Moderation AMA

That's an incomplete summary.

Maybe this isn't bad faith... maybe you just don't read. 

In that case, I am especially skeptical of any decision you make. 

You are biased toward bsh1 because of DDO issues. DART is a clean slate. You never liked this site because of bsh1 and your personal beef with him. Virt is not the problem, nor is the moderation.

You clearly do not understand the issues I have raised.  

This is pretty much an exact summary of our back and forth: the only part where you even came close to explaining why you took issue was not only answered by Virt; it had absolutely nothing to do with the question I asked which you said you answered.

It seems you would prefer spending your posts talking about how bad moderation is, and how we are all either acting in bad faith, rather than engaging in any good faith attempt to explain why the decision was wrong, or how we can improve.

To be honest, there’s not much we can do with that; and I’m sure you can appreciate that simply engaging in attacks, not elaborating your thinking when people make an attempt to solicit your thoughts on what was actually wrong isn’t the most constructive way of improving anything.

No based on your history with bsh on DART the decision of Virt being -> to bsh1 gets you angry, and I get that, but you should not hold Virt to the same anger and hate as you did with bsh1

Again, you clearly do not understand any of the issues I have raised. It is incredible to me that we live in times where all disagreement is interpreted as indicating personal beefs. 

I just think you are overreacting

Publicly prodding a mod to take action on a user who you accuse of violating threatening someone else with mod action is irony at its finest.

Stop speaking to me. 

"You think the decision is bad; that’s fine - but Virt and I have outlined the reasoning behind it"

Are you referring to a private conversation?. Because I can't see your reasoning in this thread, only a series of questions.

Well, I disagree.  I think Coal has been clear from the beginning that the questions were intended as satire.  That seemed obvious to me when I first read the thread, and he has also explained that.

Perhaps it would be helpful to link back to the COC.  As I explained above, Coal did not insult anybody when he initiated the thread, and unless you disagree, the only part of the COC relevant is "fighting words".  The COC states that "Fighting words are posts intended solely to provoke or incite another user into taking prohibited actions."  As we discussed already, it seems clear that Coal's intention was not to provoke or incite other users into taking prohibited actions.  It certainly wasn't his sole intention.

Threads cannot be judged solely on the intent of the poster. Perhaps Coal had perfectly good intentions, but the thread still was 1. A violation of CoC, and 2. Very likely to cause and encourage insult and abuse.

In cases like this, someone must make a decision, that is why there are mods. You can disagree sure, but the mods did their job.

Coal naming himself is OK, but would everyone else have named only themselves?

And yet the COC refers specifically to intent, as quoted above.

People keep saying that, but which part of the COC exactly?  I can't see it.

Well, yes.  But you have to admit that ANY thread about religion in the religion forum is very likely to result in insult and abuse.  But that's no reason to ban the religion forum.  Or threads related to controversial topics in other areas. To me, that would be bowing before the uncouth.  It would be sad if they were to control us in that way.

Yes, Coal naming himself is OK.  And yet his attempts to have an interesting discussion are blocked because of what other people might say. 

Would you like to purchase some Internet memory space to host your party where you flame users of Debate Art and have no CoC or oppressive mods ruling over your freeloading thread-making self?

Go right ahead. Whinging and moaning when finally we are free of the bullshit of Bsh1 is not really productive. The main issue is that the deputy mod and one of the two voting mods are not who I want in charge but even so, this is far better than what we had before. Just sit back and enjoy it for a bit. If you are genuinely confused about the nature of Coal's thread being definitively identified as toxic and the only motive anyone could decipher from it, in the mod team, was that it was there to incite people to flame others and hurt their feelings, then go ahead and provide a reasonable counter-motive for the thread, instead of demanding others to justify the obvious to you.

The main problem with this site is lack of interesting discussion.  The mods are clamping down on debate before it even occurs.  So, I think this habit of locking threads and banning discussion because it might lead to insult is really counterproductive, if the purpose is to nurture a site where debate occurs.

-->@Manik

I don't have to admit any such thing. Many threads on the religion board are drama free.

Exactly.

The threads topic was not controversial. It's treatment of that topic was flame bait.

Those people are also members who deserve to have their sensibilities considered. Not every "interesting discussion" is profitable or appropriate.

Coal often has good points and observations, but this one isn't even close. The mods are correct, and if they weren't, I'd be among the first to say so.

Then the motive was at the very minimum to insult and ridicule all who took HoF and DART Awards seriously, most of all the ones who made the threads and came up with the ideas. Do you go to a Temple and mock the statues and ceremonies there? If you do that and think they won't be insulted or punish you for it, you're just plain ignorant and too belligerent to belong in a debating shrine like DART. If you don't, give us the same respect for our traditions, thanks.

Also the 'just kidding' excuse is covered entirely by the such-named clause.

As a moderator, if you were to sexually harass just one minor on the site, who would you choose and why?

I don't know who the fuck this Manik is but they are 100% on point and correct

Reading through coal's stuff. He is 100% correct. Lunatic was also warned today because a conversation got slightly heated in mafia between me and him, which is quite routine and  just part of the game to be honest, even if we do take a gentler approach towards noobs as to not scare them off.

Dude don't try to get conservative points by saying you like McCain. Dude is evil. Even just before his death he had the chance to do the right thing but decided that he would rather piss on America and side with the people who attend Bilderburg meetings rather than do the right thing and back up Trump. I thought on his death bed he would start acting ethical, but no he still said "Fuck you america, I am siding with washington elitests

You can plead ignorance or admit the severely blatant motive of the thread. It was not designed for coal to go all emo and nominate himself as the least valuable member of the website, it was to encourage others to nominate people as such things instead.

#39

Am I going to get an answer?

"If you still can't see it, take it on his authority as mod."

Sure. But if we're going to just have mod discretion, let's lose all that CoC nonsense, then, because what a waste of time that is.

"Those people are also members who deserve to have their sensibilities considered. Not every "interesting discussion" is profitable or appropriate."

Coal's thread was provocative, agreed.  That means that some people wouldn't like it, and some people might have reacted badly, yes. 

But sometimes ideas need to be provocative.   If there's a general principle of blocking threads that are awkward or controversial, then it's impossible for this site to ever have much value as a debate platform, in my opinion.  May as well call it circlejerkart.

This is not meant as an attack on the mods.  On the contrary.  I'm only bothering to ask these questions because they seem open to discussion.

Virtuoso covered his explanation in his two replies prior to my comments.

The entire premise of the thread is to get people to tag derogatory things on other members.  Whether or not it’s satire, that was the goal as I don’t believe there is any other way it is possible to interpret a thread billed as “nominations” for derogatory awards other than encouraging people to nominate others for derogatory awards.

By all means, feel free to explain how you feel that a thread that expressly asked people to nominate users for derogatory awards wasn’t expressly encouraging people to be derogatory about others: but I don’t see it.

Secondly, even if the intent wasn’t to encourage people to be insulting; thats what threads that explicit encourage people to be insulting end up doing, and was exactly what ended up happening in that thread.

As insults, derogatory comments and other personal attacks are prohibited by the CoC, I think the decision to lock a thread which explicitly encouraged people to violate the CoC, and in which multiple people has violated the CoC is perfectly reasonable - whether that was the intention of the thread or not.

Like I said to coal; what is the alternative? Should we have allowed the multiple violations? Waited for more of them and then started issuing warnings or temporary bans? And probably locked the thread anyway.

The issue, I strongly suspect, is that the objection to the decision is a proxy for objection to the rules themselves; while it’s valid to object to the rules on personal attacks - it’s a different conversation than the one here.


The main issue, however, is that the result was a thread was locked, no one was banned. I most cases where there are personal attacks - which obviously happen all the time - there’s often just a message to cut it out.

Speaking for myself only, if the thread expressly states people could only put themselves forward for the award and shouldn’t nominate others: or had it just been a thread suggesting darker award criteria - I wouldn’t personally find those to be violations - as they aren’t expressly encouraging others to insult other members: but that encouragement to insult, and the fact that it ended up that way is why the threads were locked.

I also find the comparison to rape particularly fatuous and asinine as it relates to issues of whether clothing constitutes consent, (it doesn’t) and a ban on such clothing would be imply that it could be reasonably construed as such (it doesn’t). This is completely different to the issue of whether threads  implicit or explicit encouragement of other members to break the rules on a private website should be locked - whether intended to be humorous or not. 

First, I think it was definitely possible to respond to Coal's thread without insulting users.  Some (most?) of the categories related to specific posts or mafia games rather than users.  Wylted nominated the bsh1 sexual harassment of a minor post, for example, which seems valid.

Even for categories requiring people to be named, I think it is possible to do so without insulting people.  I nominated someone whose contribution to the site was only a fully forfeited debate.  I think that's fair, and not insulting. 

I didn't mention rape at all, and find it disturbing that you would get that from what I did say.

It seems disappointing to have to block threads on a debate site?  Why should people who are legitimately engaged in discussion have to be punished for a few people who can't control themselves?

How have you been punished?