Zen and the art of moderation 2 2

[KEY ISSUES Comics]

(thumbs u

[sufunk]

 

What moderators want is to set some boundaries so that good discussions can take place without everyone wanting to destroy each other

 

 

 

Would this apply to say, i dont know, one boardie challenging another to meet him in a certain persons parking lot

 

Yep. Did a threat / implied threat get missed somewhere? That's an easy one.

 

Ummmm, yeah! You guys somehow missed the 50 pages of "meet me at Phils parking lot you internet coward" in my "guess whos back" thread that was deleted?!?

 

That's what you get for starting a silly thread like that. Don't make me come out to Phil's parking lot and moderate. (rolling eyes)

 

I saw the thread and skimmed a few pages. Surprisingly, I didn't read all 1,094 replies. I saw a bunch of references to phil's parking lot, but not the origin.

 

Silly

 

That thing was pure EPIC meme awesomeness!

[seanfingh]

(Stands behind Arch)

 

Arch is in the house, punks. Let's see who is posting swear words and begging for strikes now! That's right. Not so big now, are you?

[seanfingh]

My only issue is getting wrist slaps or strikes with no reference as to what the offending post was. I got a wrist slap for politics last month, and I have no idea what the moderator saw. Some topics verge on politics but aren't quite there, so if I stepped over the line, I was unaware of it, but since I don't know which post it was, I didn't learn much.

 

I am sure that the lorakeet bosom shot will foster productive discourse on this topic.

[fantastic_four]

Ummmm, yeah! You guys somehow missed the 50 pages of "meet me at Phils parking lot you internet coward" in my "guess whos back" thread that was deleted?!?

 

Most everyone missed that except the people actively posting that part of the day. I saw all those references to it and had no idea what it meant until just now. Who said that?

[sufunk]

(Stands behind Arch)

 

Arch is in the house, punks. Let's see who is posting swear words and begging for strikes now! That's right. Not so big now, are you?

 

 

I aint scared of no mod!!!!

 

swear word, swear word, swear word, swear word, swear word, swear word, swear word, swear word, swear word, swear word, swear word, swear word, swear word!!!

 

See!!!

[bababooey]

My only issue is getting wrist slaps or strikes with no reference as to what the offending post was. I got a wrist slap for politics last month, and I have no idea what the moderator saw. Some topics verge on politics but aren't quite there, so if I stepped over the line, I was unaware of it, but since I don't know which post it was, I didn't learn much.

Based on your sig gif maybe it was "polly"-schticts

 

[Ditch Fahrenheit]

 

What moderators want is to set some boundaries so that good discussions can take place without everyone wanting to destroy each other

 

 

 

Would this apply to say, i dont know, one boardie challenging another to meet him in a certain persons parking lot

 

Yep. Did a threat / implied threat get missed somewhere? That's an easy one.

 

Ummmm, yeah! You guys somehow missed the 50 pages of "meet me at Phils parking lot you internet coward" in my "guess whos back" thread that was deleted?!?

 

That's what you get for starting a silly thread like that. Don't make me come out to Phil's parking lot and moderate. (rolling eyes)

 

I saw the thread and skimmed a few pages. Surprisingly, I didn't read all 1,094 replies. I saw a bunch of references to phil's parking lot, but not the origin.

 

[fantastic_four]

My only issue is getting wrist slaps or strikes with no reference as to what the offending post was. I got a wrist slap for politics last month, and I have no idea what the moderator saw. Some topics verge on politics but aren't quite there, so if I stepped over the line, I was unaware of it, but since I don't know which post it was, I didn't learn much.

Based on your sig gif maybe it was "polly"-shticts

 

 

That GIF seems G-rated to me.

[comix4fun]

 

What moderators want is to set some boundaries so that good discussions can take place without everyone wanting to destroy each other

 

 

 

Would this apply to say, i dont know, one boardie challenging another to meet him in a certain persons parking lot

 

Yep. Did a threat / implied threat get missed somewhere? That's an easy one.

 

Ummmm, yeah! You guys somehow missed the 50 pages of "meet me at Phils parking lot you internet coward" in my "guess whos back" thread that was deleted?!?

 

That's what you get for starting a silly thread like that. Don't make me come out to Phil's parking lot and moderate. (rolling eyes)

 

I saw the thread and skimmed a few pages. Surprisingly, I didn't read all 1,094 replies. I saw a bunch of references to phil's parking lot, but not the origin.

 

 

The implied thread there was about 300% (I tested it) more obvious than the implied threats that got Transplant his strike.

 

Checklist:

 

1) Impugn the "bravery" of the person you are threatening.

 

2) Designate a place where you would be willing to meet the person to "talk it out face to face".

 

3) Repeat besmirching of "bravery" stating that he would not take you up on said "meeting to talk it out face to face."

 

 

[BlowUpTheMoon]

I saw the thread and skimmed a few pages. Surprisingly, I didn't read all 1,094 replies. I saw a bunch of references to phil's parking lot, but not the origin.

 

[Park]

(Stands behind Arch)

 

Arch is in the house, punks. Let's see who is posting swear words and begging for strikes now! That's right. Not so big now, are you?

 

Eat me, Mighty Mouse.

[comix4fun]

This is just a friendly reminder that none of us is the center of the universe. Moderation is not about any one person. It's about setting limits for the community in order to allow for constructive discussion.

 

I read a story once a while back about a guy who was driving down the highway somewhere in the south, staying with traffic, minding his own business. Traffic, however, was going about 15mph too fast for the limit. As he is driving, he and all of the other drivers have the bad luck to drive past a speed trap.

 

Out roars the police car, on go the lights - bam, he's got somebody. Well, it turns out to be our hero - the one who is just driving along with traffic.

 

Our hero gets ticked off, and can't wait for his court date. In court he makes alot of noise at the judge about how everyone was driving fast and how he was not even the fastest of the pack. He protests in a loud voice about the injustice of it all, the lack of consistency and horrible mental anguish that this speeding ticket has caused him.

 

The judge looks at him and says, "Hey, have you ever been duck hunting?"

 

This stops the man short. Weird question. "Yes, I have," he says.

 

"When you go," says the judge, "and you're sitting there in the duck blind, and a flock of ducks flies by over head, do you pick out the fattest duck in the flock... the one that looks like it has the most flavor, or do you just pick a duck and shoot?"

 

The man just looks at him. "Guilty," says the judge, and fines him.

 

The point of the ticket in this case was definitely about the speeder, but it was also about all of the other speeders.

 

Your posting guideline tasks, should you choose to accept them, are pretty basic. They are outlined fairly decently here on the site. They are executed by a number of different people who interpret those guidelines as they moderate, just as all of you interpret those guidelines as you post. It's not a big deal. It's not a deep mystery. It isn't a conspiracy.

 

If you don't want to get shot, don't be a duck. Sometimes you can drive by a police car at 7mph over, sigh with relief and not get a ticket... and sometimes for the same thing you get pulled over AND you get a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. Other times, you get a warning ticket.

 

What moderators want is to set some boundaries so that good discussions can take place without everyone wanting to destroy each other and to set the acceptable social tone at a level that doesn't drive any notable percentage of the community away. That is true whether the posts are humor or debate.

 

Some of you occasionally (read: everyone who ever got a strike or warning) may deeply believe that in your case it was all about injustice. You may even have a point - like our speeder above who was not the fastest one in the pack. But you were still speeding.

 

By and large I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to moderation because:

 

1. The people posting are generally wrapped up in their posts whereas the moderators are not.

 

2. The moderators, contrary to popular opinion, are not doing this because they love tedious thread trimming and reading moderator notifications by everyone from upstanding members of the community to lunatics. They are just trying to help the community.

 

If you think someone got treated unfairly and then you look around and suddenly evidence starts popping up all around you of a trend of unfairness... you may want to research confirmation bias.

 

Did you know that smarter people are actually MORE likely to suffer from confirmation bias?

 

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/daniel-kahneman-bias-studies.html

 

Take a deep breath and enjoy your comics.

 

Oh, and stop hassling the mods. They are trying to help. Think about what it's like to be a mod - the difficulty and tedium of sorting out he-said she-said, the process of choosing where to rein things in when a whole thread has started going off track without just laying waste to everything around you.

 

Then do this: assume that the moderators have positive and helpful intentions. Assume that they didn't aggressively apply to become moderators out of a deep desire to torture an internet community. Think about why they do what they do with all of that in mind. You might come to different conclusions about the mechanics of moderation and community.

 

Have a nice day, guys.

 

 

[sufunk]

I saw the thread and skimmed a few pages. Surprisingly, I didn't read all 1,094 replies. I saw a bunch of references to phil's parking lot, but not the origin.

 

 

 

 

Normally i'd be mad you beat me to the punch while i skimmed memes to find the correct one but that was pretty awesome

[sufunk]

[Architecht]

I saw the thread and skimmed a few pages. Surprisingly, I didn't read all 1,094 replies. I saw a bunch of references to phil's parking lot, but not the origin.

 

 

Actually, it's the old way to moderate. Reading the complete volume of the boards is uhm... time consuming.

 

At 6,527,978 posts, spending an average of 30 seconds per post, that's roughly 18.6 years at 8 hours per day for one person.

 

Yeah... no. That's why we have "notify mods".

[BlowUpTheMoon]

I saw the thread and skimmed a few pages. Surprisingly, I didn't read all 1,094 replies. I saw a bunch of references to phil's parking lot, but not the origin.

 

 

Actually, it's the old way to moderate. Reading the complete volume of the boards is uhm... time consuming.

 

 

[sufunk]

BUTM is on FIRE today!

[Ditch Fahrenheit]

(Stands behind Arch)

 

Arch is in the house, punks. Let's see who is posting swear words and begging for strikes now! That's right. Not so big now, are you?

 

Eat me, Mighty Mouse.

 

[bababooey]