It does seem to me, though, that Lemmie raises some issues worth talking about. If I understand her correctly, the problem she sees is that our rules and the way we apply them allows a passive aggressive troll to manipulate the system, resulting in disruption of threads, abandoning of substantive conversations, and, ultimately folks quitting the board. My own experience has led me to conclude that any system of rules can be exploited by a truly malicious person to cause disruption and that truly malicious persons are special cases that have to be dealt with in a case by case basis. What do you think?

Lemmie, I offered my proposal specifically to eliminate the unequal power situation. This is basically an unmoderated forum, so I have no ability to use my moderator status to your detriment. I also removed the topic of violating the guidelines from the discussion to avoid even any appearance of authority to enforce rules.

In my opinion, there is a serious lack of trust between us that is preventing us from addressing substantive issues. My proposal was intended to try and build some trust based on nothing more than an understanding that we would both act in good faith and view the other as acting in good faith.

I’m sorry it didn’t work out. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.

EAllusion, I appreciate your sharing this information.

The disruption you are describing, where posters begin to preemptively label a poster as a troll, and are moderated for it, is a common scenario described in the literature. It is typically described as "mocking the troll," where "they may undertake behaviour that appears to be trolling [back], but that actually aims to enhance or increase affect, or group cohesion." This strategy is not usually found to be very effective, for reasons similar to what you listed above.

It typically arises in the context of what the literature refers to as a cycle within a disruptor's "covert superstrategy." It involves a disruptor engaging repeatedly in behavior covert enough to avoid moderation, but disruptive enough to frustrate other participants who view the lack of moderation as favoritism. Eventually this culminates in a critical mass of frustrated posters who, having lost faith in moderation's ability to protect their community, begin to openly point out the issue. At this point in the cycle, the troll is still inserting himself into conversations but is careful to repeatedly point out that his intentions are good and that he is being victimized, leaving moderation with no choice but to conclude, on the basis of the open behavior, that posters other than the troll are in need of moderation.

It is extremely difficult to assess, post by post, when a disruptor is using a "covert superstrategy," in a nutshell the literature seems to conclude that the analysis of long-term patterns is vitally necessary but too time-consuming for typical moderation boards. Some algorithms are being currently tested, but their originators point out that if even a pattern can be identified, a good enough troll can figure out how to change his pattern.

(quotes from "An overview of trolling strategies,"
published in Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict )

No, no, NO! DO NOT put words in my mouth, Res Ipsa!
Please see my last post. I feel this is a problem faced by all Online Communities, regardless of how they moderate.

Res Ipsa, please edit your post. You do NOT see me correctly and I don't appreciate your setting up such an obnoxious dichotomy.

You say you are trying to build some trust and good faith, when in your last post you asked the board to choose between what you think and what YOU ASSUMED I think, which you than grossly mis-stated as some obnoxious, judgmental asshattery.

Yes, Res Ipsa, there IS a serious lack of trust.

I see that my report on Res Ipsa's post where he grossly mis-stated my meaning was promptly dismissed. Thanks, Mods. I'm glad those days of needing 6 days to mull over a report on mentalgymnast are past.

Your report of my post is in the system awaiting action by EAllusion or Shades.

I think you have to take into account the context of moderation's purpose on this forum. The reason I mention this is general moderation strategies in forums are too heavy-handed for the aims of the forum. The idea is to let people freely exchange ideas even when those ideas are inflammatory to the sensibilities of each other. This is in the context of the forum being started by people philosophically committed to robust tolerance of free speech who were trying to encourage discussion of a topic where people with opposing viewpoints tend to be suspicious of the motives of each other and tend to view each other's reasoning as scandalously wrong. The idea of specific forums with different content moderation is the grand-compromise for allowing people to decide some conversational guardrails for themselves.

To me, it is quite notable that I've seen thoughts expressed by MG, both in private reports and in public, viewed as deliberate attempts to provoke reaction in others even in instances where he is saying things I've seen him say quite sincerely as far back as 2003. On some level, it's just what he thinks. Prior to his foray into uncharacteristically mean-spirited trolling, that's more or less how he posted for years. To the extent that he understands his reasoning is frustrating to others, he might be passive-aggressively trolling, but that's traditionally within the bounds of acceptable behavior in the forum. People have handled it fine for a long time. Recently, he seems to have gotten under the skin of a few posters here and now his argumentation being frustrating ends up being an invitation to strike out. This is unfortunate, as you hint at, because if all he was doing is trolling, that's exactly what he'd want.

When it comes to passive aggressiveness generally, my inclination is we need to moderate it in a way that is analogous to regulation of speech in criminal law. If someone passive-aggressively provokes you to throw the first punch, I'm sorry, but you shouldn't have thrown the first punch. The right to be wrong, especially in this forum, is too important for us to be deciding who is obnoxiously wrong in a way that is intended as disruption. We've had people passive aggressively troll the board here for years who did so far more blatantly than anything MG has done. Several of them are still routine contributors. We trust participants to be mature enough to follow the rules and ignore them if it's something they can't stand. Trolling, in of itself, isn't against the rules. That's because one person's trolling is another person's insightful comment. We all get to be wrong in the eyes of another at the cost of having to tolerate terrible reasoning and the occasional Poe.

I should note there's a whole behind the scenes moderation story that I'm privy to that makes this conversation a little tricky. Our policy has been to keep the exact content of private reports private unless otherwise requested by the reporter. MG was moderated, quite significantly in some cases, but I know that wasn't to the satisfaction of some posters. I would have no problem going down report by report and explaining why some were addressed as requested and some weren't, but the sense that he is "getting away with it" hasn't been correct at least since there's been a focus on him. It is the case that calls for certain things he has said to be moderated weren't, but I think there are good reasons for that. I specifically highlighted one example I dismissed in the moderator forum because it was so ridiculous I was flabbergasted. Frustration over not responding to some of those reports looks to me like frustration over not censoring someone disliked by the people doing the reporting. I view my job as to protect unpopular speech in those instances.

Finally, I think I should reiterate that I personally think it's perfectly fine to discuss MG as trolling if someone wants to do so. I didn't moderate the label, nor to my knowledge has Shades or Res Ipsa. I only addressed it when it was used in the context of a personal attack. As an analogy, you are perfectly free to imply or outright state that another poster is lying. You can call them a liar. However, if you just randomly show up in threads and write posts like, "Another lying post from the liar. Liar." I think I would be compelled to move that to telestial because context suggests it is a personal attack in the form of dismissive insult rather than dialogue. Some of these are going to be tough calls, but I think what we're trying to look at here in terms of context is reasonably clear.

It wasn't dismissed yet. It is in the queue. Having read the report, I don't see how I cannot dismiss it. It's not against the telestial forum rules to either intentionally or unintentionally mischaracterize the meaning of another person's post in responding to it. There are very important reasons why we don't want moderators deciding if posters have adequately understood and correctly paraphrased each other's reasoning. Would you like to discuss it detail on this thread or privately? Your full logic for reporting it isn't in this post, so I don't know if you are Ok with me responding to it here.

Oh please, I was just venting. I apologize for taking it out on your reporting process in the course of my frustration.

I was just deeply disturbed and upset that Res Ipsa, a mod, would announce such a negative view of my opinion, especially after "inviting" me to have a nonjudgmental conversation , where we both would promise to assume the other was "posting in good faith." It just seemed like an attack, a facetious and biased attack.

Obviously, just dismiss it.

Lemmie, the purpose of my post was to engage EAllusion in a discussion of the issues you have raised. I attempted to describe my understanding of your position in absolutely neutral terms. I prefaced that description by saying “If I understand correctly,” to invite you to correct my description. At this point, I can only conclude that you are determined to place the worst possible interpretation on anything I post and then attack me based on that interpretation. As I said, I think you’ve raised some issues worth discussing. But if the cost of doing so is this incessant attack on my integrity and character, it’s just not worth it to me.

Which I did. I most emphatically disagreed with your statement that you described my position "in absolutely neutral terms."


Really? I stated my opinion. Why are you assuming such ugly motives behind my opinion? It's bizarre that just because someone disagrees with you more than once, you feel the need to describe it as a character flaw on their part.

Res Ipsa, if you continue to interpret being disagreed with as an "incessant attack on your integrity and character," then you are definitely not ready to discuss these issues.

bumped for Res Ipsa, who misinterpreted what I posted. After I explained that to him, he accused ME of being "determined to place the worst possible interpretation" on what he posts.

There's something a little surreal about being hounded, in TELESTIAL, by a MOD, for ____'s sake. Goddammit, can't you go anywhere and vent a little?!?

Jeez, Shades, for ____'s sake, this is Telestial, please call off your attack moddog! And yes, I am aware he is "posting as a man," not a mod, but when he keeps referring to his mod decisions, it really makes that point moot, don't you think?!?

Lemmie,

Stop using caps - it's rude.
Stop typing in bold and caps - It's really rude.
Stop reporting hundreds of posts to the moderation team - it's exhausting.
Stop saying everyone on planet earth, except you, is "passive aggressive" - It's overdone.
Stop giving the brand new mod such a hard time - It's not a paid position.
Stop using the eye roll emoticon so much - You're going to wear it out.
Stop posting how upset, angry and/or frustrated you are - Your emotions are yours.

I think that's all for now.

Peace,
Ceeboo

Thanks, EAllusion, I understand the fine line between privacy and discussing moderation, so I really appreciate your efforts here (and in several other posts in this thread) to give an overview of the general moderation policy followed on this particular forum. It makes a huge difference to know what is behind the policies, as opposed to seeing certain actions taken but not knowing anything about the underlying reasons.

Thanks for responding to my ranting down here! I really just was venting, so it was very kind of you to take my comments seriously enough to make several long posts outlining policies and discussing the forum. You have gone above and beyond the duty of a mod here, as has Res Ipsa in giving his information. Thanks. It really does help.

Well I hate to say I told you so, but, I told you so. I think I was the only person to vote "no" on promoting Res Ipsa to mod status. It's not that I have anything against Res Ipsa, I just think we need less of a moderator board, not more.

I generally agree with most of Lemmie's comments and positions, but probably not so much about this kind of stuff. When it comes to the Mg and the Droopy's of the board or any poster on a good drunk night I say, RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

Sup C-W!


Okay!

LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!