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

OK fine I admit it. I SB'd Kate during this thread (tho not for the original post) and did so for the exact reasons JJusten just said.

my name is darraghmac and i don't think there are any major problems with the moderation of ilx.

there i said it. waiting to be called out for 'always arguing with poster x' again now.

xp actually yes she did

Okay, aero, I don't see the words "I suggest x" and think "that's a demand," but maybe I'm naive.

To make it really short:

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

― Karen D. Tregaskin, Sunday, November 21, 2010 5:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

put on yr reading glasses, old man

suggest ban = (assumes) users are two year olds
flag/report post = (assumes) users are adults

not that people doing some suggest banning are toddlers, but that such a system assumes that all users are toddlers. not saying i agree with her, but she wasn't calling ppl out for being children

ah - I do see how the effort of typing the extra eight characters must have been too much to bear

how about the post immediately prior:

Do you understand how these two things are different?

One is a blanket indictment of an entire person, without ever explaining why they are bad, just that they are bad, and they should go away.
The other is very specifically aimed at actions, with the idea of pointing out what behaviour is unacceptable, with the specific intent of changing that behaviour.

― Karen D. Tregaskin, Sunday, November 21, 2010 5:49 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

like snark about not typing eight characters, or w/e you'd like to justify yr misreading, but the fact is str8 up that y'all completely misunderstood what she said there, and i'm willing to level the charge that it's because you didn't really care enough because lol kate is annoying

xp areo - dude let it go, she's not saying ppl who voice support for sb system = two year olds & it's p obvious

dude I actually like k8 & wish death on all k8 haters, so eat a dick! that was how I read what she wrote & I know she's plenty capable of making herself clear, you're the one who seems to think she needs help elucidating herself

gbx for sitewide mod

ok but how u read what she wrote was wrong & its time to move on dawg

ah - I do see how the effort of typing the extra eight characters must have been too much to bear

Kate's fault you didn't understand her post but everyone else did? k

...and you were wrong, aero. also not sure what that little bit of ad hom was at the end (i'm being...what? condescending? because i agree with her?)

i misread that, tbh. my bad.

it's far from the first or last misreading itt, on the other hand. but apologies for my part, seeing as it's the only one worth making a huge deal over.

As a former moderator, I think the largest problem with the current system is that we didn't follow up and tell people why they were banned. That would have removed the paranoia portion of the process KDT mentioned in her first post.

I think the low level annoyance "I hate this person and would like to see them gone" reaction would increase with this proposed system, based on how people use suggest ban to express their vendettas with each other. This because I have no faith in a largely annoying segment of the population's ability to ignore each other or to let shit go.

i don't really care about SBs but i'd support the system floated by kate, which seems to focus them somewhat

gbx otm throughout esp re: the majority of posters in this thread being dicks, and i'll just call out darraghmac for being unnecessarily dense on top of it in lieu of scrolling up to SB

there is already a forum where you can draw mod attention to things, why do ppl feel the need to do this anonymously

this was covered in one or maybe all of the clusterfucks previous - quieter posters or posters who don't particularly want to be put at risk of being bullied wouldn't feel particularly comfortable with this

i do think a lot of clusterfucks and misery could've been avoided if SBs hadn't been implemented in the first place, they did seem like a way for mods to pussy out of cracking down on chronic low-level dickishness. there'd be complaints about mod power but the thing is that if you're a mod you then say "YES. AND?" and move on - you get to set the rules.

fair enuf samosa & gbx & autumn - standing by how "sb = users are two-year-olds" can fairly be read as "sb = users are two-year-olds" on a fast-moving thread

in re: whether k8 is demanding that a bunch of people, for free, do a lot of work to make her & a few vociferous objectors happy, here's the conclusion of her initial post:

I suggest that the SB system be replaced by a Report/Flag Post system, whereby 1) censure is attached to specific behaviour, not just the person in general and 2) a reason must be provided to establish *why* moderation is being asked for (and prevent abuse). This can be in the form of a drop-down list containing the things ILX condemns, for example:
1) Ad hominem attacks
2) Bullying
3) Racism
4) Sexism/Misogyny
5) Homophobia
6) Hate Speech (other)

Note what reasons are not given: this system is *not* for things one finds annoying but not mod-worthy ("you are an idiot" or "I disagree with you" or "OMG, shut UP with the derail/meta/hobbyhorse") - it is for specific behaviour that ILX will not tolerate.

If a post is flagged, it goes into a moderation queue. (I would suggest some kind of prioritisation if a post rapidly accumulates many flags, to require immediate attention and forestall meta clusterfucks.) It stays there until it is dealt with, instead of hanging around for months afterwards like SBs. A moderator can decide on the appropriate response - for example, on-thread warning, yellow carding, threadban, temp ban, etc. - and this response happens within a reasonable amount of time so that the offense and its punishment are causally correlated.

The other component would be a way of letting the "culprit" know what they are actually being punished for. I don't know if this is something that could - or even should be done automatically (for instance, a page where you can see your flag count a la your post count, I fear would be treated like a statscock by some people. This is not the intention.) However, the idea that someone or something can privately tell you "you got 17 flags for racism on X thread, knock it off" might actually be instructive.

Yes, it would mean more work for mods, though it would give more weight to mod decisions, if they are backed up by flags rather than seeming arbitrary or personal. But it would also mean that "oops, I didn't even know that was happening" is never an excuse, either for mods or for controversial posters.

"I suggest the SB system be replaced" & ff. is a lovely say of saying "someone do this, please" and really, fuck that, I don't love everything about how the board functions but the mods are working their asses off for free and in return they mainly get the same crap every other message board on the internet gets: a bunch of people insisting that their every whim be catered to. code this, code that. it's kinda gross, imo.

i'll just call out darraghmac for being unnecessarily dense on top of it in lieu of scrolling up to SB

i, uh, i appreciate it.

what level of dense is necessary in your opinion, i'll aspire to better in future

Yeah let me go ahead and tell you as a mod how awesomely that works out all the time. Xpost to lex

there'd be complaints about mod power but the thing is that if you're a mod you then say "YES. AND?" and move on - you get to set the rules.

worked brilliantly for hi dere.

this was covered in one or maybe all of the clusterfucks previous - quieter posters or posters who don't particularly want to be put at risk of being bullied wouldn't feel particularly comfortable with this

are quiet posters getting sbanned though?

also bummed aero didn't get my black star ref tbh

FWIW I read it as "if you SB ppl u are a child", also.

I feel like the gold standard for any candidate to replace SB has to be 'what would it have done about Dom' - if the answer is "he'd still be here" then I'm not interested in it.

Serious q. is there anybody who has any actually-not-clear understanding about how & why any individual poster, including themselves, got sb'd?

also bummed aero didn't get my black star ref tbh

lol ok look I've been drinking, I'll re-scan the thread and give you a rhyming & rhyming big-up in a minute

feel sorry for all the quiet posters that can't email the mods, genuinely confused as to how large a segment this is, can we get marketing on this?

im sayin

I think the low level annoyance "I hate this person and would like to see them gone" reaction would increase with this proposed system, based on how people use suggest ban to express their vendettas with each other. This because I have no faith in a largely annoying segment of the population's ability to ignore each other or to let shit go.

it would increase, no doubt. but it'd be easier to parse out lol bans from genuine grievance.

can't find black star ref unless it was "reading glasses" :(

one of my questions to you earlier gbx was, could both not co-exist? what're you tryin to achieve with the flagging? but you've typed a lot of that out already tbf, thread moving quickly.

Serious q. is there anybody who has any actually-not-clear understanding about how & why any individual poster, including themselves, got sb'd?

i haven't been suggest-banned often, but when i have, it's around the time i've been snide or a jackass. so i'm not surprised to have seen it happen.

BEEF IS NOT WHAT JAY SAID TO NAS
BEEF IS WHEN WORKING N- CANT FIND JOBS

oops guess it's just a mos def track, my b

dmac---they could coexist, but it'd be sorta redundant.

lj's second (third?) sb was a surprise for sure, other than that even the ones i wouldn't have wished for were in no ways surprosing or murky imo

why redundant

i) hey mod look at this and decide
ii) hey mod if 50 other people feel like i do please ban this user for 30 days

lol ok look I've been drinking, I'll re-scan the thread and give you a rhyming & rhyming big-up in a minute

― aerosmith: the acid house years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, November 21, 2010 7:12 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

see, the only reason i've managed to stay with this thread is because i live in lol mn and am drinking 3.2 k*ll*ans

ok lol @ autoreplace there, what the heck

drinking whiskey, i dont even know why i'm here. think i'm taking all aerosmith's flak tbh

worked brilliantly for hi dere.

― Goths in Home & Away in my lifetime (darraghmac), Sunday, November 21, 2010 8:10 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

I love HI DERE, but I always felt his willingness to engage with the plebes on this stuff was his achilles heel... obviously he felt he was doing a good thing wrt mod transparency, but the people he dealt with were mostly animals who took a mile when given an inch. Let everyone have IMP so they can let off steam and feel like they're being heard, but you don't really need to actually talk to them imo.

only redundant in that if a given poster is getting flagged all the g-d time, then the mods can just ban 'em. no one gets voted off the island.

i haven't been suggest-banned often, but when i have, it's around the time i've been snide or a jackass. so i'm not surprised to have seen it happen.

im almost +ve i sb'd you once in the 'how many sbs do i have?' thread bcuz your total was low + i think i had a 'good zinger' about you now have x+1 sbs instead of x or w/e

so i mean i hope that taught u a lesson

lol it did

just sb'd you.

no offense

(actually, just kidding)

xxxp to ptt hoooo boy

only redundant in that if a given poster is getting flagged all the g-d time, then the mods can just ban 'em. no one gets voted off the island.

― BIG MUFFIN (gbx),

mods cant make that call themselves?

sb, for me, works only if mods are making the calls on what's acceptable/banworthy completely independently of sb totals. sb used as a register of complaint of the kind of mid/low level annoyance/nuisance/disruption that can make a poster who never posts anything banworthy in one post a real PITA