Well, aside from the spam cleanup, all the moderator activity is already rather visible. If I warn someone, I typically do it in the thread rather than via PM. If a thread gets locked, the icon changes and nobody can post there, so that’s pretty clear.
Deleting a thread is problematic because the thread gets purged from the database. It’s gone and no one can see it, not even admins. I felt it was justified in this instance - the user posted elsewhere that he knew he was wrong but was going to keep posting the same accusation here for a few days. I regard that as morally equivalent to spamming, if not worse - spam at least has a reasonably pure profit motive - and I delete spam threads.
However, it’s also a more drastic action than is typical, so I thought it was important to discuss it.
I do read those reports, from you and others. I’m not sure what to say except that I don’t always feel a strong call to act on each report. If I don’t, I leave the report open for either David or Merk to read, under the theory that they may respond differently. So you won’t necessarily get feedback because it’s hard to say when we’ve all made the decision not to respond.
If a general consensus emerges that it’s OK, I would be comfortable locking and rant-tagging individual posts, as a more fine-grained approach to locking an entire thread. The standard here could be somewhat lower; two or three reports might be sufficient, if no one else quotes that post in the meantime and it makes sense for the conversation to continue.
Yes, definitely, and that is where I was going with “(especially when limited to works that have received plenty of critical acclaim)”. I’m quite confident that you and Aaron and Emily can “take it,” and I do think our resident trolls have been pretty good about respecting that line. That said, I don’t think anyone should have to take it, and a lot of people do not have experience distinguishing work-critique from a personal attack.
I thought a post could only be reported once – I’ve often clicked on the icon and been told it’s already been reported. (For spam posts; I’m not sure whether I’ve ever flagged something for what I considered trolling, but if I did that didn’t happen very often.)
You know what? In real life, and on the wider Internet, I don’t care for censorship. Free speech is among the most prized features of my home country. I support the ACLU and oppose things like SOPA etc. I come from a long line of attorneys who know and defend the difference between free speech and libel.
That said… I also was a forum mod once (years ago on a now dead site) and we had our share of pests, including smartass males with persecution complexes and way too much time on their hands. I also am very familiar with bullying, both in school and elsewhere. My ancestors in the all-too-recent past were literally imprisoned, tortured and murdered (children and all) because of nasty, outrageous and completely false things strangers said about them. So I belive I know the dark side of “free speech” and how it is not the same as deliberately inflammatory rhetoric.
In the world overall, free speech is a valuable right. It is NOT a “right” in the context of a social circle. You may legally say anything to your friends, but if you continually antagonize them for your own amusement, they have the right to cut off contact with you. There is no civil right requiring anyone to put up with assholes. Furthermore, this is the Internet and the values of the USA or any other nation do not apply. I would argue this forum is private property and the mods may choose which guests and behaviors are welcome.
So what I’m getting at is, let there be more mods and more bans if that’s what it takes to keep trolls away. I do IF for fun, and my idea of fun is not all this juvenile drama. Been there, done that. I expect the nods here know the difference between controversy and flame wars, and if they don’t, too bad, you can have your discussion somewhere else. It’s a big Internet. Let this little corner stay civilized please.
IMO people are overreacting. This forum doesn’t even have a troll problem. Pudlo is a wannabe troll at best (if a troll at all), and I don’t see Conrad’s posts being in need of any moderation. The only thing worthy of censorship was Adam’s reply (we need to think of the poor children who obviously read this forum before they go to bed after a long workday in the Chinese shoe factory.)
Folks, seriously, you’re acting like prima donnas :-/
There’s a “Notify Me” option when you report posts; I don’t care about being notified when spam is taken care of, but I do for other stuff. If it’s going to be policy to let reports die a quiet death, perhaps that should be replaced? (I have no idea if that’s possible or not, though.)
I’m not sure this is even the right thread, and I can’t tell if it’s even something under discussion, or if I misinterpreted this over on Usenet, but:
I would much prefer the actual threads not be deleted, but that’s purely selfish of me. If my reaction online will live forever, and it will, where I went completely ballistic, then I’d rather it be clear what I was reacting to. I’m sure anyone who reads it will see it as a borderline(?)-psychotic overreaction, but, hey, them’s the breaks (I don’t, myself, wholly understand the sheer intensity of my reaction). I’d rather be frothingly overreacting to something than to nothing.
As for moderation: well, I don’t read intfiction.org, or at least I didn’t, and I don’t plan on posting, but perhaps eventually if I get into IF again (Apocolocyntosis burned me out for a while) and the newsgroup doesn’t magically revive (as if!) I may be a poster here. So I don’t and shouldn’t get a vote.
Conrad’s two locked threads will remain the way they are. I’ve gone in and locked each of his posts, so he shouldn’t be able to change them even when he gets his account back.
There was a third thread that was deleted. I don’t think many people saw it before I took it down; it was only up for a few minutes.
What if there were some sort of “trash bin of history” forum that bad threads are moved to rather than being deleted, with no further posting allowed? I can understand the desire not to see any threads deleted and rendered completely inaccessible.
‘Secretly’ is the telling word here. People who support high levels of moderation so often want it to be done in secret. I wonder why. Since they claim the bannings are supposed to be a deterrent, what is the point of keeping them a secret? Perhaps they are actually embarrassed to be seen doing it, much like Ben said he actually feels about it when circumstances force his hand? That seems quite likely, and it’s very revealing about the social validity of heavy-handed forum moderation. It’s not really a socially acceptable way for any kind of host to conduct themselves. Essentially by provoking a ban, a user has succeeded in dragging the forum moderators down to their level of ‘going nuclear’ with whatever tools are at their disposal. Over-moderating can even be a form of trolling when it is done in just that right way to provoke maximum fury from the dispossessed — those who have been around enough moderators will know what I’m talking about.
Cases will present themselves, no doubt, where major deletions and bans really are necessary to preserve the value of the board to others, but a moderator should feel embarrassed that it has come to that pass: I would. In any case, I don’t have a problem with the moderation regime on this forum at present.
Paul.
EDIT: I just read the two locked threads, and… argh. I am way too past-40 to be concerning myself over who dissed who in the past, who wrote a bad review of what, or who is a sock puppet for whom.
