An open letter to ILX & mods re: an alternative to the current system

anyway i'd like to think that i've been level-headed up in here, sorry if i havent. i'm just a little bummed that a genuinely interesting alternative to the suggest ban that still gives the community some input (and, in theory, lifts some of the burden of mod shoulders to keenly police all threads) is being lol'd outta town because oh no another sb thread and because kate happened to be the one that started it

xp ha was wondering when politics would come up

like to begin with, this is a message board, not a country

this is the sort of distinction you'd generally be quick to draw

like i said- a thread where we went in and posted who we've just sb'd and why.

that would sort one of the main bones of contention.

and it would let mods decide if it would stand as legit or not.

evan you've been p clear and reasonable imo now answer my q's you jerk

every sb requires an explanation of more than 30 characters and goes in an accessible log haha

reinstate hi dere ffs

btw max always <3 but fuck u for suggesting that "fix it or stop insisting that someone else fix it for you" somehow compares to "my country love it or leave it" - you don't get to whine about me calling democrats assholes anymore in light of that dude

― aerosmith: the acid house years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, November 21, 2010 7:08 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

k whatever mang

and, before i get aerozung, i'd like to reiterate that i'm not demanding anything from our staff of volunteers. i was just sorta hoping we could have a reasonable discussion NOT about why SBs are so bad and hated, but how flags might actually serve the needs of our lil messageboard, maybe think through whether or not they could work. but since i am not a programmer, i probably shouldn't think aloud about stuff like that until i finish reading that book on ruby i bought a few years ago and never finished

xp sorry dmac, what was the q again? srs

i forget :(

1) Ad hominem attacks
2) Bullying
3) Racism
4) Sexism/Misogyny
5) Homophobia
6) Hate Speech (other)

there are very, very few occasions when these don't get picked up

ppl get suggest-banned not for these things but becuz they rub ppl up the wrong way

i got SB'd and i couldn't give a shit which posts it was 'for' or who SB'd me

the idea that a poster would change his or her posting style based on the advice generated by a complicated drop-down menu system is... unconvincing

I also don't think it's controversial to say that some people might genuinely not get that they're making the board worse at a given moment! I'm sure anyone who posts moderately frequently and doesn't have the wisdom of a nabsico does it sometimes. Like, I enjoy darragh as a poster hugely but I wish he'd not argue with K8 all the time!

can I just say that while I am often frustrated with and irritated by KDT/MB, the original post in this thread was reasonable, and it was carefully timed not to fall in the middle of any other metashit -- a good attempt to talk borad mechanics. And she still got four SBs for it. Doesn't that make it obvious that she's getting SB'd for existing, not for anything specific she did wrong in that post?

Wow, OK, yeah, that really strongly makes the point.

I give up. I seriously give up.

I make a point, as reasonably and eloquently as I know how.

When asked to clarify, I repeat it again, more simply.

When someone misunderstands what I have said, I put it into different, more clear terms.

When that fails, I get a bit cranky (it is midnight here, and I can't sleep because I'm in too much pain) and I make - what I think - is an obvious joke about treating people like two year olds, and the thread goes berserk.

It's become obvious that there truly is no way that I can make myself acceptable to this community. So any attempts at behavioural reform are pointless. You are right. It's not you, it's me.

seems to me that, ~implementation aside~, the qs about flagging are

1) how are they even different?
2) would any supposed differences be beneficial to ilx?
2a) that is, would it mean less "wtf just happened to canks?" or "THREAD OF MISSING GR8080" shoutfests or w/e?
2b) would ppl be less at risk of getting banned because they are irritating?
2c) would mods have to put up with LESS whining?

pretty sure i answered 1 already. and i think the answers to 2a-c are all yes.

every sb requires an explanation of more than 30 characters and goes in an accessible log haha

if every sb required a 10,000 word defense of each clicking sb hand, there would still be huge clusterfuck threads of people whining that it's unjust that somebody they liked got banned

it's exactly like me complaining that communists don't get elected to higher office, except that in this case I'm on the other side

Again, it's the presence of the sb link on every single post that bothers me the most. It's not coupled with anything positive like karma or (hvn forfend) a 'like' button.

― Friday: vuvuzela club meeting (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 21 November 2010 23:28 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think it would be fairly straight-forward to modify a stylesheet so that the SB link wasn't shown, and wouldn't require a programmer or very much mod effort.

fuck flagged posts, people should just be more ready to criticize & receive criticism on their posts and board presence imo. don't think this is a structural thing & more just, why use code to bypass simple effective human interaction? everyone anonymously drawing mod attention to conflagratory posts seriously sounds like hell to me. if someone's offended you just confront them about it either on board in the thread or off board through email, & if u really think it merits being deleted just start a thread on mrf for it. if you're really mystified as to why you've gotten sb'd just ask for ppl to give some more constructive advice

New idea, what about developing a magic algorithm to automatically detect rabid bullshit infighting posts in sensible threads and fucking delete them wholesale.

2c) would mods have to put up with LESS whining?

i've been here for too many years and i can guarantee there will never be less whining, whatever system is in place

2a) that is, would it mean less "wtf just happened to canks?" or "THREAD OF MISSING GR8080" shoutfests or w/e?

who cares?

can I just say that while I am often frustrated with and irritated by KDT/MB, the original post in this thread was reasonable, and it was carefully timed not to fall in the middle of any other metashit -- a good attempt to talk borad mechanics. And she still got four SBs for it.

no - she got sb'd for saying shit like

Suggest ban = users are two year olds
Flag/report post = users are adults

― Karen D. Tregaskin

which is unacceptable ad-hom I'm-right-you're-wrong-no-matter-what bullshit on which she should be called out no matter how mad she is

No, actually in this instance she got SB-ed for the first post and a copule of them were pretty soon after it was posted.

Turned out that was a "joke" though eh.
xp

"copule", eh.

"Wow, she called everyone who disagreed with her a two-year-old and people clicked the SB button? What assholes!"

KDT, thanks for trying. gbx, thanks for trying. everybody who tried to keep it snark-free, thanks for trying.

FTR I'm pretty much w WmC on this.

No, actually in this instance she got SB-ed for the first post and a copule of them were pretty soon after it was posted.

yeah I will agree that this is bullshit btw, SB'ing someone for the first post in a thread is assholism and should result in autoban

mods get on this right now or I want my money back

$10 heading to yr paypal acct right now.

fuck flagged posts, people should just be more ready to criticize & receive criticism on their posts and board presence imo. don't think this is a structural thing & more just, why use code to bypass simple effective human interaction? everyone anonymously drawing mod attention to conflagratory posts seriously sounds like hell to me. if someone's offended you just confront them about it either on board in the thread or off board through email, & if u really think it merits being deleted just start a thread on mrf for it. if you're really mystified as to why you've gotten sb'd just ask for ppl to give some more constructive advice

― samosa gibreel, Monday, 22 November 2010 00:18 (3 minutes ago)

^^^

Pash maybe those SBs were of the "oh ffs not this bullshit YET AGAIN OH FUCK NO" variety, but what would I know nb i have not sbed anyone on this thred.

I think it would be fairly straight-forward to modify a stylesheet so that the SB link wasn't shown, and wouldn't require a programmer or very much mod effort.

hmm the SB button is a span with a class of "bookmark", not v well named but it does seem to be unique. To this page at least.

Maybe, Trayce, I dunno.

Maybe we need a "stfu, we've done this" yellowcard button.

(I am speaking generally here not about this thread in partic)

"Wow, she called everyone who disagreed with her a two-year-old and people clicked the SB button? What assholes!"

I thought she was saying the sb feature assumes users are 2yos and a more detailed feature would be giving people more credit, but hey I'm happy to be wrong.

2a) posters wouldn't "suddenly" disappear after their 51st SB. granted, many (if not most!) of all SB'd users probably had it coming, but it's usually the apparently random timing of SBs that irk some ppl. like i get it that user X has a history of dickishness, but the final infraction has occasionally been relatively innocuous.
2b) pretty sure this has been made as clear as possible, sadly. kate has picked up 4 suggest BANS for starting a wholly innocuous thread, and they are now part of her total ban count. why? because ppl are dickbags, that's why. full stop. if this thread had been FLAGGED by four users, it likely would not have come to moderator attn, because 4 seems like a pretty low threshold. moreover, if it had hit whatever arbitrary threshold you'd like, any sane moderator like WmC would come along and go "wait, this is not at all controversial, IGNORE"
2c) flags are anonymous, and only trigger action when a threshold is reached. posters don't know their posts have been flagged until a mod says "dude, ppl are not pleased with this post you made, and i agree, u r a douche". that might be the end of it! or maybe they get banned, i dunno. point is, flags reduce whining because there's no longer a mandatory sentencing attached to behavior that may, or may not, have been truly inflammatory.

xp AA that's precisely how i read what she said, too.

$10 heading to yr paypal acct right now.

did I really only give 10 bones during pledge drive? fuck me, I'm an asshole, everybody sb me immediately

can I just say that while I am often frustrated with and irritated by KDT/MB, the original post in this thread was reasonable, and it was carefully timed not to fall in the middle of any other metashit -- a good attempt to talk borad mechanics. And she still got four SBs for it. Doesn't that make it obvious that she's getting SB'd for existing, not for anything specific she did wrong in that post?

That's the kind of bullshit that I think a flag post system instead of a SB system might help eliminate.

― Unfrozen Caveman Board-Lawyer (WmC), Sunday, November 21, 2010 7:00 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

Okay I typed this up and didn't post it, but if K-dogg is gettin sb'd for this shit then I need to speak up... because when they came for the jews, i did not speak up~

I know the SB conversation has been had a million zillion times, but it seems to me that it's still worth asking, y'know, why every other messageboard in the world goes with a post flagging system and why you can't find any other place that allows literally anyone to anonymously suggest a ban for any user they please, for any reason they please. I would think that the answer is super obvious - it's just not a good moderating solution, and in fact it's a really weird and bad one. On another board I post on - much bigger than this one - you just report individual posts and have to give a reason with your report. Mods review the reports and make moderating decisions about trouble posts and hand out a probation, ban, or permaban based on the seriousness of the offense and on the poster's history. Using the report function frivolously has consequences, again either a probation or ban depending on the poster's history. This is the best way to moderate a big message board, because you're addressing problems as they spring up instead of treating any user who crosses a magical threshold to a weird This Is Your Life tribunal. And because you need a reason to report someone - a reason besides "I don't like this poster" - the function maintains its integrity and doesn't become a passive-aggressive tool for creating board drama. The current system leads to some comical and occasionally merciful results and I wouldn't even say I'm an advocate of change, but there are a million empirically better ways of moderating a message board. I think ultimately anything that leans more towards an automated system than mod discretion (like the auto-escalating temp bans) is A Bad Idea.

tldr - This unique system the ilx coders came up with is bad and dumb. KDT getting a host of sb's for starting a thread in good faith and making reasonable points just shows how retarded this shit is.

I'm not opposed to the idea of a Flag Post function IF Keith and Stet are open to have it coded. That said, making it anonymous is a TERRIBLE idea as there's never any way of knowing whether or not the flagging is coming from a person with an ulterior motive for wanting to get someone banned. But I've got a feeling that this systems only seems simpler, the devil is in the details and it could well end up causing as many clusterfucks and perceived injustices as the current system.

A much simpler solution would be for mods to remove any and all SBs that aren't for obvious egregious posts. Or just throw the whole SB system in the bin and go back to moderator discretion, maybe with more use of yellow cards. But then people would complain about centralisation of power. It's no-win whatever happens.

Aerosmith - this is ridiculous, you can't actually see what the SBs are for. And yes, Autumn Almanac is correctly interpreting her there from what I can see.

kinda think requiring people to justify in words flags/SBs might be a bit much. we're trying to make LESS work for mods, not more. that is: rely initially on how much attn a post attracts (# of flags), which then automates a mod notification. at that point, i'm willing to trust that the mods can determine if flags were made in bad faith or not.

2b) would ppl be less at risk of getting banned because they are irritating?

Even if they're a minority, if there are people who are getting SBs without knowing why, there should be a way for them to find out? Even if a majority already get why and don't care/can't change, it'd still be a good thing.

and u couldn't ditch anonymity, that's ridiculous. either a post is offensive per community standards (which, flawed tho ilx is, i think it's OK to apply a 'know it if i see it' policy), or someone's just peeved at someone like kate having the temerity to start a thread about something.

I think a few people have mentioned that they fully intend to ban people and not flag posts.

Taking the opposite view of KDT on that isn't that unreasonable a position - irl I tend to dislike people based on their behaviour. I may or may not challenge them on something or try to change that behaviour (flag) but for the most part if I find someone to be an unpleasant dick I'd try not to be around them any more (sb) - like you might stop someone saying racist shit at work if everyone tells them to quit it but ultimately you're still stuck working with a racist. So you try to get the person removed (sb) - or remove yourself if the system won't let you and can't bear to be around them (I am off the Internet-maracas.jps)

A much simpler solution would be for mods to remove any and all SBs that aren't for obvious egregious posts. Or just throw the whole SB system in the bin and go back to moderator discretion, maybe with more use of yellow cards. But then people would complain about centralisation of power. It's no-win whatever happens.

This is otm -- I for one am 100% comfortable with god-mods even though I feel confident that both HI DERE & jjjusten would have banned me at some point for my egregious assholism on politics threads.

I actually share some of Princess TamTam(wish I knew who that was)'s concerns in re: cliqueishness but I don't think that's actually how SB has played out on ilx, which mitigates the problem. It's like: if you're not an aggressively active poster, you don't have a prayer of surviving the onslaught of an ad-hoc coordinated crew's worth of on-board abuse. SB gives those posters, largely ones we couldn't name because they're quieter, a weapon against bullies. That's why I like the SB.

the people who sb'd kate upon first post when there was nothing else yet posted were being dicks and that was unfair, but do you think the majority of any 51 sb's are similarly groundless? like d'uh probably not

fwiw i have decent coding xp - cld def w/ fuck with source code just for autoreplace alone - but then yall can live in the world that i create & then jaundy can either learn to program or gtfo i guess.

http://www.mattbrandenburg.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Asinine-America-HATERS-GONNA-HATE1.jpg

also this thread is the perfect encapsulation of why lol bans are amazing

i have sb'd over a dozen ppl itt

er, that is, i think some posters would not be comfortable calling bullshit on other posters behavior if they knew it wasn't anonymous. now, anonymity IS bad when yr vote is just to get someone off the island. if it's just to say "hey mods look at this" then who cares who flagged what.

Lamp I know you hate me but you bring the lols and for that I give you the gift of suggest ban

just to add some detail of what I know about the current site - afaik it was developed with java EE. I was part of task force POXY FULE back in the day, so I had some exposure to the dev process. no one really wanted java EE, because it's not a scripting language anybody can pick up quickly, but it's what keith knew and fuck if he didn't man up and rewrite the whole goddamn site while a bunch of us armchair script hacks wrung our hands and debated php vs perl vs fubar.

Or just throw the whole SB system in the bin and go back to moderator discretion, maybe with more use of yellow cards. But then people would complain about centralisation of power. It's no-win whatever happens.

Honestly, they should just bring the hammer down on the whiners. This shit doesn't get to be up for discussion on a lot of other messageboards... I know that's sort of counter to the democratic ideal of ilx or whatever (lol) but trust me, I know from experience that boards with a more fascist approach are much more harmonious and life is simpler and more pleasurable for everyone.

SB gives those posters, largely ones we couldn't name because they're quieter, a weapon against bullies. That's why I like the SB.

― aerosmith: the acid house years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, November 21, 2010 6:33 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

dude this is precisely what anonymous flagging would do, too! AND it would stop bullies from SBing ppl just for lolz. like the Main Thing you're doing is making a button that says "ATTN MODS!" instead of one that says "HOPE U NEVER POST HERE AGAIN"