About Moderation (old original thread)

The truth is that you’re completely blinded by stuff that happened years ago, which leads to this nonsense. I’ll believe that you truly want to change the tone of the website when you stop carrying water for your friends that are so clearly not meeting the standards you set for others. Until then, I’ll continue rolling my eyes and scrolling on most of the time while you make negative progress towards your “goal”.

1 Like

ok

Am I missing something here? Marty says “go fuck yourself, asshole,” catches a ban, comes in a day or two later and says “go fuck yourself, asshole,” and catches a ban and I think we’re on the 4th or 5th cycle of this. It’s hard for me to believe that you’re sincerely confused about why he’s catching escalating bans for telling people to go fuck themselves.

I basically like Marty as a poster, I think his perspective on growing up during The Troubles is fascinating, but he’s clearly a habitual line-stepper and these bans are entirely justifiable.

You could have done that in the Amin Log, as people have repeatedly asked you to.

Is it fair to say you don’t think it’s important that people understand what they did to get a ban?

5 Likes

Would you believe me if I told you I could easily put together a compilation of another posters work that are just as “bad”, and yet that poster never caught a single ban as far as I can tell? I mean, it’s hard to face escalating bans when you never get banned in the first place. But is that fair? I don’t want to be accused of stirring up shit, so won’t proceed yet. But let me know your thoughts on the matter.

1 Like

What did the mods say when you reported these posts?

4 Likes

While marty’s behavior justifies temp-bans, I’m not sure if it’s necessary to give escalating punishments for his level of offense.

1 Like

Ok, you’re not interested. Thanks for playing.

2 Likes

I mean, you’re obviously deflecting from Marty’s inappropriate behavior and weren’t interested in engaging in good faith.

3 Likes

I think this is partly true. I don’t think that week-long bans cool people off in the current environment, but learning theory supports escalating consequences (within reason) when smaller ones are insufficient in correcting behavior. So you could argue that the result might be solely punitive, but I’m not confident saying the intent is purely retributive without reading other poster’s minds.

The problem we’re running into is that effective intervention also requires addressing the underlying causes, and that creates a bit of a paradox given the limitations and dynamics here. If people are being combative because they feel targeted or dismissed, then banning potentially exacerbates rather than solves the problem.

An ideal “jail” helps its detainees strengthen their relationships and resources while they’re inside, so that they re-enter the world in a better place than they left it. I’m not sure what that looks like for bans, but the answer again feels like it’s simply “let’s try and be good to each other” - both to address the underlying causes of rancor as well as - potentially - as a deliberate effort toward reconciliation with the repeat ban-ees.

Anyway, you’re all awesome. And when we disagree, that just means we’re being exposed to different viewpoints. :v:

2 Likes

No. I’m pointing out that if certain people never catch bans for the same behavior that Marty catches bans for, then they will never have a history and therefore never face escalating bans. You guys seem to think Marty’s posting is on it’s face absolutely not acceptable, and I’m saying that at least one person on “your side” was just a provocative, and never got moderated.

1 Like

OK, but you agree Marty’s ban was appropriate?

This is one of the things that gets trotted out about fairness that is largely misguided if viewed by anyone who has actually moderated a forum before.

Here’s the deal, anyone acting as a mod is unpaid and has a real life outside of this forum. They are not going to read every post and are not going to respond timely to every reported post. (This is another reason to have a larger and rotating mod team due to the demands placed on them) So a post that they see while actively reading or see immediately upon being reported might be responded to differently than a post they see 12 hours after it was reported and the argument has already died off.

Some may see this as unfairness, others view it as the reality of the job when placed in the hands of humans who have other things they care more about in life.

1 Like

Paragraph 3 is great and a big part of the problem here is that 2p2 pol was a shithole and had a terrible culture. I’ve said this before, many times, but STTF was unmoderated for a long time and barely moderated afterwards and was a very busy community for a lot of that time. It simply had a culture of more respect. People even talked about politics in the LC thread, disagreed and if anyone hated anyone else they kept it to themselves. And, like you’re talking about, it was at least partly because everyone knew that sniping was bad - brought a loss of status.

As for the second paragraph, there’s no compensation in the person who attacked you getting a ban. It doesn’t raise your status to ask for and receive the help of moderation. Perhaps if instead of a ban, the offending party had to give the victim a goat?

2 Likes

I basically don’t believe you can do this. It might be another poster who expresses similar tone and attitude, but finds a way to avoid crossing the line with respect to language used. That would not be a body of work that I consider “just as bad”.

For better or worse, you are more likely to be punished if your attacks include profanities and vulgarities directed at another poster. That’s what marty consistently does, resulting in predictable bans.

People should learn how to call someone an asshole without calling them an asshole.

That other person I have in mind must have been very lucky indeed that the mods somehow only came across his/her posts after everything had cooled down. And Marty sure is one unlucky SOB.

2 Likes

I think part of the reason i2i was banned was for reporting posts.

1 Like

Why is being deviously insulting better than being openly insulting ?

2 Likes

Ok, so how would you like to improve the situation? If you don’t have an answer to this, then what is your goal here?

Also if you’re gonna keep hinting at it, just use the name in your posts.

1 Like

I’m just telling you how the forum has been moderated in the past. Frankly, I think some posters who have been repeatedly banned are acting stupidly for not figuring this out or don’t care and want the bans because they think getting banned is somehow proving a point. I believe this forum has generally been consistently moderated. People who say it hasn’t been just aren’t seeing reality.

1 Like