Moderation?

[hilary]

I can't answer that. The 'report post' button means I will come look at what's happening, and decide what to do, if anything. I can't promise it'll be what you expected/wanted me to do.

At the moment that little triangle lives in something of a vacuum, since I haven't really said what to report or what to expect. And where I have said what to expect (eg that Open Space isn't moderated at all), this isn't necessarily very clear, or a very good idea. These things will be changed, hopefully even improved.

 

[dobro p]

Recent 'discussions' - heh - have led to several people suggesting that these forums would be a better place for some more moderation. In the sense of 'forum moderation', that is. A plain rule about no personal attacks (for instance), and clear measures taken to enforce it, like warnings, post deletions, suspensions.

I'm not going to vote in the poll because I don't think it matters much to me whatever happens. I've been on enough online forums, ranging from full-on flamefests to Prebyterianly-moderated, to know that wherever you set the Line of Socially Acceptable Behavior on your forum, some people will feel comfortable with it and some people will feel uncomfortable with it. I've seen people who enjoy flame wars leave sites because of more stringent moderation. I've seen people who don't enjoy flame wars leave sites because there wasn't more moderation. As far as your role of site manager goes, I think that although it's awfully democratic of you to poll public opinion on this matter, that what it all comes down to is what sort of person you'd like to be happy here - the ones who are happier toward the anarchic end of the scale, or the ones who are happier knowing that their feelings aren't going to be bruised very often. And of course, now that you've raised the issue and asked people what they think and how they feel, you're going to offend *somebody* lol. And there will be no need for moderation in any of this lol.

 

[AltVis8D]

Hilary,

The difference of a 'flag' button, that it is public as well as being anonymous, is important I think (you asked, I'm too lazy to quote you). Because it serves as 'public notice'; it therefore is designed to assist the 'offender' away from evidently unacceptable behavior without being offended in turn by the 'offendee'. This amounts to self-policing; i.e., the offender has feedback on their behavior which they may or may not choose to respond to, and the community has a mechanism for shunning or addressing the offense, or for disregarding the flag altogether if it is evidently 'false'.
The above scenario would involve very little extra effort on your part, assuming the software would allow it.
A work-around for the moment would be for you to be able to somehow publicly flag any reported posts without acting in any way to pass judgment - you're just passing information along.
Anyway, that's the importance of the public and anonymous indicator IMO.

thanks, be well,
J.

 

[AltVis8D]

privileged to be #63?

Hilary,

The difference of a 'flag' button, that it is public as well as being anonymous, is important I think (you asked, I'm too lazy to quote you). Because it serves as 'public notice'; it therefore is designed to assist the 'offender' away from evidently unacceptable behavior without being offended in turn by the 'offendee'. This amounts to self-policing; i.e., the offender has feedback on their behavior which they may or may not choose to respond to, and the community has a mechanism for shunning or addressing the offense, or for disregarding the flag altogether if it is evidently 'false'.
The above scenario would involve very little extra effort on your part, assuming the software would allow it.
A work-around for the moment would be for you to be able to somehow publicly flag any reported posts without acting in any way to pass judgment - you're just passing information along.
Anyway, that's the importance of the public and anonymous indicator IMO.

thanks, be well,
J.

 

[AltVis8D]

mangled...

:bag:

 

[proserpine]

I hadn't known there was a 'flag" button either.
I saw a few posts, very few, where somene was too outspoken in what I thought was an unpleasant or tactless way.
I moved on from the post usuallly, because while a good debate is cool sometimes, I had no time for it..and I mean no time sincerely.
And it really wasn't a debate, it was more of an attitude, and like Chris said--everyone gets them sometimes.
I didn't know Twilight, am curious as to which method he used for moving lines, Trojan.
I do usually go from 1st line up, and there are more in- depth methods to use. I don't care for the methods that involve only reading 1 or 2 of the moving lines.
It's interesting though that someone named Twilight was controversial, and finally asked to be removed from here, because in another forum with astrology students, a person calling himself Twilight became controversial, and finally left again of his own volition.

 

[proserpine]

There is another quot thst I like much like the Jeff Goldblum character''s which was quoted here.And that one is 'We can drive nature out with a pitchfork, but she will still have her way"

 

[javalava]

welcome back, Karen

 

[Trojina]

I didn't know Twilight, am curious as to which method he used for moving lines, Trojan.
I do usually go from 1st line up, and there are more in- depth methods to use. I don't care for the methods that involve only reading 1 or 2 of the moving lines.
It's interesting though that someone named Twilight was controversial, and finally asked to be removed from here, because in another forum with astrology students, a person calling himself Twilight became controversial, and finally left again of his own volition.

Have a look at Sparhawks post 9 on this thread. http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?t=8141

As Twilights posts are deleted we can't read what he said about it but the method is expained via the link to Steve Marshalls site.

I don't think he was being particularly contoversial he was just giving another way to read the oracle.

 

[hilary]

What Chris said - the forum needs purple.

Hilary,

The difference of a 'flag' button, that it is public as well as being anonymous, is important I think (you asked, I'm too lazy to quote you). Because it serves as 'public notice'; it therefore is designed to assist the 'offender' away from evidently unacceptable behavior without being offended in turn by the 'offendee'. This amounts to self-policing; i.e., the offender has feedback on their behavior which they may or may not choose to respond to, and the community has a mechanism for shunning or addressing the offense, or for disregarding the flag altogether if it is evidently 'false'.
The above scenario would involve very little extra effort on your part, assuming the software would allow it.
A work-around for the moment would be for you to be able to somehow publicly flag any reported posts without acting in any way to pass judgment - you're just passing information along.
Anyway, that's the importance of the public and anonymous indicator IMO.

thanks, be well,
J.

Yes, I see what you mean. Potentially useful feedback - someone thinks you're out of line here - but no big fuss and noone is being 'voted off'.

Looking at my moderator's display here, there are two possibly-useful buttons on each post. One is the warning triangle, the 'report post' button; the other is a charming little picture of red and yellow cards, and is an 'infraction' button.

The Warrior Forum (which is about 500 times bigger than this and has a much greater problem with all kinds of unwanted posts) allows and encourages all members to use both.

'Report post' is just for spammers, and gets the spammer dealt with by moderators. They have this cleverly set up so when a post is reported it disappears into 'moderated' status and no-one sees it until the moderator says so. (Mmph... looks like that's done with an old add-on, goodness knows if it will work with the latest version of the software...)

The infraction button comes with various options - it can be used with a 'points' system so people get automatically suspended once they incur a certain number of points. But at WF it's used just for one member to 'warn' another, without informing any moderators or creating any penalties. That, I think, will make the post appear publicly 'flagged' to everyone until the warning expires (they've set them to expire in an hour).

So that would be an option - to make the infraction button visible to all, and use it just for warnings rather than penalty points.

As a positive counterbalance to all this, I hope to install this modification, templates permitting.

 

[richard50]

No more moderation, but perhaps arguing one's stance reflects doubt.

 

[Trojina]

Hilary whatever this flagging system turns out to be for goodness sake make it simple or Bamboo and I will never figure out how to use it

 

[heylise]

I am not really happy about the idea of anonymous visible flagging. What if you have been sweating on a post and someone feels offended? Flag! ..who did that??? Suspicion, or insecurity, whatever. But just a little button to bring it under Hilary's attention, that seems quite handy to me. Not sure if it is handy for Hilary. It might be that some don't stop emailing her that she HAS to do something about that post.

Been looking at the 'thing' for stopping post boosting. Seems to me not a problem we have here. But maybe I didn't see the subtle nuances.

The red and yellow cards.. ummm, at left top of the posts?? Oh, here they are blue and just say 'old', so that is different. I don't dare to click on it, who knows what might happen...

 

[heylise]

Oo, just tells me if I have seen that post already (old) or if it is new (unread).

 

[hilary]

The red/yellow cards are only visible to moderators, so you won't be able to see them (yet). The Warrior Forum has made everyone a moderator, just in the sense that they can issue 'warnings'.

I'm not sure about the merits of this idea, either. It could be set so the person sending the warning must also PM you to say what they mean. Or we could not bother with this at all, and just use the 'report post' button when needed. (It saves trying to explain it to Trojan, too. )

The 'post thanks' thing is just a nice counterbalance to all this reporting and warning. It gives you a way to say 'thank you, great post' in one click, and it means that as well as seeing how many people are complaining about someone, I (and everyone else) can see how many people are thanking them. It's just it looks as though it might be fiddly to set up in our much-customised template, so I can't absolutely promise I can do this.

 

[Sparhawk]

Hilary whatever this flagging system turns out to be for goodness sake make it simple or Bamboo and I will never figure out how to use it

Here's my clear flag message:

 

[Sparhawk]

 

[rodaki]

maybe Hilary you could arrange it so that when a post is reported you can just forward a notification to inform the poster that people feel uncomfortable? or perhaps do that after a couple of complaints?
that would also leave it up to them to go back and see how they might have been offensive
. . I don't know if that would appease the situation or make it worse though . .

p.s.: I agree too with LiSe on anonymous flagging . .

 

[maremaria]

I also don’t like anonymous flagging. I find it more dangerous than useful. Also I don’t understand why a flagged for one hour post will stop someone from doing the “offensive thing”. How that works in the forum you mentioned ?

Report button seems enough. Maybe the one reports the post could write why s/he reports it and maybe the moderator could post an answer but not sure if that is helpful. Hmm… sounds like a court hearing. Anyway, my point is that the more clean and clear the procedures are the better.

 

[Trojina]

Here's my clear flag message:

well everyone knows you'd prefer a flogging message to a flagging message

 

[hilary]

I'm not sure how things work in the Warrior Forum - I suppose potentially in a place that has rules like 'no affiliate links in your signature' it could be useful for a member to point this out to someone. I just skimmed a thread about 'being a better member moderator', and reading between the lines it seems not everyone is using it as intended.

Looks like we could have...

• anonymous public flagging/warning
• or non-anonymous public flagging/warning (if you flag a post you must also send the person a note at the same time)
• and/or anonymous private post-reporting - that is, obviously I/ moderators (or not... don't worry, Luis) know about the report & who sent it, but no-one else knows it exists at all

Maybe it's simplest just to stick with the report button?

By the way, about timing for all this. I need to set aside a full day for the techie stuff, and I'd better make that a weekday in case things blow up and I need to reach tech support. Actually, make that two days. Mmph. It's looking like next Wednesday (22nd) at the earliest.

 

[Trojina]

whats puzzling me Hilary is how you think having a flagging button or whatever it is will make an improvement to shredded readings ? I thought you wanted more people to go there, not less. At one point i thought all this was about making shredded readings area better, (maybe it never was.).. but it seems to have drifted off into strange discussions about buttons which in themselves will probably turn out to be more inflammatory than anything else...so when someone says 'sorry to have pressed your buttons' it will be literal...er anyway yes maybe you 'd be better to stick to the report button as it is now...

 

[my_key]

I've asked myself the question
What would I like to see Shared Readings operate as in the future?

1) A place for I Ching readers to gain other people's insights into their questions after having an attempt thereselves to interpret.
2) A place for anyone to contribute to other peoples understanding of the oracle.
3) A place where all feel welcome.
4) A safe place - allow all contributions to be respected.
5) A safe place - where lack of respect is moderated appropriately. ( Hilary's rules OK)
6) A safe place - where people can flag there feelings of lack of respect being shown and own the flagging. (Anonymous - tastes all wrong to me)
7) A place of learning.

Mike

 

[hilary]

Mike, I think you're going to enjoy this reading, too.

 

[my_key]

Yes I did. Well done you.

 

[rizinrico]

ah to moderate or not to moderate. we dont need no stinkin moderation...let each say whatever it is they have to say and allow each member to ignore the posting of any individual that they find distasteful or rude or ...
giving the individual the rigbt to ignore the posting of someone they consider "fill in the blank" will give that person moderation rights over another individual but to protect all of us from an individual when they can do no harm (unless I give him/her the power to harm me) seems unnecessary and improper.
so flame away my friends but if you find yourself all alone posting at the screen because no one is actually reading your rant you may need to reconsider your position - very healthy. and if i agree with the flamer i should have the right to add fuel to the fire (even tho we may be the only two dancing around the fire)

 

[chandoneam]

"Everything in moderation, (including) moderation?"

 

[chandoneam]

Harvest

Am tying expanse to determination through capitulation ;-)

 

[Sparhawk]

I have the distinct feeling that some characters are creating bogus accounts just to vote and push the poll in their preferred direction... Good thing IP addresses don't lie.

 

[hilary]

You're kidding? Surely people have better things to do? Well, I can check.