Oh, do you think that’s likely to happen?
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Not everyone who was Regular was not problematic. Not everyone who wasn’t Regular wasn’t not problematic.
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“All that is gold does not glitter,Not all those who wander are lost” --J. R. R. Tolkien
I do worry a little about the “popularity contest” aspect of doing a vote that way. But I’m not sure what would be a good way around that other than essentially replicating the old promotion system, and then there would be a possible struggle of making sure that enough content was available to those who had not yet been promoted.
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It’s a truism that it’s not possible to make a space safe in general; I think it’s probably possible to make a space safe for some delimited, non-contradictory set of people and activities, but very difficult, both to define the safe things and protect them. I’ve myself played a role in destroying a small online community before – from the best intentions! I cared about that space very much & believed I was doing right! My hope is grace and clear pathways to reconciliation are available to lubricate whatever conflicts are sure to occur.
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It just might have already…yes indeed.
Of course, it’s more likely that those problematic users will likely get themselves banned here if they continually derail threads like they did on BoingBoing. We shall see.
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Problem users will show up, but as long as we show them out before they become a broken stair, the community will be ok.
And if the HMS is serious about being a (relatively) safe space, the members need to agree that some topics are just not open to debate. If someone cannot accept the most basic tenants of consent or body autonomy, for example, keeping that person around will harm the community in the long run.
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We might want to also allow the community to flag comments that (in an overt or sneaky manner) are intended to support or excuse racism, sexism and/or ultra-nationalism.
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Also, perhaps there should be a behind-the-scenes mod/admin policy that a user whose “large number of community flags” results in a topic being temporarily on hold due to the derail should be put on notice that if it happens a second time they’ll get a 20-year ban.
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I’d like to see more use of the trust levels instead of outright bans.
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I’m not familiar with how trust levels work in terms of permissions in Discourse. I’d be OK with such a user being busted down to TL-0 for five years if TL-0 doesn’t allow posting comments. A troll who finds themself condemned only to listen to others on a BBS is a troll deprived of their purpose there.
Whether we’re talking about that or outright bans the admins/mods are still going to have to deal with trolls like BB’s lederman beer-can guy who starts up with sock puppet accounts, but that’s an unfortunate fact of life for anyone running a BBS.
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This is a really awesome point. If you really love a community, you’re happy to listen to other members a large part of the time. Hell, I read comments on boards where I don’t even have a login.
But if you just want to talk… that’s what blogs are for. Blogs are fabulous for when you just want to post info – I have two. But I don’t expect/demand any readers.
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Agreed about bans – they can send the wrong message (they’re why a lot of us are here, after all).
Better to let people listen. Even if they go off and talk elsewhere (which again is one of the things we’re doing here), they don’t interrupt the threads here.
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I think there’s a time and place for both. Perhaps we need a predictable ladder of consequences that start with losing trust levels and ends with the ban hammer.
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This. It’s not bans per se that brought us to this, but what can easily be perceived as random and capricious bannings where the punishment didn’t fit the crime.
I think if we’re clear on the steps and follow them, it’s a different situation. I don’t see much effective difference between “TL0 can only read and not comment on public-facing posts” and “has no account so can only read and not comment on public-facing posts”. Both amount to the same privileges.
Any one of us could activate the failure mode of clever every now and then. So every now and then, we need a warning. Some people don’t respond to those, or respond by doubling down. In those cases, escalating levels is the only thing that does have an effect. In an ideal world we wouldn’t need a permanent mute button. This, however, is the Internet.
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i’d wonder perhaps the threads need to be clearly marked what’s publicly accessible and what’s not. the “lounge” and other regular threads were the minority of threads on bbs, so it seemed easier. here: will they become the majority of threads?
related, right now there’s this situation where the site as a whole might correctly ( or incorrectly ) be viewed as a safe space. ( plus or minus whether google and anoymous users can see these threads, which i’m not myself fully cognizant of ) at some point, as new users come in, that might change.
do all of these current threads move behind a trust level wall, or do they all become public? if they do what’s left for new users to even see?
what’s not clear to me is, without open front facing threads ( or a blog ), how do any new users get in through the front door, gain in community trust, and get to what is the meat of the rest of the space?
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You’re absolutely right - it’s a conundrum. Right now everything is out in the open, even to unregistered users. The only thing that makes this space “safe” is that (most?) everyone has been invited, and the site is otherwise invisible. Near as I can tell it hasn’t even been spidered yet. So right now this IS the Lounge, with some additional folks who deserve to be here but may not have been Regulars on BB.
But we’re going to have to change all that - create a real Lounge for TL3 members (presumably everyone already here will get that) and then decide what (if any) of these threads to move behind the trust wall, and how to move forward to there so that not everything is only visible to people who are TL3 because then new members won’t bother to join.
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one other thought, and maybe this will take some disqus research and community input, might be to set closed threads as private for the folks who participated in them. or, even to delete old threads after some time.
searchability is great in general, but for some kinds of conversations, permanent storage might be a bug not a feature.
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Why not just grandfather in everyone who came here during the first month, make us all TL.3 and make all current threads “lounge” TL3 except a few we create now that we are figuring this place with intention to explain the site and be inviting and clearly defined for all trust levels.
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This would probably solve it. Should I put it up for a vote?
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There are a few already here who wouldn’t really be TL3 at the other BBS, remember.
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