Possible changes to the warning/ban system

SAM, it was just an example of a situation where outside moderation makes sense (and I'm not saying Trippy even asked for it as I certainly don't know) because if in a heated debate like that Trippy was to turn around and ban him it certainly wouldn't appear impartial.

One can't expect anyone who is debating that vigorously to also be totally objective.

Anyone saying they are proves they aren't.

That's why judges who do this for a living recuse themselves from cases where they have personal interests.

Arthur

 

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And I'm saying that it is not a good example. Ice is obviously deeply interested in the issue, so shutting down a debate because you disagree with his POV and have moderator powers is a blatant misuse of such powers. A lot of earth science is interpretation of statistics. And even statisticians are known to disagree with each other. Suppressing one point of view because you are politically inclined to another is not how discussion forums work.

 

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And Trippy as the moderator and participant in the debate has not done that.

That's the point.

The only moderation, in the form of a warning, came from an impartial moderator.

Arthur

 

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I don't think there is anything wrong with the variable-length bans according to infractions. Two weeks for any given infraction is pretty heavy-handed.

Yeah I think its a ok to hand out infraction points for temporary bans.

Its hard to tell what role temporary bans hold over an individual. I guess it depends on the personality of the poster, what was going on at the time to make them transgress and how important they consider their place in the community.

I don't think you should abolish short bans in favor of 2 week bans, unless its your way of hoping some will ever return.

Proposal 1

I think the yellow cards a distraction and irrelevant. There is no reason to sew a daffodil letter over an avatar. If someone gets an infraction place it in their profile.

I don't think it matters how many points is given an infraction.

Two or three months for a warning seems a bit long.

Why should temporary ban points never expire? Does that mean if someone hasn't had a ban for 2 or 3 years it would follow them around like a bad credit rating? That's a little heavy handed too.

It might work like this, for example:

• Poster has 10 or fewer active infraction points: ban for anything up to 7 days at moderator discretion.

• Poster has 10-20 infraction points: standard-length ban for 2 weeks.

• Poster has more than 20 infraction points: ban for 2 weeks and the moderators will convene a group discussion concerning the poster's future on sciforums (i.e. whether to permanently ban the poster).


Seems reasonable.

Proposal 2

There is no need to hand out an infraction with every warning unless you're set on micromanagement. Ranking the severity of an infraction seems like a good idea at first but then you get into the hairy issue of whether the misdeed actually falls into the particular rank as perceived by all parties. .

Automatic bans are never desirable but perhaps sometimes necessary. I think there should be dialogue between the mod or admin and member before a permanent ban.

I very much like Randwolf's suggestion that people are engaged before strict measures are taken. Everyone should have a chance to explain their case, of course this would also be true for the mod or the person waging the complaint.

At the end of the day Sam is right in one respect, the rules are all fine and dandy but will never work if the integrity or willingness to be fair is absent on the part of the moderator. I don't particularly think there are evil mods out there trying to get us but I do think fairness of measure, flexibility as opposed to rigidity, a look at poster history and an attempt to hear the other side of the story is crucial in a good moderator. At the end of the day a mod's job is to keep the flow of discussion going and removing impediments to the flow of that discussion, nothing more. They are not there to make sure we are all nice or PC or anything else.

I don't envy your positions as mods. I'm not sure if there is a solution that would make everyone happy, the best we can hope for is a guided free flow discussion, not fascist micromanagement which is a headache for mods and members alike. Like any community we are all going to clash and freak out on one another at one point or another, however this doesn't mean we should always be sent to our rooms without supper.

Now having said all of that I am also aware that things are not as bad here as many would have it seem. If you were to change everything tomorrow to whatever suggestion predominates, I'm sure within a few weeks there will be another thread on the mistreatment of one member or another, a thread on why was so and so was banned and so on and so forth, yadda yadda yadda

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*trust me on that one*

 

That seems, to me, to require some sort of independent, credible judicial review process.

Err... would you accept that assertion if it were "judges and police" instead of moderators, and we were talking about an IRL justice system?

I wouldn't. And I think you need to take considerations of due process a lot more seriously if you want any such system to work. I.e., any set of rules more complicated than purely technical issues of spam and sock-puppets and other clear-cut things. If you want to do more than that, you're going to have to come to grips with the need for things like "a jury of one's peers," "right to appeal," etc. Those jurisprudential concepts stem from real, pervasive issues of human incentive and power, and the apparent blaseity about their applicability here - from people who ostensibly endorse them, IRL - is troubling.

Exactly.

No, there should be absolutely no penalty for merely exercising a right to appeal. Otherwise it is not a right - and the implication that it is somehow unfair to ask moderators to spend time doing such things rankles. Isn't that sort of thing squarely in the set of responsibilities that come with their privileges?

If you can show that somebody pursued an appeal in bad faith, in order to intentionally waste the time of those involved, then that should be an offense of its own. There should not be any additional penalty for a good-faith appeal that is not successful.

Kicking things up to an even less transparent, less accountable level doesn't really solve any of the larger issues here. It might represent a way of fixing individual flawed decisions, but it lacks a lot as a publicly-credible process.

 

True, and that is a problem.

There should probably be some explicit expectation that moderators do not directly participate in the fora they are charged with moderating, exactly to maintain their credibility. Which is probably to say that moderators should not be assigned to fora which they have much interest in. In addition to issues of credible impartiality, this would also address certain fora that have become little more than blogs for their moderators.

 

Say whatever else you will about that interaction, but there is no question that Trippy has posted things that would have gotten any regular member banned in short order. Things along the lines of what myself (and Gustav, apparently) have been banned for, except way more extreme and indefensible. Literally entire posts of nothing but very obscene personal insults, absent any substantive content or implication at all.

And let me be clear that I generally like both of the posters involved in that debate. But it seems to present some very pointed questions about whether the mods are themselves subject to the rules, conflict of interest, etc.

 

Isn't it?

Seriously. Why not?

 

I'm inclined to say yes. The job of moderation shouldn't require detailed expert knowledge of the post topics - only of the acceptable modes of interaction and argumentation, and how to respond to unacceptable ones. On the occasion that a deeply technical issue becomes relevant to a moderation decision, said mod can consult a specialist for input.

But it is incumbent on said moderator to maintain that separation. It's not just for everyone else to simply pretend there's some unbreachable wall between mod actions and posted opinions. Moderators can, and should, be expected to observe certain boundaries necessary to maintaining that separation. One part of that would be to avoid staking out divisive positions on the area one moderates (regardless of what your personal opinion might be). Another is to generally refrain from behavior that is at odds with the goals of moderation - you can't be a problem poster in one forum, and a moderator in another. Even if you really are personally capable of switching hats like that, you end up lacking credibility, and presenting a whole host of conflicts of interest to the moderators generally.

A moderator must also have credibility. It's not just a matter of his personal abilities to moderate fairly. He must also maintain a certain image, avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest, uphold general forum values about decorum, etc. Otherwise, all of his moderator actions - no matter how proper, as such - become tainted by the lack of credibility. Moderation is not just a set of technical decisions. It is also the maintenance of a certain public persona.

True enough, but there's a larger aspect of that job, which is maintaining a credible public persona. Otherwise no matter how "correct" the mod decisions are, they end up ultimately counter-productive to the site as a whole - ineffective, as it were.

 

I think the solution is to make SAM a mod again.

Ha! Got you there. I'm not serious of course.

 

"things are fine the way they are"
"sam was a bad mod"

anything else, capt?

 

I agree with the Captain . I hate it when people want to fire volunteers. Volunteers are the heroes in life .

Mow as far as the warnings go . Do you get a warning before banning ? Is that suppose to be the case ? I try to alter my behavior when I get back from banning, but it only seems that I adjust to the offense and not to the over all intent . Keep the Mods happy is what I have gotten out of it all so far . Lots of different personalities to consider and what may constitute as trolling to one mod may not necessarily be trolling to another . Maybe that is why I don't think I got a warning the last 2 bans . They were all in agreement .
I don't want to start out guessing a Mod and that is all speculation extra big . I am the new guy so the learning curve seems to be pretty sharp . I hope I last for it is terribly hard to find friends that think for them selves in life . You all are the closes I have ever seen or talked to in my life. It does ! It makes Me feel happy to think I have peers . Illusionary or not .

Leave it the way it is is my vote . Just when a person starts to get something figured out we change it . Moving targets can be good if it is changing with the times I guess , so whatever . Leave it or change it .

Support Mods ! they work for free

 

James you have too much time on your hands.

 

Ooh, I actually like that quite a bit! Especially the part about infractions being visible.

 

I recognize that you see it that way (I do not), but two wrongs don't make a right. And regardless, there's a serious problem of consistency when regular members get banned for much less extreme instances of the offense in question - which were themselves similarly prompted, let's note.

Not that I necessarily agree it should be an offense to cuss at people. But if I'm going to get banned for a few choice "dicktards," then...

All of this is admirable enough, and to be perfectly clear I don't have a particular problem with you. My complaint here is addressed to the higher powers-that-be, who somehow see fit to ban regular members for much less extreme violations of the exact same rules. When they fail to apply the same standard to moderators, there's a serious cost to credibility and legitimacy. Calls the motivations for the bans that do get handed out into severe question.

You're also advancing an assertion about iceaura's motivations in interacting with you: that he's trolling. I.e., specifically engaging in bad faith in order to wind you up. Could the conflict not be adequately explained by good-faith interaction foundering on certain incompatibilities in communicative style and tactics, along with a certain hard-headedness all around?

I've heard this suggested before, as an alternative to "assisted suicide" bans. But: doesn't one have to have an email account in order to open an account here - and is this not linked to a password recovery system? Is the presumption that such a "suicidal" member will delete or otherwise render inaccessible that email account? Because that won't be an option for everyone.

 

I would also like to take a moment to point out something which is important for us all to remember. It's something that has really pissed me off countless times.

I think everyone is welcomed to participate in -all- of the discussions which take place within our forums. But if you express a particular opinion in a topic, especially within a topic which has a tendency to be controversial, then you MUST be willing to have your points of view be challenged by others. That is how intelligent debates and the exchange of ideas take place.

If however you are either unable or unwilling to defend your points of view, then you should not participate in that particular discussion. "Drive-by comments" serve no purpose in an intelligent debate and they simply should not be tolerated.

I'm calling out names here: orleander, joepistole, diane,tiassa, and buffalo roam. You're guilty of this too, gustav. Suck it down.

 

Well the mods are people too...with their own opinions and biases. To expect perfect moderation goes against human nature.