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Underground > Policy & Help >

It's Cold Out There: Freezing vs The Airlock

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pointless & uncalled for

19:38 / 04.10.06

Recent events, which I'm hoping won't be heavily over referenced, have spawned the suggestion that we should consider the option of temporarily freezing a suit as a means of enforcing a cooling of period following heated, disruptive or hurtful behavior on the boards.

Ultimately two things need to be determined on this subject now that it is being properly considered:

a) Is this a tool that could be useful for moderators to use in their efforts to ensure the proper running of the board and to a certain extent policing it? This also means that moderators can and always will be relied upon to use it in a fashion appropriate to the ethos of the board.

b) If such a measure were adopted and made available to the moderators, what form should it take and how will it be applied? Consideration needs to be given to the following;

i) length of time a freeze lasts
ii) how many moderators would be required to enact a ban
iii) what would be the source of those moderators
iv) how limiting would a freeze be
v) with what frequency could a freeze be applied to any given suit

Of course this is just a basic starting point, feel free to add other considerations that you feel necessary or valuable.

20:28 / 04.10.06

I think it would have been the option I would have chosen in the situation we've just been through. PW's case was a good example (for me) of when freezing a suit could have been a useful and appropriate thing to do for both the community and the poster in question.

21:17 / 04.10.06

Good questions, thanks for starting it.

i) length of time a freeze lasts
I'd suggest a month. Would be enough time to really detach from the board but not so much as to make it pointless to be unfrozen.

ii) how many moderators would be required to enact a ban

Are all the Policy mods active? If so I'd say a majority of approvals from Policy mods would be appropriate.

iii) what would be the source of those moderators

The reason I say Policy mods is they appear to be drawn from the entirity of the board and would already be aware of the issues (hopefully)

iv) how limiting would a freeze be
I'd like to see a no post period but maybe retain PM function?

v) with what frequency could a freeze be applied to any given suit

Well...I suspect I'd want that to be based on the type of behavior problem. For folks with some mental health issues who may ask to be frozen when they are unable to particpate appropriately it might be a good mutual option. I'd like to encourage it for people who want some help putting distance between themselves and the direct heated exchange of the board. Yet for people who are obviously not having mental health issues (I know I know) but instead cultural issues around appropriate behavior perhaps a limited amount.

So freezing as a voluntary handing over of the suit's keys =unlimited

Freezing as a board/mod action= 3x?

22:29 / 04.10.06

I'd say a month, five or six moderators from any fora, the option to unfreeze when appropriate and stopping posts. If an angry PM spree ensues then we could consider banning as the next step.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

22:33 / 04.10.06

I'd like -- were my suit frozen -- to know who made that decision, and it not to be one of the people I was arguing with at the time.

22:36 / 04.10.06

I'd like -- were my suit frozen -- to know who made that decision, and it not to be one of the people I was arguing with at the time.

how would that work if the mods were trying to engage with the poster pre-freeze?

Tryphena Absent

22:39 / 04.10.06

It wouldn't but the point of having five or six moderators agree is surely that those five or six all arguing with a person in the same thread is unlikely.

22:41 / 04.10.06

what's the ethics line on it, no mods who have engaged with the person in issue related thread can approve a freeze?

22:42 / 04.10.06

i think moderators should be trusted enough not to do that.
i cant think of any who are unethical enough to do so, if it was agreed that it was not to be done.

i dont like the idea of it being policy mods who have the new powers i would prefer it to be all the mods.
if not then a whole new class of mod rather than those from any one forum.

22:42 / 04.10.06

I actually think a week might be enough -- it's a long time to stay 'hot' and a month is practically internet death.

The longer the freeze, the more mod votes should be needed. I'd be okay with three votes for a week.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

22:43 / 04.10.06

I'm not entirely sure. But there are enough mods that I'm sure a few people who weren't involved could review the threads in question and make an "unbiased" decision.

If you (and I don't know if you're a mod or not, just sayin') took me to task for saying something really dumb in Convo, and I really got my back up about it, and it just degenerated into a mess, my response to having you involved in the freeze decision would be... not conducive to future good behaviour.

If, however, Lula PM'd me and said "Five people not involved in this argument read everything to date and I think you'd benefit from some chill-out time," I'd be a lot more likely to come back from a forced break feeling reflective rather than persecuted.

Maybe not a great idea practically, but given that the recipient of mass chastening often feels persecuted, not having the person they perceive as their "enemy" shutting them out could go a long way to showing a freeze as a constructive tool rather than a punitive measure.

22:44 / 04.10.06

would it be best to have a jury system? For a freeze 12 active posters(within the last month and members longer than 6 months) get picked to decide on the freeze?

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

22:45 / 04.10.06

Crossposted with toksik and Fred there.

@toksik: I'm less concerned about mod morality and abuse than about constructive ways to defuse the mindset that posters experiencing difficulty often find themselves in.

22:45 / 04.10.06

It sounds backwards to me to have only mods who haven't engaged with a poster be able to vote. I would hope that people able to freeze somebody would have at least made the effort to talk to that person first. I know if I were going to be frozen I would very much prefer it not be done by somebody who hasn't even gone to the trouble of engaging with me directly first.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:51 / 04.10.06

I agree - I see no profit in forcing people who might want to be able to vote on freezing later to stay out of any discussion which might lead to a vote on freezing. I also don't really see that somebody should be told who voted for it. Would that not simply give them targets?

23:01 / 04.10.06

Maybe not a great idea practically, but given that the recipient of mass chastening often feels persecuted, not having the person they perceive as their "enemy" shutting them out could go a long way to showing a freeze as a constructive tool rather than a punitive measure.

I think that's a valuable point. Often people do seem to be feeling persecuted, so knowing that the people who they felt were persecuting them had voted for them to be 'frozen' is only going to make things worse. I'm not saying they shouldn't vote, but the person being voted on shouldn't know who voted.

Tryphena Absent

23:03 / 04.10.06

i cant think of any who are unethical enough to do so, if it was agreed that it was not to be done.

I'm the person unethical enough to do so. I would vote if I had the option and felt someone should not be here even if someone told me I wasn't allowed to.

02:30 / 05.10.06

would it be best to have a jury system? For a freeze 12 active posters(within the last month and members longer than 6 months) get picked to decide on the freeze?

That's a very interesting idea, but seems like it would take a lot of setting up. Specialization of moderators, though, does seem like it might potentially cool things off -- hmm. I wonder if it could be set up like a virtual forum -- an empty "Juror" forum, which only exists to have a group of moderators used in freezing (or, potentially, banning).

That might be best as a discussion for later, though, since it'd be a serious change in board culture.

02:41 / 05.10.06

Oh, and if it needs saying, yes, I'm in favor of a "freeze" option, and I'd be comfortable with a ratio of, say, four mods for two weeks or six mods for a month.

I suppose these would have to be Policy mods, just because of the way moderation works (specific to forum). Unless there was some way to get every mod on the board to partake in a pool of board-wide mod powers.

06:39 / 05.10.06

I'd say either four or five moderators, with anything from 24 hours to a week. I think it'd be best to go for short blocks of time first of all, with the possibility of refreezing if someone comes back after two days, say, and behaves in exactly the same way. I'd also hope people might use the facility in the same way as we sometimes have others scramble or hold our passwords ie. when we're trying to stay away from the place for a set period of time.

08:26 / 05.10.06

Well, the option of freezing would be welcome because the moderators at the moment are largely powerless. This means that disruptive members can't be dealt with until Tom gets round to it, which I think leads to a certain insecurity in knowing if we have any serious sanctions at all. So yeah, freezing would be nice, but I think having an active member who could ban would also, or equally, be good.

Thats the real change that Barbelith needs, the ability of someone on the board to deal with difficult behaviour. If we had that, the board could possibly be opened properly with the cumbersome application procedure.

09:05 / 05.10.06

I'm the person unethical enough to do so.

if you were directly involved in an argument with someone, you would feel no compunction to step back from the assessment of the situation with regards to freezing suits? (to be clear, i am not describin a situation in which one has attempted to settle an ongoing argument between other posters, i am talking about one in which you are personally involved)

if so, i am not convinced you should be allowed to freeze suits, dude.
i appreciate there may be others who feel the same way or who feel your way is fair.
in that case i would push for more votes to pass the freeze than five in an effort to lessen the impact of such a voter.

i feel uncomfortable that you could have an argument with a poster and also vote on their exclusion, and i think i would not be alone in that.

it would give mods too much power in a shit-fling, and i dont think that is a good idea.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:15 / 05.10.06

Depends how you define "argument with a poster" dude. If you'd had a full and frank exchange of veiws on who would win a fight out of a bear and a shark, that's one thing. If on the other hand the argument was over something like the Shadowsax debacle? Bit stickier. I mean, unless the jurors are all banned from posting, ever, the probability that one or other of them would have got in a row with any given proposed bannee is essentially 1, isn't it?

People don't get banned in a vaccuum, is all I'm saying. There's always some precipitating incident, usually involving a big shitstorm that drags in any number of members.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:45 / 05.10.06

I see what you're saying re: number of mods, though.

09:56 / 05.10.06

I think the freeze option is a great idea.

Okay, here's what I don't want.

1) These powers given to a special core of moderators - Policy mods, whoever. I think this could have unfortunate cultural effects and would lead to numerous charges of elitism. I also think such a strategy would run the risk of being unresponsive and unwieldy.

2) A jury system of any sort, mainly because it would be unresponsive (it seems to me that the ability to work fast is an essential part of the proposal under the spotlight).

3) A freeze period of more than a week. I think it's totally unnecessary since it should be entirely possible to keep the process rolling if need be, if, however, we went for a longer period, a month, say, and wanted to bring someone back before that time had elapsed, we'd have a problem.

4) A system that demands the input of any more than six mods. Again unwieldy and unresponsive.

5) A system that demands that only mods not engaged with the discussion can vote, because a) again with the unresponsive, and b) the distributed moderation system should ensure a degree of impartiality - that it, afterall, one of the main reasons we use such a system in the first place.

6) No special discussion forum. I just think that's a horribly untransparent set-up that could really piss people off and work to generate a kind of super member status.

7) Any overly complex system that's not actually ever gonna happen.

12:01 / 05.10.06

I think that a minimum freeze time of a week is reasonable. That's a relatively long time in Barbe-space if someone is engaged in active threads, but not so long that someone who has just got a little heated and pig-headed, but who generally adds something to the site, begins to feel excluded (hopefully).

What would a maximum freeze be? I would suggest a month, perhaps two. If the option exists to have an open-ended freeze then haven't we effectively got ourselves a way of banning someone in all but name?

I agree with Bobossboy. The ability for a mod to vote on freezing shouldn't be exclusive to a certain group or level of experience. But I think, if possible, the system should be set up so that a freeze can't be blocked by just one mod voting "No".

12:29 / 05.10.06

4) A system that demands the input of any more than six mods. Again unwieldy and unresponsive.

i disagree.
there are more mods than you perhaps think if you add all the fora together. policy itself has sixteen, many of whom are active frequently and regularly.

perhaps a list of active moderators would be useful to make sure the maths works. could you tell us how many mods were active in the last month, Tom?

i dont think eight would be a ridiculous amount, as long as you raised the number of objections required to veto along with the number required to pass.

seven out of eight to pass, say?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:47 / 05.10.06

Yeah, I was going to say 6 but on reflection I don't think 8 is a bad number. It's big enough to soak up accusations of conspiracy, but small enough that you could get a verdict before too much ick happened.

12:54 / 05.10.06

Before we dive in and discuss the mechanics of this, can we determine if there is any chance of this being implemented? I'm sure there is a lot of feeling on the Barb that things can be changed for the better, but we usually don't discuss it because Tom has made it clear that he only trusts himself and Cal to make changes, and they don't have the time. That is, when all is said and done, this is Tom's board and not ours. So, is this an actual option for us?

12:55 / 05.10.06

I would have no objection to an 8 mod system as long as the veto number was also upped. My concern wasn't to do with active mods, but rather reaching speedy agreement and avoiding loads and loads of argument.

Lurid, Tom has said elsewhere (I don't have time to track down the quote at the mo') that Cal might have some time in the near future. But, yeah, I'd like to see something more solid.

13:09 / 05.10.06

Before we dive in and discuss the mechanics of this, can we determine if there is any chance of this being implemented?

Well, we won't know the extent of what is possible until the coding is done. I think it makes sense for us to work out what we want from the function and come to an agreement on how it would be integrated into current board policy. I realise it's only in the preliminary stages of development, but the more we clarify what we'd like to see now the more likely we'll get something installed that approaches our expectations.

pointless & uncalled for

13:22 / 05.10.06

I should apologise here. I was drunk at the time of posting and didn't frame the original post particularly well.

This thread is a response to this quote from Tom:

To Ganesh - I'll seriously consider the freeze user option. I'm not totally sure about it, and I'd like people to have a conversation about whether they think it would work. As usual, when it comes to board functionality, I'm not going to promise anything.

I at the time I took that to be an edict to discuss the matter before time and effort is spent on working out if it can be done. I didn't think he wanted to make the effort only to discover that it then wasn't wanted. I appreciate that this reading wasn't that exact, such is the evil nature of beer, vodka, wine, curry and chocolate (not necessarily in that order).

However, I think that this thread is throwing up some very useful stuff.

14:41 / 05.10.06

If it were easier to thaw than freeze, five mods might be sufficient with one veto to temporarily lock a suit. If the option was to boot someone for a week and then it seemed unfair they could be reinstated by an action with a lower threshold (say three mods) easily enough.
I'm not against a bigger vote per se, but I do think eight is unwieldy.

14:49 / 05.10.06

6) No special discussion forum. I just think that's a horribly untransparent set-up that could really piss people off and work to generate a kind of super member status.

Just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting an actual, functional forum -- just thinking of ways to use the software as it is to set up a group of mods.

I still like the idea of a longish stretch -- two weeks seems like enough time to go through whatever reactions and wipe the slate clean. But I'm curious if people would be more interested in a five-day time-out -- a business week.

I've disappeared for that long and been slightly baffled by what's going on upon my return.

(Please, no "what's so different about that?" gags. My frail ego would cave under the impact.)

(Oh, and heart/wreathed/flame -- cut out the bear/shark thing, already! I proved it to you before: SHARKS RULE, BEARS DROOL!)

15:37 / 05.10.06

if you were directly involved in an argument with someone, you would feel no compunction to step back from the assessment of the situation with regards to freezing suits?

Why should compunction be felt? It seems to me to lend credence to the notion that the person critiquing racist, sexist, etc. behavior is doing so because that person is overwrought with baseless emotion, or has a personal vendetta or something, rather than because racism and sexism are unwanted here. Speaking out against racist or sexist speech and then taking action to halt it is being characterized so strangely, like it's the equivalent of handing out lucrative contracts to business buddies. Why do we need to try so hard to avoid the appearance, to people perpetuating disruptive behavior, of elitism or favoritism? Why isn't it enough to provide a coherent argument and back up what you're saying with links and quotes? When did it become about making disruptive people feel okay? Why isn't explaining and supporting the reasons for your critique sufficient?

If we are going to institute a freeze option to give the disruptor a chance to cool off, that's great, and hopefully would help people like PW who do not seem to be malicious in any way. Why should somebody who is objecting vocally to racism, sexism, or persistent disruption need to cool off? What is inappropriate about a vocal objection?

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