That’s a “feature” of discourse that many have complained about, and the powers that be are seeing what they can do.
At least a flagged post isn’t cornfielded. You can still see it if you click on it.
No. I unhid the two posts in the thread that were hidden, yours and one other. We can do that manually. As Jonathan Chance indicated above, we are checking to see if there is some way we can disable it entirely, but I’m not sure we can tweak Discourse that way. Flags can also close threads; when I have seen such threads I have reopened them (unless they were trolling threads that should have remained closed.)
If we feel posters are abusing the flag feature to close threads, we may take action. However, as far as I have seen this has not been the case. People are genuinely flagging posts they find inappropriate.
You want us to assume that you had no ill intent in your post. At the same time, you are accusing the moderation staff and your fellow posters of ill intent. You might wish to consider if this is reasonable.
Folks have a terrible history of responding to low-hanging fruit, of seeing posts like that Youtube video and spending dozens of posts getting into a back-and-forth with the person who posted it instead of responding to what the thread is about. Merely reporting the offending post doesn’t seem to satisfy people, based on decades of experience around here.
But if folks report the post, and it gets hidden until a moderator takes a look, it might help keep threads on track. A thread about Kamala Harris won’t instead devolve into a thread about whether a video from the eighties that plays on racist stereotypes is racist when used in reference to Kamala Harris; it can get back to talking about Kamala Harris.
Sure, it can be abused; and if someone’s clearly abusing it (reporting well-cited, substantive, on-topic posts because they disagree with them, for instance), maybe we need to be clearer about telling them to knock it off.
But if folks are using it to report borderline posts, and it hides the posts until a mod can rule, that has the potential to help a lot of threads stay on topic.
Whether it is abused or not, hiding posts still boils down to (temporary) moderation by popularity contest. Even if everyone is using it legitimately, it will mean that things that the left find offensive will get hidden, since enough people will report it, but not stuff the right finds offensive.
The idea is one of many that Discourse uses that shows the designers knew very little about forum communities.
Though it’s more the auto closing threads that concerns me. It means any thread where the less popular group offends the popular group will wind up temp locked, which puts a chilling effect on expressing unpopular opinions. And, again, that’s without any abuse.
Both should be able to be removed, same as sorting by likes. All contribute to creating an echo chamber.
My suggestion remains that, if you can’t disable it any other way, you could make a modbot that just automatically unhides all posts and opens any threads closed by system/discobot or whoever does that.
Once again, I’ll say that more is being made of this than is really warranted. I haven’t seen many posts hidden at all, and few if any merely for “expressing an unpopular opinion.” Mostly it’s been in response to actual trolling, by posters who were then banned, or some other flagrant offense. While it’s a feature we would prefer not to have, I don’t think it’s had significant impact on the expression of unpopular opinions.
The Dope is a community of people. There is no such thing as a community that does not have its own set of standards and discourse (heh).
I’m frankly heartened when I see that an offensive post has been flagged and hidden. It speaks to a level of investment in the tone of the boards. That’s not a ‘popularity contest’ - it’s normative culture self-correcting inappropriate behavior.
If the standards of this community are too “radical lefty” for you, that’s okay. Nobody is forcing you to stay.
If you don’t want to leave, consider that almost everyone here is a human being - just like you - and that saying stuff that offends a lot of them is something that should be avoided rather than double-downed upon. Nobody here gets points for being edgy.
Nobody has dragged you into a star chamber to be judged. You farted in an elevator and everyone else got off at the very next opportunity. Following them out and shouting “BREATH IT IN, MOTHERFUCKERS!” is not the way to engage with a community.
And with the advent of the ‘new’ board we say farewell to the monthly “We should get rid of the PIT” threads and welcome their replacement “I’d like to complain about the new software’s features, knowing there’s no one in actual charge that can make the changes I demand” threads.
CMC
Dude,
why you harshing everyone’s buzz?
Did you get warned? I didnt see a warning.
There was no warning. The only action was deletion of the video and the post being hidden for a short time.
Giving the biggest benefit of the doubt possible, posting that video was obnoxiously tone deaf and probably should have resulted in a warning. I can’t imagine how anyone could have thought that that was appropriate.
What video? Can someone post a broken link or put it in a spoiler, please?
I believe this was the video:
Note that it isn’t prohibited to link to such a video in itself. As I mentioned above, it could have been OK in a discussion of professional wrestlers, or of racial stereotypes. It was the context that was significant; it was wildly inappropriate to post in a thread discussing the first Black vice-presidential candidate. The same joke could have been made in a less offensive manner.
You know the great thing about having “Don’t Be A Jerk” as a rule?
You can’t game it!
You can’t come right up to the edge of it. It has no edge. If you approach it, you’re already breaking it. It’s like Fair Use that way: The courts deliberately decline to elucidate exactly what it covers, so you have to defend it every time someone comes at you over the issue. Therefore, if you are acting a bit jerkish, you’re breaking the rule, and the mods are right to do something about it.
I would also say that it’s not necessary to be intentionally trying to piss people off to be a jerk. You also be a jerk by simply being oblivious to how people might react to your posts.
Thanks Colibri. And ffs Oakminster…you can’t see how that would be poorly received?
BTW, it didn’t help that the video identifies the character in it as “Kimala”, rather than “Kamala”. Also, it didn’t help that Oakminster seemed to think we’d all already be familiar with the pro wrestler in question.
Considering how marginal Wrestling is on this board, which he knows, kind of strange he is surprised.
Exactly, so I dont see why all the complaining. No warning, no change in policy= no harm- no foul.
Because “radical lefty” and “sickening echo chamber.”