Marcus wrote: ↑Wed Feb 23, 2022 8:50 pm
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Wed Feb 23, 2022 8:07 pm
Those of you from the frozen north or from across the pond are familiar with "question time." Question time, in some parliamentary democracies, is when a representative of the ruling government takes questions from other members of parliament. The Canadian Senate had Question Time for over 12 hours yesterday, and it was very interesting listening to one single senator answer questions about the Emergency Declaration for an extended period of time.
So, as an experiment, I'm declaring Question Time on the general issue of DiscussMoronism governance. Given the volume of questions and complaints aired in several different threads, I think it makes sense to address them in a single thread. I am committing only myself to answer questions, although of course the entire mod team and Shades are welcome to do so. And I will do so, time permitting, until it looks like the exercise has run its course. Copying and pasting of questions or comments on the topic of forum governance that have been posted in various threads is welcome, and I may answer questions I find in other threads here. I'm also not limiting Question Time to questions -- comments are welcome. I will just interpret comments as not requesting an answer. I will post an invitation in Terrestrial for folks who rarely venture to the non-Mormon discussion side of the board.
Also, as an experiment, during Question Time I will consider trolling and disrupting questions or comments as violations of UR 4 and move them to a separate thread. I will do the same with inter-personal bickering.
The floor is yours.
Wow, fascinating. I was literally searching for a post of yours in red to move here so I could ask a question, when I saw this! Great timing.
Anyway, recently you made a comment in red, asking people not to bump old threads for a specific reason:
Res Ipsa wrote: ↑Wed Feb 23, 2022 6:26 am
A plea to all. Please don’t bump old threads to try to push other peoples threads off the front page. If you want to empower us, please use the report function. Thanks.
This was in red, and it seems that you inferred Philo's intent as to why he bumped threads, and responded as a mod. (not that it was a reach, it was clear why he was doing it.)
My question is this: if you can infer intent (appropriately, in my opinion) in that context, could you also infer the intent of other posters who start threads, and if you conclude it is done with the intent to disrupt, could you ask them, in red ink, to desist?
It seems clear to me that several posters here are, repeatedly and in a very short time frame, starting threads only for the annoyance factor, so while I understand the mod comment in red quoted above, where a request was made regarding the
response to trolls, wouldn't it be more helpful to comment in red on the behavior of the trolls directly?
Of course, we are not privy to your private communications so it may be that you have already attempted this repeatedly without success, and have moved on to the next level, which I would certainly understand.
There is also precedent for a request like this; If I recall correctly, Shades prohibited ldsfaqs for a time from starting threads in SP and Terrestrial, for a similar reason.
Thanks, Marcus. That's pretty much a perfect question, in that it highlights all kinds of stuff that we have to balance when moderating.
The role that intent should play in moderating decisions is tricky and varies depending on the kind of violation we are talking about. Often, intent isn't a factor. Although I mentioned Philo's intent in my red post, it's not the intent that was the problem. It was the effect on the board. I don't know if you saw, but Shades recently publicly made the same request to AtlanticMike. I mentioned Philo's intent only to communicate that I understood why he was doing it. In neither case do I consider the intent relevant -- just the effect.
I try to address rules issues through PM when I think it will be effective. I would love to address all rules violations in this manner, I think that demands too much of us mere mortals. I elected to post publicly in this specific case to head off a possible tit for tat war to control the front pages, which could create conditions under which I would feel compelled to start handing out suspensions instead of a friendly plea.
Because we don't have a rule against trolling, my general philosophy is to apply the rules to a trolling post as I would any other posts and, otherwise, to not reinforce the behavior. In my experience, giving a person who is trolling any positive or negative reinforcement simply rewards the troller with what they want. For that reason, I would be hesitant about adopting your suggestion to comment on trolling in red.
We do have a very broad tool that we can use in response to actual disruption of the board's function:
Do not make threats or take actions to disrupt the smooth operation of this message board, either through hacking, spamming, frivolous complaints, lawsuits against the board or its moderators, or any other means. Please do not do this via e-mail or private message, either.
Universal Rule 8
That's a broad and pretty powerful tool, which means to me that it is very easy to misuse based on personal or subjective preferences, rather than consistent with the dispassionate "clone of shades" model we agree as mods to follow. It gets more powerful when we consider that we are also charged with enforcing the spirit of the rules. UR 8 has a pretty broad spirit.
Deciding when something disrupts the smooth operation of the board is a highly subjective question, and I think Shades has made it clear that someone's actions are not disruptive simply because they are irritating. Nevertheless, I think we have to apply the rule in the lots of context that Shades has provided over the years. I have used the rule when folks engage in conduct that significantly interferes with my ability to the job that Shades expects of me. I see that as very different from someone trolling my posts in a way that pisses me off.
Given all that context, in answer to your specific question, if someone starts a thread to "be disruptive," there really isn't any rule that applies. In that context, "disruptive" is so subjective that it would be impossible to apply it in a manner that would appear fair. But, posting multiple threads on the same topic in a relatively short period of time could be fairly viewed as disrupting the smooth operation of the board, regardless of intent. Had anyone disregarded my plea in red and continued to play zombie thread to control the front page, I would have invoked UR8.
On top of that, the red notice itself would be reinforcement of behavior that I try to avoid reinforcing. So, although I certainly could do as you suggest, I don't think it would be effective in terms of rules enforcement.
Sorry for so much text, but it was a good and important question that I thought deserved a thorough response.