Difficult topics will always be harder to read and require lot of energy.
Update:
I am not good enough at English to understand posts that should be censored.
What I understood is one post is saying that we shouldn’t finger-point and the other post is about disliking rally calls to votes done outside of MB.
You mean they are off-topic, they should be moved to some new topics?
I don’t know…
I think several point of views should be heard.
Yes, our code of conduct should be enforced at all times and this is @freso’s key task. Let me touch base with him and see what is going on. I’ll get back to you early next week, ok?
What I understood is one post is saying that we shouldn’t finger-point and the other post is about disliking rally calls to votes done outside of MB.
The author of the first post is nit-picking by citing dictionaries and accuses another poster to be in a sinister group that wants to persecute all people that don’t agree with a certain ideology. The purpose of the post seems to be to start a flame-war.
The author of the second post seems to want to ignite a flame war as well, with the “White Power Trumpist Christian cult hate mongering dark web forum chat” comment. They put the word transition in quotes, indicating that it is not a real thing and is calling another poster silly.
I think these posts and all their replies should be at least hidden.
I think several point of views should be heard.
Yes, of course. But insults and baseless accusations block the ears.
I have never heard back after reporting comments or users (over the years), on the forums or in MB (because of editing behavior). It really does need a formalised process, including comms with the reporter/affected party.
Your forum history is only about 16 days ago (and 16 days activity), only participating on that transgender name issue.
Don’t jump too fast on conclusions.
Being used to read the forum a little bit more, I feel that discussions are held rather smoothly.
I don’t feel there are big issues with how strongly the COC is enforced.
But the way you point to this and that bad posts is not the most kind thing.
I think I didn’t see how bad these posts were, maybe because of my lack of English level.
I will read them once again to see…
The posts you have flagged are hidden, doesn’t it mean that something has been done?
The currently active transgender thread has surprised me by not, so far, turning into a youtubecommentshatefest.
I’m thinking that the thread needs to be monitored closely as the topic is relevant to current editing on MB, present in real life and the news, highly emotional and highly politicised in some regions.
They did get reviewed by the community manager, for what it’s worth, who decided to agree with the community decision there. I actually feel one of the two did not deserve being hidden at all, but I’m obviously not going to revert that agreement
Just to give a bit of an update on this – while I am working on investigating the lack of CoC enforcement, @reosarevok has been kind enough to step in an help out a little. Hopefully I will have more things to report soon.
It’s great when discussions are normally respectful. That’s my impression, too. I’m not talking about these. I’m talking about the few discussions that are not respectful.
I believe it is necessary to give examples when I critique the lack of moderation.
It means that a certain number of people flagged the posts, causing them to be automatically hidden.
The thread got derailed multiple times, at least half of it is off-topic now. And I believe it was done on purpose (with the help of people who can’t help but feed the trolls).
While I agree that the topic has been derailed and brought back to some degree multiple times, I don’t think this is different to many other topics in this forum. Our community (me included) rambles often, and this is a topic many of us do not know as much as we would want about. As such, I doubt it was really done in purpose (as in: with the intention to stop or disturb the conversation from reaching a useful conclusion), and I think we can still get the bits we need from there to reach an actual useful conclusion
The same people make the same (off topic) arguments over and over again. Of course it’s on purpose. Please read the thread again. Or is it too long to read again?
At the expense of way too much time and energy. What’s so bad about splitting off-topic sub-threads off to a new topic?
Well, it’s difficult for me to judge which posts are on topic and which posts are off topic.
I’m not a forum admin but it would be difficult to scrutinate each and every posts and move them to a cleverly titled new topic.
Posts can be marked as off topic but if you mark too many of them, you will probably drown the admins under the requests and marking them doesn’t necessarily mean that the admins will agree with that judgement, either.
The discussion is still more or less revolving around the same topic, I think.
Why not let’s keep its posts together, to get the whole picture?
That is what the moderators have been doing for a long time, with many threads.
Credits to them for that.
But I believe you are labeling and confusing off-topic replies with replies that challenge the ideas and motives behind the original post.
Sure, perhaps the replies are somewhat ‘tough’ and unrefined sometimes, but If the original idea is valid and honest, it should be able to withstand some scrutiny about possible personal bias, motives, words used, the validity of arguments, and especially what the exact implications and consequences would be for other people and situations if they would get implemented.
If other forum members participate in the discussion, and simply challenge your ideas, or possibly disagree, that does not make these replies off-topic.
You are not the judge of that, simply because these replies may not support or sympathize with your ideas or some idee-fixe.
The OP is about how to handle deadnames of transgender artists. Discussions about olympic athletes have very little to do with that. I’m pretty sure that imaginary conversations with Caitlyn Jenner are off topic. The music videos from the 60s are probably off-topic (haven’t watched them).
Post #17 of that thread clarified what a deadname is. Later in the thread, multiple people acted like they did not understand what it is. Either they were trolling or the thread became too unwieldy to read because too much of it is off topic and insults.
But if I’m right about that or not doesn’t matter here. The point of this thread is to find out if moderation is happening and what the moderation guidelines are. I need to know how the COC is interpreted by the mods, to decide if my energy is wasted on this project or not.
By the way, the insinuation that I’m not capable of seeing criticism or “challenging ideas” is a well-known far-right tactic. The insinuation that I want to suppress different opinions is another. I expect forum moderators to recognize these.
From the outside looking in (and as someone who has lurked here without an account for a couple years and has recently begun contributing to the database as an editor), as well as interpreting the Code of Conduct by the loose definition of the original poster, the only content that seems in violation are quite a few posts from said poster.
The original post is in violation of rule seven.
Try not to pick fights by nit-picking other contributors.
Neither comment was incendiary, nor was the conversation “derailed.”
Secondly, it’s not “nit-picking” to a cite a… dictionary. Such an accusation is odd, considering the stated intention of the database as a whole is to archive citable information. Furthermore, taking another poster’s sentence out of context in what seems to be an attempt to have him dogpiled is textbook flame war initiation. See rule three.
Don’t get into flame wars, and try to remain as neutral as possible.
Lastly, another violation of rule three occurs when the original poster spreads wild accusations of “far-right tactics.” Dog whistling is not specifically listed in the Code of Conduct, but this is another example right out of a textbook.
Do not attack someone personally because you don’t agree with them.
The Report button via a Code of Conduct should not be used a method for those with sensitivities, strongly-held biases and/or beliefs to bludgeon opposing viewpoints into non-existence, it should be used to maintain order and structure, neither of which were lost in the threads relevant to the topic of discussion. If forwardness, directness and curtness from an individual is to be determined a “violation,” then so too should snide, morally superiority-feigning remarks from another individual be held to the same standard.
It’s best not to get into any of that, right… so the vendettas should be left alone unless there are very clear CoC violations of a poster’s content.
Not to mention extremely offensive in certain parts of the world which do not have the same right/left setup as others.
Righties in one country are your friend, righties in another are the ones you are fighting against.
