My two cents as someone not involved in the threads that inspired this one, nor a long time member, but coming across posts like these:
These posts are inflammatory. I am all for free speech, transparency and not over-policing posters or enforcing political correctness, but these posts insult women as a group - women who may not even share the position of the person(s) being insulted.
It is one thing to tell another poster to ‘calm down’ or ‘act rationally’ by calling them out by name, but when you call them out by gender/race/religion/sexual orientation … group membership, using a derogatory stereotype commonly employed to silence and marginalize that group in the past? It’s beyond the pale, IMO.
We don’t really need a board, we could script a few bots that would throw in the comments on those topics from the usual suspects. And I think that when we get to the point where it is “and poster X will show up in the next five posts to say _________” that it’s moderation worthy.
I would like the rule against advocating criminal behaviour enforced. Specifically the “Roofies?” comment that turns up in many dating advice threads.
I know those comments have been reported in the past, but I’ve never seen any response from the mods. Not even a ‘knock it off’.
Drugging a woman (even if you want to argue that it’s maybe not for the purpose of raping her) may be considered a light hearted joke to some of the guys here, but it’s a criminal act and a jerkish suggestion. Can we have a ruling on this?
Do you have a cite for this happening in “many” dating advice threads?
Out of curiosity I did a search, and in 8 pages’ worth of hits I saw only two or three jokes of that sort, and they occurred years ago. Do you really see this as a frequent problem that demands attention?
I disagree, actually. It wouldn’t be fantastic. It would be GODDAMN FUCKING fantastic.
The moderation stance I’d delight in would look at snark and say, “Is this making the board a more interesting place?” and if it’s not, it’d come down like a ton of bricks.
That’s a shitty joke, but it’s not what we’re talking about when we say you can’t promote illegal activity. And if nobody’s said it in years your description was kind of inaccurate.
I don’t disapprove of this (and other people asking for heavier moderation) in theory, but in practice … aren’t all you folks essentially “volunteering” the mods to do a lot more work?
Honestly I don’t think so. It’d require some initial pruning of the boards, but good grief, get rid of a dozen people, and the problem would drastically diminish.
It’s a good question, and as I’ve been thinking of this, it seems to me that, no, it doesn’t have to entail a lot more work. In particular, the mods should be able to say “report it and we’ll handle it.” All of the change should happen on their end once something has come to their attention. It shouldn’t be incumbent on them to patrol the board, looking for ne’er-do-wells.
We’ve said that several times in this thread. And while I see people have pointed to some individual posts that weren’t moderated to their satisfaction, I can’t help thinking that a lot of what’s going on in this thread is the result of complaints people have had for a long time but have not brought to our attention or have not discussed the scope of the problem they’re seeing. That’s very frustrating. I know that people have talked about the ATMB thread twickster started four years ago and I thought that was a good and productive discussion, but I don’t think we’ve had a similar discussion since then and it sounds like some posters feel people have gotten away with a lot since then.
Have a look at some of the more serious conversations at Something Awful or Metafilter. (also, don’t look at loads of the sub-forums at SA, it’s a big community and it isn’t all good, but at it’s best it’s one of the best boards out there)
Maybe you can address Sleeps With Butterflies and her example. That was reported and ignored. Is there a reason that might have not satisfied previous definitions of trollery or threadshitting or any other existing rules at the time it was reported?
When your done with that list Left Hand, pass the list of Questionables over to me and I’ll begin a rigorous program of brainwashing and censorship with them. Perhaps sprinkled with some public shaming and a bit of physical mistreatment. Heh.
I’ve been listening and participating in conversations like this for forty-five years. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, along comes another generation, or some oldster goes off his rocker, and you’ve got to start all over again.
It’s a long road and we’re strung out all along the path, Gang. Yes - education, conversation, an effort to understanding and choosing one’s battles wisely. So far that’s all I’ve got.
