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Underground > Policy & Help >

Wishlist -- what could be.

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07:46 / 02.10.06

PW: I can't speak for Tom, but you're almost certainly not going to get that. It doesn't work like that. There's a difference between transparency - information shared equally and between all - and logs given to anyone who requests them.

Right now, you're not really in a good position to demand anything from anyone, least of all Tom, and the specifics of your request only seem to be giving fuel to the fire that you're trying pursue a vendetta against one, or more, moderators.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

07:51 / 02.10.06

Also, if you want to talk to Tom, best way is via a PM, rather than a post on the board that he might not see.

07:53 / 02.10.06

It's a funny thing to want pw. The only reason I can think that you might want it is because you think that someone has changed something either you've said or that they've said to you. Firstly that's unlikely as it takes more than one mod to make a pudding, and secondly, even if it has happened it's not suddenly going to fix your behaviour over the last few days.

10:13 / 02.10.06

If I were to open up the moderator logs at any time in the future, it would only ever be for logs for moderation actions that had been performed knowing that the whole board might see them. I think it's unfair on the moderators to open up stuff that they wrote assuming it had been written among a fairly clearly defined group of people. I'd no more do this than open up people's private messages for discussion by the rest of the board.

Should we ever decide that having a display of moderation actions would be useful for the board, then I'll make it clear to the moderators that the actions they propose will FROM THAT MOMENT ON be made visible to the board and that they should act accordingly. For the moment though, I very much believe that the board benefits from the moderators ability to be candid with one another, even if - as they often do - there is disagreement and debate about some things.

16:02 / 02.10.06

The only reason I can think that you might want it is because you think that someone has changed something either you've said or that they've said to you. Firstly that's unlikely as it takes more than one mod to make a pudding, and secondly, even if it has happened it's not suddenly going to fix your behaviour over the last few days.

Thirdly, I can't imagine anybody caring enough to have even thought about doing something like that.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

03:08 / 03.10.06

Wouldn't total transparency on all mod actions mean the original contentious post would be accessible by anyone again? And wouldn't that kind of defeat the object?

14:56 / 03.10.06

Well, on a wiki, everything is stored, but it takes a little more work to read previous edits than to read whatever's on the page. Really, the only way into the old edits (or, if this was to work something like a wiki works, the old posts) would be to go into a kind of edit screen or "changes" page and look down a list of old actions to find the one you wanted.

It's not really an organic or natural part of the reading process -- it's not seamless or conversational. It feels like research (because it is).

21:40 / 03.10.06

Repetition, really, but could we have a suit-freezing/locking option available to howevermany moderators in the absence of Tom? This would serve as a 'cooling off' mechanism for those equivocal and sometimes slightly panicky situations where someone's (maybe-)trolling and either we're unsure, on a community level, whether they ought to be banned or Tom's not around to do the banning. Being reversible, it would also circumvent and/or address some of the "is Poster X mentally unwell?" problems.

01:14 / 04.10.06

Adding voice in support of the penalty box.

08:58 / 04.10.06

Yeah, a stun gun function would be great. To be honest I'd like an option that restricted someone's posting to one a day or something, but functionally that's like asking for a backpack fusion generator so never mind.

A moderator freeze ray gets my vote as well.

09:08 / 04.10.06

I think a freeze/time-out option for moderators would be a very good idea.

Can I suggest that, for the purpose of this discussion, we assume that it will be possible for the site to be altered to provide it in some form and discuss here what level of severity the freeze can be applied at, and also how we are going to incorporate it into current policy.

I feel that discussion should still be the first method used by moderators/concerned members when dealing with a possible trolling situation. The freeze option can be used as a much more rapid means of trying to get problematic posters to talk (ie "Please answer the questions/apologise/etc or there is a good chance you will have your suit frozen for X number of days."). But bringing in the freeze option will hopefully lead to these discussions being tied up a lot more quickly.

Both Tom and Alex voiced valid concerns about the effectiveness of the freeze option as a tool to allow an angry poster time to cool off before re-posting. I agree there is a risk that some people would simply spend their time-out fuming and come back in ready for war. I'm not really sure how that could be prevented though. I would like to think that a certain level of transparency to the process might be of use (perhaps a dedicated thread in Policy which allows for discussion of it, assuming that doesn't seem too much like a hydra made of bureaucracy?).

09:32 / 04.10.06

Say someone problematic gets put in the cryo-chamber, then Tom lets them out and asks what's going on, are they cool, and they Hulk out. Then we ban them. If they come back saying 'I was pissed/angry/feverish, I'm fine now' then they continue posting (hopefully without people provoking them about it or posting inflammatory stuff while they're away) and the freeze ray serves it's purpose- cooling off.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:37 / 04.10.06

I think we need to establish whether that freeze option is intended to be used to make people cool off, or specifically to stop people from posting until there can be a discussion of whether or not to ban them. Those are two separate functions, and I think would be used very differently.

09:48 / 04.10.06

To be honest I'm not sure why it couldn't be used to do both. If two posters are getting into a flamewar in the middle of a thread then they can be asked to stop posting on it/take it to PM or risk being frozen for 24 hours.

However, I think it would be preferable to use it as an anti-troll measure more than anything else.

(Sorry, brief reply. Little busy in the lab. More in-depth this afternoon).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:37 / 04.10.06

If it's made pretty damn clear to someone that being frozen is a pretty fucking serious option, and that if they come back after the week/fortnight with a load of abuse it's instant banning, it at least gives us a hard and fast policy for when banning is necessary, and may hopefully reduce the number of times that happens.

12:45 / 04.10.06

(hopefully without people provoking them about it or posting inflammatory stuff while they're away)

This seems key. It's hard to hear people shouting at your back and not want to answer them.

14:58 / 04.10.06

Additionally, I would hope people might actually take it upon themselves to ask to be frozen for 24 hours (or whatever) when they feel they're posting in a manner they might regret - or, in the manner of having one's partner hold one's password, when they simply want to stay away but lack the self-discipline to steer clear.

21:20 / 19.10.06

Well, I think it could potentially be useful to re-visit the PM system so that it would be possible to send multiple user and board-wide messages.

Whether or not the suit-freeze option comes into play, if something like the embargo of "That's Not To Be Mentioned Right Now" was to be effective it might be better to communicate that to everyone at once; not all regular board users (are seen to) frequent Conversation and Policy, and if there are issues that needed to be conveyed urgently it could be done via PM just that little bit more tidily. Obviously open to abuse, so maybe a function reserved for Tom, or Tom and moderators, or implemented with the understanding that spamming the board gets you kneecapped. And since this is the ideal world thread, maybe a dropdown menu giving you the option of messaging the board, or Music Mods, or Policy Mods etc?

21:35 / 19.10.06

which reminds...
a 'save sent mail' function would be good too, as would some other email-like functionality.

'save draft' maybe, and perhaps the ability to send to multiple users for stuff like gatherings that you dont want to publish fully.

23:35 / 19.10.06

Why not have an 'undo' button for moderator actions? That's on my wishlist, just in case.

23:55 / 19.10.06

(hopefully without people provoking them about it or posting inflammatory stuff while they're away)

This seems key. It's hard to hear people shouting at your back and not want to answer them.

One way to help avoid ongoing conversation with a board member mid-freeze would be to style or color the text of their handle on the left-hand side of the page. It'd give a visual cue that something's going on and that continued messages to the poster in thread couldn't be answered. I've seen similar things on other boards.

The link on a poster's handle could possibly point to a thread in policy for what's going on, like a "policy pager", instead of showing the member's profile. Might even get more people involved here since you'll notice it while reading other threads.

00:37 / 20.10.06

wouldnt that result in a little bit more public humiliation as well?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:00 / 20.10.06

It could say something diplomatic. "This user is on hiatus," maybe.

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