[Cap'n Tightpants]

Originally Posted by Mike Wuerthele 

This is the second thread this week that I have to remind that THIS IS NOT THE PWL.

I'm not seeing any political or religious discussion going on in that thread, just a mild tiff (by internet standards). Traffic is what, 10-15% of what it was in MacNN's heyday? It wasn't the disagreements and/or fights that ran most of the prolific posters off, it was the nagging (and the bans that were handed out over it). I believe some members won't be happy until there's no activity here, at all (aside from cat and baby pics*), and that's not an exaggeration (or at least not much of one). "Oh no, there is a lively discussion between people who don't agree, this must be stopped!"



(No offense Jawbone, your kid is truly adorable. )

[Mike Wuerthele]

Did you see me hand out any infractions or bans? Is anybody complaining about the iron-fisted Mike, ruling over disagreements with an iron fist? It has been 18 months since I've infracted anybody for anything, IIRC. Over a year in any event.

Front page traffic is about 35% of what it was in its heyday, up from 22% when I took this position 18 months ago. Forum traffic is about 11% of our overall take, and costs more money to run, than we generate from it.

That said, they can shut down the forums when I'm dead. However, we don't have to be the gibbering masses that is the Internet as a whole, we can choose to be better about it.

Sometimes, a "hey dudes, chill" works out best.

[Cap'n Tightpants]

I'm not blaming the staff, it's the nagging from other members that's the problem; the incessant whining from those members over people having debates and/or disagreements. Those guys know who they are.

[subego]

What do we want the overall rules for the community to be?

Ideally, I would like for things to be as heated as people want, but crossing the line of directly insulting people shouldn't be considered acceptable. In and of itself, I don't think this is an unreasonable policy.

How this gets enforced is where things get sticky, and it's because of this I've eased off on reporting things. There has been some (relatively) extreme moderation lately, and it's had a chilling effect on my willingness to rat on people. For this reason I didn't report the Star Trek thread*, even though it was well into the arena of personal insults.

All that said, when we're at the personal attack level, a mod asking people to cool out seems like a proper level of moderation. Is this incorrect?

That's an honest question. This isn't about what I want. I presume we'd like to form something resembling a consensus, and I'm certainly willimg to compromise.



*At least, I don't think I did. If I did, I thought about it for a long time first.

[subego]

[Tap tap tap]

This thing on?

[besson3c]

What difference does it make what rules we formally put into writing? When our emotions get the best of us or we feel compelled to speak our minds about something some threat of an infraction or other form of wrist slap is probably not going to deter us.

If there was a winning formula to policing the internet I think it would have caught on.

[subego]

Are you arguing for unmoderated?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by subego 

Are you arguing for unmoderated?

I used to, but now I think that arguing for any format is fairly pointless. The internet is what it is. There are many members that do nothing wrong according to the written rules but drive other people crazy, including myself. There is just no way to make everybody happy.

If I had to suggest a format, I wouldn't be adamant about this, but I'd suggest an attempt at a benevolent dictatorship. Whomever the appointed mods are telling people to cool off as per their discretion is probably about the best we can do, despite this being unsatisfying and seemingly flawed.

[subego]

I agree.

However, under most circumstances, benevolence won't maintain itself.

This level of responsibility needs to be paired with some transparency.

[ghporter]

Altruism is uncommon, occasional, and random. Without some guidelines, and a mechanism to enforce them, things go from random to chaos pretty quickly.

I have a huge amount of respect and admiration for our regular members who, despite wanting to do something different, maintain control and behave here as if they were in face-to-face interactions.

I personally have wanted to reach through the screen and slap people on various forums, this one included. And though I've been poorly behaved here because of that, I've found that restraint helps keep me from coming across as being more obnoxious than the person I am reacting to.

There are a number of folks I correspond with in various forums that I would like to sit down with in person and chat over coffee or a beer. Many of them are members here. I hope that there are others who have that same kind of feeling about their fellow members, and thus try to behave like something other than "that guy that screws up the party and has to be told to leave". One way to "help that along" is to provide structure and sort of "remind people" of that structure as needed. I have to say that my workload in "reminding people" is pretty minimal almost all of the time, and I thank everyone for that.