It could only double when mods decide their patience is exhausted?
Or it could increase by x percent instead of doubling?
I’m just saying five days seems like a lot, for a first conviction. I wouldn’t start with five days.
3 Likes
We could decide on a common internet practice, such as editing posts, and arbitrarily ban people for it.
Re: “Avoidance”: is there some way to make this immediately visible?
In The Other Place, someone suggested I cease contact, and I obliged with the understanding that it was reciprocal.
From that point in, I had to be very careful of who I liked, and they did reply to one of my posts at one point before realizing and deleting the post.
This could be avoided by some sort of UI flag.
Re: porn:
As long as NSFW content is spoilered and tagged, I have no objection to it.
Re: doubling ban length:
My suggestion would be that, if the suspension is for something new, out should be the same length as the previous ban. If it’s a ban for a repeat of the same reason, double it.
I also think (despite my answer to the poll) that there is a need for a permanent ban, for inexcusable behavior (true threats, spam/malware, etc.).
9 Likes
True, but there’s a vast difference between a tendency to abuse power and not having any boundaries in place at all.
13 Likes
This is a tough one. I have no easy way to reconcile other peoples faith with my ostensibly rational beliefs, but I know I would be that much poorer for isolating myself from such conversations.
Civility is certainly desired though, certainly more than being able to itemize and document everything we believe in.
2 Likes
I will say that they were in no way meant to be specific to or rule out any particular kind of topic and/or viewpoint. Some terms may have leaked in from skepticism, but they were entirely meant in general.
On “extraordinary claims”, a common theme in bad-faith arguments is to throw out large claims with no (or very little) evidence as a refutation, and then attempt to force the other side to provide all the evidence in attempt to disprove them. This is the specific behavior that was meant there, and in my experience that kind of behavior isn’t limited to specific topics.
Do you have any ideas for other wording that would cover that problem without being seen as “specific to skepticism”? It’s partially covered by the earlier guideline about evidence, but I threw in the extraordinary one to cover the worst-case scenarios. It could easily be dropped.
I’ll admit that I still don’t quite see how non-materialistic discussions would fall afoul of this, since they would seem to be, by definition, discussions of opinions or personal experiences where evidence (in either direction) wouldn’t really apply. It’s entirely possible that either a) I’m missing something, or b) that something as simple as a tweak to what the overall guideline is called would help. Any ideas?
[edit]Perhaps something like this would help?
“When discussing opinions, keep in mind that others may have differing opinions and be respectful of that. (might need expansion)
When discussing facts… [guidelines]”
2 Likes
I can see someone (for instance) arguing that conversion therapy is necessary, because otherwise the gay people would go to Hell for their sin, so any temporary pain they feel is worth saving their immortal soul.
I don’t agree with that viewpoint (as I think that any God who sends anyone to Hell is unworthy of worship), but I can see where it’s coming from.
How about a guideline like this:
- People’s upbringings and experiences determine their perspectives. Consider that someone might have valid reasons to see an issue from a different perspective than you do before dismissing their arguments.
With some slight tweaking to the wording, that should protect both theists from skeptics and vice versa.
9 Likes
I actually meant to have something in there about being too dismissive of others’ arguments, but wasn’t able to word the idea at the time. This definitely looks like a possible addition!
1 Like
15 Likes
I agree. But what constitutes a threat? Is this internet version of I’m-not-touching-you considered threatening enough, or would there have to be a clearly defined end result? Would they have to say “I will do [XYZ] to you”, or would they have to behave in a way that indicates that they will do something to another person? I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to say “I will do [XYZ] to you” and mean it, but most of us can recognize an implicit threat if we see it.
Harassment should also be in the same category as threats. If someone is doing something to intentionally make someone else uncomfortable, despite being asked to stop by that person / other people / the mods, that should count as harassment.
Sure it can. I realize it, though, and I think it’s a good thing, assuming that the offenses are related.
Think about it: we start off with something really easy, like a week. Having someone stay away for a week is no big punishment, and I don’t believe it’s intended to be punitive. It’s more like a cooling off period, which forces the user to take a deep breath and step away from the computer for awhile. Moreover, I wouldn’t want anyone suspended, even for a week, if they hadn’t been warned first. If they really haven’t learned their lesson, then it’s not a matter of cooling off, but something that they’re doing deliberately. Then, the real punishments can start, but only for a month or so. I can’t see bans for over a year, unless this is a repeat offender who has been 1) warned, 2) given cool-off time, and 3) punished 4) multiple times.
I must stress that these offenses must all be related, and significant. If it’s something unrelated, then it starts again with a warning. I don’t think the mods should set out to punish users, so suspensions of a month or longer should only* be given when there is a pattern of abuse that continues despite warnings and timeouts.
*The exception to this is when someone shows up and starts acting in an egregious way. Spammers, white supremacist trolls, etc, should be banished immediately and permanently, but people who participate in good faith should only be banned if they start to show a pattern of acting out that non-punitive measures couldn’t correct.
Yep. I’m fairly relaxed about this. I welcome all ideologies here, as long as they are respectful of others’ rights to exist.
Sealioning definitely is harassment.
Again, there are no hard or fast ways of telling what’s harassment and what isn’t. A robot wouldn’t be able to figure this stuff out. Fortunately, we’re not robots, so we know it when we see it.
Five days is nothing. I stay away from this place for five days all the time without even intending to, simply because life gets in the way.
Again, I don’t believe this is meant to be a punishment. It’s just a little cooling-off time. It says, there’s a situation here, so come back when tempers are cooled.
Stealth edits are not cool.
Just about any action on this board could be misused, and if it’s misused in a really obvious way that’s intended against a specific person or group of people, and can only be construed as abuse or harassment, then there you go.
This.
It depends though. Do you balk at any displays of religious faith, or just attempts to proselytize at you?
I’m okay with discussing religion, until someone tells me that my beliefs are wrong and theirs are the only true beliefs. That is not a good faith discussion.
I can see someone arguing that, because I do see people arguing that, and I tell them that if they don’t die with their sword and shield in hand, they will never make it into Valhalla.
I would also question why abusing someone would make them turn toward their abusers rather than away from them, because if you can answer that honestly, you have probably been in an abusive relationship. I believe most of these fire-and-brimstone types have been subject to abuse in their lives, and have turned toward their abusers rather than away. It would be interesting to me to know why, even if I don’t agree with what they’re saying.
7 Likes
Agreed, but again common sense is important. If you are literally just fixing typos and not changing, adding, or deleting any words, to me it’s okay if you don’t put a declaration of edits on the post.
If you do anything past literally fixing typos, declare away.
9 Likes
I post hoc edit all the damned time. Like I was a writer man. Don’t take this from me.
7 Likes
Yep. All this stuff relies on common sense. Because this message board platform only has a fixed set of functionalities, everything here can be used as intended or it can be abused. There is no special set of capabilities only available to abusers. So, it’s up to the mods and the victims (at a minimum) to make that distinction, and usually it’s not exactly a tough distinction to make. A robot couldn’t do it, but people aren’t robots. We’re aware of context and subtext, so we can tell abuse and harassment from ordinary message board use.
As far as ETA tags, I can go either way. I would slightly prefer them just for bookkeeping purposes, but if people aren’t disciplined enough to use the tag each and every time, I totally get that. On the other hand, if a comment is quoted and something is changed, then there should be some acknowledgment of the edit somewhere, just as a social nicety to avoid confusion.
4 Likes
I had long arguments in the other place where a user was constantly editing their comments after the fact and changing them so much to make others look unhinged! (Screen caps are your friend!)
I was on Gawker for a while (RIP) and the comments had an edit time-frame of a couple hours. Beyond that, comments were un-editable. I liked that. Heck even FB has edit histories that are public.
So yes, I agree, anything beyond grammar/spelling, should be declared!
9 Likes
Doubleplus like.
2 Likes
If you’re talking about who I think you’re talking about, that user’s previous user name was easily traceable back to their real name, and may have even been based on it. They changed the user name for the specific purpose of putting another level of abstraction between their real identity and their BBS comments.
Deadnaming may not be doxxing in every case (or even in most cases), but I know that if I wanted to say something with any expectation of remaining anonymous, I’d have to do it from a different username than this one. This name is far too well-linked to my real identity to offer me any sort of protection (and I’m okay with that, and self-moderate accordingly).
My guess is (again, if you were talking about the user I think you were) that deleting your post was probably the right call in that instance.
3 Likes
I think there has to be a certain amount of discretion exercised there.
If someone is repeatedly behaving like a dick, then I don’t think that the suspension counter necessarily should be reset because now they’re being a dick as defined by section 3, subsection 2, paragraph 6 of the guidelines, as opposed to being a dick as defined by section 3, subsection 2, paragraph 1.
On the other hand, if one suspension is for thoughtlessly phrasing something in a reprehensible manner, and another is for getting into a heated argument about a deeply personal topic and another is… etc., etc., where the violations aren’t so easily tied together, then yeah, I can see resetting the counter, because it’s not part of the same pattern of behaviour.
4 Likes
No. Not that user.
1 Like
Ah. Since you’re not referring to the person I thought you were, then I don’t know whether that was the right action to take.
Still, that particular case can at least serve as an example of how deadnaming could be doxxing. And, as I said, if I wanted anonymity myself, I’d have to transition to a new username, and I’d be quite annoyed if people kept referring to me by the old one and re-associating me with my IRL identity.
4 Likes
Right. It would have to be unrelated, not just a different form of the same thing. Like, there should be one counter for abuse, another for untagged NSFW/gore, another for offtopic, etc. Otherwise it would be too easy to nickel-and-dime someone with chickenshit. Everybody does something like this maybe once or twice, but most people don’t make a habit of violating the rules in as many diverse ways as possible.
5 Likes