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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3640 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 14, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Is everyone satisfied with the moderation here? For me, it’s getting to unacceptably high levels. For some reason, they recently felt the need to almost double the mods to take care of the shrinking userbase.

Our old charitable custom was to treat strangers as if they were worthy of good faith. Increasingly the mods treat those whose good faith has already been established (such as the recently modded Kulak, Hlynka, Burdensomecount) as if they were strangers.

Like reddit, you can start off as a bastion of free speech, but inevitably mods identify with their function and see mod action as an end in itself, until they become more prison guards than janitors.

So are there good alternatives to the motte out there?

(such as the recently modded Kulak, Hlynka, Burdensomecount) as if they were strangers

Kulak has been modded plenty before, and Hlynka and Burdensomecount have long been dancing close to a permaban.

You can dislike the moderation for whatever reason, but you chose some really poor examples of people "suddenly and inexplicably being modded harshly."

I don’t mind if they dance on the ban line all their life, I have a problem with the actual banning. You ratchet the punishments automatically, so their days are numbered – as you sometimes remind your victims, like Hlynka here, which is hardly helpful.

Not "automatically" (we sometimes discuss amongst ourselves what the next penalty should be), but yes, as you continue to behave badly, the consequences will escalate. This has always been the policy. Are you suggesting we shouldn't do that, or we shouldn't tell people who are being modded what's going to happen if they keep it up?

I think the punishment for minor, occasional infractions should be capped at a few days ban.

But if you want to keep the system uncapped, your authority unbounded: when you refer to a permaban in a warning or day-ban, it’s such an outsized threat that it comes across as a taunt and a dare. Like a cop pulling a gun after he caught you speeding.

I think the punishment for minor, occasional infractions should be capped at a few days ban.

Generally it is. We only escalate when the infractions are more than minor and/or occasional, or when they are constant over a long period of time.

But if you want to keep the system uncapped, your authority unbounded

It's always amusing (and eye-rolling) to me that so many people think we do this because we get that sweet, sweet rush of "authority."

when they are constant over a long period of time.

That really doesn’t qualify. Capped means constancy over a long period of time is tolerated indefinitely.

It's always amusing (and eye-rolling) to me that so many people think we do this because we get that sweet, sweet taste of "authority."

Well, you’re only human. You don’t mind having more power rather than less, do you? You could use your power for the greater good, so says the voice in your head. Even from nearly incorruptible demi-gods, some abuse is inevitable.

Warnings that never result in punishments are meaningless, just like a stock that'll never pay a dividend or buyback or ever return profit somehow.

Sure, if by ‘consequences of warnings’ you mean a few days ban to cool off, a slap on the wrist, that’s fine, mods need to work. But I have a problem with weeks-long, month-long bans, they’re pseudo-permabans. You don’t send a guy to the chair for accumulating parking tickets. Near permabans are a far graver violation of someone’s freedom of expression, and should be reserved for grave faults like clear bad faith, constant disregard for the rules, or so thoroughly disliked that the sub produces 6000 shards of pottery with your name on it.

or so thoroughly disliked that the sub produces 6000 shards of pottery with your name on it.

If the length of bans were a function of popularity alone, then @guesswho would need cryopreservation to ever survive long enough to post here again.

Whether the sub dislikes you is, while not entirely irrelevant (because we are quite successful in aligning the desires of the mods and users), it is by no means the deciding factor for who gets banned or for what. If you are deeply unpopular (justifiably or not), and the mods don't think you broke any rules, you're not going to get permabanned.

I'll second that for people who have been quality contributors in the past, it's best to avoid permabans or extremely long bans to the extent possible, and lean on frequent use of, e.g., one week bans. (And I assume the mods agree, hence why temp bans seem more common.)

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