gregod said:
Francois. On the subject of moderation, I don't recall too many instances where you've shut down a thread or removed/edited someone's post.
I have. Maybe others are simply quicker off the mark
I certainly prefer not to, and there are some base rules in operation that would get a look in if this was run on my own site. On the flip-side, some others I would probably be stricter with. But as a mod I accept some of the trappings of office. It does mean I do edit posts and all the other irritating things too.
If the thread is boring, it will die a natural death.
That's the theory. For boring threads that is frequently the case.
But it's too simple. And boring threads is on the whole also not where our moderation tends to happen, although we have started to shut down creating these threads when they become so prolific, that they pushed quality threads out of sight. Especially the low traffic quality ones (read, non-LA, -AC, -JV, -FL, etc). People got the signal, and seem to have stopped making them in the same quantity. So we are less qucik to jump in and close something down. We respond to circumstances too.
But what you describe about the boring ones is only the minor part of the story, and certainly not the reality of threads as a whole. If a thread is
interesting, it can easily be derailed by a very small group of people with an agenda or fixation. And as long as they are entertaining themselves, the thread will stay alive, and be vacated by the very people that the thread was created for. Once they are done with it, everyone has left the building too.
Since we are not purely here to entertain people with a lot of keyboard time, but genuinely want to encourage interesting debate, we do intervene to keep things on track, and to create an environment where people can voice their
genuinely held opinions.
[In general] I have heard far too many people who say "let us do it our way so we get opinions and debate going" deploy various techniques that all are designed to kill debate and shut up dissenting voices, aggressively.
If those people had a track record of hearing people out, and spending time exploring what the other side really felt, rather than ridiculing it, than I would take those complaints more to heart.
Not saying you do or don't do that. It is a general observation I made. And probably one of the reasons why in the end I was persuaded to become a mod here after all.
If my interventions have helped more people to come forward and engage in debate, or kept 'em here since they know I won't tolerate people being hounded from the site simply for having an unpopular or less informed opinion, then it was worth it, in my book. I value honestly held opinions and mutual respect. I think people deserve what they give.
I don't particularly like being a mod, to be frank. It is not what attracted me to the site. But I think the site is so good, I (now) happily make a small sacrifice.
Barrus is often the first one to respond to complaints, but if there was a ban handed out that didn't have our support, it wouldn't have stayed there.
A digression:
When I was a first year college student, I used to deliver pizza in my own car. The cops in town all knew who the pizza guys were-we all drove like madmen-but we almost never got tickets. One day a cop came up to me at in a bar and said, "hey, you deliver pizza. You drive that [redacted]." He knew exactly who I was. We talked a bit and when the conversation got around to driving he told me that the police let the pizza guys slide on speeding because we were just trying to do a job and earn some money however meager. As long as we stopped at stop signs and such, we were OK.
And what makes you think we don't apply that same attitude here? The problem is that some folk wilfully bust stop sign after stop sign, even after we had long friendly conversations with them.
It is the reason why not everyone who speeds gets the same treatment. We judge case by case what is appropriate. Are we 100% correct. No. Do we try? Yes.
And don't forget, we don't read every post on this forum, not by a long shot. The only way to get some sort of even-handedness is to have one fair staffer read the whole thing A-Z. We are volunteers, ain't gonna happen.
TFF is an active and important contributor to this forum. So, as long as he doesn't run any metaphorical red lights, the occasional speeding should go unpunished.
Oh, trust me, the vast majority goes unpunished, and that goes for everyone. We let everyone get away with murder just about all the time. If anyone disbelieves that, just call up all the posts by someone who did get a ban and see how many posts were left untouched.
Bans don't come out of the blue. Regular and solid contributors who get one haven;t just ignored a couple of stop signs, but usually private words from the window, public addresses, flashing lights, barricades, and sometimes smoke granates and water cannons too.
I sometimes wonder why people get so upset over the one or two times we get really serious. Usually, after having told them time and time again we would we if they would just ignore a couple of simple posting rules.
It usually feels a tad disproportionate to the genuine freedom they enjoy here.
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