Time to discuss heavier moderation

With the current locking of most topics to DMS member only, instead of complaining, let’s use this thread to suggest moderation changes, concrete suggestions that can lead to a better Talk for everyone.
I will make the first few suggestions based on the example of the Automotive Town hall Meeting thread.

  1. Personal attacks/insults lead to an immediate 1 week ban from talk.
  2. After 3 1 week bans in a year a 1 year ban in enforced.
  3. Anyone found to be creating a new account when their primary account is banned gets a permanent ban.

These are just ideas, I think it is up to the community to put forth suggestions for our moderators and possibly even BOD to consider.

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I like the track you are on.

Please read the existing Moderator Guidelines as well. Some specific progressive discipline is already identified.

There are two issues, in my opinion. Writing reasonably clear definitions of what is egregious, and having the time to administer them.

EDIT: The existing namby-pamby guidelines were written when we first introduced moderation and everyone was afraid it would lead to wholesale censorship. Times have changed.

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I will find some time this weekend to read the existing guidelines and alter/add any suggestions. I do understand the hardest part is finding the time in our moderators already taxed schedule to have to correct behavior.

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There is also the flag system that could be used more, that would reduce the burden on moderators to do something and allow the community to self moderate posts. But brigading could become an issue if a group of people want to join together and misuse the flagging system against someone.

Is the current flag threshold 5 or more?

Define “personal attack”.
For some this includes bringing up/pointing out past (documented) histories.
For some this includes being stood up to.
There are the thin skinned easily offended folks.
Some cry “unsubstantiated personal attack” because they simply don’t like what was said.
And the list goes on.
What is proposed here opens up a really ugly can of worms and has the potential to render Talk useless.
I don’t have a problem w/ blocking outside/nonmember agitators.
As for the membership at large, it is what it is.
With ~1800 members, things will get interesting.- just keep it civil folks.

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That is the point of this thread, to foster discussion and come to something loosely resembling a consensus of what fair but strict moderation should look like going forward. I would argue that if we take initiative to clean up what is viewed by so many as negativity, it makes it much more likely to have an open talk to the public.

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To me one of the very important distinctions is the difference between calling someone stupid and calling an idea stupid.

If you can’t say that it is a stupid idea to leave a finished project with live 120V exposed where anyone can touch it, because it is too close to calling the person who proposed it stupid, then we might as well shut down.

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Instead of defining it maybe we could leave it up to the moderators to decide on a case by case basis.

As long as there are an odd number of moderators then it could be up to a vote as to whether or not a comment constitutes a “personal attack” or whatever.

However I really doubt that there would be much disagreement. It’s one of those “I know it when I see it” things and I’m not sure defining it helps because then you have people looking to see just how close to the line they can get.

@kbraby - I agree that it could be a slippery slope. However there is a polite and civil way to speak about bad ideas and personally I don’t think it’s that difficult to tell the difference.

This could even consist of a 3 tier system in which a person who is being a jerk but not directly attacking anyone could get a warning instead of a strike.

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No disagreement. I would suggest there are ways to say something that makes it clear you are calling the owner of an idea stupid by calling the idea stupid. Calling an idea un-safe and advising why its a bad idea not only should be allowed but must be allowed.

In the end I point to the pornography test, you don’t need to define it, you know it when you see it.

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I know DMS is all volunteer but I genuinely believe in house moderation can’t work for TALK anymore. I’m not trying to put words in the mods mouths or anything but it seems incredibly unfair to them having to moderate people they may have personal relationships of any type with. It also leaves the door wide open for people to claim favoritism, censorship and “hidden agenda”. A third party with a completely “clinical” view of the moderation needs on TALK and a clear, concise and absolute set of rules to follow would be much more effective in my opinion. That is not in any way meant to be me putting down our volunteer moderators, I greatly appreciate them volunteering to do probably the most difficult job at the space, I just don’t think it’s a job anyone with ties to DMS and it’s community should do.

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What’s the consequence of repeated non-specific vague accusations against some mystery person at the space?

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Another thing to consider when we’re writing rules is abuse of the board itself. For example:

  • thread spamming (starting multiple threads on the same topic to repeatedly push it to the front page)
  • posting many times in short succession with no one else’s comments in between
  • tag spamming (repeatedly tagging someone solely to generate notifications to them)
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I wish I could like this comment twice!!

Heh. The last time things got really out of hand, I ran out of flags.

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Two thoughts,

  1. I have repeatedly seen the benifits of communities having some form of unmoderated forum separate from the public view and general moderation rules. It helps blow off steam, and you can take messy sections of threads, separate them out to that less visible area, check that all arguing parties have access, and let them blow off steam.

  2. I used to play the “this isn’t safe”, “this is a really bad idea” game in forums where people were working with miles of extension cord, or custom wiring, laying outside in the rain. I got so tired of the gently worded cautions getting rationalized and ignored 3 and 4 times in a row. In these cases, simply calling the idea stupid usually was enough of a wake up call that they usually managed to understand the risks in less than half as many posts. Before basically exiting that community, I went through a phase of caring more about safety than feelings, and somehow I managed to avoid getting reprimanded for it.

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The current threshold is 3.

And I often see the same small group flagging posts, but not necessarily brigading.

I wish there was a “thumbs down” as well as a “like” that didn’t “flag” a post, but let me disagree with a post without moderating it.

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This! I see people flag things where they vehemently disagree with the idea, but there isn’t anything in the post itself that is objectionable per our community guidelines.

Whatever happened to the capability we had eons ago where we could respond with various emojis?

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Every update of the core software seemed to break it, making maintenance a PITA and then, too, Lisa got a new job…

Insult and threats are personal attacks. For all the other gray areas, I have a pretty good rule of thumb, believe it or not - if it has the effect of changing the subject of discussion to a person, it’s usually a personal attack.

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I agree, but you misspelled “yams” :sweet_potato:

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