I can see both general guidance and specific examples about how to improve comments being useful. I believe they are often more effective together.
I do agree Vasco, but I donāt endorse me spending much more time on this right now.
I feel like it should often be possible to give guidance to someone in public without embarassing them. One could explicitly say the infraction is minor, and use a casual tone.
Maybe? I personally would be much more discouraged from posting by a public comment than a private message. However itād be nice if we could have a live log somewhere where forum users could see that we dmād an anonymous user.
When writing a lot is the problem (I personally do not think this can by itself be a problem)
Writing a lot in itself isnāt the problem. Itās that the writing contains difficult-to-dispel misunderstandings, and therefore creates an asymmetric effort ratio.
This is the first time Iām hearing about your or the other modsā reasoning about why I was soft banned/ārate limited. I was never told this before. (Edit: Sorry, this was confusing. I meant all this reasoning that Toby is presenting now is new to me, and stuff I hadnāt heard before. Toby did give me a short, very general explanation that I found confusing, which heās quoted both above and below.)
How does one determine whether comments are āpacked with difficult to dispel misunderstandingsā? Does this mean you read comments and decide whether theyāre correct or incorrect, or whether you agree or disagree?
Can you think of a good example of a misunderstanding on my part thatās representative of the overall problem, as you see it?
āThere is a clear pattern in your comments ā you seem to have particularly unproductive disagreements with other users, generally due to an overly literal interpretation on your part, or excess defensiveness. This is no great sin of yours, but it isnāt great for the quality of Forum discussion, especially when you are naturally so prolific.
Itās not the first time in the sense that it is part of what I meant by this paragraph. Iām sorry, but I really cannot invest further in this right now.
I can say that many of your negative karma comments are negative karma for ~ this reason. I have no doubt that you will disagree at length with any particular example.
Sorry, I should clarify. Yes, you definitely sent me that short explanation before. But all the reasoning youāre presenting now is brand new to me.
I can believe that you intended āparticularly unproductive disagreements with other users, generally due to an overly literal interpretation on your part, or excess defensivenessā to include āpacked with difficult to dispel misunderstandingsā, but of course there was no way for me to know that.
Iām not sure how this doesnāt just come down to moderating based on the content of someoneās views as at least one major factor under consideration ā whether you decide someoneās understanding of some topic is correct or incorrect. Itās just that I thought you were disagreeing with me above when I said it seemed like an editorial decision to me. But this really makes it sound like, at least in significant part, an editorial decision.
Just to be clear, Iām not saying editorial decisions are bad. If I moderated a forum like this, I would also make editorial decisions.
Maybe? I personally would be much more discouraged from posting by a public comment than a private message. However itād be nice if we could have a live log somewhere where forum users could see that we dmād an anonymous user.
Yes, I can see many people preferring a private message. One could ask people whether they would be fine with the private message being made public.
I also think public messages are more valuable when the moderation is more contentious, and this makes them less embarrassing because it will be less clear that people did something wrong.
I donāt know if it really matters if the message from a mod is public or private as long as comments that break the rules get removed.
If someone writes a comment that says āyouāre stupider than a potted plantā, that can just turn into [comment removed by moderator] or whatever. Or if someone writes an otherwise fine comment and ends it with āyouāre stupider than a potted plantā, a moderator could edit out just the last part that breaks the rules.
What is problematic is when the comments are never removed or edited, reports to the mods get no response, and there is no observable moderator action. None of the uncivil comments Iāve ever reported have gotten removed, and only one (among many, many, many) got a public comment from a moderator. I just checked and some mean laugh reacts (intended for mockery) are still up. Those were never removed.
Thereās so many different options. Instead of taking the comment down, mods could leave a brief public comment saying āPlease stay civilā or whatever and then engage more deeply with the person in a private message.
I havenāt noticed the incivility problem improving at any point that Iāve been active on the forum, and Iāve noticed some repeat offenders. I feel like whatever is being done isnāt working. And maybe part of the reason is that people understand whatās okay from what they see on the forum, and a lot of whatās on the forum is uncivil.
I also get the impression that the mods just have a much more lax view than I do about what counts as incivility. There are cases where mods seemingly just disagreed there was any reason for them to take action. I also think Toby, a moderator, using phrases like āpacked with hard to dispel misunderstandingsā, etc., is sort of a sign of how normalized harsh language is on the EA Forum. I think this sort of language is justā¦ I donāt know, itās so unpleasant that I just donāt want to be around it.
I donāt want to say definitively that Iāll never participate on the EA Forum at all ever again, but I feel like the tone here is just so nasty, it seems like Iām always regretting when I dip a toe back in.
I do agree Vasco, but I donāt endorse me spending much more time on this right now.
Maybe? I personally would be much more discouraged from posting by a public comment than a private message. However itād be nice if we could have a live log somewhere where forum users could see that we dmād an anonymous user.
Writing a lot in itself isnāt the problem. Itās that the writing contains difficult-to-dispel misunderstandings, and therefore creates an asymmetric effort ratio.
This is the first time Iām hearing about your or the other modsā reasoning about why I was soft banned/ārate limited. I was never told this before. (Edit: Sorry, this was confusing. I meant all this reasoning that Toby is presenting now is new to me, and stuff I hadnāt heard before. Toby did give me a short, very general explanation that I found confusing, which heās quoted both above and below.)
How does one determine whether comments are āpacked with difficult to dispel misunderstandingsā? Does this mean you read comments and decide whether theyāre correct or incorrect, or whether you agree or disagree?
Can you think of a good example of a misunderstanding on my part thatās representative of the overall problem, as you see it?
Itās not the first time in the sense that it is part of what I meant by this paragraph. Iām sorry, but I really cannot invest further in this right now.
I can say that many of your negative karma comments are negative karma for ~ this reason. I have no doubt that you will disagree at length with any particular example.
Sorry, I should clarify. Yes, you definitely sent me that short explanation before. But all the reasoning youāre presenting now is brand new to me.
I can believe that you intended āparticularly unproductive disagreements with other users, generally due to an overly literal interpretation on your part, or excess defensivenessā to include āpacked with difficult to dispel misunderstandingsā, but of course there was no way for me to know that.
Iām not sure how this doesnāt just come down to moderating based on the content of someoneās views as at least one major factor under consideration ā whether you decide someoneās understanding of some topic is correct or incorrect. Itās just that I thought you were disagreeing with me above when I said it seemed like an editorial decision to me. But this really makes it sound like, at least in significant part, an editorial decision.
Just to be clear, Iām not saying editorial decisions are bad. If I moderated a forum like this, I would also make editorial decisions.
Yes, I can see many people preferring a private message. One could ask people whether they would be fine with the private message being made public.
I also think public messages are more valuable when the moderation is more contentious, and this makes them less embarrassing because it will be less clear that people did something wrong.
I donāt know if it really matters if the message from a mod is public or private as long as comments that break the rules get removed.
If someone writes a comment that says āyouāre stupider than a potted plantā, that can just turn into [comment removed by moderator] or whatever. Or if someone writes an otherwise fine comment and ends it with āyouāre stupider than a potted plantā, a moderator could edit out just the last part that breaks the rules.
What is problematic is when the comments are never removed or edited, reports to the mods get no response, and there is no observable moderator action. None of the uncivil comments Iāve ever reported have gotten removed, and only one (among many, many, many) got a public comment from a moderator. I just checked and some mean laugh reacts (intended for mockery) are still up. Those were never removed.
Thereās so many different options. Instead of taking the comment down, mods could leave a brief public comment saying āPlease stay civilā or whatever and then engage more deeply with the person in a private message.
I havenāt noticed the incivility problem improving at any point that Iāve been active on the forum, and Iāve noticed some repeat offenders. I feel like whatever is being done isnāt working. And maybe part of the reason is that people understand whatās okay from what they see on the forum, and a lot of whatās on the forum is uncivil.
I also get the impression that the mods just have a much more lax view than I do about what counts as incivility. There are cases where mods seemingly just disagreed there was any reason for them to take action. I also think Toby, a moderator, using phrases like āpacked with hard to dispel misunderstandingsā, etc., is sort of a sign of how normalized harsh language is on the EA Forum. I think this sort of language is justā¦ I donāt know, itās so unpleasant that I just donāt want to be around it.
I donāt want to say definitively that Iāll never participate on the EA Forum at all ever again, but I feel like the tone here is just so nasty, it seems like Iām always regretting when I dip a toe back in.