Mod Squad Update for the Week Ending January 22, 2004

...hmmm...I think you're trying to bait me into posting all the bad words you can't post on here. Not gonna happen, but good try.
Seriously, though...I think we all can come up with a reasonable list, if it comes to that, that could be posted in the TOS. I mean, obviously, there should be things that you shouldn't be allowed to talk about. Moderators hands should not be tied, but there should be a standard. It isn't right that one person gets banned for flaming while the person who was baiting him/her goes free. I mean, is there even a reprimand for the person baiting? If someone blatantly violates the TOS, then they're banned...but if it's questionable, call in another mod for a second opinion. I'm not saying it should be done by a machine, because if it were down to that, everyone would be banned. You need someone who can look at the context of the conversation and then make a judgement, not something that bans you because of a word you use without analyzing the situation.
I was just using the Senate as an example. But of course, the mods there should be a bit more lenient with how they go about banning people, it's a board for opinions and ideas, and of course there's going to be differences in both of those.
Thinking about it now, I rephrase what I said about the list. There should be a list, but it should be as a reference helping Mods to judge what is bannable and what is not. Different boards will be moderated differently.

 

Wrong.

wrong.

Your assertion that "you guys keep saying" is not accurate.

sure it is. you don't even know who i was referring to.

We're in complete agreement with moderators responsibilities. What's been missing in your (and others') assesment of the equation is the responsibility on the part of the users.

that's because the responsibility of the users has nothing to do with the responsibility of the mods. if users held up their end of the bargain perfectly, there wouldn't be any mods.

 

> I mean, is there even a reprimand for the person baiting?

Yes.

If someone blatantly violates the TOS, then they're banned...but if it's questionable, call in another mod for a second opinion.

That is exactly what happens. When you see "discussed problem users" in each and every modsquad update, what do you think we're talking about? We're often talking about situations that need more input before possible action is taken.

 

But here's the thing, I've seen baiters lure someone into getting banned, yet they're still there posting. Is it strictly left up to the mod of that particular board to decide if the baiting was ban-worthy? If that's the case, there should be a standard made that gets enforced.

 

> I've seen baiters lure someone into getting banned, yet they're still there posting

Sometimes the "baiting" though is imagined. We've had much discussion on this lately, and I don't think it needs revisiting again in this thread.

Obviously you're thinking of a specific situation, and I can't possibly comment of why the person possibly 'baiting' was not punished without knowing the context in which it all happened.

Have you considered PMing the forum mod(s) where the baiting occured to discuss it with them?

> it strictly left up to the mod of that particular board to decide if the baiting was ban-worthy? If that's the case, there should be a standard made that gets enforced.

Generally the mods of the forum decide, yes. It's possible the person you saw 'baiting' got a PM warning from the mods.

Baiting usually involves 2 or more users with a past history of annoying each other. Every situation is different and a number of factors need to be weighed.

You say;

"there should be a standard that needs to be enforced"

Can you elaborate, maybe giving an example of what you think the "standard" should be?

 

No, because that would be pointless. This particular baiter is friends with the particular mod in the forum. So, attempting to reason with he/she on reprimanding he/she would be pointless.

 

Right then you need to PM an admin with your grievance.

I also edited a bit more into my post above.

 

By a standard, I mean a reference as to what constitutes baiting and luring someone into a conversation that will lead to someone getting banned. I mean, it takes two to tango...most of the time. If there is a history between two people, they should be informed that if the behavior continues, both will "suffer the consequences" or whatever. I'm not saying a permban for both of them, but something to put a stop to them. Baiting is just another form of flaming. I wish there was a way to block posts from users, that would be extremely useful.

 

> a reference as to what constitutes baiting and luring someone into a conversation that will lead to someone getting banned.

But how on earth can this be known ahead of time? And people take offense at things that are actually not baiting in any way.

The obvious baits are dealt with in the obvious manner, and less cut-and-dry situations often have moderator discussions regarding the situation before action is taken (or not).

Sometimes people get away with things, granted - we can't catch every single thing that goes on here-, but if you see something you think is wrong then PM someone who can do something about it.

 

yah, I know. And it comes down to users being sort of watchdogs for the mods, as unpopular as I'm sure that is.

 

That is exactly what happens. When you see "discussed problem users" in each and every modsquad update, what do you think we're talking about? We're often talking about situations that need more input before possible action is taken.

jp, i always assumed you guys were talking about your garden and that "problem users" was code for "plants that won't grow."



I've argued a few times before that if a person doesn't think moderating should be done solely by a bot that censors out certain words, they also can't propose that moderators' hands be tied so much that they have no more freedom in their actions than machines.

yes, but i don't think we're really pitting the 2 extremes against each other here.

Comments that are defamatory or baiting are, by definition, unacceptable because of their connotations, not any specific word or set of words that's written.

but, again, unacceptable connotations can be found in a great many things. even the things that common sense would tell you aren't meant.

That's why it baffles me that some people defend the right of users to post borderline offensive material in Comms.

you see, that's a perception problem in many cases. many of those people aren't defending borderline offensive material because not everyone thinks some of these things are borderline offensive to begin with. there's a difference between defending the act of making borderline offensive statements and defending statements that you don't think are borderline offensive to begin with.

The poster can always argue that they don't think what they posted was terribly offensive, but I know as a fact if I asked some random people who'd never seen the JC before to read some posts here and tell me if they thought some discussions were getting too heated, they'd almost certainly say yes.

well sure, just as some random people would almost certainly say no.

I don't know, maybe my city isn't like the rest of the world, but I sometimes see people post things on these boards that would never, ever be said on the streets of New York.

heh, i think it's the other way around. many of the things said on new york streets would never be said on these boards.

 

Vader Fett...
"that's because the responsibility of the users has nothing to do with the responsibility of the mods. if users held up their end of the bargain perfectly, there wouldn't be any mods."

Bingo. (That's almost verbatim what I said earlier)

So, make us obsolete. That's the basis of our rules. Because anything else that a user chooses to post - anything that may be "borderline," or otherwise ambiguous, etc. - may get you into hot water.

And it's not that hard to do. The last time I did any analysis on this subject, upwards of 99% of the posts to my forums are made in clear, obvious, unambiguous accordance with the rules. It's that other small percentage that requires moderators for enforcement purposes. The more users choose to blur the lines between appropriate and inappropriate posts, the more moderation is required. The more posts are made that are ambiguous and cause for strife (justified or not), and the more of us you'll get. Which means there's more room for different interpretations, and a larger margin of discrepencies. And the downward spiral continues.

The more people follow the rules, the less justification we have for our existence on the matter of enforcement of the site rules.

 

II. Thread caps

We're currently discussing whether we should prevent official threads from exceeding a certain length. This would make discussions more accessible to newer members who would rather post their own thoughts than read dozens of pages of old posts. It might also break some old threads out of ruts in which the same argument is made over and over if they were forced to restart periodically.

No one's locking my wrestling thread! It's almost at 20k posts and is pretty much one of the oldest discussion threads on the entire site (social threads don't count since they never actually talk about anything).

 

Almost everyone was opposed to being more consistent board-wide about not letting threads exceed a certain size. I brought the question up because a new member PMed me to say it's hard to get into old threads that have been discussing the same thing for ages, and I remembered a similar topic in Comms not that long ago. I still think it's a valid point. I'm not sure what to do about it.

 

Well, it seems that the process of creating versions of those threads, Dark lords V10.0, Blue Yoda Society V3.5, etc. etc. seems to generally work. Just archive the thread so as not to lose it and start a new one starting where you left off. Don't be selfish just because your thread has been around a long time, those threads take up a lot of space with 20k posts. I understand that it's been there for a long time, but everything must end eventually.

 

> Almost everyone was opposed to being more consistent board-wide about not letting threads exceed a certain size.

You're right in that there wasn't support for a board-wide blanket rule on thread caps, but there was support for each forum to set its own rules on thread caps if deemed worthwhile.

>I'm not sure what to do about it.


My suggestion is to set them in the forums you have control over, DLM, and encourage users who feel intimidated by big threads in other forums to raise the issue with the mods in the forums where this is occuring.

 

Um, that post about the wrestling thread was supposed to be made by me, but I was on my gf's comp and forgot to log out of her account


Anyway, since the wrestling thread is constantly changing as it is since 2 new eps air every week, it's not really hard for a new poster to join the discussion (and in fact, pretty much everyone who posts there now were all new except me and Saint who have been around since it began 2.5 years ago).


Don't be selfish just because your thread has been around a long time

I can be selfish all I want. It's mine, my own.

My ... precious ...