Bureaucracy 1: Like Kafka, Only Funnier
A thread to discuss naming threads, board policy, new thread suggestions, and anything else that has to do with board administration and maintenance. Guaranteed to include lively debate and polls. Natter discouraged, but not deleted.
Current Stompy Feet: ita, Jon B, DXMachina, P.M. Marcontell, Liese S., amych
There's another point here, though, which is that with clear trolls, sometimes ignoring them is the best. Take for example the one who was in the Firefly thread: what happened with him was basically that people ignored him completely, and after a few taunts, he has disappeared completely. Whereas if he had tried to log in the next day and found his account suspended, he would probably have created another one out of spite, just to keep pissing people off.
What trolls want is attention, and deleting their posts and suspending their accounts is a way of giving them such. I think that completely ignoring that troll, not even bothering to suspend him, was the best thing that could have happened.
Now, as for people who aren't 100% clear cut trolls, but are more sophisticated and divisive... I have no idea. But I think that the proposed system of empowered moderators could do more harm than good in the case I have described.
Paul, you've hit a key point in all this. Trolls come in many different flavors. Some want attention. Some want to wreck something.
How can we tell which trolls want what? I have no real experience in this area, so I can't offer any advice beyond the obvious.
Michele and Fred are right, the current system doesn't work.
Speaking on my own behalf, the way I see it our board needs to have a stronger, better, way to deal with discipline problems. I think that one reason the situation with meiskie got so out of hand was there weren't anyone with the authority to go in and say "what you are doing violates the rules, you have to stop, and I have the authority to punish you if you continue."
Having caretakers with keys is fine up to a point, it works for a smaller more close knit community. But that's not what we are anymore.
When we did try to deal with meiskie it took FOREVER because everyone was debating, even though there were rules, they either weren't clear enough or there wasn't clear leadership.
I know there are people who freak out at the idea of any kind of leadership, of any person or committee or any group of people taking a leadership role to enforce the rules that we've made and developed.
But frankly I don't see how we can continue if there isn't some kind of leadership. Spending weeks and weeks of debate and hundreds and hundreds of posts trying to figure out what to do just lets a situation get out of hand. Any situation.
there weren't anyone with the authority to go in and say "what you are doing violates the rules, you have to stop, and I have the authority to punish you if you continue."
Okay, but he was told that. Is your issue that he wasn't told that soon enough, or that there was discussion before he was told that, or that there wasn't enough muscle.
What does punish mean, anyway?
Really, here's my issue -- people in charge will make decisions that other Buffistas are sorely upset with. There will still be crying and literal sickness to the stomach.
What will we have solved?
I think the accountability factor is attractive, ita. The fact the debate (in theory, I know) won't be among 20 or 30 or 50 people, but among 5 or 6 e.p.s.
The fact the debate won't be among 20 or 30 or 50 people, but aong 5 or 6 e.p.s.
Maybe I'm just smarting from the reaction to the decisions the Stompies didn't even make, but I don't see why I'd be happier with a decision I disagree with made by 5 people than reached by vote or consensus (false or otherwise).
It'd still be wrong.
No one forces a debate, though. The people who spoke up were the people who cared about the issue. I thought long and hard about wading in, but in the end I knew I wouldn't be happy until I at least had my say. If we have e.p., I'm afraid I would still be allowed my say but it wouldn't have any effect on our virtual world--and then we're in a world where the Supreme Court appoints the president.
Okay, but he was told that. Is your issue that he wasn't told that soon enough, or that there was discussion before he was told that, or that there wasn't enough muscle.
- Was he told that in an admin email, or just in a message in the thread? To me, at least, a message in the thread carries less weight than a clearly spelled out email.
- He never knew about the discussions in Bureaucracy until he was suspended (IIRC). If he had been invited in, he
might
(and that's a big "might", but it exists) have realized the seriousness of his behavior and changed his ways before the suspension.
IIRC, he was emailed the same message that was posted to the thread. (Which, again, memory fuzzy, but I think it basically said "This is an official Stompy warning, a second offense will result in your suspension.")
I think we need to figure out what the problem is exactly, before we try to create a solution.
Speaking solely for myself, I like the idea of moderators (in a system like Fred's) because it means someone is responsible and it won't be a community-wide, feelings-crushing debacle every time someoe needs disciplinary action. I love that we run things mostly by conseusus and that the Stompies are just posters with benefits -- but I'm not sure that will work indefinitely, and I'm not sure it's fair to anyone.
On the other hand, I'm not sure the need is so dire that we need extra moderators. After all, there are only about 100 of us, and we share a lot of values. We're growing now, but that may stop after Buffy's off the air.
But then again, do we want to have this conversation when we DO need immediate action?
