On that topic. Something that started to bother me more and more as the final days over yonder drew near was the mantra: every mod and staff member is different. I get that and agree there should be some flexibility in how one reacts to a problem situation. But when you have situations where one mod would give a warning or time out and another gives out a decade long bans for the same thing then some calibration is needed. There should be some consistency in how situations are handled. Users shouldnāt be surprised when they get what they deserve for being bad citizens.
All of that probably means the mods should probably have some set of guidelines they come up with and follow. Itās up for discussion if that set of heuristics is made public. If itās public there will those trolls that will work every accidental loophole. But if itās private there will always be those that say they were treated differently.
I agree. I think that consistency or at least discussion among mods is a good plan. I, too, found the outrageous 10 year bans absurd and absolutely out of what codinghorror had set up with the software to create graduated ban levels appropriate to the user. For example, he had set up an absolute ban to be used against a new poster who was clearly just a total jackass/troll; whereas he had set it up for ātimeoutsā for people who were long time participants who just needed a cooling off period as a slap on the hand to tell them that their behavior was out of line.
Ah so there was some standard over there and some just chose to ignore them. I see. I just kept seeing Orenwolf post that some action was taken by another mod and that he would have had a different reaction level but each mod does whatever they want (shrug).
Note: Just to be clear, I mean nothing negative towards Orenwolf. Poor guy was always doing damage control for other people.
It sounds like maybe whatās needed is a mechanism for flagging a decision for review by a quorum of the mods, a bit like second marking essays. This allows for feedback on modding decisions for anything questionable whilst leaving alone the stuff that isnāt.
You are doing great IMO. My comment about creating some guidelines is really meant to take some of the guess work out and make your job easier. But as @strokeybeard mentioned it might be nice for mods to have a private or public means to flag a post when it falls outside of the guidelines and they would like some help discussing an incident before acting.
While I agree with the idea of constancy of in moderation decisions 1000%, and that consensus between a quorum of mods is a good way to help achieve that, Iā¦
ā¦kinda feel obliged to point out that this still isnāt the locked thread.
One thing that occurred to me: some authors/OPās have a greater tolerance than others for things that run on a tangent.
As someone accused of having āodd logicā I lean to the tolerant side, but I recognise that others donāt feel the same way. Are we planning to build in any provision for authors other than either them seeing a diversion theyāre ok with vanishing due to being off topic (and who decides how āoff topicā it really is?) or muting their own thread? I recognise that these would be extreme cases, but I am a fan of disaster plans that never actually get used, versus waiting for disaster and then saying āWhat now? We never planned for this!ā
Indeed - I absolutely have nothing but time for, and a lot of respect for Mr. Wolf.
On his own, heās absolutely the moderator thatās needed, takes time to discuss things both privately and publicly, without talking-down, otherwise belittling, being confrontational-without-reason, or indulging in general dick-wavery.
(At least from my own experience)
Even if one disagrees with the reasons, heās shown that he has thought about what heās trying to achieve and has reasons and moderating positions that are thought through. (Even if one disagrees with them, theyāre there, and not just ad-hocād)
The issue, as you point out, wasnāt (and isnāt) with him. Which is where the point about consistency comes in.
Apologies for the mini-essay - your point was a good one, and I thought it worth expanding on.
Another thing to consider on that subject is that Discourse, because of its flat design, encourages discussion down a single line of discussion. Tangents are supposed to be separated out via the āreply as new topicā function, or linked in from existing threads, but i feel the tools still donāt reflect the stated design goals. Thatās why side conversations develop so regularly back at the other place, and why they can overwhelm the intended line of discussion so quickly.
The mod and admin tools make it pretty easy to select multiple posts and move them to either a new topic or an existing one. It can get a little messy with the time stamps in some situations, but it works in most.
To fold this back in to the comment by @garymon, Iām not even sure I agree with the concept of self-banning. If someone doesnāt want to comment, step away. But donāt ask someone else to be the axeman. The whole thing just seems too open to abuse and misinterpretation, as happened at the other place. āGo ahead and ban me if you think Iām wrongā or āif you think that guy deserves to be banned, then ban me tooā ends up being an invitation to a massacre.
Which is not to say @tinoesroho did wrong here - again, you could not have a clearer request for banning. Iām just not sure we should be in the business of granting them.
I agree. However, part of being an administrator is also participating in the party. Self-control is a limited resource, sometimes you need that friend at your side to hold you back from saying something youāll regret later.
@enceladus recognized that somebody needed to step in. I wish Iād gotten involved earlier so it didnāt come to the point of admin-enforced timeouts. Whatās done is done. While Iām in the business of timing people out, Iāll do it in a transparent manner.
Iād say thatās a good reason for a mod checking-in carefully and civilly with the user, and more generally the team making a point of being reasonable, consistent and not prone to, er, rash judgements, with moderation. (so the people who do moderate arenāt seen as being arseholes, even if someone does disagree with the decision.)
I can see the value of being āhelpedā to walk away from the discussion by own request, if itās something that youāve worked-out is pushing your buttons, what with both hot-buttons and ludic loops being what they are. Whether a self-ban is the fix, or not?
Alternative: a button to push to let an unhappy neo-mutant self-ban for 24 or 48 hours. No chance of either mod misinterpretation of user, or userbase misinterpretation of mod actions then.
I can see your point, but I can also see someone wanting to request to have the temptation to post removed for a set period. (Especially for those of us who have the board on a pinned tab!)
However this ā¦
Oh no, no, just no. I know weāre still in the process of hashing out the moderation policies, but Iād like to state right off that Iād be against banning someone making either of those statements. My assumption, of course, is that the person making these statements hasnāt engaged in other behavior to warrant a ban. I might consider it a bit of posturing and PM the person, but would be very much against a ban simply over that.
I view these statements as nuanced differently from a limited self-ban, if only due to circumstances.
Ah! Now that might be a very viable alternative. Does Discourse offer such a possibility?
Iām certain that @waetherman was also wanting to make damn sure we didnāt ban anyone/further enflame the situation around those circumstances, rather wanting to avoid them instead. That aim I also heartily agree with as well.
Not that I know of. However, I know that new feature requests are a thing, and can think of at least two ways of bodging it in in the meantime:
If we can get a MAILTO: into a topic post or topic Wiki HTML, then we can receive a fairly automated email from the userās registered email, and flag it very clearly in a standard format forā the ban reason. (If Discourse canāt do this, a link to a specific page on whatever CMS our articles-front-page ends up being - maybe direct triggering a mailto there?)
Or, just accept an email to BANMEFORADAYPLEASE@happymutantemail.cx from registered emails, a lĆ automated unsubscription from mailing lists.
Part or all of the handling of the auto email may even be scriptable outside of Discourse.
But Iād certainly suggest requesting the feature. I can only think of one BBS that I know of where a self-ban hasnāt been requested (that I know of), so itād be a common-use addition.
