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Is something wrong with Barbelith?

  
  

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Ganesh
10:17 / 18.10.05
Not so much Barbelith Is Dying as Is Barbelith Unwell?. This is intended as a sort of metatopic, encompassing the issue of over/undermoderation, on-topic policing, passive-aggressive posting, the effect of trolls, etc., etc. I don't want to say too much at this point for fear of influencing discussion in this or that direction. It's a big topic, though, and I'd be surprised if people didn't have an opinion.

So. Is something wrong with Barbelith?

What?
 
 
Loomis
10:47 / 18.10.05
In my opinion the single biggest problem is that there isn't enough traffic, but it's not a simple thing to fix.

When the board is slow then you get in the habit of popping by, reading the handful of new posts in the threads that interest you, and five minutes later you're off. And when we all do that, then we get out of the habit of spending time here, mulling over things and thinking deeply about the current threads.

In order to feel the enthusiasm to post more, spend more time creating an interesting and involved thread, add more than a witty one-liner, then you need to spend more time here in the first place, having Barbelith in your thoughts a lot more.

I think if traffic (good or bad) increases then there'll be more activity and though some of it may be less than stellar, the energy it creates can bootstrap us into more activity, plenty of which will be worthwhile.

When only three threads are moving and one of them is shit, it's easy to focus on that and have in-depth discussions as to why it's shit and whether it should be locked, etc. which just wears us down even further. One shit thread is easier to ignore when it's surrounded by ten good ones. When Barbelith is healthy and full of interesting threads, policy issues seem more like general housekeeping than portents of imminent doom.
 
 
Quantum
10:50 / 18.10.05
More traffic could be encouraged by smashing the current registration system with a hammer. As an anti-troll system it doesn't seem to have made much difference, but as a way to pile up unnecessary work and keep good potential members away it's brilliant.
 
 
Jub
11:17 / 18.10.05
I don't think there's any thing wrong with Barbelith - it's just feeling the slump which the winter nights have brought us. It'll get change again soon to something different.
 
 
Sax
11:34 / 18.10.05
There seems to be an astonishing amount of "casual" racism and homophobia in certain areas at the moment.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:43 / 18.10.05
You forgot sexism. Women! Wear short skirts please, and do not write books complaining about men or I will beat you up!

This might be less of a problem if other, more established members of the board - who it could be argued (if only by a very naive person) should know better - weren't so keen on defending that kind of thing.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:04 / 18.10.05
OK - I'd like to suggest that if people have complaints to make which involve other people's behaviour, they do so with names, references and, if at all possible, links to examples, and then maybe that discussion of that goes off into a new thread, linked from here. Otherwise we'll have the same problem we had with the snide post throwaway thread, but in Policy.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:13 / 18.10.05
Women: don't expect any help from riding astride on hiccups, who tells us here that he would like to like to kick the shit out of Germaine Greer and meet short girls in pretty skirts, or something. (Before any one starts, the latter wouldn't really be worthy of note without the former, or "Aren't feminists funny?")

Maybe in a minority, but I also find myself despairing of phrases like alexsheers' "hairy-legged biffer with a muzzie".
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:17 / 18.10.05
Then we have Kaiser John, who can't usually relate to hip hop "thanks to the gangs, ni**as... and bitches". gumbitch!!1!, Harrison Ford and Falconer all thought that I should not have found this statement irritating or objectionable, and perhaps they would also think there was nothing wrong with his X-Men-related: "I liked the way the francise seemed to be heading, with mutants becoming 'normal', just like blacks, gays etc are starting to become now" - he has now said we should all know what he meant. Perhaps.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
12:19 / 18.10.05
Well, I was wondering why I seemed to be having a number of arguments with E. Randy but people who know me have been telling me that they're reading in my posts things which I was completely oblivious to. Which then confuses me when I read something like this from Petey Shaftoe as to whether it's useful snark. We're good at having a go at the people who talk about 'the masses' and 'sheeple', I'm a bit concerned that we're also a bit too quick to dismiss other posters as stupid people who should get off our nice clean board damnit.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
12:26 / 18.10.05
I'm a bit concerned that we're also a bit too quick to dismiss other posters as stupid people who should get off our nice clean board damnit.

This is something that's been worrying me a little- for example, when newer posters post stuff which we've already seen, the Barbelith tendency of late seems to have been to rather unpleasantly tell them they're twats because we've seen it before, not to politely point out that there was already a thread on this. Given the crap nature of our search function, I think this is a bit much.

(I'll try to find some examples when I have more time, but I think everyone's probably seen it at some point or another).
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
12:28 / 18.10.05
Would people say that the physical location in which they're spending most of their time when they're on barbelith is any more or less stressful than the location from which they were doing it last year, or the year before? My work place is probably more stressful than it was last year and I'm wondering if that bleeds through into my behaviour on here.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:29 / 18.10.05
Lady - that wasn't really snark aimed at that poster - see my latest post in the thread for clarification.
 
 
Axolotl
13:07 / 18.10.05
Often I think people can leap straight into attack mode when perhaps a quiet word would suffice, especially with some of the less experienced posters. This can result in unnecessary shit-storms as peoples' first reaction when attacked is to attack back.
That's not to say we shouldn't state that certain comments & language aren't welcome, but perhaps for first offences we should try & be a little more understanding. After that we can crush them with wit and/or threadrot.
 
 
Spaniel
13:53 / 18.10.05
I know I'm guilty of snark-posting, but if I do it I normally try an offer an explanation.

I would like to add, however, that whilst I agree with Sax and Petey that there does seem to be rather alot of unexamined sexist/racist chat around these parts of late, I also think that Petey's "you're a racist SHUT UP!" talk really doesn't help. Although, that said, it is understandable.
 
 
Smoothly
13:59 / 18.10.05
I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with Barbelith that hasn’t been wrong with Barbelith for as long as I’ve been here (and that is, on the grand scheme of the internet, not much). I perhaps missed the Golden Age but phases of anxiety like this always seem to follow periods of increased immigration (and are counterpointed by another kind of anxiety following periods of stagnation).
Immigration in online communities seems to pique the same concerns as immigration into real world communities: motives are questioned, people fear the impact on traditional ways of life, values are offended, cultures clash, integration gradually begins to occur, people find their place / on the path unwinding, the circle of life.

This is process is no doubt hardest on the people who have been the longest and have made the greatest investment, and the same people are likely the first to be exasperated by having to go over the same old ground for the umpteenth time (perhaps explaining Flyboy's line in Shutthefuckuppery). I think some of the newer members (myself included) are guilty of leaving too much onus on the old guard to defend the board’s basic values, and I think moderators should perhaps make more effort to guide threads back on track instead of waiting until a lock tempts someone and then agreeing it. So yeah, I think a quiet word can often be very effective, but perhaps more people (mods and non-mods) should be taking it upon themselves to lean in every now and again. I wonder if concerns about heavy-handed modding have to do with mods having too light a touch *in* threads and too heavy a foot when it comes to the lock, delete and punt into touch.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:06 / 18.10.05
Petey's "you're a racist SHUT UP!" talk

Such as, Boboss? I really am quite fucking sick of people accusing me of this - as I said, this idea that finding the "I can't get into hip hop and the ni***a gangs!" attitude risible is just mine and mine alone would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:14 / 18.10.05
After that we can crush them with wit and/or threadrot.

You see, no we can't. Fundamental problem. Somebody regularly using hate speech is not going to be susceptible to wit, and is not going to care about threadrot. This is one problem - we don't really have a way of dealing which is effective against the perpetrator but does not harm the rest of the board.

Case in point - Vladimir J Baptiste believes that it is acceptable for him to make racist jokes on Barbelith about Indians. He believes that anyone who does not like his racist jokes has no sense of humour - that is, that he is in the right in making racist jokes and people who ask him not to make racist jokes are in the wrong. The armour of his self-regard is absolutely impenetrable. Therefore again, he reserves the right both not to apologise for making racist jokes that were offensive to people of Indian origin on Barbelith and also presumably to make more racist jokes in future, and then to believe thatany offence caused is due to a failing in the people who are offended by it.

In my opinion, that disqualifies him from being considered a worthwhile member of Barbelith, even if he had anything interesting or worthwhile to say. However, his English is not good enough for him to understand wit, and to rot every thread he posts to would impair the enjoyment of other users of Barbelith. If his racist humour had been anti-semitic, he would apparently have been kicked off. Because he chose to target Indians, he has not been. What recourse is there in this instance? None, really, which means that he gets to buzz around demonstrating that Barbelith is as a community tolerant of racist behaviour. This, then, is likely to encourage racist behaviour to proliferate and to encourage people who do not want to hang out on boards where racist humour is considered OK to leave Barbelith.
 
 
Axolotl
14:16 / 18.10.05
Risible is a little harsh. A little close-minded I would agree with, but all he was saying is that he can't really relate to that style, which isn't really a huge crime.
He hasn't started throwing out huge generalisations and claiming that using those terms is evil & wrong. So perhaps in this case a more low key approach would be more profitable.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:43 / 18.10.05
Well, I think that is a tricky example, because it's a dual problem - one being the lack of attention to his wording, and the other being that saying "the hip-hop I do not listen to is not good because it is about gangs and uses terms I find repellent" is a bit dicey because you are talking about the hip-hop you don't listen to. I'd like to try to tease out the meanings in the language nefore

I think people also suffer to an extent form a kind of topic-based blow-back. After Bruno Nolano, the next person to make generalisations about hip-hop is probably more likely to get a slap - the same might be said of Furioso in Comic Books at present with buddying up to celebrity writers.
 
 
Spaniel
14:45 / 18.10.05
Okay, okay, okay, perhaps that was an unfair characterisation. I'm really not trying to piss you off. I DO empathise.

Instead of pointing fingers I'd like to give an example of the kind of behaviour I'd like to see more of...

Kaiser John: It's dangerous to assume that people know what you mean - it's clear to _you_, but the suggestion that if somebody questions that then they are being perverse is a rather large statement to make. In this case, I think that what you meant was:

Mutants were becoming within the Marvel universe a recognised minority population entitled to equal legal rights and with whom people are accustomed to dealing as equals on a daily basis, although still subject to discrimination and acts of violence, just as we have seen in the experience of black and gay people in the US.

Unfortunately, putting a pair of quote marks around "normal" does not necessarily communicate that, even if I have guessed right. Especially when you used the forms "blacks" and "gays" - this is, I have no doubt, inexperience rather than malice, but iit's generally considered a bit off to use these as defining nouns rather than describing adjectives (compare balck people and gay men and lesbians, for example). Taken together, I can see somebody coming to a conclusion that you meant something quite different from the meaning I took away. Particularly in areas where historically words have often been used with highly prejudicial meanings, it's best to try to minimise misunderstandings at the point of speech.

Brilliant post, Haus.
 
 
rising and revolving
14:46 / 18.10.05
Vlads a good example of a tendency I find problematic, which is to take a fight out of one thread into another.

In my opinion, if you have issue with someones behaviour, you should deal with it

a) Where it arises
b) In a seperate thread - either in the same forum, or another if it would be more appropriate. Feel free to link in the original thread to the new location.

In general, I think more responsibility from our various moderators regarding thread-rot would save a lot of discussions. Yes, even those in conversation.

Attacking the person in a completely different and unrelated thread where the behaviour has not occured is not (in my opinion) reasonable, and adds to the thread-rot on Barbelith. At least, so I reckon. A simple link to the thread that actually relates to the topic at hand would be better, I feel.

And Haus, if Vlad is to be disqualified from being a worthwhile member, then just put him up for banning. That way the discussion gets held and the decision made.

Is it official Barbelith policy that hate speech should be dealt with using any means needed? Scorched earth if necessary? Should it be?

And Haus, don't you feel that it's a bit much to demand people provide examples (as you oft do) when things frequently get moderated out of existence? A good example is here where you moderated out your initial comments. There have been others with similar moderation.

Especially given that Barb offers no record of what has and what hasn't been moderated?
 
 
rising and revolving
14:57 / 18.10.05
and the other being that saying "the hip-hop I do not listen to is not good because it is about gangs and uses terms I find repellent" is a bit dicey because you are talking about the hip-hop you don't listen to.

Well, if he had said that, then yes. But he didn't - he clearly said it was the stuff he couldn't relate to. There's a massive difference between "This is not good because it deals with terms I find repellent" and "I can't relate to this because it uses terms I find repellent"

I thought you were the one who was all about not using telepathy and actually referring to what people write, as opposed to what you thought they might have meant in their secret heart, at night, beneath the covers of self-delusion?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:59 / 18.10.05

And Haus, if Vlad is to be disqualified from being a worthwhile member, then just put him up for banning.

Sorry, has there been a mechanism created to ban people? This, I think, is another issue. People tend to assume that Barbelith behaves like a UBBoard; it doesn't, either in terms of the software or the programming.

Likewise, there is a complete record of every moderation action taken on Barbelith - Tom keeps it for legal reasons. More generally, I take your point, but in how many cases is this done? Not all that many, I ween. Disagreements which both parties conclude to be spur-of-the-moment are sometimes toned down mutually, but it's not exactly standard practice, nor is it unreasonable for somebody to say "this was moderated, but if I recall correctly..." I think you'll find that I said:

OK - I'd like to suggest that if people have complaints to make which involve other people's behaviour, they do so with names, references and, if at all possible, links to examples

Links to examples where possible, see? That doesn't seem to me to be "a bit much", and I must ask you to read posts before criticising them to see if your criticism fits what is actually being said. Otherwise we have to take time trying to sort out misrepresentations of other people's positions, which creates threadrot.
 
 
rising and revolving
15:04 / 18.10.05
he has now said we should all know what he meant. Perhaps.

No, if you go to the thread, he has now explained what he meant.

That's another tendency in these sorts of discussions. To roast someone for something they said regardless of any elucidation they may offer after that point.

What does someone have to do in order to clarify meaning here? Should we all follow Haus' example, and rather than responding to critique in thread with elucidation, instead merely edit your comment so it's clearer?

That definately stops people repeatedly pointing back at what you once said in an inelegant manner, even though you've clarified it's meaning since.

But it makes the board hard to read. And completely derails anyones attempt to ask for examples of behaviour.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:09 / 18.10.05
No, if you go to the thread, he has now explained what he meant.

Erm, he hadn't when I wrote that post.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:10 / 18.10.05
And actually, he still hasn't! What are you on about?
 
 
Spatula Clarke
15:10 / 18.10.05
No, if you go to the thread, he has now explained what he meant.

He hasn't.

Depends on where you live dude, in my town, the last gay-pub was fire-bombed last year, and it's a very white place. Anyway, you're being facetious, you know what I meant!

That's not an explanation - we still have to try and work around it to figure out where he's coming from.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:12 / 18.10.05
R&R: Are you, by any chance, a chum of Modzero's? Just wondering. I accept your emendation on hip-hop, which I do not think changes the sense of what I was saying at all but perhaps makes Kaiser John's phrasing less felicitous.

No, if you go to the thread, he has now explained what he meant.

No, he hasn't. Kaiser John has posted nothing since "you know what I mean". Perhaps you are confusing threads, or you are confusing posters.

Should we all follow Haus' example, and rather than responding to critique in thread with elucidation, instead merely edit your comment so it's clearer?

Example, please, of my editing a comment "so it's clearer", in any situation in which it was harmful to the thread? Especially given that your prior statements are based on an explanation that Kaiser John has not given...
 
 
rising and revolving
15:18 / 18.10.05
I'm a dick. I misread Haus' writing what he meant as him having done so. Sorry about that ...
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:29 / 18.10.05
Sorry to snap, Boboss. It's just that some people have made it part of their schtick to claim that misplaced accusations of racism are part of my schtick, and those people range from easy-to-dismiss, not-much-missed borderline trolls like Radiator/Electric Boogaloo/Rick Jones to people I otherwise have a lot of time for. What really ticked me off about the Blackalicious thread was the suggestion that I'd been just waiting for a chance to dive in there and "jump on someone", when in fact I would have loved for there to be a thread about that kind of rap msuic that didn't include someone making a jaw-droppingly ignorant remark about other kinds. And yeah, Haus is right, after Bruno and - God help us - the "resistence [sic] hip hop" thread - it's all a bit much.

(Not wanting to get into this now in detail, but - "that style" doesn't mean anything to me - he hasn't represented a coherent position - because as I say, Saul Williams made an album called Real Ni**ry, and he likes Saul Williams - so I don't think it's the terms he has problems with - to take just one angle.)

But Phox is right: this is certainly less of a big deal than the fact that Vladimir/22:10:2::22:10:2 still posts here freely.

Smoothly is right up to a point about wearyness. I think this I think some of the newer members (myself included) are guilty of leaving too much onus on the old guard to defend the board’s basic values is if not fair then an accurate summary of what some people think is the case. Let's be clear that there are people who have left Barbelith or post very rarely because they don't feel that what they once understood to be the board's basic values are much represented here anymore. Now, I'm not saying all of those people are/were right. I'm just saying that another reason I get weary is I see great people leaving the board, or posting less, and I hear other people telling me how much the things that wind me up wind them up, and yet it often seems to be the same people getting into fights about it.

At the end of the day, the fact that Barbelith has both a registration-only policy and yet is tolerant of racism (Vladimir is not Vladimir any more, but he's still here) makes for a combination that is inimicable to the kind of message board where I want to spend my time. I don't know of a message board where the latter issue has been resolved to much success. But those other message boards tend to not require people to jump through registration hoops (prove you have a job or a web presence, because those are the things we really value!).
 
 
rising and revolving
15:38 / 18.10.05
Sorry, has there been a mechanism created to ban people? This, I think, is another issue. People tend to assume that Barbelith behaves like a UBBoard; it doesn't, either in terms of the software or the programming.

Well, yes. It's called Tom, as near as I know, but nonetheless, bannings happen.

I'm very aware of the technical limitations of the software we're using. I've commented in the past that I don't think the gains we make (distributed moderation) are worth the things we lose (large amounts of functionality, such as being able to ban, keep track of recent posts, search functionality etc).

Example, please, of my editing a comment "so it's clearer", in any situation in which it was harmful to the thread?

Did I suggest you edited comments so they were harmful to the thread? Why then should I have to provide an example of such?

No idea who modzero is, so that would be a no. Why do you ask?

And as for your comment about reading for clarity, well here are the examples you so adore of you 'demanding' examples without the 'where possible' caveat. You'll note that I mentioned you 'oft do' rather than you had in this particular case. I'll parrot your words back at you

"I must ask you to read posts before criticising them to see if your criticism fits what is actually being said."

One example here just to keep you happy. Others include the (now drenched in infamy) ASS thread.

So yes, you do often demand examples. Which as I said, is a bit tricky when the past is so mutable. Now, Tom may have access to the moderation actions - but that still doesn't aid anyone in this kind of discussion. If I go looking for something I thought was said and don't find it, then it's a very tricky situation. Is my memory at fault, or has the message been changed? Who can say?
 
 
Spatula Clarke
15:46 / 18.10.05
Is it official Barbelith policy that hate speech should be dealt with using any means needed? Scorched earth if necessary? Should it be?

Yes. Yes, it should. If he'd made an anti-Semitic comment, then following Tom's previous decision on such matters he'd be banned. It's way past time that we clarified this, because right now the board's position on racism - from a policy point of view - is as clear as mud.

I've seen people express the opinion before that nothing should be verboten here, and I'm sorry, but I think that's bullshit. Back in the day we could get rid of racist, sexist, homophobic pricks by arguing them into the ground or "banishing with ridicule" or whatever, but back in the day there were one hundred registered members here. You can't do that with a board of 5,000 registered, even if only a fraction of those post regularly, because chances are that there'll now be just as many people giving it the old "he was only joking, get a sense of humour" crap as there are pointing out the idiocy - the very fact that people like Vladimir still feel that they're welcome here is evidence of that.

I agree entirely with Flowers' comment in the Moderation Requests thread that

as a long time Convo mod, if we're now locking and/or deleting the odd thread on there because of content then GOOD. Perhaps should happen more often than it does.

I also agree with r&r in that moderators should take more of an active role in steering threads, although not just to keep them on track - they should also be helping to ensure that they're of a certain standard. I know that G&G still isn't the greatest forum here, not by a long stretch, but it's not for the want of trying on my part and I'd like to see other areas of the board have the same sort of active moderation that Haus, Paleface and myself have been putting into practice there. Comics definitely needs it, but I don't think it'd do the Lab or Switchboard any harm at all if they were to follow suit.

Now, one of the things that's been annoying the hell out of me is the habit that we've grown into of sniping at every little thing, regardless of whether or not it deserves it. Identifying a racist comment or similar is one thing, but when you're also flitting into threads just to go "shit thread!", then the value of your currency starts to drop - people begin to identify you as a poster who only ever snipes at others, even if that isn't true. I swear, when you read this board sometimes you'd think that some of the long-term members had never made a mistake in their entire lives.

It's about picking and choosing your fights.

Quantum: As an anti-troll system it doesn't seem to have made much difference

You're wrong. As far as genuine, dictionary-definition trolls go, we've got Morpheus and we've got one other who's cracking into suits that are already registered. If you think there are others who've joined up since the new registration process was put in place, then point them out.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:51 / 18.10.05
Fair point. Therefore, if it is not possible, one just has to trust to unreliable memory. If it is possible, one should provide a link, as I said above, quite clearly. Since the only example you have provided so far of an emendation is where a sharp tone was replaced by a placeholder explaining that the original post was bad-mannered - this doesn't have an enormous effect on the thread, and if somebody says "you were bad-mannered in that thread", there is the admission right there. So, I don't see such an emendation as particularly significant. If I had let fly with a volley of racist abuse, then moved for an edit that denied that I had, I sincerely hope that our moderators would veto it and report this abuse in the Policy or directly to Tom as quickly as possible.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:02 / 18.10.05
And as for your comment about reading for clarity, well here are the examples you so adore of you 'demanding' examples without the 'where possible' caveat. You'll note that I mentioned you 'oft do' rather than you had in this particular case. I'll parrot your words back at you

Yes - in these examples I was reacting to somebody failing to read things. Since the situation was utterly different from this thread, it seems odd to try to use them. What I said in this thread was:

OK - I'd like to suggest that if people have complaints to make which involve other people's behaviour, they do so with names, references and, if at all possible, links to examples,

Right now, R&R, you seem to be far more interested in getting a rise out of me than in the topic under discussion - given your recent PMs, this is a bit disturbing.
 
  

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