The first post in this series can be found here:
In part 2, I had planned to discuss why I think the rules aren’t having the desired effects. I still plan to do that. However, in gathering my thoughts, it occurred to me that no one (to my knowledge) has ever made explicit the rationale behind the Guanoing of comments. I think the topic is worthy of an OP of its own.
Lizzie introduces Guano this way:
Comments that seem to me to be in violation of the game rules will be moved here, and closed to further comment. Do not regard having your post moved here as a reprimand, merely as a referee’s whistle.
My question: How exactly does this promote Lizzie’s stated goals for the site?
But the idea here is to provide a venue where people with very different priors can come to discover what common ground they share; what misunderstandings of other views they hold; and, having cleared away the straw men, find out where their real differences lie.
Is the purpose of Guano to punish those who post rule-violating comments? Is it intended as a disincentive for the future posting of such comments? Is it there to protect readers from seeing such comments?
I’m interested in reader’s opinions on what Guanoing actually accomplishes and how it promotes (or doesn’t) the stated aims of the site.
As I’ve noted elsewhere, I think the Guano section should be eliminated. if posts are abusive, they should disappear, otherwise, they should be left alone.
Guano is some sort of pubicly visible purgatory or something, apparently. When I see that something has been relegated to that section, I go and look immediately. This arrangement is pointless or worse; silly even. it certainly does not act as a deterrant–quite the contrary, I’d think.
I disagree.
But I think posts that do not address the OP should be moved to guano if they are abusive, to noyau if they talk about the personalities of another member, and to moderation issues if they whine.
Moving is not punishment or censorship. It is housekeeping.
walto,
I am not in favor of deleting any comments other than those that are for bannable offenses. Again, this is not UD. Censorship is ugly and unnecessary.
That’s not how Lizzie sees it, based on her previous comments.
There’s a sense in which NOTHING is necessary in the way of such rules, and I recognize that such a sense is attractive to libertarians.
I don’t like a free-for-all, myself, and if a post is abusive and violative of the rules, what is the point of retaining it in an easy to find place? Are the rents lower there?
petrushka,
So to you, the purpose of Guano is to protect people from seeing ‘dirt’?
No, it isn’t punishment.
It serves as a gentle reminder that people are expected to follow the rules.
Neil,
If that’s your goal, then why move the offending comment? You can “gently remind” people without moving comments.
That stuff can glop up what’s supposed to be a substantive thread, no?
walto,
Two reasons off the top of my head:
1) It provides an easy way for the other participants to monitor the behavior of the admins. This prevents abuse.
2) It allows individuals to decide what they want to read rather than handing that control to the admins.
I don’t understand (2)–how would not moving crap to crapland “hand control to the admins.”? (1) does make sense to me though.
walto,
Comments can still be read in Guano. They cannot be if admins delete them.
Are you now a Guano supporter then?
I don’t know. I’m kind of torn. It seems like a half-way measure, but I guess it might be better than doing nothing at all with abusive posts.
petrushka:
keiths:
walto:
Sure, but there’s also plenty of non-rule-violating glop that cannot be moved. Glop will be with us regardless.
Plus, one person’s glop is another person’s treasure. I don’t want the moderators deciding for me what is and isn’t glop, which is why I make a point of reading all the comments that are moved to Guano. Sometimes they contain useful content despite violating the rules, and sometimes the rule-violating content is itself useful.
Hard to disagree with that–especially when one disagrees with the rules, as I do myself. Implementation of poor rules is bound to be troublesome–even if the implementation is excellent.
So, as I said to Patrick, I’m torn. I want abusive stuff to be vanished, but the rules don’t sort out what’s abusive from what isn’t, and they don’t result in anything actually getting vanished anyhow.
I don’t think it’s so much to be a deterrent as it is to disrupt pointless fighting. It could deter as well, but the main point is, I think, to make it impossible to keep up a heated exchange that really serves nobody.
It seems to work ok for that. Enforcement is notoriously spotty, but it usually kicks in when useless fights go on for very long.
The problem at this forum is that the theists who come here seem nearly always to really have as an article of faith that the opposition necessarily acts in bad faith, and say so. What’s Mung on about, that atheists have no right to be moral? But that’s sort of the heads I win tails you lose stance that is too much the usual theist stance, you’re not moral if you’re atheist, hence disreputable–and your arguments can be dismissed–but if you are moral and atheist, you have no right to be–and your arguments can be dismissed.
One could well discuss morality with or without “God,” but not with those attitudes.
Glen Davidson
keiths,
I agree emphatically.
And sometimes it gives insight into the arguments of other commenters. And sometimes it’s just plain funny.
I don’t want moderators judging the quality of thought. I would just like stuff moved that includes insults to people. That’s not a judgement call. And I don’t want it deleted. Just moved to noyau.
petrushka,
It’s definitely a judgment call in many cases.
Suppose we are arguing and you make an unreasonable anti-gay comment. I respond, “That sounds like something Fred Phelps would have said.”
Have I insulted you, or have I merely stated a fact?
My response doesn’t violate the rules. I haven’t questioned your good faith, and I’ve addressed the post, not the poster.
If you know me, you can probably figure out that I don’t think highly of Fred Phelps. But even then, you don’t know whether the comparison is intended as an insult or merely as a statement of fact.
Do we want moderators trying to divine intent? I don’t think so.
I see no problem with your example.
What I have a problem with is posts that state or strongly imply that another poster has certain moral deficiencies or internal emotional states. These posts are quite common on both sides. If the thread is about such things, I have no problem with that, but if the OP is about biology or geology, I have a problem with making posts about the moral or intellectual deficiencies of other posters. Or their motives.
There is, for example, a difference between stating that someone has made a statement of fact that needs to be supported by evidence, and stating that the other poster is dishonest. You can do that on noyau.
petrushka,
I was disagreeing with this:
What constitutes an insult is, in fact, a judgment call, as shown by my example.
Another point worth making is that the current scheme penalizes those who want to read Guanoed comments. We have to make an extra effort to read them, and when we do, the original context is missing.
I’ll be reading through a thread, and the flow won’t be making sense, and then I’ll see a comment much later saying “Moved some comments above to Guano.” Then I go to Guano and try to reassemble the puzzle pieces so that the original thread is intelligible. It feels like I am being punished for wanting to read things that the moderators don’t like.
Also, we pride ourselves on not practicing censorship here at TSZ. It’s true that we don’t delete comments, and that is a beautiful thing — one of the best things about TSZ, and it shames UD by contrast.
However, a policy that interferes with people’s desire to read comments in context really is a form of censorship, though a far milder one than wholesale comment deletion.
I never want to miss a post by Gregory because I generally find his posts both entertaining and informative, so I always check Guano first thing when I visit.
Your example is an implied insult. Any contradiction could be construed as an implied insult. But I could make a case that any post that addresses another poster without addressing the OP is off topic.
I would move direct insults and stuff that does not argue for or against propositions raised by the OP. Basically, I would have catchall buckets for off topic posts. That beats deleting them or banning posters.
I can’t tell what you mean here. Is this a joke? Do you really think that Gregory’s posts are generally informative and are being unfairly sent to Guano? Are they entertaining because repeating the same insults is funny somehow?
It’s definitely mung.
walto,
I laughed at Mung’s comment. That makes it a joke, right?
(h/t to Mung for making people wonder.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-in-cheek
I was hoping someone would laugh. 🙂
This.
wow. Leave it to keiths to quote-mine the site rules. (Not that there’s anything morally objectionable about quote-mining).
One might assume that TSZ ought not be like those other sites.
The logic for Guano probably runs something like this:
We don’t like it when people’s posts just disappear. That makes us look like [that other site]. And we are the anti-[that other site] site. Therefore, posts shall not be disappeared.
But we don’t want to allow just any old post. Scoffing for example. We don’t want to be like [that other site] and allow scoffing. Well, we want to allow scoffing like at [that other site] but we don’t want it to stink up our threads like at [that other site].
Thus, Guano. A place to put bad stuff that isn’t really bad, it only smells bad.
Personally, I’m in favor of abolishing Guano. I don’t think it serves a useful purpose. Folks who break the rules by posting abusive comments directed against other people know what they are doing is against the rules. They just don’t care. They don’t need reminding about what the rules are. Posts that are Guano-worthy should be deleted.
But I think that Noyau and Moderation Issues serve useful purposes as they are.
petrushka:
Lizzie:
That would be a disaster, Lizzie. Have you forgotten the W(h)ine Cellar debacle?
Mung,
For me it’s more “I don’t like to have my comments deleted. Therefore, I don’t delete other peoples’ comments.” It’s kind of a rule of mine. A nice, shiny metal rule.
Rich organic matter has its uses. Sometimes good things grow from it.
Mung,
What are you talking about, Mung?
You quoted this:
Nothing in that quote changes the meaning of this:
Do you even understand what quote-mining is?
Kantian Naturalist,
No comments should be deleted. If you don’t share my moral view on that issue, I hope you can see the practical benefit that I pointed out to walto: Guano serves the purpose of identifying and limiting abuse by the admins.
+1 (Right on!) The only problem is that the rules don’t actually pick out guano-worthiness. They’re just two random (overlapping) rules that happened to come to Lizzie at some point.
ETA: I mean, suppose someone insinuates that someone is an antisemite because, say, this person agrees with a decision by O.W. Holmes about yelling fire in a crowded theater and disagrees with some critic’s take on that decision.
The abusive remark is not any less abusive because it has been moved to some portion of the site that is labelled “Guano.” Again, suppose someone is continuously badgered about being an “apostate “Catholic or Reform Jew. It’s just trash talk and should be eliminated.
I think it serves a useful and necessary purpose. As mung says, it’s very informative.
So far my experiment (committing publicly to the site rules, and self-regulating adherence to that commitment) has been a unqualified success.
OK, it’s an N of 1 (me) but results are very promising. I’ve found myself very easy to get along with, and I’ve learned a lot from me. I’m good company, even.
RB, as indicated I’d vow to try not to be an asshole here–if everybody else would too. (And I wonder….why would people not be willing to vow to try not to be an asshole here. Hmmmm.)
It’s not enough for a person to pledge to not be an asshole. It is also required that they be capable of recognizing when they are an asshole.
I just play it by bunghole.
Glen Davidson
walto,
You’ve inadvertently illustrated one of the reasons that deleting comments is a bad idea.
Retaining comments not only allows users to keep tabs on the moderators, as Patrick pointed out — it also discourages false accusations, such as the ones you’ve made against me.
It was quite embarrassing for you when your accusations, including the one you alluded to above, were shown to be false. That’s a very good thing, and it gives us a strong reason to keep the evidence around rather than deleting it.
I’ve been known to disagree with keiths, but on this he is absolutely correct. Deletion destroys transparency, and should be reserved for malware, porn and doxxing, nothing else.
I disagree with keiths and you about this Jock, but I’m not now and never was embarrassed by anything I’ve written here.
keiths is not embarrassed either, but he often should be. i’m not sure he’s capable of it, actually.
I should add that despite my views about the usefulness of Guano, I’ve got nothing against keeping things just as they are at present. Both the rules and their enforcement are fine by me.
walto,
If you hadn’t been embarrassed by this false accusation you made, you would have defended it by showing where I had “selectively quoted you for the purpose of misrepresentation”. You couldn’t do that, of course, because there was no misrepresentation.
In any case, my point is that in addition to the other reasons we have for never deleting comments, we also need to keep them around so that the evidence is available when people like you make false accusations.
In the last few weeks this site has descended into something close to nuclear tribal war, which is a shame because there used to be a lot of interesting stuff going on.
As I understand it, Lizzie’s goal for this site is a lofty one: an Internet venue for mature discussion of controversial and often highly personal topics, free from the flaming and trolling that usually comes with the territory.
But the idea here is to provide a venue where people with very different priors can come to discover what common ground they share; what misunderstandings of other views they hold; and, having cleared away the straw men, find out where their real differences lie.
The common ground is a bit of a neglected topic, though. People also don’t seem very interested in finding out where they misunderstand things themselves. And straw men appear easier to erect than to clear away.
Perhaps the site goal might be a bit more achievable if it was formulated like this:
But the idea here is to provide a venue where we as people with very different priors can come to discover what common ground we share; what misunderstandings of other views we hold; and, having cleared away the straw men, find out where our real differences lie.
fG
I am more than happy to use the first person plural rather than the third. Oddly, I think my original draft was like that but people have expressed dislike of my habitual use of the first person plural in the past, so I think I was playing safe. I prefer your version, and will change it now!
There is at least one non-negotiable here, so I should state it, in my capacity as site dictator:
I will not delete posts. Guano is intended neither as punishment nor Hall of Shame. It is simply a place to put posts that violate the rules of the main page (“Game Rules”) where they can still be read, linked to, and quoted from. One of my core principles in starting this site was that there would be no censorship of content, apart from a few very well defined exceptions. That list has grown very slightly (the addition of the outing rule), and even there, only the offending part is deleted. If that is the whole post, then a “tombstone” empty post is left.
And the reason for moving posts out of the main thread if they violate the Game Rules is the same as the reason for having the Game Rules in the first place – to keep the discussions focussed on the content of the ideas rather than the perceived character and motivations of the poster. The rules may need revision (still not entirely convinced the case has been made) but given that we have them, one way to ensure they do what they say on the tin is to simply move posts that violate of them out of the discussion thread – so we can get back to the game according to the rules.
And it is because no moral judgment or punishment is intended or implied that I do not think it is a big deal if some rule-violating posts are left in place. Once the page has rolled over, they aren’t doing any harm to the discussion.
And now that we have noyau, if anyone wants to discuss guano’d posts, they can quote them, link to them, check the record, check other people’s record, because the posts are still visible.
Sure, sometimes they do stand as a somewhat comical testimony to the odd tantrum, but caveat postor, I say. Know that if you post here, your post won’t be deleted. To me that’s important, and my biggest complaint about UD is not so much the peremptory and capricious banning, although that is annoying and does not, to my mind, reflect well on the site owner, but the silent Disappearing of posts from the record.
Ironically, apparently Barry himself was a victim of that principle for some reason not being upheld here, but his posts were, I understand, reinstated.
Like it or not, my promise to members here is that their posts will not be deleted, nor edited, other than material from the narrow range specified.
I could call Guano something other than Guano I guess, but I quite like the metaphor. Guano is good stuff, and the process that produces it is vital to organismic health. But it’s not necessarily stuff you want lying about in your living area.
Yup. Whether it’s correct or not, I agree with keiths too, see above.
While it’s nice for them to be around for when people like YOU (or actually, just YOU) make false accusations–something you do regularly, incidentally–I think there are more important things to do here–like discuss actual issues.
IMO, people like you shitting all over sites like this is a bigger problem than having one of your (many) nonsensical posts disappear.