Missin U <3 - lamentations for those felled by the SB

I have removed several Suggest Bans from, for example, known sockpuppets and users registered the previous day and with 0 posts to their name, yes. On one occasion it actually prevented a poster from falling over the 52 mark. It's usually incredibly obvious when there's a sockpuppet at work and yes, those SBs are removed.

Because no way is it 50% of regular posters, hence it's not really democratic at all.
Even if it were 50%, I don't think that'd change its democraticness very much. But I don't think the level it's at is very far from representative: the turnout's a lot higher than many polls here get.

(Plus non-regular posters can click SB too.)
As I said upthread, SBs get a lot of scrutiny, but it's done by mods not by algorithm. If someone with no posts who only signed up last month SBs someone for something innocuous, that's not going to carry a lot of weight. It'll most likely get deleted. Whereas if, I dunno, estela SBs someone, I'm going to take notice. Also: it's not just posting history we look at -- if someone's been reading this site every day for 2 years, I think there SBs should count just as much as some hyper-poster's.

jjusten, upthread: "almost every SB vote has been from posters whose names i recognized immediately"

like ten clusterfuck threads back another mod said that when they looked at SB totals they did disregard ones that were from sockpuppets &c, which i'm guessing as a class includes people who are suspicious cos they appear never to have posted here.

'tourists' don't get SB powers, but people that have just moved into town the week before do, if we want to make this even worth going with (good grief what am i saying)

Okay, let's say the villager who's fate is being decided has a Tourette's Syndrome. The people who've lived in the village for long know this and have gotten used to it, that's just the way he is, and he means no harm. But the new villager doesn't know about the Tourette's, so he thinks this person should be kicked out because he's saying all those awful things all the time. Is that fair?

I have removed several Suggest Bans from, for example, known sockpuppets and users registered the previous day and with 0 posts to their name, yes. On one occasion it actually prevented a poster from falling over the 52 mark. It's usually incredibly obvious when there's a sockpuppet at work and yes, those SBs are removed.

Okay, thanks for this info.

OK, you just need to stick to ILX and not traipse off to The Sound of Music of the Damned.

xxp, No. The mods would act appropriately. You do not need to come up with an algorithm to ensure this.

Because no way is it 50% of regular posters, hence it's not really democratic at all.
Even if it were 50%, I don't think that'd change its democraticness very much.

You don't think a majority vote is democratic?

Okay, let's say the villager who's fate is being decided has a Tourette's Syndrome. The people who've lived in the village for long know this and have gotten used to it, that's just the way he is, and he means no harm. But the new villager doesn't know about the Tourette's, so he thinks this person should be kicked out because he's saying all those awful things all the time. Is that fair?

Yes. Everyone in the village has the same rights.

so he thinks this person should be kicked out because he's saying all those awful things all the time. Is that fair?

This thing isn't run by automatons. It wouldn't be fair if the villagers actually kicked the guy out, but that's not going to happen either here or in the village.

You don't think a majority vote is democratic?
I think that an election can have a 27% turnout and still *be* democratic.

it takes a village to suggest a ban

loool

Basically Tuomas you're just saying that people who don't post as much are less worthy than people who post a lot, which is not true.

if we needed 50% of regular posters to sb someone, it would never happen. but i guess that's what you want.

We'd never agree on a definition of "regular," for one thing. (no poop jokes plz)

You don't think a majority vote is democratic?
I think that an election can have a 27% turnout and still *be* democratic.

Okay, once someone gets 51 SBs, there should be an automatic poll to decide whether or not he really gets banned. That way it would be like a democratic election, because now it isn't.

oh man, beliefs

The people who've lived in the village for long know this and have gotten used to it, that's just the way he is, and he means no harm. But the new villager doesn't know about the Tourette's, so he thinks this person should be kicked out because he's saying all those awful things all the time. Is that fair?

so, there's one vote to kick him out. what's the problem?

But what if it's the decisive vote? What if there's a family of new villagers with 10 kids, and they all get to vote?

what turnout would be necessary to declare such a poll valid?
should everyone be allowed to vote?
should the condemned be allowed to vote? should each vote count as one vote regardless of user?

tuomas veering dangerously close to the kind of rhetoric i hear not very nice people using in local politics all the time.

Last time the whole thing hinged on one vote, Mr Fuckshitcocksucker got thrown out of the village for no apparent reason.

I think Tuomas needs an enforced break so he can devote all his energies to coming up with the perfect shit metaphor for a problem that doesn't exist.

But what if it's the decisive vote? What if there's a family of new villagers with 10 kids, and they all get to vote?

Then the dude with Tourette's has to go off to a remote clinic for a month where he may or may not get treatment while the rest of the village yells for at most a couple of days about how unfair the situation is, then everyone goes back to their lives.

People would take this argument more seriously if it had ever been in danger of happening ever, by the way.

what turnout would be necessary to declare such a poll valid?
should everyone be allowed to vote?
should the condemned be allowed to vote? should each vote count as one vote regardless of user?

There would be no lower limit to turnout, just like in real democratic elections. If few people care about the banning, and the condemned wins the vote by, say, 3 votes to 2 votes, then the banning probably wasn't necessary since so few people cared about it. And if mods can indeed weed out sock puppets, then every user should have just one vote.

Thank you for your suggestion.

I don't think it would impossible to implement, would it? An automatic "Should user X be banned?" poll generated when user X gets 51 SBs. That way it would truly be democratic.

Tuomas, you're talking about two things now:

i) changing the threshold for SBs.
ii) refurendum re: temp-banning when enough SBs have been collected
iii) this retarded weighting system which wouldn't solve an imaginary problem

Re: these:

i) i can get behind in principle, although the mods have way, way, way, more information and experience about what is the right level than we do, and, if we have to have an SB system then i am happy to trust them to set it correctly.
ii) shasta suggested this upthread. my instinct is against it because i trust the mods to exercise discretion (and wish they did more) but I don't think it's a trivially bad idea.
iii) your retarded weighting system wouldn't solve an imaginary problem

If few people care about the banning, and the condemned wins the vote by, say, 3 votes to 2 votes, then the banning probably wasn't necessary since so few people cared about it

presumably you'd be as blasé about the reverse outcome?

The poll wouldn't be impossible to implement, just daft. They've already got 51 as-genuine-as-we-can-reasonably-tell neg votes against them, and that's a lot! It's more than enough to earn you a month off. A lot of users already cared a lot about it.

Also I hate to say this because it sounds like I/we don't care what users think when the truth's completely the opposite, but ILX: not a democracy.

tuomas, a question-

if 51 individual, genuine posters posted to a thread entitled 'BAN (X)' stating that they wanted this to be done, how would you feel about a mod banning (X)?

The poll wouldn't be impossible to implement, just daft. They've already got 51 as-genuine-as-we-can-reasonably-tell neg votes against them, and that's a lot!

But with the poll system you would get no more complaints about someone being banned because a minority opinion, since everyone has the chance to vote. To me, it would be the fairest system of deciding whether or not to SB someone that would actually work in practice.

if 51 individual, genuine posters posted to a thread entitled 'BAN (X)' stating that they wanted this to be done, how would you feel about a mod banning (X)?

How is this different from the SB system? I wouldn't think such a ban is fair, but I don't think the current SB system is fair either.

It's not, really.

But I think it might help for people to think of the SB button in exactly this way, I just wanted to see if it would maybe blow your mind. It didn't, and I'm a little deflated tbh.

("it's not, really" referring to the difference to the SB system, not to the fairness- that may not be clear)

But with the poll system you would get no more complaints about someone being banned because a minority opinion, since everyone has the chance to vote

finn please

its a message board not a village and its not a fucking democracy so I don't see why we're arguing about it's democratic merits

I think I have a solution that will satisfy everybody but especially Tuomas. If a poster gets 51 SBs, it immediately triggers a poll. Once the poll's results are in, we have a thread discussing what to make of them. If someone on the thread suggests that a second poll is in order, that automatically triggers a re-poll. The re-poll's end-date, when it arrives, automatically triggers seven new polls on the same subject. The names of the seven polls are Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Greed, Avarice, Pride, and Lust. The Lust poll is on the ILTMI board but the other six polls are granted their own boards, whose continued survival is assured, or not, only by daily polls on whether they should be allowed to continue. If the daily-survival poll participation threshold drops below 50% of those ILX registered posters with ten or more posts to their names over the past month, this triggers a poll. The poll triggered by this concerns whether Physical Graffiti is a better album than Judy Garland's Judy at Carnegie Hall. The results of this final poll are binding.

I have never heard either of those albums in full

We don't really get many complaints about someone being banned because a minority opinion, except from ppl who were banned by a lot of people voting.

Okay, maybe someone might complain about it. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be terribly complicated, and it would definitely be more democratic than the current system. And I though being more democratic was the reason SBs were introduced in the first place.

(xxx-post)

I support J0hn D's proposal provided that he means binding depending on a poll.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8a/JudyatCarnegieHall.jpg

Grammy - Best Album Cover 1961

john d's idea sucks, but if we poll it i'd be willing to agree to let the majority of able bodied white male posters who average > 51 posts a day decide in a straight vote.

We don't really get many complaints about someone being banned because a minority opinion, except from ppl who were banned by a lot of people voting.

Really? Because there were lengthy threads at least when Ethan, Morbius, and myself were banned, and many folks criticized the bannings in them.

there were lengthy threads at least when Ethan, Morbius, and myself were banned, and many folks criticized the bannings in them.

in fairness all the people who complained on those threads about the bannings of Ethan, Morbius, and yourself were sockpuppets of mine

no lengthier than there would have been in the event of a mod ban.

maybe morbs and yourself wouldn't have been banned without the SB system, if it were left down to a straight mod decision. your argument that this would be somehow a more democratic state of affairs is questionable, and very likely biased.

(i never sb'd you, tuomas, btw)

Okay, forget everything I've said then. It's all good.

(x-post to John)

But what if it's the decisive vote? What if there's a family of new villagers with 10 kids, and they all get to vote?

― Tuomas, Thursday, August 6, 2009 9:33 AM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i am dying at this extension of the metaphor