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

If they ever get implemented for real I will go through this thread with a fine SB comb.

Put it to a poll/vote, it will be overwhelmingly against.

sb's or avatars?

polls

ilx

people shouldn't get banned because they get SBs for completely inoffensive posts

Once again: individuals have very different conceptions of what constitutes "inoffensive".

Well yeah, but a message board can't live by moral relativism, that would lead either to no moderation at all (because there's no single thing that's offensive to everyone), or people getting banned for completely trivial reasons (because every jokey or ad hominem SB can be justified by saying "I was offended"). There has to be a standard for what's considered offensive, and I think the current moderation guidelines we have for that are very good - the problem with SBs is that no one's checking whether they match those guidelines.

or people getting banned for completely trivial reasons (because every jokey or ad hominem SB can be justified by saying "I was offended")

you have to get 51, so it's not that subjective

Maybe, but if Kate got several SBs for the initial post in this thread, which is completely sensible and has nothing modworthy about it, then it means people's subjective judgement isn't working well enough, and moderation guidelines are needed.

http://www.prisontalk.com/forums/image.php?u=41065&dateline=1134267096ready to concede on the avatars, I've seen the light

http://www.snowboardingforum.com/customavatars/avatar1615_1.gifit was the wisdom of Lamp and the lol of ENBB that brought me over

people shouldnt give out jokey sb's, tuomas. Isnt that fairer to say than anything else?

Yeah, but as Pash said above, at the moment jokey SBs count just as much as serious ones.

Tuomas! Please man, don't do this today. It's the last day before Thanksgiving dude. I'm just trying to chill out at the office and do a little ilx.

otoh - nvrmind. Just....whatever.

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/hs455.snc4/50499_33986972857_3259204_q.jpgkkvgz it's hard to hear you without your avatar

people's subjective judgement isn't working well enough

uh-huh

how's a mod to call a jokey sb or not? You're preaching to the wrong gallery- wmc already stated that he's uncomfortable with judging the validity of an sb, i'd imagine it's the same for the other mods.

Besides, your basis for judging the 'real' sb's is going to differ from everyone else's. The whole point is that everyone knows what the button does, and mods arent going to police it beyond making sure sock accounts arent fouling it either way

Put it to a poll/vote, it will be overwhelmingly against.

― Mark G, Wednesday, 24 November 2010 12:02 (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
sb's or avatars?

― Goths in Home & Away in my lifetime (darraghmac), Wednesday, 24 November 2010 12:06 (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Avatars.

how's a mod to call a jokey sb or not? You're preaching to the wrong gallery- wmc already stated that he's uncomfortable with judging the validity of an sb, i'd imagine it's the same for the other mods.

1) The mod checks if the post that go SBd is against ILX guidelines (no racism/sexism/homophobia, no spamming, no personal attacks, etc).

2) If it is, the SB stays. If it isn't, the SB is removed.

This is what I suggested two years ago when this discussion first started.

If people's subjective judgement isn't working well enough then somebody will just have to force them to be subjective in the right way.

http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/41326074/8808425 No one has ever reached 51 through "jokey" or innocuous suggest bans alone. For virtually every person who has been 51ed, the majority of their suggest bans have been for aggressive flaming, snark, abuse, creepiness, trolling or a combination of some or all of the above.

I can't emphasise that last bit enough.

mods check posts for those things. The sb is for other things.

You dont have to agree with that, but i'm pretty sure that's been fairly explicitly stated by stet and others.

Otherwise you'd have a system where it took 51 people to decide you were being racist.

1) The mod checks if the post that go SBd is against ILX guidelines (no racism/sexism/homophobia, no spamming, no personal attacks, etc).

2) If it is, the SB stays. If it isn't, the SB is removed.

ah bullshit. as matt says, "snark, abuse, creepiness, trolling" are also criteria, and criteria that can be interpreted in various ways, cough cough

http://www.forums.eu.pn/download/file.php?avatar=2_1214649975.gifsure I see what you mean

That's part of it, mod bans historically have tended to set the bar quite high for those things (there are exceptions, we all know that). But everyone has different levels of tolerance for those things. If 51 people decide you're making the board a less pleasant place for them to be, well, that's a lot of people in one six-month period!

No one has ever reached 51 through "jokey" or innocuous suggest bans alone. For virtually every person who has been 51ed, the majority of their suggest bans have been for aggressive flaming, snark, abuse, creepiness, trolling or a combination of some or all of the above.

First of all, when did "snark" become something that should get you banned? Isn't snark part of what makes ILX fun? Secondly, even if you are judged, say, 70% by your actual misdeeds and 30% by something else, the 30% is still wrong.

ah bullshit. as matt says, "snark, abuse, creepiness, trolling" are also criteria, and criteria that can be interpreted in various ways, cough cough

Well yeah, but I trust the mods (who I know are almost always fair) to be better judges of what's trolling and what's not than some random anonymous posters.

http://www.chessgames.com/av/face_1538.gif when did 'personal attacks' become something that should get you banned?

They've always been.

I'm sure people have clicked "suggest ban" against a post that might look innocuous enough in isolation, but taken in context with numerous other posts by the poster it has been the straw that has broken the camels back.

pfft. You haven't been allowed to 'snark' for years

I'm sure people have clicked "suggest ban" against a post that might look innocuous enough in isolation, but taken in context with numerous other posts by the poster it has been the straw that has broken the camels back.

BFT

http://img1.jurko.net/fa3.gif Tuomas, it's not just the snark, it's the meta-snark.

I'm sure people have clicked "suggest ban" against a post that might look innocuous enough in isolation, but taken in context with numerous other posts by the poster it has been the straw that has broken the camels back.

I think people should be expected to be intelligent enough to click on the actual offensive post(s) and not the innocuous one.

To be plain, unsnarky, open and honest. Tuomas: when you take issue with the system as is, it appears to me, and I assume other posters, that you want the rules to run in a way that protects posters you find enjoyable or valuable but removes those you find make the board painful to use. All of us are probably arguing for some version of this, but you claim that your guidelines are the Objective Rules and therefore function as some kind of trump card over what other users want. Maybe that's just the way your rhetoric is coming across, but that's the main bone of disagreement I have with you. If there are any objective rules, they cover the kind of blanketly offensive posts that mods already take action on, which are outside of the SB system.

And you misconstrue the camel's back analogy. One post about (Poster's Hobbyhorse A) might be unobjectionable, but a 100th post, in the same vein, with the same level of innocuousness, but in an unwelcome thread context, will push some users to click the STFU BAN button.

If there are any objective rules, they cover the kind of blanketly offensive posts that mods already take action on, which are outside of the SB system.

Well, basically I think SB system should only be there notify mods about offensive posts, to make their jobs easier. It's then their decision whether to yellow card, temp ban, perm ban, or do nothing about the offensive poster. The whole "51 votes and your out" thing is bullshit, in my opinion. (Especially since 51 voters is a small minority of registered users.)

that you want the rules to run in a way that protects posters you find enjoyable or valuable but removes those you find make the board painful to use.

No, what I want is everyone to be judged fairly by the same standards. With SBs you can never know if that actually happens, looks like people can get SBs based on their reputation or for other personal reasons that have nothing to do with their current behaviour.

But the SB works the same for everybody.

I have some minor qualms about it not giving feedback to the SB-ee, and I disagree with the choice of several of its victims, but I don't question that as a system it works equally on all posters.

You want everybody to be judged by the same standards but you want to help define what those standards are, surely?

One post about (Poster's Hobbyhorse A) might be unobjectionable, but a 100th post, in the same vein, with the same level of innocuousness, but in an unwelcome thread context, will push some users to click the STFU BAN button.

Personally, I think people being monomaniacal and obsessive about certain things makes ILX richer, and shouldn't be something that requires punishment. Only if they start a hundred different threads about the same subject, or post 100 messages in a row about it, or their obsession leads to pointless ad hominem attacks, should a mod interfere. If those things don't happen, I don't see why obsessing about a specific thing in a thread devoted to it is wrong.

Personally I think pointless ad hominem attacks make ILX richer. We are both expressing a personal preference, how do we resolve this impasse?

I don't see why obsessing about a specific thing in a thread devoted to it is wrong

What about a thread you think is devoted to it but is actually a thread devoted to something else entitrely and what you are really doing is instigating a damaging, counterproductive and annoying derail?

but you want to help define what those standards are, surely?

No, I'm perfectly fine with the standars we've had for years. They seem pretty sensible and are about the same as on any good message board.

What about a thread you think is devoted to it but is actually a thread devoted to something else entitrely and what you are really doing is instigating a damaging, counterproductive and annoying derail?

Then the mods can yellowcard/notify the poster or ban him from the thread.

In British political history, and I assume in that of many other countries, innovation was frequently introduced by an appeal to a return to well-known, long-standing standards.

NV OTM. That's why innocuous seeming posts like Kate's starting this thread also get SBs -- the message I get there is "stop hammering this one".

It comes back to the difference between posts and users again. ILX is pretty good at handling a bad post; even those that on their own are harmless but form a larger pattern. There's no shortage of feedback.

A problem arises when a poster doesn't listen to the feedback and carries on anyway, so pretty soon the board is yelling "yes we get your opinion/mission/need to overshare on this, stfu already" and the poster keeps charging on. That sort of behaviour pretty quickly leads to an SB. I think that's fair, even if the actual SB post is relatively innocuous in isolation.

(On yr other point: none of the improvements I talked about are technical, they're all policy)

XP: OK if thats what you think it should be about, fine. It sounds similar to Kate's post-flagging idea. But that's not actually what the SB system is about, for reasons I said earlier.

As for judging fairly, the relevant policy rule here is "don't be a dick". The varying opinions of people who give SBs help define what that means for ILX. Has anyone been banned who wasn't being a bit of a dick?

Then the mods can yellowcard/notify the poster or ban him from the thread.

Okay then, you're banned from the thread. This is not a thread for you to carry out the same argument you have multiple times before, it's a thread to discuss specific suggestions put forward by Kate.

http://avatars.postiton.net/avatars/Weezer.gifI'd like to take this moment to stan for the Green Album over the Blue Album and Pinkerton. Thanks.

Thumbs Upped u for that

http://www.graphicsgrotto.com/avatars/funny/images/avfunny3.gif<3 the potleaf goin down the highway one so much