[Mongoose]

I think a big issue for me is that of climate: HLP is very quick  to crack down on people using the word 'idiot', and very slow to crack down on posters who are hostile or disruptive towards content creators and (in the case of GenDisc) substantive topical experts. Spoon faced constant harassment and people writing weird rape fantasies about his characters. We're told to report these so they can be dealt with, but nothing happens, and then we're told the reports are obnoxious. The result is an environment in which tone is ruthlessly policed but actual effect on the forums is mostly ignored. Saying 'asshole' gets you time off; cruising around High Max style driving productive posters insane gets those productive posters time off.  It feels perverse and frustrating.

This leads to people like Spoon turning into bittervets. They can't get help from the admins, so they have to deal with hostile posters themselves with the only tools available: harsh language and ignore lists. Then they're condemned for being angry and combative.

Re: the situation in the WoD folder, I'll repeat again for the record that we received absolutely no reports about what was going on in there.  That folder is one of the few on here that I'm not caught up with on a daily basis (and the only reason for that is because I'm so far behind in playing things that I haven't picked up the campaign yet), and I personally had no way of knowing what was going on in there without some type of communication from the people observing it.  That was an incident that was just begging to be reported, and I would have been happy to jump into it if I'd known about it, but there it is.  Again, I'm sorry that fell through as it did, and I'll do my level best to make sure that something like it doesn't happen again.

More in general, when it comes to posters like High Max or Lorric or the like, obviously the hopefully-soon-forthcoming revised guidelines would more explicitly lay out the policy pertaining to these sorts of users.  In lieu of that, though, I think the issue has been historically that much of the community been unable or unwilling to just flat-out ignore individuals that are viewed as disruptive or just generally stupid.  There's very much a "Someone is WRONG on the Internet!" philosophy at work here; lord knows I'm not immune to it either.  But sometimes you have to step back and realize that the only reason many of these sorts of posts become disruptions in the first place is because other people go out of their way to respond to them, and then things escalate until the whole topic is a flaming mess.  In some of those cases, treating the problem individual's words as so much whitespace between actual topic posts would have served everyone much better.

Even more in general, I'm admittedly a bit puzzled when I see people asking for a more moderation-by-group approach, even if it's more read-only.  I've never heard of that sort of approach working elsewhere...hell, to be frank, I've never so much as seen it in all the communities I've been a part of.  I agree that there should be more transparency when it comes to moderation, particularly in displaying when certain actions have been taken, and explaining decisions that may run contrary to a reporter's thoughts.  However, I think laying bare the whole process of moderation deliberation is just asking for even more of an explosion of drama...I mean, there's a reason why international diplomacy relies so much on conversations held in confidence.  And no, this has nothing to do with my desire for any sort of "power": I mean goddamn, if this is what's meant by grabbing power, then I sure as hell grabbed onto the wrong thing.  I think there's a happy medium to be had here, but I don't think the answer is straight-up mob rule.

[MP-Ryan]

Even more in general, I'm admittedly a bit puzzled when I see people asking for a more moderation-by-group approach, even if it's more read-only.  I've never heard of that sort of approach working elsewhere...hell, to be frank, I've never so much as seen it in all the communities I've been a part of.  I agree that there should be more transparency when it comes to moderation, particularly in displaying when certain actions have been taken, and explaining decisions that may run contrary to a reporter's thoughts.  However, I think laying bare the whole process of moderation deliberation is just asking for even more of an explosion of drama...I mean, there's a reason why international diplomacy relies so much on conversations held in confidence.  And no, this has nothing to do with my desire for any sort of "power": I mean goddamn, if this is what's meant by grabbing power, then I sure as hell grabbed onto the wrong thing.  I think there's a happy medium to be had here, but I don't think the answer is straight-up mob rule.

Mob rule isn't desirable, but the arena I've seen this work is in the Appeals section of gaming server forums.  It's where I've used it.  The report and appeals sections are both open-access to view; reports is open-access to post.  The appeals sections allowed players to post their appeal, and the moderators would then locked the thread so only the moderation team could respond to it, but everyone could see it.

I could see a hybrid of this working here - not for the informal moderation (warnings and such) which I hope will become more common, but for the more formal stuff like monkeying, political prisoners, bans, etc - a tracking of incidents and rationale behind responses.

I also hope that the new guidelines lead to more action being taken toward individuals, and less thread locking.  Thread locking is something that has always annoyed me because it seems like abandoning discussion in lieu of dealing with problem children.

[karajorma]

I'd definitely like to see less thread locks and more warnings for the problem children.

Given the open hostility shown on this thread towards the moderators though, I have very little interest in open moderation discussions. I think that would just make people more likely to claim vendettas.

Show me a thread like this and I'll find you a post from a GM or Admin talking about how us regular forumites don't know the crap they deal with because we aren't special enough.

How much are you willing to bet on that? Cause whatever you want to put down, I'm willing to match.

About the only thing you'll find is a complaint from me about a particular user in the same post that I suggested we make Axem an admin.

In other words, well before this thread was in full swing.

And, as said here, the mods don't like moderation to be reported! Good job, guys.

Also incorrect. What irks the moderators is people abusing the reporting system because they were moderated.

A legitimate grievance is fine (Notice I said I agreed with Battuta about his issues with the FRED crashes thread), but what annoys is when someone gets justifiable moderated and instantly jumps on the moderator in an attempt to get even.

Until you've seen the moderation logs, you'll find it rather hard to believe how often that happens

[mjn.mixael]

How much are you willing to bet on that? Cause whatever you want to put down, I'm willing to match.

Until you've seen the moderation logs, you'll find it rather hard to believe how often that happens

 

[MP-Ryan]

stopitstopitstopit

Part of the reason that nothing ever changes around here - and in this karajorma is right - is because those advocating for it have an unfortunate tendency to often shoot themselves in the foot.

Do you really want leaky feet?  Think of the nice white carpets you'll ruin.  Plus ammunition isn't cheap.  Don't shoot feet, shoot down bad ideas and promote better ones.

[Mongoose]

Even more in general, I'm admittedly a bit puzzled when I see people asking for a more moderation-by-group approach, even if it's more read-only.  I've never heard of that sort of approach working elsewhere...hell, to be frank, I've never so much as seen it in all the communities I've been a part of.  I agree that there should be more transparency when it comes to moderation, particularly in displaying when certain actions have been taken, and explaining decisions that may run contrary to a reporter's thoughts.  However, I think laying bare the whole process of moderation deliberation is just asking for even more of an explosion of drama...I mean, there's a reason why international diplomacy relies so much on conversations held in confidence.  And no, this has nothing to do with my desire for any sort of "power": I mean goddamn, if this is what's meant by grabbing power, then I sure as hell grabbed onto the wrong thing.  I think there's a happy medium to be had here, but I don't think the answer is straight-up mob rule.

Mob rule isn't desirable, but the arena I've seen this work is in the Appeals section of gaming server forums.  It's where I've used it.  The report and appeals sections are both open-access to view; reports is open-access to post.  The appeals sections allowed players to post their appeal, and the moderators would then locked the thread so only the moderation team could respond to it, but everyone could see it.

I could see something like that being potentially workable, though maybe with some slight personal reservations about how it'd work in practice here.  There is one fairly-large forum I'm active on where the mods have set up a "Hey Mod!" thread, where they'll publicly answer questions about people's own bans.  Even there, though, it's considered a completely-optional service as far as mod participation goes.

[Spoon]

Shooting yourself in the foot, or proving a point? Cause I think mjn.mixael just proved his point 

[MP-Ryan]

Shooting yourself in the foot, or proving a point? Cause I think mjn.mixael just proved his point 

Sure, but does it help the discussion or hinder by entrenching positions and barriers?

This does not to be an us-vs-them issue, no matter how hard certain individuals in both camps seem to be trying to make it that way at times.

Everybody cool down and go comment on the rule changes.  That's where some extra input would be most helpful.

[The Dagger]

Even more in general, I'm admittedly a bit puzzled when I see people asking for a more moderation-by-group approach, even if it's more read-only.  I've never heard of that sort of approach working elsewhere...hell, to be frank, I've never so much as seen it in all the communities I've been a part of.  I agree that there should be more transparency when it comes to moderation, particularly in displaying when certain actions have been taken, and explaining decisions that may run contrary to a reporter's thoughts.  However, I think laying bare the whole process of moderation deliberation is just asking for even more of an explosion of drama...I mean, there's a reason why international diplomacy relies so much on conversations held in confidence.  And no, this has nothing to do with my desire for any sort of "power": I mean goddamn, if this is what's meant by grabbing power, then I sure as hell grabbed onto the wrong thing.  I think there's a happy medium to be had here, but I don't think the answer is straight-up mob rule.

Mob rule isn't desirable, but the arena I've seen this work is in the Appeals section of gaming server forums.  It's where I've used it.  The report and appeals sections are both open-access to view; reports is open-access to post.  The appeals sections allowed players to post their appeal, and the moderators would then locked the thread so only the moderation team could respond to it, but everyone could see it.

I could see something like that being potentially workable, though maybe with some slight personal reservations about how it'd work in practice here.  There is one fairly-large forum I'm active on where the mods have set up a "Hey Mod!" thread, where they'll publicly answer questions about people's own bans.  Even there, though, it's considered a completely-optional service as far as mod participation goes.

I remember a "Thread of shame" was proposed in the previous rules revision which would show punitive actions taken and the reasons behind it. Would that be enough?

[General Battuta]

More in general, when it comes to posters like High Max or Lorric or the like, obviously the hopefully-soon-forthcoming revised guidelines would more explicitly lay out the policy pertaining to these sorts of users.  In lieu of that, though, I think the issue has been historically that much of the community been unable or unwilling to just flat-out ignore individuals that are viewed as disruptive or just generally stupid.  There's very much a "Someone is WRONG on the Internet!" philosophy at work here; lord knows I'm not immune to it either.  But sometimes you have to step back and realize that the only reason many of these sorts of posts become disruptions in the first place is because other people go out of their way to respond to them, and then things escalate until the whole topic is a flaming mess.  In some of those cases, treating the problem individual's words as so much whitespace between actual topic posts would have served everyone much better.

This is a discussion board. You can't say that the solution to disruptive users is for constructive users to ditch their constructive habits (respond to points and discuss them with material and expertise). That's a bad incentive structure - you want to REWARD posters who bring a lot to the table.

Even more in general, I'm admittedly a bit puzzled when I see people asking for a more moderation-by-group approach, even if it's more read-only.

I'd just like a little more moderation by communication. I bring a lot to this community, I'm invested in it, and I'm probably one of its strongest advocates in terms of bringing in new talent and exposure. But I don't feel like I have any idea why decisions are made, especially regarding my content. Don't get me wrong - most of the time things run smoothly! The admins and mods aren't Inept Death Itself. But I'm excited to have Axem on board and I'm excited to see where this round of discussion might lead things.

[karajorma]

As I pointed out before the big issue with moderation is how to report back on what decisions were made without sparking more trouble.

I fully understand that pressing the report button can feel like you're flicking breadcrumbs into a black hole but reporting back on decisions is similarly unpleasant for the moderating team.

[NGTM-1R]

As I pointed out before the big issue with moderation is how to report back on what decisions were made without sparking more trouble.

I fully understand that pressing the report button can feel like you're flicking breadcrumbs into a black hole but reporting back on decisions is similarly unpleasant for the moderating team.

Reporting back on decisions has never, in the entire time I've been here, been something that moderation and administration has attempted to do on a regular basis. I don't think you have the sample size to make this statement, and once you develop one, if it's still true, I don't think you'll be able to sustain an argument that the majority of the pain on the report-back end is unearned by the reporter's poor .

One of the great things about Zacam, E, and even Battuta during the early GM days, is that they are always able to explain a decision in such a way that you understand their reasoning and it does not come across as arrogant or faux-humble or blatantly trying to make themselves look good, or any of the other ways people have set themselves up to bring pushback on yourselves. Other admins and GMs have had issues with this down the years; Fury was smart enough to recognize that he was terrible at this and remove himself for that reason among others.

[karajorma]

Reporting back on decisions has never, in the entire time I've been here, been something that moderation and administration has attempted to do on a regular basis. I don't think you have the sample size to make this statement, and once you develop one, if it's still true, I don't think you'll be able to sustain an argument that the majority of the pain on the report-back end is unearned by the reporter's poor .

Actually most of the admins used to explain the reasons for moderation right on the thread. Issues started when we moved over to getting reports and getting a consensus rather than summarily dispensing justice on the thread itself.

This was actually one of the main reasons for using the Hammer of Justice account, in order to give that feedback, and present it as the unified opinion of the moderation team. But everyone hated that idea and for the reasons I already mentioned, nothing was put in its place.

[Phantom Hoover]

The Hammer of Justice was a terrible idea because it makes the moderation dialogue even more opaque and detached. One of the major problems with how you handled both Lorric and Nakura was that if you weren't a moderator you had no meaningful feedback or input on the situation because the deliberation was all taking place behind closed doors, and meanwhile you still had to put up with their **** in every thread on GenDisc.

[MP-Ryan]

The Hammer of Justice was a terrible idea because it makes the moderation dialogue even more opaque and detached. One of the major problems with how you handled both Lorric and Nakura was that if you weren't a moderator you had no meaningful feedback or input on the situation because the deliberation was all taking place behind closed doors, and meanwhile you still had to put up with their **** in every thread on GenDisc.

This is true.

Honestly, what I'd like to see is a subforum, perhaps of Site Support, in which disciplinary action is explained in a read-only format (this is used in legal settings in the form of registries or repositories) when an action is not entirely obvious.

Hopefully, new guidelines and a shift in moderator thinking will lead to fewer thread locks and more action taken toward people who are being problem children, which means that mods will largely be able to respond to a person in place and tell them to exit thread or line of discussion, making a post in  another section unnecessary... but for things like bans/monkey/political prisoner action where the action is taken on a cumulative basis, it would hurt to have a read only post go up explaining what happened, how that person ran afoul of the guidelines, and what the resulting response is.  Something simple like:

User:  MP-Ryan
Issue:  Repeatedly question the HLP staff and being a general pain in the ass.
Violation:  Repeated failure to be respectful to other forumites.  Has been previously warned twice, temp-banned once, and continues to flaunt rules.
Action:  Monkeyed

It would go a long way toward opening up communication between the admins/mods and the community as a whole.  And as long as those decisions are firmly grounded, the only people that may question them are the subjects of the action and a few groupies they may have.  But that's good too - it's healthy for a community to keep its moderation team's feet to the fire.

[karajorma]

I have no problem with something along those lines (it sounds very much like the old Thread of Shame suggestion).

I'm fine with no one liking the Hammer idea, the problem is that the role it was meant to fill (reporting back on what moderation was carried out) was never given any thought once everyone rejected the Hammer.

That said, I suspect that had it been used, it would have worked a lot better than most people believed. The warning system sends out a message to the user which can be edited by the moderator but which is essentially anonymous. It's pretty much the least complained about part of the moderation system.

That said, if we do implement a Thread/forum of Shame with moderators posting an explanation of how moderation was carried out, I will come down like a ton of ****ing bricks on anyone who has a go at the moderator posting the moderators decisions since they are the result of a consensus, and not an individual's decisions.

Protesting the decision is one thing, trying to make it personal is another.

[MP-Ryan]

I have no problem with something along those lines (it sounds very much like the old Thread of Shame suggestion).

I'm fine with no one liking the Hammer idea, the problem is that the role it was meant to fill (reporting back on what moderation was carried out) was never given any thought once everyone rejected the Hammer.

That said, I suspect that had it been used, it would have worked a lot better than most people believed. The warning system sends out a message to the user which can be edited by the moderator but which is essentially anonymous. It's pretty much the least complained about part of the moderation system.

That said, if we do implement a Thread/forum of Shame with moderators posting an explanation of how moderation was carried out, I will come down like a ton of ****ing bricks on anyone who has a go at the moderator posting the moderators decisions since they are the result of a consensus, and not an individual's decisions.

Protesting the decision is one thing, trying to make it personal is another.

This is perfectly reasonable.

My suggestion would to have a board in Site Management labelled "Forum behaviour" or something of the like where the moderation team posts the disciplinary measures currently in effect (and deletes those posts when they expire).  Then implement a child board of that as an Appeals section.  If you can set the appeals section for always-read-always-write for any user, including banned ones (I don't know if that's possible) it also eliminates the problem with your ban system where people have to resort to using the report function to appeal issues because they cannot post or PM anywhere (which I had some personal experience with once and I will tell you induced some rage at the no explanation, no ability to discuss nature of it).

For that matter, in the context of the above system where the posts are only dealing with significant issues and actually explain what's happened, and are the result of group consensus, I don't see a problem with the Hammer account.  Where many of us hated the Hammer before was in the apparent removal of individual responsibility in disciplinary actions that were not explained/communicated, especially in-thread actions where it would just be jarring and obnoxious and totally ignore the need for MORE informal moderation by individuals, rather than less.  If the posts in a behaviour board are the result of group action, after multiple warnings, etc, and document the history that led to the action, then there's actually good justification for using the Hammer account as an announcement system in those cases.

[Black Wolf]

Some kind of appeals system may be worth considering (I'm neither here nor there, would depend in large part on how it actually ended up playing out). But if it could be posted on by permabanned users, that leaves a big hole, not just for banned users to continue acting like dicks, but also for banned spambots to keep exploiting the system.

While appeals for most other punishments might be appropriate, I think permabans are generally used so rarely, and as a last resort generally following other appealable events that losing the right to appeal them isn't such a great loss.

[Mongoose]

About the concept of a "Thread of Shame" or any similar public posting of mod decisions, the one thing that does concern me is to what extent such dealings should be viewed as public knowledge.  I mean I definitely agree that moderation policies should be completely transparent to the userbase, both for a better understanding on how the rules are applied and for accountability reasons, but at the same time I feel like discussions between moderators and individual members shouldn't automatically become public record, unless the user him/herself wishes it so.  Otherwise I think we run into the danger of "ban-shaming," for lack of a better term, becoming a problem.

[Phantom Hoover]

I'm not really sold on the 'thread of shame' idea but there definitely need to be some measures for making moderation open and accountable to normal users. There are some discussions that still need to take place in confidence, though.