Forum Moderation

[tggzzz]

Am I supposed to make special political expression exceptions for some people, lest they leave? If so, why?

The difficulty is defining what is and isn't political. Choices have to be made.

Example: is putting a flag under your forum moniker political? Yes, repeat no.

The English flag (i.e. of the Turkish saint St George!) is currently being weaponised and used to intimidate people by extreme political parties in England. Naturally those political parties deny that, and mutter about "free speech". The same individuals recently used to mutter nonsense about being "freemen on the land" and Magna Carta.

So, if I changed from displaying the Union Flag to the Ukraine Flag, is that an unacceptable political statement? Discuss. (Or not!)

[PlainName]

As with physical neighbourhoods, the zeitgeist can mutate over time. Sometimes people feel the zeitgeist has mutated unpleasantly, draw attention to the change, and try to reverse the change. If they fail, their only option is to leave.

No, they have another option: shrug and put up with it.

You've made it clear multiple times that you are not happy with the ignore system. It's been obvious every time that you're asking the impossible of this forum and it is what it is. It's not going to change in a way that will satisfy your demand. Yet you manage to stick around and keep posting and (presumably) reading. Is that not an alternative to leaving?

The ones I really miss are those that haven't thrown a public strop beforehand but just quietly disappeared.

[madires]

If you have issues with specific users try to distance yourself emotionally when reading their posts. It's totally fine if you think 'what an idiot', but there's no need to correct them or to battle out an argument. In many cases it would be a waste of time anyway, just stressing yourself. It's only a conversation between some strangers, not a fight for your survival.

[m k]

It's in the eye of the beholder.

Double standard is a good candidate for the root cause.

More dedicated partial stuff moderators can be a solution, but it doesn't work so that they have only a report button.
Maybe more dynamic housekeeping is one route, like splitting and merging.

TEA situation is different than other threads, it was a community in a community.
My impression as a noob was that its double standard compared to the rest of the community was generally and specially accepted.

Community in a community means that if TEA section was available it's quite possible that two identical threads were also present, like cat pictures of general section and TEA section.
It can also mean fights between us and them, and be confusing to noobs.

In my opinion, don't punish the whole thread by locking it, good behaving members are punished equally.
It can be seen also so that bad behavior is rewarded, if disruption was understood as a goal.

Maybe current situation is only because Musk thread had a too sloppy start.
It didn't emphasize enough that tech parts only and politics only for short branch of its tech connections.
(political memory is short, all around)

[thm_w]

If you change your user flag to Ukraine and didn't say anything, I doubt anyone would notice or care.
Thats getting into a gray area, its not like there is a rule that you have to have an accurate country, or you have to have one at all, its just appreciated if you do make it accurate.

Am I supposed to make special political expression exceptions for some people, lest they leave? If so, why?

No, exactly, I think its a good thing that it was enforced. I'm not sure why tggzzz doesn't see it the same way.

[tggzzz]

If you change your user flag to Ukraine and didn't say anything, I doubt anyone would notice or care.
Thats getting into a gray area, its not like there is a rule that you have to have an accurate country, or you have to have one at all, its just appreciated if you do make it accurate.

Flags are extremely political; that is the whole reason they were invented and still exist - and the reason I used them to highlight that dividing political from non politics is always going to cause problems.

As an example... There is a Ukraine flag flying over the war memorial in my village. I have no problems with that because we need to support Ukraine to reduce the chance of their being a wider war. And similarly...People have been stringing up English flags (i.e. of St George, a Turkish Christian warrior of all things) on street lamps. I do have problems with that because it is intended to intimidate people living here.

So, if someone displays a Ukraine flag here, is it politically offensive or inoffensive?
Ditto a St George's flag?
Ditto one hashtag that shows allegiance in the same way a flag declares alliegance?
If one is banned, why not the other?

Am I supposed to make special political expression exceptions for some people, lest they leave? If so, why?

No, exactly, I think its a good thing that it was enforced. I'm not sure why tggzzz doesn't see it the same way.

I previously stated why, and I'm not going to repeat it.

Plus, see the points above, and realise that the ambiguity can cause apparent inconsistencies, and that some people won't like the consequences.

Fundamentally the whole topic is fraught with problems, and there can never be a single correct solution.

[tszaboo]

If you change your user flag to Ukraine and didn't say anything, I doubt anyone would notice or care.
Thats getting into a gray area, its not like there is a rule that you have to have an accurate country, or you have to have one at all, its just appreciated if you do make it accurate.

Am I supposed to make special political expression exceptions for some people, lest they leave? If so, why?

No, exactly, I think its a good thing that it was enforced. I'm not sure why tggzzz doesn't see it the same way.

TiN might have been through literal hell at that point, and that's why he put that in his bio.
His website is down, he didn't post anything on youtube for 6 months. He might be in an unmarked grave after a war criminal killed him for all we know, and here are a few people arguing if the hastag  he used was acceptable or not. 
I feel like there were no good choices in that moderation, lose-lose situation.

[thm_w]

Ditto one hashtag that shows allegiance in the same way a flag declares alliegance?
If one is banned, why not the other?

Because the hashtag has a very clear political intent, no ones profile flag has been edited, and its intent is simply "where I live", so I don't think it needs to be discussed.

Fundamentally the whole topic is fraught with problems, and there can never be a single correct solution.

The solution is to edit/delete/lock any off topic political content.
Doing it perfectly requires infinite resources, which we don't have, so sometimes stuff gets missed, and sometimes it wont and people will get upset that they were "targeted". Yes there is ambiguity, its too complex a situation not to have it. But its not like that ambiguity even led to a ban, just a simple edit.

TiN might have been through literal hell at that point, and that's why he put that in his bio.
His website is down, he didn't post anything on youtube for 6 months. He might be in an unmarked grave after a war criminal killed him for all we know, and here are a few people arguing if the hastag  he used was acceptable or not. 
I feel like there were no good choices in that moderation, lose-lose situation.

Its just a forum rule, nothing against the guy, I don't know anything about his situation. It does absolutely make sense why he'd be upset. He links his site which has similar statement right?: https://xdevs.com/index/ 

[tggzzz]

TiN might have been through literal hell at that point, and that's why he put that in his bio.
His website is down, he didn't post anything on youtube for 6 months. He might be in an unmarked grave after a war criminal killed him for all we know, and here are a few people arguing if the hastag  he used was acceptable or not. 
I feel like there were no good choices in that moderation, lose-lose situation.

TiNs situation is appalling; all decent people feel for him.

Whether or not the hashtag was political is a separate question. There are good arguments for and against.

How much leeway should or should not have been given - or was given out of the public gaze - also has no good answer. It all comes down to judgment and personal choices.

Ultimately TiN decided there was a conflict between his principles and this forum's policies, and chose to leave. That's a shame.

[tggzzz]

Ditto one hashtag that shows allegiance in the same way a flag declares alliegance?
If one is banned, why not the other?

Because the hashtag has a very clear political intent, no ones profile flag has been edited, and its intent is simply "where I live", so I don't think it needs to be discussed.

Many people on this forum don't use flags to indicate where they live. They display different flags, presumably for varying reasons.

Displaying flags can be an acutely political act.

If I displayed the EU flag I would be declaring my position on Brexit.

If I displayed my country's flag (St George's cross), many would regard it as my making a statement on immigration.

I hate that, but the political extremists are following the standard playbook of wrapping themselves in the flag and thereby hoping to imply they are good citizens. Some people will be fooled; they always are.

[bdunham7]

He might be in an unmarked grave after a war criminal killed him for all we know, and here are a few people arguing if the hastag  he used was acceptable or not. 

Just for the record TiN is alive and well in New Jersey as of fairly recently.  His relatives and friends in Kherson may not be as fortunate.

[EEVblog]

Ditto one hashtag that shows allegiance in the same way a flag declares alliegance?
If one is banned, why not the other?

Because the hashtag has a very clear political intent, no ones profile flag has been edited, and its intent is simply "where I live", so I don't think it needs to be discussed.

Correct. The flag is useful for all sorts of reasons involved in the technical discussions here. Two conflate the two is crazy.

I (and the other moderators) constantly get harnessed for "not evenly enforcing the rules". Yet in this case with TiN when we did "evenly enforce the rules" it's suddenly a bad thing, because a well liked member decided to leave over it.

I ask the question again, why should TiN have been allowed to have a political slogan related to war in his footer but no one else is? We removed a ton of these things during the BLM and covid crazes.
Should I have relented and allowed him to be the one to have a political slogan in his footer lest he leave? If so, why?
BTW, if you read TiN's response to me, he actually accepted my reasoning. He was just a little upset that it wasn't clearly stated in the T&C to begin with. And then he decided to leave of his own accord without another word.

Speaking of "not evenly enforcing the rules", Joe's recent posts for example would have got a newbie account banned, but we obviously do cut long time contributors some slack in regards to outbursts like that. So I simply asked Joe to leave that thread. Turns out he seems to have left the forum entirely.

[EEVblog]

Ditto one hashtag that shows allegiance in the same way a flag declares alliegance?
If one is banned, why not the other?

Because the hashtag has a very clear political intent, no ones profile flag has been edited, and its intent is simply "where I live", so I don't think it needs to be discussed.

Many people on this forum don't use flags to indicate where they live. They display different flags, presumably for varying reasons.
Displaying flags can be an acutely political act.
If I displayed the EU flag I would be declaring my position on Brexit.
If I displayed my country's flag (St George's cross), many would regard it as my making a statement on immigration.
I hate that, but the political extremists are following the standard playbook of wrapping themselves in the flag and thereby hoping to imply they are good citizens. Some people will be fooled; they always are.

We have had a vote on the flag before, and it was decided to not only keep it, but enforce it. Turns out there is still a bug in the forum software that allows people to skip it though.
The fact that is can be used as "a symbol", nobody knows that, because it's just something that every has to indicate their location.

[EEVblog]

Am I supposed to make special political expression exceptions for some people, lest they leave? If so, why?

The difficulty is defining what is and isn't political. Choices have to be made.

In the case of TiN was 100% clear, with absolutely no ambiguity, and self admitted by him. "#StopRussianWar" under every one of his posts.

So, if I changed from displaying the Union Flag to the Ukraine Flag, is that an unacceptable political statement? Discuss. (Or not!)

No one if going to even notice that you did that, nor give a shit. You are the only one that sees it as a political statement, everyone else sees it as a simple (and often useful) country of origin on an international forum.

[BradC]

No one if going to even notice that you did that, nor give a shit. You are the only one that sees it as a political statement, everyone else sees it as a simple (and often useful) country of origin on an international forum.

Exactly. When someone comes in with a "Where can I get my Fnarfnar-4000 calibrated" the response will either be "Go to XYZ in fnartown" or "Where in the world are you located?". The flags are very, very useful in the context of an international forum. "Oh, you're in the UK, well there's a few options for you".

Just because I display an Australian flag doesn't mean I support the muppets that wrap themselves in one and beat up other people. It simply means I live here, work here and want go get my test equipment calibrated here. If I wanted to make a political statement, I wouldn't change my flag. I'd go to a forum where that sort of thing was relevant and/or welcome.

[EEVblog]

IMNSHO based on Musk's recent actions, it is impossible to simultaneously have a thread about him and to ignore his political actions.

That's just a restraint issues on your part. Either contribute and leave out the politics, or add the thread to your ignore list.

FYI, bd139 complains about "endless tolerated troll threads and sick and disgusting behaviour by a lot of your forum members"
Yet did he report them? No, no he didn't.

It is a judgement call whether to report someone and whether to ban them; personally I dislike doing so for many practical and philosophical reasons.
BD139 had seen the consequences of reporting members and subsequent moderation in the TEA thread, and he stated that influenced his thinking. In particular he drew attention to what he regarded as inconsistencies.

Then don't complain when I have no idea what was happening.
Not one single person who left over the TEA thread, I repeat, not ONE person, bothered to even contact me to let me know what was going on. I don't usually read the TEA thread so I had no idea anything at all was happening.
By the time I did find out it was "You just let all this happen! I'm leaving!" 

Personally I don't regard TiN's portmanteau word hashtag as being unacceptably political

Too bad. Most people like that we keep tight control over what goes in the footer, especially politics. Because as I explained, it's not just a one off post that vanishes into the ether, it's automatically rendered onto every single post you have ever made on the forum.

You define the zeitgeist of this neighbourhood.
As with physical neighbourhoods, the zeitgeist can mutate over time. Sometimes people feel the zeitgeist has mutated unpleasantly, draw attention to the change, and try to reverse the change. If they fail, their only option is to leave.

I'm still waiting for someone to post a link to this mythical perfect forum that everyone loves and not a single person has any problem with, and only sunshine and rainbows flows out of it.
Please, post it.

I used to be the top poster on a canyoning forum, it was about nothing else but canyoning, very specific, very benign almost boring stuff. It eventually split into three different forum groups as people were banned or didn't like the moderation, attitudes, or even arguments over whether or not new canyon info should be published.

[brucehoult]

So, if I changed from displaying the Union Flag to the Ukraine Flag, is that an unacceptable political statement? Discuss. (Or not!)

No one if going to even notice that you did that, nor give a shit. You are the only one that sees it as a political statement, everyone else sees it as a simple (and often useful) country of origin on an international forum.

During the time I've been a member of this site I've lived in Russia (when I joined), NZ, Fiji, USA, NZ again. Defined as "Having a normal rental contract for an apartment or house, signing up for and paying utilities under my own name". I actually had some plans to do the same in Ukraine this just finished summer, but they didn't eventuate. Perhaps next summer...

I'm pretty sure I just put NZ flag from the outset, despite being in the middle of living in Russia at the time. and have never changed it when I moved. I guess I could have.

[EEVblog]

No one if going to even notice that you did that, nor give a shit. You are the only one that sees it as a political statement, everyone else sees it as a simple (and often useful) country of origin on an international forum.

Exactly. When someone comes in with a "Where can I get my Fnarfnar-4000 calibrated" the response will either be "Go to XYZ in fnartown" or "Where in the world are you located?". The flags are very, very useful in the context of an international forum. "Oh, you're in the UK, well there's a few options for you".

This why when we did a poll on it, the majority said that flag usage should be enforced at sign up, because they were sick of asking "which country are you in?"

[brucehoult]

This why when we did a poll on it, the majority said that flag usage should be enforced at sign up, because they were sick of asking "which country are you in?"

Checks ...

Date Registered:January 30, 2017, 12:13:31 am

Damn. I better go change mine to Russia! brb

[wilfred]

It's in the eye of the beholder.

Double standard is a good candidate for the root cause.

More dedicated partial stuff moderators can be a solution, but it doesn't work so that they have only a report button.
Maybe more dynamic housekeeping is one route, like splitting and merging.

TEA situation is different than other threads, it was a community in a community.
My impression as a noob was that its double standard compared to the rest of the community was generally and specially accepted.

Community in a community means that if TEA section was available it's quite possible that two identical threads were also present, like cat pictures of general section and TEA section.
It can also mean fights between us and them, and be confusing to noobs.

In my opinion, don't punish the whole thread by locking it, good behaving members are punished equally.
It can be seen also so that bad behavior is rewarded, if disruption was understood as a goal.

Maybe current situation is only because Musk thread had a too sloppy start.
It didn't emphasize enough that tech parts only and politics only for short branch of its tech connections.
(political memory is short, all around)

I think you make some good points.
I particularly agree that locking threads does punish and disenfranchise innocent participants. Better to target those that drag a thread off the rails and from where I stand it is consistently only a handful who hijack threads in the final days.

There needs to be a lot more consideration of forum members who just don't ever get involved in such threads like the Musk one. There must be thousands of them and yet I always have the impression there are only a few dozen with the time and energy to argue with others.

[EEVblog]

I particularly agree that locking threads does punish and disenfranchise innocent participants. Better to target those that drag a thread off the rails and from where I stand it is consistently only a handful who hijack threads in the final days.

Unfortunately SMF does not have the ability to block people from an individual thread.
I had a plugin written once that did this, but IIRC there was an issue with it.

[wilfred]

No one if going to even notice that you did that, nor give a shit. You are the only one that sees it as a political statement, everyone else sees it as a simple (and often useful) country of origin on an international forum.

Exactly. When someone comes in with a "Where can I get my Fnarfnar-4000 calibrated" the response will either be "Go to XYZ in fnartown" or "Where in the world are you located?". The flags are very, very useful in the context of an international forum. "Oh, you're in the UK, well there's a few options for you".

This why when we did a poll on it, the majority said that flag usage should be enforced at sign up, because they were sick of asking "which country are you in?"

The problem I have with relying on forum polls is that they are never representative because only a small number respond and therefore a majority of such a small self selected group is unreliable. Even though I recall that poll and agree there was a need to regularly ask the question "Where are you from?"

I would discourage people from using a misleading flag. None would be a better choice.

[wilfred]

I particularly agree that locking threads does punish and disenfranchise innocent participants. Better to target those that drag a thread off the rails and from where I stand it is consistently only a handful who hijack threads in the final days.

Unfortunately SMF does not have the ability to block people from an individual thread.
I had a plugin written once that did this, but IIRC there was an issue with it.

I've often advocated giving people some time to go off and quietly reflect on things. Maybe a week. I sounds like it could be a pain to administer but in my mind it  wouldn't capture a large number.  Sending someone off to cool their heels in the sin-bin. Or several people if necessary. That should restore a bit of discipline.

I definitely don't think non standard plugins should be used as they complicate future upgrades if they fall behind.

[EEVblog]

I've often advocated giving people some time to go off and quietly reflect on things. Maybe a week. I sounds like it could be a pain to administer but in my mind it  wouldn't capture a large number.  Sending someone off to cool their heels in the sin-bin. Or several people if necessary. That should restore a bit of discipline.

That happens quite often, Norbert who hacked the Rigol MHO900 was just given a week to touch grass for being disruptive.

[tszaboo]

He might be in an unmarked grave after a war criminal killed him for all we know, and here are a few people arguing if the hastag  he used was acceptable or not. 

Just for the record TiN is alive and well in New Jersey as of fairly recently.  His relatives and friends in Kherson may not be as fortunate.

Thank you, I'm glad he is alive and well.
I would make some joke about New Jersey being a downgrade, but it would be of bad taste.
I don't know what is going on with the website looks like half the links to it don't work.