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1561. rubberducky - 4/19/2002 3:39:59 AM Wonk:
the Rules of Engagement are clearly posted in the Mote Links section 1562. wonkers2 - 4/19/2002 3:41:46 AM Okay, I just read the "rules of engagement" for the first time after 5 years or so of participating. They seem reasonable enough. But I didn't see any mention of "spam." Until it is defined and included in the rules it shouldn't be sanctioned. 1563. rubberducky - 4/19/2002 3:44:40 AM well, again, wonkers, Jex was 'needlessly abusive' imo, and got what he deserved.
he's only suspended, he'll be back. no real harm done, really.
1564. Indiana Jones - 4/19/2002 3:46:56 AM This place has never really been run by rules, wonkers. From the FAQ:
"Moderators...crack heads when they deem it necessary. necessary."
(The error is in the original.)
This "cracking of heads" is in addition to enforcing the RoE, which is already covered in the previous sentence. 1565. wonkers2 - 4/19/2002 3:48:46 AM Well, I guess that leaves it pretty wide open for the "moderators." Maybe that's not the best term. 1566. rubberducky - 4/19/2002 3:52:08 AM what would you call wabbit/Pelle/Ms No then? 1567. wonkers2 - 4/19/2002 4:01:10 AM Thread Czar? Ayatollah? Tin God? High Pooh Bah? Your Highness? 1568. Ms. No - 4/19/2002 4:18:01 AM Absensia,
I didn't mean to ignore your posts. I just got sidetracked and then it looked as if things had died down. I know that much of this was actually addressed to Pelle, but since you mention me as well I figured I'd take a stab at repsonding.
If spamming's a problem, then I think Ms. No, Pelle or Wabbit should deal with it.
I disagree that a Moderator should be the first person to do that. It's why we have thread hosts. There is not enough time in the day for the Moderators to watch each and every thread for any violation. I think it also quite unlikely that everyone in the Mote would wish to conform to my personal ideas of what is abusive or what is on-topic etc.
Allowing thread hosts as much autonomy as possible provides the greatest amount of personal choice for posters. Not everyone wants to post civily enough to hang out in the Cafe and not everyone wants to put on the bullet-proof vest required to post in Politics. The more centralized the decision making on tone the less freedom of tone there is.
If it's up to the thread host to decide what they don't "like," then the Inferno will be about the only place people post.
This has always been the rule here and we still have plenty of action in threads besides the Inferno. Some hosts are more strict than others. Those who don't like it have the option of not posting in those threads, or requesting alternate threads. If a poster has a problem with a thread host then it should be brought to the attention of the Moderators. If the answer that the Moderators give just isn't good enough for that poster the poster does not then have the right to purposefully disrupt a thread and flout the authority of the thread host. 1569. Ms. No - 4/19/2002 4:20:47 AM cont. to Absensia
I would like to see a more centralized form of governance. Once that sets out clearly what are the b asic rules for moving posts, deleting them, and why.
We've always tried to have less rules rather than more at theMote. They work 99% of the time. The other 1% of the time is generally more to do with accusations of personal bias than true misunderstanding of the rules.
I think it's important to note that this furor is not about post moving in general. It is specifically instigated by the recent posting by Jexster and CalGal's handling of it. Indy's been moving posts like a steamroller in Religion, but no one has come to Policies or Suggestions and demanded that he has a personal vendetta against posters even though sometimes he leaves personal comment posts and sometimes he doesn't.
1570. Ms. No - 4/19/2002 4:22:27 AM cont. to Absensia
I'm not criticizing Indy's behavior. It's a pain in the ass to move posts. It's even more of a pain in the ass to move them when posters are purposefully violating host instructions. It is not a perfect system, but a "perfect" system would be hell. Kind of like the anti-sexual harassment rules in corporations nowadays. You can't say to your friend and co-worker "Hey you look nice today" because it falls under the rigid definition of sexual harassment to comment on a member of the opposite sex's appearance.
What happens is that then you have very specific rules which don't always get followed because mostly everyone knows that they're not talking about "this" situation and it's still arbitrary as hell when they get enforced. Think of Georgia: nobody is going to arrest a man and his wife for performing oral sex even though it's in violation of the sodomy laws there, but let a couple of gay guys indulge and they'll be in jail before folks can even get the sheets over their heads.
In the hosting guidelines it clearly states that a host may move any post at any time that s/he deems off topic or in violation of the thread's tone or in violation of the RoE. That decision is solely up to the host. It also states that deleting posts should really only be done for revelation of private information or other serious violations of the RoE. It's not a hard and fast rule because deleting is faster and easier than moving and once you've had to move a post or posts two or three or five times I really don't blame a host for just deleting at that point. If people can't control themselves then I don't see why a host should go out of his or her way to respect an obnoxious poster's grafitti.
1571. Ms. No - 4/19/2002 4:24:53 AM cont. to Absensia
I recommend that the governors talk to one another, perhaps by email, icq, or whatever, to decide such things as creating new threads, deleting old ones, who will be suspended or banned, if a poster feels another is personally attacking him/her in a mean and vicious manner, what role the governors should have, and how to deal with spammers as well as thread hosts who delete on topic posts.
We do talk to one another, but it isn't always feasible to wait to make a decision until all three time zones have checked in with one another. It's why we have three Moderators---because nobody can be available all the time. If we were available to talk to each other all the time then that would mean that one person could be available to watch the Mote all the time and there never would've been any need for more than one Moderator to begin with.
For instance, if someone is spamming, and there have been a few who have done it, why not have the governors speak up and deal with it,
People did speak up and I did deal with it. If I'd known it would be such a problem I wouldn't have attempted a compromise at all but just suspended Jexster from the get go. Instead, I offered Jex a way to keep posting as he wished and a way for others to post without being inconvenienced by the way in which he posted. Consequently we have an argument that amounts to "Why isn't the Inferno held to the same standards as the Cafe."
My response to that is: Because we didn't design this place to have carbon copy threads in which all players must act and think and post alike or bear the Wrath of Wabbit.
1572. Indiana Jones - 4/19/2002 4:25:18 AM Hee hee hee. 1573. Ms. No - 4/19/2002 4:26:21 AM cont. to Absensia
Cal stated before she was given the thread, that her reason was to stop Jexster. And either today or yesterday she said she had "won" against Jexster.
I think it needs to be pointed out that this wasn't about Jexster but about the spammy posts that Jexster was indulging in. Jexster was free to post in Cal's thread. He did so. He has a lot of posts still there. The fact that he acted like a spoiled brat and decided to pitch a fit in that thread is what got posts moved and finally got him suspended. Cal didn't count it as a win against Jexster but as a win in general if she could avoid having spam in her thread because he got fed up and quit posting it rather than her having to move the posts every two minutes.
I think the "getting Jexster" if he is so bad, should be done by the governors.
We tried to avoid that, but that's eventually what happened. Contrary to some popular belief none of the Moderators particularly likes suspending people. It's bad for morale and it always causes a meltdown because of the differing beliefs about what is acceptable behavior and what should be allowed in the forum. What people fail to realize is that disagreement isn't necessarily a bad thing and no matter how well we define the rules or how meticulously they are enforced there will always always always be someone who vehemently disagrees with what was decided. I don't think that that is sufficient reason to re-design the forum. It's not something that can be eliminated so folks need to look at it like tornadoes or floods or something. You may not like it, but it's not a preventable phenonmenon and having a ruckus as if it could be prevented and wasn't does no good whatsoever.
1574. Ms. No - 4/19/2002 4:27:45 AM final (thought we'd never get here, eh?) to Absensia
As I said above, if this filling the Inferno with on topic posts continues, then we, as hosts, may decide that we should be "enforcers" as well, and delete or move posts of people we decide violate the rules of our threads?
Yes, as I stated that's the way the RoE are written. It's laid out in black and....er...yellow. Thread hosts have as much autonomy as we can give them. If they start to abuse their power then folks will complain. The Moderators will take a look and if we decided that the host is abusive s/he will be removed. If we decide not, then posters get to vote with their feet.
It seems like it could end up as vigilante justice.
It could if there were no Moderators to curb the hosts, but there are. We try to let hosts be autonomous, but that doesn't mean we won't or don't step in when a host gets out of line. 1575. concerned - 4/19/2002 4:33:54 AM I'm curious about next Monday. Will we see no Jexster, a contrite, obsequious Jexster, or will he be back packin' heat? 1576. Indiana Jones - 4/19/2002 4:37:39 AM back in heat 1577. Indiana Jones - 4/19/2002 4:38:31 AM (though it's bad form to talk about somebody who's suspended) 1578. wonkers2 - 4/19/2002 4:45:37 AM BTW, who are the governors? And how did they become governors? By some democratic process I assume? 1579. Ms. No - 4/19/2002 4:57:00 AM Absensia has been using the word governors. It came out of somebody else's analogy. She means the Moderators. 1580. wabbit - 4/19/2002 5:17:26 AM Betty,
Of course it's subjective, much like defining pornography. But let's start with the original internet meaning of the term spam.
Selected from the Webopedia:
Electronic junk mail or junk newsgroup postings. Some people define spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail. However, if a long-lost brother finds your e-mail address and sends you a message, this could hardly be called spam, even though it's unsolicited. Real spam is generally e-mail advertising for some product sent to a mailing list or newsgroup.
...the generally accepted version is that it comes from the Monty Python song, "Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam…" Like the song, spam is an endless repetition of worthless text. Another school of thought maintains that it comes from the computer group lab at the University of Southern California who gave it the name because it has many of the same characteristics as the lunchmeat Spam:
• Nobody wants it or ever asks for it.
• No one ever eats it; it is the first item to be pushed to the side when eating the entree.
• Sometimes it is actually tasty, like 1% of junk mail that is really useful to some people.
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