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

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

What is the purpose of the suggest ban system? I am asking this now, in a lull, in the hopes that we can reasonably and non-specifically address a potential alternative.

-Is it to attempt to punish or reform the behaviour of out of control or problem posters?
-Is it to lighten the workload of the mods, and eliminate the need for "Ban Poster X" campaigns?
-Is it to create a general air of paranoia, fear and suspicion, dissuade posters from expressing views they fear may be unpopular, and drive the creation of new screen names and socks to express opinions?

so imo sb is for none of those things

princess tam tam even tho upthread I advocated greater restraint on the part of non-mod ppl other than kate posting itt, you are proposing bad bad things

well, maybe the first one tbf, tho 'out of control' isn't quite right

need a mod & kate only board, lj?

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

lol high five

tam tam is only a princess in the sense that he likes his new tiara and his suggestions are terrible

princess tam tam even tho upthread I advocated greater restraint on the part of non-mod ppl other than kate posting itt, you are proposing bad bad things

― pro EVOO sucker (acoleuthic), Sunday, November 21, 2010 8:27 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark

What do you mean?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVmhZW1dDis

suggest beef

Gbx for a small fee I will call you every Saturday afternoon and tell you to go to the gddmn liquor store.

I mean 3.2 k*ll*ans u poor bastard

i did, it just, uh, didn't last.

a bitter harvest

loool

What do you mean?

― Onigaga (Princess TamTam), Monday, 22 November 2010 01:28 (6 minutes ago)

yr proposals advocate out and out authoritarianism, no right of reply, and the sort of unfeeling moderation for which ILX is seldom if ever known

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

the mods already take care of all these pretty effectively imo.

Note what reasons are not given: this system is *not* for things one finds annoying but not mod-worthy

i don't agree with it, but my understanding is that this is exactly what SB is supposed to capture: low level dickishness.

― caek, Sunday, 21 November 2010 14:03 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if the mods find it useful/reassuring to have the silent support of SBs before they make a moderation decision they would have hesitated to make on their own, then i'm all for keeping it. and when they make that decision, they can tell the problem poster why.

but 51 = 30 days, 102 = 60 days automated bans seem to be treated like a force of nature by the mods simply because keith wrote the code that way. and in practice they've resulted in a mixture of absurd and uncool popularity contest bans that make ilx a worse place, and perfectly sensible bans/timeouts for bad faith dickishness the mods could have done themselves. just get rid of the autoban, keep the "suggest ban" button as an "fyi this post annoyed me" if the mods fine it useful, and the system is fine.

― caek, Sunday, 21 November 2010 14:19 (Yesterday)

i agree with all this 100% hope it's not too dense in someone else's words

yr proposals advocate out and out authoritarianism, no right of reply, and the sort of unfeeling moderation for which ILX is seldom if ever known

dude, your situation would be massively IMPROVED if all that came to pass

except "automated bans" just isn't true, as has been stated here and on every other SB thread. Bans are not automatic.

xp

that is very fair xxpost

Why so, WmC? I know the mods are trying to help me so I got a lotta time for yr many decisions, but I think a right of reply and an informed consensus is very important as well (albeit more so in politics than on ILX).