Of course, if you had something like a clue, or a reasonable guess, as to what the new policies are, what words or terms of art are prohibited, or WTF **Ed ** is going on about half the time, it wouldn’t be going out on a limb and exposing your own ignorance by posting your own interpretations. When a Mod finds it risky to interpret the rules of the SD upon direct request, that’s a pretty good sign that no one has any idea what those consist of.
And I think this is a big chunk of the issue here: I know a lot of people don’t like the rule changes in and of themselves, but they’re also concerned they’d get warned or banned based on a rule they don’t understand. We’ve been trying to tell people that isn’t going to happen. Ed’s stated he feels the changes affect a small number of posts, and further, that he’s told Lynn and Gfactor to give people time to get adjusted to these changes.
Meh. As I said somewhere else a few days ago, there are 18 mods and admins (plus Jerry) and we sometimes interpret pretty basic stuff in different ways. I also don’t moderate the Pit in the first place, so my interpretation would be mostly academic.
This, again, is a lesson I learned at the BBC - it’s extremely easy to use the alarmism of the (undoubtedly many) nuts to write off the concerns of genuine users. At the Beeb I was in the unfortunate position of it being my job to read every single post, so it was harder for the unremittingly shrill to drown out sane voices. But if you really believe no-one in that thread is posting in good faith, then there really is no hope for staff/poster relationships; you’ve already given up on us.
And while in general I would agree with you on giving changes time, I think that only applies to whether the rule works or not. If a substantial number of people don’t understand what the rule means after a number of days, it’s a non-starter.
DSYoungEsq, you know I respect you, but you’re just wrong here. I have been forced to implement this sort of rule, on much bigger boards than these, and it was a complete clusterfuck. It’s plain that nobody really understands the new rule sufficiently to be able to guarantee avoiding official reprimands save by completely refraining from insults (and if that’s the goal, that should be the rule). That’s not a great position to be in, whether one agrees with the main goal (increased civility) or not. It will achieve none of the stated aims, and will simply poison the already irritable atmosphere between staff and posters. It’s a plain to me as the ego on Jose Mourinho.
This is precisely it; I just disagree that this is satisfactory. The problem is that telling people it isn’t going to happen isn’t very satisfying when they still don’t understand the bleeding rule, because now not only do they not understand it, they don’t know whether it’ll be enforced. People don’t want to have to be warned in order to comprehend a rule. They don’t want to have to be mildly admonished for a month so they can learn new behaviour. Hell, they don’t want to have to think about moderation for the most part - posting under a cloud of uncertain censure is stressful, and people come here to relax.
Whether the cloud is real or illusive, the new rule has created it. We’re not making it up.
Interesting. So maybe Ed needs to get his staff on the same page about this “pretty basic stuff” before he crams a lot of new rules down his clients’ throats? Maybe a discussion among staff over interpreting this basic stuff would clarify issues in his mind and your minds? Are you planning to have this discussion AFTER a lot of wailing and whining here, or just not to bother with this discussion at all? If the former, then why would you mind a lot of wailing and whining? Don’t you need it to have the discussion? If the latter, why not just advise us wailers and whiners to piss off?
I understand that.
I actually do think it’s occasionally alright to tell people to wait and see: I think the first time Ed posted about reconsidering some Pit rules was back in December and you periodically see people worrying that each rule change means a lot of people are going to get banned. Words alone don’t convince them that’s not the case, but it’s still necessary to say that it isn’t.
That’s exactly why the implementation is being handled the way it is.
Any time you make or change a rule, people need to consider it, and it becomes clearer when it’s actually implemented. It took people time to remember to start game threads in the Game Room, and it took time for people to get used to the idea of not calling people liars in Great Debates, too.
Did I say you were? No.
This has been under discussion for quite a while.
At this point, pseudotriton ruber ruber, you’ve registered your discontent very plainly. Would you consider toning down the hostility so other people can get their (real) questions answered?
You advised me to shut up several times now. Are my questions making you uncomfortable for some reason? If I may clarify my point, which you seem to have missed, it’s that discussion of a policy among staff, at least to the point of interpreting pretty basic stuff in a fairly cohesive manner, should probably precede implementing that policy.
What in my previous questions makes you feel that they are fake, or false, or whatever the opposite of “(real)” is to you?
No, the repetition is simply irritating.
I believe I already clarified that this took place.
I guess it was the mix of sarcasm and hostile rhetorical questions. But if you’d like them taken seriously:
We already had it.
We already had it.
We’d like people to understand what we’re doing, and contrary to appearances we don’t actually enjoy being upbraded.
We had the discussion.
Ah yes, that would go over well. I’m sorry for not realizing how much more satisfactory that would have been.
Can we at least get an answer to the question in this thread? (about Cervaise’s telemarketer rant?
So let me understand: you’ve had this discussion among 18 staffers (plus Jerry) for the past several months now, reached the point where you had 18 radically different interpretations of some pretty basic stuff about the policy under discussion, at which point Ed said, “Ah ha! Now we’re ready to announce my policy, and implement it immediately”?
Don’t you think the fact that you had some difficulty reconciling your different interpretations might have been a clue that more tweaking was called for? I do. So would many, many people, some of whom have posted here.
If your answer to that is “We discussed it for months and found reconciling our interpretations to be impossible,” then don’t you think that may be an indication that there’s something off about the policy itself?
We’ll know it when we see it.
I’m not a Pit mod and don’t have to enforce these rules, so my opinion on it really doesn’t matter. I skimmed the post last night (I’d read it before, but not in a long time) and the only part that looked over the line was that Cervaise called the other poster a cunt. Other than that there’s a ton of material that would seem to fall into the “creative vitriol” category, which is why the post is beloved in the first place.
Yeah, and both of those are easily communicated concepts that a moron in a hurry* could comprehend. So what chance does the new “no abuse unless it’s funny or contains an adjectival modifier, c-word is banned but we’re not implementing a swear list basically we want you to be more civil but you’re mostly okay” rule stand? It may very well be the case that no-one’s about to get banned, but people still want to know what’s okay and what’s not. At the moment, we don’t. We really don’t, and on the evidence of the first few days, another month of rulings is going to get us no closer to comprehension. It’s not a matter of simply knowing the new rule exists, as with the two examples you give. We have to understand it to remember it.
I repeat: a month to get used to a new rule’s existence; fine. A month to understand what the rule even is? Not fine. Very bad. And not just for me; for you, Ed and Lynn. I think I’ve been pretty explicit that my concerns are for poster/staff relations, and that I think this directly affects the workload of you, the moderators. It’s not me vs. you; I want to see this board become a more harmonious place. I don’t find the current atmosphere of tension between admins and posters compelling, and my concern is that this is going to make it rapidly worse.
Actually it’s been both implicitly and explicitly stated several times that we’re all making a bunch of fuss over nothing, whether by you or by Ed and Lynn. If you acknowledge that a cloud of uncertainty has been created, and that this is detrimental to people’s enjoyment of the board, all well and good. Your belief that a few weeks of inevitably contradictory enforcements are going to dispel this uncertainty is incredibly optimistic, in my view. Of course, to an extent, I’m willing to wait and see (I don’t have much choice, after all). But I fully expect to be proven right, because I’ve seen this happen before. Messageboards are quite staggeringly predictable, in their own way, and this one is following a very well-trodden path.
- I love the fact this is an actual legal standard.
So, then, 3 questions.
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In your opinion, the thread would be aceptable if the word “cunt” was removed?.
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In you had been the pit moderator and the new rules were in effect when the thread was posted you would have:
a) warned Cervaise
b) banned **Cervaise **
c) locked the thread -
can anybody who IS the pit moderator NOW, answer 1 and 2?.
Not to speak for anyone else, but the fact that–to all appearances at least–one of the most respected moderators resigned in protest over this or related policies kind of gives a clue as well.
I’ve said it before: mod/admin behavior lately reminds me of my working peon days when agonized middle managent had to hand down a new policy from on high, wearing a tight-lipped smile bordering on a rictus of pain: “Hey guys, it’s just the new workplace policy, really, don’t overthink it. Hey Bob, I know your concern and we talked about this extensively and found it would be no problem. No, I can’t tell you what exactly we talked about when the vice president was here, but I’m TELLING you Bob, it’s NO PROBLEM. cough. Ha ha. Hey, I think we’re all just getting a little too worked up about a tempest in a teapot here guys, I mean seriously, let’s just see how it works out. Please? [gets half-hearted mutterings in response] Great! Now let’s all have a great day out there! Martha, I’m going to go outside and . . . uh, just sit out in my car for a bit. Yeah. Kinda keep an eye on them, would you?”
Nothing personal, Frodo, but you’re not going to learn anything else useful from asking me those hypotheticals. I’m not a Pit mod and I’ve never had any interest in being one. (Okay, I’ll go this far: given the way this board is moderated AND the comments about how these rules work, no way would Cervaise have been banned for one remark in one post. Beyond that I would have been too convulsed with laughter to moderate the thread.)
It’s ok, hence question 3.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask Lynn B. to spend more than four hours a day on these boards. That’s a lot of time for unpaid labor. I’m grateful for the effort.
The 19-page thread contains a lot of red herrings baking in the hot air, but also some gems. I agree that although there has been limited response from Ed Z. and other moderators, the basic concerns have not been addressed.
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We have rules in place to curb incivility (“don’t be a jerk”), so why is the infamous rule #2 being added now?
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Clearly, the rule is poorly worded, whatever its intentions. Why not admit that fact and re-formulate? Might I suggest “Although the Pit is a place for airing disputes, unnecessarily vitriolic or profane ad hominem attacks are subject to warning, suspension, or — in extreme cases — banning. If you are uncertain whether your post might cross the line, and you cannot rewrite it without losing the effect, contact a mod before posting.”
I believe Ed (I think) when he says that most of the good-natured attacks and creative invective are not the targets of the rule, but I can also see the utility of having the policy in case of emergency as it were.
- Ed’s tone is consistently dismissive, which belittles the community members and increases unhappiness and distrust. He doesn’t have to hold our hands or agree with us, or spend fifteen hours a day responding to every little jot and tittle, but even three measured, serious responses would have quelled a lot of the rioting.
May I invite you to join us here?
Thank you.