A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

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Vorpal
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by Vorpal »

Abusive, for the purposes of this forum is being rude, insulting or offensive; engaging in ad hominem attacks, etc.

There is a certain amount of judgement by the moderators, and we do not always see when people post potentially abusive material, so it is important that you report it when
-you feel that someone is being abusive
-you see posts that the victim may feel is abusive
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mikeymo
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by mikeymo »

thirdcrank wrote:A bit like racism, this is one of those things where the view of people who feel they are on the receiving end is paramount.

ie If somebody finds the environment hostile, it's not their fault.


I disagree.
Bonefishblues
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by Bonefishblues »

mikeymo wrote:
thirdcrank wrote:A bit like racism, this is one of those things where the view of people who feel they are on the receiving end is paramount.

ie If somebody finds the environment hostile, it's not their fault.


I disagree.

I don't
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Paulatic
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by Paulatic »

Bonefishblues wrote:
mikeymo wrote:
thirdcrank wrote:A bit like racism, this is one of those things where the view of people who feel they are on the receiving end is paramount.

ie If somebody finds the environment hostile, it's not their fault.


I disagree.

I don't


I think it’s a grey area.
Having come under the eye of moderation last week it’s still quite uppermost in my mind. To be fair the notification did start with
You may not realise but your post sounds **

Whilst I accept without argument that my post had been reported and yes it must have upset someone. I consequently apologised personally to the party involved.
I’ve read that post over many times and my problem is I can’t see myself writing it any different in the future. It’s exactly what I would say to anyone out on the bike with me. Maybe we can speak a bit blunt or direct up north but do we all on this forum have to adapt a level of language which even the most fragile won’t find hostile? I don’t think that’s going to be easy. The last thread I read before writing this was disheartening to see how easily some are offended. Or was it faux upset with an agenda? No one will ever know not even a moderator.
I think I’ve always hoped the way to avoid not being PC is by being factual. That idea failed me in my recent transgression and has left me a little wary.
Vorpal has posted a helpful definition of Abusive for this forum
Vorpal wrote:Abusive, for the purposes of this forum is being rude, insulting or offensive; engaging in ad hominem attacks, etc.
or is it? Over 50 years later I can still hear my English teacher warning us on the pitfalls in the use of 'etc'.
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DevonDamo
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by DevonDamo »

Paulatic wrote:I’ve read that post over many times and my problem is I can’t see myself writing it any different in the future. It’s exactly what I would say to anyone out on the bike with me. Maybe we can speak a bit blunt or direct up north but do we all on this forum have to adapt a level of language which even the most fragile won’t find hostile?


It is in no way normal in forum moderation for the content of posts to be micro-managed in this way. Whether or not the form of words you've used can be misinterpreted is not the business of a moderator. It's a forum - i.e. a place of discussion - so misunderstandings and disagreements can, and should, be settled between users. Genuinely profane, abusive or threatening language are, of course, fair game for moderation - although even here, most forums 'self police' because keyboard warriors and 'Mr Angrys' quickly realise its not the way to win friends and influence people. I don't know whether the content you had deleted was threatening or abusive but, as a result of my own experiences, I can well believe that you've had content deleted or edited without valid reason.

Coming back to Si's 'thesis.' Good points were made about the difficulty of moderating both in terms of workload and in navigating the tricky waters of subjectivity when it comes to what is, and what isn't, acceptable forum language. Having mulled this problem over a bit longer, I've actually come up with a suggestion. In cases where a moderator decides they intend to modify what a user has written (i.e. where the tone of the thread is being 'curated,' as opposed to specific, citable, abusive/profane/threatening posts simply being deleted) then they should seek a second opinion from another moderator. This would not apply to the day-to-day moderation workload of deleting spam/profanities/etc but it would go a long way to preventing questionable subjective judgement calls being made.
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by thirdcrank »

Just to clarify my "eye of the beholder" comment

It was specifically about people who visit the forum and feel discouraged for one reason or another to the extent that either they don't post or just never return. I see that as a loss to the forum. I doubt moderation is a solution.

Speaking for myself, AIUI, the only reason the then CTC high command (Kevin Mayne?) agreed to continue with the forum was on condition that it was moderated. So, moderation is presumably a condition for the continued existence of this forum. End of.

I felt OK on the old unmoderated forum and I could comfortably return to that. I can see a lot of selfless effort goes into the forum but from my POV it's largely wasted effort, except that there would be no forum without it.

Beyond that compulsory moderation, I don't think some understand how much irritation is prevented by the invisible work of the spambusters. I don't do much in the way of social media but I think the nuts-and-bolts admin is top-rate compared with some I've experienced.

I'm a supporter of free speech but I don't feel obliged to give anybody a free audience, so if I feel a regular poster is not adding value I turn them off. I presume others do that with me and fair enough. Ideally, if a member engaged with somebody who had them on their foe list, a voice like Nelson Eddy's would pipe up "I'm ignoring you-oo-oo-oo-oo."
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by Jdsk »

thirdcrank wrote:... but I think the nuts-and-bolts admin is top-rate compared with some I've experienced.

Agreed.

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ncutler
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by ncutler »

DevonDamo wrote: then they should seek a second opinion from another moderator. This would not apply to the day-to-day moderation workload of deleting spam/profanities/etc but it would go a long way to preventing questionable subjective judgement calls being made.

This happens from time to time. As you might expect there is a mods' private area containing a collection of topics sharing concerns about posts, members, suspected commercial pushers and various other worries.

Another technique is simply to leave a report unactioned in the hope that another mod will have an opinion and deal with it.

Also, if not too pressed for time, PMs get sent to members about reports they have raised, and PMs get sent to members who have posted something that is dubious.

I agree that there can appear to be too much moderation, and we can't hide from the 'culture war' that is being waged in some circles, or from the varying notions about PCness, free speech, and what have you ( is that any better than 'etc ? ).

I always have in mind a member from a while ago who would log on to the forum with her daughter after school; I think it's essential that members like that feel entirely at home and comfortable with reading and posting here. I accept that this might not be entirely to the liking of the more robust roadies ..... but I'm sure they are sufficiently self confident to handle it.
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by Bonefishblues »

thirdcrank wrote:Just to clarify my "eye of the beholder" comment

It was specifically about people who visit the forum and feel discouraged for one reason or another to the extent that either they don't post or just never return. I see that as a loss to the forum. I doubt moderation is a solution.


That's how I understood your comments. It's not a grey area if someone new reports this is how the Forum appears to them as a new user, as someone did last week - it is what it is.
thirdcrank
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by thirdcrank »

ncutler wrote:... I always have in mind a member from a while ago who would log on to the forum with her daughter after school; I think it's essential that members like that feel entirely at home and comfortable with reading and posting here. I accept that this might not be entirely to the liking of the more robust roadies ..... but I'm sure they are sufficiently self confident to handle it.


And that's important. In the days when we had debates about swearing, I'm sure I made the point about the tone of a place. If you go into Bettys tearooms, you don't expect people to talk in the same way as a transport caff, but you shouldn't have to tolerate nastiness in either and if somewhere aims to be for families, then that's everybody in a family. And the last thing you need is disputes about whether this or that constitutes swearing.
DevonDamo
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by DevonDamo »

ncutler wrote:Another technique is simply to leave a report unactioned in the hope that another mod will have an opinion and deal with it.


I guess this is the heart of the matter, i.e. those judgements where you think "I'll leave that one for the night shift..." I strongly believe the default position should be to leave these ones up. I accept that the inevitable result will be a few threads descending into nerd-wars, but the alternative risks someone making a bad judgement which leaves at least one of the parties feeling aggrieved and an enmity or unresolved argument waiting to bubble to the surface later. We saw it with the many Brexit threads - deleting/editing was just pouring petrol on a fire which kept flaring up in other threads. A more effective approach would have been to simply delete any posts which crossed a clearly-understood line, i.e. insults, threats etc. This will still allow devious sods like myself to find creative ways of expressing how unimpressed I am with another's point of view, but it should still result in threads that pass the 'not traumatising other forum members' daughters' test. And the "I'm sick of this infernal debate" argument has always been bogus - as with discussions about bike clip development in the 1920s, you won't read them, or be bothered by them, if they genuinely don't interest you.

So here's a further refinement on my previous suggestion:

1. Moderators should never edit people's posts, beyond simple deletion of profanities. This should be a matter of simple courtesy/common sense: people do not look kindly on their words being altered by someone else at the best of times, let alone when they are in the midst of a debate/dispute.

2. Any time a moderator decides to take action on a post based on a subjective judgement of its tone/content, then they should cut and paste that entire post into a PM to the offending party before deleting the entire post. That leaves the door open for a second opinion on that judgement call.

3. A straightforward list of what's acceptable and what's not would be needed in order to adjudicate on disputed judgement calls. I don't think this should be a problem providing we're adopting a 'benefit of the doubt' approach to moderation. Apart from the profanities/direct insults/threats, other criteria could be added as needed. A good example has been issues relating to Covid 19 and the vaccine. The approach you took was that people wouldn't be allowed to keep raising points if they'd not addressed well-evidenced responses when they'd previously raised that same point. This was a pragmatic and effective way of tackling persistent harmful misinformation.
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by mikeymo »

thirdcrank wrote:
ncutler wrote:If you go into Bettys tearooms, you don't expect people to talk in the same way as a transport caff...


for non-Yorkshire readers, Bettys is a small chain of six genteel tea-rooms up here. Very nice, and fairly expensive.

https://www.bettys.co.uk/cafe-tea-rooms
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by Vorpal »

1) For the most part, people will receive a warning in some form before anything happens. The warning may be public or private; i.e. a note on the thread to 'argue nicely' or pms asking them to tone it down, avoid a phrase they have used, etc.
2) We do try to preserve the reasons for moderation, especially if it is extensive.

The problem with 'moderators should never edit' is that if someone writes 3 paragraphs,, and 1 includes personal attacks & insults, we are faced with the choice of removing the whole post, or editing it. If it has been quoted in a number of posts, before a moderator takes action, we are faced with the choice of removing multiple posts--most of which likely have valid and interesting contributions--or editing only those which quote the removed material. Sometimes, the discussion has moved on by the time a moderator is aware of the problem.

It would actually, in most cases, be easier just to remove the post & all of the ones quoting it. Instead, we usually try to leave relevant discussions intact, and remove only the insults & personal attacks, and responses to them. Sometimes, personal attacks or insults are intertwined with valid & on-topic arguments, in which case, it's a matter of the time available, number of posts, quoting, etc.

As for cutting & pasting the entire post in a pm, for every removed post, there would need to be other changes to the forum before I'd be willing to do that. If I'd had to do that with the Brexit thread, I'd have given up on it long before I did. If forumites wan to be able to discuss contentious issues on the forum, moderators need not to be loaded with burdensome requirements to quote and explain every moderation action.
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― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by 661-Pete »

Anyone who's got a gripe on here about moderation, clearly hasn't had the Independent's experience. I recently posted on there (under a different username) a jokey post containing a fictitious internet address. It wouldn't have offended anyone (with the possible exception of Donald Trump). But it was pounced on almost instantly by a moderator - presumably a robotic one. My guess is, "contains website address, ergo, out!"

Yes on here we do have a 'robotic' Mod, to filter out words like "[inappropriate word removed]" (sorry!). But for a final verdict I'm sure we all prefer the human touch. Thanks to Vorpal et al... :)

And yes I have been to Betty's - the one in Ilkley. A bit 'superior' for the likes of me! :oops:
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thirdcrank
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Re: A thesis on moderation and why it's crap for everyone

Post by thirdcrank »

And yes I have been to Betty's - the one in Ilkley. A bit 'superior' for the likes of me! :oops:


Did you forget your specs?

https://www.bettys.co.uk/cafe-tea-rooms ... tys-ilkley

(I can't attach the Bettys logo perhaps because it's an svg file.)
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