Imagine a spectrum of posts that mention violence. Maybe it goes from the mere mention of violence, … , condoning violence, … , encouraging violence, … , advocating violence. This is far from perfect but you get the idea.
Forum rules need to draw the line somewhere on this spectrum dividing the allowed vs. disallowed posts. For simplicity let’s call this “loose” (the line is drawn towards the advocate end of the spectrum), “medium”, and “strict” (the line is drawn towards the condoning end of the spectrum).
Okay, every forum post can have multiple interpretations. Let’s say that posts that mention violence can be interpreted in the least favorable light (most violent) to medium to the most favorable light (less violent).
My view is that it is untenable for a forum mod to apply a “least favorable” reading with a “strict” standard. That would inevitably break down and lead to too many infractions, temp-bans, etc., and too much work for the mod.
On the other hand it is also untenable for a forum mod to apply a “most favorable” reading with a “loose” standard. That would also inevitably break down since far too few infractions, temp-bans, etc. would be meted out.
Maybe the above doesn’t make any sense to anybody else, but it kinda crystalizes my view of the current situation.
Option four is so weak. Complain about a problem but do nothing about it other than cry about the people working to address you concern. If you want a community-run site, then, I dunno, you need to either get involved or be quiet.
Because of your choices over the last week or so one respected poster has nuked his own account and another has stopped being a donor/patron. And now you’re trying to present like you care what the community thinks after banning someone who the community said should be left alone.
Pick mods who have good judgment and let them call balls and strikes. The batters don’t get to open a new thread every time a close call doesn’t go their way and say it’s a dictatorship or mob rule. They can hold a vote to remove the umpire and replace with someone who they deem to have better judgment or do the thankless unpaid work themselves. “I want you to umpire–but only my way–and I’ll scrutinize every 50/50 ball I don’t agree with” isn’t going to fly.
Right, what they want is to not have the full responsibility of being a mod but to tell the mods how to mod. I get it. Can’t eat your cake and have it.
If somebody thinks cuse is doing a shit enough job to warrant being removed, then that person should step forward and offer to replace him. I’m completely unwilling to do that. So I’m with cuse even though I think he has handled NBZ terribly throughout.
That and I almost never do anything that causes harm to a forum. If so it’s often a one-off. So whatevs.
If you believe that is a prerequisite for asking a mod to step down, you are crazy. But my guess is that you are just joining in on the fun of ratcheting this higher and higher until the fate of the human race hangs in the balance.
Cool, I am able to delete my posts over 60 days old which I’ve done. You can delete the rest of my posts (I’d finish the job myself but the software won’t let me delete anymore posts for 24 hours) and then my account or use the anonymize button as you prefer.
This is a perfectly fair framework to start with or even end with, but you’re taking a general approach to all posts without trying to find/possibly not agreeing with a more specific approach to address the more problematic subset of posts.
For example, if a person posted “I’m advocating that so and so be killed” that seems like an open and shut case of advocating violence. Let’s say this is severe enough the first time and you give the person a one day time out. They come back a day later and post again, “I’m advocating that so and so be killed”. You decide to tell them that if they say that again they willed be banned forever and give them a three day ban. Now that person comes back in three days and says “I’m not advocating that so and so be killed, but I wouldn’t mind if somebody killed so and so”. Is that a post you let stand? Is that poster no longer advocating violence but simply condoning it, which triggers the looser response flowchart? What if they only said, “I’m not advocating that so and so be killed, but I wouldn’t mind if somebody killed so and so” the first time, no action?
I don’t propose we go insane covering every possible good faith/bad faith case, I’m just proposing that we consider prohibiting posts in which the heads of state where most of us live and travel meet grisly and untimely ends by means of intentional violence. But I don’t want the standard limited to advocacy. I don’t want to see it condoned, trolled about, or ideally even joked about. Perhaps @lawbros can help clarify this standard or at least help explain the problems a person may face if they, even on twitter, had dozens of serious but not serious, well I’m joking but not joking, but joking posts where, punchline, somebody in government gets killed.
If this is too nebulous, take any post, and if you can substring find some proposition “kill x” or “x is killed”, then the propositional attitude concerning that proposition better be something like “hey shut the fuck up about this”. In cases where we can’t substring find that, we use the judgment of a community supported mod enforcing this standard, assuming it is adopted, it may not be.
