I agree and the people who have posted about how scrolling is trivially easy and putting people on ignore is also trivially easy are wise and correct, but as greg wisely points out there, containment is a whole nother animal than temp bans or asking people to stop. It is dancing monkeys and it’s especially gross. Yuv has made the decent point that if it’s going to be like that, just perma someone (which I am also almost always against) instead of having the circus.
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I think the heart of the matter is whether moderators’ job is to maximize productive conversation, then whether containment or exile are useful tools for that purpose.
Mods do spin off derails into their own threads. I don’t know whether this was just a derail that was segregated or if it was intended to be an actual containment thread as its title states.
Given the history of this forum and where it comes from, I think there are some posters who believe that containment is an appropriate use of mod power. I can foresee someone trying to contain a poster during their turn as a mod, so I think it’s good to have this conversation before we have the crisis of someone actually trying to do that without a clear understanding of how the forum feels (and to have this discussion without having it influenced by the person being punished).
I wasn’t talking about you specifically, it’s been a few different people at different points in different threads.
I thought the idea around containment is that if someone wants to keep engaging then they can. Isn’t this exactly what we did with our trigger happy prickly plant poster?
I don’t know the details. I do think the thread titles for containment are gross, but those aren’t rules or even done by moderators necessarily. I don’t know this, but assuming goofy is right, Cactus is not contained in any meaningful sense. And extractions of subthreads is something that has always happened here and hasn’t been particularly controversial. If containment is something new, I would think it’s different than extracting something from a thread. And, you should consider the history and motivation of this thread right now…it’s evolved very clearly from a movement to kick JT out of the covid thread.
I’ll dial back to say it’s clearly inspired by posting by JT and responses to him in the covid thread. Yes, NBZ does like to start RFCs.
Not kicking out, but surely in response to JT’s posting in the Covid thread.
Ponied by micro.
A poster who was not one of the usual suspects suggested the idea of a containment thread. I thought it would be good to have this discussion before anything came to a boiling point. Yes, I like RFCs and discussing meta and process.
Wouldn’t need containment, just excision, right?
I like this idea. Is there an RFC for it yet?
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Unstuck Politics hereby declares that the best dipping chips are:
- Tortillas
- @Trolly can go fuck off
- Doritos
- Pringles
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Seems to me containment threads are useful when an impasse is reached and dialogue has devolved into name calling, lies, and attempts at impugning a poster’s character for lack of legitimate responses. Although, I’d propose calling them derailment threads. For one thing it’s not always the one with the outside opinion that causes the derail as goofyballer suggests. In fact, containment threads are often the opposite of what the name implies. It’s more of a breakthrough thread that becomes necessary when the regs can’t handle a break away from groupthink
contain the contaminant subversive elements in a gulag / thread archipelago
You’re misunderstanding what’s meant by a containment thread. It isn’t for derails. It’s a jail/penalty box for one poster. So if you were contained, you could only post in the Cactus Containment Thread (for example). It’s rather juvenile.
It strikes me worse than juvenile, though maybe for reasons I can not articulate. If we reach a point where we would want to “contain” a user, seems best to ban and move on.
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I would be curious how many “yes” votes are mods or have previously been mods.
skydiver, wooky and I think commonwealth who may have modded in the early days. Some ex/current mods haven’t voted.
Putting posters into a virtual jail is hall of shame stuff. Imagine thinking that seeking a confinement order on a neighbour who’s too noisy in the street for your liking is any way to live. Even the guy who used to put people in real jails didn’t vote for this.
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I’m kinda surprised that only two people voted for the option I voted for which was “put it to a vote”. Was that, like, a troll option and I’ve misunderstood the whole KFCBBQ process and this is the vote? I thought this was just the pre-meeting meeting to schedule the meeting to discuss the real meeting.
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I agree. If someone is being incorrigible and intentionally disruptive with no greater purpose, it seems best to temp or perma ban them. But I like the idea of “containment” or “offshoot” threads as it allows a conversation to go further for those who still want to engage. I rather enjoy sparring with people who won’t accept that there are sometimes gray areas and valid differing points of views
Here, here. I think it should be put to a vote. I’m often amazed at the amount of time, attention, and engagement I receive from people who seem diametrically opposed to my posts. If there was a vote to contain or ban me, I’d take the hint and simply stop engaging on the topic myself. What I do when I think someone posts something hopeless is not respond to it. Anything beyond a few responses to something that’s deemed a ludicrous take is the true source of the derailment imo