Milovana.com

Recently our policy on free speech has been a big issue. So grab a chair and let's talk about it. To start things off I want to address the question: What should we do when somebody calls someone else a "motherfucker" on these forums?

Option A: Formal sanctions. Kicking him, banning him, etc. all fall into this category.
Result: When somebody gets their post deleted by an admin, it immediately puts them in the role of the oppressed. They tell themselves: Certainly their argument would be persuasive, if only the powers that be would allow it to be heard. If you delete their post, they may simply post again. If you ban them, they may change IPs and re-register. The one real serious troll we had, dannywanker, had over twenty accounts at his peak.

This reaction, if applied regularly, can also be misapplied. Not every insult is unjustified. Somebody people act like assholes - that doesn't mean you should call them an asshole, I personally try not to use insults as a matter of personal style, but certainly you could understand somebody who would want to call out something who they . Very often debates escalate, one side said something slightly offensive and each subsequent message ratchets it up a bit. Where do you draw the line? You can pretty much pick which side to ban, since any message you might say is over the line, there will be a only very slightly less offensive one written by the other party.

What this leads to is that subjective opinion influence a moderator's decisions, however good his intentions and despite his best efforts.

Option B: Informal sanctions. Ignoring him, stating your disapproval, etc. fall into this category.
Result: The troll's position loses credibility. So much so that even people who agree with him on the issue, may distance themselves from his conduct. Trolls have different motivations. Some are after attention, some want to challenge authority, some want to make a point. The kind that just wants to cause trouble is actually extremely rare. In five years, I can not cite a single clear example. Certainly people are often accused of just wanting to cause trouble, but usually it is fairly obvious that there is more to it than that. And it's because of these ulterior motives that this strategy works. If a troll is after attention, well ignore him and he won't get any. If a troll wants to push his point through with insults, he will accomplish the exact opposite. If a troll wants to challenge authority, the very fact that the authority yields to his individual rights and takes no action against him disproves his point to some extent.

It's the result that counts. What's the point of being "tough on trolls" if you end up with more trolling?

An important advantage of this policy is the organic nature of the rules. I'm the first user of Milovana. I've been the admin when the forum first opened and I'm still the admin today. But the forum, the teases, people's priorities have completely changed. On an abstract level, I very much love the fact that informal sanctions are very organic. They evolve over time, they take the specifics of the situation into account, they aren't all or nothing. If you make a hard rule against something - to the extent to which rule is even effective/enforceable - it will never be as sensitive to individual circumstances as the community. In essence every single thread is a mini-vote on what is acceptable and what isn't.

To conclude my post, if you take one thing away from this, let it be that the difference between rules of conduct that are enforced by the admins and ones that are enforced by the users aren't all that different. Kicking, banning etc. is mostly symbolic anyway, since as I said, you can get around all of that pretty easily. One of the things I don't like about it is that if you start doing that it lends a kind of legitimacy to anything you don't delete. So users will ask: Why are they not deleting that guy who said "dick" in the thread about gay rights, but they did delete the guy who said "fucker" in the thread about tease categories? One thing about making rules is that they must be easy to be applied objectively. A rule against insults sits in the middle of a smooth gradient from hardly insulting to downright vile. Allowing all of it doesn't constitute an endorsement, but it allows organic (informal) enforcement to an organic problem.

Seraph, previously I had only considered the fairness issue you mention under Formal Sanctions. The informal sanctions part is very interesting, thanks

seraph0x wrote: To conclude my post, if you take one thing away from this, let it be that the difference between rules of conduct that are enforced by the admins and ones that are enforced by the users aren't all that different. Kicking, banning etc. is mostly symbolic anyway, since as I said, you can get around all of that pretty easily. One of the things I don't like about it is that if you start doing that it lends a kind of legitimacy to anything you don't delete. So users will ask: Why are they not deleting that guy who said "dick" in the thread about gay rights, but they did delete the guy who said "fucker" in the thread about tease categories? One thing about making rules is that they must be easy to be applied objectively. A rule against insults sits in the middle of a smooth gradient from hardly insulting to downright vile. Allowing all of it doesn't constitute an endorsement, but it allows organic (informal) enforcement to an organic problem.

I will also say to others: in other forums without free speech, with absolute certainty members get banned unfairly eventually. Their arguments are veiwed as personal attacks, even though no insults are there.

Free speach here is actually great. But it has a problem which I'll describe on the example of me myself.

The main problem I face, is that if my opinion differs strongly from the others, it's starting to get ugly in time. I have a completely different viewpoint on some aspects of life than Europeans and Americans do. I see some things that you consider BENEFITS of yours as actually great flaws, and I may criticize those things. The bad thing is that most of the western society don't used to fundamental truths of theirs being criticized, so they take it as a personal offence. And the worst thing of it that there comes a moment when instead of finding new arguments they are just so irritated as to start attacking me personally, in the best way as something like "Nezhul you clearly don't understand a thing so I won't talk to you". Those "arguments" a bit piss me off actually, because it's just a statement pun in an authoritarian way. The one problem of this site is that people are not used to calm argument. It's as if when creating some thread they expect all the others to think the same or, at least, be easily convinced. When they face a debate, they get pissed because on every their argument someone finds a contra-argument, and soon they run out of any. So they start digging not the problem but the speaker. There's just bound to be conflcts like that. There ALWAYS are, when people try to support the view that they are not going to consider wrong in any case. They are happy when it's proven RIGHT, but no matter how it's proven wrong they'll just get pissed and angry and still believe. It's like having a complete atheist and orthodoxal god-person to discuss religion.

The other problem is not words, but behaviour. Take the situation of which it all started. Indigo deliberately killed 2 threads with flood. 2 quite interesting threads. Maybe they wouldn't lead anywhere much, maybe thy'v already started to die themselves, but there still was interest. He just flooded them up because he didn't like the way the conversation went. Is this kinds of behaviour good? No. But what to do? If you just walk away, this person'll continue to do whatever he wants. He'll break another threads. No moderators are willing to do anything about it (especially if he's an admin). What else could I personally do if not confronting him (yet again)? That was free-of-moderation for you. I actually think that flood doesn't have anything to do with free speach, it even kills it as it's the way to stop people talking. I'd vote for moderation in this aspect, not deleting, but moving the posts to another thread, if they so want to flood. I know most forums create a thread FLOOD and juts drop everything there.

*pulls up a chair*

seraph0x wrote:Result: When somebody gets their post deleted by an admin, it immediately puts them in the role of the oppressed.

This seems like a red herring to me. While it's true that this seems like an unfavorable situation, apply it to someone breaking a different rule - say, posting child pornography. If this post is deleted, they may feel oppressed as well. Of course, there are legal reasons to delete such a post, but there may or may not be reasons to delete some personal attack posts as well - slander and libel are illegal in many areas.

If you delete their post, they may simply post again. If you ban them, they may change IPs and re-register. The one real serious troll we had, dannywanker, had over twenty accounts at his peak.

I don't see this as a reason not to delete a personal attack - if you make a rule against personal attacks, and someone circumvents it, take further action! Any rule may be circumvented in the same way.

This reaction, if applied regularly, can also be misapplied. Not every insult is unjustified. Somebody people act like assholes - that doesn't mean you should call them an asshole, I personally try not to use insults as a matter of personal style, but certainly you could understand somebody who would want to call out something who they . Very often debates escalate, one side said something slightly offensive and each subsequent message ratchets it up a bit. Where do you draw the line? You can pretty much pick which side to ban, since any message you might say is over the line, there will be a only very slightly less offensive one written by the other party.

True, not every insult is unjustified, but some are, and this is where the personal judgment of the team members comes in. Maybe an instant deletion isn't a good idea, but what if the policy was to give a warning first if things started to get out of hand, and delete posts only if the warning was ignored? I've seen such a policy implemented elsewhere, and in most cases, one side backed off and started posting in a more polite manner, while the other side was revealed as a troublemaker when the personal attacks continued.

As for when a team member is involved, perhaps an additional policy stating that only a different team member can take action?

Trolls have different motivations. Some are after attention, some want to challenge authority, some want to make a point.

If someone wants to challenge authority or make a point, it's quite possible to do so without resorting to personal attacks. Freedom of speech is not about how you're allowed to say things, but about what you're allowed to say. I do think that any idea should be allowed to be expressed on this forum; however, I also think that those ideas should not be allowed to be expressed with rudeness. And if someone is just after attention...well, if the post is not deleted, some people will almost certainly respond. The members page says there are nearly 18,000 users; while not all of them are active, relying on every single person here to do the right thing and not respond just doesn't seem very realistic.

But the forum, the teases, people's priorities have completely changed. On an abstract level, I very much love the fact that informal sanctions are very organic. They evolve over time, they take the specifics of the situation into account, they aren't all or nothing.

This is correct, but I don't think they've changed in the way you seem to think. When a site first opens up, and for quite awhile afterwards, the main goal is to get lots of users and start building a solid community. Here, however, this has already been achieved. We're a pretty solid group of friends; but lately, a few people have been feeling "iffy" about what's going on...mostly because one of our group has had his feelings hurt so bad that he has decided to leave. When something like this happens, it affects the entire group of friends, not just that one person. The rules, nowadays, should be aimed not at building a community, but keeping it stable. Stricter guidelines regarding personal attacks would accomplish just that.

One of the things I don't like about it is that if you start doing that it lends a kind of legitimacy to anything you don't delete. So users will ask: Why are they not deleting that guy who said "dick" in the thread about gay rights, but they did delete the guy who said "fucker" in the thread about tease categories?

This doesn't seem like much of a problem, either. A user who feels that a team member acted inappropriately can easily make a new thread or log into chat to ask that team member about his rationale for taking action in one case but not the other; or, the team member could simply make a post in the thread explaining his/her actions.

One thing about making rules is that they must be easy to be applied objectively. A rule against insults sits in the middle of a smooth gradient from hardly insulting to downright vile.

I don't think rules must be this way. A good example is the chat rule against unsolicited PMs; normally I always follow this rule, but I'm pretty sure most people would agree that it's ok (and I think you would as well) to break it if there's some situation where a PM must go through as fast as possible, for example, if someone logs into chat and says "I'm going to kill myself now". I think there's a good real-life analogy with laws against trespassing; I would break such a law if I saw someone about to be mugged behind a no trespassing sign. What matters isn't the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law.

Nezhul wrote:Free speach here is actually great. But it has a problem which I'll describe on the example of me myself.

The main problem I face, is that if my opinion differs strongly from the others, it's starting to get ugly in time. I have a completely different viewpoint on some aspects of life than Europeans and Americans do. I see some things that you consider BENEFITS of yours as actually great flaws, and I may criticize those things. The bad thing is that most of the western society don't used to fundamental truths of theirs being criticized, so they take it as a personal offence. And the worst thing of it that there comes a moment when instead of finding new arguments they are just so irritated as to start attacking me personally, in the best way as something like "Nezhul you clearly don't understand a thing so I won't talk to you". Those "arguments" a bit piss me off actually, because it's just a statement pun in an authoritarian way. The one problem of this site is that people are not used to calm argument. It's as if when creating some thread they expect all the others to think the same or, at least, be easily convinced. When they face a debate, they get pissed because on every their argument someone finds a contra-argument, and soon they run out of any. So they start digging not the problem but the speaker. There's just bound to be conflcts like that. There ALWAYS are, when people try to support the view that they are not going to consider wrong in any case. They are happy when it's proven RIGHT, but no matter how it's proven wrong they'll just get pissed and angry and still believe. It's like having a complete atheist and orthodoxal god-person to discuss religion.

The other problem is not words, but behaviour. Take the situation of which it all started. Indigo deliberately killed 2 threads with flood. 2 quite interesting threads. Maybe they wouldn't lead anywhere much, maybe thy'v already started to die themselves, but there still was interest. He just flooded them up because he didn't like the way the conversation went. Is this kinds of behaviour good? No. But what to do? If you just walk away, this person'll continue to do whatever he wants. He'll break another threads. No moderators are willing to do anything about it (especially if he's an admin). What else could I personally do if not confronting him (yet again)? That was free-of-moderation for you. I actually think that flood doesn't have anything to do with free speach, it even kills it as it's the way to stop people talking. I'd vote for moderation in this aspect, not deleting, but moving the posts to another thread, if they so want to flood. I know most forums create a thread FLOOD and juts drop everything there.

Nezhul,

If you recall, I posted this:

Alliteration wrote:If you want to start this over, this time without making wildly generalizing claims such as "I heard most women are bisexual" and "doctors say being gay is a mental illness" with absolutely no support, and without insults such as claiming Indy is "no more than a jerk"..I'm all for it.

If however you persist...I don't want to, but I'm going to have to add on to my previous statement about not responding to you on this topic, and cease responding to you altogether.

*hands you a hammer and a box of matches*

You can build bridges, or burn them...your choice.

And you responded thusly:

Nezhul wrote:If a jerk acts like a jerk I call him a jerk. Even if it hurts you. Sorry.

and

What can I say? I'm always the bad guy because I don't go easy on anyone to save their feelings. If you think that IS the way to state your righteousness - feel free to ignore me. Someone'll even say you did the right thing to ignore this troll, and someone'll call it running from a problem. It's your choice to walk the bridge I'm going to burn, or stay on your shore and never see what's on the other side =)

Don't get me wrong here - I am interested in your ideas. What I was asking you to do was to express them in a more professional and rigorous manner. If your ideas necessitate wild generalization with no evidence, personal attacks, and generally offensive statements, then perhaps you should look at them more closely yourself before trying to present them to others.

For example, instead of calling Indy a jerk, you could have said something like this: "Indy, I don't think your current behavior is conducive to the discussion; would you mind toning it down a bit?". Same idea, but no one gets mad. Is that not acceptable?

If your ideas necessitate wild generalization with no evidence

I already posted the responce for that. I'm not here to write a book with all facts prooved. What you called generalization - are not mine. They are the thoughts of a few communities I am part of, including quite a lot of girls. If I were to count, of 10 girls who shared their opinion on the matter 8 claimed that they at least fantasize about other girls or being aroused by the looks of a sexy girl. Even if they don't actually intend to sleep with them. I'm not posting links to you. You'll just have to believe me that if I say something thats not out of the air.

personal attacks ...... For example, instead of calling Indy a jerk, you could have said something like this: "Indy, I don't think your current behavior is conducive to the discussion; would you mind toning it down a bit?". Same idea, but no one gets mad. Is that not acceptable?

I asked him about flooding. He replied something like he decided that the thread became ridiculous and he decided to stop it with lighthearted blanter. With all due respect for you, that was not him to decide, and I call a person like that a jerk. Again if you don't like it - sorry, but it doesnt have anything to do with you.

and generally offensive statements

Well I'm sorry if some of my thoughts you find offensive. But those are still my thoughts and I dont care if they offend anyone. If I think black is black I won't call it dark grey just to spare someone's feelings, nor I see a reason to stay completely silent. Im not talking to offend anyone. I KNOW someone will be, but that I don't care about.

I already posted the responce for that. I'm not here to write a book with all facts prooved. What you called generalization - are not mine. They are the thoughts of a few communities I am part of, including quite a lot of girls. If I were to count, of 10 girls who shared their opinion on the matter 8 claimed that they at leash fantasize about other girls or being aroused by the looks of a sexy girl. Even if they don't actually intend to sleep with them. I'm not posting links to you. You'll just have to believe me that if I say something thats not out of the air.

I'm not asking you to write a book defending everything you say; just...a little bit more support than you've given would be nice. Some sort of statement from someone relevant, even if it's just a few sentences. What I did in my post here http://www.milovana.com/forum/viewtopic ... 15#p102001
is more than enough - I spent all of 30 seconds on wikipedia getting the years right, and another 30 seconds on the APA's website. Hell, even something like "Russian psychologists say this, google their website to find out more" is acceptable. The point I'm trying to make is that "I heard this..." and "My friends say this..." doesn't really move the discussion forward in any manner.

I asked him about flooding. He replied something like he decided that the thread became ridiculous and he decided to stop it with lighthearted blanter. With all due respect for you, that was not him to decide, and I call a person like that a jerk. Again if you don't like it - sorry, but it doesnt have anything to do with you.

Ok, well...since Indy is no longer here, I won't comment on this anymore.

Well I'm sorry if some of my thoughts you find offensive. But those are still my thoughts and I dont care if they offend anyone. If I think black is black I won't call it dark grey just to spare someone's feelings, nor I see a reason to stay completely silent. Im not talking to offend anyone. I KNOW someone will be, but that I don't care about.

Again, it's not your thoughts, but how you're expressing them. Consider this: you, presumably, want your ideas to be heard. Well, the best way to do this, especially if your ideas are controversial, is to be as civil as possible. Being rude just makes people stick their fingers in their ears. Really, it's in your best interest to be a bit nicer about certain things.

Maybe it's the degree of my english that makes it look rude, but I believe I got rude only with indigo.

Nezhul wrote:Maybe it's the degree of my english that makes it look rude, but I believe I got rude only with indigo.

Hmm...to be honest, I hadn't considered the issue of a language barrier. To be fair, I'll go over some things you've said that came off as rude to me:

BUT I despise ones that go promoting themselves on a freaking parades. Goddamn, just LIVE peacefully and quietly! I just hate it that way. And I know those demonstrations actually only add to hatred and freak people out, so on top of it they are just stupid as hell.

Words such as "despise", "goddamn" and "stupid as hell" make it seem like you're quite angry with these parades.

There are people in every country that feel hatred for gays. Such as there are people feeling hatred for black people (and other southern nations) or fat people, or just foreigners, or people of a certain religion...
For gays - it's quite understandable.

You seem to be saying here that hatred, not just disagreement, but *hatred* for gays is understandable; and this implies that you yourself share that hatred.

Gays will NEVER convince straight men that fucking another guy is not sick, because for me a thought of fucking a guy is as disgusting as fucking a dog or something.

If I said "the thought of fucking a girl is as disgusting as fucking a corpse", what would you think about my statement? I'm guessing, you probably wouldn't have a very high opinion of it.

Equal rightts is the utopia. More over, only stupid people really want them.

Lots of people here are in favor of equal rights. It might be a pipe dream, but you called us stupid. That's a blatant insult.

On the other hand I spend a lot of time in the village house in my youth, and I should say cows are actually quite cute and adorable creatures. More cute than negro at least.

You say here that cows look better than black people. How would you feel if I said that pigs look better than russians? How do you think any black people reading your post feel?

I'd say someone out to shoot them right on the street, so as anti-gay demonstrations should be shot as well.

This is by far the worst comment you've made on the subject. You're advocating *shooting* people!

------

Anyway...it may or may not have been your intention to come off as rude in these quotes, but you certainly did. These types of statements are what I've been complaining about.

http://www.milovana.com/forum/viewtopic ... 61#p102461

lets go with this in an appropriate place, shall we?

Alliteration wrote:This seems like a red herring to me. While it's true that this seems like an unfavorable situation, apply it to someone breaking a different rule - say, posting child pornography. If this post is deleted, they may feel oppressed as well.

You're correct that the fact a rule can be circumvented says nothing about the morality of the issue in question. But remember that we're not arguing the morality. I'm totally agree that people shouldn't make personal attacks. I'm merely disputing that it's a good idea for us as moderators to get involved.

To that end this point is very much relevant. Of course a child pornographer might also feel oppressed however there are much stronger arguments in play there that outweigh these types of concerns. The child pornographer does real and serious harm. The person who does personal attacks doesn't do any harm. The closest you can argue in terms of harm is that he might ruin somebody's mood. Remember that we are only talking about basic personal attacks, such as insults. Many more serious attack like blackmail, harassment, etc. are prohibited by various laws, which we have to abide by as moderators.

Personally, I feel that adults on the Internet can be expected to deal with any kind of verbal attack. I mean, people say mean things, that's a fact and it's impossible to protect you all the time and everywhere, so anybody wanting to use the Internet should have some kind of emotional defense against insults. In addition, our forum offers a "Friends and Foes" feature that allows them to block any individual whose posts they no longer wish to see.

Alliteration wrote:Of course, there are legal reasons to delete such a post, but there may or may not be reasons to delete some personal attack posts as well - slander and libel are illegal in many areas.

Yes, we'd delete posts containing defamation as well as "true threats" as they're illegal in the US.

All my arguments about the disadvantages of deleting insults apply to deleting defamation as well, however, since we're required to do it, we gotta bite the bullet on that one. However that does not mean, we should use the in my opinion inferior strategy in the areas where we do have a choice.

Alliteration wrote:I don't see this as a reason not to delete a personal attack - if you make a rule against personal attacks, and someone circumvents it, take further action! Any rule may be circumvented in the same way.

Again, for many more serious offenses I would agree. But for personal attacks, the benefits are so minimal vs. simply letting the community deal with troublemakers that the costs of intervention (risk of unfair bans, arbitrariness, hassle of counterinig countermeasures, drama and greater prominence of the troll, complaints by the troll or his supporters) are simply greater than the benefits.

Alliteration wrote:True, not every insult is unjustified, but some are, and this is where the personal judgment of the team members comes in. Maybe an instant deletion isn't a good idea, but what if the policy was to give a warning first if things started to get out of hand, and delete posts only if the warning was ignored? I've seen such a policy implemented elsewhere, and in most cases, one side backed off and started posting in a more polite manner, while the other side was revealed as a troublemaker when the personal attacks continued.

I agree. Often it's enough to point out that we don't approve of personal attacks for somebody to reconsider their approach. I'm definitely ok with moderators - or indeed regular members - calling people out if they are stepping out of line. Where I disagree is that it needs to be backed up with a threat. I think most people who would yield to a ban warning would also yield to a friendly etiquette reminder.

I'm talking from about 10 years experience admining forums. I have at this point a pretty good sample size of a couple hundred cases for both approaches. (One of the forums I used to admin had pretty strict moderator policies, because of the advertisers' content requirements.) When you issue a ban the typical response is that the member who got banned will PM the site admin. I'd say for about 80% of admin actions (excluding spam bots etc.) I get a complaint afterwards. Often the complaint will contain links to some other posts that the mods chose not to delete that the victim of the deletion/ban thinks were even worse than what he posted. And to be honest he'll often be right. It's impossible to apply such a standard consistently, there will always be posts that slip through that are worse than ones that got deleted. Mods will also always have a biased towards their friends or major contributors to the site, those will tend to get a pass on things that a new member or somebody the mod personally doesn't like gets banned over.

So after the complaint I usually look at the posts in question, talk to the mod in question and make a judgement on whether to reverse the decision. If I don't reverse the decision, the member will usually feel bad about it. Everybody deals with that differently. Most people will just stew for a while and then get over it. Some people will start a debate and a very small percentage will try to take revenge somehow.

In about half the cases I end up reversing the decision. The main reason is bias, even the best moderators will play favors all the time, whether they realize it or not. And I include myself in that statement. The only reliable way I've found to limit this type of arbitrariness is to minimize the amount of subjectivity in your rules.

Alliteration wrote:As for when a team member is involved, perhaps an additional policy stating that only a different team member can take action?

We do that all the time to be honest. Dark and I used to do that very effectively. We would always refer decisions to each other when one of us felt too close to the issue. Other Team members who stood out by doing that very well are jp, zenlover and mrfire.

It helps, but it also adds additional effort and obviously the benefit from deleting a personal attack is greatly diminished if it takes 24 hours until the internal discussion on what to do has reached a conclusion.

Alliteration wrote:If someone wants to challenge authority or make a point, it's quite possible to do so without resorting to personal attacks. Freedom of speech is not about how you're allowed to say things, but about what you're allowed to say.

I'd disagree with that. To me freedom of speech very much is both, because if you put restrictions on the how then people who want to censor the what can just pretend they take offense to the how. As I said, don't underestimate how subjective and fuzzy the line is between a personal attack and an argument in the middle of a heated debate.

Alliteration wrote:This is correct, but I don't think they've changed in the way you seem to think. When a site first opens up, and for quite awhile afterwards, the main goal is to get lots of users and start building a solid community. Here, however, this has already been achieved. We're a pretty solid group of friends; but lately, a few people have been feeling "iffy" about what's going on...mostly because one of our group has had his feelings hurt so bad that he has decided to leave. When something like this happens, it affects the entire group of friends, not just that one person. The rules, nowadays, should be aimed not at building a community, but keeping it stable. Stricter guidelines regarding personal attacks would accomplish just that.

That's not true. Because we took over the archive from OD.com, a lot of people switched over, so we had plenty of users early on. For about two years, there was a pretty tightly knit community around dark, zenlover, alpahde, cactusman, nomeuno, camipco and myself. (Sorry to anyone I forgot.) So we never cared about finding new users. We never ran an ad, I did a few link exchanges, which were pretty much worthless and didn't do anything. But the site spread through word of mouth and still does.

To say that it's grown up now and hence we should switch to protecting established users is just silly. Old users will keep leaving, new users will keep arriving. Thats the nature of an online community. My goal has always been to make sure new users feel welcome. Existing users are welcome as long as they don't expect special privileges.

Alliteration wrote:This doesn't seem like much of a problem, either. A user who feels that a team member acted inappropriately can easily make a new thread or log into chat to ask that team member about his rationale for taking action in one case but not the other; or, the team member could simply make a post in the thread explaining his/her actions.

Yes and this is related to your earlier point. My experience is that this works, but there are some practical costs to be aware of. First off, this costs time, both in terms of that Team members have to take time to post in these discussion threads and in terms of that it takes a while to reach a decision that way. Second, these discussion sometimes seem quite pointless and infinite. When you're trying to decide what should be removed you have to take into account things like how well the people involved know each other, which insult is worse, whether graphic language is worse or subtle psychological tactics. It's complicated and you get people having different opinions with pretty much equal justification.

The phrase "You're such an asshole" might be harmless banter between to friends while the same phrase is a pretty strong attack between two strangers. I actually sometimes got complaints against moderator action from the supposed victim of the personal attack, because they didn't think it was so bad, while the moderator thought it needed to be removed.

Alliteration wrote:I don't think rules must be this way. A good example is the chat rule against unsolicited PMs; normally I always follow this rule, but I'm pretty sure most people would agree that it's ok (and I think you would as well) to break it if there's some situation where a PM must go through as fast as possible, for example, if someone logs into chat and says "I'm going to kill myself now". I think there's a good real-life analogy with laws against trespassing; I would break such a law if I saw someone about to be mugged behind a no trespassing sign. What matters isn't the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law.

I completely agree. This is precisely why I advocate informal enforcement in some cases. When a rule is fuzzy by its very nature, sometimes it does more harm than good. The rule we're discussing in particular just tends to lead to a lot of bad blood, because so many people who get hit by it feel that it is arbitrary and unfair. And they're not wrong about that. Yes, by investing a lot of time, moderators can try to eliminate the bias, establish more detailed criteria and discuss every case, but that gets tedious and you're dealing with volunteers, so eventually these procedures erode a little bit and you go back to a more practical, but rather arbitrary regime again.

The alternative of informal enforcement by comparison is dynamic by its nature. It may not deal with every case perfectly, but well enough and it tends to create a lot less friction and animosity in the process. Trolls have an easy time getting mad at an individual moderator for using the ban hammer against them. But if a whole community ignores or criticizes them, but without resorting to force, they have a much harder time maintaining a moral high ground.

Alliteration wrote:I do think that any idea should be allowed to be expressed on this forum; however, I also think that those ideas should not be allowed to be expressed with rudeness. And if someone is just after attention...well, if the post is not deleted, some people will almost certainly respond. The members page says there are nearly 18,000 users; while not all of them are active, relying on every single person here to do the right thing and not respond just doesn't seem very realistic.

Absolutely true. It depends very much on the community I guess. But the enforcement really doesn't have to be perfect to get the message across.

Just my 2 cents (or should that be euros?) I doubt there is any online forum that has not had this debate. For what it's worth I think the only posts that should ever be deleted are those that break the law of whatever land hosts the forum. As for the rest people are free to ignore inflammatory messages. The most effective way is not to reply to them in the first place.

Nezhul wrote:The main problem I face, is that if my opinion differs strongly from the others, it's starting to get ugly in time. I have a completely different viewpoint on some aspects of life than Europeans and Americans do. I see some things that you consider BENEFITS of yours as actually great flaws, and I may criticize those things.

That is all very well Nez, but the point which seems totally lost on you from where I sit, is that having a difference of opinion is never ever a valid reason for letting it get personal. It's perfectly possible to attack or counter a person's opinions, arguments and posts without attacking the person themselves.

This has really nothing to do with your values or ways of viewing the world being any different to the rest of the users on this site. It has to do with inability to discuss topic/arguments and not person.



Let me try a simple fictional example to illustrate the finer points of this:

1. You say you distaste black girls (sensitive topic for some people, which is why it makes a good example)

2. Assuming I disagree with you, I could react in one of two ways, one is ok, the other isn't:

- I attack your views, your arguments and present my own arguments as to why I disagree (Ok, mature and sensible way to behave)

- I attack you, not your views, by calling you a racist, son-of-a-female-dog motherfucking pig etc etc etc. I'm sure you can see the difference between the two.


Now the most important point to make here is really simple: Disallowing personal crap on a forum such as this doesn't only boil down the damage personal attacks can do. In fact, that is far from the main thing at all. The main thing is that it is noise, and without exception holds no value of any kind. Which in turn means disallowing it means losing absolutely nothing.


As for seraph' question on how one should handle it - phpbb3 has plenty good tools for that, depending on which principle you where to land on. Lets keep in mind that this whole debate is a hugely out of proportion debate. In my total time here I've seen problem posters maybe once or twice - it's not like it's a huge everyday problem. So I'd say if it really turns out to be a problem with any particular poster, warn them, allow an accidental repeat or two, then ultimately ban them. Lame, but very occasionally necessary.

First: (sad face)

I posted this on another forum

If I personalty
wrote angry notes to a Senator or Congressperson
I could be put on a watch list by police or FBI

If I am an employee of a corporation and I say things my employer does not like or appreciate I can get fired.

What role does a Moderator have here?
I keep hearing there are "rules" by Seraph
and yest I can not find them listed.... under his posts.
I see Mistress Jennifer posted something
but Are they what Seraph wants?

what exactly are these rules.
where are they? (link please)
I would appreciate an OLD link of rules that were in place,
as well as any new additions
as a Moderator I think this is a reasonable request
that all including Me should know what the rules are!

this has not yet been responded to by seraph.

Seraph I respect that you are writing this forum,
but have to point to AFTER THE FACT> damage Already Done.

Free speech has Levels in the real world as I noted
If I said "I am planitng a Bomb at 12:34 at X and Y street In Nocity on Dec 5th 2011"
If I used real address and a real city
Would you contact the police? And your lawyer to find out if your Liable?
if you Oh heck that's free speech and I actually Killed people... what would be the Impact?

Now that is black and white clear.
Now onto GRAY
how about" the administrator of this sight is like a King who lost touch let's have a Peasant revolt"
okay you would look at it and say well I don't like that but it is not a Personal attack, maybe I will let it slide
But If I sad, "Fucking asshole who mother slept with a wilderbeast and father was a demonic Imp may he never know the joys of love..." And then go on to do a REAL curse (Ie, magical one)
I I say it again and again, and again..
until it actually hurts you emotionally

We are HUMAN if someone is insulting AND Harassing (note harassment is a Legal term here)
I should be able to get a Restraining Order against the Harasser!
note I should be able to get a restraining order.
as an moderator I have banned one individual
for telling people to do things that would result in death... DEATH!
My ban was ONLY for my chat room, and only lasted 24 hours,
this individual moved to Lounge, and the ban was lifted later by well you know who.
now I know, in my heart, this person should be GONE, banned for ever!!!
if a certain team member was still here we could block the IP address not just the account!
and there would be no problem with signing up on a different account.
This individual was allowed to stay on this site because of "free speech"
so forgive me if I
look at this whole post with my hands on my face while I cry tears of pain.

I really wish this had been posted earlier, or at least mentioned when I first came to you. This post, and the ensuing discussion would have really served to clarify a lot in my mind.

Then why couldn't you wait until the problem is resolved then?

janmb
True, but I don't ever attack people for their views. On the contrary what you write is actually often applied to the ones who I argue with, they start attack me based on my opinion. Some things I let go as a mere emotions of heated up conversation, but sometimes I respond, And that's where it turns into insult war.
I'm not saint and sometimes I may go emotional too and hurt someone personally while arguing with their views. However if I'm pointed at it calmly I'll never refuse to apologise.

And in that respect on the topic of reminding someone that he goes over the line - I completely agree. A simple reminder or complaint would make most of us back the tone down. Not everyone and not always though.

seraph I respect that you are writing this forum,
but have to point to AFTER THE FACT> damage Already Done.

If you call "damage" the fact that indigo quit (all by himself) than yes, the damage is done. But actually with a person who does such things after a silly disagreement - you just can't lay the straw in every place. AGAIN you are talking like seraphox is at fault here, and I ask you to stop because
1) he isnt
2) those accusations are simply ungrateful and disrespectful to a man who have MADE this site.

as an administrator I have banned one individual
for telling people to do things that would result in death... DEATH!
My ban was ONLY for my chat room, and only lasted 24 hours,
this individual moved to Lounge, and the ban was lifted later by well you know who.
now I know, in my heart, this person should be GONE, banned for ever!!!
if a certain team member was still here we could block the IP address not just the account!
and there would be no problem with signing up on a different account.

I guess you are overreacting. There are evil trolls like that. But first of all what you are talking about is already handled by the site rules, as those kind of advices are actually handled by some laws for something like causing life-threatening delusions.
But I'll also say this: Any person who follows a life-threatening advice should damn well try to follow it once. In the worst case scenario humanity'll get rid of another man too stupid to be allowed alive, and in the best way he'll get midway and become just a little bit smarter next time.