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mondo a-go-go
13:54 / 22.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh v4.2:
Okay, I've taken a breath and arranged some tulips. My knee has ceased jerking.

Now... don't be so fucking snarky.

umm....that wasn't intended to be snarky, and it wasn't specifically aimed at you only.

it just seems to me that people are aware of their own culpability in rising to troll-bait, and of their adding to it. i'm not trying to suggest this in an i'm-better-than-you-for-doing-this-and-you-are-beneath-me-because-you-do-not kind of way, i'm just suggesting (suggesting. not demanding) that if people are conscious that they're compunding any troll problem by not resisting the temptation to join in, then they could just as easily not storm in mouth first. and that maybe by having some breathing space, some (some. not all) of the problems that have occurred might not do so. personally (personally, again, not saying everyone else HAS to agree with me), i think it might cut down on the need for people to go back and delete hasty arguments that they later regret, which is something i do spot around here now and again.

this doesn't mean that i think we should ignore trollers and thereby give the impression they can get away with it. neither does it mean that i don't think we should NOT have an ignore function. it's just that from what i can see, some people are suggesting we have one because they're incapable of preventing themselves from responding to everything, even when they know that sometimes it can only add to the problem. that logic to me is just a bit fucked up. it's a question of personal responsibility, y'dig? something we could all learn to do that might (might. i dunno) make this a nicer place to be.

though telling me not to be "so fucking snarky" is a bit rich coming from you after the response you gave to my suggestion. i actually felt the same thing when i read haus' response but i chose not to answer it because i didn't think it was that important to the main issue in this thread, even if i didn't like it. i figured if it still bothered me later, there was still an opportunity to call haus on it, or maybe he might have realised it was facetious and edited his response. i know he's just being haus though, so it's easy to ignore him because that's what he's like, even if i don't like that aspect of him. however when you do it as well, i feel i have to say something.

even though i know that's just you being ganesh because that's what you're like. >sigh<
 
 
Ganesh
13:59 / 22.02.02
I guess your recent World-Weary Big Sister On A Bad Day persona is getting to me, Kooky...

And yeah, the way to deal with temptation, obviously, is to resist it. Duh. Personally, I know the presence of an Ignore button would help me resist it. Like Oscar, I know my limits.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:19 / 22.02.02
Sing it with me!

Sweeeeeeeet Jaaaaaaaaannnnnne!
 
 
Spatula Clarke
14:26 / 22.02.02
I'm cool on the idea. If other people want an 'Ignore' button, fine.

I shall be choosing to ignore it.

Quite apart from anything else, it's not going to stop you from reading the posts of those you choose to ignore when they're quoted by other people (as happens all the time).
 
 
Ganesh
14:32 / 22.02.02
Sure. Speaking personally, I'd still like the option. The quoter has presumably already decided to respond - so depending on what's quoted, I'd either leave them to it or de-Ignore (un-Ignore?) and have a look at the fuller post. I'd appreciate that, I think.
 
 
moriarty
15:20 / 22.02.02
I can appreiciate both sides of the discussion. I know I probably won't use the button myself, but I'm still undecided on my feelings for the idea, largely because if so many people want the option, they must have good reason.

The only thing that really bugs me about the idea is that this won't just result in gaps in the conversation, but people will also be repeating things the ignored have already stated. We already have enough problems with people who don't read the whole thread. This will just compound that problem. If it doesn't, fine. If it does, I say it's not worth the hassle.
 
 
Ganesh
15:23 / 22.02.02
Experimental period, then?
 
 
Tom Coates
16:59 / 22.02.02
Oh god, where to begin.

Right. Firstly I'm going to say right out that if people aren't prepared to express their reasons for their opinions so that we can all discuss them like grown-ups then their opinions WILL BE IGNORED. I don't care if two-thirds of the board says "Don't do it" - I'm going to listen to the people with the constructive suggestions or the thought-out reasons, not the knee-jerks on EITHER side.

Secondly, NONE of us have the SLIGHTEST idea what the board dynamic is going to be like when we move over - should that EVER happen. At the moment the entire weight of the enterprise is on my shoulders because I think we can do better than the board as is. And if it fails, then we'll change it, or people can come back here. Happy? Good.

Of course what I'd rather happen is that people went over to the new board, pointed out CONSTRUCTIVELY AND THROUGH DISCUSSION what they thought was working and / or not working and why...

What else.... Right. There are going to be a VARIETY of changes when we move boards, so you might as well get used to the idea of them now. The biggest one is that you're not just going to be able to edit your own post any more - the UBB at present only offers two options, you can either let people edit their posts or you can not. All editing on the new board will require the approval of a moderator. SO YOU'RE ALL GOING TO HAVE BE A LITTLE BETTER BEHAVED ABOUT WHAT YOU POST AND BE PREPARED TO TAKE THE CONSEQUENCES OF IT.

I don't want everything clean and neat, but I want a process which makes the new board self-sustaining. I want a system that makes the board WORK BY ITSELF. This is the plan - we're building a POLITICAL SYSTEM here - we're building a process that says how EVERY DECISION IS MADE on the board. That's the plan in the end - a community that can adapt and enforce its self-policing, so that it doesn't always come down to the absent god-king figure of the moderator or administrator to sort out all the crap that happens on the board.

So to summarise:

1) NO COMMENTS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE BOARD WILL BE LISTENED TO IF THEY DO NOT HAVE REASONING ATTACHED.

2) LET'S WITHHOLD JUDGMENT ON NEW IDEAS AND NOT LEAP TO CRITICISE THEM - INSTEAD LEAP TO FIX WHAT YOU BELIEVE IS WRONG WITH THEM WITH AN ALTERNATIVE SUGGESTION.

3) THE BOARD IS BEING REDESIGNED TO FUNCTION BY ITSELF. YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO RUN TO ME FOR HELP, I WON'T HAVE ANY MORE POWER THAN ANY OTHER MODERATOR. THIS WILL MEAN MORE CONTROL FOR THE INDIVIDUAL.

4) WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY HERE TO COMPLETELY RETHINK THE BOARD AS A POLITICAL THING - AS A LITTLE MICRO-STATE WITH AS FEW LAWS OR RULES AS POSSIBLE OR AS MANY AS YOU WANT. BARBELITH COULD STOP BEING A PLACE THAT TALKS ABOUT NEW WORLD ORDERS, IT *COULD BECOME ONE*. SO STOP FUCKING GRIPING ABOUT HOW LITTLE BUTTONS WORK, GET TO GRIPS WITH THE BIG PICTURE AND MAKE SOME FUCKING SUGGESTIONS.

Look to the skies.

You have been warned.
 
 
Ganesh
17:05 / 22.02.02
I love it when you talk upper-case...

I actually think the 'no-editing' thing may, more than anything else, force us into thinking before we post. I'm cautiously in favour of that.
 
 
Ierne
17:13 / 22.02.02
...some people are suggesting we have one because they're incapable of preventing themselves from responding to everything, even when they know that sometimes it can only add to the problem. – kookymojo

Ah, no. More like "if a poster is being persisitently and utterly annoying to me and attacking me, I can press this button and avoid harassment."

I don't wish to be rude Kooky, but it's a bit much for you to suggest that Ganesh, myself and others who strongly feel the need for this device lack a sense of "personal responsibility" when your recent posts in the Gathering are hardly the model of restraint in the face of annoyance.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
17:19 / 22.02.02
I agree with Ganesh - my initial gut reaction to the 'no editing' thing was "oh no! what is he thinking?" but that quickly just turned to "well, man, you'll have to fucking proofread from now on, aren't you?".

It'll be a hassle sometimes, but slowing things down sounds like a good idea. As a moderator, I'm kinda dreading loads of emails and PMs asking me to delete stuff, though... but hey. This whole plan sounds great, Tom.
 
 
grant
17:46 / 22.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh v4.2:
I actually think the 'no-editing' thing may, more than anything else, force us into thinking before we post. I'm cautiously in favour of that.

As somebody who a. often posts on the fly while researching stuff at work and b. has a notoriously inefficient memory for things (as in, "Oh, waitaminute, that wasn't Dennis Hopper, that was Hedda Hopper - dammit!"), I'm leaning against.
Then again, maybe I'll just start opening text docs to write up posts before posting...

Also, I think I'd be for the ignore button for precisely the reason Flyboy's against... the idea of having parallel boards, unaware of each other's activities, is really appealing to me.
Perhaps it would be better if you could ignore a poster only in one specific forum, like the Conversation or Comics. That way, there'd still be the potential for *communication*.

[ 22-02-2002: Message edited by: grant ]
 
 
Mr insensitive
17:47 / 22.02.02
Ganesh - You used to be A-Okay. What happened? Did someone stick a long piece of wood up your ass?

Kooky - Nice pic.....Do you look like that IRL?

Puuuurrrrrrrrrr.......

My gut reation is that ignoring people is fundamentally wrong. I'll explain with one simple word:

BLANKING

There, I said it. IRL some people do, some don't. BUT THIS IS THE INTERNET; AN ARENA OF FREE-SPEECH! The very presence of an ignore function dictates that it is 'considered' necessary. I don't think that's a message you should send out. The internet can't physically harm you. Mentally it might shake you up, maybe even scar you, but hey, if you don't like it then DON'T LET IT! Control your level of personal investment. We're talking about black shapes on a canvas that make your mind work via synapse activity and chemical reactions. LEARN TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF before you go out swinging at other people, like the way Irene and a few others chose to do in a recent thread when a risque joke was made.

But hey, that's just my opinion, so just ignore me if you don't agree with it.
 
 
Ganesh
17:49 / 22.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Mr insensitive:
Ganesh - You used to be A-Okay. What happened? Did someone stick a long piece of wood up your ass?

<slow hand-clap>

Trolling already?

If anyone illustrates the need for an Ignore button right now, 'Mr Insensitive', it's you...

[ 22-02-2002: Message edited by: Ganesh v4.2 ]
 
 
Ierne
18:18 / 22.02.02
It makes sense that the ones who would complain the most about the ignore button would be the trolls...

grant: I tend to type many of my comments in a text program before I post anyway; I always have a text program open at work for invoices and such, so I have a smaller text window for pull-quotes and responses. It's a good idea.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
18:25 / 22.02.02
The "no-edit" thing I LIKE- (as long as people don't get too pedantic about typos etc... a lot of the time the reason for re-editing your own posts is as mundane as that)- a lot of us (such as myself, for example) should probably spend more time composing their posts before actually posting them (if not for reasons of offense, then for reasons of clarity and/or saying WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING???). Other stuff, I haven't thought about enough to venture an opinion. (And that's not sarcasm- I haven't.)
 
 
Tom Coates
09:58 / 23.02.02
It's not a no edit thing so much as it's an edit as much as you like, but it may just rejected by moderators.

They'll get the post before and the post afterwards and they only need sanction it if they think it should be sanctioned.

As to the workload of moderators - this is why we're going to need more of them. Each moderator has less power, but more of them and they need to ratify, hence good system..

As to this:

quote: There, I said it. IRL some people do, some don't. BUT THIS IS THE INTERNET; AN ARENA OF FREE-SPEECH! The very presence of an ignore function dictates that it is 'considered' necessary. I don't think that's a message you should send out. The internet can't physically harm you. Mentally it might shake you up, maybe even scar you, but hey, if you don't like it then DON'T LET IT! Control your level of personal investment. We're talking about black shapes on a canvas that make your mind work via synapse activity and chemical reactions. LEARN TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF before you go out swinging at other people, like the way Irene and a few others chose to do in a recent thread when a risque joke was made.

I'm just going to say BOLLOCKS. Learning to take responsibility for yourself is what the people who purposefully fuck up boards should learn to do. An ignore function just gives individuals the ability to stop listening to the idiots. And your freedom of speech isn't compromised at all - you can say precisely what you like - but everyone would now have the similar freedom to decide you were a tosser and not pay any attention...
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
09:58 / 23.02.02
Well, if in that case, I wouldn't be adverse to helping the moderation of some other forums.
 
 
bio k9
09:58 / 23.02.02
Is it me or it Tom getting just a little Warren Ellis?

Take a day off and relax, this can't be healthy.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:58 / 23.02.02
So, the words "rape her" are a risque joke? No, actress/bishop jokes are risque, that's just weak and unfunny.

Yeesh. Ignore button is now starting to look like an all you can eat buffet in the middle of a fucking desert.
 
 
—| x |—
22:02 / 23.02.02
Sorry for the opening rant, but it was the 50 cups of coffee morning...

While I find wirebaby's suggestion of a divided board interesting and pleasing from a mathematical perspective, I still don't think the ignore button is a good idea.

I'm on side with Kooky's position about developing self control on one's own. Also, (sorry can't remember who brought it up) the idea that the content of an ignored poster's posts might be viewed by newbies to the board as acceptable material for Barbelith's content (if no one has posted to the contrary because no one who would post to the contrary has seen the material) is a serious objection to consider.

More generally, an ignore button seems to me a way to turn a blind eye to people (be they trolls or otherwise), perhaps in the same way that one might turn a blind eye to a homeless person or such on the street: “solving” problems by not “seeing” them.

It seems to me that Barbelith is about, in part, bringing people together. It certainly seems that some of us are (ideally anyway) trying to promote a similar unity in the world. Thus, why should there be a device which promotes a segregated board with ostracized members?

m3

PS: As for stress relief for Tom, maybe if these people would stop thinking of him as “DADDY” and make the attempt to take care of their own lives (here on the board), then Tom could catch a break from needless harassment and unnecessary strife.

Maybe as an alternative to an Ignore button, we could create an emoticon that embodies, “I think what you’ve said is no more than an attempt to aggravate and annoy, so instead of giving you the attention that you want, I’m merely going to post this emoticon which tells you to piss off with this while also saying that I don’t think the content of your post is the sort of thing to be tolerated or accepted around here.”
 
 
Trijhaos
22:57 / 23.02.02
No edit function? Is this another step towards making us think more before we post?

I like the idea of a separate ignore function for each forum. That way we wouldn't be turning a blind eye to somebody completely, just in certain forums.

As for the self-control thing, you could have gobs of self-control, but eventually somebody's going to get under your skin and you're going to lash out. At least with an ignore function, if somebody gets under your skin, you can ignore them before you sink to their level.

[ 24-02-2002: Message edited by: Trijhaos ]
 
 
Tom Coates
23:30 / 23.02.02
I repeat - there IS an edit function, but you would no longer have complete control over it. All moderation on the new board requires someone to suggest it and someone else to confirm it. When you write a post you will automatically become a moderator on it - so as long as enough moderators (or some moderators) think that your edit is justified then it will go straight through.

This is designed to avoid people changing their argument completely to make the person who replies to them sound nuts etc. not to stop people making normal corrections, edits, etc.

But yes - it is also part of the campaign to get people to think before they post...
 
 
Naked Flame
13:27 / 24.02.02
I'd be cautiously in favour of an ignore option. Self-control is, indeed, admirable and a quality well worth applying to troll-like situations. However, it's not a solution. Reason? We're all individuals and there is going to be no troll situation in which everybody will exhibit 100% self-control. And as we know, when someone takes the trollbait, it derails the thread- Knodgegate even derailed three whole forums ferchrissakes. (conversation, policy, gathering. Although I suppose the stuff in the policy was broadly on-topic.)

Tom's model is good: there's no way to forget you're ignoring someone. There's no way in which the board can effectively split because you have a precise indication of how much content you're ignoring. I would suggest that at least some part of the board be exempt, if only to allow room for apologies and, er, huggles. Although it'd probably also be used as an Arena of Virtual Death and Mayhem.

I'd like to add that the concept of ignoring someone is actually an integral part of free speech as we know it. I can say anything I like. I can't force anyone to read it, or listen to it. We all filter out a lot of what goes on anyway, and we do it not to exclude the world but to concentrate on what we're trying to get done. We have perceptual tools hard-wired into our heads for this IRL: sometimes it's useful to have online analogues. Yes, communication on the Net is far less regulated than some aspects of RL, and that extends the boundaries of free speech- but it also risks creating a complete cacophony with everyone talking at once, and chaos as people cut loose with language/attitude that they'd never get away with IRL, and there might just be a good reason that they don't. Communication in a format such as Barbelith is 'cooler', in that one can read and respond at leisure, and we don't need to filter out so much of what's happening to be able to function effectively- ideally, we'd do without filters, and a number of people have declared their intention to ignore the ignore button. Which is fine. But if Barbelith is going to be self-sustaining, we need tools to resolve these issues ourselves when they come up, as I think Tom suggested.
 
  

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