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Made in ca
Stubborn Hammerer





I was trying to come at Mario's musings on the 'chilling effect' 'republicans' want from this new forum.

I suppose we're where we're at now because of all the fine folk who put in the effort to invent, create and maintain computers and the internet.
   
Made in us
Stormblade



SpaceCoast

Trying to figure out where anyone gets the idea republicans want to control and have a chilling effect after a democrat agreed about the tendencies of forums to trend that way.

For the people who seem to need me to restate what I said.

Two things make it a possibility that "republicans" will leave and thus be born an echo chamber.

"Impartial mod" putting finger on the scales of discussion (less worrisome with tides)

Constant snark that just gets tiresome (saying you know what you're writing sounds snarky but you put in a statement saying its not so its ok is pure bollocks)

Things that can help prevent it.

Community setting standards not the mod but other posters especially if they actually agree with the main point of the person they're trying to not be a bleep.

Not all topics having to be a left vs right fistfight (gives the opportunity to discuss with people you'd be getting excites about in other topics) nice chance to find common ground.
   
Made in ca
Junior Officer with Laspistol





London, Ontario

Hey kids, we’re veering into us vs them territory, specifically prohibidabido on *this* site.

So... quit it?
   
Made in se
Ferocious Black Templar Castellan






Sweden

I'll point out that I explicitly argued that I didn't think the conclusion I was outlining was correct because I disagreed with the starting premise: that there would be the "problem" of Republicans leaving because they'd be outnumbered. I don't think it'd happen in the first place, using the examples of Baron and whembly to illustrate my point. I further argued that even if it did happen, in light of the previous discussions on the behaviour expected from users the two points of failure would be, in my opinion, the Republican posters themselves or the moderation team. I completely agree that having posters bullied away from the site would be unacceptable, but the way I read the original hypothesis seemed to suggest that it would be being outnumbered rather than being abused that would drive Republicans away from such a site. If I misunderstood that then that's on me.

I genuinely didn't intend to snark, I was outlining why what I see as the logical conclusion of the argument is irrelevant in my opinion. Being somewhat prone to snaking, however, I'm aware enough of the fact that I'd risk sounding like I was being snarky, so I mentioned the fact that this was not my intention.

For thirteen years I had a dog with fur the darkest black. For thirteen years he was my friend, oh how I want him back. 
   
Made in us
Stormblade



SpaceCoast

You know what, you did point that out in your second post and you probably meant it in your first post but weren't as explicit. With that intent I could see the first post being alot less snarky. (I need a beer emoticon so I could offer you a beer)
   
Made in se
Ferocious Black Templar Castellan






Sweden

I don't drink, but it's the thought that counts.

For thirteen years I had a dog with fur the darkest black. For thirteen years he was my friend, oh how I want him back. 
   
Made in ca
[DCM]
Dankhold Troggoth






Shadeglass Maze

Well that's a nice resolution there . Seriously, awesome to see you guys work that out and looking forward to getting everyone talking about issues over there soon
   
Made in us
Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I'll point out that I explicitly argued that I didn't think the conclusion I was outlining was correct because I disagreed with the starting premise: that there would be the "problem" of Republicans leaving because they'd be outnumbered. I don't think it'd happen in the first place, using the examples of Baron and whembly to illustrate my point. I further argued that even if it did happen, in light of the previous discussions on the behaviour expected from users the two points of failure would be, in my opinion, the Republican posters themselves or the moderation team.


I think precedent actually works against you.

The past year alone, I've observed several political boards collapse because right leaning posters decided to just up and leave. The most egregious case is r/Conservative on Reddit, which basically imploded when the mods quit moderating it just awhile ago. The mods had meticulously policed the board, occasionally locking threads so that only flaired members could post in them and they basically made you prove you 'weren't a lib' to get a flair at some points, requiring you to actually log onto other sites and do an interview to prove your conservative credentials. This entire process eventually collapsed because it was reported to admins, violated Reddit's rules, and then the mods and many flaired uses quit the board because it was flooded by left leaning posters right after it had managed to rid itself of refugees from r/The_Donald (who they didn't want). The board is now basically dominated by bots and members of other reddits (r/LateStageCapitalism occasionally makes the entire page a meme zone). It happened on Spacebattles too, to a lesser degree. Anyone more right than a Republican in a blue state basically went off into a 'PM thread' that was outside the purview of the mods and they just echo chambered there for years until it was broken up by the admins.

The inverse has happened across Reddit, where many nominally neutral boards have been all but abandoned by right-leaning users and is now hitting social media as conservative personalities move to Pander. It's a stretch maybe to just assume it'll happen anywhere, but there is I think a clear trend that conservative leaning user quit boards they cannot control/direct and move themselves to places where they then complain about cancel culture and safe spaces with no hint of irony.

Of course, Reddit is basically dominated by bots, so we know the real villains are the bot nets XD

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2020/12/23 03:37:26


   
Made in us
Assassin with Black Lotus Poison





Bristol

I don't think r/Conservative managed to get rid of the "refugees" from r/the_Donald. Just look at how rabid they became over the claims of election fraud based on zero evidence for evidence of that.

And they still require users to get flair through a discord interview in order to participate in threads they lock down to flaired users only.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/12/23 11:04:31


The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.

Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
 
   
Made in fr
Longtime Dakkanaut






My tip is to go look at how rpg.net deals with politics, social issues and everything else, and do absolutely nothing anything like how they do it.

Believe me you'll be going in the right direction.

And personally i think dakkadakka is already able to support a political/social discussion forum, i've seen examples here aplenty that show people having civil disagreement on some political issues without going flamewar mode.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/12/23 14:43:39


"But the universe is a big place, and whatever happens, you will not be missed..." 
   
Made in ca
[DCM]
Dankhold Troggoth






Shadeglass Maze

 Matt Swain wrote:
My tip is to go look at how rpg.net deals with politics, social issues and everything else, and do absolutely nothing anything like how they do it.

Believe me you'll be going in the right direction.

That's a decent rule of thumb lol

Yes, we obviously won't be doing anything like what rpg.net has done, as we want to foster debate and discussion, and not just "endorse" a single point of view on issues (even what I might personally think is the "right" view, and again I will be trying not to "put my thumb on the scale" in any discussion, and certainly not debating myself).

As AlmightyWalrus and others helped prove out, obviously there are limits to what I will allow, with the most obvious example being advocating direct violence (genocide was the example). But hopefully, as even demonstrated on this page, posters can set a tone for useful discussion that doesn't foster that sort of horrific posting.

I am also thinking of requiring something at sign up to discourage bots - it could be a wargaming challenge question (to focus on our group here), or a valid cell phone number, etc. Any thoughts on that?
   
Made in us
Stormblade



SpaceCoast

Not a cell phone number. I like the wargaming challenge question idea but it needs to be easy enough to get the answer so people don't get discouraged
   
Made in fr
Longtime Dakkanaut






Maybe stuff like "If an ork model has W5, how many successful hits from a D2 weapon does it take to kill it"?

"If a weapon has a 1/3 chance of wounding a target, what is the minimum number you need to roll to successfully wound it in a game of WH40K?"

"What does the H in WH40K stand for?"

"Who killed Sanguinius?"

"What is the maximum number of wounds a D 1d weapon can cause?"

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/12/23 15:31:31


"But the universe is a big place, and whatever happens, you will not be missed..." 
   
Made in ca
Junior Officer with Laspistol





London, Ontario

A given wargaming challenge might fall outside of someone's experience, and the answer to a specific question may change over time.

If someone asked me the WS of an AOS model, regardless of how common, I wouldn't have the answer.

If someone asked "How many wounds does a Marine have" the answer just recently changed, you know what I mean?

Valid phone number is *hypothetically* discriminatory. If I didn't have a cell phone through work, I wouldn't have one at all.

Three or four *basic* math questions would probably suffice. While technically potentially discriminatory, I think I'd be cool with eliminating those potentially discriminated against. Looking at you, people that support policies I disagree with. Too stupid to answer basic math questions.
   
Made in fr
Longtime Dakkanaut






Ok, maybe "3 is the ----- root of 9?"

But if we're going to make it a forum for dakkadakka members maybe it should be game related questions? I mean "What is the standard issue weapon of the imperial guard" is pretty easy to look up. Likewise "A space maine's standard weapo is called a xxxxgun."

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/12/23 15:37:43


"But the universe is a big place, and whatever happens, you will not be missed..." 
   
Made in us
Stormblade



SpaceCoast

As long as the answer can be found quickly on the net it should be alright but none that require detailed knowledge of a particular game. Matt's second set is perfect IMO.
   
Made in us
Did Fulgrim Just Behead Ferrus?





Fort Worth, TX

 RiTides wrote:

I am also thinking of requiring something at sign up to discourage bots - it could be a wargaming challenge question (to focus on our group here), or a valid cell phone number, etc. Any thoughts on that?


Alternatively, make any application for membership require your (or another moderator's) approval before the user can post. And part of the application could require someone to PM you on Dakka with the username they want to use on the new forum so that you'll know which ones to approve.

"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me."
- Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks 
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut




Jerram wrote:Two things make it a possibility that "republicans" will leave and thus be born an echo chamber.

"Impartial mod" putting finger on the scales of discussion (less worrisome with tides')

Constant snark that just gets tiresome (saying you know what you're writing sounds snarky but you put in a statement saying its not so its ok is pure bollocks)
A lot of this thread has been about how the mods will try to foster inclusivity of all kinds of opinions. A few (mostly left leaning?) people have been asking about what even could attract the mods' attention (with examples of previous thread derailments and offers to show more examples outside of this thread so it doesn't get locked down for politics). The answer (at least my interpretation of it) was generally something along the lines of the mods not even wanting to care about dealing with people who repeatedly post badly sourced references for the sake of inclusivity (seemingly as long as repeated trolling can be interpreted as "opinion" it will be allowed).

That's literally the opposite of an echo chamber. It's the mods wanting to appear impartial while actually being biased against good discourse as long as it's worded politely. It's an invitation for naive fools to just repeatedly post nonsense without thinking because they can always be excused due to their naivety. No need to adjust to new facts if you can reword your previous wrong statement in a new, and polite, way. It also invites trolls because they can camouflage as said fools and get away with their bs as long as they appear polite.

And yet we have worries about some sort of leftist competition to out-woke each other and/or some SJW echo chamber? From how this discussion was going that was the least worrisome possibility anybody should need to think about. Might as well worry about a random meteor hitting your head.

People have been asking about this because there's precedent about a certain type of behaviour leading to a degradation of a discussion and they worry that if the mod team has such a lackadaisical attitude towards such simple trolling then the discourse will eventually turn into a circular "discussion", with fools/trolls posting badly sourced reference in short bursts that will get repeated long paragraphs/comments of corrections. And it seems like it will be seen by the mods as "discourse is happening" because it's worded politely.

In short: A few people have been worries about the mods allowing gish gallop tactics to flourish and the answer seems to be: Yes, as long as you phrase it politely. And that's worrying some people.

Or to use words "republicans" should understand:
Two things make it a possibility that "leftists" will leave and thus be born an echo chamber.

"Impartial mod" putting finger on the scales of discussion by letting fools/trolls off easy and prioritising decorum over anything else (more worrisome with the explanation we have been given)

Constant posting of badly sourced references/research that just gets tiresome to debunk, where one link needs multiple paragraphs of corrections… and then the same bs it posted a few pages later.
That's how impartial modding easily leads to an—intended or not—echo chamber.

LordofHats, over the years I've seen the same as A Town Called Malus on /r/Conservative, a rise of /r/the _Donald (and similar subreddit) refugees with a corresponding rise in conspiracies and mind bending explanations, justifications, and theories about everything; not some leftists infiltration. It just became /r/the_Donald_2 . I remember when /r/theDonald was just a meme subreddit until it was slowly taken over by true believers (same with how 4chan "evolved" from boundary pushing racist/white supremacist jokes to full racism and Neo-Nazi breeding/grooming grounds). All the sensible people stopped contributing and left instead of fighting a losing battle in a barely moderated online space.

RiTides wrote:I am also thinking of requiring something at sign up to discourage bots - it could be a wargaming challenge question (to focus on our group here), or a valid cell phone number, etc. Any thoughts on that?
You could forbid accounts with zero comments from starting threads. Bots usually want to post a new thread that gains some attention towards whatever they are trying to advertise. And if there's no "start a new thread" button they can't do that. I don't know how high of a post count you'd need to be able to start a thread (it depends on the forums' activity level) but even a rather low number of posts should help out with that.

From how I understand it, these bots (or account farms) usually don't read even simple rules and only try to create an account and post new threads. Sending new users an PM or some sort of easily accessible (and very visible) announcement that states that they need to first post a few times in existing threads seems to be a good enough filter. And if somebody has so little patience that contributing (not spamming) a few times before being able to start threads is annoying then maybe not giving them the ability to post new threads isn't that bad either.

Another option would be to automatically put posts by new accounts (or accounts under a certain number of posts) into a mod queue. Then a mod would need to look at it (to confirm that it's actual content and not an ad/bot/spam) before making it show up for the general audience.

I don't know how big that forum would be (user number) or how many mods there would be so these measures might not be scalable but such systems (that weed out bots and very simple minded trolls) tend to work better than CAPTCHAs or other technical solutions. Because if there's even a tiny bit of money (ads/spam) then they will find a way to circumvent the technological solution at some point.
   
Made in us
Proud Triarch Praetorian





This thread is exactly what I was talking about. It has now gone on too long and outlived its purpose. People are starting to argue over seemingly nothing. Somebody is already feeling persecuted in this thread and it isn't even a political thread.

Kill it and move on. There will be no more information gathered from this thread that has any relevance.
   
Made in us
Lord of the Fleet





Seneca Nation of Indians

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Kill it and move on. There will be no more information gathered from this thread that has any relevance.


And it's clear you haven't read the last page so we'll just ignore this attempt to have the thread shut down again.


Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
 
   
Made in us
Proud Triarch Praetorian





 BaronIveagh wrote:
 Dreadwinter wrote:

Kill it and move on. There will be no more information gathered from this thread that has any relevance.


And it's clear you haven't read the last page so we'll just ignore this attempt to have the thread shut down again.


I very much did. Absolutely nothing was accomplished.

Not trying to shut it down. Just pointing out we hit the 2 week mark and absolutely nothing of value has been added. But continue if you want!
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I'd avoid anything with a numerical answer as it's to easy for bots to 'guess'

 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
"Stop telling people that your links say literally the opposite of what they actually explicitly say" isn't taking a stance on the person's argument either.

Do we let the community somehow vote to censure individual posts? It'd still be subjective, but the censure or lack thereof would have the legitimacy of having been handed down by the community itself rather than the dictatorial edict of a mod. There's obviously plenty of problems with such a system that would need to be hashed out, but as a starting point?



I know reddit was mentioned earlier itt in regards to up/down votes but, In a couple of r/ subforums I follow there, they have a very useful automod feature where human mods can program in certain websites as being auto-removed from threads.

Typically, such as in the F1 subreddit, when the automod removes a post containing a "banned" source, it includes a message like, "automod has removed this because this source is known for x,y, and z"


At the point I'm typing this, I've only read up through page 4, so this may have been addressed numerous times already, but in large part, I agree with LOH and others saying fewer subforums are better. I know many have said none, but I personally think it would at least be helpful if there were, at the least a US subforum and a "non-US" subforum. Gauging by past periods where politics has been allowed in dakka, the US based threads got a lot of traction/activity, from everyone, while UK and EU based political threads seemingly did not get as much, but delineating the two would allow for better ease of discussing issues as they pertain to a given region. For instance, a healthcare thread dealing with US political policy will look entirely different to a healthcare thread on UK or EU policy.

A point from earlier not discussed as much, the page limit, I think doesn't work quite as such. By this I mean it needs to be somewhat fluid and up to mod discretion. Let's say this forum had been around in the 1990s, when the OKC bombing happened. . . During the day it happens, there's likely to be a flurry of activity as we deal with the immediate aftermath: who, what, where, and how bad. But it will likely take weeks to get a full idea on "why" it happened. Auto-locking a thread after 100 pages relating to a current event may only create clutter and duplicate threads as, after page 100 (or whatever the cutoff is), a user with new information will have to create another thread on the OKC bombing (to keep this example) just so that they can post an article that provides new information on the bomber's identity, or the state of the manhunt.
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

 Matt Swain wrote:
Maybe stuff like "If an ork model has W5, how many successful hits from a D2 weapon does it take to kill it"?

"If a weapon has a 1/3 chance of wounding a target, what is the minimum number you need to roll to successfully wound it in a game of WH40K?"

"What does the H in WH40K stand for?"

"Who killed Sanguinius?"

"What is the maximum number of wounds a D 1d weapon can cause?"


I have been wargaming since 1984, and played 1st edition 40K to 5th edition, Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition to 5th edition, various versions of Epic, and many specialists games. I am not sure I would be able to answer all of these anymore.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/12/28 22:42:20


Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in ca
Junior Officer with Laspistol





London, Ontario

While it would involve some manual labour, having any kind of basic survey as part of the application process would probably weed out bots.

What’s your favourite colour, and why?
Name two oceans.
Name two continents. (style points if they reply “in”)
Who was your favourite teacher, and why?
Type out the words for two different numbers (ie. One, twenty-five).

And then the human Judge just needs to determine if the answers are probably human responses. If you ask for a favourite colour, and the response is, “I can not describe the hue, as human eyes are incapable of receiving that light spectrum” the applicant is probably a robot, mantis shrimp, or an alien. In any case, *not* human.
   
Made in gb
Bryan Ansell





Birmingham, UK

Captcha codes?
I am not a robot?

You know....something simple that the majority of boards implement as standard?

   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




 Mr. Burning wrote:
Captcha codes?
I am not a robot?

You know....something simple that the majority of boards implement as standard?



Ah. The 'by clicking this box you agree to let our software look through your browser history and determine if you're going to websites the way a human would (and nothing else, we totes promise)? And then if it looks a little borderline, we'll subject you to IDing crap photographs and handwriting.'

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/12/30 00:58:39


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in us
Master Tormentor





St. Louis

Voss wrote:
 Mr. Burning wrote:
Captcha codes?
I am not a robot?

You know....something simple that the majority of boards implement as standard?



Ah. The 'by clicking this box you agree to let our software look through your browser history and determine if you're going to websites the way a human would (and nothing else, we totes promise)? And then if it looks a little borderline, we'll subject you to IDing crap photographs and handwriting.'

That's not how those work though...
   
Made in us
Terrifying Doombull




 Laughing Man wrote:
Voss wrote:
 Mr. Burning wrote:
Captcha codes?
I am not a robot?

You know....something simple that the majority of boards implement as standard?



Ah. The 'by clicking this box you agree to let our software look through your browser history and determine if you're going to websites the way a human would (and nothing else, we totes promise)? And then if it looks a little borderline, we'll subject you to IDing crap photographs and handwriting.'

That's not how those work though...

You sure about that?

https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/privacy-policy-recaptcha/#:~:text=If%20you%20integrate%20reCAPTCHA%20through,website%20or%20app%20integrates%20reCAPTCHA.

First, the reCAPTCHA algorithm will check to see if there's a Google cookie placed on the computer being used.

Then, an additional reCAPTCHA-specific cookie will be added to the user's browser, and a complete snapshot of the user's browser window at that moment in time will be captured, pixel by pixel.

Some of the browser and user information collected at this time includes:

All cookies placed by Google over the last 6 months,
How many mouse clicks you've made on that screen (or touches if on a touch device),
The CSS information for that page,
The date,
The language your browser is set to,
Any plug-ins you have installed on the browser, and
All Javascript objects
It's because of this personal information collection that the requirement by CalOPPA is triggered and a Privacy Policy is required when reCAPTCHA is integrated.


It digs into enough personal information that any website that uses it requires a privacy policy and in the EU, explicit consent from the person on the other end.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/12/30 02:28:49


Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in gb
Bryan Ansell





Birmingham, UK

To be slightly blasé about this.

Pretty much like we have been offering our info up on a platter for the last 20+ years.

If I want to post Ill click.

   
 
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