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So after the amazing shit show that was Gabe and Michelle crapping all over the message board here I think it is a good time to ask this question.

 

What happened here is ridiculous, two people were allowed to run wild like a couple of monkeys flinging shit everywhere.  Regardless of who you want to see as wrong or right there the fact remains that they were allowed to carry on completely unchecked.

 

Why?  Light moderation is one thing but why should two defective people be allowed to run wild like that?  Especially when others have been kicked off for doing the same?

 

Didn’t we kick off Beezodog for hijacking threads and not letting an argument die?

 

Of course that leads to another thing; we have some loose rules but they never seem to be enforced, why?



So what is it, do we have an enforce rules or can people just do whatever they like?  Because it mostly looks like people can just act however they want…

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Mike, you seem to have misundertood my statement-- it had no reference to experience.  

Read again?
 
Chitown_Mike said:

That is a silly statement.  If you've never moderated a forum before the LAST thing you want is people who don't know how to handle things to take the reins.  Or have a friend that abuses power and the admins don't stop the abuse.  I have seen more forums go under because the admin appointed friends and when complaints came up nothing was done.

If you have a good framework for mods to work in, why not have some with experience?  I'd volunteer but then I'd be suspect (for whatever reason) as be the last person who should get the job, despite having moderated before.

h' 1.0 said:

I agree 100% with Dave, and would also offer--- anyone who would volunteer or ask to be a moderator should be firmly disqualified-- that's the last person you want for the job.

You're right, it just read that if someone asks they should be disqualified but didn't specify if they had experience.  Just wasn't clear but I see how I read that wrong too.

h' 1.0 said:

Mike, you seem to have misundertood my statement-- it had no reference to experience.  

Read again?
 
Chitown_Mike said:

That is a silly statement.  If you've never moderated a forum before the LAST thing you want is people who don't know how to handle things to take the reins.  Or have a friend that abuses power and the admins don't stop the abuse.  I have seen more forums go under because the admin appointed friends and when complaints came up nothing was done.

If you have a good framework for mods to work in, why not have some with experience?  I'd volunteer but then I'd be suspect (for whatever reason) as be the last person who should get the job, despite having moderated before.

h' 1.0 said:

I agree 100% with Dave, and would also offer--- anyone who would volunteer or ask to be a moderator should be firmly disqualified-- that's the last person you want for the job.

I am really wanting to know at this point why your beef with Michelle is so intensely personal.

Total garbage to use this thread to rekindle your hostility towards her.  If you have any genuine concern for this resource you'll show it by not getting additional jabs in.

How unexpected that the strongest advocates for "moderation" are those who are most in need of it themselves.


Nikul Shah said:

While you make some good points Simon, I don't believe Michelle or Vilda would have stopped. Their dynamic was destructive. I also apologize my own conduct in perpetuating Michelle's crusade. Nonetheless, those like Michelle who flip out over small offenses within the bounds of a large/diverse community and then proceed to hold the thread hostage until everyone complies (by taking action to stop anyone making a slur) will not simply be stopped by not engaging.

This community could use a moderator who would stop extremist whose conduct undermines the purpose of a thread or this website though.
 
Simon Phearson said:

... I really think the whole thing with Vilda would have tapered off if the rest of us didn't pile on trying to convince Michelle that she was being a jerk....

I won't pretend to have a crystal ball that tells me how things could have developed. The dynamic was destructive, and Vilda was clearly antagonizing Michelle, but I felt like there was an opportunity, early on, to deflect Vilda's attention and let Michelle naturally lose interest, if we all just dropped the discussion and convinced Vilda that it would be more amusing to treat Michelle like the child wailing for attention she clearly still is.

After a page or two of engagement with other members, Michelle said enough things about Vilda that I think Vilda felt it was too juicy an opportunity to pass up, and then we were off to the races. Still, I think a concerted effort, directed to Vilda, might have helped bring it to a halt. I think too many of us were focused on the person who didn't care what anyone else had to say.

Nikul Shah said:

While you make some good points Simon, I don't believe Michelle or Vilda would have stopped. Their dynamic was destructive. I also apologize my own conduct in perpetuating Michelle's crusade. Nonetheless, those like Michelle who flip out over small offenses within the bounds of a large/diverse community and then proceed to hold the thread hostage until everyone complies (by taking action to stop anyone making a slur) will not simply be stopped by not engaging.

This community could use a moderator who would stop extremist whose conduct undermines the purpose of a thread or this website though.
 
Simon Phearson said:

... I really think the whole thing with Vilda would have tapered off if the rest of us didn't pile on trying to convince Michelle that she was being a jerk....

This is exactly why "more moderation" is such a bad idea. How are any of us supposed to know that talking about a recent flame-war, in a thread about moderation inspired by that same flame-war, is actually off-topic? If you were enforcing the rules, would this have merited a "strike?" A "warning?" A non-rule-bound invocation of principle, implicitly backed by the threat of discipline?

I think we can learn a lot by thinking about that exchange and how we can adjust our behavior relative to it, while at the same time respecting this community and trying to make it better. Nikul was very active, in that other thread, in trying to find ways to convince Michelle to disengage or to redirect her energies in a way that wouldn't torpedo the thread. I think it's natural that he came out frustrated by the exchange; and I think it's appropriate to talk about that experience, if what we want to do is get this community to function better.

h' 1.0 said:

I am really wanting to know at this point why your beef with Michelle is so intensely personal.

Total garbage to use this thread to rekindle your hostility towards her.  If you have any genuine concern for this resource you'll show it by not getting additional jabs in.

How unexpected that the strongest advocates for "moderation" are those who are most in need of it themselves.


Nikul Shah said:

While you make some good points Simon, I don't believe Michelle or Vilda would have stopped. Their dynamic was destructive. I also apologize my own conduct in perpetuating Michelle's crusade. Nonetheless, those like Michelle who flip out over small offenses within the bounds of a large/diverse community and then proceed to hold the thread hostage until everyone complies (by taking action to stop anyone making a slur) will not simply be stopped by not engaging.

This community could use a moderator who would stop extremist whose conduct undermines the purpose of a thread or this website though.
 
Simon Phearson said:

... I really think the whole thing with Vilda would have tapered off if the rest of us didn't pile on trying to convince Michelle that she was being a jerk....

I think you have a dangerously inaccurate concept of how online communities succeed relative to problem behaviors.

If you want to extinguish a behavior you don't reward it with attention at all.

It's hard, but you'll just have to imagine that others are marveling at how clever you are by not responding.


Simon Phearson said:Still, I think a concerted effort, directed to Vilda, might have helped bring it to a halt.

Vilda struck me as receptive to arguments that, for the "greater good," it would be better to disengage. I don't think we could have done anything about Michelle. But I think repeated, polite, and sincere requests by community members, to Vilda, to stop antagonizing Michelle, while at the same time ignoring Michelle, might have helped put an end to the dynamic. 

No one here is evil or "full of maggots," as Michelle so colorfully averred. 

h' 1.0 said:

I think you have a dangerously inaccurate concept of how online communities succeed relative to problem behaviors.

If you want to extinguish a behavior you don't reward it with attention at all.

It's hard, but you'll just have to imagine that others are marveling at how clever you are by not responding.


Simon Phearson said:Still, I think a concerted effort, directed to Vilda, might have helped bring it to a halt.

Sorry, I know Vilda, as do many of us (you can tell who we are because we don't provoke Vilda) and there are only two things that would have got her to back down:

1) Thread dies because nobody is posting to it

2) Thread closed by admin.

And I'll bet she'll pop in any minute and back me up on this.

What this forum needs is a "basement" where threads like the one yesterday are sent to burn themselves out, away from the front page. 

There is moderation and there is moderation.  Closing a thread might plug the hole in the dike but if there is enough pressure the people involved will just move the argument to another thread and it'll all pop up again somewhere else.  

But if there was a way to just banish a thread to a basement holding area where those involved could continue on with their "fun" and cry it out at each other then those who don't want to see it on the front page don't have to look at it.  Put a link at the bottom of the forum page for "the basement" and that will take them to the threads that have been moved by moderators.  Have a warning dialog pop up when the link is clicked that tells the person that "here there may be dragons" and that children might be playing rough in the basement.  Enter at your own risk, yada-yada-yada...

It's a safety valve, a place for the kids to blow of their steam away from where the adults are talking. 


I've seen it done where email notification of new posts is disabled for threads in the basement which also tends to cool them off faster.  People really have to WANT to keep engaging if they dont' get an instant notification that a new post was made.  Instead they have to keep reloading and checking the thread manually.

This would be an easy thing to moderate too.  When a thread seems like it is getting out of hand just kick it downstairs.  People can still participate if they want to so it's not as likely to piss people off about "over-moderation." 

It's win-win for everyone (except the control freaks who just NEED to tell people what they can and can't say, and demand that they are to shut up if they don't get their way.

Howard I love you. 

Doug and Bedno have personal grudges. Let 'em run through whatever that is..

I enjoyed the nutbag that was "Michelle". She was NEVER going to stop being a terribly annoying subhuman that flat out said she didn't care about derailing a thread. What is the point in being kind to a buffoon like that?

h' 1.0 said:

Sorry, I know Vilda, as do many of us (you can tell who we are because we don't provoke Vilda) and there are only two things that would have got her to back down:

1) Thread dies because nobody is posting to it

2) Thread closed by admin.

And I'll bet she'll pop in any minute and back me up on this.

Starting to seriously question your sanity here.  You made it your personal mission to "take her on" and just kept attacking her from any direction via any perceived opening. 

If this forum had, in your words, "a moderator who would stop extremist whose conduct undermines the purpose of a thread or this website," your account would have been deactivated along with hers yesterday.


Nikul Shah said:

I don't have a beef with Michelle nor is it personal. If anything, I'm a little saddened her passion and energy couldn't be refocused more constructively.

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