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 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
A thought occurs.

This whole thing requires neutral or impartial moderators, right? But modern US politics is so pervasive, divisive and harmful it brings up two questions: how do you find someone truly impartial, and what the hell is wrong with that person?

Someone not from the Staates that has no issues with it?

 Wolfblade wrote:

I feel like this is a purposefully misframed argument, if not an outright strawman.

Which rather nicely illustrates the danger of trying to judge whether or not an argument is made in bad faith based on the written word.

It's not, in this case. I was merely responding to the argument as I read it.

You're not being asked to rule on truth or reality, you're being asked to recognize and act accordingly when someone is purposefully acting in bad faith. Their intentions should not matter and it doesn't have to escalate immediately to a permaban. A warning will do just fine for the first offense or two, as will a temp ban if it continues.

But where someone is considered to be disruptive, that's what happens now.

The mods are not mind readers, however. Nor are we omniscient. So we make those decisions based on the information we have.

Which means that we won't always get the full picture from a single mod alert, and unless someone messages us directly with specific concerns it can often take a while to see a pattern of issues with a poster, particularly when they're a bit of a line toer.

 insaniak wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:

I feel like this is a purposefully misframed argument, if not an outright strawman.

Which rather nicely illustrates the danger of trying to judge whether or not an argument is made in bad faith based on the written word.

It's not, in this case. I was merely responding to the argument as I read it.

You're not being asked to rule on truth or reality, you're being asked to recognize and act accordingly when someone is purposefully acting in bad faith. Their intentions should not matter and it doesn't have to escalate immediately to a permaban. A warning will do just fine for the first offense or two, as will a temp ban if it continues.

But where someone is considered to be disruptive, that's what happens now.

The mods are not mind readers, however. Nor are we omniscient. So we make those decisions based on the information we have.

Which means that we won't always get the full picture from a single mod alert, and unless someone messages us directly with specific concerns it can often take a while to see a pattern of issues with a poster, particularly when they're a bit of a line toer.

I fear you do not understand what bad faith is. Intentions do not matter. If I unintentionally "move the goalposts" for example, all that matters is I did it. And that's why I pointed out warnings as an option to inform users they are not acting in good faith. Hell, let's use you as an example. In your last post, you asserted (or asked if) we wanted you to act as the "arbiters of truth" and now you're making grandiose and hyperbolic claims about how mods are just lowly humans, not "mind readers" or "omniscient." Both of these are examples of bad faith even if you do not intend it as such.

But beyond that, we don't expect that from you, and we did not ask it of you. We don't expect a first time ruling that stands forever and is always 100% just and right. What I think we, the users, do have a right to expect is something more than literally nothing when a handful of other users consistently derail the thread and attempt to get it locked.

And for the record, which you didn't really comment on, I even described reasonable mod actions of two warnings, then a temp ban from that section of the forum. You could also very easily include or send a message asking the user to "inform themselves on good faith discourse, and they'll be unbanned in 24 hours" or whatever, and from there you can escalate based on future user actions, such as another warning or two before a longer temp ban (say, 3 days, 7 days, then permanent). This is all off the top of my head, and your job is made easier by the fact users who are participating in good faith are likely to call out those in bad faith, as it certainly happened here on dakka almost every single time problem users popped up, spewed bs, vanish, and returned in a week while pretending no discussion happened. And if a handful of users are causing an inordinate amount of work for the mod team by causing issues with other users, you should be considering what action to take, not if you should be taking action.

And if the issue is you only get mod alerts, maybe you should confer with the rest of the mod/admin team about updating the mod alert system to allow for reasons or comments. Anyone who is engaging in good faith is almost assuredly more than happy to provide a brief explanation of why they're using the report system.

TL;DR: We're not looking for arbiters of truth. We're not asking you to read minds or be omniscient. We're saying that when you (as in, the mod team) see a consistent pattern of bad faith behavior from a user, you (as in, the entire mod team) take some form of action. I cannot figure out a better, more direct way to express this. It's great if it happens now, but it certainly didn't fething happen enough back when the politics thread was around.

 Wolfblade wrote:
. We're saying that when you (as in, the mod team) see a consistent pattern of bad faith behavior from a user, you (as in, the entire mod team) take some form of action.

We do.

 insaniak wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
. We're saying that when you (as in, the mod team) see a consistent pattern of bad faith behavior from a user, you (as in, the entire mod team) take some form of action.

We do.

Having been a part of the political discussion threads here, I'm hard-pressed to believe you, the mod team, seriously did. It sounds like a seriously outlandish claim considering politics are banned instead of the offending users being banned from OT. Or, if you honestly believe that the mod team did, your priorities must have been totally fethed up. And it sounds like they may still be from my perspective. At the time, it seemed to be treated as "Well, they didn't break rule 1, therefore we can't nail them for anything as rule 1 trumps all else." There are multiple users who had no mod action taken against them for YEARS there who were directly responsible for almost every single derailment, hijacking, and descent into madness that the threads turned into. I can't speak to any private warnings, but I can speak to the fact every time a mod stepped in, it wasn't to ask people to stop participating in bad faith, it was to be civil* almost every single time.

And frankly, if you did hand out temp bans and they went back and kept doing the same thing maybe those bans shouldn't have been temporary from the OT forum.

*As far as I can remember at least, I don't feel like delving into ~400 or more pages to count how many mod warnings there were asking for "be civil or we'll ban politics" vs "participate in good faith."

 Wolfblade wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:

I feel like this is a purposefully misframed argument, if not an outright strawman.

Which rather nicely illustrates the danger of trying to judge whether or not an argument is made in bad faith based on the written word.

It's not, in this case. I was merely responding to the argument as I read it.

You're not being asked to rule on truth or reality, you're being asked to recognize and act accordingly when someone is purposefully acting in bad faith. Their intentions should not matter and it doesn't have to escalate immediately to a permaban. A warning will do just fine for the first offense or two, as will a temp ban if it continues.

But where someone is considered to be disruptive, that's what happens now.

The mods are not mind readers, however. Nor are we omniscient. So we make those decisions based on the information we have.

Which means that we won't always get the full picture from a single mod alert, and unless someone messages us directly with specific concerns it can often take a while to see a pattern of issues with a poster, particularly when they're a bit of a line toer.

I fear you do not understand what bad faith is. Intentions do not matter. If I unintentionally "move the goalposts" for example, all that matters is I did it. And that's why I pointed out warnings as an option to inform users they are not acting in good faith. Hell, let's use you as an example. In your last post, you asserted (or asked if) we wanted you to act as the "arbiters of truth" and now you're making grandiose and hyperbolic claims about how mods are just lowly humans, not "mind readers" or "omniscient." Both of these are examples of bad faith even if you do not intend it as such.

Apart from the fact you seem to want the mods to enforce formal debating structure, I can tell you that your view that Insaniak's last post was bad faith is not one that is universally held and is entirely subjective. From their point of view - and, in this case, mine too - the summary of your previous position seemed pretty accurate. Was it a little hyperbolic? Probably, but there's nothing wrong with a little exaggeration in order to get a point across. So now we have a disagreement between two parties about what constitutes bad faith and the line seems to be almost impossible to draw. We could as the mod team to draw that line as we do for breaches of Rule #1 but that seems like it's a much greyer area by far.

I think the current solution seems to work OK but not perfectly. I'd like to see a bit more done to deal with persistently trolling posters but in general I find the mods do a pretty decent job of dealing with the worst offenders and still taking a fairly light-touch approach. The ban on politics probably helps with this because it frees up mod time to deal with the rest of the site.

Slipspace wrote:

Apart from the fact you seem to want the mods to enforce formal debating structure, I can tell you that your view that Insaniak's last post was bad faith is not one that is universally held and is entirely subjective. From their point of view - and, in this case, mine too - the summary of your previous position seemed pretty accurate. Was it a little hyperbolic? Probably, but there's nothing wrong with a little exaggeration in order to get a point across. So now we have a disagreement between two parties about what constitutes bad faith and the line seems to be almost impossible to draw. We could as the mod team to draw that line as we do for breaches of Rule #1 but that seems like it's a much greyer area by far.

I think the current solution seems to work OK but not perfectly. I'd like to see a bit more done to deal with persistently trolling posters but in general I find the mods do a pretty decent job of dealing with the worst offenders and still taking a fairly light-touch approach. The ban on politics probably helps with this because it frees up mod time to deal with the rest of the site.

No, I want them to be able to recognize what bad faith is, and react accordingly instead of standing to the side as they did with the politics threads. I.E. when one poster pretends to not have had the same conversations week after week from the same starting point with the same arguments and evidence, or when someone posts, literally, a dozen sources then admits to not reading their own sources they're trying to use to defend their own position. There's no question if that is or isn't bad faith. It's blindingly clear it's bad faith, and it's almost certainly intentional. When a poster moves the goalposts every single time someone refutes their position or tries to gaslight someone else that they did or did not say something when the post is right there there is no question if it is or is not bad faith. Being hyperbolic and building positions that no one is asking for or defending is bad faith.

Bad faith is being thrown around like a common buzz word now at this point.

In general though it's not even just that logical fallacies were the common source of bad faith. The snide comments, the sly passive aggressive comments towards those who didn't share the same opinions seemed to dominate stronger moreso then anything else. The insults peppered in throughout towards those people disliked was one of the major issues I remember that spread out further and brought heavy grudges throughout.

As for logical fallacies.. I'm really not sure how well that could be implemented by the mods. It's one of those moments of figuring out how much extra work the mods will willingly take on just to deal with problematic posting.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Bad faith is being thrown around like a common buzz word now at this point.

In general though it's not even just that logical fallacies were the common source of bad faith. The snide comments, the sly passive aggressive comments towards those who didn't share the same opinions seemed to dominate stronger moreso then anything else. The insults peppered in throughout towards those people disliked was one of the major issues I remember that spread out further and brought heavy grudges throughout.

As for logical fallacies.. I'm really not sure how well that could be implemented by the mods. It's one of those moments of figuring out how much extra work the mods will willingly take on just to deal with problematic posting.

Those are absolutely bad faith examples too, but I was trying to focus on the more obvious/provable instances I can readily grab proof of.

To borrow a turn of phrase: it's a forum for toy soldiers. Why are you so deathly afraid to draw a line and tell people misbehaving to feth off? Would it be subjective? Yes, to a certain degree, but as we're often reminded it's your (well, Yakface's) forum. You already make subjective decisions; it's part of being a moderator.

Hey guys, once again, my apologies for the delay in reply. I'm continuing the "thread within a thread" about the alternate (and Completely unofficial) forum I'm aiming to have set up around the end of the month for political discussion.

There are a few things I want to comment on, the first being this:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
A thought occurs.

This whole thing requires neutral or impartial moderators, right? But modern US politics is so pervasive, divisive and harmful it brings up two questions: how do you find someone truly impartial, and what the hell is wrong with that person?

Someone not from the Staates that has no issues with it?

First, well done Bob . But yes, that is exactly why the first person I asked to help me moderate (and was turned down by!) wasn't from the US. It's going to be very hard to find someone not polarized Blue/Red here at the moment. But for as much as is possible, I'd say that I am one of those people . Meaning - I genuinely did not make up my mind about who I was going to vote for until the final week of the election, I had close friends of both stripes strongly persuading me in either direction, and I ended up voting third party in a key swing state for Jo Jorgensen. Your "what is wrong with that person" comment is quite applicable but the point is, no, I'm not "Team Red" or "Team Blue". I often vote a split ticket (meaning I'll look at individual people running and vote for people of both parties).

I definitely don't think this makes me better than other people, and if anything, many have pointed out to me recently the issues with such a view. But one thing I've realized is that it Does make me decently qualified to try to maintain a political discussion space, because I genuinely am interested in what both "sides" have to say. Minority views will absolutely be allowed in the political discussion space I'm setting up, and if anything, I don't see what the point is without them. If you want "general knowledge" you can much more quickly and easily read an article summarizing things. This is going to be a space that encourages debate, and even if you don't change your mind on something, you might find you learn much more about your own views simply by having to defend/support/argue for them.

Turning to this:

 Wolfblade wrote:
Again, it doesn't matter if the bad faith is intentional or unintentional, it's still bad faith. They might be attempting to debate in good faith, but if they aren't for any reason, they need to be corrected. I'm literally not asking for mind readers, or psychics, or anything crazy. I'm saying that when someone is obviously ignoring or disrupting a good-faith discussion, they are punished, but that rarely, if ever, happened in the politics threads. I'm not asking for formal debate club rules, I'm saying the mods should be able to recognize basic logical fallacies, which was probably the most common source of bad faith in the politics thread. Hell, I'm not even taking the position of "lying violates rule 1" which absolutely an argument that could be made.

I pointed out previously in this thread where someone was accused of using bad faith in this very thread, about their not thinking the political space I'm setting up will work (which is very possible!). Again, I'm committing myself to not participating in Any arguments other than on how to run the site I'm setting up, but on this point I want to be very clear. I will not be making judgements about bad faith. If someone is spamming or breaking other basic rules (such as basic swear and NSFW rules) then they'll face a consequence (such as a time-out from posting, basically). But mostly, this is a space for adults who want to debate. On Dakka, the end result is that basically we said we Don't want the debate here... but on the site I'm setting up, I do - that is its sole purpose.

 whembly wrote:
As for RiTide's new sandbox, it'll be "his" board so it'll be "his" rules. Maybe he can come up with a process whereby posters can petition to have "x" poster banned, sort of having "trial" where both sides make their case. As such he could decree to tell everyone to "move on from the topic" all the way up to site ban. I think that's what some folks want... some way to adjudicate the controversy and render judgement, rather some "light-touch" moderation.

Whembly, as one of the "minority view" posters who I would Definitely want to participate on the site, I appreciate your persevering in making some points here. And I want to be clear on some points here, too, in that I think my rules will not make everyone happy - in fact, might not make anyone truly happy - but that's kind of the point, in my view. It's going to be an open space to discuss things. I'm not taking a side.

You, and anyone who similarly is willing to "swim upstream" against a larger number of posters posting the opposite view, are absolutely welcome on the site. And if you were to face swearing, NSFW images, or other "abuse" then that would be one of the (few) triggers to cause moderator action. However, the whole point is that people are free to discuss things civilly. Sometimes, this means people are going to think a view is out of bounds for some reason or other. An example would be the 1990s crime laws in the US, where someone could make a case that items in those laws were racist. There's a fine line here, where you can argue whether or not they were, but if you start calling another poster racist you may have crossed a line - or maybe not! Do you see what I'm getting at here? Certainly, I would not allow a thread dedicated to bashing one particular poster. But I would allow criticism of that poster. Crucially, however, I will also allow that person to post.

The easiest example I can think of to illustrate this is the coronavirus thread. On Dakka, we had issues handling this because there is a public health concern - this is a large forum. But in this political discussion space, that is not a concern I'm currently worried about. And there were, in fact, several minority views that were at the time made fun of, and later proven right. The first was Orlanth, who posted Extremely early about buying and wearing a mask. I myself even pushed back on him about this. And, in hindsight, he was posting something many people would later agree on - but at the time, he was the only one, an extreme minority view. The second is Queenannesrevenge, who I know many posters here wanted removed from that thread. I would say that, based on available data, they were proven almost totally right about outdoor exercise being harmless, even though they were "swimming upstream" in making this point of view at the time.

All of this to say - people who want to argue/defend "unpopular views" will absolutely be welcome in the space. They will have to stand on their own two feet and face and deal with legitimate criticism. But I will not be making the judgement calls on who can post (if they're doing so within the basic rules of civility), or what they can post for the most part (again with those same basic rules in mind). I won't be encouraging "anonymity" either. Many people here know my real name, and have met me in-person. I'm saying, we should be able to, as adults, talk about these important things. And I'm willing to put both my reputation, effort and some funding into trying to make a space where we can do so.

I hope folks will give it a fair shot, at least! Thanks again for reading, posting your thoughts, and your patience while I work out the details.

If I want to argue for the extermination of all Danes, would that be fine as long as I do so in a civil manner? As long as I treat any Danes that are part of the debate in a professional and friendly manner? I imagine such a view would be unpopular, but as long as I'm civil we're all Gucci, right?

Unless I'm mistaken Martin Luther King had some choice words for this civility fetish.

No. You'd be removed for such an argument, as I think you would be in any similar setting.

My hope is certainly that the mature adults I'm inviting to participate in this forum, both here and from my local gaming group, won't make such an argument. If they do, that's why you have an admin.

The fact this thread is still running is a testament to the patience of the mods here on Dakka.

Eight pages of entitled snowflakes wasting mods time.

Who would ever want to be a mod - what a thankless task. Sorry that you have to put up with this drivel.

 RiTides wrote:
No. You'd be removed for such an argument, as I think you would be in any similar setting.

My hope is certainly that the mature adults I'm inviting to participate in this forum, both here and from my local gaming group, won't make such an argument. If they do, that's why you have an admin.

Why, though? I'm being civil, aren't I?

Or is it the case (as I would argue) that there something inherently uncivil about calling for the extermination of an entire nationality, and that the very act of making this argument is uncivil?

You already make arbitrary judgment calls on what is and isn't acceptable all the time. Using that as an argument against moderating certain behaviours seems strange to me.

Thanks, Reavsie

AlmightyWalrus - I think your example is actually an easy one because it's so extreme. But I wouldn't be extrapolating such an instance to its obvious end point in debates like this - that everyone who disagrees with a certain view are Nazis, basically.

If you advocate violence, you'd be gone. That, again, is a really, really easy one, and I think it's quite obviously at odds with a basic requirement for having a civil discussion. I actually have, at times, myself made fun of the idea of civility, and certainly don't view it as an end goal. But for this space, it's table stakes. Right now, people can't talk to each other about the most basic issues. And we should be able to, and I'm willing to put in the work to try to, and basically act as a referee to let them.

This is also why I won't be participating in any debates myself, to remain as impartial as possible. But I'll be honest, that post put me to the test already . That's also why I'll be doing admin tasks only once a day, to get a chance to read things, and think about them carefully before replying. With that in mind, any further replies from me will have to wait until tonight, as I've got to get to work!

This entire thread is a really great argument as to why politics is best left off Dakka. fething hell boys.

 insaniak wrote:
So... Just so we're very clear: You guys want the volunteer moderators of a forum devoted to toy soldiers to be the arbiters of truth?

Are you sure? Because from where I'm standing, that sounds like an awful idea.

If nothing else, a lot of the time judging whether someone is deliberately lying, or just confused is just too subjective. It's right up there with the whole bad faith argument thing.

Theoretically, yes, someone deliberately lying might be seen as rude.. But what action we could conceivably take against that would depend entirely on the situation, and in practice would require a great deal of erring on the side of caution. Because you can guarantee that the moment we suspend somebody for 'lying' there would be a dozen people in here shouting about biased moderators suspending people for disagreeing with them.

I feel like half the problem is the mind boggling frustration that comes from having to deal with blatant lies at an ever escalating rate, and then being told by the mods they don't want to intervene because its too much work to be arbiters of truth.

I remember the climate change denial incident referenced earlier, where an entire blog full of 'proof' was linked and multiple members went looking at the 'proof' and found half the studies listed claimed the opposite of what they purportedly said. There was no mystery. There was no real question. Someone's already linked a direct quote from one of those articles showcasing that the articles did not say what the person who linked them said they said.

The debate over that blatant lie lasted for pages and three days because the person who made that lie posted upwards of 20 times a day, and could simply cycle the same nonsense through other daily posters, to other-daily posters, to weekly posters, and maintained a nonsensical circular discussion over their inability to read before they linked for more than a week.

No one is actually asking the mods to be arbiters of truth. They are questioning why the mods are so unwilling to intervene into uncivil behavior that stops short of throwing insults. Set aside whether or not a lie is a lie. Instead, lets focus on how one can 'civily' foster an uncivil environment in a topic space by brigading that space with nonsense, posting up to 50 times a day in a single mega-thread, and burying it to the point it's more of a debate over them than a debate over politics. Now throw into that mess, that the poster in question likes it that way. When the exact same poster is doing the exact same thing, week after week, year after year, does it really matter if the behavior is deliberate or if the person in question is confused? I don't see how the distinction matters, especially when it's a metaphorical bonfire burning away on the board. The behavior is destructive to the community regardless of intent and damaging and should be considered the subject of moderator action.

In the entire history of DakkaDakka politics, I can only think of a dozen users who behaved this way. Some of them grew out of it, some of them have left the board or simply stopped participating in politics. None of them behave in that way outside of politics, so again, it is straight up easier for the board to just ban politics, and I do think there's some confusion here because I don't see many people asking for politics to return to the board* (they're mostly venting long past frustrations with that topic space). This behavior is mostly infrequent elsewhere save for one user who is themselves not a frequent enough disturbance to warrant any sort of action. I do however think it's worth pointing out that most boards ban brigading behavior for the exact reasons people are complaining about above. Dakka has in the past, and even now sometimes, allows singular users to brigade a thread and bury it with the mods doing nothing.

The mods aren't being asked to arbitrate truth. There is an expectation though that the point of rules and civility is to foster a civil environment. Some people are capable of creating an uncivil environment without ever becoming openly uncivil themselves.

*It's the point where locking the thread is probably more worthwhile than leaving it open but that's not my call so *shrug*

 RiTides wrote:

Whembly, as one of the "minority view" posters who I would Definitely want to participate on the site, I appreciate your persevering in making some points here.

*I had responded to this, and then thought better of doing so in public.*

 Reavsie wrote:
The fact this thread is still running is a testament to the patience of the mods here on Dakka.

Eight pages of entitled snowflakes wasting mods time.

Who would ever want to be a mod - what a thankless task. Sorry that you have to put up with this drivel.

As someone who's not only been been a mod, but also handled a job similar to what RiTides is proposing when the 40k RPG forum was a going concern, it can be a hard job, though I'll point out that my approach was different than yakface's in this matter. For example, we allowed discussion of the Forbidden 40k lore topics which shall not be named here. And if you think politics gets people hot, wait till you see a FSM or WAAC discussion.

And calling people names like that violates Rule 1.

 RiTides wrote:
The first was Orlanth, who posted Extremely early about buying and wearing a mask. I myself even pushed back on him about this. And, in hindsight, he was posting something many people would later agree on - but at the time, he was the only one, an extreme minority view. The second is Queenannesrevenge, who I know many posters here wanted removed from that thread. I would say that, based on available data, they were proven almost totally right about outdoor exercise being harmless, even though they were "swimming upstream" in making this point of view at the time.

And as parting words, I would say you're making the same mistake that has always been made.

You're assuming people want posters removed for their views (some do, but I think engaging them is ignoring the real problem), and conflating the fact people disagree with those views with the opinion that the way their views are expressed is disruptive.

I think I posted in the CV thread a few times, but not much. I did read it though and I think your characterization misses the real problem QAR presented to that thread. They weren't a problem because they were 'swimming upstream' and people disagreed with them. They were a problem because they couldn't do that one thing the mods are always telling us to do (don't respond to every post you disagree with) and buried the topic. This maxim gets thrown at anyone who points out how single users can destroy civil discussion but is paradoxically never directed at the person whose posts constitute half the page responding to every single reply that disagreed with them and burying the thread in an arguments over the poster rather than discussion of the topic. That brought in defenders and detractors for the defenders and the entire thread spiraled into incivility leading to a lock.

EDIT: I'd also point out the irony, inherit here. We're told the mods don't want to be arbiters of truth, but we're also told that poster X was right in the end so it doesn't matter that they disrupted the thread to the point it needed to be locked. We should respect them for swimming upstream? I'm kind of at a loss at this point on this front actually. It's not about being right. It's about being so certain you're right, you'll incite the thread into a downward spiral and this almost feels like tacit approval of that behavior while telling everyone else who finds it exhausting to go stuff it and "you don't have to reply." I know this is combining the replies of two different mods here, but it feels very accurate to my experiences and frustrations with certain posters and how the moderation team handles them; you'll apply one standard to someone and another standard to everyone else in the name of fairness.

I don't think that's typical of QAR mind and I wouldn't qualify QAR as a problem poster. This is a thing that happens from time to time online and in real life. Arguments happen, they end, we move on.

In this same post you mention two other users. One of them engaged in this kind of behavior in almost any thread that managed to catch their interest (which doesn't happen anymore in my experience the past three or so years) and the other could maintain it for years at a time over a single topic. They'd maintain it so hard they'd double down and then triple down rather than walk away and be proud of the fact they didn't walk away while everything burns around them. It's a paradox that some of us are repeatedly told "you don't have to reply" but the people who are frequently pointed at and called problem poster never do that, which is a big part of why they warrant being called problem posters in the first place.

You've proposed a throttling mechanic awhile back I think that would probably combat that in most cases, but still I think you're confusing differences of opinion with discontent over how some users are allowed to express their opinions. You're ignoring the creation of battleground mentality and while that's always a thing on the internet, I would charge some people not only excel at creating a battleground mentality, they like being in that mentality. They single-handedly turn a space into a battleground and are comfortable in that environment. Battlegrounds are not conductive to civility. At best they maintain a civil veneer over lingering toxicity and basic civility rules are insufficient to combat it.

 insaniak wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
. We're saying that when you (as in, the mod team) see a consistent pattern of bad faith behavior from a user, you (as in, the entire mod team) take some form of action.

We do.

When a poster pops into a thread to just ask questions or make statements, then ignores all the answers, rebuttals and counter-arguments addressed to him to post the exact same questions or make the exact same statements, that poster is not interested in the debate. That poster is acting in bad faith. This is what brought down the old politics thread and the coronavirus thread. I don’t see how you have to be an arbiter of truth or a mind reader to spot this very obvious pattern. And in all of Dakka OT, the mods have rarely, if ever, called a poster on this pattern of behavior.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
A thought occurs.

This whole thing requires neutral or impartial moderators, right? But modern US politics is so pervasive, divisive and harmful it brings up two questions: how do you find someone truly impartial, and what the hell is wrong with that person?

Someone not from the Staates that has no issues with it?

You know what half the people from the states think about all people not from the states’ politics?

Not really.
I don't really follow stereotypes.

Further, it would make a nice filter for those who indeed intend to discuss, which would welcome an unaligned arbiter with NO connection to the states whilest clearly marking those that don't.


@lord of hats, it was me that proposed a 10 min time gated response system Ri simply took it up allbeit a less draconian meassure in the form of a slow mode.. with the thought beeing the same behind making Direct democratic institutions work and preciscly avoid that mentality.
Now compared to the months over here i agree one could wonder if 10 min gates work, but i think the concept is sound.
Maybee even decent to curb trollers since it'd take a lot longer to post for them.

Not Online!!! wrote:
@lord of hats, it was me that proposed a 10 min time gated response system. with the thought beeing the same behind making Direct democratic institutions work and preciscly avoid that mentality.
Now compared to the months over here i agree one could wonder if 10 min gates work, but i think the concept is sound.

Oh... It would still combat the ability of a single user to bury a topic *shrug*

I've seen rigorously moderated political boards that employed it in the past. One used escalating timers; your second response in an hour would incur fifteen minutes before you could reply a third time. Replying after fifteen minutes (within an hour of the last response) would escalate the timer to thirty minutes. Then an hour. It capped out a twelve hours if you responded more than a certain number of times in a day. I can't honestly remember how effective it was. I don't really use these spaces anymore and when I did my mentality was very different but my memory is that it worked sort of. People could still be combative posters, but their ability to disrupt was curtailed by inherent limits on how often they could post. The escalation usually gave people enough time to cool off from heat

I think this was proposed here years ago, but Lego would have to heavily redesign the back end or something to make it work? Too much work to be worth it. I'm not sure there's any prepackaged forums today that really have the feature.

Escalating seems iffy if overall applied, chances are you'd have multiple threads(?)...

As for forums and timed responses, considering how the DG threads / FNP threads went off a handle i'd say the 10 minute limiter might have helped, it certainly would be interesting if you'd have some metrics which would activate such a mode. Seems possible but also bit difficult to propperly programm.

LordOfHats - On my lunch break here so just wanted to say, that's why I won't be participating in anything, even giving an example gets dicey

I was pointing to those two instances as examples of where the view of a person in the minority turned out to be valuable in hindsight. A slow mode or other feature would certainly help with some of the other issues you raise, and I'm Definitely looking into these.

As for consistency, I do think you're replying to some things I didn't specifically say, and the fact is I'll be solo in this venture to start so will certainly be trying to be consistent . I obviously do like the light touch of moderation on Dakka, but for a politics dedicated space I would already be making a few changes: not participating in debates I'm moderating is a very important one, I think, and being able to make decisions on things relatively faster since, well, I only need to consult myself!

I'm hoping people will be "game" and come in with the view of trying to have real discussion on important issues. If people just want to burn the place down that will obviously be a major downer. There's nothing to gain here for me, other than wanting to see solid debate and discussion happening, and feeling like our community is well suited to it. Hopefully, you all can bear with me while I work out the kinks at the start.

I mean the thread may as well be locked at this point since we're at maximum mod-shrug.

There's obvious problem posters, multiple users can point them out, but since the problem posters are only trying to hijack a toy soldier forum to be a rightwing propaganda platform *politely* it's fine.

How about we ban future appeals of the politics ban rule? That way mods wouldn't have to bother retyping "we're not going to do our jobs" over and over.

 ScarletRose wrote:
I mean the thread may as well be locked at this point since we're at maximum mod-shrug.

There's obvious problem posters, multiple users can point them out, but since the problem posters are only trying to hijack a toy soldier forum to be a rightwing propaganda platform *politely* it's fine.

How about we ban future appeals of the politics ban rule? That way mods wouldn't have to bother retyping "we're not going to do our jobs" over and over.

Here we have a good example of the old politics thread post I described beforehand. The passive aggressiveness, the insults baked throughout. It's a rather good example of it.

How is determining bad-faith discussion more subjective than determining what is impolite? To me it seems less subjective, even. And aside from giving passive-aggressive insults a pass Mods do a pretty good job with rule 1.

 RiTides wrote:

Whembly, as one of the "minority view" posters who I would Definitely want to participate on the site...

Really? It frequently was not just a "minority" view, but a view that defied the reality around them that would devolve into page after page of him ignoring any and all rebuttals, and flat out lying at points. He's a major reason the politics thread was frequently derailed. He's probably the top problem poster everyone has been obliquely referring to. I have no issue with someone who wants to argue an unpopular opinion so long as they remain ground in facts, and are participating in good faith. This was not him, and there are literal years of proof of him engaging solely in bad faith. I know, because I actually looked when he claimed he couldn't think of a single instance and challenged anyone to prove him wrong.

And you know what he did when I presented him with the evidence of him using gish gallop, or moving the goalposts, or pretending to have never had conversations about X topic? He posted a handful of times trying to say that it was "a difference of opinion" that he posted 10 links and admitted to not reading them. He denied that he committed any sort of bad faith in doing so, and then later he edited his posts to just be a stupid meme about 20 times over.

I'm not looking for any sort of retroactive mod action, you all missed your time window of literal years, but I want you to actually think about if that's the type of person you want there. Does nothing else matter if they're "civil"?

Also, if Rule 1 is so important, why hasn't Reavsie faced judgment for name-calling? And don't say you didn't see their post, you literally thanked them for their input. Does civility matter, or does it not? Honestly, this isn't even a unique situation to this thread. This is typical mod action, or lack thereof, that I used to see on this site all the time. The mod team isn't even consistent in enforcing the rules, and if this is any indication of how your political forum will be run, I'm also suspecting that it won't work, but for different reasons than they had. It'll just be dakkadakka OT politics 1.1 at best, and dakkadakka OT politics 1.0 was an unmitigated failure, emphasis on "unmitigated." Basically, a different skin, different URL, same rules, same problems.

 RiTides wrote:
If you advocate violence, you'd be gone.

We had people here advocating for and defending worse who did not get punished because they were "civil". Call me rude or harsh, but I don't believe you will take action unless they're explicitly screaming about it. As far as I can tell mods only take action in extreme situations and let everything else slide. You've drawn an incredibly arbitrary and "subjective" line that it's impossible to determine bad faith, but civility is key... except when it isn't apparently. Or maybe it's just "subjective," or different rules apply if they praise the mods after insulting users I guess.

I know I may sound overly critical and harsh, but it's because the OT mods failed in the politics threads. Badly. There were clear cases of bad faith, and people seeking to just stir the pot, and wind everyone up, and the mod team let them for years. You've even GUSHED about one of them here. Am I supposed to really believe you'd treat them fairly and moderate their bad faith posting after you both have not for years, and then proceeded to explain how you'd protect them from "abuse" as you called it? What about the rest of your potential posters, are they not entitled to a forum where people participate in good faith?

Wolf blade, your quote tags are messed up.