Moderation note

I can understand that point of view, though it’s not one I share.

But, as I say, this is just my personal opinion, and my personal opinion is that whenever I post here, I’m risking exposing myself to really hostile responses from a vocal minority of chronic trolls. For me, that usually means that it’s not worth it for me to post here.

I’m mostly not the one getting flamed, because I try to avoid participating here, and I try to be really careful when I do participate, but just watching other people getting flamed is enough to dissuade me from participating more actively.

The attitude of the community seems to be that trolls are just something you have to endure. Afterward, for example, seems to hold the view that giving people the power to censor trolls would be worse than enduring the trolls. I dislike censorship, too, so I can understand that point of view. I think the majority of the posters here will agree with him, that if you can’t stand the heat, you should get out of the kitchen.

However, I think that’s because the IF community has a survivor bias. People who won’t put up with chronic trolls are unwilling to put up with the IF community. Anyone still left in the community is therefore willing to put up with chronic trolls. (Perhaps that’s the sort of trained helplessness you get when you grow up on Usenet.)

But, if you ask me, intfiction.org can do better than that. Secret bans are distasteful, but they really work; they broaden participation and they elevate discourse.

For now, I think I’m not alone in avoiding the kitchen.

If you cannot cope with polemics, you do not deserve the right to post here.

When choosing between feelings and polemics, I always choose polemics. Pure feeling is Hitler; pure polemic is Plato. While both are ugly, Plato is less so. Yes, I do hurt people’s feelings, but so does Darwin. If you think that The Origin of Species ought to be banned because it hurts people’s feelings, you’re not ready for adulthood. Hurt feelings are the aches of growth.

That’s the policy of this particular forum. I don’t think it’s actually the attitude of the community. I think the community contains a variety of attitudes on the matter.

In fairness, the subject of censorship is in no way relevant to the moderation of a webforum. Just as the declaration “visitors to my apartment aren’t allowed to smoke in my home” does not restrict anyone’s right to be a smoker, “members of my moderated forum are not allowed to troll on my board” does not restrict anyone’s right to expression. In both cases, it’s about respect for the house rules. Smokers may still smoke on their own porch. Assholes may still spew bile on their own blogs. Etc. Moderation - even very strict moderation - isn’t a form of censorship.

I’d personally prefer stricter house-rules. I think it would be a nicer house, and I’d be more engaged with it. But, bottom line, it ain’t my house, so I have no say. And I like the house well enough as it is that I’m sticking around.

That is partly what makes you a good choice for the job. Anyone who enjoys being the boss shouldn’t be the boss.

That, and the hilariously cheery tone of your warnings. I like Conrad too, but he’s being weird this week, and I’m glad you’ve arranged a vacation for him.

Er, no. If you’re looking for pejoratives, maybe “anal-retentive” or “nannying” or something along those lines is what you want, but not “unsafe”.

I for one welcome our reluctant-but-cheery overlords.

Since I’m one of those people who do use the word “censorship”, I should clarify my feelings about it. Ghalev is right, of course - it’s not about censorship, it’s about being civil. Moderators do need the power to do whatever they have to do.

What bothers me is being (I’m speaking hypothetically) in a place where I know the mods can delete threads, posts, ban people for saying certain things. And what really, really bothers me is when threads and posts get deleted, because that way I have no way of even knowing what happened, and what caused the whole thing.

I call it censorship, but I’m aware that true censorship is miles, miles away from what is actually the case here - and in the case of this particular forum, well, the idea that anyone’s censoring anyone is laughable. I’m just 100% against any filtering/doctoring of posts that did not happen through the writer’s common sense and courtesy.

In other words, I would rather a rude person would bloody well be rude and be done with it. That way we’d know where to stand with that person. I wouldn’t envision a happy stay for him/her, but we’d know where we stand. And they’d go away. Those people always do.

I think if everything remains as transparent as it’s been so far - and if there are no more deleted threads, it’d be better to lock them and hide the offending text in a “spoiler” tag, as I recall has been done in one occasion. Transparency will keep everything on the level. It’s worked so far.

That is exactly what I hope to hear a moderator say. I have not had any problems with the moderation here.

Peter Pears is disturbed that anyone might be editing history without his awareness. He is also concerned that this might cause the community to misjudge someone, since they remain unaware of the person’s missteps. When the person is not just a spammer, he has a point, and locking the thread might be preferable to deleting it.

phpBB gives non-moderator/admin users little power to limit what they see; their only options are to report a single post to the mods or blacklist all posts by a user by the foes list. I am working on a phpBB mod that would let users ignore further posts to existing topics: ignored topics would no longer show up in their unanswered, unread, or new post search results. This would be analogous to Gmail’s mute functionality. There’s a discussion on this forum, and I’ve opened a topic on the phpBB Mods-in-Development board.

Well, amen to this. I prefer transparent, open acts of moderation to cloak-and-dagger stuff. I like it when there’s a clear record, clear precedent.

And a hearty agreement with the multiple responses on this thread re: the moderator who doesn’t relish moderating, is the best kind of moderator to have.

I support moderation, I don’t support censorship. Censorship is when something gets deleted/hidden without the rest of the world knowing.
So: thumbs up for the way you deal with things today. It works. And moderators seem quite good.

Yeah. Would it be possible to create a place on the site where actions like this can be archived, as a public record?

If you don’t want to add functionality to the forum (and I don’t blame you (whoever has the skills and power to make such a change)), what about a locked, publically-viewable forum that only mods can post in, with one thread per action or acted-upon user/event?

I agree that the moderators do a terrific job here. I see no unfair bans or locks. BCressy seems very reasonable indeed.

And I’m totally with Maga here. You can just foe pudl- people whose posts you don’t want to see. You can easily tell which topics to avoid.

I haven’t been unhappy with how moderation works on this forum, but I can see why people would like a slightly stronger stance against trolls. This does not necessarily mean banning people: it can also take the form of a moderator stepping into a discussion and telling someone to turn down the heat.

It is not possible to give any hard-and-fast rules for this, of course. Let us suppose, hypothetically, that someone were to write overblown and mostly rhetorical negative reviews of games by Aaron Reed and me. I wouldn’t object to that, but to a large extent because the games were by Aaron and me. If the exact same kind of review were posted about a first-time effort by some 15-year old author, my judgement would be very different. This will always come down to a case-by-case decision of the moderator.

This. I would prefer information not be removed unless there’s a pressing need, like concerns for safety.

Yes, but what about when people aren’t rude and done with it? What if they’re deliberately antagonistic, and continue to be so, and pop up in unrelated threads to be so some more, purely for the sake of being irritating? At best, it’s tremendously dull. At worst, it looks like the community agrees with or is sympathetic to such behavior. When the behavior includes misogyny, racism, or personal attacks, I think it contributes to situations like this, where someone feels like they have to do something themselves or the status quo will never change.

Full disclosure: in the distant-ish past, there have been a few posts I’ve reported for being Not On. I never got a reply or any indication that they had been looked at, much less addressed. If the community standard is “don’t touch anything except death threats and cursing”, fine, but I think that needs to be clear up front.

In my experience, they eventually leave, sometimes making a huge deal of it, sometimes just never being heard from again. That’s because people usually respond to rude people with one or more of the following:

a) logic and reason
b) emotional responses
c) mockery
d) ignoring the troll

As long as the rude person replies in a) (it happens), there’s actually grounds for dialog, and maybe it turned out that what they meant wasn’t so rude after all, they just expressed themselves badly. b) leads to more b), and well, when an entire community b)s up on someone, that someone will find it very hard to remain motivated to post here. Anyway, it’s not like we attract 1337’s… and as for c), a healthy dose of it can be entertaining for the others and demeaning for the OP.

And then there’s always good old d).

Personally, I find trolls to be rather entertaining - I have a mean streak that enjoys seeing how people can demean themselves under the cover of anonimity, and how they’re received (usually with lots of a)s and c)s) in a community of literate, intelligent people. I don’t condone them, and I certainly wouldn’t miss them if they disappeared, but I do enjoy it when some people’s stupidity is answered in just the right way.

Mind you, from the other posts, it’s clear to me I’m rather alone in this view, and most people just want a clean place to go and discuss IF. Fine by me.

There seems to be one rule: Don’t feed the troll.*

Which I extend (without a line of coding): Use the troll, if you can.

The only rule, tho, is: Don’t be used by the troll.

Lately, an innocent has become victim (exaggerating a bit: Drama is my second name) of the troll and became evil, ruining his experience, blackmailing someone else and doing something very wrong (or very stupid, depending on how you see it). He was used by the troll.
Until one can recognize a troll when he sees one, there’s no harm. He can /ignore, /avoid, /piss off the troll. Whatever. Or even /play with him.

You know what? I’m amazed by the sheer strength of the troll. And I’m amazed by his wits when it comes down to saying something. Whatever that is.
Of course, I’m aware that’s just the strength the Dark Side of the Force gives to a Sith. So I’m prepared to think “asshole” and go on trying to fulfill the Light Side.


*I’m 39. I’ve seen the race of the trolls being born. I’ve breastfed the very first troll myself. But I’m not yet over with it. I mean, obviously I’ve never grown up (and proud of it, tbh)… but I really envy Victor for having a nasty review from the hypothetical troll. I’d like it’d be me. But no, I have to stick with Maga’s, Emily’s and MattW’s. I’m trepidant about “Andromeda Awakening: delusions of eloquence”. But no. It won’t happen. Sigh.

But, as I said, probably I’ve never grown up.

PS: Victor. The Baron. It made me feel sick. Like it was ME. Sick, I say. Do it again, please. :slight_smile:

Just a clarification: the nasty review was from me, matt w, with no capital letters and a space. MattW is a different person. Confusing, I know.

(And I’m very glad to see that you took our criticisms into account in your revision. I’d like to play it sometime, but there’s so much to do…)

From what I’ve heard, I’d rather eat pig’s brains than play that game. But I probably will eat pig’s brains. :laughing:

From what I’ve heard, pigs’ brains are pretty good, although I’ve never tasted them. (I used to enjoy calves’ brains before mad cow disease reared its ugly head and I had to give up the habit for safety’s sake.)

Robert Rothman

The opening line to what could be the oddest fantasy novel of the decade :slight_smile:

I definitely get that. I do, too, if they’re clever ones, but …

For me it’s like …

I find movies (good ones) entertaining. I find jugglers (good ones) entertaining.

But if I go to the movies, and some guy stands in front of me, juggling … and I came to see the movie

It’s like that.

Some people would argue that eating cow’s brains is safer than giving your kid a headlice treatment. But either way, I think it’s illegal to sell them now.

I’ve tried lamb’s brains a couple times, but I think I’m cooking them all wrong, because they were kind of gross.