I voted, and I don’t want to get involved in this thread much beyond that.
I’d suggest that the people saying everything has been fine, we don’t need mods, pointing out the issue should nip it in the bud, etc, are probably not really aware of what’s gone on either because they’re skimming certain posts, have users on ignore, or some stuff is flying under their radar. Do with that info what you will. If you want to discuss it, PM me, I don’t want to derail this thread re-litigating.
Also it’s worth pointing out that deleted content can probably be restored by mods who can see the full edit history, and temp bans can be lifted. It’s not like an overstep is irreversible. (And @anon10396289 all mod actions along these lines were always documented afaik.)
Sort of yes, sort of no. We don’t have a lot of them generally. But as you note, they can act as a pebble which starts the avalanche:
I agree with this, that’s why step 1 in my proposal is exactly that. (Well, that plus hiding or deleting stuff in the worst cases.) If a mod had stepped in and nuked the fidget post that got cuse going, or the churchill post that went after SUB, the drama bomb could have been defused before the explosion.
And I also fully agree with this. The thing is though, in my opinion, this might be necessary to smother the drama bomb, but in many situations, it’s not going to be sufficient.
Put it this way: I and I’m sure many other people reading through the drama threads this weekend had a lot we could have said, but held back for the reason you stated. The drama continued because not everybody could exercise similar restraint, and unfortunately I don’t think we’ll ever get to a place where every single forum member toes that line.
So, in my opinion at least, occasionally we will need some moderator intervention.
Yup. Even the Discord around the election really changed my views on some people I think I just didn’t get because my brain is broken. Every person on there was intelligent and kind and funny. Maybe I just was on for the lucky 6hrs or whatever but it kind of blew me away. We are all lucky to be around as many smart and mostly fine people to talk about a huge range of topics.
Iirc he had to be called out by one or more posters that had to make a big deal out of it before the mods took action*, which may be an aspect that leads to increased drama.
*Not criticizing the mods who have been expected to take a laissez-faire attitude here thus far.
Thanks to both of you for bringing up another facet of this that I’ve long thought about:
We really have set our mods up to fail because there are not any agreed-on expectations, standards, processes, or even in some cases rules about stuff.
Whatever we decide on for our “rules,” I feel like another area where some improvements could be made are in the above (mod role & expectations). Maybe in a different thread? Or here, whatever works for people.
I’m going to be nicer to all of you from now on. Sickeningly nice. It’s going to be like a Twilight Zone where you want niceness and get so much of it that you can’t stand it.
If we wanted to have a general “don’t be an asshole” rule along with empowering mods to take actions to encourage good discussion while discouraging petty squabbles that would be fine. As long as all the mod actions are publicly documented.
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.
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 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.
