“Surprise! Explicit degrading pornography!” earning an immediate warning and closing of the thread (or perhaps better, cornfielding it) by the moderators is a completely reasonable approach. I would support this option becoming a board rule. It seems that we already do have a precedent there. I was unaware of the Evil Captor issue, but hey, I don’t read every thread and I ignore some people’s threads on purpose.
Ooh! You’re lucky #13.
I guess I just learn quick who the creeps are and avoid. Still icky that it’s here. I read the dope for answers to questions, not creepy slime.
This sentence should be made into a sticky.
If that is a reference to what I said above, then it is a singular and possibly deliberate misinterpretation of what I said.
Chimera, I think it has to do with the issues surrounding our being heard and taken seriously versus anything you said. 
ETA in my opinion anyway.
Then for the future, I’d suggest that mods need to acquaint themselves better with potentially objectionable material that’s being posted in their forums. Certainly IMHO is well policed for rules breaches like insults and threadshitting: is it too much to ask that it be watched a bit more for content, rather than simply waiting for complaints from people who may well be feeling isolated and reluctant to speak up against a well-known poster with a large following? And if you think that I’m drawing real-life parallels, well, think of the number of people in the film industry over the past year we’ve heard wailing “But we didn’t know”.
Mods, since we have your ear at the moment, I’d like to draw attention to the fact that you’re losing women members. It’s for reasons like the topic of this thread that women are feeling marginalized here, and it’s getting worse. Look at that locked Pit thread and see how women’s voices were dismissed. Look at some of the threads where women don’t go (try any of the numerous porn or hooker threads) and see the misogyny. It’s exhausting to deal with it. I get the feeling Ivory Tower Denizen’s voice is drowned out in mod conversations. LISTEN TO HER. As one of the few female mods, she shares my views and I feel comfortable having her speak for me.
I’ve come close to saying the heck with it, but I can’t seem to walk away. So I’m going to start reporting creepy and misogynist crap and I hope others (not just women) will join me, and I hope the mods will at least start having conversations about the inhospitable environment for women here.
No woman’s voice was being dismissed in the closed Pit thread. People who didn’t express the right amount of outrage but did post helpful suggestions were dismissed and insulted.
- 1
Why is it exhausting to deal with threads that you don’t go to?
The Pit is not a place for respectful discussion. It’s the Pit.
Regards,
Shodan
That is not correct. See post 509 of that thread.
A perfect example of the concerns of women being dismissed.
I’m sure the mods are fully capable of checking time stamps across all relevant threads and considering the complete context of a post.
The post you quoted does not, as you very well know, exist in a vacuum. Would it be illuminating to post all the commentary that directly followed and denigrated multiple posters and their helpful suggestions? Suggestions that were offered and dismissed and came before the post you quoted? Suggestions that are now being praised as profoundly wise?
In review, perhaps I misunderstood the reference to be about my question of whether or not there would be issues with discussing offensive content of movies, books and other media.
I absolutely agree that reports of misogyny should be taken much more seriously than complaints about movie spoilers.
I’m still not thrilled at a couple of posters whose complaints about this board start to wander into misandry. The male moderators are not your enemy, nor are they deliberately ignoring things that upset you. The male members of this board are not a collective unit who are deliberately driving away the female members. Trying to make that part of the discussion is not helpful.
Oh, and as I noted, this is Memorial Day weekend. Expecting instant solutions from the staff and moderation team is not reasonable.
I appreciate the recommendation and we all strive to monitor and review threads as much as possible in the forums we moderate. We will also flag items for each other in other forums we don’t moderate if the occasion calls for it. But I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a consistent level of review or moderation for threads that don’t get reported. Most all of us have professional full time jobs. During the day when there are reports, I’m often in meetings that I will check from my phone, or during the meeting my computer when I bring it with me. In the evenings or on weekends, that’s typically family time so if there are reports I will also do my best to check, but I do prioritize family time.
As a general rule, I don’t want to monitor for content. I encourage all manner of discussion, even that which I wouldn’t myself choose to participate in. Monitoring for content in my view leads down a poor path. Plus, my idea of good content may differ from others, and I don’t feel it’s appropriate for me to impose my views on others through mod powers. I’m totally down with enforcing rules that we’ve all agreed to.
I did do a historical search of our report history and there have been scant amount of actual reports of the types of threads in question. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to expect action without reports, or the topic being raised in ATMB. Complaints in the Pit are not where I’d expect a catalyst for action. With that said, the criticism that the mod team has been dismissive, both male and female, I think is misplaced.
ITD’s voice is definitely not drowned out, nor is anyone elses. She is fully capable of voicing her thoughts and I wouldn’t be so quick with the idea she is not capable of making herself heard, or not in possession of her own agency.
I think it’s a fair comment that the Pit is not the place for discussion of board policy. This is a good thread for it. I’ve already initiated the conversation in the mod loop so things are ongoing, even with the holiday weekend for most of us.
…you do realize that “insults and threadshitting” are “policed very well” because when the rules are breached, people report them? It isn’t because the mods magically stumble over them. I’m entirely onboard with the complaints that are being made here. And I’m entirely onboard with some of the suggestions (like from IvoryTowerDenizen) that are needed to rectify them.
But Skald’s pit thread was started in 2012. It went for 13 pages and contained both genuine feedback from people that were upset as well as a whole bunch of people that just wanted to pile on. If you (and I’m talking about you, because you made the list) can take the time to compile a list of problematic posts by Skald and post it in a public forum dedicated to rants but you never thought to hit the report button on any of Skald’s posts then don’t go blaming the mods for “not knowing about the problem”.
This isn’t because “Skald is a well known poster with a large following.” I don’t read Skald’s threads, because with all due respect to Skald, they make my eyes bleed. I don’t read his threads. I never knew there was a problem. There are thousands of people on this message board and I would venture to suggest that thousands of them don’t read Skald’s thread. So your expectation that the mods should be actively reading threads that they probably have no interest in for the sole purpose of finding content that may be offensive is unreasonable: especially if they are not getting paid for it.
I’m probably one of the biggest critic of the film industry here on these boards. Go read any of my threads on the matter. There is no parallel between the systematic and historical imbalance of power in the film industry and a messageboard that is moderated by a volunteer team. They didn’t know about the problem. Its been bought to their attention and they are working to find a solution.
My post was meant to be informative, not critical, and I apologize for making it sound as if it was. Yes, we do need to report these things. I wasn’t referring to the mods being dismissive but other posters. The reason I referred to the Pit thread is that’s where this discussion began, and as ironic as it might seem, where women felt most comfortable speaking out. For education’s sake, it has more excellent examples of men trying to shut us down. I say “men” because that’s who they were. If there had been women doing the same I would’ve noted so. If we discuss this again, the Pit probably isn’t the place for it.
I also want to make it clear that there are some very understanding and helpful men here and and in general, and that this isn’t some kind of anti-men campaign.
I really appreciate your listening, Bone. Thank you.
Back to an earlier part of the thread – the example used in page 1 (posts 13 and 16) could have been titled “Person wants your help in breaking off engagement due to extreme hardcore porn past”. However it would still be troublesome to many, no matter how forewarned, due to the content itself.
Now, let’s look at the text highlighted in the example quotes (and really should there be a need to repeat it? we can all look it up): it’s *not *particularly explicit by current porn or general-internet standards – I know, damn low bar to set – it does unambiguously explain though how the character in the story was subjected to humiliation and degradation of a nature that disturbs a whole lot of people of all genders. OTOH knowing how discussions go in these subjects, if the author had left out the disturbing part, you would have had readers posting the question about *“well, but it depends, what kind of porn was it? did it involve…” *and probably raising even worse possible themes. Because, people are terrible. Then having the author clarify would just mean the objectionable post came downpage as opposed to in the OP of the thread.
As things stand, I am *not *convinced that this is an act of deliberate *prurience *by that one author, as some have claimed that this is him making us part of a wanking fantasy, but I could see it be an act of pushing buttons and unsettling the audience (that in the end works against discussion of the hypothetical, because it becomes about the buttons being pushed). I’m not a fan of pushing people’s buttons for sport.
Trying to then move into the general fromthe particular, what I’m looking at is, given that many of us find this disturbing either to ourselves or others (come on, some empathy needs to be shown), what is it we should be seeking: (a) specifically make that one author never do such content, (b) establish new norms about this kind of material for everyone, and have him hew to the same as all going on forward, or © establish new norms for everyone AND specifically further restrict that one person?
Then I ask myself, within alternative (b) what is the goal? That this sort of content (i) be clearly flagged so we can avoid it, or (ii) become in and of itself warnable?
I get the impression that a majority would rather go for (b)(i) and FWIW I believe operationally it could be a sound if imperfect initial way to address the matter, and then we could see on the march if it achieves the needed improvements or needs to be refiend or expanded. But that’s just IMO.
I definitely understand though a social consensus along the lines of “come on, you really want to go there?” being in our minds when writing about these sorts of subjects. Think twice, is this example really needed, does this comment really contribute, etc. We *do not have *to share with the universe every idle thought that crosses our minds.
Byond the board and more in general world terms, I have hope that ways to communicate and interact that are not so fraught with the risk of hurting others, but neither require a checklist of approved terms and gestures but rather are empathy-based, will organically evolve and they will come naturally to those who are there as they arise. Sure, some of us will have to learn them like one learns a second language (and unlearn some of our preestablished patterns) and that’s not gonna happen overnight, but it should be worth it.