Author Topic: Community and Moderation Standards Discussions (Consolidated)  (Read 9757 times)

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Offline General Battuta

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
If I have to be respectful of people who think COVID stands for Churches Open, Virus Isn't Deadly I'm going to—well, uh, not be respectful. "Don't be a dick" so often ends up meaning "don't say anything superficially inflammatory in the face of things that are actually horrible".

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
Pretty nice backronym huh?? Came up with that myself

 
Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
If I have to be respectful of people who think COVID stands for Churches Open, Virus Isn't Deadly I'm going to—well, uh, not be respectful. "Don't be a dick" so often ends up meaning "don't say anything superficially inflammatory in the face of things that are actually horrible".

Pretty sure we have rule 1 and 2 for that kinda stuff.

 
Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
"Don't be a dick" so often ends up meaning "don't say anything superficially inflammatory in the face of things that are actually horrible".

Rule 4 does seem strange to me and I think it’s a recipe for trouble as written, but it makes a lot of sense in spirit as a measure against this sort of thing. If there’s one thing we’ve learnt here it’s that massive toxic dumpster fire arguments about someone’s behaviour are a terrible way of managing disagreement, but HLP has had a lot of bitter times resulting from rigid ‘don’t be a dick’ moderating that provides cover for people who are driving a lot of others crazy without using naughty words. For my part, I would suggest an approach to moderation that strongly discourages bitter dogpiling arguments, but recognises that if a bunch of people want to object to someone’s behaviour like that it means there’s a real problem that needs active resolution. Moderator discretion and an ability to read the room will be required, and it’s clear that this can only work if the community agrees to respect their judgements on the ground.
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Offline Mobius

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
Saying that any situation involving a "bunch of people" who happen to have a particular issue with a [given member] should automatically mark the beginning of some sort of "moderating evaluation" of [said member] is a rather dangerous concept. I don't expect anything good to happen should a similar policy be applied.

We'd rather stick to regular evaluation processes, IMO.
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Offline Mongoose

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
If I have to be respectful of people who think COVID stands for Churches Open, Virus Isn't Deadly I'm going to—well, uh, not be respectful. "Don't be a dick" so often ends up meaning "don't say anything superficially inflammatory in the face of things that are actually horrible".

I think in my mind the distinction should be made between attacking the position, and attacking the person. If someone is pushing the argument that you gave as an example, then by all means, absolutely tee off on that argument. But keep it there: don't denigrate the individual as a basic person. If someone truly is espousing ridiculous opinions on a regular basis, quite frankly their reputation is going to take care of itself, without any need for you helping it along.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
Their reputations are taking care of themselves to the tune of 400,000 dead people, though. Denialism kills. It's hard not to call someone who wants to minimize that an absolute monster.

I guess there's always oblique phrasing like "anyone who believes this is an accessory to murder" but that's weaselly.

 
Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
If I have to be respectful of people who think COVID stands for Churches Open, Virus Isn't Deadly I'm going to—well, uh, not be respectful. "Don't be a dick" so often ends up meaning "don't say anything superficially inflammatory in the face of things that are actually horrible".

I think in my mind the distinction should be made between attacking the position, and attacking the person. If someone is pushing the argument that you gave as an example, then by all means, absolutely tee off on that argument. But keep it there: don't denigrate the individual as a basic person. If someone truly is espousing ridiculous opinions on a regular basis, quite frankly their reputation is going to take care of itself, without any need for you helping it along.

I disagree, and sorting out this disagreement is probably the most important part of this discussion. It's not healthy that if many community members find someone's views deeply objectionable or obnoxious, the position of the moderators effectively becomes hostile to the majority: "well you'd better make sure you follow the rules of Polite Debate with Jim the antivaxxer, or the guy who complains that any symmetrical ship model is uninspired garbage". I think effective moderation needs to actually listen to people when they express objections to someone's behaviour, and you need to be ready to take someone aside and say "your behaviour is actually annoying the hell out of a lot of people; you need to adjust course", rather than only telling everyone to cool off. God knows I've benefited enough from people telling me stuff like that over the years.

The 'geek social fallacy' Battuta keeps linking to is very much on point: you can't keep a healthy community running if you start off by saying you'll never rebuke or exclude anyone no matter how disruptive they're being to the actual happiness of the group.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
I'm not trying to imply that aberrant behavior shouldn't be taken to task, and I don't think that we should be moderating by dropping a "play nice kids" without actually considering the viewpoints in question. But I do believe that there's a clear distinction between a response like, "Your opinion is abhorrent and is going to get a lot of people needlessly killed" and one like, "You're a subhuman monster." Both are ostensibly trying to accomplish the same thing, but the latter is ****-stirring just for the sake of doing so. Maybe the other moderators feel differently about this, but that's my own take on it.

 

Offline Rhymes

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
I'm not trying to imply that aberrant behavior shouldn't be taken to task, and I don't think that we should be moderating by dropping a "play nice kids" without actually considering the viewpoints in question. But I do believe that there's a clear distinction between a response like, "Your opinion is abhorrent and is going to get a lot of people needlessly killed" and one like, "You're a subhuman monster." Both are ostensibly trying to accomplish the same thing, but the latter is ****-stirring just for the sake of doing so. Maybe the other moderators feel differently about this, but that's my own take on it.

I don't agree with this. Certain opinions--specifically ones that deliberately minimize, ignore, or advocate for mass death and suffering--should be met with hostility. If someone comes along and says "vaccines are the devil" or "COVID is a hoax" or "Hitler was right" or "the Holodomor and the Cultural Revolution were good things, actually," members of the community should be free to say "**** all the way off, you piece of ****" without worrying about whether they're going to get sanctioned by the moderators.

You can't separate the person from their opinion because their opinions are informed by who they are, and are the primary basis by which we, as humans, figure out who other people are. If they uncritically support things that they know will cause death and suffering, that makes them a bad person.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
I will say this is a topic that society at large has not figured out how to handle so it's no surprise it's challenging us.

What I think we should be allowed to do is parry the other poster when they perform a long-windup attack, then press R1 to perform a visceral attack for huge damage.

 
Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
I do somewhat agree with Mongoose that hostile personal abuse is something that needs to be avoided, but the standards and the moderators need to be smart about how to do that — if someone’s ideas are so gratuitously offensive that a lot of people just want to tell them to go **** themselves, then saying ‘you must debate the idea rather than the person’ is tone deaf and incredibly frustrating for the people who’d like to be able to talk without a lunatic interrupting. It’s complicated, because often the right response *is* to tell everyone to cool off, leave it, and consider their own behaviour (especially on Discord where the realtime chat allows everyone to get very annoyed and entrenched pretty quickly); but sometimes there is someone who is a persistent or gratuitous troublemaker, who is out of line with the basic values most of us hold, and those people just need to be removed if they can’t reform.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
I mean yeah, there is absolutely a sliding scale here, and that's the point where individual discretion comes in instead of hard-and-fast rules. If there is an individual who genuinely believes that Bernie Sanders controls a Jewish space laser that he used to start wildfires in California, and openly espouses that viewpoint, then they are not going to find themselves welcome here for long. But if a situation like that does come up, then please, shoot us a report. It won't exactly be a long deliberation on our end.

 
Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
I realize the catharticness of telling a nazi to **** off, but also consider that no matter what you say it's ultimately going to be handled by a moderator, and the more you post the more work they have to do.

 

Offline Rhymes

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
Yeah I'm not suggesting that there should be a long back and forth debate about why said nazi should **** off, just that if someone says "**** off you nazi scum," hits the report button, and exits the thread, I don't think it would be reasonable to sanction the one making the report. 
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"Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it?”

 

Offline MP-Ryan

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
I think that much of the discussion here is focusing on point 4 without recognizing 2 also exists.

I am okay with multiple users expressing to another that a view they hold is - to put it bluntly - garbage.  What I'm not okay with, and what we have a historical problem with, is multiple users dogpiling on to state/imply the person is crap.  Most of the extreme hypotheticals anyone can cite are going to fall afoul of point 2 and receive warns/sanctions of varying severity regardless - this captures your actual-goosestepping-Nazi-cosplayers, your "women are just too emotional and sensitive" misogynists, your "transpeople don't deserve human rights" cretins, your "homosexuals all deserve to get aids" bigots, etc.  Depending on the severity, anyone meandering down these paths is going to find themselves in an ejection seat primed to launch or in various stages of descent without parachute.

Point 4 is designed for the friend-group correction process - "Hey Bob, sit down and shut up, that's idiotic" from six people around the campfire when Bob decides to announce that people questioning his favourite choice of beer is literal hate speech.  Say your piece, Bob gets the hint that his take is genuinely bad, we move on with no hard feelings.  We don't need moderators to step in in that scenario so long as it's over and done with.  Now, if the same scenario in 30 minutes of "haha look at Bob he's an idiot" dominated by three people, that's a problem.

This is a forum.  We respect diverse views, even to an extent that some of them are garbage - and to an extent, users (yes, Battuta, even you :P ) are sometimes going to have to suck it up in the face of comments you find personally objectionable or monstrous.  The Standards exist to define a minimum behavioural standard and guide both users and moderators in their behaviour. Moderators, collectively, WILL draw some lines that not everyone in the community is happy with, and they will be case-by-case.  I made it pretty clear early on in the COVID thread that there was going to be very limited tolerance for any 'truther'-type garbage that wasn't supported by actual scientific sources because it's a big deal.  Other topics may see more, or less, flexibility.  This is why it is important we have a variety of active moderators who can set this kind of tone, and, of equal importance, users who listen when that line is drawn.  You don't have to like it or agree with it, but you do need to recognize that part of the reason we select moderators is to collectively set those lines for the whole community as these cases emerge.  If a certain person finds a certain discussion objectionable on some grounds that are not covered by point 2 and where the moderation team has made one of these judgement calls, you have an option not to click on that thread.  Letting these disputes fester and become a war of personalities instead of a war of ideas is part of what has landed us in this recent mess.  Is the moderation team going to be as lax/apathetic as Facebook and Twitter? No.  Will there be decisions that some of you may end up strongly disagreeing with?  YES.

And, as Joshua pointed out, where things appear to get heated, the correct approach is to Report the issue so these decisions can be made quickly and intervention occurs early.

EDIT:  And before anyone gets too worried, while we are not re-litigating the past, I have numerous regrets and misgivings about the way some issues were permitted to fester around here in the past, so I, personally, have no intention of pursuing a "they're just debating ideas" approach that ends up with a subgroup setting up shop that is going to run the site's reputation into the ground.  There's a reason the draft standards including a preamble about what HLP is for, and you should all note that "safe space for your favourite political soapbox take" is not among them.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2021, 06:15:20 pm by MP-Ryan »
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
My structural perfection is matched only by my hostility.







But if you have to moderate me for it that's okay.

Edited for the sake of mobile phone users - Karajorma
« Last Edit: February 07, 2021, 07:52:51 pm by karajorma »

 

Offline Rhymes

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
why are you the way that you are battuta
If you don't have Knossos, you need it.

“There was a button," Holden said. "I pushed it."
"Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it?”

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
I had to make MP-Ryan page down a lot, because I am a fan of The Elder Scrolls.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: DRAFT/FEEDBACK - HLP Community and Moderation Standards - Open to 2021/03/06
Well, time to test that editing clause.
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