Hang on just a moment. Why do I need to be congratulated for giving any other reason?
Because "puke" is not a reason. It's an opinion, and a rather poor quality one.
Isn't distributed moderation in place so that people can disagree proposals?
Yes - and if you'd merely put the thread up for deletion behind the scenes with "puke" as your reason, perhaps you would have found sufficient moderator backing to delete the thread. However, that tends to diminish rather than fortify my faith in the distributed moderator system.
Now let me run something by you 1)it was a suggestion, flippantly phrased but in a thread for suggestions/requests. I was perfectly happy to hear other people's points of view and arguments and would have happily debated them, which is why I initially didn't move to lock or delete the thread but posted here. Another moderator agreed that the thread was pretty damn gross and didn't discuss it but proposed to lock and delete just after I posted here. I agreed both of those moves- primarily because I wanted to lock the thread, which in my opinion as a moderator was utterly useless, potentially offensive and rotted to hell in a handcart. I agreed to delete because I think locked threads are a bit useless. However in retrospect I shouldn't have agreed deletion because it isn't reversible and I regard that as my mistake.
Goodness. Showing working and admitting fallibility. I'm impressed. I can accept that your personal opinion ("puke") was - at least initially - uncoupled from your moderator criteria, but that distinction became increasingly blurred as the thread progressed, precisely because you didn't show working, but posted here (again "flippantly phrased") about your moderator decision plus 'highfiving', etc. This gave the impression of a smooth progression from personal opinion to moderator decision, with no attempt to untangle personal distaste from objective judgment.
It may be your "opinion as a moderator" that the thread in question was "utterly useless, potentially offensive and rotted to hell in a handcart", but surely the only relevant aspect of your "opinion as a moderator" which even approaches the threshold for threadlock/deletion is the "potentially offensive" part. The other elements are, I'd say, insufficient reasons to lock and delete a Conversation thread. Even the "potentially offensive" part is highly debatable - but neither you nor Flowers seemed to find it especially worthy of debate here. Perhaps it would've been debated sufficiently rigorously behind the scenes, among the moderators, but based on what's been posted in this thread, I have serious doubts. I think it'd have been waved through by you, Flowers, Stoatie and A N Other pretty blithely - and that gives me serious cause for concern.
If that reference isn't confirmed as a reference by the person who made it when you're talking about something that could be perceived as out of order, the board is open to anyone to read and isn't limited to a country in which the programme is widely viewed then HELL YEAH it's unacceptable.
Perhaps, then, those making comments about "faceknives" ought to add the disclaimer that "faceknives" is a board in-joke. I'm concerned that Xoc, who's currently suffering a facial injury, might feel mocked. Ditto ass-candling, etc., etc., etc. Basically, anyone who makes any reference - comedic, musical, whatever - which "could be perceived as out of order" (which is wiiide open) needs to provide a reference. HELL YEAH! Have you thought this through, Nina? Really?
And again - "international". How "international" must a given reference be to not require extensive footnotes at the bottom of a given post? Perhaps we ought to consider references which can be misinterpreted in other languages? Run everything through Babelfish just, y'know, in case it could be perceived as "out of order"? And those explanatory footnotes: presumably they'd need to be in several languages - just in case.
I would like to point out that puke was my description of the thread, I never provided it as a reason because it's quite clearly not one.
Clearly not. I don't recall you ever providing a reason for that thread deserving lock/deletion, prior to being challenged about it here. Out of interest (and I wasn't a moderator then, so I don't know), what was the reason given in the moderator action? What did you agree to?
On the issue of consistency- well bear in mind that you brought it up- I have never thought that we moderate quickly enough on this board, I think we let people post all kinds of offensive shit all over the place and accept that some things are more offensive than others. Frankly our response to bias against groups is far quicker when it's an obvious western, cultural bias and that sucks. We don't even have a consistent troll policy. Or rather our troll policy is solely aimed at a few individuals. That also sucks, so rather than attacking me for consistency I suggest you open it up and aim that comment at barbelith as a community.
Barbelith is a community made up of individuals, some of whom are moderators. We all have different ideas of what constitutes The Problem here, just as we have different ideas of what "offensive shit" deserves to be locked and deleted. My perception of the problem differs from yours - in this instance, anyway - which is why I aim my criticism (and I don't consider it an 'attack') at you and Flowers.
The plain truth is that any attempt at consistency is undermined by our moderation system and that's something that we have never tackled and that we actively choose not to broach. If you want to do that then go ahead, I'm looking forward to reading the response. I imagine it will be interesting at the very least.
I think there's a degree of validity to that, but I also think it's easy to generalise when it suits us to do so, and gesture toward the distributed moderator system. I suspect there are more fundamental differences between us in terms of what we think the distributed moderator system is for. I don't think the "plain truth" is at all easy to discern here - but yes, perhaps it's time we had an open discussion about what we see, individually, as an appropriate level of moderator intervention, and how we think the moderator system should operate. As you say, it will be interesting. |
