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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   26399 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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The first criticism was not criticism of the motte or discussion. It was a criticism that someone would get disappointed that someone preempted their post.

They are still shitting on quality posters. I'd rather keep the quality posters happy rather than this user.

With respect to your second point, scope (like quality) is orthogonal to length. What I think we want is insight; not length.

And the top level post provided no insight either. Shared a link story, asked some basic questions, and basically said "discuss". Had it done so, or attempted to do so I might not have banned.

I don't think my minimum level standard for a top level post is very high. People seem to come out of the woodwork every time this comes up acting like I'm asking them to write a novel. I'm not. Just start the discussion, put some level of thinking and effort into your post. If it looks like you tried and fell short I'll probably only provide a warning. The original poster did not try at all. And there is a group of users that constantly want to resurrect the bare links thread, so they post what they think is just past the line on acceptable. Sometimes I am going to drop bans for this. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Shared a link, asked some basic questions, and basically said "discuss". Had it done so, or attempted to do so I might not have banned.

Since I got the banhammer, let me get this much clear - no links were shared. Go back and read it, I didn't link to anything. I said I just heard the news and wanted to know what would happen next. You're in your rights to hit me for that, but don't say I did something I didn't do.

Fixed

I think it’s fine to think “there is something a little off if someone gets despondent over being preempted on a discussion board.” Look, I participate here because I think the people are interesting etc. But it isn’t like we are competing for Pulitzer Prizes etc. If someone preempted something, I’d think “well at least there is another person who thinks like me and seems reasonably intelligent” and go on my way. Being despondent is not psychologically healthy.

"despondent" is a word that remzem added to the discussion as a way of insulting the posters.

I only used the word "disheartening".

Magnifying another person's complaint to make them seem unhealthy isn't exactly good behavior is it? Or would it be fine for me to characterize you and remzem as "suicidally upset" over this rule scuffle?

Of course it would be fine, nobody here can punish you for any reason. But let's pretend there was some mechanism by which users could correct flawed behaviour by mods. I would say adding the word suicidally in there was obvious hyperbole to paint your opponents poorly. I can not say the same of calling the disheartened despondent, even google considers that accurate -

/images/16961752618276987.webp

It's similar, not the same. Disheartened is most similar to discouraged.

But sure let's pretend they are the same, your post above no longer makes sense:

think it’s fine to think “there is something a little off if someone gets disheartened over being preempted on a discussion board.” Look, I participate here because I think the people are interesting etc. But it isn’t like we are competing for Pulitzer Prizes etc. If someone preempted something, I’d think “well at least there is another person who thinks like me and seems reasonably intelligent” and go on my way. Being disheartened is not psychologically healthy.

Why is being disheartened not psychologically healthy?

Mod posts can be reported. We have reprimanded each other before.

Not my post but that's a good argument. If I were remzem I might say it is never psychologically healthy to get so involved in anything on the internet that it has a noticeable impact on your mood. If I were me and I had made the op I would say that to dismantle your appeal to the emotions of readers by making them empathise with the discouraged, I had to neutralise the empathy - and I assumed game would recognise game and you would respond with a better argument.

Have you really reprimanded each other before? Do you mean aside from Hlynka? It would be neat to see evidence of that, because previously I have been told that you guys don't pay much attention to reported mod posts because they're always punished users being spiteful.

Fake edit: I got a phone call that interrupted this post, but coming back to it I realise I have been focused too much on symptoms, which is exactly what I'm bitching about elsewhere. To me it looks like the root cause of the issue is that you need some more mods. Zorba has his hands full with the backend, so you have to use shortcuts to keep up. I'd suggest recruiting someone like netstack, 2rafa, selfmadehuman, or ToaKrakoa.

because previously I have been told that you guys don't pay much attention to reported mod posts because they're always punished users being spiteful.

No, you were not told they are always punished users being spiteful. Just that they are usually that or disgruntled users. We do read reports on mod posts and I can think of only a small handful in the years I have been a mod that didn't fall into one of those categories.

Not my post but that's a good argument. If I were remzem I might say it is never psychologically healthy to get so involved in anything on the internet that it has a noticeable impact on your mood.

Eh, we are all past that point probably. To engage at all you need some level of emotional attachment to the content.

If I were me and I had made the op I would say that to dismantle your appeal to the emotions of readers by making them empathise with the discouraged, I had to neutralise the empathy - and I assumed game would recognise game and you would respond with a better argument.

That would feel like an own goal. By his own admission he is here for interesting content. My goal is to preserve this place for interesting discussions. Interesting discussions bring in people that create interesting content.

Have you really reprimanded each other before? Do you mean aside from Hlynka? It would be neat to see evidence of that, because previously I have been told that you guys don't pay much attention to reported mod posts because they're always punished users being spiteful.

Yes, I've at least reprimanded one other mod publicly (it wasn't hlynka). Told them to back off from an argument. I've been privately reprimanded once or twice cuz I got too heated and involved in an argument. Its more common that we pull ourselves out of the situation first. "I'm too annoyed at this user to be fair to them in moderation, someone else needs to step in" I've done that before and at least one other mod has as well.

Zorba and I are both legacy mods. But the other mods were selected by a community process, and they picked among the best users. So even if the other mods weren't mods they'd probably never be getting in trouble with the mods anyways. Going way back zorba and I were both selected by other moderators, in part because we had long histories of good behavior in the slatestarcodex subreddit.

Fake edit: I got a phone call that interrupted this post, but coming back to it I realise I have been focused too much on symptoms, which is exactly what I'm bitching about elsewhere. To me it looks like the root cause of the issue is that you need some more mods. Zorba has his hands full with the backend, so you have to use shortcuts to keep up. I'd suggest recruiting someone like netstack, 2rafa, selfmadehuman, or ToaKrakoa.

We might go through another mod selection process. We've talked about it.

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