Re: the bolded, that’s one of my objectives with this thread. My hope is that a consensus will emerge that no, we don’t, as a community, allow this kind of stuff. If that consensus doesn’t emerge, well, that’s information too I guess.
This is another thing I would add to the “merits modding” pile, with the same or a similar series of steps. I didn’t mention it earlier for fear of muddying the waters with too many issues. But now that it’s been brought up I’d be happy to hear perspectives on it.
I just want very simple rules, and to give mods the latitude to enforce them. If any mods overstep too often, we’ll just sanction them or get rid of them. But as things stand now mods have absolutely no ability to act without a permission slip. And the few times they’ve tried, there is rarely any consensus. This clearly led to no mods feeling empowered to step into this shitshow, that was brewing for months, until it was too late.
At least that’s the way I see it.
Seems like lots of threads have been locked and moved and lots of arguments have been excised.
When you excise an argument to its own containment thread it just gives it fuel because the posters feel they arent bothering anyone who doesnt want to read it anymore.
Just shut them down before they get bad. This is probably the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a while that we are unable to handle this kind of thing.
I feel like we already kind of do have the “don’t be an asshole” rule (just not so bluntly stated) in the guidelines/faq I linked. In a perfect world that would be enough, but in our world it seems like we need a little more specificity about what “being an asshole” entails.
Same with mods “taking actions to encourage good discussion.” What does that mean in practice? I feel like some getting some concrete things down will help the mods help us have good discussions.
Note, I’m not trying to be difficult. Especially since it seems like you’re coming around a little to my POV… 
I just think striking a balance between too vague (leaving lots of room for different interpretations) and too exact (creating a framework for annoying rules lawyering) is hard but worth spending some effort on. Especially in light of the recent fracas.
I think it is best to work off of specific examples for discussion, so I will offer up a recent thread where someone complained that I insulted him twice.
I get that clovis is a polarizing poster who some around here seem to dislike, but let’s leave that out. Honestly, I’m partly curious how the second is an insult. I won’t deny that I was a bit snarky in that thread. Am I being an asshole? Is it a personal attack if he feels insulted? How long can I repeat this sort of posting before it becomes a problem that requires moderator intervention?
I wish to stake a claim on the Arts & Entertainment subforum, where I will moderate with an iron fist.
I believe in a light touch in accord with SS’s OP.
I think less specificity is much better. Empower the mods to enforce broad, vague rules, have all actions documented, and then the community can give feedback on if they think this action or that action was good or too much or whatever. That way you can heuristically build a set of unstated, agreed-upon rules.
I will only vote for this if the cat starts bopping again. Make it happen.
Re: the bolded. I think this absolutely is something we should internalize as an integral part of the process. We are not appointing dictators for life with power to run roughshod over us little people. We’re not 2p2, we can choose our own moderators as we wish.
I hate to say it but people don’t want moderation because they are afraid of being moderated. Then the mods are demonized by that group. We should all want this to be a better and more civil place. We should trust mods to be fair and if they aren’t have things in place to boot them. Reeking all of the mods and then bitching about the mods being Reek doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Fair enough, that’s an approach that could plausibly work. I don’t 100% agree but appreciate your thoughtful input.
I think something to consider as a counterweight to those who say they are fine with the amount of negative behaviour here is that it discourages some people from going from a reader to a contributor, and will discourage some contributors from getting involved as much. There’s also a good chance you won’t hear most of their voices in this thread.
Just worth thinking about, just as we should try to be considerate of the more quiet people in real life situations.
I don’t think that’s accurate. I’ve been one of the biggest voices for lack or or light moderating ever, everywhere I’ve been, and iirc I’ve never been temp banned except once as a joke in the last 15 years on these poker/politics forums. There are a couple reasons I don’t like moderation that have nothing to do with my fears of being moderated.
eta: And yes, I know I’m a mod. And the reason I am a mod is so I can resign from being a mod after a reasonable term.
There is a lot packed into there that I don’t really want to wade into.
But I can say for my part, that if the two of you went back and forth about it a couple more times, I’d be wishing for a mod to step in. Something of the form, “Hey guys, your little spat is getting annoying, could you please drop it?” And I’d hope that being the big boys that you are, that you could drop it and Bob’s your uncle.
We’re coming after you sooner than that!
I want to be modded. I’d rather have an occasional comment hidden than spend too much time thinking about the appropriate level of self-censoring.
There are few assholes that seem to have personal grudges and\or are constantly posting negative snarky no true Scotsman stuff, but their shitiness makes me feel better about myself. They’re not always wrong either.
I think it’s also the only approach that has a chance of going forward. Because if you want more detailed, specific rules, they’ll have to be written and then get approved by the community and that’s just going to crash and burn.
I think it shouldn’t just rely on mods to step in. If we’re a community hopefully people would feel comfortable to tell people to simmer down, if not publicly possibly by pm. I think this can be particularly effective when it’s posters that generally get along pretty well.