always has threads where people are being challenged to think about new things. 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.
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Mar 28, 2023 03:44
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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. All I can speak to is that the rules and practices I implemented cut report volume by a factor of 2 or 3, and came with an explicit directive that posters not be moderated for their political positions, regardless of how absurd anyone finds them.
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Mar 28, 2023 16:28
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Anyway, the thread is low on new posters, and is reaching the point where there it's becoming uncivil and about posters and grudges, so this seems like a good time for closing. Thank you to all who provided feedback.
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Mar 28, 2023 16:29
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