Some Clarity Please?

[Guest]

I was told to make this topic to further a discussion in a previous topic. I am mainly making this topic because I would like some clarity on some things said in another topic. I was instructed to make this topic to do so. I shall address said points accordingly.
 
From King:
 

However, if by "disagreeing too severely" you meant borderline abusive or overly mean spirited then we'll likely ask you to chill out, especially when being vocal against the community that this site is based around. Of course we're not going appreciate people saying that Bronies are perverts or a 'huge cancerous community' or anything along those lines, this is a Brony site after all. You need to remember that its not you who decides whether your words are fair or overly harsh, its the people reading them.

I just would like to ask that what criteria is being used to grade "overly harsh" I am hoping it's the staff deciding this and not just enough users agreeing. Because in the latter, it would be easy for me and my buddies to all report something as "too harsh" even if it is not.

 

 

I'm gonna stop here and make a point about this statement, using a rule related to my dayjob.

When something becomes toxic, it needs to be removed. At my office, and in my steel shop, you can be sent home without pay for a bad attitude, because some negativity is toxic. I've been sent home myself for arriving with a toxic attitude once, and I'm part owner of the company. Having been on the causing end, and seeing it retroactively through the eyes of someone who was dissenting, sending home people, or locking certain threads, for becoming toxic makes perfect sense.

 

 

 

This is from Koukatsu and I just want to point out that this is not a job or place of business. It's a forum, so I hope that this forum which is a recreational place is not enforcing rules upon the users as if it were a place of business for them. 

 

 

 

Luckily, we actually hand out punishments individually, and locking a thread is not a punishment. 

 

I disagree. Locking a thread is basically ending all discussion. Many people work hard on creating quality posts to further a discussion and it's disheartening when that topic is simply closed because of a few people misbehaving to where the work they put into the topic is null and void. It also to my understanding is against the rules to recreate a topic that is locked so it kind of makes it impossible to partake in that discussion again.

 

 

Agreed, but negative, and toxic/abusive are not the same. It's possible to discuss the positive and negative sides of an issue without interactions that get threads locked, 

 

Here's the problem I have: there is no clear definition of this. It also seems like some topics get graded harsher than others with no clear indicator of being taboo to discuss. Some negative opinions are treated far worse than others. For example if I post a negative opinion about bronies even if it's not like "bronies are cancer" then it is not met the same as other negative opinions. Furthermore people have been abusive with positivity on the same token. I have participated in many threads where people were saying that any MLP fan must be a brony and I simply stated I do not  consider myself a brony and I was met with a wave of people insisting I was "wrong" or "bad" for not doing so. No locking of said thread, no punishments handed out and that kind of behavior is overlooked so long as it's promoting bronyism, even if the behavior is abusive. I have never once seen anyone get banned, warned, or told to stop when it comes to pushing the brony title.

 

All I am asking is some clear definition of what is considered "too far" or "toxic". I mean beyond the obvious. Sometimes I see things getting locked when people are not insulting each other at all...

 

I keep seeing the word "abusive" being thrown around by the staff, but they are very vague in their usage and it's not 100% clear what they consider abuse. I do not personally consider someone disagreeing with my opinion even aggressively abusive so long as they are not blatantly insulting me with the intention of insulting me.

 

If you are going to use "abusive" as a reason for locking threads, I request merely more clarity on what constitutes abuse here versus what does not as the rules are also very vague on this as well. I do not think it's fair that users are being held to this "no abuse" rule when abuse is not even properly defined. If there is a definition, I would merely ask it be added to the rules of the site which currently are rather vague.

 

 

I suppose that would depend on how many times we have to lock the thread to do that. And how far back it spans. How many times should we lock the thread for cleaning, and go through hundreds of pages to make sure we got everything, and unlock the clean thread, only to have another hundred pages that require us to lock and clean it over again? There comes a time where cleaning a thread is not the most plausible course of action, especially when the thread is repeating the same negative and abusive trends several times.

 

What I ask here then is are the people continually disregarding the staff's warnings being punished? If a thread needs to be locked more than twice for the same reasons, then some people should be getting warnings, bans or something.

 

However if actions continue again and again, CLEARLY locking the thread is not sending the message to stop the behavior if this is a common enough problem. Clearly a new strategy should be implemented.

 

 

I ask ALL replies be kept civil. As before with my last feedback topic, this is NOT a personal attack. This is NOT a free invitation to attack the staff, this is a civil discussion where I am hoping to acquire some clarity to some issues I am having. I am hoping people respect that, as I do not want this topic locked and thus leave the issue unresolved.

 

 

Key points that I am looking to have answered:

 

• What constitutes abuse?
• Can we have that abuse listed in the rules more definitively so that people are aware?
• If locking threads happens this often for this reason, why isn't a different method to discourage this behavior being incorporated?
• If a thread is locked is it okay to make another thread discussing that topic, or is that topic considered off limits? If not what are the stipulations on making a new topic? Will said stipulations be posted on the old topic or will they be given upon request of a staff member if a member PMs them?

[Simon 4,557]

 

 

I am hoping it's the staff deciding this and not just enough users agreeing.

 

It's definitely the staff. Let me take a moment to give a bit of insight on the staff process for locking threads and rule violations in general:

 

-A staffer or Member reports a thread they feel should be locked or they see problems in. This alerts every global moderator to the report.

-For what to do with the thread, we usually have a discussion in one of the forum staff skype groups (either between all the staff or the staff of a particular section)

-For rule violations, the global moderators and admins discuss those in a separate skype group and/or on the report itself. Warnings don't happen without several staff (usually around 3-4) agreeing, more if there's a dissenting opinion.

-Similarly, users who just need to be told 'hey don't do that' without a big formal warning will get pm's after about 2-3 mods agree they broke a rule.

-Thread gets locked, all of the rule violating posts get hidden, moderator posts the reason why in the thread for the members

 

In all, it's a fairly lengthy process. Very rarely is a thread locked without a discussion and when that happens it's because it's painfully obvious to most everybody on this forum what needs to happen with it and the types of posts the thread will get are things we don't want to expose members to (for instance - someone posting a "Which mane 6 would you want to beat to death with a stick" thread is going to have about an 8 second life expectancy with me)

 

What constitutes abuse?

 
Greatest advice I can give on avoiding problems with abuse is discuss ideas not people. The second your post is commenting on the person who made the post you're responding to, instead of the concepts in the post it's going to be abusive.  Here's what I mean:
 
Abusive:

*quote*
That's a stupid opinion. I think the show shouldn't have Unicorns cuz Pegasus Master Race.

Not abusive:

*quote*
I think the show shouldn't have Unicorns cuz Pegasus Master Race.

 

That's why the rule's language focuses on the old "love and tolerate" ideas. The idea of steering clear from attacking people, and instead discussing ideas maturely and calmly.

 

Keep in mind, the abuse rule also does extend to attacking groups of people including those not on the forum, that's why we've shut down threads on subjects like the WBC for instance. It's not that the forum loves Westboro's actions or ideals - trust me when I say that's definitely not the case, it's that this isn't the place to attack people in general regardless.

 

 

 

Can we have that abuse listed in the rules more definitively so that people are aware?

 

I can always respect wanting clarity. I'll bring this up to the staff and see if we can further define the abuse rules.

 

 

 

If locking threads happens this often for this reason, why isn't a different method to discourage this behavior being incorporated?

 

Whether we lock a thread versus taking some other action is purely a weighing mechanism of how bad its gotten. If it's 1 or 2 users causing problems in an otherwise fine thread, those users will most definitely be banned from the thread and have their posts hidden to allow everybody else to continue discussing. This happens far more often than people realize, we do hide abusive posts so it's easy to not know when these sorts of things are taking place. Chances are if you've ever seen a mod post something like 'Keep it cool guys" in a thread, a bunch of posts got hidden along with that in an attempt to keep the thread alive.

 

When a thread gets so overrun with people causing problems of any kind, however, that the staff feels there's no reasonable way for us to keep the thread alive without spending the rest of our lives micromanaging every post, it will get hidden. Yes, it sucks that we ever have to shut down a discussion that could theoretically be appropriate for MLPF, but this is one of the sad limitations of an all volunteer staff. We have to choose our battles.

 

Remember, the entire staff does this to allow people to discuss things. If we wanted to shut down threads and got joy out of it, this forum would be a much different place. When I joined staff I specifically requested to work in debate pit because I wanted to try to protect those sorts of discussions on MLPF, but not every thread is salvageable. 

 

What I will say is just because a thread gets shut down does not mean it's permanently barred from discussion. There are many threads that get shut down and a similar one gets made a few weeks later with a perfectly acceptable discussion going on. But when a certain topic is particularly heated and piles of abuse warnings are coming out of it, it's best for everybody if we take a short break from discussing it.

 

 

 

If a thread is locked is it okay to make another thread discussing that topic, or is that topic considered off limits? If not what are the stipulations on making a new topic? Will said stipulations be posted on the old topic or will they be given upon request of a staff member if a member PMs them?

 

 

Oh hey I answered this already

 

There are a few topics that have resulted in thread locks so many times that they will likely be shut down from the beginning. Westboro threads are an example I used before. The reason we don't have an outright list of 'banned topics' is because there really isn't such a thing. Even topics we usually take down threads on we occasionally will allow one through to test the waters a bit.

 

Fantastic example - the most blatantly 'banned' topic forever was Clop threads. Those got shut down as soon as we saw them. We occasionally tested the waters and they still never turned out. So we tried making a highly regulated and monitored thread in the debate pit and it worked extremely well. It was a lot of work for the moderators to pull that thread off and quite a few PM's reminding people of the rules have gone out in there, but we've kept it open and alive because it's a topic we want people to be able to discuss in some capacity.

 

tl;dr: Nobody on staff likes silencing people, and we do what we can to keep threads alive whenever possible, but when the staff simply don't have the resources to keep up with the problems a thread is causing it's our only option.

[King 5,625]

I just would like to ask that what criteria is being used to grade "overly harsh" I am hoping it's the staff deciding this and not just enough users agreeing.

 

 

Usually it starts on the users end assuming we haven't caught wind of it. Someone reports a post as being abusive or whatnot and we'll look into and and discuss whether we agree or not. "Overly harsh" in the context I used it would describe comments made that paint a heavily negative picture, use words that are jarring (In reference to specific people or groups: Words like pedophile,pervert,disgusting,etc) and/or comments that are made purely to poke the hornets nest (comments made purely to upset the other party).

 

If I was to use the topic of clop and cloppers I'll make an example of two different posts that disagree with clop and those who like that content:

 

1: Cloppers are disgusting, they enjoy porn that's created from a childrens show for fuck sakes. Anyone who likes that sorta crap has to be perverted or something.

 

A lot of the words used there are jarring and clearly aimed at attacking a group of people. Its borderline abusive and only invites the kind of crap we're trying to avoid.

 

2: I don't like clop, it doesn't seem right to sexualise a childrens show like that and I can't understand how anyone could even remotely come to like that sorta stuff.

 

A comment like this is generally fine, no obvious attack against anyone and you're still able to disagree without causing trouble.

 

Obviously those two comments are on the further side of either spectrum but it paints the kind of picture I mean. Comments that settle somewhere in the middle of the spectrum obviously require more discussion and usually only result in an L&T PM unless the users history dictates otherwise.

 

 

 

I disagree. Locking a thread is basically ending all discussion. Many people work hard on creating quality posts to further a discussion and it's disheartening when that topic is simply closed because of a few people misbehaving to where the work they put into the topic is null and void. It also to my understanding is against the rules to recreate a topic that is locked so it kind of makes it impossible to partake in that discussion again.

 

 

There are plenty of cases in which we've locked a thread about a topic and allowed other threads to be created in its place, most commonly seen in the DP for example. Religious threads, political debates and so on. The example you're obviously talking about is the unpopular opinions thread. That one is a more difficult case since it was a one of a kind thread, creating a new one would likely invite the same kind of trouble we had with the last one. That being said Im not against the creation of a new one at some point. In the past we've reopened threads or allowed a new type of discussion to take place (clop thread for example) so long as it was monitored and people didn't stir up the same trouble as before. In those cases we usually implement thread bans for people who cause trouble.

 

Id also invite people who disagree with the thread lock to make a mod dispute. Believe it or not, Im not against the unpopular opinions thread.

 

 

 

It also seems like some topics get graded harsher than others with no clear indicator of being taboo to discuss. Some negative opinions are treated far worse than others. For example if I post a negative opinion about bronies even if it's not like "bronies are cancer" then it is not met the same as other negative opinions.

 

 

Some topics are treated more seriously than others due to their nature, especially those involving religion, politics or other hot topics that usually stir the cauldron. As for your example about certain opinions being treated worse, you need to remember that this is a site for Bronies so a negative opinion on Bronies is going to be a negative opinion on the large number of users we have here. It's natural that we'd treat that kind of opinion more seriously if it starts to become overly harsh or such.

 

It doesn't mean we're out to silence every negative opinion about this community, just that we're going to be more critical of it since time and time again its caused problems.

 

 

 

Lastly, please keep in mind that the staff isn't a hive mind. I might disagree with something Kou or Spoon says and they might disagree with me. So don't think we only echo each others thoughts.

[Guest]

I appreciate the instant responses and the clarity and respectfullness of the staff's posts. That being said I want to say thank you for answering my questions.

[Yellow Diamond 7,575]

Lastly, please keep in mind that the staff isn't a hive mind. I might disagree with something Kou or Spoon says and they might disagree with me. So don't think we only echo each others thoughts.

 

This is a point I think should be emphasized: not every staff discussion begins in unanimity. We strive for consensus and harmony, which occasionally requires compromise -- but no thoroughgoing and intensive internal discussion results in a slew of "I agree" and nothing else. We hash things out -- respectfully, of course -- and exchange ideas which reflect a variety of perspectives on a given topic.

 

And just because an admin, such as myself, might disagree with a moderator (or several) doesn't mean the admin can arbitrarily pull rank. There had better be a good reason for a decision to be overturned -- and that occurs only after we admins have our own powwow. Believe me, we've disagreed with each other more than a handful of times; I'm sure the other admins would back me on this point.

 

At the end of the day, we're all friends as well as colleagues. A good friend can point out when they think you've made a mistake and work to help rectify it. Otherwise, they're doing more harm than good by saying nothing and leaving their friend out to dry.