[serious] Off Topic Moderation Input - Part 2

[Kidlicious]

They hate our tradition

[Aeson]

OT Rules/Conduct Discussion

What rule changes would you like to see? Or are things the way they should be? All input welcome. Ming is apparently chomping at the bit to have something to enforce.

For my part I am committed to stop participating in spiteful (even feigned) discussions, and also from long/boring exchanges. As a matter of self-improvement and focusing on more productive uses of my time, regardless of what the rules are/will be.

If forum wide changes aren't necessary, just the need for "places of refuge", perhaps we could revisit the [serious] thread tag and/or something along the lines of [civil] to allow humor and friendly ribbing but not spite/hate. They won't work unless strictly enforced of course.

[Ben Kenobi]

I think the real solution instead of an imposed one is to simple *ask* that poster X not post in your thread, rather than some heavy handed moderation solution. It's a social problem with a social solution.

I've mostly abided by my personal rule of not posting my own political threads. I'm willing to abide with the "do not post in my threads" with one exception - anything concerning the Catholic church. Given that it's my faith I think it should be fair game. I think both of these is a good compromise. People get some of what they want, I get some of what I want. I've already sort of done that by signaling what threads I won't post in, "ie, threads with ****" in the title. That seemed to be working well.

Also - the whole, 'post is boring, let's ban, seems to me an even WORSE idea. Who defines 'boring'?

Also, I'd like to see a return of the rule of deleting threads attacking posters. We had that before. Posters right now feel that they are free to say whatever they like without repercussions. That's not really helping things. Poster A says that Poster B is the devil, and then goes around attacking poster B for 'making arguments he doesn't like. The inmates run the asylum now, Aeson.

But I'm not sure any of this will resolve the core issue, of people not wanting to read opinions that they disagree with being contrary to what's in the best interest of Poly. I think, really, the best solution is to just tell the folks who are complaining about views they don't like to just live with it. The more they feel that their views ought to be catered to in moderation, the demands will continue. If they feel that by complaining enough they will get what they will want - you've established a reward cycle.

I really suggest, for once, not rewarding them.

[Elok]

Spite/hate could be somewhat subjective and hard to quantify for the purposes of discipline.

[Aeson]

Yah, they would need to be spelled out more clearly if such a rule was made.

[giblets]

Ban triple (and quadruple, etc.) posting, if someone wants to respond to multiple posts they should use the multi quote feature.

[Kidlicious]

Ban triple (and quadruple, etc.) posting, if someone wants to respond to multiple posts they should use the multi quote feature.

Why?

[giblets]

If I'm ignoring Ben I don't want and entire page full of hidden Ben posts.

[Kidlicious]

I hate to even ask, but can we not implement excessive rules? How about the important things like not calling people child molesters etc?

[Aeson]

Also, I'd like to see a return of the rule of deleting threads attacking posters. We had that before. Posters right now feel that they are free to say whatever they like without repercussions. That's not really helping things. Poster A says that Poster B is the devil, and then goes around attacking poster B for 'making arguments he doesn't like. The inmates run the asylum now, Aeson.

I am ok with this. Though it would need to include indirect attacks (attacking stereotypes) to be even-handed.

[Ben Kenobi]

like not calling people child molesters etc?

Yeah, that's a bit excessive. Once or twice, ok. 17 times in the same thread?

[giblets]

Is it okay to say someone has a child molester mustache?

[giblets]

I would like to politely ask Kidicious, Ben Kenobi and AAHZ to never post in my threads again.

[C0ckney]

it seems to me that we have three choices. we can either

a) ban ben
b) continue as we are now
c) show a bit of restraint when dealing with him

unfortunately c) is a lot like b) in practice. i doubt making new rules will really work. ben/others will find a way around them and it will, as elok rightly said in the other thread, lead to a lot of passive-aggressive nonsense and endless whining.

[Elok]

After some thought, I think the most helpful rule (grudging credit to BK for this) would be "if the thread starter tells you to get your bull**** out of his thread, you obey," and it has teeth. You can't ban specific posters, but if I start a thread to discuss social change with C0ckney, and BK comes in to try and segue that into yet another discussion of gays, I should have the right to say "Get your own thread, or it's " Possibly we could be flexible with "thread starter" to include posters who were clearly key players in the original conversation, so in that case C0ckney. Maybe we could be flexible in other ways too, but the right to have a clear discussion space would help a lot.

Rules on personal attacks probably wouldn't hurt too much, but I think they'd be less immediately helpful. Some of us are more aggressive than others, and almost all of us slip sometimes, and most of the time we deal with it okay. Threads with titles like "[poster] eats donkey smeg" are in poor taste, but they also tend to sink like rocks because fights between two posters are usually only interesting to those two posters.