Rules and Moderator information

[Res Ipsa]

There are four other Kingdoms in which long form discussions are taking place just fine. If you are interested in having a long form discussion, I suspect you know how to choose an appropriate Kingdom.

So, as a moderator you’re nonplussed when a troll decontextualizes their history, hobbles the search function by erasing searchable data, repeatedly erases their conversational record, and circumvents their forum ban by creating new socks? Huh.

- Doc

What do sock puppets have to do with erasing posts? If you have evidence that someone is circumventing a forum ban, let’s hear it.

I’m nonplused by the recent hijinks in Prison and Telestial.

[Marcus]

I’m nonplused by the recent hijinks in Prison and Telestial.

Surely you’re not, unless we define “recent” quite differently, and/or you are obstinately using the second definition, in (an act of purely American) defiance of all that is good and holy in Dictionary word meanings. And yes, I’m calling you Shirley. ( )

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

So, as a moderator you’re nonplussed when a troll decontextualizes their history, hobbles the search function by erasing searchable data, repeatedly erases their conversational record, and circumvents their forum ban by creating new socks? Huh.

- Doc

What do sock puppets have to do with erasing posts? If you have evidence that someone is circumventing a forum ban, let’s hear it.

I’m nonplused by the recent hijinks in Prison and Telestial.

Trolls, not sock puppets.

Two quick questions. 1) Can mods see the IP addresses of registered users? If so, 2) do known trolls who use sock puppets have similar IP addresses (“ranges”)?

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

What do sock puppets have to do with erasing posts? If you have evidence that someone is circumventing a forum ban, let’s hear it.

I’m nonplused by the recent hijinks in Prison and Telestial.

Trolls, not sock puppets.

Two quick questions. 1) Can mods see the IP addresses of registered users? If so, 2) do known trolls who use sock puppets have similar IP addresses (“ranges”)?

- Doc

What? You want me to draw a road map for trolls?

[Res Ipsa]

I’m nonplused by the recent hijinks in Prison and Telestial.

Surely you’re not, unless we define “recent” quite differently, and/or you are obstinately using the second definition, in (an act of purely American) defiance of all that is good and holy in Dictionary word meanings. And yes, I’m calling you Shirley. ( )

That's okay. You can call me Shirley. I used the same meaning as nonplused as Cam did.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Trolls, not sock puppets.

Two quick questions. 1) Can mods see the IP addresses of registered users? If so, 2) do known trolls who use sock puppets have similar IP addresses (“ranges”)?

- Doc

What? You want me to draw a road map for trolls?

I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. So, when you state, “If you have evidence that someone is circumventing a forum ban, let’s hear it.”, it’s a disingenuous comment.

Whatever the case may be, I’ll reiterate that:

I think there should be a new rule that if you delete your posting history you should be permabanned; you’re not allowed to come back under another handle, disrupt the board, and then rinse and repeat. It’s disingenuous and begets bad-faith posting which is anathema to a discussion board.

is reasonable and falls under a good and common sense moderation approach.

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

What? You want me to draw a road map for trolls?

I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. So, when you state, “If you have evidence that someone is circumventing a forum ban, let’s hear it.”, it’s a disingenuous comment.

Whatever the case may be, I’ll reiterate that:

I think there should be a new rule that if you delete your posting history you should be permabanned; you’re not allowed to come back under another handle, disrupt the board, and then rinse and repeat. It’s disingenuous and begets bad-faith posting which is anathema to a discussion board.

is reasonable and falls under a good and common sense moderation approach.

- Doc

No, not disingenuous at all. If I explain what information we have and how they help us spot duplicate accounts, that will teach people how to better evade our ability to detect sock puppets. You can "take" my response however you choose, but that's your take. My answer is that I'm not going to draw a road map for those who want to evade the rule.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. So, when you state, “If you have evidence that someone is circumventing a forum ban, let’s hear it.”, it’s a disingenuous comment.

Whatever the case may be, I’ll reiterate that:



is reasonable and falls under a good and common sense moderation approach.

- Doc

No, not disingenuous at all. If I explain what information we have and how they help us spot duplicate accounts, that will teach people how to better evade our ability to detect sock puppets. You can "take" my response however you choose, but that's your take. My answer is that I'm not going to draw a road map for those who want to evade the rule.

Ok, so we’re back to you being nonplussed about the board trolls, their ongoing behavior as described, and the methods they use to circumvent rules and moderation. All I’m suggesting is a further measure to shut it down in order to promote the board’s mission of discussion. Ultimately the moderation team and Dr. Shades get the board they manage, so if the ongoing shenanigans are your thing then it is what it is.

I think when a user deletes their entire posting history that act throws the board’s ongoing operations into further disarray as described. A user ought to decide whether their historical record and current username participation is worth their right to post in the future. If they delete their crap, then we ought to oblige them fully by denying their future participation since they robbed the board of context and the ability to search the record.

What are your thoughts with regard to to my reasoning?

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

No, not disingenuous at all. If I explain what information we have and how they help us spot duplicate accounts, that will teach people how to better evade our ability to detect sock puppets. You can "take" my response however you choose, but that's your take. My answer is that I'm not going to draw a road map for those who want to evade the rule.

Ok, so we’re back to you being nonplussed about the board trolls, their ongoing behavior as described, and the methods they use to circumvent rules and moderation. All I’m suggesting is a further measure to shut it down in order to promote the board’s mission of discussion. Ultimately the moderation team and Dr. Shades get the board they manage, so if the ongoing shenanigans are your thing then it is what it is.

I think when a user deletes their entire posting history that act throws the board’s ongoing operations into further disarray as described. A user ought to decide whether their historical record and current username participation is worth their right to post in the future. If they delete their crap, then we ought to oblige them fully by denying their future participation since they robbed the board of context and the ability to search the record.

What are your thoughts with regard to to my reasoning?

- Doc

Thought one is that I’ll start a thread in the mod forum to roundtable it. That’s generally how we handle requests for rules changes. Then someone will follow up on whatever gets decided.

Thought two is that adopting new rules to address special cases of irritating behavior by one or two people is generally bad policy. If the person engaging in irritating behavior is doing so to provoke a reaction, they will respond by finding some other irritating behavior that arguably isn’t prohibited by the rules. So, then what you end up with is a hodgepodge of rule upon rule resulting in a rule set that no one reads, let alone understands or follows.

Thought three is that, if this were a widespread problem so that affected the ability of people to carry on conversations, we can address that under UR 8.

Thought four is that I am reluctant to adopt rules to prevent problems that users can easily address. To my knowledge, we’re talking about one person. If users choose to interact with that person, they can easily preserve the contents of the other person’s posts by using the quote feature when they respond. That’s what folks commonly do anyway. Alternatively, they can choose to ignore and not respond to the offending individual. Then, deleted posts won’t interfere with the flow of a conversation because they were never part of the flow to begin with.

Thought final is that there are, as a practical matter, six boards here. I don’t think it’s fair to judge the board by the lowest common denominator. While I don’t disagree in theory with your reasoning, I don’t see it as a problem in practice other than Prison/Telestial, where we try to give people a broad a range of expression as we can, including behaving in ways that irritate others.

But that’s just my initial impression.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Perhaps the thing that I’m trying to nail down are these points with regard to board operations:

1) Deleting one’s entire posting history undermine’s the search function, which undermines board members’ ability to search for content and context. It degrades the board’s user interface in both a technical and usability sense.

2) Deleting one’s entire posting history and then coming back as a sock, which I’m sure moderators can see via IP addresses, creates a communal memory gap and promotes bad-faith discussion until board members catch on. It’s simply not fair to the community to re-engage a recursive troll or trolls with ‘no record’ ad infinitum. That’s just a bad practice by a moderation team, and kind of gross since board members are at an inherent ‘awareness’ disadvantage.

3) Not being able to hold a poster to something they posted degrades the overall quality of discussion. Their being able to claim they didn’t post something (or claiming ignorance) creates a knowledge gap and people get looped into repetitive nonsense. That doesn’t seem like a good practice or policy for a long-form discussion board.

- Doc