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@Castin
What would you do if, say, a member posted a topic with a title like "why was Member X banned?"
I'd probably PM the author directly and encourage others to do the same.
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@DebateArt.com
I think this is a great idea, with one suggestion. Private forums still shouldn't permit some actions (like doxxing). But I can imagine that virtually all of the COC could be suspended in those threads. What things shouldn't be allowed in those threads, and how will that be enforced?
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@Castin
I was planning to post the notification this weekend. I figured it would create a substantial amount of discussion in which I needed to be involved, so I was planning to do it when I had more time to actually be present. But yes, users should have been notified. The update occurred yesterday.
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@Castin
True. That's food for thought.
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@secularmerlin
I understand. Still, I think it's probably more germane to philosophy. Given that no strong objections arose, I will move it.
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Does anyone have any strong objections to my moving this thread to the philosophy forum? It seems more appropriately housed there.
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What about a mandatory public comment period for any changes to moderation policy?
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@Logical-Master
Agreed. Tonight, there's a lot going on, so perhaps it's not the best time to start that discussion. Maybe on Friday, after the election, I'll post a thread.
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@Tyrone
Does this mean you don't endorse those suggested changes?
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@Castin
I was simply suggesting that mods answer people when they ask why a member was banned.
I think I am more open to that than a public ban list, but I would want to avoid any call-out threads about the banned member, as that would constitute a personal attack. I think if it were done via the PMs, it would be okay. What are your thoughts on that?
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Drafterman recently suggested that, in order to streamline the voting moderation process, moderators cease offering detailed notices for some removed votes. He wrote:
And let's not forget the real issue is in the overall moderation decision to craft bespoke moderation reports on every single vote that gets reported. That's what's eating up your time. You want that time back? Stop doing it.
I think this is an interesting suggestion. I want to use this thread to discuss this suggestion, as well as new voting policies I put in place yesterday, namely:
- Whenever something is borderline, default to considering it sufficient
- Whenever you remove a vote, explain, very briefly, how the voter could improve
Virt as also suggested that moderators "try to contact the user first to give them time to make a correction in the comment section." I think this suggestion might add more work for moderators and is perhaps redundant. Since moderators already @ people on voting notices, and since those notices will now include suggestions for improvement, it seems that the notices may suffice. I am also concerned that, if a vote on a debate with only 12 hours left in the voting period is insufficient, moderation would be unable to remove it because we would have to wait for the voter to make changes. The vote could then be left up despite being insufficient. That said, there is clearly merit in reaching out to voters on a 1-on-1 level. It is a deeply education-focused approach, which I like. With all that said, I am open to feedback on the new voting polices and on the following suggestions:
1. No longer post vote removal notices on FF or conceded debates
2. No longer post vote remove notices on FF, troll, or conceded debates
3. Contact voters individually to talk to them about how to improve an existing vote before removing the vote
Please feel free to comment and to make other constructive suggestions.
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@1harderthanyouthink
it's not on me to go fetch evidence
If you're going to accuse me of mishandling vote reports or impropriety, you do have an obligation to present evidence.
All I have to do is look at the reaction a member had to your unannounced change in policy
What unannounced change in policy? What member reaction?
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@1harderthanyouthink
That's like demanding I be a cognitive blank slate--which is impossible. Being a cognitive blank slate is not necessary to impartially evaluate the votes. If your hypothesis is correct, you would be able to identify votes which were mistreated. Find one, and then let's talk.
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@Wylted
Glad you agree. I proposed it in the moderation's voting PM yesterday.
Friday, November 02, 2018 @ 10:46:08 PM
Also, 2 new things I'd like us to do:
- Whenever something is borderline, default to considering it sufficient
- Whenever you remove a vote, explain, very briefly, how the voter could improve
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@David
1) All "border-line" votes should be permitted
That is already the case, as you know. Still, some votes will always require more careful parsing than others.
2) When votes are removed, the moderator will explain **how** the vote could be improved to meet the standard; and
As you know, I already implemented this policy earlier.
3) We will contact the user prior to removing and give them a chance to correct it before we delete it.
That would require still more work, and runs the risk of allowing insufficient votes to stay up close to the voting period closing.
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@1harderthanyouthink
You suggested banning "excessive reporting" as if that could be objectively quantified. That's a clear indication the number of reports affected your handling.
How does that even follow, Chris?
I can say, on the one hand, that the reporting volume was excessive while, on the other hand, still believe my responsibility as a mod requires me to carefully evaluate each report. It is the very fact that I do feel obligated to evaluate each report carefully which has caused the problem of me not being able to do my job in other areas of moderation, simply because I am one person with a finite amount of time. I would challenge you to find just one of those 70 report notices which was not given its due consideration by the handling moderator.
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@Imabench
Do mods have the ability to take away voting rights or has that not been implemented yet?
That was recently implemented, yes.
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@1harderthanyouthink
However, it's clear you've let the lack of anonymity affect the way you deal with reports, and that's less than cool.
That is neither fair nor accurate. All reports were dealt with as they would have been regardless of who reported them. Some reported votes were removed, many were not. The reports were not dismissed summarily by moderation due to the probability that they were reported out of spite. The very fact that we invested so much time into the reports indicates we treated each one seriously and that we evaluated each with care.
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And let's not forget the real issue is in the overall moderation decision to craft bespoke moderation reports on every single vote that gets reported. That's what's eating up your time. You want that time back? Stop doing it.
That is something I can start a community discussion on to see if DART's usership supports such a policy change. I am certainly willing to do less work.
vote reporting currently isn't against the CoC
As I said in my OP: "Personally, I believe that the COC should be interpreted in a way which prohibits conduct that significantly hinders moderation's ability to enforce it, as any other interpretation would be unreasonable on its face. But, I think this is a controversial enough issue that I cannot unilaterally move forward on that interpretation. So, I am opening up the question to community feedback."
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@Castin
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Some site users have expressed a desire for greater mod transparency. I recently asked for concrete suggestions on this question, and Castin was gracious enough to offer the following, considered reply:
- Relax the mod PM rule so that it's only prohibited to post a mod's PM without notice if it exposes information about another user. In all other cases let people post mod PMs without having to notify you to give you a preparatory advantage.- Consider locking threads instead of deleting them. Individual offensive posts within the thread can still be deleted. Destroying evidence and records always strikes people as suppression. Doesn't matter what the reasons are.- Relax your policy of conducting mod actions "behind closed doors", so to speak. You do this to protect member privacy, but your problem is you're not on a forum that values member privacy more than transparency, you're on a forum that values transparency more than member privacy. Which means your priorities are at odds with the priorities of your base. Jmo. Start telling people why members were banned, if they ask. If this is already your policy, I apologize. I thought mod actions were currently private unless the subject of the action chose to share the information.Just off the top of my head. I don't know how reasonable or concrete they are. But they were honest attempts at actionable suggestions.When you ban someone, people don't want to hear "that's classified", they want the scoop. When you send them a PM censuring their behavior, they want to show it to people as it is and say "look guys, do you think this is fair". And even when a thread totally crosses the line, they still want to read it for themselves.
From my perspective, the public ban proposal was already put to public debate and rejected. That said, I think the other proposals are reasonable and reflect, as Castin notes, the priorities of many site users. Those proposals are:
1. Allow users to summarily post the contents of mod PMs so long as no non-public information about other users (other = not the sender or receiver of the PM) is revealed by the revelation.
2. Locking objectionable or COC-violating threads instead of deleting them.
I think these are reasonable proposals which can be implemented immediately. I am open to other--serious--suggestions on this question (i.e. what concrete things can mods do to increase transparency) and to feedback on the suggestions put forward by Castin. Please feel free to comment.
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As many of you have now learned, reports made by users are no longer anonymous to moderators. Whether mods should be able to know the identities of users who report comments is something the site should weigh in on, and this thread is a good place to chime in on whether you believe mods should have that authority.
One concern I had some time ago with the anonymity of reports was that anonymity encouraged "spam reporting." This concern has come to fruition. A user, who chose to identify themselves in a thread, has reported every single vote (as far as I can tell) cast in the last week in, what seems to me, to be an effort to swamp moderation with reports. About 70 reports were submitted--many on full forfeit debates or concessions--in a 4 day period alone. Each report, even on full forfeit debates, takes about 5 minutes to process, and on borderline cases, a report can take up to 10 minutes to process. That's more than 4 hours worth of reports.
I call these reports "spam" because they seem to be gratuitous, i.e. based more on an effort to overwhelm moderation than on any objection to the votes per se. Similarly, the reports seem to be spam because they are frequently on full forfeit debates and concessions, where clearly no moderation is appropriate.
In conjunction with the other reports and incidents that moderation has to deal with, as well as moderators' real life obligations, the effort to drown moderation in spam reports makes it difficult for moderation to perform its job. These last 5 days alone, given the deluge of reports, I have put in 18 hours of work on DART alone. I have no objection to being a moderator, and I am happy to put in that level of time when that time is necessary to properly enforce the COC. But, the use of spam reports to swamp moderation seems more like a spiteful attempt at a time suck than anything else.
I am therefore concerned about the dilemma this activity presents. Users should, I think, have a right to make reports in an unrestricted way, because all users have an interest in the COC being enforced in an even and thorough manner. However, moderators, like any other users, have a right to free time. And, importantly, moderators ability to do their job is undermined when they are forced to divert attention to spam reports; spam reports render moderation procedurally difficult to perform. Should excessive, spam reporting (the definition being up for discussion) be prohibited?
Personally, I believe that the COC should be interpreted in a way which prohibits conduct that significantly hinders moderation's ability to enforce it, as any other interpretation would be unreasonable on its face. But, I think this is a controversial enough issue that I cannot unilaterally move forward on that interpretation. So, I am opening up the question to community feedback.
This is an open discussion, and I am interested in hearing the community's thoughts on these issues. Please feel free to comment.
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@Castin
I'd be open to doing that if there were some reasonable, concrete things that people wanted me to do to be more transparent. I am open to suggestions.Making a few concessions to transparency might save you a lot of grief.
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Blamonkey and I did a for-fun LD debate on the right to housing. We're not gonna put it to a vote on DDO, but, if you're interested, feel free to watch and comment here!
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@thett3
it goes without saying, but i disavow the extreme content of the video. idk what makes people think this kind of thing is okay, but it simply is not. that said, i dont think it violated the tos
That's fair. Not everyone is gonna agree with me, but I feel fairly comfortable in my position. But I am always willing to explain myself and my decisions. If the real Tyrone wishes to join, I am sure he will be welcomed, including by myself.
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@TheHammer
Sure. Several reasons.
First, Tyrone and various accounts claiming to be him have been engaging in spam posts and threads. All or almost all of these spam threads and posts were centered around claims of who the "real Tyrone" was/is. This was just one example. Second, blackface, while not a verbal act, is, as an act of expression, definable as hate speech. I think we can all agree, and it seems like you, yourself, would agree also, that blackface is extraordinarily offensive, and is, in effect, invective, where invective is understood as abusive expression or speech [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invective]. Thirdly, the disturbing nature of the content constitutes it as extreme trolling.
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@thett3
It's banned if you're using it as an insult. But, if you are using it the way you have in this thread, it's fine.
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@thett3
Nope. The word is banned. Perhaps, in obviously friendly contexts, it may be permissible so long as asterisks replace a majority of the letters in the word, but the widespread use of the term that has taken place in this thread is clearly prohibited by the COC. The rule against slurs will be enforced.Thats not a very fair standard. You’re a white guy banning African American Vernacular...you don’t see the problem with that?
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@thett3
At this point, your just stirring up drama. But, in answer to your question, no, he can't say that. He can use any of hundreds of others ways to address you, but may not use slurs.
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@Polytheist-Witch
This has already been explained to you multiple times. That you refuse to engage with the reasons put forward, but instead issue thought-terminating cliches by way of reply, speaks for itself.
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@ResurgetExFavilla
I think that should be an option for debaters. Not sure if it should be mandatory or the default...maybe...but I like the idea generally.
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@ArgentTongue
Yes, role will be assigned as characters.
The doctor is the best character in VOY, and he is, in many respects, quite like me. The formalism certainly matches, as does the emphasis on propriety. I can't confess to loving opera, however.
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@ArgentTongue
Sure. You can play. I am sure others will help you out, and I can a bit too.
This game will actually get posted Friday, because school as gotten in my way again. Blurg...But it *WILL* be up Friday.
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@Vader
If I had oodles of money or were crafty, I'd probably do Halloween in drag. But I don't have money and I am not crafty. So, my realistic costume would be to dress up as a Ravenclaw from HP. Sadly, I have no costume, and my plan is to write essays for grad school. Yay -_-
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@DebateArt.com
@YeshuaBought
An embed feature would be great for videos.
I have not, but maybe later. I am not particularly learned on issues of theology and Christian history.
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@YeshuaBought
Centrism is a bit broad to debate, and I'm no fan of the DNC. I'll debate on specific issues.
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@McSloth
Unless she chooses to give me permission to make our communications public, I can't. The user, not the mod, controls the privacy of our PMs.
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@Polytheist-Witch
It seems more like you've judged me before giving me the chance to explain my actions. That's fine--it's your prerogative. But, I've explained the reasons for my decision and I am comfortable with those reasons.
Besides, the accusation of favoritism is a bit absurd. Had Yeshua simply told me she wanted the debate down, it would have been down substantially sooner, and this drama could have been avoided. By asking for the debate and then refusing to give me permission to have it removed, Yeshua in effect created the problem herself. Had she refused to have the debate or had given me permission, there would have been no issue.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Because she solicited and accepted the debate, she bore some responsibility for the debate taking place. One cannot say, oh, challenge me to a debate on X, and then complain when said challenge is forthcoming. Therefore, the debate did not violate site rules, because Yeshua had, ostensibly and by her soliciting and accepting it, given the debate permission to exist. Consequently, to remove it, I needed her to explicitly revoke that permission.
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@Vader
Oh yeah, your right. Just b/c it wasn't in the first column, I got mixed up.
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