Poll: Open discussion on "rude" and other rules

[vallorn]

The issue for me is that, while interpretation is fine to a degree, vague rules mean that users aren't sure if what they post is blammable or not. For example, a few people decided to allude to GG supporting CP for a while, apparently despite there being a relatively strong GG presence on this forums this does not constitute "Being a dick".

So what does? The way I see it, the current vague rules encourage passive aggressive snark, thread derailing and other indirect forms of poor behavior. However, directly calling someone out on these behaviors is liable to be blammed under the rules. This is unsustainable since it encourages those who are willing to snark and imply over speaking plainly.

In the end it doesn't matter how much flexibility it gives to the moderators, the forums are not for the benefit of moderators after all. All that matters is whether the guidelines are clear enough for users not to be caught out by them without knowing why or allowing loopholes like the MAXIMUM OVERSNARK one.

 

[IceForce]

Just on the subject of "derailing" (which a few people have raised), it seems likely this rule will one one of the rules on the chopping block in the next COC draft, given that the rule no longer applies in two of our forum boards already:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/528.873695-Additional-Rules-for-R-P-PLEASE-READ-BEFORE-POSTING
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/663.873696-Additional-Rules-for-GID-PLEASE-READ-BEFORE-POSTING

When they start having to publicly announce certain rule exceptions (in more than one place), then it's highly likely the rule in question is on the way out.

Or to put in another way, it's extremely unlikely the "derailing" rule is going to be moderated more strictly any time soon.
So it seems pointless to request that "derailing" be more heavily enforced, since the site management seem more interested in taking this rule in the opposite direction.

 

[Carzinex]

The double standard with some posters on enforcing rules has resulted in me not visiting the site as much and definitely resulted in me not posting. On derailing, i was reading a thread with potentially interesting subject matter in R and P and was going to post in it, then it descended into a discussion on cat declawing and its results on furniture?!?

I didn't even bother reporting it because i knew that nothing would be done as the person derailing the thread has been perma banned previously on different occasions and its always been revoked.

The total, blatant inconsistency on enforcing rules is alot more damaging for the site that being rude

EDIT: Ice force posted while i was still typing.

I get that there will be some derailing because of diverging concepts in R and P and i welcome that, however there has to be some kind of standard.

The thread that made me pretty much stop posting is another example, in R and P there was a very strange individual who started quoting nonsense from the bible which was unrelated to the actual topic except ironically. I admit i kind of took the piss out of him and was rude, he asked me to stop responding to him so i did, thought it was best according to my interpretation of the rules. The thread then descended into pretty much all the posters being what could be considered "rude" to him for several more pages.

Thats when i felt i should just give up, if you can have a whole thread pretty much passive aggressively bullying 1 poster for being an idiot and no one gets a warning yet some posts i have read in other threads get warnings for no reason i can see, there is no point in even trying to figure the rules out.

 

[Dandark]

The issue with the "Don't be a dick/don't be rude" rule is that it can be hard to know what is and isn't acceptable. Let's say someone posts a big rant about how x is the worst thing ever because he/she/it eats babies or something dumb that most would consider trolling.

If someone responded to this with "Thats stupid", "Are you trolling?" or even just "That is ignorant, you are wrong" then they could get a warning. Simply saying they think it's dumb is enough to get them a warning and I understand why, they are after all directly insulting the person.

However after that person has posted, maybe someone else posts. Maybe they post an even larger rant full of unpleasant snark and barely concealed vitriol and throughout there post imply all kind of things about the OP, implying that maybe they have mental problems? Maybe they are dumb because they grew up in a crackhouse? Did they even go to school? What a terrible person they are? They can barely stand to even speak to them, even being on the same website is repulsive etc...

The second poster will not get a warning because all they did was imply or question, despite being much more unpleasant and coming across as much more hostile and unfriendly than someone simply saying "I think that's dumb", their post will not be moderated.

I think that tends to make for a worse forum experience. I understand that the Escapist doesn't want forums filled with small posts that have little content in it and am okay with most of the current rules trying to reduce that and keep post quality high. However reading through most threads now is a case of trudging through huge amount of snark and hostility just to find the few people actually discussing the thread in a somewhat friendly manner.

This is to say nothing of the derails that can happen. I usually like the idea of allowing topics to spiral off into different conversations, it's one of the things I liked about reading Reddit actually but sometimes it goes a bit too far. I mostly see it in the game industry forum on any topic related to Gamergate. A thread will be made over some event that's happened or maybe someone has just tried to get discussion going.

Then before the thread has even gotten to the second page someone will start derailing to thread to moan about how "look what GG did before!". I am pro-gg and so am likely a bit biased, I usually see it as someone attacking GG with the same old claims and then everyone in the thread refutes them for the hundredth time and soon after the thread devolves into snark and copy pasted (not literally but pretty much the same points) rants.

I understand talking about GG in a GG related thread is technically on-topic but it would be nice to talk about whatever the original topic was about like maybe Deepfreeze or SPJ Airplay without it devolving into the same attacks and arguments about poor Zoe Quinn who GG totally harrassed out of the country! Or look at how pointless, pitiful, terrible, crappy, awful, shitty, snark, rawr, evil, snark, misogynist, wrong, terrible, evil, pitiful, neckbeards, utterly disgraceful snark, other non bannable insult GG is! Lets not forget the good old GG supports and defends child porn argument which only stopped being spammed in threads after some perma bans and pro-ggers kicking up a huge fuss.

Sorry, gone on a bit of a rant there but I'm tired of it. I used to visit this forum daily and liked discussing things on here or even just lurking but now it seems impossible to actually discuss GG on here without massive amounts of hostility and people getting riled up. I've mostly moved to 8chan now and even with people calling each other faggots, shills or retards everywhere I find it to be more friendly than the Escapist forums most of the time. R&P has always had some hostility in it but i've never seen it as bad as it is now.

If the Escapist wants more people using their forums then I think they do need to either lighten up the moderation or make the rules clearer. Sorry for the rant, just wanted to get it off my chest.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

We didn't used to have warnings at all so I generally support the rules as they stand. I mean, if you feel like your infraction is in error, you can always appeal which bypasses the moderation team entirely. If they don't remove/reply to your ticket, the staff could simply agree with the mod's decision and have jumped to the next appeal in their inbox. I imagine they've been getting a lot lately, people dispute moderation more these days than before or at least that's my impression. There is a Moderation FAQ thread still stickied at the top of the forum but its been ignored for the most part. Maybe it needs to be reborn?

Anyway, avoiding warnings has never been that difficult for the majority of regulars. While some may claim its because of mod bias, its actually more about how the veteran posters have learned to write up their posts in general. Now is that simply being safe within the rules with annoying passive aggression or is it more genuinely a case of self-edited comments to remove rulebreaking content to avoid the banhammer? *shrug* I'd argue mostly the latter but I have seen people post some truly infuriating snide remarks and get away with it. In anycase, the word on the street is that a new CoC is in the making. As most people who stack up wrath quickly never read the current CoC until they get banhammered, I don't think that will change how much of the vocal minority take to the forums to shout at the rule/mod system in place. All I know for certain is that the average Escapist user will simply continue their day.

 

[SecondPrize]

Using a rule like this requires honesty from users of the forums to be worth it. I do not see that on the escapist.

 

[Michel Henzel]

If it's about rules then I firmly believe rules such not be open to interpretation, they should be clear and easy to understand. "Rude" is like "Offensive", it's a vague term that changes depending on who you ask, and is far to subjective.

 

[Superbeast]

The double standard with some posters on enforcing rules has resulted in me not visiting the site as much and definitely resulted in me not posting. On derailing, i was reading a thread with potentially interesting subject matter in R and P and was going to post in it, then it descended into a discussion on cat declawing and its results on furniture?!?

I didn't even bother reporting it because i knew that nothing would be done as the person derailing the thread has been perma banned previously on different occasions and its always been revoked.

The total, blatant inconsistency on enforcing rules is alot more damaging for the site that being rude

Personal bias can really twist one's perceptions, and I have noted this is a very common trend when it comes to moderation.

I was the one that went on a rant about declawing, not MarsAtlas - and I know you were not referring to me with your comment above as I have (thus far) never received any moderator action, let alone been banned multiple times. Mars did not even bring up cats - it was someone else's response to a .gif that was edited into an accidental double-post (something which the users cannot delete, nor do the moderators appear to do so even when requested). Therefore your talk of double-standards is a bit odd when you are directing your ire at an innocent party.

++

On-topic:

I largely don't have much of an issue with the rules. I have been here for a long time and haven't had any moderation hits and the vast majority of my posts have been made in the R&P board. The subjective nature of certain rules is just a fact of life, and fortunately we not only have multiple chances (including the infractions disappearing after 6 months) but any action can be appealed to a higher authority than the moderators, an appeal in which you can explain why you felt the action was unfair as your argument was not being a jerk/rude for reasons X,Y,Z.

If anything, I would rather the rules were more robustly enforced/are not interpreted well enough. I have seen many slurs directed at groups who certainly visit the escapist (particularly LGBTQ+) but despite a fairly clear rule on that matter, moderators have previously told me that as the slurs were not directed at any individual poster they would not take action. Of course that's my subjective interpretation of the rules being interpreted subjectively.

 

[Mong0]

Not specifically regarding the escapist, but just in general, I hate rules that are open to interpretation. Ambiguity in rules not only prevents the ones that are to be obeying it from adequately understanding what that should and shouldn't be doing, but it allows its enforcers to use the rule's subjective and interpretative nature as a cover for enforcing their own personal bias.

 

[Carzinex]

The double standard with some posters on enforcing rules has resulted in me not visiting the site as much and definitely resulted in me not posting. On derailing, i was reading a thread with potentially interesting subject matter in R and P and was going to post in it, then it descended into a discussion on cat declawing and its results on furniture?!?

I didn't even bother reporting it because i knew that nothing would be done as the person derailing the thread has been perma banned previously on different occasions and its always been revoked.

The total, blatant inconsistency on enforcing rules is alot more damaging for the site that being rude

Personal bias can really twist one's perceptions, and I have noted this is a very common trend when it comes to moderation.

I was the one that went on a rant about declawing, not MarsAtlas - and I know you were not referring to me with your comment above as I have (thus far) never received any moderator action, let alone been banned multiple times. Mars did not even bring up cats - it was someone else's response to a .gif that was edited into an accidental double-post (something which the users cannot delete, nor do the moderators appear to do so even when requested). Therefore your talk of double-standards is a bit odd when you are directing your ire at an innocent party.

++

If you read what i said,i said descended into cat talk and as you said it started from quite a large intrusive pic of bunnies in an RP thread from the poster i was talking about. and there is no ire from me to that poster in question, once had a good chat with them. My ire is to the inconsistent way rules are enforced.

For example the poster mentioned has been banned several times and allowed back and they are known for their confrontational style( i have no beef with that style personally) however other posters i used to enjoy reading points from have been perma banned and not allowed back and they were much less confrontational, why?

I'm a grown man, i can take someone calling me a fucker without curling up in a ball and crying about it. In fact i have only once flagged a post and that was for what seemed to me to be a blatant insult at another poster in a thread and i wanted to test if flagging certain posters actually accomplishes anything. No warning was given.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Of course the rules should be interpreted by the mod, they are the person who has to make a decision, so it is " their call". Even when I completely disagree in what should be or should not be allowed * cough sexist comments are just as malignant as racist comments and normalizing sexism is just as bad as normalizing racism* however, it is still their call, and they have to use their judgement to determine what is and is not appropriate.

 

[happyninja42]

Doesn't that by design actually punish people who are frequent posters?

I wouldn't think so, considering that I've managed to avoid moderation all this time (and even got these nifty badges for the effort). My advice is to avoid the non-royal 'You' as much as possible if you disagree with the person you are responding to, and if you don't think that you can respond civilly in a thread, then just leave it.

As far as OP goes though, I'm not a fan of personal interpretation. I understand that there does have to be some level of discretion, but the more clear cut the rules are the better it is for the community.

Bolded for emphasis:

I agree with this. It's very easy for people to interpret the use of You to be a personal attack. Even if you are using it in the "royal" since. And then it just escalates from there. If you are like me, and just unconsciously use you all the time in the plural sense, you should put a disclaimer, something like "The use of You in the following post is the plural you, not directed at a specific person" I've tried to censor my use of it, and replace it with something else, and frankly, I just can't do it. When I'm typing out a thought, it's the default word I use. So I try to remember to use a disclaimer about it's use. Beyond that, try to avoid using the following words at all.

Stupid, idiot, moron, moronic, dumbass, and pretty much any word that can be used to describe a situation "That situation was idiotic" or a person "You are idiotic." Just like You, it's easily seen as a personal insult and attack. So just avoid them entirely. Try and make your posts as neutral as possible, talk about examples and generalizations. It's worked for me so far as well. I've yet to get any warnings for harassment or the like, all the ones I've had so far are from random rules I just didn't know about. Like "Don't refer to people acting like a troll" (even when they are). or "Low content post, use more words" (even when the amount I used was sufficient) or "Don't use all caps" (Even though I used it do describe BRIAN BLESSED speaking loudly in a comical way, right below another person's post who did the same thing and didn't get warned.)

But basically, yeah just try to proof-read your post and remove any comments that seem potentially annoying sounding. Beyond that, eh, don't know what to tell you.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Just be nice and don't insult anybody, it's not that hard.

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

This is not meant to be a place to attack or blame mods personally. Aside from it changing the tone to being specially against individual mods, chances are it would get the thread closed and do nothing good, so lets avoid going down that path, shall we? Instead lets try to avoid that sort of stuff as much as possible and instead discuss more the rules, language and possible alternatives.

Cheers for this. It's quite nice to see something like this with a positive tilt to it.

Recently I got a strike for a post described as "rude" and "aggressive". While I will accept the action still applies, I find the explanation for and the justification of it to be very poor, and I think it raises the need for a bit of actual, open discussion on the topic.

The problem I am seeing, and the one I raised in my reply, is that the definition of what is or is not "rude" is a nebulous, personal judgment thing at best. As such, because the rules are not clear in the least what actually defines being rude, I have to resort to using what resources they have to determine what actually falls into that ruling. Now I tried doing that in the moderation group before, to... well, lets just say mixed response. Since that was a bit of a bust, I have tried using the other posters in the threads as a barometer to what is or isn't deemed "rude". Sadly I was just recently told does not matter as a means to determine things, so a bust there as well.

So where exactly do I find the definitive way to know what is or is not "rude" or so on in these forums. Because I'll be honest, I am seeing the judgement calls on that one feeling less then consistent at times and as far as rules goes, vague and inconsistent is rarely a good way to do things.

Unfortunately, I feel like that second paragraph, if reframed a little bit, could be kind of Mad Libs'd to fit a lot of things. So, playing devil's advocate a little bit here...

"The problem as I see it, and one I'm raising here, is that the definition of what is or is not acceptable is a function of the written rules exactly at best. As such, because the rules are so concrete, what actually defines being rude, I have to resort to dealing with problem users skirting the rules by never breaking a rule-as-written while creating problems for the forums that doesn't actually fall into that ruling. Now I am stuck only acting on things that fit the exacting guidelines of the rules, rather than users who are actually causing trouble, I have tried using the other posters in the threads as a barometer to what is or isn't deemed "rude". Sadly, regardless of what the users feel, rules are rules, so there's a bust there as well."

There's room for flaws on either ruleset, either precisely written rules or the loose, judgement-call style.

I personally this style of rule set rather than the alternative, but I do see where there are a lot of flaws in the interpretation area. It's something I think does need a lot of work in general. It's hard to have a solid idea of what a forums' needs are in a vacuum, and threads like these help us get much closer to the metal in terms of what people are actually looking for out of the forums, and where we're trying to address something and failing.

If it's about rules then I firmly believe rules such not be open to interpretation, they should be clear and easy to understand. "Rude" is like "Offensive", it's a vague term that changes depending on who you ask, and is far to subjective.

Not specifically regarding the escapist, but just in general, I hate rules that are open to interpretation. Ambiguity in rules not only prevents the ones that are to be obeying it from adequately understanding what that should and shouldn't be doing, but it allows its enforcers to use the rule's subjective and interpretative nature as a cover for enforcing their own personal bias.

It shows especially when there are criticisms from users like the two I've quoted here. Interpretation is a difficult topic to broach because there's no ready solution for it. There's no easy "This will definitely fix it" solution that's guaranteed to work, and any "good" solution is also subject to flaws as well. Having clearer written rules will help, having moderation transparency would help, having a rating system for posts would help. But for the formermost, the rules would then be subject to a lot of rules lawyering, people looking to define exactly where the line is so they can dance on it with impunity. Too much of that, and the known (and inevitably circulated) exploits may make the forums a terribly toxic place. In the case of transparency and rating systems, they're subject to brigading, which could easily cause the system to become about who has the most friends or the best mass tactics, which is something moderation is already being accused of.

Which isn't to say none of these solutions are viable, many are, but they require the kind of thoughtful, composed implementation that takes time and a bit of research before being implementing. Even in implementation, there are going to be issues, so naturally it takes some looking into.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Lightknight]

It would be different if you couldn't freely challenge the infraction, but as is, you can and from what I've read the mods really listen. If there were a lack of accountability then the subjective nature of the rules would be a problem.

The purpose of us having so many warnings to start with before suspensions kick in is to give us the opportunity to gauge where the line lays. The most solid rule here is simply not issuing a direct insult against another person. That's hardly subjective to enforce.

 

[Tankistas]

One can have have somewhat ambiguous rules and one can have an authoritative/strict enforcement policy, but the two mix really badly. This approach has created an environment where invalidating a fellow poster with the intent that he lose his composure and get an infraction is at least in practice applied as a legitimate debate tactic. These murky waters put people on footing just unsure enough so that such "forum judo" attempts enticingly require far less effort than forming a rigorous rebuttal.

If the goal is to uphold a standard closer to what would be expected of real life interactions one could make a strong case that the attempt has failed, as such "Mean Girls" like behavior would at the very least be frowned upon in most real life communities worthy of mention.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I love rules like "Don't be a Dick"

Seriously, as someone who has 3 well-deserved warnings for rudeness so far, I'm in full support. I wouldn't want to be on a site where the posts I made that got warnings were considered acceptable.

Plus, it eliminates the rules-lawyering "I'm not touching the line, I'm just behind it" style users after a while. Those guys/gals are jerks.

 

[Kross]

Whenever a rule on behavior is defined explicitly, it allows the sophists to step in and do the forum equivalent of "not touching you [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjOk4GLxsK8]"
( Edit: as mentioned in the post above me <3 )

So, we give examples of the more egregious offenses, and try to ask people to be as civil as possible otherwise.

As a balance, our moderation system allows for a great deal of flexibility as to when something actually *happens* to your posting privileges. Warnings and probations are literally notes from the moderators saying "hey, please back down from the direction you're taking" - they do nothing to your account other then privately or publicly make that request. Because they are notes, we often err on the side of caution, though that vast grey area can slip depending on mood and report traffic. Even when a user does get banned, it doesn't prevent their access to the site, only from making their valuable contributions to a forum thread - contributions that have repeatedly shown themselves to be aggravating or inflammatory to someone (ideally). Of course, with the quantity of posts and the erosion of the mental fortitude of unpaid volunteers, some slip through the cracks, and fall to staff appeals to let them make forum posts again.

Having more mods for mutual oversight and a slightly larger echo chamber helps temper such decisions, and we're constantly working on ways to clarify what we can in both the mechanics and presentation of the forum. Finding new mods is itself one of the most difficult tasks in running a forum, as they require a ridiculous blend of Paladin-like prime requisites: They need to care enough about the community to stick around, while not letting the control over other people go to their heads; while also having the time to dedicate to being the "bad cop" and still maintain enough empathy to impartially (as possible) ...moderate discussions.

The primary goal of moderation is to keep to a minimum things that make people not want to participate (low content posting for example, makes threads unreadable if signal:noise gets out of control). People who directly attack others either scare them off or force discussions to degenerate into boring purposeless arguments, and then there's things like mod sass and disabling the revenue stream of the site that are just rude to us as hosts and we'd prefer not to pay to host or spend time on.

We have an issue where we try to keep heat off our volunteers directly (and keep warnings/etc mostly private out of respect to the user who we hope will work any issues out), but people only see the fallout from punishments, rather then the entire picture of what is happening behind the scenes. The infraction meter and the links to the action'd post when a user is currently banned/probated are an effort in that direction... but once the current ban is expired, or a user is nuked due to a long history of offenses, the context often isn't complete outside of their outrage unless their last post was aggressively over the top. There's a few things that can help this transparency, but they need some internal discussion (along with coding time that is currently allocated elsewhere).

Blergh, I dunno, I had a fairly harsh forum upbringing where people got banned on the first offense if they didn't lurk for quite a while before posting, or copied other people's jokes/memes without keeping them interesting (as defined by mods who weren't particularly invested in user count / enjoyed the taste of tears) - which is probably why I get yelled at when I moderate directly (I tend to skip right to long-term bans if I had to waste time reading something banal/uncreative and insulting[footnote]if they're consistently creative in their vitriol, and stick around for the long term, they might even be mod material later - it takes quite a bit of empathy to push people's buttons in creative ways, and they obviously are invested in the community. It's also great to have personalities on both ends of the "congenial/misanthrope" spectrum for various reasons.[/footnote])

 

[Hagi]

Just be nice and don't insult anybody, it's not that hard.

The main problem I have with the rules is that the former is completely optional as long as you keep to the latter.

Which leads to a rather awkward environment compared to forums with somewhat more lenient rules. People are about equally nice, on the Escapist the ones that aren't just use a lot more rhetoric.

I've no real issue with rules that are up to the moderator's interpretation. I just don't think the Escapist's variant is working.