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@Castin
Basically it effectively removes anonymity and can be abused by a malicious debater. If any vote is removed, everyone will know who did it and I think that'd create undo pressure. Credit really goes to Wylted for this line of reasoning.
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@secularmerlin
@Earth
@TheDredPriateRoberts
@kindertina
(There was mention about splitting up. Who is going where?)
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1. No longer post vote remove notices on FF, troll, or conceded debates
Agree
2. Whenever a vote is borderline, default to considering it sufficient (currently implemented)
I think you missed the obvious intention of this. Virtuouso suggested this. Being a mod and not an idiot we can discount the possibility that he was suggesting, as a change, something that is currently implemented. Clearly he meant votes that are borderline that would be removed by the current obnoxious voting standards instead be default to being considered sufficient.
4. No longer post detailed analyzes in notices on non-removed votes
Agree
5. Allow only debaters and voters to report votes on debates (this requires non-anonymous reporting)
Disagree
6. Reinstate anonymous reporting
Agree. This should be #1 priority.
7. 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.
Agree.
8. Locking objectionable or COC-violating threads instead of deleting them, unless leaving them up would severely breach a user's privacy or safety rights
Ambivalent.
9. Allow mods to disclose the reasons for a ban, via PM, upon request by a user
Ambivalent.
10. Cap the number of vote reports that a user can make per day at 10
Agree
11. No longer prohibit the use of slurs so long as those slurs are not intended to render insult to the subject of the comment
Ambivalent
12. Make all significant changes in mod policy subject to a 2-day public commentary period
YA THINK
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In terms of vote moderation, I agree with my placement. I think what gets lost in the discussion is we have Harvey Dent at the helm here when it comes to voting and forum moderation. If you took the average of the two, you'd might end up with something sensible.
In terms of forum moderation, I'd actually be in the "more strict" column.
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Szoldar tells Snerp where he can find the blacksmith.
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My issue is that only a handful of people want the current level of anal standards but yet a single person can force those standards on every vote, whether the debaters want it or not.
I thought putting control in the hands of the debaters would be a fix but you've shown how it can swing too much in the other direction
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Szoldar: Da. We give directions then wait for you outside gate, da?
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Suggestions:
- Whenever something is borderline, default to considering it sufficient
- Whenever you remove a vote, explain, very briefly, how the voter could improve
- There is no need to give a detailed basis for non-mod-action for every report, much less doing so on a F/F or conceded debate
- Loosening up the standards may help encourage more voters.
- Make it so that only the people in the debate can report a vote (and which part) - with reasons.
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Szoldar: Coffin maker is not on the way out. Is on other side of town.
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I like this idea. Because it basically says that if both debaters are fine with a vote, then there is no reason for it to be removed, whether or not it is "sufficient." It's basically tacit approval.1.) Make it so that only the people in the debate can report a vote (and which part) - with reasons.
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Urwin nods and gives a slightly more genuine smile. After a few moments. Szoldar and Yevgeni strolled into the bar.
Szoldar: Where to today, comrade?
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This thread is basically Virtuoso's thread, 24 minutes too late.
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@David
When he reported my DM with him to you because I "admitted I changed my views", he was lying. Is that "fair"?
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I like LM's advice of:
"There is no need to give a detailed basis for non-mod-action for every report, much less doing so on a F/F or conceded debate."
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@Swagnarok
No he hasn't. He has lied about stuff said in a PM between him and I in order to initiate moderation action against me.
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@David
Here is what I am propsing regarding votes (not official policy yet):1) All "border-line" votes should be permitted2) When votes are removed, the moderator will explain **how** the vote could be improved to meet the standard; and3) We will contact the user prior to removing and give them a chance to correct it before we delete it.
Holy fuck that makes a lot of sense.
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@Logical-Master
Totally agree with #2, #3, and #4.
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Seems like much ado about nothing.
1. Just decide to stop making the crazy voting report replies that you voluntarily decided to do in the first place.
2. Strip users of anonymity of any and all reports they make on the site.
Clearly #2 was the sensible way to go.
Like, seriously, did no one going: "Man, I'm tired of writing this reports, why don't we just stop?"
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No, you shouldn't.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.
Should excessive, spam reporting (the definition being up for discussion) be prohibited?
Nice pivot from the issue that this thread is supposed to be about to making it about your pet peeve. For what it's worth, vote reporting currently isn't against the CoC so this change in anonymity isn't going to stop me. So not only have users been robbed of the ability to make reports anonymously, it doesn't even fix this issue.
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.
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@Imabench
The voting report is no longer anonymous to mods. That information isn't being made publicly available to all users.
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@Imabench
Presumably there is no distinction. The mods can see who files a report of any kind. As far as votes reports. if your vote is fine and the mods let it be, why does it matter if it was reported? If it was removed and you have a problem, then the problem is the voting standards. In either case, there is no reason to remove user anonymity.
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@Tyrone
I see no point in this poll. I prefer to engage directly with the site owner and see where that goes, he is the only one with authority over the mods.
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@David
Firstly, there is a spectrum. We could have a page that lists every act a moderator takes on the site, and a chat room where moderators discuss moderation decisions that everyone has visibility in to. At the other end, we can have no feedback on moderation actions, including refusal to even discuss hypothetical actions, and ruling based on arcane documents tucked away on niche corners of the internet.
We are much closer to the latter end than the former (generally speaking), so suggesting we fix that isn't a call to move completely to the other end.
Secondly, we have to recognize the dichotomy here with how vote moderation is handled versus comment moderation. It's basically night and day with absolutely no reason for that to be the case. It in fact undermines any argument you have for any kind of moderation because you are literally doing opposite forms of moderation in different areas of the website and claiming that they're both the best way to do it.
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Urwin sighs. Of course. Wine is not only my primary business, but the life blood of this valley. If it ran out, I can't even imagine how the people would responds. He shudders.
To get to the winery, you simply take the Old Svalich road west out of town and follow the signs.
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@Logical-Master
Massively disagree. Not sure what your intentions were in reporting every vote, but having mods assess every vote on every debate consumes a lot of time and resources and IMO leads them to them making absurd modding decisions like the ones I've pointed out to them in the past. Being able to see who is reporting is a fine means of weeding out frivolous reports and allowing them to narrow down on the stuff that actually needs to get addressed.Or less rule enforcement. For the most part, I think users here can police themselves in the current forum climate. They shouldn't even waste time moderating a fully forfeited debate. And unless a user is flooding/spamming the forums, posting pictures/links to obscene images or doing anything else that seriously and reasonable interferes with most of the other members' ability to enjoy the site, they shouldn't get involved.
I agree it is an issue with overmoderation. And that's why I was doing it. This system they've set up is absurd. The idea that they have to make a public notice for every single reported vote is crazy.
This isn't just spite, either. The problem is: most people don't give a shit. Usually the only time people report a vote is when it's against them on their own debates. I'm doing this to raise awareness of the absurdity that is going on here.
if they simply ignored reports on votes that are fine and - gasp - loosened their sphincters about voting standards a tad, there wouldn't be any issues.
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@DebateArt.com
Well, first of all, there is a difference between good workload and bad workload. One thing is to moderate actually problematic objects and the other is wasting hours just handling the things that were reported simply outta anger at the mods.Answering your questions:1) Well, as I pointed out before, we need to discuss it, I try not to go against the users if there is a way to avoid that. But I haven't given it much thought and at the moment, I am not sure how to handle the problem with abusing the reports, if somebody provides some good ideas how to keep the anonymity and prevent the mods from wasting their life on handling empty reports, then we'll go that way.
Sorry, but your initial, response gave me the impression that you don't think this is an issue. That the problem was lack of announcement rather than the fact that users don't have anonymity in reporting. Surely you have to realize that this is a crazy-backwards way to implement a reporting feature.
As far as how to deal with frivolous reports? Easy. Ignore them. The issue here is no the volume of reports, but the fact that the mods are so insane about voting moderation, that they've decided that every voting report, valid or not, requires personalized artisanal, hand-crafted response. I am a firm believer that the voting moderation is completely bonker-balls and the fact that reports are handled the way they are is evidence of that. If they took a step back and handled votes with the same magnanimous nature they handle comments, I think they'd see their "workload" lighten fairly significantly.
2) People abuse the reports creating unneeded work for the mods, that's just disrespect and the fact that they actually contacted the person and asked him or her to stop, or whatever it was, I have no idea, that's just showing how diligent they are, I wouldn't bother with this. Also it's important to understand that it's probably impossible to write some CoC or anything of the kind that people wouldn't be able to find loopholes in. And again, we don't have a dedicated department for that.
You haven't asked for help in this regard and haven't taken anyone up on any offers to help in this regard so I don't know what to tell you. Like, if you're voluntarily decided to keep things the way they are and that's insufficient, then, I don't know man. And the "unneeded work" is the fastidious and arcane manner in which votes are handled in the first place (See the underlined above)
I have never used reddit so can't be sure but it sounds like they have mod teams per subreddit, whatever that is, which they may have what, thousands? So they have thousands of free volunteer mod teams, we have 2 GLOBAL mods, they moderate everything.
Ugh. I'm beginning to regret even making this analogy. Treating all of reddit as some monolithic community is fallacious. Each subreddit is like an individual forum dedicated to a specific subject. Like the individual forums here, but with individual mod teams and individual users bases. The point is the ratio of mods-to-users is much less there and, per mod, they have to deal with much more work. They have no tool to deal with abuse of the reporting function yet they deal with this problem just fine: by ignoring such reports and moving on.
We could and we should get more mods at some point, but we need to build and improve the moderation system first. We'd need to implement layers of mods responsibilities, create different contexts and scopes, like those subreddits things, build a proper admin panel, which now loos like it's 1995 outside the window. But it's going to take time. If we simply add more mods now, they will create lots of confusion, since they'd have different moderation styles, different interpretation of the rules and lots of unnecessary communication to coordinate their efforts.
You've consistently said you're fine with the job they're doing. Problem is, they've unnecessarily deleted threads, they've necessary deleted comments. They approach uses - in their capacity as a moderator - for things that aren't violations. They have decidedly lied in order to file reports against users. I've brought this to your attention and you seemed concerned and sounded like you were going to look into it, but there seems to be no evidence of that and you continue to spout how you have no issues at all.
Yes, yes, I get it: they're not perfect. But there is clearly room for improvement and you should have issues with some of the things you are doing.
Are you seriously Ok with absolutely every single thing they've done?
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@DebateArt.com
I don't understand why the solution to the mods being unable to keep up with the work isn't too get more mods.
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@DebateArt.com
I think you're confused as to what I'm talking about. Reddit moderators are simply people like the moderation team here: unpaid volunteers who have agreed to moderate a subreddit. Yes, they do have access to some tools to help with moderation such as an auto mod, but that has nothing to do with anonymity. They have to deal with the same issue of potentially frivolous reports as any other site does, yet they seem to deal with it just fine.
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@DebateArt.com
That is completely unprecedented. I'm not aware of any website in the world that implements such an absurd policy.
If there are issues with workload, you get more workers.
But let's set that aside. Let me know if I have this right:
1. You see absolutely no problem with stripping users of reporting anonymity.
2. You are fine with mods using that information to contact users about behavior that doesn't violate any of the rules of the site.
3. You have no intention of preserving user anonymity when it comes to reporting.
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@DebateArt.com
How does making them not anonymous fix that?
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@DebateArt.com
Which is why my preferred suggestion would be supplementing them with people of diverse viewpoints so it isn't essentially a tyranny. I've already offered in that regard. So complaints about the workloard are right out, because otherwise you'd be willing to take on additional moderators to handle it.
But, again, WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANONYMITY?
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@David
Firstly, you are a fucking hypocrite. You're on record as saying that anonymity is a good thing, yet you're the first to abuse it when it's gone.
Secondly, It's the ratio. For example, one of the most active subreddits, r/AskReddit has 20.5 MILLION subscribers but only 23 mods. I can't think of any single subreddit that has "hundreds of moderators" let alone any significant number that are paid.
Thirdly, WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANONYMITY?! Are you suggesting that anonymous reports are harder to deal with than nonanonymous ones?
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@DebateArt.com
What does that have to do with reporting anonymity?
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@DebateArt.com
No, I don't want some random users who happened to be the first ones to raise their hands when volunteers for mod were requested to be able to see who reports what.
Major websites like reddit seem to function just fine with thousands of users and anonymous reporting.
I don't think you are considering how significant an issue this is. Like, immediately upon having access to this information, they're abusing it. If no CoC violation has been made, mods should not be contacting users about moderation issues. PERIOD. Yet, that's what we have.
This visibility needs to be revoked.
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Urwin looks up and gives a weak smile. Ah, yes. Well. I'm afraid that I have not received a shipment of wine in many weeks. We have just ran out of the good stuff and I have had to begin rationing out the... lesser quality stuff. I almost had a riot on my hands before Rictavio showed up and started telling stories.
Urwin leans closer. Listen, word has it you rescued some Vistani child. You're good people. The vineyard we get our wine from - The Wizards of the Wines - is run by my father. But we're not exactly on speaking terms. Would it be in you to go check out what's going on?
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@Buddamoose
What does "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" mean to you?
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I think the user base should be aware that one of the changes made to the moderation tools is now that reporting is no longer anonymous.
The ability to report behavior anonymously is a crucial element to being able to report in a secure and safe manner. I find it troubling now that moderation can now evaluate reports based upon who is making them.
Even more disturbing is that this change (as far as I can tell) isn't one that was made publicly aware. Stripping user's anonymity is something that should have been made very public.
Lastly, this is not just me chicken-little-ing here. Yes, I'm the one that has been reporting all of the debate votes. Guess what? Not disallowed by the CoC. Not prohibited behavior.
Yet, because of the stripping of anonymity, I now have a moderator breathing down my neck about it, telling me that "isn't ok."
Sorry, but that's the last straw. Moderation here sucks. There is no recourse to change it.
Moderators have lied to support moderation decisions. They have used personal biases to make moderation decisions. They have made threats of moderation when there has been no violation.
They refuse to consider alternatives or feedback.
They got appointed moderators while this site was new and there really wasn't anyone to object and now that they're the big fish in their little pond they've got control of the site.
1. This change needs to be rolled back and anonymity restored to reporting.
2. The moderation team needs to change. Either the current mods need to be replaced or supplemented with mods - equal in authority - that can provide diversity and alternative viewpoints rather than three mods just parroting blindly what the chief mod wants them to.
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The only person in the tap room at the moment is Urwin, who appears lost in thought.
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@Buddamoose
@kindertina
(Kinder hasn't submitted an action in a while)
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@secularmerlin
- Bless
- Healing Word
- Guiding Bolt
- Prayer of Healing
- Spiritual Weapon
- Beacon of Hope
- Revivify
- Mass Healing Word
(That's 8, you get 7. Gonna have to drop one)
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@Buddamoose
(You should read what detect good and evil actually detects. Hint: it has nothing to do with good and evil)
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