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Fred said, elsewhere:
Because I don't hear anybody else doing it, I would like make a case for freezing accounts much more quickly, with less discussion, and for less offensive behavior.
First: by freezing I mean not banning somebody so that they can return only by deceit, but by putting an account on hold for a length of time -- a week perhaps, or a few days. I would hope that we can build up a culture in which an account on hold is not subjected to attacks while unable to respond, but that is something that would require work and active monitoring.
Second: why freezing rather than banning? Because I think that freezing could act as a time out, giving a poster who is merely upset, drunk, tired, confused, etc. to get over personal feelings that are negatively impacting his or her ability to post constructively. Because I think that banning has more of a tone of banning a person, while freezing seems to me to address content. Because I think that delays may be able to help prevent a situation in which somebody quickly develops a reputation, and makes it easier to focus on content than on remembered ill feelings. Because I think it's less drastic, more easily reversible, and could therefore be entrusted to moderators, rather than requiring a wait for Tom and lengthy negotiations.
Third: why more quickly? Because it seems to me that the more quickly some kind of action is taken, the more quickly conversation returns to the topic at hand. Because the more quickly something is done, the more quickly it can be determined how people will react to a timeout -- with more considered, less inflammatory posts in the future? with worse venom? If we can determine quickly that somebody is going to respond to being pushed against by lashing out, flaming, entrenching, or whatever, then we have more time to have a* ... discussion about banning.
Fourth: why with less discussion? Because the point of freezing is to act rather than to talk. Because discussion can be demoralizing and debilitating when there is no accompanying action (see Fifth, below). Because seeing how somebody responds to action may show us useful and important things, which we won't know until we try.
Fifth: why for less offensive behavior? I will speak for myself as an individual here: because that's the point of Barbelith. I personally do not want free speech on Barbelith, I don't want to Barbelith to be an open society, I don't want to hear anybody's challenging ideas about how the fucking bitches ruined his boner, or about how kikes lied about the holocaust, or about how sluts are lame, or fags are taking all the good jobs, or any of the other shit that I get to hear about in real life all the time. If I want to see titpix, I'll buy a magazine. If I want to hear about how only good girls raped as hard as possible should be allowed to have abortions, I'll call Bill Napoli. Why the fuck should we make Barbelith open to the worst dreck people can think up? Is dreck endangered? Is there a lack of places to talk about it? Are we silencing people and keeping them from expressing themselves? Here you go! All the space the good wide internet can provide.
Very personally and angrily: I come to Barbelith to get the fuck away from the shit I can hear at home, on the job, at school, from my family, from my neighbors, in the papers, on the radio, and ALL OVER THE REST OF THE WEB. I come here to be able to hear people talk about things with a certain level of complexity that you can't have when you have spend a billion fucking pages of a feminism thread explaining fucking Dworkin. Allowing fucking assholes to come shit all over the place doesn't make it more diverse, it makes it more like everything else. Shockingly enough, it is restricting the modes of conversation to respectful and courteous ones that allows for complex and subtle and actually challenging points to be explored. Can I talk on Barbelith about any of my doubts about feminism? Is that even possible? For me it is not -- because with fucktards around, all my energy goes to self-defense. How angry did people have to get, how completely sick to the stomach and fucking fed up to the gills, just to get misogyny even recognized as a problem?
*... = threads-wide, months-long, fucking suffocatingly endless, frustrating, and sickening
This was from the Shadowsax thread, and I don't think it would have helped much with Shadowsax, although it might at least have helped him to spread the load a bit. However, I'm not sure that the second comment - that it is technically impossible - is necessarily true. A "freezing" would take the same form, I imagine, as a standard banning - the suit password would be changed. Difference being that it would then be changed back after a couple of days. I'm not sure whether moderators can do that, or how one would go about getting agreement, buut it is not unfeasible. The easiest thing to do, within our current system, might be to PM Tom saying "I think this poster could profit from a day or so of cooling off - here's why (link)". Tom looks, changes password and a couple of days or a week later emails the new password. If we can devolve or automate that process, then it becomes easier, because we have fewer delays
Essentially, I'm unsure about this process, but I think that, if the will existed, it would be technically possible to accomplish in some form. |
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