Community business

[abomvubuso]

Hi all. I'm sorry that i'm going to diverge from the talking-politics(TM) and occupy you with this again, but i think its a matter that needs to be addressed, and this time properly. I'm afraid last time we didnt exhaust the issue as we should and problems remained between members; unfortunately, the two guys who should've been most inolved in the

Comments

[ddstory]

Wouldn't that keep on display all the drama which they're trying to tone down in the first place? I mean they could freeze someone's insults to another person and warn them or punish them, but said insults would be still visible... People would see them and the whole idea of keeping a positive atmosphere goes out of the window. It tends to poison the well. You must've seen other political communities. When you keep the most blatant outbursts of verbal aggression away from sight, it tends to "cultivate" some sense of civility in people, they say to themselves: "Look, people almost don't yell at each other here. So I better not yell either". I thought that was the idea of the whole screening stuff, but I might be wrong. I've been screened too on several occasions, and one of the mods has always made some short remark to me to indicate where I've been wrong. I've been on the verge of getting a yellow card too, damn my hot head. But I get the point every time. Until my next passive-aggressive outburst, duh. :)

[bex]

I think there's a fair bit of trolling going on. I understand that "we don't call people trolls here", but I feel like we frequently see some of the same individuals post inflammatory responses "with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response" (from the Wikipedia entry linked in the community rules). Sometimes trolls are trolls. *shrug* If you can't make your point without deliberately inciting people, derailing the conversation, or setting up straw-men, you mustn't have much to say.

People here get DAMN snarky, often for loooong threads of comments. If the idea of screening is to foster a sense of civility around here, I don't think it's working fully as intended.

[kinvore]

Well we're not going to step in every time someone gets snippy. Not only would that be tedious and make modding this community a full-time job but the constant squelching of speech would eventually kill the forum. Sometimes you gotta let the players play.

We step in when we feel people are stepping over the line (an arbitrary judgment call but that's why we try to have mods from all over the political spectrum) or when someone asks us to intervene. It's not perfect but so far it's more-or-less worked.

[mahnmut]

Obviously I stand by every word in this statement and I do realize the full scope of my misdoings. I've thought a lot about this in the recent days and I believe the community should ultimately consider the severest consequences.

Here's also my most sincere promise that this will never be repeated again. Each member should decide for themselves what they'd make out of this. Frankly, I'd be glad to see us working together to amend our wrongs.

I'm prepared to accept whatever verdict the community decides on.

Also one more thing. We should've put the transparency issue on the table a long time ago. Better late than never, though.

[luvdovz]

Any chance that we smear you two in chocolate and call those 36 virgins? Let's do this and move on already. As for the haters, let them hate, OK?

[mahnmut]

Let's put that to vote!!!

[geezer_also]

Well as long as your wife gets the deciding vote, I think that's fair ;)

[sealwhiskers]

Eh, I hope he actually doesn't continue participating in the community anymore, but that just stands for me. I don't care two tosses for such members, and I don't care what people think of me for saying so.

I do stand by the mod group's decision, but right now I'm working my ass off looking through member's texts from back in time, so that our noble knight won't post people's names up with personal judgment in his journal.

People fuck up when they summarize news organs, they will continue to fuck up, I'm sure. When I find fuck ups, it will be handled quietly. You can all just hope I get to it first and not him, for the community's sake.

Sorry for not answering any possible comments to this, no time or energy.

[luvdovz]

Since we're all about confessions, I did fuck up on two occasions and on seeing myself being, how was it called, put on the wall for a shoot-down, I removed those posts. I don't need all that drama around me. Indeed, it was some blatant plagiarism on my part, for which I don't feel proud. But I won't bow down to anybody for doing that, just I apologize to those who commented on them and whose comments went down with my two posts. Too bad, it was a nice discussion. But let this be a lesson to me.

[sealwhiskers]

oh, you're far from the only one. It is my solid belief that in THIS particular community, these things happen because people want information to get out fast, in thorough form and get a discussion going. There is hardly any prestige at all in posting to an on-line community where posts are a commodity and replace each other swiftly.

[anfalicious]

The way they paraphrased, not just copypasta was what makes it go from a fuckup to something more intentional though.

[ddstory]

Thanks for this confession. It was about time.
I think a suspension from posting for some time would serve you well. Naughty kids.
I like the State Of The Community idea. Make it sound presidential, then we put marks from 1 to 10. :)
I didn't get the idea of the panel of independent members. How would it get selected, what would they do? Could you explain some more?

[sealwhiskers]

If there was some form of "crisis" of confidence in the mods, these liaisons would serve as a link between members and mod members. It should only be used in really problematic situations.

[ddstory]

I get the purpose, but how would the whole thing be done? Something like an ombudsman? A person who can make the link between mods and the community? Or someone who would be made part-mod so they could see screened posts when someone asks them to? That's an interesting idea but I need to know some more details.

[sealwhiskers]

While I don't think we've worked out the details ourselves yet, I personally don't envision the person(s) being "part-mod", they would indeed be more like an ombudsman and in really problematic situations they can be called upon by members and be granted time and subject sensitive access to information.

[ghostwes]

Have you made any attempt to apologise to the plagiarised authors? Are they aware that this happened?

An apology/confession to the community is noble and all, but I don't think the community are the real victims here.

[abomvubuso]

I've considered this, yes. Havent done it yet, no. I do believe the community is the first that is owed an apology. Then comes my fellow staff for involving them into all this. They're good people of integrity who've done some tremendous job over here, and they surely didnt deserve it. Then come the authors of said articles. I may write an email to them. I really appreciate some of their works.