Topics of Concern- Banning

13:37 / 20.09.07

Yup

At the moment, moderators - all moderators - see "edit user" alongisde each post to Barbelith.

POINT OF FACT

Mods can only see "edit user" in the forums they moderate.

16:03 / 20.09.07

Is true. Odd - so, if you want to ban someone, you have to find a post by them in a forum you moderate.

jentacular dreams

16:18 / 20.09.07

Well worst case scenario a non-mod could just start a banning thread or send a complaint PM to an admin in the relevant forum. The only concerns are a) how would the mod action work out and b) would this put too much strain on the mods in certain fora? For example, headshop only has 7 mods currently (two of which I don't think have been seen for a while), so the 8 votes couldn't be reached if the action was limited to mods in that forum.

The non exclusive options as I see them are
1 - give policy mods authority to moderate all fora
2 - setting a minimum number of mods per forum (15 should do)
3- have a lower ban-vote threashold, e.g. 5.

19:15 / 20.09.07

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be limited to the moderators of that forum - it's just set up so that moderators only see the edit option in fora they moderate.

Quantum

19:43 / 21.09.07

It's been mooted we compile the banning, admissions and 'opening the board' threads together. Should Policy mods lock this and the admissions thread and start a new 'changes to the board' thread?

Tryphena Absent

19:58 / 21.09.07

Don't start another thread, that just means even more threads to read! Lock one, put a moderator note and link into the other thread at the beginning of the first post stating that the locked thread is also relevant.

07:38 / 23.09.07

Is this a reasonable candidate for a test case? Or is there too little to go on to look into banning? (Or any other reasons, obviously?)

10:17 / 23.09.07

We don't ban for biannual gibberish posts. Sadly.

11:38 / 23.09.07

I do worry that that one might have issues.

11:45 / 23.09.07

I think Goth prototype is a former member of the Greenland posse--possibly the only one left now.

12:24 / 23.09.07

But- but that would mean we'd hunted them to extinction...

...erm...

Do any longstanding 'lithers have spares from back when they were allowed (I seem to remember they were all burned, but people don't always remember to do that kind of stuff)?

Or does anyone want to contact someone who's left amicably but has no intention of returning, and ask if they'd mind Tom giving them a new password so we could try it out? (Of course they'd be fast-tracked back onto the board should they change their mind...)

13:33 / 23.09.07

Do any longstanding 'lithers have spares from back when they were allowed (I seem to remember they were all burned, but people don't always remember to do that kind of stuff)?

See Haus' last post on page 5.

I like the second idea, though, although it wouldn't test whether they were able to register another suit, if that needs testing.

As to not banning for biannual gibberish posts - I was kind of under the impression that that was largely because it wasn't worthwhile under the old system if they only posted occasionally, rather than because consistently posting only gibberish isn't a bannable offence? Has this been hashed through before?

13:58 / 23.09.07

Yeah, we've had some discussion about this, but I'm not sure where it took place now. Essentially it sort of comes down to how much gibberish, when and where. If you don't post very often and therefore don't create any significant degree of disruption, we're just going to ignore you.

(However I do note that there's a reference to circumcision in that post, which might be nothing but which does ring alarm bells in the light of the Greenland posse's distressing tendency to anti-Semitism.)

14:25 / 23.09.07

I thought there'd been some discussion along those lines, but I'd also thought the how much gibberish, when and where stipulations were basically because it wasn't worth going through the Tom-harassing process for the sake of a relatively minor irritation. So I wondered whether, now that the process is much easier, it was worth revisiting the "required volume of tripe" level...

14:53 / 23.09.07

There's some discussion from a couple of years ago here, regarding Morph but essentially on the same sort of topic, where Ganesh made a good case for letting "banish with laughter" be the preferred approach to this sort of thing. Interestingly the material under discussion was agreed to be offensive in this case.

(I'd forgotten just how wildly irrational the Countdown thread was. Good gravy.)

15:44 / 23.09.07

True, but as I'm reading that it's in the context of how much hassle it would be to delete posts or ban.

While I'm not greatly bothered either way - I'd like to not see Local Goth, but I don't see much Local Goth as it is anyway - I thought that given that there's not only an easier mechanism but an active desire to test said mechanism, ze might be a good option. Or as has now been pointed out in the moderation thread, Morpheus hirself may be back, and so perhaps would be a better possibility.

15:53 / 23.09.07

See Haus' last post on page 5.

Oops, my mistake- I had actually read that but completely forgot about it while typing.

15:58 / 23.09.07

I think that banning somebody because we'd like to try out the banning mechanism is _really_ not a behaviour to encourage.

Tryphena Absent

16:09 / 23.09.07

Why not simply register a new suit and ban it if you want to test it out?

16:20 / 23.09.07

I think that banning somebody because we'd like to try out the banning mechanism is _really_ not a behaviour to encourage.

Oh, I know, I know. But my thoughts were largely based on the fact that hir behaviour would be - in large enough quantities - bannable anyway. In which case I think it becomes a question of whether the reason for not banning in the past was an agreement that someone who consistently posts gibberish shouldn't be banned unless they post often enough to cause major disruption, or that maybe they should be banned but for the sake of a few posts a year it's not really worth appealing to Tom. Ban-worthiness as opposed to ban-worthwhileness, if that makes sense?

16:22 / 23.09.07

I'm more than an eentsy bit squicked by that myself. Aside from anything else, we risk creating in the minds of the impressionable an image of the Barberoyalty™ all gathered round in an evil huddle, rubbing our claws and greedily looking for someone to ban just to try out our new toy. And looking sort of like Skeksis.

16:31 / 23.09.07

MmmmMMMMMmmmmm.

Sorry.

16:42 / 23.09.07

Yeah, I think it's kind of important that we remember there's now banning functionality in place for when it's needed, rather than as an thing we should look for opportunities to use.

In a perfect world we would never use it, because we would never need to. That's obviously not the way things are, but still... we don't really want to come across as being the sort of people who'd be disappointed if it WAS, though, do we?

Tryphena Absent

17:02 / 23.09.07

Isn't it more about the fact that everyone wants to know that it will work if they do need to use it. That seems sensible to me, although perhaps people were getting a little gung-ho earlier. Anyway it should be tested by moderators so they don't get trigger happy later on.

17:09 / 23.09.07

Why not simply register a new suit and ban it if you want to test it out?

I think we've already covered this one - to so so would be rather at one's own risk, since the banning also puts in place some sort of blocking based on IP address or similar, that might lock out one's primary suit also.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:16 / 23.09.07

In a perfect world we would never use it, because we would never need to. That's obviously not the way things are, but still... we don't really want to come across as being the sort of people who'd be disappointed if it WAS, though, do we?

Sorry, I hope I didn't come across like that. I never meant to suggest anyone should be banned who wasn't bannable anyway.

18:00 / 23.09.07

If you want to try banning a suit you could go for my old 'Our Lady of the Two Towers' suit as that was hijacked by Knodge. However, I don't think anyone can log in to that any more (I think the email address and password were both scrambled to stop him messing about) so we wouldn't be able to check afterwards if it could still be logged into.

Alex's Grandma

18:45 / 23.09.07

Is this a reasonable candidate for a test case?

I don't think so. And I'm somewhat troubled by the idea that it might be. If a post full of teh magicks-related bollocks which isn't overtly offensive (caveat here: I didn't make it to the end) is going to be treated as a bannable offence, rather than a mockable one, then I'd suggest this board is heading for the doldrums.

The anger about the likes of Local Goth or Morph's antics is actually far more depressing than the ramblings that inspire it.

Because it seems to imply that the political Left has no sense of humour.

Damnit. Guys?

21:22 / 23.09.07

Isn't it more about the fact that everyone wants to know that it will work if they do need to use it.

Well yes, which is why I suggested a couple of ways we could do that. (sorry- that sounds a bit snappy and it shouldn't- I'm kind of snowed-under at work!)

21:41 / 23.09.07

But, you know, all of this seems to be moot if God has indeed given us Darkmatter for this very purpose.

jentacular dreams

08:38 / 24.09.07

Well perhaps, but as with banning epop or ganesh, how will we know if his ban was successful?

I still think that in some way we either need an artificial test case, or we need to open the gates for a week and see what happens.

08:58 / 24.09.07

As I've mentioned elsewhere I'm rather concerned about this business of only being able to ban trolls and baddies who crop up in the forums you moderate. It's at best a very clunky way of doing things and at worst potenitally very obstructive. I mean, what if I can't find a post by Villain X in any of my fora? As far as I can see we need to knock down the number of mods needed to enact a ban, and fix the problem with the functionality.

Tom?

Quantum

08:59 / 24.09.07

Eight votes is too high a threshold, I don't think many fora have eight active mods. I'm concerned.

Quantum

09:12 / 24.09.07

What about being able to vote on bans from any forum? That might be an easy fix, although some people might feel they're not qualified to judge other fields. We have plenty of active mods but if somebody trolls us they could just stick to the gathering or creation or films or books or, actually, Headshop and we'd be scuppered.