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A discussion on the rules.

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Comments

  • #542
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    later10 wrote: »
    And when I click on it, nesf, it comes under Irish Economy, why?

    It was moved to Irish Economy by Scofflaw the day after my post above.


  • #543
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    nesf wrote: »
    It was moved to Irish Economy by Scofflaw the day after my post above.

    True - it looked a little odd in the Café. I don't know whether people aren't sure what the Café is for, whether they post there in order aiming for a particular level of discussion, or whether they just don't really think very hard about where they post. The evidence of the other forums suggests there's probably a good bit of the latter.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • #544
    jill_valentine
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,090 ✭✭✭jill_valentine


    Okay, so over in the David Norris thread, we had a poster called NorthKildare. This poster had a few dozen posts, all of them throwing around inflammatory nonsense in the guise of a member of the gay poster speaking from experience.

    It was obvious to most that the guy was a sockpuppet account, created purely for the purpose of misrepresenting the gay community and baiting aggro. But it was evidently not obvious to all - some posters were taking what he was saying as gospel. Between them, they were working themselves into a lather about the supposed diabolical goings on of this secret gay conspiracy and their wacky satanic carpark orgies. Myself and some other posters, after watching this carry on for some time, duly highlighted this poster's obvious agenda for the benefit of the peanut gallery.

    After I'd been sanctioned and warned by two separate moderators for spelling out that this guy was a troll - and about six or seven hours after I'd reported him for trolling, he was banned. For trolling.

    This dude was talking a load of bollocks, and certain other posters were eating it up, only too willing to buy it at face value. No moderator was seemingly available to address his posts in a timely fashion, and leaving them unchallenged would have let him away with presenting a grotesque caricature of the gay community as fact to his all-too receptive audience. That stuff is harmful, and Lord knows that community has a big enough headache from this story this week without the help of a bored jerk generating more of the same for kicks. Ignoring him, in light of that, didn't seem right, and there was no way of challenging them short of calling a spade a spade.

    I know that I and the others were indeed violating the charter, and I wasn't gentle or ladylike in going about it, I'll concede. And I know that a Politics forum must be a nightmare to police for this stuff; but if the poster in question is only going to be dealt with several hours after the horse has bolted - twelve hours after he made the post cited by the moderator for his perma-ban, in fact - then sanctioning all the people who'd been trying to limit the damage he did in the meantime doesn't seem to me to be fair minded.

    It's more than a matter of simply disagreeing with what somebody says or trying to backseat mod - we had to sit and watch the dude do his damnedest to draw ire to a frequently maligned community with an apparently free hand, over a matter of hours - albeit, I'll grant, unsociable ones. It's all very well asking people to elevate the handling of such things to a moderator, but by the time that poster was dealt with, plenty of people lurking that thread could already skipped off on their merry way with their newfound insider knowledge about what the dastardly gays get up to when they think nobody's looking.

    I understand that all moderators can't be online all the time, but there's something a little off here, I feel. It's unlikely that this specific scenario is likely to recur, but it seems to me like there should be a possibility of making reasonable allowances after the fact for similar circumstances, in that unlikely event.


  • #545
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    jill_valentine wrote: »
    Okay, so over in the David Norris thread, we had a poster called NorthKildare. This poster had a few dozen posts, all of them throwing around inflammatory nonsense in the guise of a member of the gay poster speaking from experience.

    It was obvious to most that the guy was a sockpuppet account, created purely for the purpose of misrepresenting the gay community and baiting aggro. But it was evidently not obvious to all - some posters were taking what he was saying as gospel. Between them, they were working themselves into a lather about the supposed diabolical goings on of this secret gay conspiracy and their wacky satanic carpark orgies. Myself and some other posters, after watching this carry on for some time, duly highlighted this poster's obvious agenda for the benefit of the peanut gallery.

    After I'd been sanctioned and warned by two separate moderators for spelling out that this guy was a troll - and about six or seven hours after I'd reported him for trolling, he was banned. For trolling.

    This dude was talking a load of bollocks, and certain other posters were eating it up, only too willing to buy it at face value. No moderator was seemingly available to address his posts in a timely fashion, and leaving them unchallenged would have let him away with presenting a grotesque caricature of the gay community as fact to his all-too receptive audience. That stuff is harmful, and Lord knows that community has a big enough headache from this story this week without the help of a bored jerk generating more of the same for kicks. Ignoring him, in light of that, didn't seem right, and there was no way of challenging them short of calling a spade a spade.

    I know that I and the others were indeed violating the charter, and I wasn't gentle or ladylike in going about it, I'll concede. And I know that a Politics forum must be a nightmare to police for this stuff; but if the poster in question is only going to be dealt with several hours after the horse has bolted - twelve hours after he made the post cited by the moderator for his perma-ban, in fact - then sanctioning all the people who'd been trying to limit the damage he did in the meantime doesn't seem to me to be fair minded.

    It's more than a matter of simply disagreeing with what somebody says or trying to backseat mod - we had to sit and watch the dude do his damnedest to draw ire to a frequently maligned community with an apparently free hand, over a matter of hours - albeit, I'll grant, unsociable ones. It's all very well asking people to elevate the handling of such things to a moderator, but by the time that poster was dealt with, plenty of people lurking that thread could already skipped off on their merry way with their newfound insider knowledge about what the dastardly gays get up to when they think nobody's looking.

    I understand that all moderators can't be online all the time, but there's something a little off here, I feel. It's unlikely that this specific scenario is likely to recur, but it seems to me like there should be a possibility of making reasonable allowances after the fact for similar circumstances, in that unlikely event.

    a) Due to an unfortunate series of coincidences a number of us are AFK at the moment due to various real life demands. Can't do much about this and it happens. This slows down turnaround time due to various people's timetables for modding.

    b) If you break the charter you will be sanctioned, even when I agree with you.

    c) Sometimes a troll will get a fair while of activity before they are banned. This is a fact of life.

    d) Also, mods can make a mistake when they only get a short chance to look at something. When I looked at his posts last night, I only had a short time to do it and I thought he was being controversial but wasn't yet bannable. This evening when I got a chance to read through the thread fully it was apparent that the forum is better off without him. Not a whole lot I can do about this. I will make mistakes when pressed for time, and sometimes even when I've all the time in the world to look over something.

    e) People are allowed to have very controversial opinions. You're not going to get banned from here because you're a homophobe, dislike gays or anything similar to this.


  • #546
    jill_valentine
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,090 ✭✭✭jill_valentine


    Fair enough for most of that, but again, it's not a matter of controversial opinions, and to be honest, I'm not mad bothered about getting sanctioned. The problem is, the other poster was misrepresenting himself in order to do real harm to the wider image of a bunch of folks who don't need or deserve the hassle.

    Banning the guy so long after the fact couldn't undo any of the damage, and in light of that I don't think it's reasonable to infract the folks who challenged the guy's legitness in the meantime, once it became apparent that the mods weren't around to deal with it hands on. Not to be melodramatic in my analogy, but it does feel a bit like you're asking us to watch the house burn down while we hope the fire brigade shows up some time within the next few hours.

    All that said, I can appreciate that the mods might have an exceptional load of real-life stuff going on at the minute. But given the nature of this forum - and bearing in mind, the AH thread traffic was diverted here, at least in part I'd suspect so it could be monitored more closely - I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that response time in this case was a wee bit excessive, and maybe that could be given a look.

    I don't mean to blow the thing out of proportion either, I'm not running off to cut myself over it or anything. It just seems like this is one of the forums that needs to be a bit more on-the-ball in this regard than most.


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  • #547
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    jill_valentine wrote: »
    Fair enough for most of that, but again, it's not a matter of controversial opinions, and to be honest, I'm not mad bothered about getting sanctioned. The problem is, the other poster was misrepresenting himself in order to do real harm to the wider image of a bunch of folks who don't need or deserve the hassle.

    Banning the guy so long after the fact couldn't undo any of the damage, and in light of that I don't think it's reasonable to infract the folks who challenged the guy's legitness in the meantime, once it became apparent that the mods weren't around to deal with it hands on. Not to be melodramatic in my analogy, but it does feel a bit like you're asking us to watch the house burn down while we hope the fire brigade shows up some time within the next few hours.

    All that said, I can appreciate that the mods might have an exceptional load of real-life stuff going on at the minute. But given the nature of this forum - and bearing in mind, the AH thread traffic was diverted here, at least in part I'd suspect so it could be monitored more closely - I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that response time in this case was a wee bit excessive, and maybe that could be given a look.

    I don't mean to blow the thing out of proportion either, I'm not running off to cut myself over it or anything. It just seems like this is one of the forums that needs to be a bit more on-the-ball in this regard than most.

    We're volunteers. A six hour turnaround will happen sometimes and you have to accept that. The day I'm paid to do this I'll accept people complaining about something taking too long when it's a matter of hours but we're talking hours here not days. We do our best to prevent trolling etc but you cannot reasonably expect us to monitor the forum constantly and catch every troll as soon as they pop up.

    "Taking the law into your own hands" only makes thing worse for us and creates a bigger mess. Please don't do it.


  • #548
    K-9
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,313 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    It became quickly clear that they were trolling though. Really, if somebody is going to believe the stuff he/she was posting and not realise it was a troll, well there probably isn't a lot you can do about them. Wouldn't be getting to bothered about them.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • #549
    jill_valentine
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,090 ✭✭✭jill_valentine


    I think what I'm suggesting is that it might be worth taking on another mod or two, if that's what it takes to bring the turnaround down a bit? Even only on a provisional basis, if there's a foreseeable end to the stuff the regular mods have on at the minute.


  • #550
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    jill_valentine wrote: »
    I think what I'm suggesting is that it might be worth taking on another mod or two, if that's what it takes to bring the turnaround down a bit? Even only on a provisional basis, if there's a foreseeable end to the stuff the regular mods have on at the minute.

    An extra mod or two wouldn't solve the turnaround problem, you still will have long stretches when none of us are checking the forum. The only way around it is to have shifts with us on at particular times which is not going to happen.


  • #551
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,968 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    Any chance of a "Scum" amnesty? ;)


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  • #552
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    mike65 wrote: »
    Any chance of a "Scum" amnesty? ;)

    Yeah apt giving what's going on, but no, not a chance. :p


  • #553
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    Laminations wrote: »
    Casual racism should always be confronted but emotional guff? People are incensed, are we expected to check our emotions at the door like good little Vulcans? These are real people's real feelings. It may not be intended at elitist but it sure sounds it when people make comments like we don't want the common newspaper commenters here'. You either have high brow detached discussion of political theory or visceral debate - visceral debate shouldn't involve racism or name calling especially against other posters but it shouldn't be censored in the way it is either.

    "Visceral debate" seems to just consist of name-calling, though - "thugs", "subhumans", "bottom feeders". None of these words mean anything useful, and since none of our posters as far as I know are actually being rioted at, the "visceral" is a poor excuse for mindless name-calling and tabloid emotionalism.

    You don't have to be Vulcans, but you don't need to be mindless echo chambers for the tabloids. Nobody is asking you not to call them rioters or criminals, since they're very clearly those things.

    regards,
    Scofflaw


  • #554
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,396 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    "Visceral debate" seems to just consist of name-calling, though - "thugs", "subhumans", "bottom feeders". None of these words mean anything useful, and since none of our posters as far as I know are actually being rioted at, the "visceral" is a poor excuse for mindless name-calling and tabloid emotionalism.

    You don't have to be Vulcans, but you don't need to be mindless echo chambers for the tabloids. Nobody is asking you not to call them rioters or criminals, since they're very clearly those things.

    regards,
    Scofflaw
    On the other hand, when some posters are attempting to argue that these rioters are rightfully protesting the killing of an "innocent" man, isn't it mildly acceptable to point out that they are robbing, looting, degrading and injuring people and places completely unrelated to the police and that is the definition of s-bag behaviour?


  • #555
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    Scofflaw wrote: »
    The reason we don't allow the use of the words "scum"/"scumbags" etc on the forum isn't because we have some weird down on the word. It's because the use of such tabloid terminology is emotive and mindless in itself.

    So the "blah blah thugs blah subhumans" et al? That's the same thing. If you can't operate above the tabloid level, there's no real value in your being in the debate. We already have tabloids.

    moderately,
    Scofflaw

    Would you please kindly supply a word that can be used to refer to the those people who forced people to strip naked, and robbed injured passers by? Ideally a single, descriptive word - not a long phrase.

    On behalf of many of the posters here, I would welcome your suggestions.

    Thanks.


  • #556
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    On the other hand, when some posters are attempting to argue that these rioters are rightfully protesting the killing of an "innocent" man, isn't it mildly acceptable to point out that they are robbing, looting, degrading and injuring people and places completely unrelated to the police and that is the definition of s-bag behaviour?

    Our problem is that people will redefine scumbag to mean whatever suits their purpose at that present time. i.e. I'm sure you could come up with a definition that fitted Bertie.

    Zero tolerance is the only workable way for the mods, no matter how much we might agree that the rioters deserve the denouncement.


  • #557
    Laminations
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,693 ✭✭✭Laminations


    I wouldn't use the s word to describe rioters for the craic, I'd use it (although I haven't as per the rules) because that's honestly what I think they are. That may be very tabloid of me, but miscreants doesn't quite express my utter disgust at these people and their actions. Banning words (used in context) is limiting expression. I completely agree that people should be infracted for throwing the word in everywhere and anywhere and I completely agree that freedom of expression shouldn't allow freedom to spread racist hate speech or incite violence. But is me saying that the police should baton charge any looters and break limbs inciting violence in the dame way as some poster saying we should attack Roma Gypsies. I think not, and I think mods should use more common sense in distinguishing between the two. The former can quite easily be justified, the latter cannot


  • #558
    sink
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,314 ✭✭✭sink


    Monty Burnz wrote: »
    Would you please kindly supply a word that can be used to refer to the those people who forced people to strip naked, and robbed injured passers by? Ideally a single, descriptive word - not a long phrase.

    On behalf of many of the posters here, I would welcome your suggestions.

    Thanks.

    Thugs pretty much sums it up.


  • #559
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,968 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    I like "toe-rag" myself.


  • #560
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    sink wrote: »
    Thugs pretty much sums it up.
    Sounds a bit tabloid to me, tbh.


  • #561
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,396 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    nesf wrote: »
    Our problem is that people will redefine scumbag to mean whatever suits their purpose at that present time. i.e. I'm sure you could come up with a definition that fitted Bertie.

    Zero tolerance is the only workable way for the mods, no matter how much we might agree that the rioters deserve the denouncement.
    I totally understand the point, I do... my point is that there is a time and a place for everything. I'm sure you could say that Bertie was not the most scrupulous individual, but he was not an "s"-word (I think a line can be drawn between the London rioters and Bertie tbf).


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  • #562
    K-9
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,313 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    Well I think we know what they are like but if you get warned for it, just tone down your posting style and substitute rioters. It isn't that difficult.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • #563
    Laminations
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,693 ✭✭✭Laminations


    Just to follow up on my point re adjudication (sorry I can't find the feedback discussion thread), I never intended adjudication to mean banning of posters and censorship of discussing the contentious point. I mean obviously that's better than no mod intervention but I meant for a mod to adjudicate in a circumstance where a poster was repeating a point which had been properly and clearly refuted by others. Could the mods step in and say 'Poster x, you're point on blah has been refuted, please dont bring it up again, either rework your argument or argue a different point'

    I understand this might be time consuming bit it'd save on inflammatory repititions of a baseless or proven incorrect claim.


  • #564
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    Laminations wrote: »
    Just to follow up on my point re adjudication (sorry I can't find the feedback discussion thread), I never untended adjudication to mean banning of posters and censorship of discussing the contentious point. I mean obviously that's better than no mod intervention but I meant for a mod to adjudicate in a circumstance where a poster was repeating a point which had been properly and clearly refuted by others. Could the mods step in and say 'Poster x, you're point on blah has been refuted, please dont bring it up again, either rework your argument or argue a different point'

    I understand this might be time consuming bit it'd save on inflammatory repititions of a baseless or proven incorrect claim.

    That can be very problematic when taking one side or another firmly places us for or against a certain group of posters. It is fairer and more neutral to ban the point of discussion from a thread if it is drowning out the rest of the conversation.


  • #565
    Laminations
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,693 ✭✭✭Laminations


    I understand that if it's a difference of opinion, but on points where posters present evidence (sources etc) that clearly refute the opposing claims I think mods need to rule, or ban the repition of this false claims


  • #566
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    Laminations wrote: »
    I understand that if it's a difference of opinion, but on points where posters present evidence (sources etc) that clearly refute the opposing claims I think mods need to rule, or ban the repition of this false claims

    Then the point at which to report the post is immediately when the opposing side does not accept the evidence. Not half a dozen pages later when the evidence has been lost in the mire and the mod is unlikely to see it or know that it has been presented.

    Also bear in mind that certain sources will never be acceptable to a particular side, complicating matters further.


  • #567
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    Laminations wrote: »
    Just to follow up on my point re adjudication (sorry I can't find the feedback discussion thread), I never intended adjudication to mean banning of posters and censorship of discussing the contentious point. I mean obviously that's better than no mod intervention but I meant for a mod to adjudicate in a circumstance where a poster was repeating a point which had been properly and clearly refuted by others. Could the mods step in and say 'Poster x, you're point on blah has been refuted, please dont bring it up again, either rework your argument or argue a different point'

    I understand this might be time consuming bit it'd save on inflammatory repititions of a baseless or proven incorrect claim.

    "Time consuming" is probably something of an understatement. It requires that the mod read and understand the issue under debate, clarifying it if necessary, check the sources and evidence used and offered by each side of the debate, and then, if requested, allow time for the weaker side to assemble more sources and evidence.

    And making such adjudications will inevitably result in calls of discrimination and censorship - if someone asks me to judge between, say, someone citing the IPCC & NASA in an argument on climate change versus, say, Plummer on the other side, then it's obvious which way I'm going to jump, because one side is citing carefully monitored and peer-reviewed consensus science while the other side is offering the opinions of a single scientist working in a different field. Will that even come close to staving off the cries that I'm a biased green eco-worshipping censor? Not a bit.

    We can do it where one side persistently refuses to cite evidence, or persistently cites as evidence something that isn't, and we can do it in certain open and shut cases such as people believing that LarouchePAC is something you could cite as evidence of anything other than their own inability to differentiate rhetoric from fact, but otherwise it's more than just time-consuming. It's possible where threads are limited in number and relatively well-defined in scope - it's extremely difficult to nearly impossible in most other circumstances.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


  • #568
    Overheal
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,683 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    How are Ad Hominem arguments handled if at all? I thought it was already part of the charter, but it isn't.


  • #569
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    Overheal wrote: »
    How are Ad Hominem arguments handled if at all? I thought it was already part of the charter, but it isn't.

    They're dealt with on a case by case basis.


  • #570
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    We could with a bit of thread consolidation in relation to Ships to Gaza/Turkey/Israel IMO......


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  • #571
    anymore
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,672 ✭✭✭anymore


    Why are so many threads being locked on the Political cafe section ?
    It is supposed to be an informal even humerous section away from the main sections ? If people want to rant, let them do so !
    Last night there were so many locked it looked like a joke ! Are some mods jsut being ' trigger happy' ?


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