Ed: 2 things. 1) You win! Congrats. 2) One last try

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1

From here

Ed, who are you arguing with?

1500 posts on this topic and I can’t find one post, not ONE suggesting that “cunt” or “fuck off and die” is an appropriate response (yes–I know–someone will now link to the one post which did support calling Lynn a cunt. Cest la vie).

You win this point. We get it. EVERYONE gets it (except a few tools who pretend that this was the only point.). As far as I can tell, every single person who’s posted agrees with you that calling mods cunts and telling them to fuck off is wrong and no-one’s arguing it!

You’ve addressed that problem by moving criticism of the mods here to ATMB which posters have been suggesting since 2006 where an incredibly bright poster repeated a suggestion that had been made many, MANY times before

But since that and many earlier suggestions for the same change (I can’t find it but I remember one from at least 2003 or so) were back when the bulk of posters were on the mod’s side, it was better to have discussions of mod actions in the pit, since the complainer would inevitably get dogpiled. Any suggestions that board discussions be made in ATMB were dismissed with comments to the effect of "“Any discussion of moderator action will inevitably descend into name calling and shit-flinging, so we might as well start there.” or “Golly! You can certainly discuss mod actions calmly in the Pit. Just becase it’s in the Pit doesn’t mean it has to get nasty.”

So congrats on implementing a policy that has been suggested for a documented 3 years and probably more like 6 or 7 years–I know for a fact that many other posts suggested that before the one linked above but that was the only one I could easily find. Huzzah for our team! We all win.

So. Now that you’ve won this issue, can you be a gracious winner, LET THAT POINT GO and address the next set of issues?

Those offenses did not happen in a vacuum. Those two (three?) posters didn’t, just out of the blue, start threads just to call Lynn a cunt or to tell Colbri to fuck off and die. Stuff happened before that. Stuff that was ALSO wrong. You do realize that, in an argument, BOTH people can be wrong, correct?

So can we discuss the abuses of power that led two (three) posters to use the crude and vile language that we all agree was wrong?

Can we discuss the fact that the rules change, not from day to day, but from hour to hour?

That mods can take off their mod hats, insult posters, then run and put their mod hats back on and complain that people weren’t respecting their authority? (Or, better, threaten posters with bannings followed by tap-dancing back and forth over the mod-line (“There’s much I’d like to promise you for your dishonest words and your overall nasty ways. I promise you I’ll try to overlook all that.” from an Admin who ducked behind the ‘I was just saying that as a poster’ shield when called on it. From here)

That mods can make up rules and expect them to be followed retroactively?

That the people who generate the content for your (yes, “Your”–I realize it’s your sandbox) board would like to have some small input into the tone/culture of the board and the rules they’re expected to post under?

That rules are created on the spot to club one poster for their political views or to just “get” them and was never used again? (remember the “TLDR”-phrase ban in the pit? Lasted long enough to get a poster warned and hasn’t been mentioned since)

That there are no restrictions on the levels of the mod’s language or courtesy? (And most mods don’t need rules–but then, since you’re admittedly making rules for all of us for the misbehavior of 3 posters, it’s not unreasonable to ask you to make rules for all the mods based on the misbehavior of two or three of them, right?)

So–you win this point. We all agree with you. Can we move beyond “cunt” and butthurt/“fuck” and discuss the other issues?

Or don’t you care? If so, at least say so. I’ve typed out like 5 of these interminable, too-long, didn’t read diatribes. If I’m knockin’ and no-one’s home, then tell me. I’d hope that there’s some room to discuss those issues but if there’s not, tell us.

Honest to God if no change of any sort that in any way limits the mods will be considered, let us know. At least that’ll answer the question and resolve all these issues and if nothing else, you’ll see a substantial drop-off of posts like these. It’ll end the controversy. Not in a way anyone really wants, but at least it’ll end it.

2

Here’s the deal as I see it and why I’m spending so much time dealing with this this morning when Teletubies is about to come one, I don’t know. But for what it’s worth, from a former moderator:

It’s not strictly about the rules. Or even the words for that matter. It’s about trying to run the place with a minimum of rules. Which apparently people don’t want.

As I said in another thread, we have this infuriating tendancy to nitpick and tear apart and analyze everything into meaninglessness; to where we’ve destroyed the beauty of the rose by dissecting it’s separate parts. For concentrating on the words instead of the music.

For every Board Rule that the PTB feel they have to come up with there are a handful of posters that see it their God-given duty to find someway to circumvent the rule. Then the PTB have to make other rules to better define the first rule. And so on. And so on. And so on. Until we’ve got a list of rules that would defy any lawyers best efforts to undo the labyrinth of rules and regulations.

The irony is that it’s only a small handful of posters who these rules would effect. Based on a completely unscientific guess, I would say that 90% of the posters on this board are going to be completely unaffected by the new rules. Many don’t even bother going to the Pit because of it’s very nature.

It’s that final 10% that want things stated exactly with no question and no doubt of what they can and cannot do that make this all necessary. Sorry, but there we are. We’ve lost the spirit of the board and have stretched the limits of what we think we can do and what may be proper to do and what may lead to constructive debate and discussion that now we want everything codified into the ground.

10% of us have lost the self restraint that makes righteous outrage entertaining. Unfortunately, it’s the other 90% that have to pay for it.

3

So get on to them about it. It looks to me like that problem could be addressed by falling back on the “don’t be a jerk” rule. It isn’t necessary to keep adding to the “list of rules”.
Sorry about the interruption to your Teletubbies.

4

Eutychus, you’re missing the crucial difference here. This isn’t the usual Billy-Martin-in-the-umpire’s-face reaction that you describe. This is a broad-based outrage; a mutiny, if you will. I don’t understand it. I can’t even puzzle out the reasons for the depth of my own reaction. But the rage this time is very, very real. It isn’t nit-picking. It’s a visceral reaction.
ETA: And it isn’t just ten percent, not with upwards of half of the active membership joining splinter boards in the past couple of weeks.

5

To what? Even you yourself said you don’t know the reasons for what you’re reacting to. I’d bet most don’t either.

And yes, it is a Billy-Martin-in-the-umpire’s-face reaction. It’s so immediate because it’s happening right now, but a year from now I’d bet things are going to be running along just fine here.

6

And while I appreciate your response Euty, it still doesn’t address the problem of Mods inventing a brand-new rule on the spot to punish a poster 'cause the poster’s political stance pissed the mod off (Lynn) or because a poster returned snark that a mod had given while the mod was in poster-mode (Colibri) or the mod who made pretty blatant mod-threats because a poster made a snotty (albeit accurate) one-liner. (Tuba vs Catsix)

And I’m in 100% agreement that "10% of us have lost the self restraint that makes righteous outrage entertaining. Unfortunately, it’s the other 90% that have to pay for it. ". But that sword has two edges. The other one is “10% of the mods/admins don’t have the self-control to adhere to the “don’t be a jerk” rule and/or use thier warning and banning power fairly and so unfortunately it’s the other 90% of mods that have to pay for it.”

7

No, it doesn’t but that’s not really the issue at hand. Ed made one decision and suddenly every bad thing that has ever happened on the board is brought up against him. Yes, you’re going to have mods who make bad decisions and who may never apologize for those decisions. The problem as I see it is that people want those rules and then complain when the rules start being more and more codified. I can’t tell you hw many times I had to deal with the rule “don’t be a jerk” with people who wanted us to"define jerk." You can’t. You just have to deal with the mods judgement on sorting it out. And *respectfully *disagreeing with them when you don’t. And if you don’t care for the mods or don’t feel like you can trust their judgement, then *you *have the decision to make, not them.

And mods aren’t perfect. And every now and then they have bad days and reach the limit of what they might tolerate. It happens. Unfortunately there are posters who know exactly what buttons to push when that happens and make things worse. Youve’ seen it. I’ve seen it. It’s very unpleasant when it happens. But it does. That’s what I think Ed is trying to do here; to stop the knee jerk reactions and the “button pushing” and turn it into constructive and respectful disagreement.

You know, I still haven’t gotten over that Mary Poppins / Bedknobs and Broomsticks thing from awhile back. And now I’ve missed Teletubbies. Beware.

8

THIS ^10. If you’re going to [del]expect[/del] require posters to be courteous to the mods, you damned well better require the mods demonstrate the same behavior.

9

It was a rerun but I recorded it anyway. Call me later and we’ll work something out.

10

He made like 5 bad decisions, and supported several more mod bad decisions–and I think years of frustration came boiling out.

I think there’s a middle ground between “accept it” or “leave”.

What about 4 simple rules for mods:

  1. If your “Mod hat” isn’t on in a post, you’re a poster and “fair game” like any other poster. No more snarking and then hiding behind the “Mod/Admin” tag.

  2. You can’t be a mod and a poster in the same thread. If you’re involved in a debate, you can’t put on your mod hat–use the “report this post” button or the secret mod e-mail loop to alert other mods if something’s gone wrong.

  3. No more retroactive rules. You can’t make up a rule and then warn someone for violating that rule before it existed.

  4. Don’t be a jerk means mods too. And with that, a method where if another Stagmanager-gate or Catsix-gate or Aldebaran-Gate or other “-Gates” occurs, where posters can have some input–I don’t know how it would be worked, but surely there’s a way–in the outcome rather than the defensive circling of wagons that often happens which only makes more people upset.

That’s it. I’m not pushing for The Rights Of Englishmen or a formal constitution here, just some simple rules to reign in the worst offenses of a few people.

But he hasn’t. He’s only addressed the “poster” part of the problem. Until and unless he discusses the mod part, things (IMO) will only get worse.

You’re just bitter because I spanked you in that debate. :wink: Can we at least come together in our mutual contempt for Pete’s Dragon?

11

If 10% of the posters are the problem (and from what Ed is saying, it’s not even that many - he’s pointing to 3 or 4 *posts *he’s bothered by, not even posters), then wouldn’t it make more sense to ban them than to lose 50% of the posters to outrage (however displaced that outrage might be?)

“Don’t be a jerk” is easy, it casts a pretty wide net, really. Yes, it requires some cojones (can I still say that?) to enforce, because it is open to interpretation and it therefore requires that the offense be large enough to take a real stand on, but it can cover all of these things Ed’s unhappy about. And it can do that without “good” posters like **Shayna **assuming, “If you don’t like it, leave” applies to her, as well.

Don’t make more rules, enforce the one good one we have.

12

Fenris, I love your proposed Mod rules. I haven’t said anything about all of this kerfluffle as I didn’t have anything to say that I thought added any value. But I have been thinking about what went wrong here. I think basically what it boils down to is that over the years, there just has not been enough attention paid from Upper Management (in this case, Ed). No one has been around to see what really goes on here. No one understands that people have been irritated for a long time, and with reason. No one has seen the uneven moderating or listened when there were complaints or tried to see the problem with the modding through non-biased glasses.

You know, the thing that just has stuck in my craw about all of this is that there is NO REASON for the above. Hell, I’m in market research. We make our living giving companies feedback from their customers. I work mostly in front-end research, so I’m constantly working on testing new ideas and doing risk assessment when companies are considering major changes. And, ironically enough, these days a lot of companies are using this exact message board technology to do research. Ed doesn’t have to pay anyone to set it up…all he has to do is ask a few questions and read (and pay attention to) the responses!

Ed, a word of advice. Seriously. You need to listen to your customers. There isn’t a company in the world that would make the changes you implemented without getting feedback first. ESPECIALLY if they didn’t even know how the situation had become what it was.

Also, consider the idea of Mod rules such as the ones Fenris suggests. Make your customers believe that you care about them. Show them some respect, and they will respect you back. I know you have apologized, and I want to believe you meant it…but it won’t seem sincere until you rescind the new rules. I’m not saying you can’t make a new set of new rules, but you need to go back to where things were two weeks ago, and start over. Implement new rules for the mods as well as the posters, and listen to what the board wants before you make any decisions. Even if you feel you have to ultimately overrule popluar opinion, it’s helpful to find out what people want. It can help you refine your ideas and maybe make compromises that everyone can live with.

And good luck.

13

This is my position exactly. Thank you WhyNot.

14

Just having one rule, “don’t be a jerk”, and then having each moderator interpret that in his or her own forum and his or her own way, is a recipe for disaster at this board. One of the complaints I have been reading lately: “you mods just make up shit to ban people you don’t like.” I can’t believe anyone is seriously proposing this idea of having a single vague rule. One of the objections to Ed Zotti’s latest rule was that the rule was so ill-defined as to be enforceable, and now others think that the rules we have here are too specific?

If there were a single “don’t be a jerk” rule, half of the moderator decisions would require a five-page thread to justify, and after a moderator has answered 15 people, person number 16 will come along, re-post one of the original questions rephrased differently in ten different posts, increasingly irate, ending with
ISN’T ANYONE GOING TO ANSWER ME?

The single “don’t be a jerk” rule would work if the corollary was that the moderators don’t have to justify their actions and that the members should not expect an explanation of a mod ruling.

15

Now we’re getting somewhere. I’m happy to discuss this. You’ll excuse me if I go on, but this is a complicated subject.

The SDMB is an enormously busy board. We generate 6 or 7 million page views a month. We get thousands of posts per day. On one occasion we had 1,400 users online simultaneously. According to Google, we get 89,000 unique visitors a month.

Having all that activity can be a lot of fun, no question. But administratively it’s been a nightmare. Despite repeated hardware upgrades we were never able to keep up with the demand. Service has often been dismal. The board crashes or responds slowly. For years, due to a design limitation of the third-party board software we use, searches would often bring board operation to a halt. Things are a little better since our latest upgrade last year, but now we’ve got the problem that our searchable message archive is so huge that the system times out and searches fail.

Bound up with this was the fact that for many years the SDMB was a dead loss financially. It made no money whatsoever. The Chicago Reader, which owned the board at the time, was profitable in those days and was willing to foot the bill, since it gave them a window into how the online world worked. But a major investment in more resources couldn’t be justified economically.

Going to pay-to-post a few years ago put the board on a stable financial footing. But P2P coincided with the arrival of craigslist and other online services that seriously undercut the financial model for the Reader and all newspapers. Most of the company’s resources were poured into online projects, as it tried to figure out a way to make money on the Web; the SDMB was never seen as a big moneymaker and was often at the bottom of the list. So service remained poor and people who were now paying for the privilege of participating were pissed.

That brings us to board administration. The only thing that makes the SDMB possible at all is a large volunteer staff. Whatever complaints you may have, I’m sure you’ll agree the general level of discussion on the SDMB is higher than on most other boards. That’s because of the mods and admins. Over the years they’ve gotten rid of thousands of spammers and trolls, most of whom you’ve never heard of because they were shown the door almost as soon as they appeared. (Banning of well-known members, which gets more attention, accounts for a tiny fraction of the total.) On the whole they do a pretty good job of enforcing the rules. They make most decisions collegially. Early on I learned that if I chose the mods carefully in the first place, I could rely on them to use their collective good sense to keep things running relatively smoothly. That meant I didn’t have to be involved in day-to-day admnistration - I couldn’t be, because I had too much else to do. Controversial issues would get kicked up to me for resolution, but for the most part I could let the staff run the board.

That worked out OK for years. But the atmosphere on the SDMB deteriorated over time. A lot of that stemmed from bad service (slow response, crashes, etc.). Part of it was the accumulation of history - many people have been here for a decade or more and inevitably in any large and fractious group people rub each other the wrong way. Finally, the staff and I made some mistakes.

I’m not going to rehash old stories, but there have been some bad calls and tactless remarks. To a certain extent you’re always going to have these; people are human. Bad calls become more common when, as has been the case with staff for quite a few years, you’re being blamed for problems that aren’t your fault and over which you have no control. When people are screaming at you and acting out, trying to keep a cool head isn’t easy - and I know, because I’ve made some mistakes myself. Most of the time you make amends as best you can and move on. If you see a pattern, then you make some changes. They’re not things I announce, and with limited resources I can’t fix all the problems at once. But I do what I can to make sure the same things don’t keep happening. You’ll excuse my being vague here, but personnel matters are a sensitive subject.

One thing I realized last year was that I needed to get involved more in day-to-day administration of the board. Believe me, I’d rather not; it’s extremely time-consuming. But things had gotten out of hand. We had a pretty sizable group that was openly hostile and some ugly things were said. I decided I needed to revise some rules, deal with some staff issues, and see what I could do about technical problems - and at the same time deal with all the other stuff I’ve had to do all along, which includes trying to make some money in a failing industry during bad times economically.

So that’s where we are. I can’t promise miracles. There are some things I can do and some I can’t. I think I can get the technical end of things stabilized. Jerry is trying to do some things with search; in the end we may simply have to offload the older portion of the message archive to a separate database. I made some rules changes that did what needed to be done and I anticipate no further changes. There have been some staff adjustments. Since I’m in the loop on day-to-day operation I have a better sense of what the issues are and we’ll try to avoid the perception that the rules change frequently and are applied capriciously. It would help if people would back off and stop making demands. I recognize many are unhappy but there’s not much more I can do right now. My resources are few. The company is in bankruptcy. I’ve got a lot on my plate; the SDMB isn’t my most serious problem. I’m not being cavalier or dismissive about this, just realistic. I hope you can understand.

16

As a poster, but speaking of my own moderation practices: I agree with all of these, although #3 seems to be a different kind of rule from the others, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Rule 1 makes sense, and I try to follow it. This is one reason I think discussing rules and moderation decisions doesn’t make sense in the Pit. If I’m defending my decision, am I doing so as a civilian or a mod? Who picks? If I’m not speaking as a mod, what I say can’t be counted as an official statement, so why say anything? If I’m posting as a mod, then I have to stand there with my hands in my pockets while people throw rotten fruit at me. I’m going to be tempted to throw some back, but I probably won’t. What I’ll do instead is arguably worse: I’ll just walk away.

Rule 2 is one that I’ve tried to follow. I’ll usually make an exception for minor coding fixes, title changes, and thread moves. I definitely try not to admonish a poster for behavior directed at me. I report those posts, and I err in favor of letting someone else handle it.

Rule 3 is fine. Of course, we run into some complications here, too. People say the jerk rule covers most offenses. It does, but it’s unlikely we’ll have previously applied it to an identical fact pattern. So it’s easy to say “we’ve had that rule since the beginning,” but we’ll still get complaints about insufficient notice and retroactivity.

Perhaps a story is in order:

http://www.vbs.org/rabbi/rabfeins/onefoot.htm

I’m not sure exactly how the story applies here, but it’s a cool story. :wink: Seriously, the point is that it’s possible to compress a rule into a single sentence, but we’re going to have a ton of “commentary” that will have to be learned as we go along. OTOH, if you want all the answers up front, you’re likely to get a general rule like “don’t be a jerk.”

Rule 4 is fine, too, but let’s talk a bit about circling the wagons. We don’t always circle the wagons. When we don’t, it often results in comments about none of the staff supporting the decision, and seems to be counted by some as evidence that the complained-of decision was wrong. So we’re faced with a double bind: If we defend a staff member, we’re circling the wagons; if we don’t, then the staff member is obviously wrong because none of the staff will support their decision. I’ve always supported a policy that the people (sometimes its more than one staff member) who made the decision should answer for it.

17

There’s one thing that is crystal clear to me about what’s going on – I’m so frikkin’ glad I’m not a mod. Y’all do a good job dealing with a whole lot of shit.

18

Sorry, Ed, no. It’s because of the unique Membership we have.

Fire your current Staff, appoint an equal number of new Staffers, and the general level of discussion will remain the same. Ban all the current Members, bring in an equal number of new Members, and watch the level of discussion go straight into the toilet.

Let this penetrate–it is the people who post here that makes this board special. Not your Mods. Not your Admin. Not you. Not even Cecil.

While it is commendable that they kept on top of it, it is only the most basic of duties. The critical part of the job is dealing with the people who actually use the board.

19

Really? Of the current active posters, what is the percentage that was active in 1999? Has the discussion gone down the toilet?

But how did all these special people end up here in the first place instead of another board?

20

Well, there’s me 'n you, at least.

The newer generation of posters learned from and carried the torch for the older generation. I learned my chops from folks like David B, Melin, Arnold, and KaylasDad (sp?), just to name a few.

I imagine they found their way here by word-of-mouth or from the Straight Dope books, for the most part. Those who weren’t cut out for the community either flamed out early or just faded away, leaving the cream of the crop. Call it evolution.