As the replacement Moderation page has developed the old bug so that permalinks no longer navigate to the appropriate comment, so here is yet another page for continuing discussion on moderating issues. The Rules can be found there so anyone with an issue should check that they are familiar with them.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
Elizabeth,
I apologize for being a pain in the posterior. If you so are inclined, I’d like to ask a couple of questions about your clarified rules. From upthread:
Prior to this my understanding of the rule about addressing the post not the poster was essentially “No ad hominem.” That is, it would be perfectly fine to say “So-and-so is persisting in making a claim that has been soundly refuted, without addressing that refutation despite repeated requests to do so. That is dishonest behavior.” whereas “Don’t listen to So-and-so — he’s dishonest.” would not be.
Now it sounds like pointing out even the most gross bad faith behavior is against the rules, even if that behavior is clearly supported by reference to comments demonstrating it. Is that your intent?
To make it specific, when I say that Erik is demonstrating hypocritical behavior by failing to support the goals of this site despite claiming that “following the rules” is moral behavior, I am addressing his comments, not him. It’s entirely possible that Erik is conducting some kind of research to determine how egregiously he can behave in a forum like this before being called on it. He may have a side goal of seeing how many people will defend his appalling behavior out of misplaced identity politics. I don’t know and I don’t care.
What I do know is that his behavior here meets the definition of hypocritical and dishonest. I can support that claim with evidence from his comments, without once speculating about his motivations. That, I believe, meets the criteria of addressing the content of the post rather than the poster.
From your earlier comment I suspect you disagree. Any insight you’d care to share would be appreciated. If you’re sick of the topic, just say so and I’ll drop it.
Cool. I think you’re right! I missed those nuances.
DNA_Jock,
Why on earth would I want to do that? I’m more interested in the results of moderation — including an endless stream of discussions like this one — than I am in the various motivations for Guanoing.
We already have a proposal for improving the situation that Lizzie likes:
keiths:
I plan to look into the technical issues over the holidays.
Do you really enjoy these ‘meta’ discussions? I really dislike this kind of stuff myself.
ETA: I’d turn the whole site over to Alan’s mom for clean-up.
Well, I’m someone’s Mom, will I do?
You’re too much of a softy, I think. 😉
walto,
No. I think they’re repetitive and boring, and I would much rather see all of us put our energies into substantive discussions of the thread topics. Guanoing is counterproductive largely because it generates so much ‘meta’.
I think meta discussions will decrease significantly if the proposal I outlined is implemented.
heh. I’ll ask my son to weigh in. He’s home for Christmas.
Mum varies the softness up. She mostly lets me get away with saying “fuck” but every so often she’ll get very proper about it. Which is actually more terrifying, because it means you end each obscenity on a cliffhanger.
– Patrick.
I’d love to see that change myself. I think it’d be terrific.
ETA: …so long as stuff really does get tagged: right now that’s not happening nearly enough. I think the “ignore function” would be best.
So say all of us.
keiths,
I agree that this is an absolutely awesome idea, if technically feasible. Of course, it won’t eliminate the arguments over what should and should not be guanoed, merely lower the stakes. Although Sayre’s Law may apply, it’s definitely worth a try.
Patrick,
Try a treacly euphemism like “fudgesicle”. She’ll get so tired of hearing it that she’ll be begging you to say “fuck” again.
In my youth I knew a girl whose entire family used the verb “pooter” in place of “fart”, which they considered vulgar. I personally found “pooter” to be ten times as offensive.
Use that to your advantage. You can train your Mom to encourage your use of straightforward Anglo-Saxon obscenities. 🙂
Keiths:
When I was a kid my dad would yell “Confound it!” in place of “Goddammit!” and “Phooey!” where “Fuck!” belonged. My parents were very careful about that. I NEVER heard the real things from them.
Of course, I never knew the difference – the affect was the same, and the intensity unmistakable.
ETA: “Pooter?” When “toot” was available?
RB:
Yeah. Go figure.
DNA_Jock,
True. To minimize the meta we’d need to eliminate Guano altogether, even in the form of guano-tagging. But then someone would inevitably complain that we’d eliminated Guano!
In any case, Lizzie clearly wants to retain Guano-as-housekeeping. The proposed solution seems like the best way to satisfy that constraint while achieving the other goals.
What I especially like about it is that it satisfies readers of both stripes: those who want the moderators to pre-filter their comment stream can opt in, saving themselves the trouble of scrolling through guano, while those of us who like our guano straight up can see it in its original context. Neither type of reader is penalized for their choice.
I’ll start looking at the WordPress code to see how feasible this is.
I’d still read all comments I think.
One (minor) gripe is that when you click on a linkback (reply option) to a guanoed comment the link is dead. Thanks Obama!
Oh, he’s heard me say fuck. I just occasionally try to undo the damage.
Lizzie,
Sure, and that doesn’t seem to faze him. He’s more concerned with how you react when he says it:
keiths, are you serious?
Lizzie,
Serious about what?
Patrick is teasing you about how you react when he says “fuck”. Mostly fine with it, occasionally “very proper about it”.
He isn’t teasing you about the fact that you say “fuck”.
I know.
Which is why “Oh, he’s heard me say fuck” seemed irrelevant.
Sorry, Patrick, I only just noticed this comment. (I noticed that your comment links on the front page sometimes appear before the comment – bizarre!)
I’m incapable of speculating usefully about the mindset of theists, especially Creationists. It seems to me, given the chance to participate, people with the oddest ideas can try to communicate here if they wish. Park your priors and so on.
I certainly think we don’t get many theists here. The ones we do get seem to have found us via UD and perhaps aren’t a representative sample. Would it be a good thing or a bad thing (and for whom) if there were more? We’re not at war with theists, are we?
Well said, Neil.
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I guess I’m not (and nor is Patrick) precisely of either stripe, since we’d prefer an ignore function, which would largely take moderation out of the game completely–except for porn, spam and outing. Mostly because these rules aren’t enforceable, the mods aren’t actually enforcing them now –and I don’t think they would be able to do so if it meant affixing a black booger to posts instead either. The best solution is to take moderation out of this game as much as possible with a personal ignore function. I’ve been at several other boards that have that. A number of members appreciated and used it.
Ditto.
Fantastic, Alan!
There is a WordPress plugin “Ignore Commenter”. Might be worth a try. Lizzie? Anyone?
There are also a couple of plugins designed to flag or report comments. Snags seem to be they haven’t been updated to work with latest version of WordPress and they only seem to notify a single designated admin. Also I tried one and the “notify” button was invisible in the theme we are using.
Just tried the “ignore” plugin. The “button” is a bit annoying on its own line. Maybe that can be adjusted. The function is pretty black-and-white. Click “ignore” and all the comments from that member become invisible. They can be restored via the (ignoring) members dashboard. As it is a bit annoying visually, I’ll disable it until there is some feedback.
ETA
I see it has messed up the edit button (bad) and introduced comment numbering (good?)
Feel free to experiment. “Ignore” is a usually a good feature. “Notify” might be too, as long as it didn’t make the comment vanish.
My sense is that blog-software tends not to handle this kind of feature very well as it is designed a priori for weBlogs, not discussions. But SCOOP is an except. Shame it seems to be dead.
walto,
I like anything that makes it easier for a reader to control what he or she sees, and an ignore function certainly qualifies. It works perfectly when you want to ignore someone completely (why does Gregory spring to mind?).
But what about commenters who sometimes lapse into Guano, but are otherwise substantive and worth reading? I think Lizzie still wants selective “housekeeping” for such cases.
That’s where the ability to tag posts as Guano would come into play.
Oooh. I’m excited about the possibility of an ignore function finally. Thanks, Alan, and keep us posted!
Perhaps we need to distinguish between “participating in good faith” and “being seen as participating in good faith”. Whether we see someone as participating in good faith depends, in part, on our subjective judgment of their intentions.
Alan Fox,
Yeah, hopefully I can spend some time today figuring out why the Reply link causes that behavior.
Some current participants seem to have a great deal of difficulty with even that simple guideline.
My question came from this exchange:
I was, mostly jokingly, asking if you thought that allowing proven bad faith behavior to be called out would result in more theists than non-theists being named and shamed.
Neil Rickert,
I agree. As I argued just upthread, I think that addressing behavior that demonstrates lack of good faith, with evidence provided from comments, should be allowed. Proven behavior, not speculations on motivations.
Why was my post: “Most of your comments are a disgrace to rational thought, IMO. So?” moved to guano? It was clearly a comment about the content of EL’s posts, not a comment attacking her personally, or violating any other known rule here.
I guess that’s a little of that non-existent bias showing up – EL calls my thread at UD a disgrace and it stands; I call EL’s posts a disgrace to rational thought and it immediately goes to guano. No, no bias here,
William J. Murray,
It’s insulting and I’m guessing it was intended to be. I would have guano-ed it had not another administration done so already.
William J. Murray,
It wasn’t addressing a post, it was addressing Elizabeth directly. If you’d like to quote one or more of her posts and provide evidence for it being “a disgrace to rational thought” you will be within the rules.
So, now you’re just making rules up as you go along? I was addressing the content of EL’s posts in general. Is that now against the rules?
William J. Murray,
You’re at liberty to rephrase if you want to make a case that most of Dr Liddle’s posts are a disgrace to rational thought.
Do the rules stipulate that I can only make comments about the rational quality of one’s posts if I am going to “make a case” about it? Exactly what case did Dr. Liddle make when she called my thread at UD a disgrace?
William J. Murray,
“Address the content of the post, not the perceived failings of the poster.”
I don’t see you referencing any content.
Patrick said:
You mean, other than directly stating in the comment that it was about the rational quality of her posts? Why is it that EL’s comment about my thread at UD being “a disgrace” that immediately preceded mine didn’t get guanoed?
Because Uncommon descent is a blog, not one of our registered members. You can’t insult an inanimate object.
I specifically referred to the thread, not the OP. But if the cap fits….
Still admins feel free to move my post. In fact I may do so myself. I guess it’s borderline, and in fact I think William’s posts on that thread are a disgrace, as are his quotemines of mine.
Yes! The kind of rule I’m looking for is something like:
Posts may be moved that are a disgrace.
It would be a nice diplomatic gesture toward someone who feels he is at war with you even if you didn’t break a rule. It is a nice way to show you aren’t at war.