I’d keep temp-banning him for ever-increasing periods until he was effectively perma-ed (assuming he doesn’t stop shitposting).
But in the current forum climate those actions would probably produce 79 threads, endless RFCs and polls, and 4000 posts of ever-increasing rancor. Which is why I will never be mod.
It’s probably also why you shouldn’t be advocating for long bans.
Jailing people doesn’t do anything to address the causes of social problems. Same with bans and this place.
I’m not mad that he was banned. Just want to know the reason. And why it was so long.
I like 6ix and his posting very much. That’s not to say he’s not abusive or condescending, but I like him and his posting a lot.
That’s not to say I don’t like people who don’t like 6ix like Suzzer.
I don’t know that it’ll bother me if 6ix gets perma’d though assuming it doesn’t hurt his feelings. I’m tired of the fighting and at least I hope that I’ll be able to chat with 6ix either way.
Thing is it usually does hurt people’s feelings to get permanent or long termp bans if they feel it’s unjust
He called someone a nazi.
He asked someone if they had been drinking paint.
He asked me if I should know better as a parent, for absolutely no reason.
This was within about a day, and not including the hundreds of posts I didn’t read after putting him on ignore. I’m clearly missing dozens of examples. There were no points being made. It was toxic, abusive trolling. If you compare his posts to Inso0, inso0 didn’t have 5% as many posts that warranted moderation. But, inso0 had no one like Victor or microbet to stick up for him because nobody liked him.
How should you deal with someone who thinks that a just thing is unjust?
There’s no hope for resolving it under the current system of perma mods where a substantial number of people were hoping to participate in community modding, because the system isn’t giving enough people what they want.
Under short term community modding the problem dissipates.
I didn’t ask how the current system deals which such people. If you use community modding, how do you deal with someone who thinks the community is being unjust?
I’m aware you didn’t but I wanted to tell you anyway.
Under a rota of community modding the problems of people feeling picked on by particular mods, and mods feeling picked on by people, go away.
Or just get rid of mods altogether and have a simple forum policy of Be Kind that’s easily cited when someone transgresses. Every single person here knows when they’re being unkind.
Under community modding, how do you deal with someone who feels picked on by a succession of different mods? How do you deal with someone who chooses to repeatedly break the policy of being kind? How does it work if a significant percentage of people believe the forum policy is actually “Be Kind (Unless They Deserve Unkindness)”?
I don’t believe in utopianism, so I don’t believe that community modding will get rid of problematic posting by problematic posters. How does community modding deal with people who insist on being a problem?
If the forum is so malignant that a lot of people abuse their mod privileges to pick on particular people then it’s fucked whatever system is in place. All the nice people will leave and what’s left will tear each other to shreds. Just imagine!
If otoh people are imagining it that will become apparent over time.
No one can be kind all the time. We are all flawed humans but we can at least have a standard we try to meet. When we fail it’s flagged by our peers in an understanding and supportive, not condemnatory way.
Re your last question. You were someone who was widely seen as being one of the problematic posters you’re citing. Is there some light you can shed on the solution? Why would community modding be any worse in your case than perma modding?
Not that I like Inso, but I stuck up for him. I don’t like banning people.
My question is: how do you deal with someone who believes they are being unfairly picked on when they are actually being dealt with appropriately? I believe that no matter what modding regime you come up with, someone will come away with this sort of feeling eventually.
I don’t think I have ever claimed that I have been modded incorrectly. I have a POV that I acknowledge can be problematic for some people and I do not lack empathy for why that is so.
When I was given temp-bans, I knew I was risking such bans and I ate those bans without whining about it. I only cared about trying to communicate what I believed in a way so that people understood me. I think that giving people a time-out is a perfectly acceptable tool for moderation and I think posters should accept being given the night off. Bans are generally predictable. I see posts where I think this person is going to get banned and then they get banned. If people are intentionally posting provocatively to induce a ban because they think it proves something, it’s not working.
There are two competing narratives here. One is that there is a group of bad faith actors who don’t deserve anything. The other is that there is a group of martyrs being unfairly victimized. (If I can use those broad generalizations to talk about either this forum or Israel and the Palestinians, does that mean there is no solution in sight?) I don’t think either narrative is accurate here. There may be kernels of truth in both narratives, but it is not how I would describe the situation.
How is that situation dealt with now? By telling them to stfu and if they don’t then it’s a double ban. How is that remotely helpful to the forum when it’s happening to more and more people?
I did already say that under community modding whether a particular person who picks up a lot of bans is being victimised by a small number of mods or is imagining it will become apparent over time because mods are rapidly rotated.
We hear a lot about how the forum is dying, but no one seems prepare to try a different approach. It’s almost as if they’d actually prefer it to die rather than have their favoured mod(s) rotated out. You should ask yourself why that could be.
This seems demonstrably false. In the RFC thread re:rotating mods the vast majority were for it. The amount of people who care who the mods are is a tiny, but vocal, minority of the site.
I’ve lost track of where we are with all the RFCs and polls. The first poll showed a majority in favour of fixed mod terms iirc but that then got negated by…you know the rest.
If there’s a big majority pro rotation but who keep voting for the same mod that’s kind of self-contradictory.
This is the false part. What grounds do you have for making this claim?
I don’t feel like my question is being answered. I don’t care about the current situation. I just want to know how community modding will deal with a poster who is a persistent problem, whether they are knowingly and willingly being a bad actor or they are delusional and don’t recognize that being modded the same way by a string of different mods is a sign that they are the problem.
I tend to believe that the rancor on the forum is due to human nature and not due to moderation regimes. Advocacy for a different system often seems to me like saying that things are bad so what do we have to lose by trying something different. That line doesn’t work on me. I don’t believe in change for the sake of change.
I mean it’s the same tiny fraction of overall posters (at most 15-20) who have been debating this issue for a long time. It doesn’t mean their opinions aren’t important but based on a) wookie referendum #1 being over 90% in support and b) the vast majority of people who voted in the RFC thread being for rotating mods I think we can draw some conclusions. Mainly that most people here trust most people to moderate the site. Also there are more posters here than the small subset that participate in these threads and the even smaller subset that is ALWAYS participating in these threads.
But honestly I think we are in the weeds on this. My main point was that it seems like a majority does want to change to rotating mods. I do. Most did in the thread. I guess we will see how the vote goes. So I don’t think it’s fair or reflects reality to say NO ONE is willing to seek change for the better. People have spent time and effort working through constructive change in the last couple of days, especially meb, and it seems pretty disrespectful of that to act like it isn’t happening or is insignificant.
Worth noting Mebs approach there.
Like for me. THAT is how you get shit done in this environment.
Saying no one is prepared to try for a different approach was hyperbolic, true. I guess I’m guilty of reacting to the loudest voices on the status quo side. I apologise. Clearly there’s at least 20-25 who very much wish things had been organised quite differently here, plus meb and others you refer to who are willing to explore different avenues now.
We will have to see how it pans out.