I don’t know what this “analysis” is supposed to demonstrate, but: Why use 18 months instead of 12? That is, 0-12 months=1.0; 13-24 months=0.9; etc. Why is 18 the magic cutoff?
Maybe it’s a lot. How does that compare to other users with 4 warnings in a year and a half. Were they all suspended?
Nobody outside the mod loop noticed because nobody outside the mod loop has access to the infraction system. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to “count as.”
Thank you, moderators, I approve of the revised decision.
I’ll second the motion.
Reasonable.
Apologies to my readers if these questions strike you as no longer particularly relevant. I’m not sure what the underlying issue is either.
I set up a scale, roughly exponential, which deweights warnings in the distant past. There are a number of ways to do this. Anybody is free to offer their own, but most can eyeball the table and make rough adjustments to suit their tastes.
John Mace mentioned 4 warnings in 15 months. I could have rounded to 12, 18 or 24. I chose 18 months, maybe because I had seen references like that in earlier threads. That meant I gave the .9 weight a narrow window (6 months). I can live with that.
Bad posts tend to cluster, and I seem to recall the last 18 months being a common sample frame. Maybe I’m mistaken though.
I haven’t checked. Longtime posters who have been suspended or banned though typically get a locked thread devoted to them with these stats. I would guess that most of the participants in this thread have formed impressions on the basis of this experience.
There have been a number of high profile problem posters, for various reasons. The voluntarily departed Der Thris and Second Stone are two examples. Nobody here seemed to recall a series of bad behaviors by Kobal2 though. You don’t need access to the warning list to know that some tend to make more inflammatory posts than others.
While I agree the post was worthy of a Warning, suspending him over any one post, even one as egregiously “being a jerk” as that, is counter to the stated way this board is moderated.
Suspensions have always been last ditch efforts, not replacements for Warnings. Changing that is as big a change as when the rules shifted to using suspensions at all.
I think it at least should have been mentioned, as not doing so left the distinct impression he was only ever Warned twice.
Agreed. kobal2 could have made the exact same point without using the word “nigger” at all. Even accusing the poster of being racist. The only point in using that language was to inflame. Call it trolling, call it “being a jerk”, whatever, it deserved moderation.
The moderators are NEVER going to agree to any kind of algorithm to be applied against posters for the purpose of suspension or banning.
Agreed. And they shouldn’t try to develop a mathematical straightjacket. And if they did it would do more than just underweight the past. I intended to present a metric (and moreover a table), not a rule. That sort of thing is done informally anyway: when you say, “7 warnings overall, 4 in the past 15 months”, you are assigning more weight to the latest 4 than the first three.
Is it?
Can we write “jew jew jew”? How about “pagan pagan pagan”? Is “spic spic spic” acceptable? If not, how about “wetback wetback wetback”? Is “cunt cunt cunt” verboten? How about “prick prick prick”? :dubious:
How about if a “trigger warning” precedes their use? :dubious::dubious:
Is any word that can be used as a derogatory race/sex/gender/religious/skin color/etc. label now proscribed?
Will there be a posted list of these forbidden words, or will the decision to suspend be made on an “as-needed” basis?
I know that some people are shocked or aghast at the mere presence of some (or all) of the words in my 2nd paragraph, and even tho I find the racist terms abhorrent I don’t agree that certain words should be off-limits; it seems arbitrary and stupid to me.
I was very glad to see that, while it wasn’t exactly reversed, Kobal2’s suspension was lessened, so kudos to you, Mods, for that.
All nouns are forbidden.
As usual, the Americans pull through to save a Frenchman’s ass. Is it June 6th?
Used to be the other way round. Hey, that lead to another little revolution here on the old continent.
I was quite surprised to learn Kobal2 had gotten into trouble.
We will remember your help as we remember theirs.
reported
Your post has “report” in it. And report is a noun, too! Rep… oh, shit.
In all seriousness, I agree with the final decision.
I’m a total SJW and I find Kobal 2’s post absolutely unobjectionable.
I think I disagree with (part of) this.
You seem to be assuming that this episode can serve as a warning to “anyone”, who can be expected to learn from the Kobal suspension. But a lot of people are not aware of it entirely. I don’t think you can rely on case law of this sort and expect people to be on top of it all. Whatever applies to Kobal in this episode should consistently be applied to anyone else who finds themselves in this situation.
Also, it would be helpful if you guys would clarify the exact nature of what you object to about this type of post. It sounds from your “such language” that the objection is to the specific word, and that posts with identical tone and structure but without that particular word would not be treated the same. Is that correct? And what about using the same word but in a more benign way (e.g. discussing what some other person said)? I assume that’s still accepted, in which case I guess it would be some combination of word, tone, and connotation. I realize it may be difficult to pin down exactly, but I think if you expect other people to moderate their behaviour in response to this you should do some more spelling out what the issue is - frankly the moderator commentary on this particular aspect has been very sparse.
Wow, three WHOLE days of suspension. And not even over a weekend.
That’ll show Kobal.
If its serious enough to be on his permanent record, its serious enough to actually impact his posting ability.
By giving him three measley days, I’m getting the impression this mark on his permanent record doesn’t really mean much. Or thats the message I think is being sent.
3/5 times three might have been better though.
I would say all of those, except maybe pagan, which is not really an ethnic or religious slur or insult, could be subject to moderation if used in the same way “nigger” was in the post in question. (“Jew” is not necessarily derogatory, but can be used that way.) I don’t understand why you think they may have been acceptable in the past. Actually, the fact that you freely use the words here shows that you understand that the words themselves are not forbidden.
Even “nigger” is not proscribed. It’s when this or other terms are used in a jerkish fashion that they might be subject to moderation.
I don’t know why people insist on posting this kind of silliness any time the use of a particular word is moderated. As we have always said, context is important. No words are prohibited on this board. It depends on how and why they are used.
1.8 days of suspension? The figure seems to be at odds with the rest of your post.