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."
Yeah, not wild about the social pressure thing. It could be a recipe for a lot of passive aggressive nonsense, and have a feeling that Pharyngula lies down the end of that road.
*shudder*
May I ask why you are so inclined? I believe some good reasons have been given for not doing that (to be immodest, I think I’ve made some of them, myself–but others have put some as well). On the other side, I’ve seen no reason yet for leaving the mess that’s been made. I know you’ve said that you haven’t had the time (or, understandably, maybe the desire) to plow through all the posts on this matter. But, that being the case, this inclination seems to me a little capricious, or, to be more charitable, just a function of lethargy.
As must be pretty clear by now, this decision is kind of important to me. Couldn’t you at least suspend judgment on the matter until you’ve had time to read the arguments? That would be not only the more reasonable thing to do, I think, but it would also be nicer.
Thanks for at least considering this.
I have not been innocent, but I would be willing to live by a rule against referring to things said on other threads. I hate trying to follow such references, even when they are self references.
This blog has a linear format, and some of us post on phones or tablets. Just keep the discussion linear.. We aren’t writing laws or publishing textbooks.
petrushka here gives an example of something that would seem to belong on Moderation, not here.
He timely provides one more reason why it makes sense to figure out what you want to do with the Wine Cellar PRIOR to just kind of letting stuff go wherever the winds happen to take them.
Lizzie:
Social pressure is an inevitable consequence of gathering a group of people into a community. We already have social pressure here, and lots of it.
If there is a “W(h)ine Cellar”, people will pressure others to use it. There will also be resistance from those who think their comments are being unfairly characterized as “whining” or “bickering”.
If you get the moderators involved (by asking them to make judgments and move “whiny” comments to the Cellar), then they will come under social pressure from people who want others’ comments to be Cellared. (Think of William’s campaign to get the moderators to call “Quote miner!” on his critics.)
There will be social pressure regardless; the only question is whether the Cellar will help to channel it in the right ways.
I think the answer is no.
walto,
Good point. We now seem to have two Moderation Issues threads. It’s just that one of them is named “the Wine Cellar” and has a bunch of other stuff mixed in.
Both capriciousness and lethargy are involved, also extreme RL time pressure and personal bias towards learning from the past rather than trying to rewrite it.
You make a good point. I just can’t make any time-dependent promises right now! I really am up to my ears in alligators.
OK, more good comments.
Tell you what, I’ll rename it the Whisky Cask, and you can discuss what you want in it until it becomes clear what it’s useful for, without any pejorative connotations.
Or the alligator level recedes at least.
That’s good enough for me. Thanks.
Alan:
I haven’t reached the conclusion you want me to reach, but to infer from that that I haven’t reflected on things is just goofy. Can you honestly read my comments here and in the
Wine CellarWhisky Cask thread and still claim that I haven’t reflected on things?This comment by Patrick is spot on and deserves to be repeated:
Lizzie,
My understanding is that those already go to Guano under the existing rules.
What I think Alan and others are objecting to is arguments about the argument, including accusations of quote mining and misrepresentation. Sometimes participants have legitimate grievances that deserve to be recognized in the same thread.
petrushka,
And there is the real issue. Back in the Usenet days we had readers that presented threads within topics so that it was easy to skip discussions that were going down ratholes. We also had personal killfiles so that each person had control over what he or she read. I’d love to see something like that here, but I don’t know if it exists.
Maybe there’s not enough demand for such a thing among the youngsters who grew up with blogs. *grumble*Things were better in the old days.*grumble*
walto,
I’m agreeing with walto twice today.
Since all of the comments here are on the topic of moderation, I suggest moving them all to Moderation Issues while the rules of Wine/Whiskey/(Song?) are sorted out.
Hi Lizzie
I’ve been happy to help and support your project here but the last few weeks especially have not been enjoyable. In trying to solve a problem I seem to have become the problem. I am touched by your unmitigated loyalty but I’d rather call it a day than continue to cause problems for you. I’m happy to continue to keep an eye on the back office until you find a replacement so as not to leave you in the lurch if you wish but if I were you, I would recind my admin status forthwith.
Sorry to have contributed to the mess.
Best wishes for the future
Alan.
Alan,
I hope you’ll reconsider. While I (obviously) think you made some serious mistakes, I do not believe that you have “become the problem”.
I think the problems can be sorted out and that we are on the way to doing so.
Alan,
To the extent that I’ve contributed to your stress level, I apologize. I hope Lizzie tears up your resignation and you choose to stay.
Regards,
Patrick
Alan, I hope I haven’t said anything that’s caused you consternation. I always believed you were only doing what you thought was best for this site.
Maybe just take a break for a couple weeks? (I prolly should join you…..)
Hey, maybe threatening that will make you stay here!!
I disagree.
Maybe take a break where you keep a low profile for a week or two. But we need you as a moderator.
bugger bugger bugger.
Alan, please reconsider. Without admins who actually try to solve problems I am sunk, and they are rare on the ground.
You haven’t caused problems for me, or for anyone. You’ve just banged your head against the Unsolveable Problem of our Age, which is how to run an internet discussion board. If everyone who did that resigned, internet discussion boards would go extinct.
What works better is a little semi-random mutation, and what works gets kept, and what doesn’t, gets junked. And without admins prepared to mess around in the admin panel, the mutation rate stays too low.
Do take a break, which all admins need from time to time (lord knows I needed them at Talk Rational), but please reconsider your resignation.
The only person who has “contributed to this mess” is me, for not having the extended time (or, I guess, the appetite, to be honest) to try to trace back what’s been going on.
I’ll try to do so this weekend. I’m all coded out on the project I’m working on, and introducing more bugs than I’m ironing out, so maybe this is a time to finally read this thread properly (and the history).
Absolutely.
Would love to do so. But I do know that being an admin sucks hairy donkey balls, and it can reduce grown adults to tears (or to the whisky cask at least). The world’s most thankless task. So I don’t want to pressurise him unfairly. I just hope to hell he’ll tear it up himself.
Right.
I have read all the comments in the Wine Cellar as was. As most of the comments after the first few were actually about whether there should be a Wine Cellar or not (whodda thunk there’d be an issue?) I’ve done a general move-around, as the Moderation Issues thread had got so long the Recent Posts links couldn’t cope (this happened once before.
So I did a three way swap, converted the Wine Cellar into Moderation Issues (New), renamed the old Moderation Issues, “Moderation Issues (Old)” and created a brand new page called “Noyau” (an in-joke for Ardrey fan girls) for what used to be Wine Cellar material. Into that, I moved the original spat between keiths and walto (with a bit of William).
I think it’s worth a try, and I thank Alan for having created it. While I understand the argument that an appropriate place to discuse W[h]ines is the in th eW[h]ine cellar, I can also see the potential problems.
So those discussions are now in “Moderation Issues (New)”, or rather their page has been renamed under them (or over them).
I will now move the most recent Moderation Issues (Old) posts into the new one, and when I’ve done that, will close comments on the old thread. Then I’ll delete the link from the front page (it will still be available if you need to refer to it).
And can I repeat my plea to Alan to withdraw his resignation. As far as I am concerned he did exactly what I’d want an admin to do: exercise judgement and initiative, keep his cool, and field flak.
I don’t blame him at all for wanting to resign, I just dearly hope he won’t.
Its’ taking keiths so long to put up his OP on moderation, I think I may put up one of my own. While his might be named Abuse of Moderation mine would be named Abuse of Moderators.
Elizabeth, has keiths ever treated you the way he’s treated Alan? Just wondering.
Elizabeth:
I’m sorry, but that’s just not true. I appreciate the sentiment, but you don’t need to take this on yourself. Alan did something he thought best, an act that was well-intentioned, just like yours.
Then he was hounded. Mercilessly. Alan asked for mercy and was given none. His mistake was in forgetting who he was dealing with. He should have stated his reasons once [or with a big voice from the sky, or not at all] and left it there.
Alan, here’s hoping you stick around.
Lizzie, I appreciate that you moved some posts, but I still don’t understand how those (now merely seven) particular posts ended up in your new fighting forum. There were about 100 prior posts leading up to that 7-post scuffle as well as a bunch afterwards, and, as I’ve said before, the lack of context makes what’s now in the new form both incomprehensible and unfair to each participant.
Why not just move those last seven posts back too and start from freaking scratch? What’s special about those particular posts? Aren’t there any other unpleasantries that have occurred here? Nobody else ever got into a fight here?
Consider. Some new person comes to this site, clicks on each forum and lo and behold there’s a bad boy area. And there some walto guy–turning down a “peace offering.” There was no warning that I’d be put in an area for public humiliation–keiths and I were just given a surprise public spanking. The rules at the time made no provision for that.
I mean, the one good thing about having all the other ridiculous, mostly moderation type posts there, was that at least keiths’ and my scuffle wasn’t occupying the first page of a forum permanently at the top of this site. I honestly do not understand why there has been so much fucking resistance from Alan and you to my simple request for transparency and fairness, i.e., not applying rules until they’re made public. As you’ve now moved stuff, you must have seen what was arranged in wine country was basically a random pile of posts. It still is: it’s just really small now, so it’s even more embarrassing to the two people who had the misfortune of getting into an argument on one particular day.
I’ve indicated that this important to me, it’s an easy favor to do, I’ve had the support of Patrick on it, and it seems to me either completely arbitrary and capricious or just nasty not to honor my request.
How’d you like to be up there?
Mung:
That’s quite melodramatic, Mung, but surely you realize that people can read the record for themselves rather than relying on your histrionics.
Lizzie,
Like you, I hope Alan will stay, but to suggest that his behavior was the epitome of good moderation practice is simply not credible.
He didn’t keep his cool. He overreacted to a minor event, causing a major disruption. He ditched your rules and impulsively created a new, unfair rule when none was needed. Worst of all, he interfered with criticism of his actions, actively preventing complaints from being lodged in the Moderation Issues thread.
Would you say that interfering with moderation discussions is “exactly what I’d want an admin to do”? I sincerely doubt it.
I like Alan and I hope he’ll stay, but it serves no purpose to pretend that he didn’t mess up.
But then again, keiths, there is that ONE POST that Alan deleted, so the record is in fact incomplete. Except for how you hounded him over that. That is indeed there for all to see.
I think the problem is in thinking a thread on moderation should be exempt from the normal rules. IIRC my first foray into this entire morass was to ask whether the rules were suspended in this thread.
Simply put, posts that belonged in Guano were not sent to Guano.
But I suppose that’s a moderation decision. 🙂
I know, let’s blame Alan!
Mung:
That happens all the time, Mung. I explained this to William yesterday:
keiths, I guess what confuses me is why you didn’t encourage Alan to move your posts to Guano where they belonged.
Even better, whatever happened to self-moderation?
You were an active participant.
My understanding of moderation is “that which get applied by the powers that be when people fail to self-moderate.”
That’s what Alan did. He fulfilled the responsibilities of his role, for which he was subsequently crucified.
I’ll await your OP to hear how you fulfilled the responsibilities of your own role and did not abuse them.
Mung:
Why would I? I don’t think anyone’s posts should be moved to Guano.
It’s alive and well. Can you imagine how people would respond to you, in particular, if they weren’t self-moderating?
Your definition is wrong.
No, he failed to do so, as I’ve already demonstrated.
Ad nauseam.
Indeed.
My suggestion is that given the moderation policy here at TSZ it is sufficient to register a complaint. Repeated complaints about the same issue belong in Guano. Posts not relevant to the complaint belong in Guano.
I await your OP on why TSZ ought to dispense with sending posts to Guano. If you disagree with the rules why do you continue to post here? Can someone who disagrees with the rules be expected to abide by them?
Is that why you desire to dispense with the rules, keiths?
Mung,
No. It’s important that commenters be able to repeat complaints. Otherwise a complaint that was overlooked either accidentally or deliberately could go unaddressed.
Because I like it here. It’s far superior to UD, for one thing.
Not always. Likewise for those who agree with the rules. That includes the blog owner, as she freely admits.
keiths, I simply disagree.
And having had a night to mull this over, I want to make a few points. not just re this post but re this whole business.
Firstly, a number of people have referred to Alan, Neil and Patrick as “moderators”. They are not “moderators”. They are, in fact “admins”. In other words, they are not mere “text monkeys” as, for examples, some moderators are on forums. They are co-admins on a blog, and as such, have the authority to make strategic admininstrative decisions, including creating new pages, if necessary, adding new plug-ins, and, indeed, making new rules, if they see fit. They are “in loco Lizzie” and have my complete trust, which they have all absolutely fulfilled.
Secondly, I disagree that Alan “overreacted to a minor event”. The spat that got moved to the newly created page would normally have been moved to Guano, as the posts clearly violated the game-rules. So if anything, Alan “under-reacted” by making a space where you could, if you wished, continue the spat. This seems like quite a good idea to me, and I think we should give it a go. It is now, for reasons of history, called “noyau”. If people want to have a flame-out, they are welcome to do so there.
Thirdly, the only thing I have changed, apart from the name, is moved comments ABOUT the W[h]ine Cellar/Whisky Cask/Noyau to the new moderation thread (technically it’s the other way round but never mind), and that only because as things have turned out, with it being such a big deal and all, it seemed the right place for a conversation. At the time, it seems to me it was perfectly reasonable to have that conversation in situ. Casting this as “interfering with moderation discussions” seems, frankly, to me, to be the epitome of “over-reacting to a minor event”. At TSZ we do not hide or delete posts – everything is transparent. The moderation discussion continued. Links to its comments continued to appear on the front page. What you are complaining about is simply the heading over the conversation. In forum software, the discussion would almost certainly have had its own thread. It is only an artefact of the blog software that “moderation issues” is a single mammoth thread. If it were possible, I’d set it up so that each issue had its own. So no, in my view, Alan did NOT mess up. I did exactly what I want the admins here to do which is to exercise their judgement. It won’t always be exactly what mine would be in the circs, but I have no prior reason to think my judgement is better. Not in foresight, anyway.
Finally, I will be interested in your OP about moderation. My interest is somewhat tempered by the fact that I am a veteran of discussions about how discussion boards should be run, and the arguments about too much/not enough moderation, “activist mods” etc. I know there is no perfect system. I set up this one because I wanted to try to run a discussion space with a particular choice of swings vs roundabouts. There are other places on the internet where there is less moderation, and plenty where there is more.
This one is what it is because there isn’t one quite like this one – where moderation is transparent. opportunities to post OPs; are freely dispensed; posts are not deleted except for a very narrow range of redactions; but posts that attack the person, not the poster, and which call the other poster’s integrity into question, are regarded as derails and moved out of the thread. I have made it very clear that these moves do not constitute any kind of moral judgement. Indeed on other boards, I am not loathe to call the good faith of other posters into question.
But I wanted to try a board where we did not do that, or tried not to. Sure I like to err on the conservative side (the only sense in which I am a conservative!) but that doesn’t meant the rules shouldn’t be applied. This site most definitely has rules, although they mostly apply only to the “home” threads.
And if we’ve lost Alan over this, I shall be very upset.
OK, I only found those seven. Not sure where the other 100 are.
If you can link, I’ll try to move them.
tbh though, my heart isn’t in it, because blog software (as opposed to forum software) isn’t really set up well for this kind of operation. At some point, moving to forum software might be the best approach. As it is, I’d much rather move on with some lessons learned, namely, that on a blog, where the only space for multiple threads is the main page, and any other thread has to be specially created as a “page”, the best approach to a moderation thread is to have a single thread, renewed when it gets full. And that possibly a space for rule-violating spats might be a good thing, but possibly not.
However, if you want to point me at the posts you are still concerned about, I’ll take a look.
Lizzie:
Lizzie,
Since you’re not yet sure that the “spat” thread is a good idea — and I share your concern, as does Patrick — then I think your best bet would be to move the 7 posts back to the “100” rather than moving the 100 to the 7, which is much harder.
Besides saving you work, walto would prefer that solution (based on this comment) and so would I.
Lizzie,
I’ll respond to this comment tomorrow, but for now I’m off to bed.
So where are “the 100” right now?
What I have done, which may or may not be visible to you, is set up a password protected page for Admin Discussions. The Discussions shouldn’t be visible, but the fact that they are going on probably is (not least because I can’t figure out how to make it invisible without upgrading, but I don’t mind anyway).
The reason for this is simply so that we have a slighlty more efficient back-channel for admin conferring.
I still want the admins to feel empowered to act unilaterally, but of course reversibly, and that gives us a forum in which we can discuss that.
Before this comment. Hopefully the 7 will fall into place according to timestamp if you move them back.
“At TSZ we do not hide or delete posts – everything is transparent.”
That is NOT true.
“…where moderation is transparent.”
That is NOT true.
“..but posts that attack the person, not the poster, and which call the other poster’s integrity into question, are regarded as derails and moved out of the thread.”
NO, only some posts that should be moved to Guano (according to your so-called rules) are moved to Guano.
“I have made it very clear that these moves do not constitute any kind of moral judgement.”
What a crock.
This site has become a sick joke.
OK, here is the deal.
From now on, posts that violate the “Game Rules” in the “Home” threads – the main threads of this blog will be moved, as ever, to Guano, which is locked.
The same rules will apply to Moderation Issues and in the Sandbox. However, “flames” (which would be Guano in a Home thread) may be moved to Noyau, rather than Guano, where people can continue them if they wish. At present, Noyau contains one comment, one of Mung’s, not moved there because it was a flame, but because it was a question to which the answer is now an appropriate “yes”: Noyau is indeed:
,
so an appropriate starter comment
As with Guano, having a post moved to Noyau will note constitute any kind of moral judgement. It’s just that heated rows get in the way of other discussion, and as this is a blog not a forum, we cannot have a thread for every Moderation Issue or Sandbox topic or Flame War. So it will simply be a categorisation by emotional temperature. If you don’t want a post moved to Noyau, then cool off. If you don’t mind, fine.
I have moved the Seven (ex-Lax related) posts back to their original thread (Moderation Issues (Old)), not because I think Alan’s moving of them was wrong – they are exactly the kind of posts that I envisage should go to Noyau in the future – but because we might as well start again with a bit more clarity and a clean slate.
If this doesn’t work, we will abandon the Noyau (or rename it or whatever). BTW according to Ardrey, Italy is a noyau, and I like Italy. It’s just ungovernable, apparently, unless by corrupt media tycoons.
I beg to differ, creodont. You know perfectly well the narrow range of material that we redact, and I make that clear as well. Nothing is hidden or deleted except for that narrow range of material, and this is done transparently – the rules are there for all to clear, as are the redactions.
But I will clarify something else: the reason for that narrow range of exceptions is that I do think those are morally reprehensible – so if you have a post redacted, then, yes, you can consider that I personally regard what you posted as morally reprehensible.
Namely: posting porn, malware, or revealing the RL identities of someone known to us by their internet name.
And it is because you will not give me the assurance that you will keep to those rules that your own posts are moderated.
Thanks very much, Elizabeth. And keiths too for your support.
I appreciate it.
My ears are burning. I’m thinking it might be from all the confab that’s going on in the password-protected “OK so who do we hate most here now?” forum.
walto:
I sincerely doubt that that’s what’s going on in there. Still, secret password-protected discussions don’t exactly send the right message at a time like this.
walto,
There’s actually nothing much going on there at present.
Nope.
Thing is that admins need a backchannel, and it’s easier if it’s on site. The messaging system doesn’t seem to allow multiple recipients (I could be wrong about that), and the alternative is email.
But I’d rather have a space onsite.
The only discussion that is going on there right now is how to make it so it doesn’t encroach on the rest of the board.
You could certainly argue that it’s something non-transparent – but then so are emails. I know one site (Talk Rational) where every bloody thing is in public, and it sort of works, but it’s also highly dysfunctional. And admins still use PMs.
Or FaceBook.
What will always remain transparent is the actual actions – in other words, if a post moves, you will be able to see where it’s gone, and still read it. And discussion of moderation decisions will take place here, in public.
And in case it hasn’t been clear: Joe G was banned for posting a porn link; Creodont2 is also banned, pending an assurance from him to me that he will not post personally identifying info.
True. But the message simply is: we want a better way of communicating between the admins than email, namely an actual onsite communication forum. But right now, there seems no way to do that without making it seem like a vast conspiracy.
I’m looking for a plug in.