[serious] Off Topic Moderation Input - Part 2

[Felch]

Mods are doing things now? WTF?

[MikeH]

WTF?! We haven't actually done anything have we?

[notyoueither]

I probably see about 1% of what's posted here, I just don't have much time to visit. I only saw this stuff because it was pervading just about every thread. Which is really why it's a problem. When almost every thread is a running battle between Kid and Ming it's basically ruining the forum for everyone. Certainly for me. I can only tolerate the place with Kid and Ben on ignore as it is. Probably that's good reason for them to be banned, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

The things you mentioned probably aren't acceptable, it might depend on context. Asking someone for info about themselves is probably ok, even if it's repeatedly, that's just boring.

Are you unaware of the abuse that was piled on Ecofarm? The forum was made hostile to him in any and every thread he posted in with comments about him being a ped, demands for information about his academic work, and incidences of stalking IIRC.

Is that sort of behaviour going to be disallowed for everyone? Yes or no? If yes then people might report it. If no, why bother?

Might be handy to hear from Aeson about this as well.

I'm not against kidvicious defaming Ming as the spark for this, btw. If it took someone on the inside to make the case that the lack of boundaries is making the site unusable for some under some circumstances then that's what it took.

[MikeH]

I don't know who Ecofarm is.

[MikeH]

Found the user but seems to have no posts, or the search doesn't return them.

Was this while I was moderator?

[MikeH]

BTW I think there are some boundaries since I've been moderator, but I'm not around enough to enforce them.

[100% Wolf]

Found the user but seems to have no posts, or the search doesn't return them.

Was this while I was moderator?

Search function must be broken because he's clearly getting trolled in this thread:

http://apolyton.net/showthread.php/191235-Thread-in-which-we-give-Ecofarm-grounds-to-accuse-us-of-paedophilia

[MikeH]

2010? Right. Seems like I posted in that thread, but have no recollection of it.

[100% Wolf]

Are you sure you posted in it?

[Sava]

HAHAHAHA BEN KKENOBI **** TRIED FALSELY ACCUSING ME OF MAKING DEATH THREATS AGAIN

HAR AHRHRAHR RAHR H

you are such a pathetic little loser

That's twice in, what, two or three months?

should be a bannable offense

[Sava]

also, the little creep loves to harass women on facebook

[notyoueither]

also, the little creep loves to harass women on facebook

What's the story with that?

[Kidlicious]

What's the story with that?

Thought you were trying to lead us out of the ****.

[Aeson]

I've been busy the last couple days and wasn't able to see a lot of what was going on. I've gone through the threads and it looks like the participants in all the current conflicts are participating voluntarily. I want to reiterate a couple points though:

- MikeH is a saint and you should cherish him as a moderator. Neither Ming or I are nearly so patient. Bear that in mind going forward ...

- Death threats are not ok. (I haven't seen any posts which qualify recently.)

- If you have a real problem with what another poster is doing, please notify me or one of the other admins/moderators about it privately rather than attack publicly. If you're playing the same game they are, I'm going to assume it's consensual. That will make it very hard to make a case for moderation that doesn't include yourself being moderated as well. So just keep that in mind.

- We used to have a rule, "discuss the topic, not the poster". We could go back to this if people in the OT want. I want to keep the OT rules serving the posters here, since that's the only reason it's here.

- For now the rule is more "discuss the topic, another topic, or the poster's failings as a human, not their ethnicity/sexuality in a hatespeech sort of way". Some of the gender and nationality/ethnicity bashing that's been going on lately is pushing it. If it's kept as a joke that's one thing, but when it becomes outright bigotry that's another. As with the last point, consensual is ok ... but when you're using stereotypes (especially very negative ones with loaded words) you're making it much less likely your fight is consensual with all parties concerned. If we get complaints from people who are hit with or disgusted by collateral damage on those types of topics there will likely be moderation, especially if it's an on-going issue. All the bans that have happened in recent years have fallen under this rule.

- Fights spilling into other threads does become an issue if it happens too much. I don't know if there's a good way to deal with it, but I am open for suggestions. The ignore feature and ignore in quotes can help but aren't complete measures.

[Kidlicious]

I think it should be against the rules to refer to people as pedophiles, woman beaters etc,