Boing Boing's Moderation Policy (Archived)
A. First answer: Because every general-interest online forum that's worth reading has some kind of moderation system in force.
Second answer: Because four years ago, Boing Boing's first, unmoderated comment system went so septic that it had to be shut down. The Boingers want to never go through that again.
Third answer: Because Boing Boing gets enough traffic to attract non-automated scams.
Q. All the vowels have disappeared from a paragraph I wrote! What's going on?
A. We did it. Someone (a moderator, one of the Boingers) was expressing displeasure at your remarks. The technique is called disemvowelling. It deprecates but does not delete the remark. With work, the disemvowelled text should still be readable.
Q. You disemvowelled a very polite comment of mine that happened to mention a current presidential candidate. That means you're biased against that candidate, right?
A. Wrong. It means you shouldn't throw in mentions of presidential candidates unless they're mentioned in the main entry or are highly relevant to it. This rule will apply until the next president is elected.
Q. Something has happened to the link back to my website that I put at the bottom of my comment.
A. There's an answer to this problem: please don't put links in your comments that aren't relevant to the entry. We'll just have to remove them. Instead, put a link to your site in your user profile.
Q. My link-free .sig lines keep disappearing too.
A. We aren't big on .sig lines either, though they're a lesser offense. Rationale: first, your name is already there in your message header. Repeating it a few lines later is redundant.
Second, .sig lines eat up vertical space to no good purpose. The more messages you can see at one time, the easier it is to understand how they relate to each other. Pointlessly using up vertical space reduces the number of messages per screen without conveying any benefit in return.
If your .sig lines keep disappearing, it's because the moderators are removing them. Please take the hint and stop using them, because deleting them is bleeping tedious.
Q. Are you changing people's comments in any other ways?
A. Not really. We'll occasionally fix HTML errors or zap duplicate comments, if we feel like doing it and have the time. Once in a while we'll remove excess line returns in order to conserve vertical space.
Q. There's an old comment of mine I want you to delete.
A. Drop us a note, if it's really important; but the default answer is "no."
Q. One of my comments has disappeared!
A. There are several possibilities. One is that we may be having technical problems. It never hurts to write and ask. Another possibility is that someone thought your comment would be better gone.
Q. I can't believe that Boing Boing, of all places, would be using censorship. What happened to freedom of speech?
A. Boing Boing is steadfast in its support of your freedom of speech. We believe that you, O Reader, should be able to have (or refuse to have) anything you want on your own website, as long as it doesn't deprive others of their rights. Yay, freedom of speech!
By that same token, freedom of speech also means that the people who write and edit Boing Boing have the right to have (or refuse to have) anything they want on their own website. If one of the things they don't want is a comment that you have posted, they aren't depriving you of your freedom of speech. You're free to put that comment up on your own webpage.
Q. Why can't you just tell everyone to ignore the trolls?
A. Because they can't. Everyone automatically reads the text that's there. If it's nasty or unpleasant, they get a dose of that. If there's too much of it, they stop participating. There's far more internet discourse lost to trollage and casual rudeness than is ever lost to moderators.
Q. Isn't the moderator just enforcing compliance with her own political views?
A. Not at all. You couldn't reconstruct her personal views from a list of the times she's intervened in a discussion. The time she invented disemvowelling, it was so she could deal with a flaming leftist.
Q. Isn't the moderator just enforcing compliance with the Boing Boing party line?
A. There is no Boing Boing party line. The Boingers have varied political opinions.
Q. What's with all the [steampunk, outsider art, papercraft, other Boing Boing obsessions]?
A. One or more of the Boingers likes it.
Q. Aiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee! Boing Boing has advertising! Doesn't that mean you've become hopelessly corrupt?
A. You mean, unduly influenced by whatever advertisers are the source of the site's revenue? Don't worry about it. Boing Boing's editorial content is unaffected by its ads.
Q. But--but--those people are giving them money! How can they not be affected?
A. (The moderator speaks solo: "In order for the Boingers to be unduly influenced by who advertises on their site, they'd first have to reliably remember who those advertisers are. Trust me: this is not an issue.")
Q. But you take ads from Microsoft!!! Aren't they the root of all evil?
A. This is rank Manichaeanism. Go lie down with a cool wet cloth on your forehead until you feel better.
Q. The moderator disemvowelled one of my comments, supposedly because I had violated some rule of debate. Doesn't that just mean she doesn't agree with me?
A. No. Online discussions are not formal debates, but the usual rules for what constitutes valid argument and legitimate rebuttal, and who's responsible for proving what, still apply. They are independent of content.
Q. I thought I was being reasonably polite when I got into an argument with Bonzo, but two of my comments got removed entirely, and he just had a couple of paragraphs disemvowelled. Why me? Why not him?
A. There are many possibilities. The biggest one is that you were insufficiently polite. In the heat of an argument, your own remarks are going to seem more justifiable, and Bonzo's arguments are going to seem shabbier and more malicious. This temporary distortion is best addressed by being more polite than you think should be necessary.
Another possibility is that Bonzo has an established history of posting clear, well-informed, apposite, and entertaining comments, whereas you're posting for the first time. Or you're posting for the third time, but the first two times you did it, you posted snarky and unilluminating remarks. Or Bonzo posts under his real name,* but you don't. Under those circumstances, Bonzo is going to have more credibility with the moderators and editors.
Life is an unending series of auditions. Get used to it.
A possible explanation that's guaranteed to be wrong: we're not going to delete or disemvowel your comments because we simply can't deal with the vast swoop and majesty of your hard-hitting opinions. If we tell you it was due to your behavior, believe us.
Q. One of the people in our comment thread is behaving abominably. Does Boing Boing flame trolls, or just ignore them?
A. Neither. See the little one-eyed icon in the top right-hand corner of messages? That's the lookitthat button. Clicking on it tells the moderator that she should come look at that particular message. Be sure to explain what it was about the message that prompted your action. If you include your name, you may get a thank-you note. You can also use the lookitthat button to point out comments you think are particularly good.
Please don't use the lookitthat button to post comments. The moderator's the only one who'll see them.
Q. It's obvious that you won't tolerate anything but supportive comments from brown-nosers and yes-men--right?
A. I'll venture a guess that you responded to a new entry on Boing Boing by announcing that it was hopelessly lame and boring, and then came back later to discover that your comment had disappeared.
Q. Yes! Why did you remove it?
A. This is another one of those questions that has multiple answers.
First: you didn't explain why it bored you. Without an explanation, announcing that you're bored is neither useful or entertaining. Also, it's a real bringdown for readers who lack confidence in their own opinions.
Second: because frequently the "I'm so bored" thing is just attitudinizing. There's a whole big internet out there, and it's full of people who, if they don't like what they're currently reading, move on and read something else. They don't post about how bored they are just to have something to say.
Third: maybe that entry just isn't your thing. It could be someone else's. Why drag down their conversation?
Q. So we're not allowed to say something's boring?
A. Of course you're allowed. You just have to explain why.
Q. How come the moderator nailed me for a comment that didn't contain any swearing or personal attacks?
A. It's remarkable how many people believe that "you're good as long as you don't swear or launch personal attacks" is a universal rule. We'll actually tolerate both those things -- but only if you do them perfectly. Few people can manage that, so it's best not to try.
Note that there are three words you can't say on Boing Boing. I'd rather you followed that link and read the full explanation, but if you just want the rule, it goes like this:
ROT13 is a simple method for encoding text to make it unreadable. This is a ROT13 conversion utility. Use it to read what I'm about to say. The three words you can't say on Boing Boing are avttre, snttbg, and phag.The rule on other crude language and obscenities is that they're only permitted if you can use them as well as Joel Johnson does.There are only two exceptions to the rule. First exception: you can use one of those words if you're a Boinger. It's their weblog. Second exception: you may use one of those words if you're quoting something genuinely worth quoting that needs to be said, and that's also appropriate to the thread.
If you go out of your way to find occasions to do that, we'll notice.
Q. What's likely to land me in your bad graces?
A. Since you've asked, here's a nowhere-near-exhaustive list:
1. Spamming. Linkwhoring. Re-posting text you've already posted on a dozen other sites.Q. It's not fair! You've misunderstood me and disemvowelled or removed me because you mis-read what I posted. Can't we talk about this?2. Making supercilious and unpleasant remarks in a civil liberties thread about how the victim had it coming. This is not to say that victims never have it coming; but there's a species of internet demi-troll that appears to specialize in posting such comments. Try not to look like you're one of them.
3. Making snide comments and insinuations about the editors. That's right out. You don't like one of the editors? Take it up with them in e-mail. If you're going to comment on an entry, talk about the entry.
4. Being nasty to no purpose. (This is the catch-all.)
5. Using unnecessarily exciting language. Making an argument is fine. Making your argument in language guaranteed to make your hearers see red? Bad idea. It practically guarantees that you're going to have a dumb (and therefore boring) argument. And if the argument's not going to be interesting, we don't see the point.
6. Jeering, sneering, condescending, or one-upping when there's been no provocation. Telling people they're naive idiots for caring about whatever-it-is. Like the "I'm bored" pose, it's empty attitudinizing, and it's remarkably unpleasant.
7. Failing to notice that there are other people in the conversation. Posting a remark that's already been made five times and answered six. Coming back and re-posting essentially the same material after a twenty-message thread has discussed your previous comment. Trying to forcibly wrench the conversation onto one of your own pet topics. Posting a stale, canned rant you've posted a dozen times before at other sites. Not coming back to see how others have responded to you.
Why post comments at all, unless you expect to be read? And if you expect to be read, you must know you're part of a conversation. Therefore, you should act like it. Engage with what the other commenters are saying. Read the thread before you add to it.
8. Posting a snotty but otherwise worthless anonymous comment. It's a lot easier to get away with snotty comments if you're a registered user.
9. Dragging in one of those topics that's guaranteed to generate a huge thrash that goes nowhere, like gun control, abortion, or Mac vs. PC vs. Linux. You're only allowed to discuss those if (a.) they're relevant to the entry; and (b.) everyone in the discussion is doing their level best to say something new.
10. This list will undoubtedly get longer.
A. Sure. If one of your comments is disemvowelled or removed from its thread, you're welcome to write to the moderator.
Q. I can't register or post a comment. Does this mean I've been banned?
A. If you didn't get into some kind of fracas, it's highly unlikely that you've been banned. It's moderately unlikely even if you did. We're probably just having technical problems again. Drop us a note describing what happened.
Q. I was told my comment posting privileges were suspended for a week, but they never came back on. Am I permanently banned?
A. Probably not. If you were given a specific period and it's expired, drop us a note.
Q. What happens if I re-register and come back under another name while I'm suspended?
A. If we catch you, all the comments made by that false identity will be unpublished, and your suspension period will be re-started from the point at which the false identity was caught. It's okay to change your username when you aren't suspended, though we'll look askance at you if you do it too often.
Q. Is it okay for me to have more than one userid at a time?
A. No.
Q. What happens if I use someone else's userid?
A. You mean you use their identity without their say-so in Boing Boing's forums? We throw the book at you.
UPDATES:
08 May 2008:
There's a new rule about not mentioning presidential candidates unless the main entry mentions them first. That rule will remain in effect until the next president is elected.
08 May 2008:
We believe in community-based moderation. In theory, anyone can momentarily act as a moderator, as long as their action is warranted and they get it right.
However, Boing Boing also has Assistant Moderators. It's like having a deputy sheriff's badge. Currently, the Assistant Moderators are AVRAM, as in Avram Grumer, and ANTINOUS.
So now you know. If one of them should suggest an alteration in your behavior, or ask what you're hoping to accomplish with your current behavior, you'll no longer need to ask who the bleep they think they are. You'll know who they are: they're the Assistant Moderators.
14 May 2008: The rule on obscene language has been modified. Crude language and obscenities are now permitted only if you can use them as well as Joel Johnson does.
24 June 2008: Added to the list of circumstances that can increase a commenter's credibility: using one's real name.
Also added an explanation of the local prejudice against .sig lines and excess line returns.
20 November 2008: Rewrote the section about Words You Can't Use on Boing Boing to make it clearer and more specific. Redirected the explanatory link in it to a longer and more coherent explanation of the reason for the rule.
15 January 2009: Takuan, Xopher and arkizzle are Adjunct Moderators. Please see the May 8, 2008 update above regarding moderators.
1748 Comments
not the longest EULA ever
Please disemvowel this message. I just want to see what it would look like and I'm too lazy to do it on my own.*
Thank you.
*joking...but not really
Pls dsmvwl ths mssg. jst wnt t s wht t wld lk lk nd 'm t lzy t d t n my wn.*
Thnk y.
*jkng...bt nt rlly
I would really like to see all the different types of boingboing trolls mocked up as lolcats...
"being more polite than you think should be necessary."
that oughta cover it
tht ws ttlly wsm!!!Lng, bt wsm stll th sm -- dsmvwllng fr hck f t. :)
does this mean speaking dsmvll will be the new Leet?
Absolutely brilliant. I run a listserv where I could use exactly this sort of policy. Am I correct that this is covered by BoingBoing's CC-BY-NC license?
The disemvowel system emasculates a post, in a way. Its sort of appropriate for the overly macho type troll to see his effort robbed of its potency.
I just want to know how I can make an acceptable personal attack. I'm really not sure how I could pull that off.
I have less trouble understanding how I could use an expletive appropriately. In fact, since I was in the US Navy AND a construction worker during my life, I'd say I'm about as expert at swearing as you get. After all they don't say "swear like a sailor" or "crude as a construction worker" for nothing.
(though I'll admit that since becoming a civvie I'm not really comfortable with making "Fuck" every other word in a sentence, these days I try to keep it down to 1 in 5, maybe 1 in 6. *LOL*)
-abs
Teresa, forgive if this is an ignorant question. You mention that one should email with questions protests, etc. I've looked, but I just don't see how to do it?
wht th fck! Mch? gmm brk, nbdy rbs m ptncy!!!
hey, this is fun!
Summary:
Q: Reasonable question?
A Snide answer.
Q: Other reasonable question?
A: Unpleasant, jaded answer.
Q: Kinda snotty question?
A: Withering, unhelpful answer.
gonna run with this; from now on, if someone starts speaking Jerk at me, I'll reply in Dsmvwll and refuse to acknowledge them until they use it too.
(Hee hee! Teresa's gonna feel like a den-mother with fifty Ritalin-dependent brats to tend!)
Ah! Just the other day I read about a team of doctors at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center who had to remove six of a comment's vowels and refridgerate them to remove the cancerous intent of the poster. After the flame war died down, they re-inserted and attached the vowels.
In total, the vowels were outside her post for about 90 minutes.
disemvowelling is awesome. I look forward to seeing it in action as I had not heard of it before.
It seems like a better solution to the comment moderation/censorship thing would be to have two views of the comments. The default view is the moderated view and then the second selectable view is the unmoderated view. This would allow people to choose for themselves if they wanted to deal with the trolls.
Here here! (or is it hear hear?) Reads like a great moderation policy to me.
First -- thanks very much for taking the time to make this post, Teresa. It's great to have some light shed.
Now, I have a suggestion or two that could make the BoingBoing discussion experience a bit smoother. These are really minor changes, but I think they'll help:
1. Could we have the "Recent comments" view on the profile pages sorted most recent first? It's a drag to have to scroll down to the bottom when catching up with recent discussions, not to mention having to see one's first-ever comment displayed with permanent prominence.
2. Along those lines, how about a way to indicate which post we're replying to? I'm not asking for a full threading system, just a "Reply to this" link that prepends a link back to the comment being replied to. This could even be used to trigger an email notification so that (at our option) we could be informed of replies to our own comments. A lot to ask, I know.
3. This is just a bug report, really, but the Favorite feature seems broken. It used to work, but now nothing I favorite ever gets added to the list on my profile page.
Thanks again.
absimiliard said "I just want to know how I can make an acceptable personal attack. I'm really not sure how I could pull that off."
Well, of course you do, you dim-witted ninny. If you weren't such a jerk, you could pull this off. Remove you cranium from your posterior and see if that helps.
Sorry, couldn't resist :P
A. (The moderator speaks solo: "In order for the Boingers to be unduly influenced by who advertises on their site, they'd first have to reliably remember who those advertisers are. Trust me: this is not an issue.")
Hahahahah!
Could you fix my spelling while your at it?
re: #18 Dan's bug report - the same has happened to me. I really miss being able to use the favorites feature. It hasn't worked for me for a couple months now.
#12 -- I was more or less thinking the same thing. I'm glad it's not just me.
It would be interesting to see if it would be possible to have a rude comment made EVEN RUDER by having it disemvowelled. That would take some dedication (or an Enigma machine) to pull off.
*laughs*
Damn Harrkev. Totally PWNED me.
Thos're some l33t flaming skillz!
I don't think I'm up to playing in such skilled company. Guess I'll just have to stick to swearing.
Ooops, let me correct that sentence.
Sht, gss 'll jst hve t fckng stck t fcked-p swrng.
(boy, I am out of practice, 20 years ago that would've just rolled off my tongue, AND it would've parsed more naturally as well too, AND I wouldn't have felt compelled to disemvowell it as well. Hrmmphhhh. I hate getting old, and civilized.)
-abs
#21
LOL. The good lord of computers saw fit not to bless me with working h g or ' keys. I feel a bit guilty whenever I post. Any chance of an automatic contraction maker function?
The time she invented disemvowelling, it was so she could deal with a flaming leftist.
Did the mod really invent this?
Making your argument in language guaranteed to make your hearers see red?
Readers ?
10. This list will undoubtedly get longer.
This EULA is the Stephen King book the internet. It's way too long already. Do you really think people will read this, say, more than the would the Microsoft EULA ? I doubt it very much.
Why not just do what you want? People will call you a fscst sshl either way.
It seems to me like the "don't be rude" is a bit of overkill. What do you expect? This is the internet. It's inherently dehumanizing. Well, at least more so than it is humanizing.
This extremely defensive and poorly written "policy" stands as proof of the poor quality of moderation at Boing Boing.
I have run several large message boards going back to BBS days, with many, many hot button topics. The quality of moderation on this site is extremely poor. Miss Hayden is a moderator who clearly lets her own emotions and opinions get in the way of even-handed moderation, which is a shame because there could really be some good discussion here.
Basically she makes very little distinction between a valid opinion and abuse. In my case, I have had two comments disemvowelled for no other reason than the moderator disagrees with the opinions expressed (one was about Kosovo and the other about the baby who died in TSA care -- see my profile). They were not abusive in any way. When I asked the moderator about the deletion of I was given a bogus response, saying that my research was bad. Even if that was the case, which it wasn't, do we all have to have perfect research before we express an opinion? The purpose of discussion is to exchange opinion and facts with other users, with as little interference from authority as possible.
I wrote a letter to Mr Doctorow expressing my surprise that someone who is such an advocate of freedom of speech should allow the suppression of opinion on his own forum. No response so far.
I also think disemvowelling is a very poor way to treat people. Howevermuch Miss Hayden think it is clever, it's simply annoying to make readers work so hard to read a comment. It took me over 15 minutes to re-emvowell one of my own short comments and I knew what it was about. It is also pain insulting to those who have taken the time to comment and who are left asking themeslves 'WTF is going on with my post?'
Disemvowelling is not any kind of invention that you should be proud of. Be polite to your contributors. If you don't like the comment, simply dont publish their message and send them a mail asking them to resubmit it. Almost all will do so.
In addition, the moderator should not be allowed to comment on the topic of the discussions, as is currently done. The moderator's voice is very powerful and can easily distort the discussion.
Frankly, due to the poor moderation policy I have not felt like commenting on Boing Boing recently, and my opinion of the site has been lessened somewhat. I wonder how many other people have been disheartened also?
hang on, have to try something...
i i a ui a i oo?
now, THATS tough!
Clicking on "Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator" above gives me Error Unknown user ?! I'm sure more credit is due.
Such long moderator policy makes you remember the days when there were no comment system in BoingBoing.
When BB launches commenting earlier this year, I had high hopes that this blog will turn from a one-way medium into a two-way medium that allows fellow readers to interact with the bloggers on the issues they posted.
It turns out that the bloggers rarely replies on the comments section, which makes this system pretty similar to the ones we have in other big blogs: An arena for those who like to argue and release their resentment. It is pretty apparent when there are blog posts on sensitive issues. You find comment warlords in every blog site and forum, and this is no different.
On the other hand, I love the Favorites system that you had implemented. Since human beings (these days) are very bad at complimenting the *wonderful* things, but very good at criticizing the things that make you wonder, the Favorites system at least shows that there is still love in humanity, supplementing the sad fact that most human beings lack the vocabulary to express their excitement and enthusiasm.
Could you fix my spelling while your at it?
Could you fix my spelling while you're at it?
It's a disorganized and rambling hybrid of an actual moderation policy and an editorial stylebook. You can easily find lots of moderation policies online - google "comment moderation policy." Moderating using standard practices is hard work but it's not rocket science. Here (and in the "moderator's" other blog) we have the consonant trick, the thing with 'sock puppets' and identity guessing games, the mid-thread smackdown anthology posts, one-line microsnarks at posts and posters, etc. Nothing will change because BB is what it is, and fortunately
I love BoingBoing, but I don't always think Teresa (or any one of the Boingers) is right, or agree with how rude or dismissive she appears to be in text when answering some questions. Does that mean she is actually being rude or dismissive? I don't know. It could just be my interpretation. I rarely post comments, and when I did once where she responded to me in another comment, I was a little disppointed by what she said, but I didn't find it to be offensive.
Regardless of my own experiences, this is their site and they're free to respond, remove stuff, and edit at their own discretion. When you write in to the OpEd section of a newspaper, it's the same thing. Sometimes the exercising of one's freedom isn't totally beautiful and utopian, it's kind of unfair to another. But that's okay because we are free to do the same on our own turf, and are always free to particpate on their turf by their rules, to break their rules and deal with the consequences, or to simply choose not to participate. They don't have to be fair to everyone all the time: this isn't government, this is a website.
And maybe I'm naive, but I do think it would make an awesome statement if BoingBoing didn't take money from companies like Microsoft and refused to run their ads. Though I don't blame them for doing it because things are rarely black and white and I don't pretend to know anything about their particular advertising situation. For instance, it's highly likely that they long ago hired a company (Federated Media?) whose job it is to sell and place ads on BoingBoing, and the Boingers themselves are not at all knowledgable or responsible for the content of the ads.
Longest post ever! Teresa Nielsen Hayden, is this really necessary? On the better message boards I frequent, the moderator is seldom heard from. When there is a problem, they post a quick two-sentence explanation and disaapear for another month or so. Your moderation style is a bit too vocal and I really don't like your style. You try to be a group leader rather than a moderator. You participate when you should moderate. And you were at the center of the Hampster/Windows Mobile debacle which was handled about as horribly as anything I've seen on any message board evah.
Now your commentary is spilling over to the front page where it is hard to ignore. Never in the history of all the Internets have I ever seen anyone take front page space to post a massive moderation policy. Me thinks you should just get your own website.
It's more like a disorganized and rambling hybrid of an actual moderation policy and an editorial stylebook. You can easily find lots of moderation policies online - google "comment moderation policy." Moderating using standard practices is hard work but it's not rocket science. Here (and in the "moderator's" other blog) we have the consonant trick, the thing with "sock puppets" and identity guessing games, the mid-thread smackdown anthology posts, one-line microsnarks at posts and posters, etc. Nothing will change because BB is what it is, and indeed when the "moderator" is too busy to get involved, BB still has good threads. But I would think twice about importing this mess to another forum.
For anyone who wonders what the minimal standard among the community for "acceptable swearing and personal abuse" happens to be, please refer to the timeless canonical classic on the subject,'Insult Scene from "Roxanne" by Martin and Hannah'.
If you cannot meet the minimum level of self-deprecation and originality - as well as wit - set by that milestone, please consider not engaging in either personal abuse or swearing.
Thank You.
(paraphrased from my policy statement on my WWIV-BBS, circa 1991).
Y fckrs thnk y'r s wsm, wll y'r nt. m N mth fckn mdrtr s gng t tll m wht t d, 'll jst pst nd pst ntl y sshls gt t thgh yr thck sklls tht m wrd s th grtst mssvs y'v vr rd, nd vr wll rd!
Pre-emptive devoweling.
Frankly, I think a threaded discussion, and some sort of alert to when someone is replying to me would be more helpful than someone 'saving' me from trolls, swearing, or the like.
Whatever works, I guess. I had to disable comments on my own blog because of spam - after that, I'd love some good 'ol trolls.
Anyway to indicate that a post has been disemvowelled as opposed to one that a person having a hard time with spelling?
Somehow I got a double post on the reload there, you can delete the earlier one at leisure.
Howevermuch Miss Hayden think it is clever, it's simply annoying to make readers work so hard to read a comment.
To quote someone else: "Not everything in the world needs to be clever"
Could you just use the common methods the rest of the world does? (delete, filter, edit, etc.)
Sometimes there's a reason people use time tested methods.
Quite frankly a disemvowelled post just clutters things up. Please either delete the comment outright or leave a "deleted comment stub"
Yes it's a cute little name and idea, but functionally you're spilling cat litter on the floor as you empty the litterbox.
In theory it sounds like a good approach.
In practice I've seen it applied unevenly with a heavy hand.
BTW Speech is either FREE or MODERATED you can't have it both ways.
Really, a simple, "'Cause I said so!" would suffice.
It's your toy, you get to say who plays with it.
No problem!
I would do the same and in the long run, I doubt anyone could do better than you are doing here .
Keep it goin' on!
We all support BOING BOING.
###
Anyone else see...
and read boingdown?All of this disemvowelling is giving me consonant dissonance.
WOAH - reformat this post! I thought I'd bookmarked an FAQ page and my links were screwed up, or I'd hit an errant link by mistake. Not very home-pagey.
Disemvoweling..
In college for a C programming class they had us build one of those. At the time I was working at a tax software company and I had the Text of the entire State of California Tax Code that I was working on for the Tax Software.
I disemvoweled the entire Cal State Tax code in less then 5 seconds if memory serves.
good times Good Times
So in summation, you're saying:
"This is our house, to which we graciously offer you entrance and allow you to discuss topics which interest us. However, if you start smearing shit (which is a subjective term, and may be arbitrarily defined any number of ways at any given time by us) on the walls, we reserve the right to politely exclude you."
While it would be impossible to deny your right to do this (nor would any reasonable person want to), and I agree that this in no way infringes on freedom of speech, It definitely lends credence to the idea that those in charge at boingboing have chosen to associate themselves (by dint of their behavior and overall disposition) with such insufferable persons as cranky librarians, PTA parents, and members of the high school debate team.
Perhaps you appreciate the comparison.
That being said, I still love you guys (much as I love libraries and debate), warts and all. :)
Boooo!!! Hisssss!!!
Sad day in boingboingland.
#28: I'm with you. Being a moderator myself, I had gone through the stages of being a bad mod as well. I know how a moderator commenting on a topic can easily distort a discussion, when a mod is known to abuse his power.
When moderating comments, warnings and reasons should be given before taking any actions. I agree that it is extremely rude to 'disemvowel' one's comment, especially the reader did take the time to read and reply.
There is a distinction between one attacking another person, and one responding critically to another person's comment. Notice the difference: One deals with the person, while the other deals with the topic. The former is trolling, while the latter is a discussion. The moderation here does not seem to be able to differentiate between the two, and quite very often blatant attacks towards other users are ignored.
I have nothing against Miss Hayden herself, I am only commenting on the state of moderation in this blog. Please do not misunderstand.
I like the summary of Hayden's post. Brilliant. I don't know, I'm personally a fan of fark and once was a fan of slashdot, until I got tired of hearing about technology and microsoft vs. linux.
The ability to have user feedback on comments (slashdot) and voting on posts in general (fark) seems to be a good self-moderating approach.
I think many here have the impression that Hayden is being personal, albeit arbitrarily so (as expressed in her own discourse that you won't be able to find a pattern of her beliefs with the moderation).
I also like the suggestion that defaults to the disemvowelling, if that must remain the method, but allows anyone else to see the full text.
And I agree that it'd be more fun if the bloggers themselves responded more often. Perhaps they are too busy disremembering who their advertisers are. Lol.
Me, #28 Sparkzilla, I've been disheartened and I agree with your comment completely.
Ths pst ws jst cry fr ttntn frm th mdrtr.
f y wnt ttntn 'm sr Cry wld lt y fnd nd pst cl thngs.
@28
I remember the first board I modded on was on the old TinyFugue system, running off the server at Georgia Tech. That server was later bought by MindSpring, who then became Earthlink.
I know they still have Itchy and Scratchy (I used to ATDT via those servers), but I can't remember the name of what used to be the GT server. Since those days, I've modded a little here and there, so I think I have some experience at this, as you do.
All I can tell you is, if you don't like the message board feature of this website, you don't have to interact with it. Telling everybody else they're wrong because they don't do things your way can make you seem very controlling. Tattling to Cory Doctorow, as you said you did, also isn't very becoming. You aren't the moderator here, so it may make you happier to stop trying to fill that role.
Don't get me wrong - I like the idea of talking to other old hands on the net. I'm just saying if it bothers you that much, avoid it. It's just a website.
How about boingboing goes back to no comments at all ?
Bcs dn't wnt t b n yr pth whn y strt bldng t f yr vgns nd g crzy !
wait, do Ys and Ws count as vowels?
Comments complaining about how boring the post is are nearly always, themselves, boring. In order to keep these self-referential comments from bootstrapping themselves into computerized sapience and spreading their boringness throughout the Known Net, they have to be deleted.
Kaiser: judging by some of the comments in here, apparently it IS necesary.
I've found the moderation to be more than reasonable. I really think it can be summed up as "don't be a troll, don't be a jerk, don't spam and don't threadjack." Those are really pretty simple principles to follow. I suspect most of the people who get up in arms about moderation here fall into trollish category.
As an aside, most popular blogs out there don't have a large amount of give and take between the readership and the writers (in the comments anyway). The editors pop in to respond to the occasional statement, but they don't really have time to hang out in there and read every response.
After all they're busy doing the research/what have you :)
now that i see the rigor involved in deciding which comments will be posted and remain posted; to see that my singular comment from months ago still lingers on (horse mask dancing man - who could resist?) I'M SO PROUD! Thanks for being SO COOL in doin' what ya do! seriously - yay. (and yes, i actually went back and looked):
What happened? I check BB twice, if not more per day ...what did I miss? In other words, was this post neccessary, I mean, couldn't you just post a link to a eula or something? Sounds so unfriendly.... There's nothing wrong with how you want to manage your site, that's OK with me, but did we deserve a reminder of this kind on the frontpage? Are you being sued and you don't want to talk about it or what?
disemvowelling seems like a fun and indirect way for the Moderator to "injure" the commenter, while adding no productivity or clarity to anything.
Pull the comment and have them repost. Don't waste people's time.
cool invention though, for about 15 seconds ...
So are the little eyeballs a subtle way of telling us you're watching us?
The moderation at BoingBoing has always struck me as excellent. Lively, sometimes contentious discussion happens without devolving into constant flame-fests. But long detailed policies seem pointless to me. Who's going to refer back to this in the heat of composing a flame? This reads as mostly Teresa giving in to an understandable need to vent a bit. I'd go with:
1. Don't be a jerk. It's the moderators job to decide if you are being a jerk. If you think she or the editors are being jerks, tell them about it somewhere else.
2. Nothing is as boring as being told how boring something is.
And yes, I realize I'm saying this post was too boring except for the part about not saying posts are too boring.
Anyway, keep up the good work.
Thank you for this. I hope that it gets either favorited or something. This long and thoughtout policy is the reason that I continue to enjoy boing boing content.
Keep it up.
I love you moderatrix.
I'm upset that this site that I look at at least once a day has content that I'm not 100% interested in. Sometimes I see things that offend me, or I just think are stupid. And when I comment, I can't say what I wish because site owners might delete me.
I want a refund! WAAAH!!!
Hy md, ll prddng sd. f y wnt t lk t lrg cmmnty tht sms t fstr smwht ntllgnt rspctfl dscssns, 'd sggst gng vr t Mtfltr nd tkng lk t hw thy hndl thngs.
Notice you never see Teresa Nielsen Hayden and #63 Psyco Path in the same place at the same time ??? hhmmmmmm...
Glad to see this posted! I haven't been paying too much attention to comments lately, but when you first allowed them I do remember feeling that the ground rules needed to be a bit more explicit.
Something else I think you should consider is having dedicated user accounts for moderation. Ah, but I bet you think you already do! Nope, sometimes the moderators are simply participating in the discussion thread... I think that's a bad policy because it blurs the line of when they're just stating an opinion and when they're laying down the law.
Ideally, I think moderators should simply moderate and leave the discussion to the groundlings. But at the very least, I think have two accounts for the moderators (one for taking part in the discussion, one for moderation) would be a good idea.
#47: Yes, you would think that the site would advocate or experiment on some innovative ways of moderation, since the blog posts are so radical about politics and government. But in the end, when it comes to reality, the site is run traditionally with ads and moderation.
I don't mind the ads, though it does feel a little hypocritical, as soon as it keeps the site alive, I'm happy.
#61: LOL. Yes. It reminds you that you can be reported!!
* * * * *
This thread is an interesting moment in Boing Boing history, because it puts Cory and company to the test, where they are the presidents of this micro-government.
It would be interesting to see if this issue will be ignored or resolved, as that pretty much draws the line between idealistic scholars and pragmatic politicians.
Hey and while I'm at it, how about letting us post IMAGES in the comments section as well, ala FARK? I think the type of creative mind that one finds in here would be ripe for visuals.
#68: what's to be resolved? I don't think basically "don't act like a jerk/idiot" is an unreasonable policy (and really that's what it all comes down to.
"disemvowel". LOVE IT! Never heard that phrase.
If you're dealing with young trolls, you could also use ROT 13, it would confuse everyone under 35, anyone who was never on USNET.
Michael W. Dean
@66
Why in the world would any right minded person want to visit ohio...
Though if you want to fly me out to meet the BB crew I certainly wouldn't argue.
Teresa, maybe you could put a link to this moderation policy (with or without comments thread) at the top of the Boing Boing page.
Or, as some mailing lists do, post it periodically, once a month or so.
Why does this EULA make me pity the mod? Probably because she's working in an environment that forces her to be this nitpicky. I do not envy.
#69 considering the amount of absolutely stupid idiotic crap that goes on in fark threads, I'm not sure that's a good road to go down. :p
/saying this as a long-time Farker
This isn't moderation, this is about as heavy handed as it gets. A post this long, smack bang on the front page, full of personal rhetoric is not moderation.
The link we click to get here is labelled "Discuss" which is usually an invitation to voice opinions, but, as stated here so many times before, they're not even really interested in that either.
This is similar to the spoiled kid at the party taking toys away from his guests.
Y'all are overreacting. Srsly.
#70: You might agree with the whole policy, but quite a few of the comments here indicates the otherwise, and those feedbacks either need to be resolved, or simply ignored. Either way, it's a position for the admins to take.
The EULA prompted me to join after years of reading daily (and ignoring the comments when they were introduced, because I've learned to ignore unmoderated comments--they're often too vile and ignorant). Funny, forthright, and useful.
I guess I don't "get" what's to disagree with, I suppose. What? You WANT to be able to log on with someone else's account? You WANT to be able to spew profanities and vitriolic comments? what is it?
Heh.
(just providing examples btw, dont take offense).
Thanks for a good policy Teresa. I hope you are well compensated for all the shit from idiots.
I have to ditto the comments about the Favourites page being broken; mine hasn't been updated since November, though the tag on the post will change.
As to the comparison with EULAs, this is more entertainingly written than most EULAs I've attempted to read.
Q. Is this really a "Moderation Policy"?
A. No, it's more of an FAQ!
Q. Why did this need to appear on the front page?
A. I have no idea, but it really seems like Teresa is trying to justify her often over-zealous moderation...
PS. I hv nvr bn hrshly mdrtd, bt hv bn arnd lng engh t s Trs tk hr frstrtns n thrs. Gss thr s frst tm fr vrythng!
I haven't been here long enough to comment on whether I find the moderators reasonable or not, but I definitely agree with the people who say disemvoweling is pointless. It only takes up space and frustrates anyone curious enough to read it- i.e. anyone who didn't see the comment before it got modded. Does it exist purely for the clever play on words? It would be nice if there were at least an option to view it normally by clicking somewhere.
I understand and appreciate the moderators' desire to shield us from trollish comments, but I'd like the option to see the full discussion and judge for myself whether the comment was worthless, even if the mods are right 99% of the time. If that's not going to be an option, wouldn't it be better to just get rid of the comment entirely, rather than leaving its ugly carcass?
>Ds t xst prly fr th clvr ply n wrds?
DNG DNG DNG W hv wnnr! W hv wnnr!
#!/usr/bin/perl-wusestrict;if(!-e'1-2000.tx
t'){system("wgethttp://www1.harenet.ne.jp/~
waring/vocab/wordlists/1-2000.txt");#thisgu
ylikes\rinsteadof\n.wtf.system("perl-pi-e's
/\r/\n/g'1-2000.txt");}my%dict;open(T,'1-20
00.txt')ordie;while(my$l=){my($w)=split(
"\t",$l);my$nv=$w;$nv=~s/[aeiou]//g;$dict{$
nv}=$w;}while(my$l=lc){chomp($l);my@
a=split(/\s+/,$l);map{$_=$dict{$_}if$dict{$
_}}@a;printjoin('',@a),"\n";}
--snp--.
nw, bvsly, ths dsn't rlly wrk. y'd nd t cmpt 2-grm r 3-grm mdl f bngbng cmmnts nd s tht t rslv mbgty, nd 'd rthr jst g s frm tht dsn't cnsr ppl wh dsgr. bt lk n th brght sd... t wld b whl lt sr thn wrtng prl scrpt t rntrdc th rtnlty nt bngbng dtrs. srsly. yr "t's my bll, cn tk t nd g hm" plcy bsclly sys tht t wld b ttlly cl fr t&t t drp pckts f pltcl spch t dsgrs wth.
-cslsr.
p.s. jst wt ntl ppl fgr t tht thy cn pst thngs lk " thnk tht lnx s jst s gd s wndws", " thnk tht wmn dsrv t vt", " thnk tht gng nt rq ws bd d", nd pr-dsmvwll thm. tht'll b lgh.
Hey! Mani got a bum rap from Christians trying to stamp out all rivals. Please don't fall into that trap. (also there are tablets in Akkadian which define Microsoft = Servant of Chaos (or not))
April Fools? Is it too early?
AT&T gets money
BB gets ingrates
Wow! I have been involved in on-line communities for a long time, and this is one of the best moderator explanations I've seen. I'm definitely saving a copy for future reference and possible pilfering.
One suggestion: at the top, put a short, catch-all question with an answer that summarizes and conveys the spirit. E.g.:
Q: Moderation? What's this all about?
A: We want the forum to be valuable to our readers. We moderate by removing or dismemvowelling posts that reduce that value, mainly ones that are spammy, snotty, jerky, or create excess drama. Focus on contributing to the conversation, and you'll be fine.
Wow, that's a great, if somewhat long moderation policy. I love the concept of "disemvowelling"!
For contrast, here is the link to an wiki article I wrote on the subject for the local Linux users group:
http://oclug.on.ca/phpwiki?pagename=moderationthoughts
Hi!
Hi yourself!
Hi Joel!! How come the favorites button doesn't work? Cool on the IRC thing!!
"If you want to look at a large community that seems to foster somewhat intelligent respectful discussions, I'd suggest going over to Metafilter and taking a look at how they handle things."
And then doing the opposite. Respectful? Please.
Heh, welcome to the "trainwreck," as they'd put it on fark.
Did I miss some entertaining flame thread that led to this being posted on the main page, as opposed to being buried somewhere on the site for malefactors to be pointed at if/when they complain about being censored (or whatever you want to call it)?
Oh ok well a least Meetafilters discussions are fairly in depth. "Respectful" is a very relative term. As a large community it seems to work beeter than say fark without the heavy handedness of here.
#86, I was thinking the same thing. A simple english LM should suffice here.
#97: Simplicity and elegance? In 24 hour this entry /will/ be buried somewhere on the site.
Even the "how to submit stories" link goes to an entry.
Thanks for a simply brilliant post.
I've always thought the Getty Museum was a cut above, as they foster quality in everything they do. Even the Getty gift shop is first rate and classy.
I now feel the same way about Boing Boing. Any place on the web with moderators of such wit, charm, and character has my deep admiration.
I agree: disemvowelling is more annoying than useful. It makes "rude" comments almost impossible to read and makes rude commenters even angrier.
CS Loser, you might want to familiarize yourself with the concept of the common carrier, a business entity that provides some sort of service (usually transportation or communication) without discrimination. There are legal benefits and responsibilities involved with being a common carrier. AT&T claims common carrier status, while BoingBoing does not. That's why BoingBoing can delete or censor comments for whatever reasons it sees fit, while AT&T can't.
There is a way to avoid the censorship issue: Create two comment views. One is the "standard", or "moderated" view, just as described in your policy. The second is the "original", unmoderated view. Posts deleted from the "moderated" view still appear in the unmoderated view. That way, rather than censoring your users, you are providing them with a value-add -- namely, your opinion on which comments provide positive contributions to the discussion.
Not sure that I really agree with disemvowelling - perhaps a cutscreen link would be more democratic - but the word is kinda interesting to say... "disemvowelling..."
#94: I don't know why the favorites don't work! It's working for some people, right? I can submit it as an error, although it would be good to know browsers/OS where it's not working.
Disemboweling is satisfying to say anyway, the letter V just adds extra sexiness.
#106 Joel, sorry to go on about this, I don't know where else to report it. Any time I look at a post and hit "favorite" nothing gets added to my favorites list (it used to work). Win XP Sp2, latest update of Firefox. Thnx.
I agree with #28 almost entirely.
I think disemvowelling is incredibly rude in itself; and it's counterproductive, because I actually WANT to read all the comments, even the stupid and/or mean ones, and reading disemvowelled text is extremely difficult. It's a bit ironic that I spend more time on the disemvowelled ones than on the supposedly contributory ones.
I also agree that it's applied EXTREMELY haphazardly, which is absolutely a cardinal sin in moderation. The motivation does feel like it's applied on emotional grounds. Rather than being "what's against the rules" it's more "what pushes Teresa's oversensitive and seemingly random buttons".
Stupid comments sometimes serve a valuable function, too, I've found. I've been moderating things off and on for fifteen years, so I'm not totally ignorant on the subject. I've made more than my share of mistakes, including feeding the flame, which is what I think disemvowelling does.
As a result, Boing Boing's comment threads rarely get off the ground and become a true conversation.
I also think it's ironic that this erratic yet heavy-handed moderation style is apparently to become the basis of a BOOK on the subject.
Different pages for categories would be helpful. I can't read this whole thing, way to time consuming.
I have to disagree with stupid comments serving a purpose. More often than not, they tend to just lead to a flame war.
#106 Joel, sorry again, just tried to favorite this in Internet Exploder 7, doesn't work there either. My favorites list hasn't updated for several months now. OK, I'll shut up about this now.
@106
Something is broken somewhere. November 29, 2007 is my last "latest comment" in my profile (I tend to comment 3-4 times a week)and none of my Favorites have shown there since late January.
Up-to-date Firefox on both XP and OS X
AVRAM, I am familiar with common carrier law, and AT&T is certainly a common carrier in terms of their telephone service. Whether common carrier law applies to internet service is unclear, and many ISPs are actually arguing that they are not -- for example, Comcast would have been flagrantly violating common carrier law by disrupting bittorrent, but they claim it is within their rights to do so.
Overvowelling would be swell as well.
haphazard? Nope. I've been watching. Almost unnatural consistency. Have you been reading a different site?
Or just paged comments, I feel lazy for saying this, but having to press END and then scroll up to the last comment I read is really annoying - it'd be better if I could think.. well I was reading pg6, like in a forum.
Ignore me if this isn't possible on the software cus then it's totally not your fault/problem!
I'm so bored ;)
And maybe I'm naive, but I do think it would make an awesome statement if BoingBoing didn't take money from companies like Microsoft and refused to run their ads. Though I don't blame them for doing it because things are rarely black and white and I don't pretend to know anything about their particular advertising situation.
Agreed on both counts. However, I have to admit I'd be extremely surprised to hear that they don't know who they're getting money from when there are big, visible sponsorship notices at the bottom of some posts:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/27/sf-bay-area-electron.html
now there's a walking argument for deletion (and banning)
@114
and that has what to do with BB?
heh, indeed, T.
*shakes head*
Its not that hard to be polite on teh intarwebs.. really...
I working on my lolcat self portrait ... suggestions?
A little greasemonkey should make it possible to reemvowel all comments. Here's a site that will do it for you manually:
http://www.disemvowelment.com/reemvowel.html
handy site, but experience has taught me that almost nothing disemvowelled here has significant content
I'm very glad you have a policy and a FAQ. I tried to convince Metafilter they needed one about 2.5 years too early. I think every public community that is big enough really needs one.
Big enough usually means big enough so that the community no longer shares sufficiently common values. Depending on the community, this seems to translate to something between 50 and 150 folks involved and participating.
So thank you!
hv n d wht y mn. VRYTHNG sy s VRY MPRTNT!!!
I agree with the moderation policy in general although I must side with some of the other posers who more or less seem to feel that moderation should be done a bit more quietly.
The best moderation comes silently ,anonymously and without fanfare, in my opinion. Having a largish front page article on this by th moderator leads, or could lead, to a dangerous "cult of personality" situation where the now (in)famous moderator is attacked by trolls and the conflict escalates and the now well known moderator starts taking it personally and ... well it goes downhill from there. Quickly
Disemvoweling is an interesting idea - when done discretely and without further comment. Done so openly it , well it kind of becomes like DRM - a challenge for one to defeat. How difficult would it be to create a web page that reimvowled all comments? How difficult to make a Firefox plug-in?
Anonymity and discretion (as in acting discretely) are, in my opinion, the foundation upon which good moderation exists. I do agree with your ideas and ideals Theresa, but by front-paging this you have set yourself up as a challenge and for a huge war with the trolls and other miscreants that infest places like these.
I predict this will end badly.
I hope that I am yet again wrong .
pchi says
>A little greasemonkey should make it possible to reemvowel >all comments. Here's a site that will do it for you manually:
>http://www.disemvowelment.com/reemvowel.html
As predicted.
I hope that I am wrong on the final prediction though.
Stupid comments focus one's attention on the nature of the stupidity that generates them, and can stand in for the views of a whole segment of the population. Freely-flowing discussions can handle a few dumbasses. Really, they can.
If the comment is too offensive, zap it entirely, and maybe ban the commenter if he or she is a repeat offender. Leaving their comment dangling halfway like that is just maddening, for him or her and for me. It's far ruder and disrespectful to opinion than anything I've ever seen in comments. Because it's always used on opinion.
First things first: It's not Miss (nor Ms., nor Mrs.) Hayden. Her name is Neilsen Hayden.
The more I read of this (Teresa's moderating methods) the more impressed I am. I a sure I have, in fora she moderates, violated those rules.
But I have to assume I am, because I've never been disemvowelled, even when I thought I was dancing on the line (with the exception of one case, where the situation was such that I felt compelled to respond, after she had said the conversation wasn't going to be allowed to go there. Things needed saying, and, well one has to do what one must do. It all worked out in the end; and I don't think there were any hard feelings, certainly not from me).
(stumbles around, looking for trifocals): At forty 1'z, 4cc4e3a7|l, 4a 0|q s4e7.
cs loser: "it's my ball, i can take it and go home" policy basically says that it would be totally cool for at&t to drop packets of political speech it disagrees with."
Umnn... no. Because when I use AT&T to send information, I am paying them to do it. It more that AT&T can ask you to take the protest against their business practices out of their lobby.
Of course, you could always re-emvowel the disemvowelled trolldom.
Thanks for the updates on the Favorites errors, guys. I don't have the foggiest why it might not be working, but I'll pass on an alert.
Disemvowel this: "Wsadził dwumiesięczną córkę do mikrofalówki ;-)"
Seriously though, this is a very nice idea, I love this approach and the whole rules.
Cheers.
I definitely want to read the book when it becomes available. Moderation is not easy.
About the only thing I struggle with on Boing Boing and other sites that use comment deletion as a part of moderating is that usually the comments that follow the deleted ones don't keep the comment number they had originally, which can make it difficult to follow a thread through a rough patch. The more I read a given site, though, the easier it gets.
Disemvowelling appears to be a good way to "take the heat out" of a comment - it requires some thought to parse out the meaning, and while one is thinking one generally doesn't fly off the handle as readily. Kind of like speed bumps for knee jerks, to horribly mangle a metaphor or few.
Keep on keepin' on, Boing Boing and TNH!
Later,
-cajun
a sign! a SIGN! His Noodliness Himself has graced us with a visitation and approves!!! All hail! Sauce for all!!
Don't de-vowel me, Bro!
:)
RAmen.
Most excellent FAQ.
Now I'm eager to see how you get everyone to read it.
I have been lurking on this site forever, but figured I should probably sign up for an account if the comment moderation policy is important enough to fill my screen with one of the largest posts I have seen here in ages!
I have enjoyed the back and forth between the invisible moderator and her critizers, but #83 made my shake my head a little. It appears to be a normal comment, nothing bad in it, but when the person ends by saying that they have not been harshly moderated but have seen evidence of that in past, the commenter is then subjected to a "disevowelling"". Sad really.
You mentioned that you'd eliminate posts that were basically repeating what other people said. But isn't THAT also censuring democracy right there?
It's called voting. The sheer number of responses under a similar banner should show that people agree/disagree with a particular stance. This is fundamental to free speech and to how social networks function. If people are repeating something--so what?
And really, to remove anyone's post for any reason is censorship, plain and simple. Sure, you have the right to delete it. But that's so against the spirit of the blog/nation/whole-point-we-exist. Frankly, it smacks of favoritism/facism. And a whole lot of other -isms. The problem with something like blog moderation is it's instant and clearly visible. So you just end up looking like mongers.
I really wish you guys would just monitor for spam and even pull a few people in line (issue them public warnings if you like). But really, keep the moderating to a moderate level.
I used to love BB. Now I love/hate it. And not in a funny My Girl Friday sort of fashion.
Kill that stupid policy and start over.
I can only join the growing chorus of readers who find the moderation style at Boing Boing to be ... let's call it "poor", if that's not too impolite.
Like Sparkzilla, I haven't commented in some time either and do so now only to point out that the Boing Boing "brand" has been somewhat cheapened for me. The mod's haranguing style in response to any comment seemingly critical of Boing Boing's recent direction is only compounded by the eerie, total silence on the subject by the editors themselves.
Again and again we're told, "This is our site to do with what we will. Love it or leave it." Also, "This is not a democracy". But, why shouldn't it be a democracy? Why shouldn't readers feel a sense of ownership? Otherwise, why publish?
And frankly, you know it's a sad state of affairs when a site as popular and beloved as Boing Boing has to be translated by a third-party site from English to ... English.
#140: Get everyone to read it by having the longest comment discussion on boing boing?
Elorin 17: It's "hear, hear." The speaker is calling on others to listen to what's just been said. (Of course, since this is text rather than speech we should be saying "see, see" but that sounds like Dick and Jane. Yes yes.)
Dan 18: Hear, hear! (#2 isn't such a big deal to me, but on all other things in your post I heartily concur.)
Jeblis 26: Yes, she did. Several years ago on Electrolite-that-was. That was part of the reason the editors wanted her for their moderator.
Sparkzilla 28: Be careful of the door as you exit, lest it strike your posterior.
Kaiser 35: There are a large number of people over at Teresa's own website (where she's never posted a moderation policy) laughing at you.
Bardfinn 37: Roxanne was an adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmund Rostand. I haven't seen that scene, but it sounds like their version of the famous "Nose Song" from the original play.
Jeblis 41: The point of leaving the disemvowelled (and btw Teresa invented it, but it was named by someone else) comment in place is so that people who want to read it can (with some effort), while those who don't want to get a warning that it's rude or otherwise unacceptable. I generally skip them, myself, but occasionally I say "Wait a minute...THAT person got disemvowelled?" and read it to find out why.
Bat 64: The whining and sniveling in this comment thread is just astonishing, isn't it? "They don't have my favorite flavor of the free ice cream! And they won't let me throw it at other people! Help, I'm being repressed!"
Ethan 67: Now that's a good idea. Perhaps the Moderator ID should just be called "Moderator."
Michae 71: Url, qba'g zrff jvgu zl EBG-13! Besides, some of us are learning to speak Uvtu Guvegrra fluently.
Keneke 74: Reading this thread makes it clear that this level of nitpickiness is really necessary. She doesn't post a moderation policy on her own blog.
Lord Melchett 76: This is similar to the spoiled kid at the party taking toys away from his guests.
More like the playground supervisor taking away the toy that one kid just used to clonk another over the head.
Gabrielm 83: I believe you meant "tk hr frstrtns t n thrs." Unless there's another phrasing I was not aware of.
Jeblis 85: Wrong. She was doing it for a long time before someone (I believe it was Arthur Hlavaty) came up with the name.
CS 86: I had a comment about this, but Avram said it better at 103. Don't whine about the free ice cream.
Jeblis 98: Your geminates are drifting. I recoomend a slower typing spedd.
Avram 103: THERE we go.
Joel 106: It's not about the browser. It worked for me for a while, then stopped. Same browser, same everything.
Wheres 120: I suspect your name will be Whrs M ml soon enough, and I'll be happy to see it. Do you know the term 'FOAD'? It stands for "Go Jump in the Lake."
Technogirl 129-130: If someone reemvowels a comment, or even all of the comments on a page, they're just making it easier for themselves to read it/them. That doesn't at all affect the experience of those of us who generally don't want to read them. If the goal were to prevent people who WANT to see them from doing so, TNH would just delete. I see no harm in reemvoweling for your own use, in fact it seems like a good solution to me.
CajunFJ40 136: What metaphor? MY knees jerk when I go over a speed bump, at least on a bicycle!
Rckn th mdrtr flt tht ths ws th bst wy t bst hr prfl bfr hr bk cms t?
Plgs nd gs? Hw s tht fr mdrtn? Hr gnd hs lwys gt n th wy f dscssn.
It shouldnt be a democracy because democracy tends to get VERY UNRULY online.
#2 reemvoweled:
please _dsmvwl_ this message just want to is what to would like like and 'm to lazy to do to in my own think you _jkng...bt_ not really
Shorter Lord Melchett: "It's not faaaaaaair!!! She's baaaaad!" *stamps his little feet*
I thought the Impossible Missions Force (IMF), were the only ones capable of "disemvowelling any knowledge of our actions".
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2prcce
, fr n, wlcm r nw Bngr vrlrds.
Lazarus7 @141:
I happened to have refreshed just before and just after that comment was posted, and I never saw vowels there.
I strongly suspect that was self-disemvoweled.
I comment regularly, sometimes snarkily, and have crossed the line far enough to get disemvoweled at least once, early on when I was testing the boundaries of what would pass here.
Disemvowelling is a brilliant idea, because it is an impersonal way for the moderator to send a public message to the moderatee that does extremely limited damage to the content of the comment. By being public it makes the boundaries clearly visible to the rest of us, which invisible moderation, deletion and banning would not do. Being public also gives it a "shaming" function, although I am very much in doubt as to the ability of the loudest complainers here to feel anything resembling shame.
For myself, because Teresa's moderation is clearly focussed on rudeness and offensiveness, it has zero impact on the content of any of my comments, but I'm a lot more polite than I might be if there was no moderation, particularly given hw nnnngl brn-dd stpd sm f y r.
(annoyingly -> nnngl. Who knew?)
Oooh! Oooh! Instead of disemvoweling, you should use this algorithm!
http://www.stevesachs.com/jumbler.cgi
It's frnasuttrig to raed conemtms wthoiut veowls, and by rimnpag up diffcltuiy, you dirscaouge the cemmnot form bineg raed. Mabye taht's the ientnt, but I tinhk "dtepnerciag" cmntemos in tihs way geos aasgint the sirpit of tihs stie. Uinsg tihs metohd, hevweor, kepes the txet pttery raelbade whlie dtlfieang all ssneeriouss. Three's a Dvae Alttel bit wrhee he takls auobt how hrad it is to win an amuenrgt wehn yuor dcik is sniiktcg out of yuor paaamjs. Liwekise, It's hrad to mkae a seoirus arumnegt wehn yuor cnemomt is rdnereed in LOLCAT.
Please reconsider the disemvoweling.
psts bt mdrtn r brng.
A few people's posts in here smack of outright grudges. Being vindictive is just plain silly. If you're angry because a post or two of yours got disemvowelled, perhaps you should recnsider what you said, rather than saying "EVIL MODERATOR! AGENDA!!!!"
Lord Melchett 151: Just tired of the incessant whining in this thread. Could y'all cut it out?
To the folks saying this post is unnecessary:
Since disemvowelling has been implemented, everytime it happens, the person demands to know why their post was edited, and why they weren't inform of the policy before the policy was enforced.
Many regulars (myself included) have requested a concrete set of guidelines to know what/when/why various mod actions will take place.
Since that time, Teresa has mentioned she was working on such a list and would post it when it was ready.
HERE IT IS.
To the folks saying troll-posts ahould just be deleted rather than disemvowelled:
Well, in a perfect world, that would be ideal. However the general conversation-convention here at BB, uses the post-number to reference specific comments and direct feedback to the correct people.
eg. (#3 FTW!)
As sometimes occurs, some comments (usually of the SPAMMY variety) get deleted outright. When this happens, the rest of the comment thread gets all fucked up, and the numbers of the posts don't match the numbers being responded to.
Frankly, I rather a few garbled messages, than not being able to follow (or having to do an inordinate amount of detective work to follow) the actual conversation. Maybe disemvowelling isn't your bag, and you'd rather the contents were removed altogether, leaving the empty comment box as a place holder for the thread, that's an option.
Also, as Teresa pointed out (to me specifically) when a post has massive flame-war potential, leaving it up (even when it's been routinely dealt with once) leaves it open to start an unending series of escalating flame wars everytime some one new happens upon the thread (and long after the original participant thought it was put to bed).
__
The only thing I'd like to put forward concerning disemvowelling, is this:
I would like to see a small "reason" comment, placed in the disemvowelled post, stating the reason (even very simply) the action was taken. I don't think it would be that much extra work, and believe it would make for a more clear-cut moderation.
I have no problem with the moderator joining in the discussion though. I see Teresa first as a participant with opinions and facts, and second as a mod, having to occasionally put on her boots and walk a little bit stompier. She comments more than moderates in my experience, so I have built up that impression in my mind.
I think Teresa does a mostly excellent job, and I can only be thankful, that she does the job she does, and that I don't have to.
Thanks.
so far, an overwhelming majority for Teresa
@ #21 Takuan:
So, would that be inconsonance?
Also, I didn't know what the eyeball icon was (before this post) and I clicked it and I may have accidentally reported someone (I didn't fill the form out, though).
or the record, very few of the disemvowellings in this thread are mine. Most of them are commenters posting their own disemvowelled text.
In reply to some of the major themes I'm seeing:
1. They don't do a lot of comment posting, but the Boingers really do read the threads, enjoy the comments, and care about what you say. That's why there are comments again.
2. We're not going to install a threaded comment system.
3. We're already running the entries on one database and the comments on another in the interest of balancing the load. Suggested features like posting pictures or user-editable comments aren't likely to be implemented anytime soon.
4. Sorry about the Favorites thing, and the reversed order on your comment lists. We've got a number of these persistent technical problems we're trying to fix.
5. One of the items on our "to do" list is a front-page link that'll let you send us bug reports and alerts on service problems. Short of that, we need to set up a dedicated e-mail address for that information.
In the meantime, if you need to report a bug or other malfunction, click on the eyeball. Please remember to include your address in case we need to ask further questions.
6. Some people believe effective moderators have to be part of the community. Some believe that moderators must stand apart from the community, and not participate in the conversation. Neither view has ever been canonical. I favor moderation from inside the community.
If it's true that participating in the conversation when you're the moderator gives you undue influence, all I can say is that the effect definitely hasn't kicked in yet. I'm looking foward to it.
7. I wrote several different drafts of the moderation policy, and handed it all over to the Boingers. The final form the document took was their decision. Posting it to the front page was their idea.
I just wanted to post in the comments on the post regarding posting in the comments. That's all I wanted to do.
And oh yeah, this is the most comprehensive set of rules for posting I've ever seen.
and thank you very much for it. I like it. And if things become something I don't like, I'll quietly leave without annoying a lot of other people.
Thanks BoingBoing
tldnr :)
@ 154/Tom
"For myself, because Teresa's moderation is clearly focussed on rudeness and offensiveness, it has zero impact on the content of any of my comments..."
But it DOES have an impact--it's been disemvoweled! Your comments are being line-item-vetoed and you don't care?
This whole policy is flawed because it's really just subverting dissent, based on the opinion of one person/a few people.
Give that EULA to any or civil rights attorney and they'd have a field day with it because it doesn't define a damn thing. It's a rambling mess blurs the line of what's acceptable and what's not. Who or what does it protect? People's feelings? Their opinons? In the end neither. You can't make everyone play nice.
I agree with #143:
"Again and again we're told, "This is our site to do with what we will. Love it or leave it." Also, "This is not a democracy". But, why shouldn't it be a democracy? Why shouldn't readers feel a sense of ownership? Otherwise, why publish?"
And #147/Talia,
I'm guessing you were being sarcastic. Democracy, like life, can only ever be pluralistic, and unruly, and beautiful.
Another thought: Disemvowelling seems like a troll tool, not a moderator tool. I can imagine a troll/coder writing a worm that would somehow disemvowel other people's posts. Seems eggzonctly what such a technique would be used for. A moderator's use of the disemvowelling technique seems kind nanner-nanner-goo-goo-ish to me.
Terry@#132, her name is, um, 'Nielsen Hayden'. i before e ;}
Tom @#33, I really can't see much 'editorial stylebook' in these guidelines (although I'd not be surprised if they *did* look like an editorial stylebook, given the number of books on my shelves with TNH's name on the inside cover or in the acknowledgements). They pretty much reduce to 'we reserve the right to do whatever the hell we feel we need to do to prevent the BoingBoing comment system becoming a worthless sewer that nobody actually reads'. (For proof that she's truly excellent at this, look no further than Making Light's comment threads. A more astonishing collection of often-hilarious erudition maintained for thousands of comments at a time I have never seen. It makes unmoderated forums look like white noise. And this is done with what is, to be blunt, a fairly light touch: the great majority of posts seem to go through unchanged.)
As an aside, I find the statement 'We throw the book at you' interesting, coming from the author of the book _Making Book_. I wonder if this book is like a boomerang, in that it returns to her hand so she can throw it again? (I mean, *obviously* there's only one of it.)
Wonderful!
I'm going to steal it, and use it.
So sue me.
re: 'Taking money from Microsoft is wrong' ....
Something like this happened a while back, I even got a screenshot of it .....
Cory (ever the freedom fighter) had posted something (I think it was about Sony seriously sucking again with all the DRM crapware) - and immediately to the left of Cory's post was a vertical banner ad selling (wait for it) do-it-yourself DRM software (targeted at software co.'s) !!!!
Seeing the obvious irony of the juxtaposition, I immediately dashed off a well-timed (and intentioned) manuscript via electronical means to Mr. Cory, and as it turned out, it was most probably BB's (evil, under-handed, yet profitable) partnership w/ Federated Media, who were selling / populating that adspace - and the Boinger's apparently didn't know WTF ... but Cory got on the batphone to FM immediately, said rather offensive ads must vaMOOSE, and they wuz gone, just like dat ....
Anyways - this is the BoingBoing playhouse - they set the rules (thru the lovely and wordful mod Ms. Teresa) - so, if ya don't like her (and their) moderator style, go start yer own blog, and then vent all ye wish into the great wormhole of them Internet tubes.
I, for one, am sure Ms. Mod's subtle 'control' greatly enhances my reading pleasure (having seen her at work here in the threads), and I also greatly enjoy reading the posts by all of the Boingers themselves - it expands my horizons to learn things about:
steampunk, women's rights overseas, scams in adoption processes, Sony fucking up yet again, etc., etc., etc.
Bravo, Boingers, I say again, Bravo!
the rest of ya'll (especially 'Kaiser' and 'SparkZilla') can kiss my big hairy *ss ... but I imagine you guys chose those usernames just to provoke thought, eh? LOL!)
#165: I have never seen a purely democratic virtual community end well. You need to have rules and someone to enforce the rules or things go down the drain rapidly.
And yeah, this is their website, so they do have the right to specify what those rules are. In this case, the rules are not unreasonable in the least. It REALLY just comes down to "dont be a jerk/idiot."
That's not difficult (for most people, anyway).
"Who or what does it protect? People's feelings? Their opinons? In the end neither. You can't make everyone play nice."
You can get rid of the ones who refuse to, though.
And I'd say the rules are an effort to keep things mostly civilized, as some people have a hard time doing that on their own. Unmoderated boards = horror shows, because a large quantity of people on the internet are trolls or morons or both.
@166
blv th phrs s mr cmmnly rndrd s, "nnny-nnny b-b." Tht bsnss bt nnnr g snds lk t cld b smthng nsvry.
#170/Talia, I agree with you 100 percent! I'm all for tossing the riff-raff. But the policy doesn't define that well enough.
I'd be all for a stone-cold policy that lists the "don'ts" and encourages better behavior. But frankly, each time I read the policy it just doesn't sit right. It feels totaliarian.
I just want something clear and simple and not in love with it's own prose--exactly what a policy should be.
I think that's the best way to curtail the "horror show."
T,
1) That was mild. You're so much nicer than me.
2) Great way to get all the trolls to sign up on a single list.
3) I might add:
- F*ck and fuck are the same word. The asterisk does not determine whether the usage is offensive.
- If you really want to write a lengthy dissertation, summarize it and link to your own blog post - as long as it's on topic.
- An apology goes a long, long, long way toward having your opinion respected by other commenters and readers.
- Making an impassioned argument in a thread on a hot button topic like abortion or gun control is one thing. Having a screaming fit in a thread on steampunk is another. Adjust your volume to the seriousness of the topic.
- Before you denounce another poster, click on their name and look at their comment history. Everybody has a bad day occasionally.
- Nobody's forcing you to translate disemvoweled comments. There's not going to be a quiz at the end of the thread.
- Everyone here is not white, young, male and straight. If you've never had a serious conversation with someone of a different race, age, gender or orientation, this might be your big chance. Don't blow it by making offensive cultural assumptions.
- Cory is Canadian. He bears absolutely no responsibility for US policy.
"#18 posted by Dan Wineman , March 27, 2008 11:30 AM
First -- thanks very much for taking the time to make this post, Teresa. It's great to have some light shed.
Now, I have a suggestion or two that could make the BoingBoing discussion experience a bit smoother. These are really minor changes, but I think they'll help:
1. Could we have the "Recent comments" view on the profile pages sorted most recent first? It's a drag to have to scroll down to the bottom when catching up with recent discussions, not to mention having to see one's first-ever comment displayed with permanent prominence.
2. Along those lines, how about a way to indicate which post we're replying to? I'm not asking for a full threading system, just a "Reply to this" link that prepends a link back to the comment being replied to. This could even be used to trigger an email notification so that (at our option) we could be informed of replies to our own comments. A lot to ask, I know.
3. This is just a bug report, really, but the Favorite feature seems broken. It used to work, but now nothing I favorite ever gets added to the list on my profile page.
Thanks again."
reposting as a YES! vote to these three suggestions.
Personally, I find the moderation to be arbitrary and annoying. Disemvoweling is basically defacing a comment and isn't conducive to civil discourse. If someone posts something and gets disemvoweled, they are likely to be upset rather than curious as to why. The posted policy is pretty subjective, leaving a lot of uncertainty as to what will get moderated.
I spent about twenty minutes looking through the comments the other day and easily found a number of hateful, rude, and downright insulting comments with no redeeming value that had not been moderated. Boing Boing tolerates quite a lot of vicious hatred for certain groups, apparently.
"Q. All the vowels have disappeared from a paragraph I wrote! What's going on?
A. We did it. Someone (a moderator, one of the Boingers) was expressing displeasure at your remarks. The technique is called disemvowelling. It deprecates but does not delete the remark. With work, the disemvowelled text should still be readable. "
The above is very, very stupid.
Jeez, moderate quietly and people harp on you for not having a posted moderation policy. Post a moderation policy, and they whine and whinge about you having posted a moderation policy.
Talk about having your point proven for you.
Teresa, thanks for taking your time to post this, and thanks for your ongoing efforts in keeping BB civil.
econoclast @175:
I spent about twenty minutes looking through the comments the other day and easily found a number of hateful, rude, and downright insulting comments with no redeeming value that had not been moderated.
Did you click the little eyeball icon (the "lookitthat" button) beside any of these comments, to alert the moderators to a nest of trollish comments that they may have missed? Or did you immediately assume that they were deliberately left in place by Teh Eeevil Moderators?
And are these the same moderators that you would like to assume your good faith when you do something ambiguous?
As Eico points out, the "policy" (to the extent that one objectively exists in the first place) is capriciously and incompletely applied. Counterexamples to most of those mitzvot abound in threads which fail to excite the "moderator's" attention. But let a Boinger reopen a pet cause or controversy, and the comment leash will be shorter than a cheerleader's pleat at Hooters, while "moderate from within" is taken to its suffocating extreme - even as basic housekeeping languishes elsewhere.
Still, the BB culture values intense loyalty to an inner cadre of friends, favorites and protégées. They will never boot the comment-tsaritsa, and she will never change. It is what it is. Take the good parts, and surf on.
technogirl wrote:
> I predict this will end badly.
then pchi wrote:
> ...possible to reemvowel all comments. Here's a site that will do it for you manually:
> http://www.disemvowelment.com/reemvowel.html
and technogirl replied:
> As predicted.
> I hope that I am wrong on the final prediction though.
I'm not sure if I'm reading you incorrectly here, but... I wrote the reemvoweler at http://disemvowelment.com and I *approve* of disemvowelment, of Teresa's moderation style, of puppies, kittens, rainbows, unicorns and much much more...
To see the existence of disemvowelment.com as a protest in the face of censorship would be a bit mistake. It's more like a pavlovian response to a technical challenge, something I'm sure most programmers will understand.
Steve
Cinemajay @165: You are benefiting from Teresa's moderation right now and don't even know it.
You comment muddles a number of important categories. You slide effortlessly from "impact on the CONTENT" to "impact at all" These are two entirely unlike things. I did not say that disemvowelling did not have any impact at all, I said it did not have an impact on the content. As this is self-evidently true, I'm not sure what more I can say about it. Disemvoweling does not prevent anyone who cares from correctly inferring the content of my comments, particularly as disemvowelling is generally limited to the egregiously nasty bits, and so the very fact of disemvoweling communicates, "Tom is being a jerk here". Ergo, no impact on the content.
You also describe the moderation policy as an End User License Agreement. It is not clear why you would do this (I say that a lot, don't I? I must be remarkably stupid.) As content creators, we are not end users. And as a moderation policy, it is not a license agreement. I certainly didn't agree to it, and it appears you don't agree with it, so if it were a license agreement you wouldn't even be able to post here.
Self-contradiction: not just for philosophers any more!
BoingBoing is a public forum run by a private organization. It looks like "Happy Mutants LLC" is the corporate entity behind it all. Like any private corporation they have the right to set rules on the public use of their assets, within the bounds of the law.
Their customers/audience/freeloaders (that would be us) have the right to not participate in their blog. But many people here seem to me to be expressing a massive sense of childish entitlement, or perhaps a mssv sns f chldsh nttlmnt. You and I are not the owners of this space. We do not set the rules. There is no reason to expect the owners to listen to our whining about the rules so long as they are getting what they want out of it, which it appears they are.
As always, the best response to an editorial or moderation policy you do not approve of is to set up your own website, spend a few years gathering an audience, and enjoy your little paradise. In the meantime, we'll be happy with ours.
Teresa: you're doing a good job, the policy guidelines are sensible, your moderation has been pretty even-handed, and I for one really appreciate the good work you're doing to make this a reasonably civil and intelligent forum. Thanks.
After reading alllllll the comments I feel I can finally contribute something to this discussions.
1) #18 posted by Dan Wineman , March 27, 2008 11:30 AM
Love idea one and three. Not so big a fan of #2. Look around, any threading encourages spin-off conversations and cliques. I'd rather each post here have a single theme.
Sure it works great for Slashdot - where each post has a general overview, but who's comments for said post may encompass anything from the fall of a previously unheard of country/civilization in the dark ages to the newest form of eyeglass styles and how they'll help cure cancer - and a few other sites, but it doesn't seem to fit the discussions and styles of the average BB user.
2)To those who mentioned a completely user-moderated approach: have you every actually COMMENTED on a user moderated board? Do you have any idea how the mod abilities get abused? How hard it is to get your thoughts and ideas out when there are already a few well modded posts? How each story is abandoned by moderators well before commenters? How horrible Digg's comment section is? (to just name one)
3)Disemvoweling: If you simply delete a post (and leave a place mark to avoid numbering issues), you have still invalidated all future responses to the comment that have failed to quote what they are reacting to. I do think there needs to be a flag that shows that a post has been disemvoweled by a moderator, not the poster him/her-self. This would cause considerably less confusion, and eliminate a potential trolling tool.
4)Moderated view vs. Raw view sounds like a great idea: everyone can have their cake, and eat it too.
5)I'll second the idea for paging overflowed comments, though I'd rather it be more like ThePirateBay's multi-paged comments than like a regular Bulletin Board's multi comment. Mainly: the original article would always be visible, and you would not need an entire page refresh to change which comment page you are one.
6)I'm so bored ;)
(I posted that only, originally, but apparently the funny factor did not outweigh the adds-nothing-to-the-discussion factor, and it was taken out. Today, I have learned I value humor too much.)
TNH #160: Some believe that moderators must stand apart from the community
I believe Lazarus Long held this view.
I've lurked Boing Boing for a long time but never bothered to comment, and after reading this post I'm discouraged from ever doing so. If ever I'm tempted to participate in a discussion in the comments here, I'll remember this post, which is basically an announcement that the site is overmoderated for those who didn't already know it, and I'll know better. So much for internet discourse not being lost due to moderation.
And just so this doesn't get deleted for me not explaining why I had this reaction in enough detail, let me put it this way:
I get the impression that this site is overmoderated, making me not want to ever attempt to have a discussion here
because...
of this post. And the many comments from people confirming the impression that this was only posted in the first place to justify overmoderation that has already taken place using disingenuous rhetoric.
There's the why. I hope this comment wasn't too boring for anyone.
While people are making suggestions about features for the comment system, I'll make one of my own:
1) It would be really great if deleted posts left a gap in the post numbering. Since people tend to reference posts by number, it is unfortunate that deleting a post renumbers the entire thread and throws everybody's references off.
See Jamie Sue's comments in the TSA Nipple Ring Fiasco thread, currently numbered #26 and #27, for an example of the failure mode here.
"Q. Aiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee! Boing Boing has advertising! Doesn't that mean you've become hopelessly corrupt?
A. You mean, unduly influenced by whatever advertisers are the source of the site's revenue? Don't worry about it. Boing Boing's editorial content is unaffected by its ads. "
Why is stuff like this in a post on moderation? Does this mean that claiming BB editors are influenced by advertisers is verboten?
Is there going to be a test on this later?
"Second answer: Because four years ago, Boing Boing's first, unmoderated comment system went so septic that it had to be shut down. The Boingers want to never go through that again."
Harumph! I liked the old system. I thought the main problem with that was people spoofing Xeni's userid. Other than that, it worked well.
"9. Dragging in one of those topics that's guaranteed to generate a huge thrash that goes nowhere, like gun control, abortion, or Mac vs. PC vs. Linux."
Only a gun-owning Mac user about to have an abortion would write something that supercilious!
right on! I only wish the globe and mail was as vigilant.
Though I disagree entirely with whomever said that duplicate comments should be left because that is anti-democratic -- discussion is NOT voting -- I nonetheless think this may be the exceptional post that proves the rule.
Hence: brava, moderatrix. Congrats on a policy that manages to be all the best things that BoingBoing is -- wry, critical, thorough, authoratative, intelligent, community-oriented, accessible and readable. Dn't lt th trks gt y dwn.
I'm not quite sure, but I don't think I've ever been moderated.
Wait, so disemvowelling is intentional? I remember when this came up a while back and a bunch of us thought it was some weird software bug.
Not much of a disincentive if nobody realizes why it's happening.
gives em something to figure out
Then there's the occasional post that needs to be deCAPitated.
The disemvoweling reminds me of the excellent SF short story by Hal Draper, "MS Fnd in a Lbry".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms_Fnd_in_a_Lbry has a nice synopsis & link to text.
I hope this comment wasn't too boring for anyone.
You're shit out of luck on that one, buddy. You're about the one millionth person to say exactly the same thing in the same self-righteous tone. At least you didn't make a dramatic plea to be unsubscribed. That's something.
i don't know what some of you guys are on about - this is the best comment and discussion moderation policy I've ever seen on the web. :D
Not only is it tasteful and observant of people's ability to comment what they choose, it's reflective of what more and more blogs need to do: move away from the eyes-bleeding YouTube/Digg comment style and towards something more substantive and intelligent.
There may be hope for the Web yet.
Late to the party, but I was part of the Great Hamster Snack Debacle of '08, so I'll join in briefly.
To the extent I agree with #28, the point is there was a better way to post this. When I first saw this, my first thought was "Where's the Hamster Snacks II: Electric Boogaloo post? I must have missed a real comment party." If instead, as some suggested, this was just a post to be referred to later by a link to the mod policy, mark it as such. Starting off with "We the Boingers have made a mod policy. We're posting it here so we can refer to it later. Carry On." would have gone a long way towards allaying the "Somebody pissed in my cheerios and now I'm angry" feeling I got when first read it.
And then, to address the 'being more polite than you think should be necessary' policy. Hooray! I'm all for it. But 'It' is a two way street. Not everyone gets the same fuzzy happy feeling looking at this policy (see the sections on advertiser corruption and microsoft in reference to the 'respond to the idea, not the idea holder' doctrine). I would love for everyone who comes over to your house to be more polite, but thats much easier when you're the most polite host I've ever met. As the saying goes, "Don't get in an argument with an idiot/troll. They'll only drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."
--Kevin
#192
Actually I read all the previous comments to make sure no one had said the same thing already, as apparently saying things that have already been said is also against the rules. Maybe you meant it's been said in other discussions (which would only be further evidence that overmoderation of this site is not a new issue here), but it hadn't been said in this one.
." Starting off with "We the Boingers have made a mod policy. We're posting it here so we can refer to it later. Carry On."
I can go back through Teresa's post for an exact count, but I'm pretty damned sure she made at least three separate references to a moderation policy she was working on, that had been requested, was open for input and so on.
I read almost every single thing that hits this board and my memory can be treacherously accurate when inconvenient (to others).
I hate to post a Me Too, but in case anyone's counting... chalk me up on the "I approve" side. Perfectly reasonable policies... if anything, more lenient than I'd be comfortable administering.
Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns and operates one. Editorial policy is not censorship. If you can't live with the BB policy, you really should go find or start a group better suited to you needs.
(To the BB'ers: Illegitimi non carborundum and keep up the good work.)
These rules are fine, just please tell me we're still allowed to use racial slurs.
my memory can be treacherously accurate
How tall am I? You have ten seconds.
only against the Irish
#196 "I read almost every single thing that hits this board and my memory can be treacherously accurate when inconvenient (to others)."
Yes, and bravo for having such copious free time and the mental bandwidth to cache the entirety of bb. For those of us not so blessed, or rather cursed with full time employment and other demands on our mental prowess, the two lines of context would be a great help in remembering what has gone memorized by others.
"i don't know what some of you guys are on about - this is the best comment and discussion moderation policy I've ever seen on the web. :D"
Yeah, I'll bet Huffington, BlogHerald, Gothamist, SFGate, DailyKos, et al., are just pooping their PJ's in envy of this masterpiece. Look for massive changes across the board. I'm hacking a patented Esperanto-to-Morse-Code translator applet we call BitFrown(TM) for use on comments in the DLD (Don't Love Domain).
KPratt @201: What would the two lines have added that wasn't obvious or couldn't be surmised with a little thought? Especially as it isn't just for the benefit of the boingers; one would imagine that as it's a declaration of policy they would all be in the loop.
Here's my real question:
Who here, complaining about the moderation policy, ever thought that Boingboing was anything other than a party to which we were merely guests? A party, indeed, thrown by a group of Believer-reading, Amiga-lusting, West-coast punctuation fetishists? Let me tell you that, while I enjoy reading the posts, I am in no way under the illusion that this is a Hell's Angels convention. Furthermore, if this were BB the zine, there would be no complaining at all about "moderation policy"; the vast majority of dull comments, like this one, would simply be left out of the letters column, were there ever a column in the first place.
Boingboing, as a pasttime, is only lightly participatory. We as its readers are mostly, justly, relegated to minor roles, our voices unheard, our opinions unconsidered. All these things will be lost in time, like tears, in rain. Time, to die.
http://www.cristiancontini.it/images/bladerunner02.jpg
and in exchange for that, I grant you a clue
"If a man find no prudent companion who walks with him, is wise, and lives soberly, let him walk alone, like a king who has left his conquered country behind,--like an elephant in the forest.
It is better to live alone, there is no companionship with a fool; let a man walk alone, let him commit no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest."
I'm only about halfway thru the comments, but I'm disturbed by the number of people who refer to TNH as "Miss Hayden"
I'm curious. Anybody care to explain why you chose to make such assumptions about TNH's marital status.
And if you didn't know and didn't care to find out, isn't "Ms." the more appropriate honorific under the circumstances?
sorry,just caught that; 6'5" right?
I find most of Takuan's iterations to be "snarky and unilluminating" but, alas, overposting does not seem to fall under the scope of the new policy. Please consider the issue in future versions.
#203
"What would the two lines have added..."
Context? A framing to the post such that some of us don't see "AND YEAH VERILY THOU SHALT READEST MY TOME." and wonder what the hell just happened?
"...it's a declaration of policy"
What then is the problem with prefacing it with "This is a policy declaration. We're writing it down so we can point people to it later. You may go about your day now."?
And it's not a question of who was in the loop and who was not in the loop, but, by way of example, following the traditional bb posting style.
Option 1:
"Here's why this thing is interesting and why it caught my eye.
Heres a picture.
"Here is a blockquote of the important bits"
And here is the link."
contrasted with
Option 2:
"Here is a giant blockquote with no introduction that you have to read all the way through to the end to find the part about the civlib steampunk unicorns who work for Lessig on CC."
While I can understand any online community's need for moderation, something about this overview rubbed me as "un-BoingBoing." It's difficult to pinpoint what it was, exactly, because a list of rules is always helpful when there's going to be enforcement and is certainly not incongruous with BoingBoing's content. Perhaps it was this moderator's tone and argument structure, which was closer to what I'd expect from a Fox News hawk than a BoingBoing writer.
It's not like it makes a difference to me - I've never left a comment before despite my submitting many-an-unpublished link to the site! I'll keep reading and enjoying BB many times per day.
I can't describe the pure JOY when someone notices me! Thank you thank you!!!
n f th lngst Bng Bng ntrs vr crtd s bt hw, why nd whn thy mdrt psts n thr wn st.
Wrnng flgs dn't gt ny bggr thn tht. Y cn hr t flppng n th wnd frm mls wy.
Nw f y'll xcs m, nd t g srch th rchvs fr ll ths Bng Bng psts blstng vrs ntts fr cnsrshp s cn rmmbr wht y gys sd t b ll bt.
I'm disturbed by the number of people who refer to TNH as Miss Hayden
I think that's a bit of passive aggression.
This set will be replies to specific comments.
I was thinking of going through and either marking all the disemvowellings I did, or the ones I didn't do; but neither option is satisfactory. I try not to meddle with text for any purpose other than moderation, so I can't mark disemvowellings I didn't do. And if I mark the ones I did do, I'm meddling more with the text of those comments than is strictly necessary.
I think the only answer is to list the ones I disemvowelled. I'll take them in order as they occur.
Paul Coleman (2) asked to see what his message would look like disemvowelled. I pasted a disemvowelled version of it below his unaltered text.
Zandr (7), since I haven't worked that out with the Boingers, I believe this document currently has a standard copyright and belongs to me. However, I specifically grant you the right to use it.
Absimiliard (9), Harrkev beareth away the palm, but there are other ways to do it. The chief one is when it's relevant and warranted, soberly expressed, and arises naturally from the ongoing conversation.
Strong language: if I thought I could get away with it, the rule would be that commenters are only allowed to swear if they can do it as well as Joel Johnson.
BTW, my godfather, a former bosun's mate and later gunnery officer, once taught me a sentence collected in the wild in which every word except "the" and "won't" was replaced by some version of the Navy's favorite word. I was impressed.
Jim Cowling (12): Did it ever occur to you, when you were defending the poor oppressed questions against their answer overlords, that the same person wrote both?
Rob Cockerham (14), that didn't get nearly enough appreciation.
Dan Wineman (18): "Recent comments" is supposed to sort most recent first. We're still working on that.
I normally use numbers to indicate which comment I'm referring to. It's a fallible method. If messages are added to or subtracted from the thread, it automatically renumbers. Fixed message numbers are just not a part of the Movable Type universe.
I expect you've long since noticed that the date and timestamp half of the header line is the permalink for a comment, so you must be asking for something more automated than typing in a standard HTML link. I don't know how much trouble that would be, though I can ask. The same goes for mail notification.
One of the things I dislike about threading is that it imposes the assumption that every message is a reply to a single other message. I believe it has a crippling effect on general conversation, especially if you can only see one or two other messages at a time.
Still, I can see the usefulness of a comment linking and referencing system that doesn't get knocked askew when the anonymous comments clear; and if e-mail notification can bring commenters back to see how the thread has responded to them, I'm for it.
Phead (21), I can't fix your spelling, but I hereby grant you forgiveness for it.
Pendraphen (23), the R&D labs at Making Light haven't managed that one yet, though Avram Grumer's come up with some real words that turn into other real words when you run them through ROT-13/
Jeblis (26), vowel-free text is older than the sort that has vowels in it. To the absolute best of my knowledge, I was the first person who ever thought of using it as a moderation technique.
(Odd footnote: The Wikipedia entry on disemvowelling used to explain this. Have you ever been stalked by a high-ranking Wikipedian? There's one of them who goes way out of his way to pick fights with pro SF editors. It's a mystery.)
MikeSum32 (27): Two words disemvowelled, for obvious reasons.
I deny that the internet is inherently dehumanizing. I believe that we've gotten into the habit of accepting far too low a standard of behavior. Back on Usenet, there was nothing we could do about trolls and jerks beyond flaming them or ignoring them. We're not on Usenet anymore. We're also not on bulletin boards that don't care what you do as long as you don't maim each other.
There are people we could be talking to, and conversations we could be having, that we'll never see as long as thuggish behavior is an accepted part of online conversations. I feel very little guilt about occasionally suppressing obnoxious speech, because there's so much more speech -- more, and frankly better speech -- that's suppressed by the persistent obnoxiousness of online behavior.
I've seen sober authoritative essays explaining that no comment thread can run much longer than a hundred messages without collapsing into random unpleasantness and noise. I've also seen well-moderated comment threads that run for hundreds of messages while staying readable and interesting.
I'm all for freedom. I'm passionately in favor of the freedom to have good conversations. That's all I'm really shooting for.
I'm not going to respond to Sparkzilla (28). It's hardly even necessary to explain that he and I have tangled a couple of times in the past, and that he lost some vowels in the process.
I just wish he'd figure out that my last name isn't Hayden.
I've also had run-ins with Kid (31, 48), Tom Neff (33/36), Kaiser (35, 51), and others to be named later.
Tazzy531 (39), a bad speller generally leaves some vowels in. I don't.
JG (42), the "because I say so" model can work surprisingly well. The policy statement was written because readers kept asking for explanations.
EricT (46), we have an automated button in the interface. Did you remove "y" or leave it in?
Ubernym (47), I associate myself with people who love good conversation.
Jeblis (52): Disemvowelled about thirty seconds ago. I'd disemvowel him if he said that to anyone else. It's just now occurred to me that I don't have to put up with it either.
I do owe Jeblis one small thank-you for reminding me of a principle of moderation I forgot to mention in the policy statement: if you get a situation where several jerks and demitrolls are egging each other on to more and more misbehavior, you have to root out the entire group. There are two reasons for this. One is that there are lots more like them, and they'll home right in if they see that behavior being tolerated. The other is that they'll talk each other into uglier behavior than any of them would undertake on his own.
If you go over Jeblis' postings to this thread, you can see him getting braver and behaving worse as he soaks up the encouragement.
Spocksbrain (55), Ys and Ws don't count as vowels -- W because it's only a vowel if you're Welsh, ad Y because losing it breaks the readability of some text, which is not how disemvowelling is supposed to work.
Avram (56), that's a better and shorter statement of the principle than my version. May I swipe it?
Pinup57 (59), I was asked to do it. People kept complaining that they didn't understand why they'd been repressed.
Eltrev (60), I've experimented with offering people the option of rewriting and reposting. No one ever takes me up on it.
TwoShort (62), it's primarily intended as an explanation after the fact.
ElysianArtist (66), puh-leeze. I'm a far subtler sockpuppeteer than that. Jebis is least of my inventions in this thread.
Ethan (67), it's an interesting idea. I'm not sure it'll work. I need to think about it.
Kid (68), I'm not impressed with your options or your analyses. The Boingers are artists and journalists. They want to enable comments and community. They don't want it to go septic again. And there's no way they have the time to keep order here themselves. That doesn't make them pragmatic politicians. Nothing could.
You and your buds are just being grumpy and pompous because you're used to doing whatever you want in online forums, and I've inexplicably failed to understand that that's the natural order of the universe.
Michael Dean (71), the trouble with using ROT-13 is that it makes people who are using it for other reasons look like they've been naughty. It also isn't susceptible to a quick browse for flavor.
Bibliotrope (73), a permanent link is part of the plan.
Keneke (74), I'll freely accept the pity, but this isn't a nitpicky moderation policy; it's the avoidance of one. It's long because it's descriptive.
Talia (75), quite right. Fark is not the model we're aiming for.
Melchett (76), I let this comment of yours stand because it looked tolerable next to your others, but you're not in line for any MacArthur Prizes. We've put all this work into building good comment threads, but we don't really want to hear people's thoughts discussed? The right to behave badly and ruin everyone else's pleasure is a toy you're entitled to have simply by right of coming here? That's hogwash, and you're a cliche.
DMTurner (79): Thank you. Welcome. Have a good time.
Talia (80), they want to be able to do whatever they want at a given moment without considering the effect it has on other participants or the overall conversation. Their version of "free speech" consists of them talking. Listening doesn't really come into it. Neither does sharing. They're reasonably articulate and have thick hides, and in fact are the climax species of forums that require only that they abstain from profanity and personal attacks.
They like to pretend that I'm suppressing free speech. In fact, there are entire ranges of nuanced, cooperative, modal, exploratory, or expert speech that seldom get explored in open forums because the rhinoceri are bound to come stomping through. Thus we lose the speech, and we lose many of the people who make it.
Takuan (81): Yes, I am. I get to have other conversations that are much more rewarding.
Jeblis again (85). I disemvowelled it.
CSLoser (86). That was mine also. The code didn't disemvowel well, so I used a different technique.
Zinjanthropus (87): I've got nothing against Mani. His name got used to label a heresy that had almost nothing to do with him.
William (90), I think I may do that. Thank you!
FarrellMacgovern (91): ooh, a new statement on moderation. Thank you. I'll add it to my collection.
Joel (92): Heya! I've been taking your name in vain.
Jim Cowling (95): I promise it won't happen.
JGriffiths (97): No such fun. It gets posted to the front page once before being tucked away for future reference.
Fnarf (109), I'm of the opinion that BB threads don't get as luxuriant as they might because the link to a page with a really long "recent comments" list (which I've had in the specs since day one) has yet to be implemented. Threads start slacking off when the entry scrolls off the front page.
MarlboroTestMonkey (115), that's one I hadn't thought of. Thank you! I'll add it to my stockpile.
Takuan (116), that "almost unnatural" just made my week.
5000! (119), they know, but it gets knocked down and trampled underfoot by new information coming in.
Technogirl (129), fear not. They'd have to be a lot better at it for me to take it personally.
Do you teach divination?
Terry (132), delighted to see you here. If I disemvowelled you on that occasion (and it seem to me I did), it was respectfully done.
Lazarus (141), that's not one of mine. I think GabrielM did it.
CinemaJay (142), we're not conducting a poll. We're having a conversation. The sin isn't so much in the duplication as in ignoring everything their fellow commenters have said.
I see you didn't read it very carefully.
Cycle23 (144): Shush. You're giving away the trick.
Xopher (145), have they gotten out the ice chest and the lawn chairs? Send them my love.
Hey, EvilRooster! Lawn chairs and cold drinks and popcorn besides?
Tom (153), you're a mensch. It was a good comment. There were just a couple of sentences that really bothered me. I'd so much rather disemvowel those bits than have to remove a long, thoughtful comment.
Pasq242 (154), that's an interesting effect, but I don't see how it's an improvement on disemvowelling. Besides, it really could be mistaken for bad spelling.
Arkizzle (158), I've been trying to remember to mention why I disemvowelled someone. Feel free to remind me if I forget.
Takuan (163), I'd be far more annoyed if you quietly left than if you made noise and gave me a chance to fix the problem.
We all notice you, Takuan. </John Bickerson>
Some of the very good points of this thread:
- #183:
Comparing the policies applied to Boingers themselves (link), the moderator policy here is a far cry from the Kiss It Simple Stupid format. I wish our moderator would be able to shrink the whole thing to something short, less arbitrary and easily understandable, and that would eliminate a lot of people crying injustice. Humor is good, but sarcasm usually translates to arrogance during a debate.
- #174:
Speaking of inconsistent moderation, you can read this very thread to give yourself an idea. If you look for the one-line comments in this thread, you will see that some of them downright rude or create unnecessary drama, but most of them were not taken care of and are readily available for you to read.
* * * * *
I can see an interesting conservative vs liberal debate here in this thread, as if it were a mini government.
The conservatives agree with the moderator policies, and agrees that the site is the Boinger's lawn, and they are free to do whatever they want.
Meanwhile, the liberals advocate new methods of moderation.
The most wonderful things in this thread are the self-disemvoweled posts - such alternative methods of sabotage/protest are sometimes what BoingBoing advocates, from handbags with an image of a gun to challenge the TSA, to putting mirrors on your head to challenge government CCTV surveillance.
The ironic yet wonderful part is that such sabotage/protest is applied to BoingBoing itself. If there were a site similar to BoingBoing, I would be sure that this incident would be one of their news post.
This debate is good for both the community and the Boingers, because it proves that the comments system allows a great civilized discussion to happen. Here I'll thank BoingBoing again for giving us the comments system.
* * * * *
Hi Joel! Have you return the Krups Heineken thingy yet? Still any beer left?
well,am I right or not?
I find most of Takuan's iterations to be snarky and unilluminating
We prefer 'vacuous and inane'.
BB comments are like a cocktail party. Sometimes we engage in serious discussions. Sometimes we engage in light-hearted banter. We're always drunk.
ls, sn't t ntrstng tht w cn nly hv n sr d? lmst lk thy wnt t mk sr thy cn...trck s?
ddn't rlz Bng Bng ws spprtr f th gvrnmnt RL D prgrm. >Pprs? V mst vrvy zt y r wh y zy y r. V hv vyz f knwng f y r lyng.
h wll, njyd ths ccnt whl hd t. gss 'll nd t mk nw n. Lckly ll f yr rtcls bt TR hv gvn m th mns t mk nw ccnt whnvr wnt f vr fl lk cmng bck.
Drat!
Note to self: re-vowel RJ (170) in the morning.
V(irtual)D(espot) Again and again we're told, "This is our site to do with what we will. Love it or leave it." Also, "This is not a democracy". But, why shouldn't it be a democracy? Why shouldn't readers feel a sense of ownership? Otherwise, why publish?
Because the editors feel like sharing.
That's why I have my blog. Do I like comments? Yes. Do I want my readers to feel they have ownership? Of their comments, sure.
I have some rules (no being rude, no absolute anonymity; to me. A nom de net is fine, but "anon" ain't. That goes to the ownership of one's comments).
But I write because I want to, not because someone else comments.
Cinemajay: But it DOES have an impact--it's been disemvoweled! Your comments are being line-item-vetoed and you don't care?
No, I don't, or at least not in the way you seem to want me too. I've said, (in those other fora TNH moderates) some really harsh things. I managed, either through a long record of being polite, or enough content to justify some pretty offensive (and intentionally so) things being allowed to stand.
If they hadn't, well it's not my party. In real life I've lost it that badly; to the point I had to be told to step outside and cool off. I see this as much the same.
No, one can't make everyone play nice. The options are to defuse the problem, or call the cops (to continue with the experiences of meatspace). One can be allowed to derail the conversation, start a fight, or be deleted (or even banned). The problem was, apparently, so bad in the past that there wasn't a "line item veto" but rather a flat out elimination of everyone's comments.
I don't like that option at all. I prefer this. It is, as Robert Frost put it, "the freedom of yoke in easy harness.
To have a civil society, one has to agree to rules. These are pretty good rules, unless one is looking to start fights, derail conversations and be rude little pissant.
In that case, well I can see where one might not like them.
The problem with the "stone-cold policy" is that one will have rules lawyers who are inside those policies, and still are as offensive, disruptive and destructive as all get out. When I am dealing with subordinates who do that, the phrase which comes to mind is, "malicious obedience".
Nix: I knew I was probably going to blow that one. It's why I hate trying to enter the URL to Making Light, because about half the time I get it wrong. Knowing several men named Neil doesn't help (because there are no rules when it comes to names). The worst thing, I had her webpage open when I typed it, to try and prevent that very error.
damn! I could use a drink!
No. 6'2". But apparently I loom large in your psyche.
I like your moderation style- even handed, but also in service to the overall community. It's not easy to find that particular even keel, but you've come close.
I've built and run some pretty large and sometimes contentious communities myself, and your rules are very similar to mine. I like the 'disemvoweling' tactic- is there software that you can use to do that with? It won't work on all communities- but it's still a cool tool.
I sometimes think that web-jerks do not believe that the pixels on their screens were put there by actual people. That is why they tend to drop trou and show their collective asses. And others seem to be expressing some form or another of mental illness- I've had posters who had regular 'cycles' of totally assinine craziness.
But the bottom line is the health of the community. You are correct in saying that a few trolls can utterly decimate a stable community. I've seen it happen. All you can do is electronically carpet-bomb the worst ones out of your community. If you're lucky and have some high-quality regulars, they often give the bum's rush to any habitual troll, or let you know if your board has erupted into a flame-war.
I like BoingBoing- I remember reading the paper magazine, and have my own "Happy Mutant" guide. I might not post or reply often (and the interesting sites I've pointed out have been ignored, so I no longer post them), but I read this blogset regularly. Thanks for the brain -food and the behind-the-scenes work.
I'll find that post and check it, I'll bet you made a typo
Klokwerk, _____ let the ____ ___ you in the ___ on ____ ___ ___.
I am not drunk! I am what Terry Pratchett describes as "knurd": so sober you need a few just to get normal.
The conservatives agree with the moderator policies.
That is a spectacularly inaccurate hypothesis. Although no-one's full political persona can be conveyed in these comment threads, I am confident in saying that many of Teresa's most ardent supporters are at the far left of the political continuum. Real liberals generally value politeness as a sine qua non of serious discussion. Conservatives are frequently the ones who believe that he who yells loudest wins the argument. Turn on Fox News or listen to talk radio if you don't believe me.
No user policy needs to be seventy seven paragraphs. Its length, tone and odd "whimsy" of disemvowling seems like poor choices were made in judging the discretion of this moderator. Respect is a two-way street.
Nope. Double checked.
No user policy needs to be seventy seven paragraphs.
And your proof for that statement?
#230:
Agreed. That is a pretty good way to tell who is conservative.Sorry to go a little off-topic. I was offering one way to view the whole debate going on here. I don't mean that being a 'conservative' in this thread means that you are a conservative in real life. I would not want my method of categorization to offend anybody here. I only mean conservatism in its literal sense, i.e. people who sided with traditions, who wants to preserve the existing condition.
I think that the more Liberal side agree with the policy because they are not moderated as often. It's easy to see someone who agrees with you as more polite and someone who disagrees with you as rude or somehow out of line. I doubt Teresa does it on purpose, but it sure seems to happen that way.
I did not click the little eyeball next to the offensive posts because I did not realize what the eyeball was for. Regardless, there were a few BB posts with so many vicious and hateful comments that I found it hard to believe that they hadn't been noticed.
Even if they were merely overlooked, the fact that so many comments were left alone while a small number were moderated makes the policy seem capricious.
And I actually wrote Cory about one of my posts that had been disemvoweled, but he was just as dismissive as Teresa of my concern.
Warning, broad brush ahead. From what I've seen of protest marches and Code Pink vs. Protest Warrior and what I've heard from Liberals who call up talk radio shows, the Liberals seem to be quickest to resort to name calling and insults and thuggish behavior.
#@#$%(*&%@&^!!!
Kid,
It is ironic that conservatives are generally opposed to conservation.
Reporter: What do you think about the execution of the offense today?
Coach: Sounds like a good idea.
--
@201 - KPRATT: :)
@203 - NELSON.C: Yes, that's how I feel. That this is a policy declaration and agreed upon by all at BB. Thus, I am mostly let down by the lack of public input from the editors. It's a shame really that BB has come to this. But not really. BB's evolution was long overdue.
--
Thank you for posting this, Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator. I must not have been the only one asking.
Until this thread I had no idea who Teresa was. So I took a look at her blog. I am happy to learn she comes across there as a perfectly reasonable human being who is more gifted than flawed because here at BB her tendency is to let her flaws get the better of herself. Understandable in a way.
This discussion while a bit ugly is ultimately helpful I would believe. Yes, it's execution could have been done better and it would have been nice if the editors had shown up in support or at least introduced it (maybe elsewhere?). I saw a comment from Joel but that's about it. It's sad to see the editors shy away from what the moderator clearly felt was an important metablog topic. Letting her speak for them in this manner... well, how publicly involved or uninvolved the editors are is a whole other topic.
In time Boing Boing will never have been better but right now with the comments in their current condition, Boing Boing is not what it once was. Once comment discussions are moderated consistently and with a deft, reasoned touch I am sure Boing Boing will once again be on my morning rounds. Two steps forward, one step back, and then two steps forward -- that is a good life.
Still, I wish that a few on this board weren't so self-involved and roaming around in a pack. If only I wasn't so undermined by that human frailty, curiosity, and could refrain from viewing comments. Or if only these few would grow up and overcome their desire to stamp their collective personality upon Boing Boing while stamping out others' personalities. Really, must you few insist upon posting your veiled dissenting opinions on others and others' remarks? And having TNH come rescue you from a puddle is really juvenile.I didn't call you a fascist asshole. I said you(the moderator) would be called one either if you moderate how you like or moderate how you like with a ginormous convoluted set of "rules." Please try to get a clue.
And I actually wrote Cory about one of my posts that had been disemvoweled, but he was just as dismissive as Teresa of my concern.
Some people might take the hint.
Oh, drat, "preview" ripped some self-deprecating humour code from my post:
<peeve class="petty">
Last paragraph was tagged.
</peeve>
1) Teresa is one of the Prime Movers behind a forum (Making Light) that has simply the most interesting discussions, and the highest signal-to-noise ratio, I've seen in any open forum.
2) The policy (not a EULA) she's posted pretty much lays out the de facto rules she and her hubby & friends have been enforcing there, for several years now. If it's lengthy, that's mostly from the need to pre-empt rule-hackers and the like.
3) Given the above, those people who are claiming her moderation is "arbitrary" or abusive, are just making themselves look stupid.
4) The trolls and demi-trolls should be glad she only disemvowels most of their spew. When she actually responded to a habitual offender... well, I'd much rather be disemvowelled.
Reading my comment again (way back at #84), I can't help feeling it may sound a bit rude, at least in the tense atmosphere that's built up. I still think that a clickable option allowing users to see comments in their pre-disemvoweled state would be a good solution- it would be censorship by choice, and neither side would really have anything to complain about. People who have faith in the mods can skip over the comments, and people who want to judge with their own eyes, or who are simply curious, can click and read them.
No, I don't feel entitled to it, and no, I'm not going to leave in a huff if things stay the way they are. I know full well that I'm a guest on this site, and I appreciate all the hard work the owners do to show me cool stuff for free every day. But I don't agree with the view some posters seem to have that any suggestions, complaints or ideas for improvement are self-important whining. BoingBoing may not belong to its readers, but I think its owners do care about our opinions, and we shouldn't be afraid to politely give out opinions, even if they are criticisms.
Moderation Policy? Say what?
Look, I've been hauling around a truckload of manure that I've been accumulating for the last few days and I seriously need somewhere to dump it. Are you telling me I can't dump my manure on your blog? Do I not have a right to dump my manure on your blog? Is it not censorship to try and prevent me from dumping my manure on this blog? Do we not ooze if you prick us?
Certainly, I could dump this manure anywhere. But that isn't the point. The point is I want to dump it here, where everyone can see it. There's no point in dumping this somewhere quietly where no one else sees it or smells it. There is no point in dumping this stuff somewhere like, god forbid, my own website. I don't have the kind of traffic that this site has. All these other people get to post whatever they want to post. Why can't I post what I want to post? I want to post manure. I tell you it isn't right.
Oh, the inhumanity when a man can't dump his manure in his neighbor's front porch for all to see. What bureacracy? What is this world coming to? What brave new world is this?
but think of what sweet roses spring from muck
#216:
You and your buds are just being grumpy and pompous because you're used to doing whatever you want in online forums, and I've inexplicably failed to understand that that's the natural order of the universe.
Thanks for your reply.
Sorry you are not impressed with my analysis, I was not trying to impress anyone. The reason why I said this event "draws a line between idealistic scholars and pragmatic politicians" is that, from my understanding, Cory and company had long been advocates of 'mutant' methods of governance. They supported protests or alternative ways to protest on various issues (scientology, Tibet, Comcast, TSA and so on), and now they have a mini protest staged in their own mini government.
And here you provided the answer to my question by saying that "the Boingers are artists and journalists". Please note that I didn't say they are "pragmatic politicians" as you had interpreted, I was just saying that the subsequent actions will tell which role they fit in.
I agree fully that they want to enable comments and community, and I had, in a few comments above, thanked them for enabling such feature.
I appreciated that they don't want the community to go septic again as a result of lack of moderation, but here on the issue of moderation I would warn that an overly-moderated or arbitrarily-moderated forum would also result in a septic community. This is similar to the issues on national security, whereas an overly-stringent security would end up harming freedom and expression.
Lastly, I am offended by your sarcasm or personal criticism (I can't tell) in your second paragraph. I am not here to offend any Boingers and forum members (If I did, I did not intend to, and I apologize), but somehow my 'buds' and I are being called "grumpy and pompous" by the moderator. I am also assumed that "I am used to doing whatever I want in online forums", and even if I did, you don't the authority to criticize me personally.
Hippocritical,
I'm pretty sure that your comment boils down to, "I know you are, but what am I?" That's rich coming from someone whose great contribution to BB comments has been to accuse other commenters of lining up to give Takuan a blow-job. In fact, out of your five total comments, four of them have been you whining about how BB doesn't fit your expectations. Maybe if you tried actually saying something, you'd get a better result.
I'm sure that Takuan will want to respond when he gets back from picking up my blue dress at the cleaners.
Wow, did every single user weigh in?
#235,
On protests, the old bill usually start with the shouting and thuggery before anyone else gets a chance to. To be fair, however, I've been on demos as well where police were the only people worth talking to.
#216:
Thanks for your reply.
Sorry you are not impressed with my analysis, I was not trying to impress anyone. The reason why I said this event "draws a line between idealistic scholars and pragmatic politicians" is that, from my understanding, Cory and company had long been advocates of 'mutant' methods of governance. They supported protests or alternative ways to protest on various issues (scientology, Tibet, Comcast, TSA and so on), and now they have a mini protest staged in their own mini government.
And here you provided the answer to my question by saying that "the Boingers are artists and journalists". Please note that I didn't say they are "pragmatic politicians" as you had interpreted, I was just saying that the subsequent actions will tell which role they fit in.
I agree fully that they want to enable comments and community, and I had, in a few comments above, thanked them for enabling such feature.
I appreciated that they don't want the community to go septic again as a result of lack of moderation, but here on the issue of moderation I would warn that an overly-moderated or arbitrarily-moderated forum would also result in a septic community. This is similar to the issues on national security, whereas an overly-stringent security would end up harming freedom and expression.
Lastly, I am offended by your sarcasm or personal criticism (I can't tell) in your second paragraph. I am not here to offend any Boingers and forum members (If I did, I did not intend to, and I apologize), but somehow my 'buds' and I are being called "grumpy and pompous" by the moderator. I am also assumed that "I am used to doing whatever I want in online forums", and even if I did, you don't the authority to criticize me personally.
(P.S. This is a duplicate of my own post #246 because I had an HTML typo in the second paragraph to make it sound like I'm calling someone grumpy.)
Around blogs, roses can spring from the idea of muck. So there's no need to shit in the pool.
"I've also had run-ins with Kid (31, 48), Tom Neff (33/36), Kaiser (35, 51), and others to be named later."
[chortle]Run-ins???[/chortle]
Let's be clear, the only reason you ever deigned to communicate with me was because you thought I might be the Nashville-based documentary filmmaker who shares my name. When I disappointed you in that respect, and added (in polite detail) on the strength of 20-odd years of Internet moderation in all media, that what you are doing is not actually moderating, you disdained further response.
So be it. But it takes two to "run-in."
What I said then is equally true now. Your massive trove of one-line backatchas above is as good an example as any. When I posted in #40, primarily for your eyes as a putatively watchful "moderator," that #33 was an accidental partial post of #36, and invited you to delete the stub, you did nothing, instead citing me as (33/36) above. They both still sit there. Any actual moderator worth their salt would have fixed it in a jiffy. Instead, you're wasting time compiling position points on a policy that you've already claimed you didn't even decide.
Anyone who has really done it (including me) will agree that Internet moderating is a sh1t job - a thankless job. Anyone with a grain of intelligence would choose to do something else. So I am the last person in the world to second-guess you for doing what you do best instead, acting as an editor and/or a proxy Boinger. I would do the same - much more fun.
It's just this one little thing - that's not moderating. A moderator makes sure all honest conversants are fairly heard. A moderator makes sure the channels are clear of noise and easy to comprehend. A moderator serves the debate and the debaters, not one cause. A moderator holds the text sacred, occasionally correcting it, never defiling it. Of course moderators must occasionally "moderate from within" by performing their service within a context where they have a pre-existing place or opinion. They solve this problem by *suppressing their advocacy* for the sake of an honest exchange. Not by holding an eraser in one hand and a sword in the other.
That's why I use the word "moderator" in quotes. And if you really think we have a "run-in" between us - well, here's your thread. I stand at your service. Can you defend your methods? We understand you don't have to - but can you? If you can, I promise an honest ear and an open mind.
anyways, I'm happy, the shire has been scoured, many new threads beckon and BB is truly blessed that there are so MANY worth talking to.
So long unhappy ones, I'm offski!
(coming, friends?)
Longest thread evar!
Also, #242, David, thanks for the ink, can't believe I missed that whole episode!
Teresa, god damn !
#248 posted by scottfree , March 27, 2008 9:11 PM
"Wow, did every single user weigh in?"
I didn't... oh wait. Darn.
Checking in late, but better late than never.
Takuan @6: Actually, speaking rot-13 is the new l33t. As Xopher has already pointed out upthread while I was busy basketweaving.
EricT @46: 5 seconds: Coding time or runtime?
Nix @166: If Teresa were to throw Making Book at one, one would duck, retrieve the book and hope it's autographed. There must be at least two of it, because my copy has never left the house... while I'm looking.
Gary61 @168: That happens all the time at Making Light. It's rather funny.
And a bug report: for some reason which made sense at the time, I signed up here twice, once as Chatworthy, once as Patrick Connors. I signed in as Patrick Connors, but the preview shows Chatworthy. Strange, but not the end of the world.
I appreciate very much having sane moderators.
But, I *hate* the disemvoweling! It just makes reading these (usually unworthy) comments 10 times as long and wastes so much more of my time than just deleting the comment would have taken. Maybe this is one of those "too precious" BB sacred cows, but I find it really obnoxious.
May I suggest doing what digg, slashdot and many other sites do and just hiding the comments that meet whatever medium-offensive threshold that currently results in disemvoweling?
Technically, it would be a totally trivial thing to do -- add an additionally CSS class like badcomment to the comment-content div with { display: none; }, then add a JS onClick to show the comment. Or have JS insert the text so it doesn't get included by search engines' indexes.
Bonzo has an established history of posting clear, well-informed, apposite, and entertaining comments...
I'm glad someone noticed. ;)
I did take the hint... they aren't interested in discussing their moderation policy nor are they open to the possibility that they might be wrong in something.
I was told that my "low-brow" comment got moderated because it was rude. I swiftly collected a number of comments that were not just "low-brow" but vicious (as in wishing death on people for their beliefs) and pointed out that this forum is full of stuff much worse than what I posted.
The response: silence.
I was also accused of other things I did not do. In short, I was not at all impressed with the response. It was cursory, dismissive, and showed a lack of effort and/or comprehension.
It's their board, they can do whatever they want with it. I have trouble keeping quiet, though, when I hear someone claim lofty goals and demonstrates decidedly unlofty actions.
I have no answer. I skimmed your comments. You seem sane, but pretty combative about the Billboard post incident. All I can say is, nobody's perfect. Staying upset about it doesn't appear to be making you any happier.
TNH: Since you noted @ 216 that post #14 had received insufficient props, let me do likewise for a line from your own post @ 160:
OK, maybe this makes me a suckup, but I am now thoroughly in love with you.
@251, Tom Neff, who is clearly from Mars, said:
You are clearly from Mars. I have never heard of any documentary filmmakers from Nashville, let alone Tom Neff, the documentary filmmaker from Nashville, who shares your name. If for some reason I had ever had cause to think about it, I'm sure I would have conceded the possibility that there are documentary filmmakers residing in Nashville; but that's as far as it would have gone.Do you often imagine that people are mistaking you for Tom Neff, the documentary filmmaker from Nashville? Do you ever imagine that they are mistaking you for someone else entirely?
Did you know that one of the film editors on My Favorite Martian was named Tom Neff? I looked him up in the Internet Movie Database when I was trying to figure out how far gone you are. It took a load off my mind to discover that there are three Tom Neffs, and one of them is a documentary filmmaker. The other two Toms Neff were both film editors. One worked on My Favorite Martian and the other worked on Blacula.How do you imagine people react when you think they think you're Tom Neff, the documentary filmmaker from Nashville? Do they do anything ... special?
I'm afraid I don't recall this interaction, at least not the way you describe it. Perhaps what actually happened was that I backed away slowly while making reassuring noises?Why stop at two? I'm sure your imagination is up to the challenge. Whip yourself up a whole party!Backatchas? Is that what they call it on Mars when you stay at the office until a quarter of midnight, trying to answer all the remarks addressed to you by the reader/commenters who are your real concern? Which, by the way, was a hell of a lot of work, done at top speed.I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for yet a further Tom Neff, one who's your personal assistant. I'm the person who just published a document that says we correct comments at our own discretion, and only when we have time.Riiiiiiight. You're going to make a great big deal out of the fact that when I was extremely busy, and was dealing with notes and queries from half the posters on Boing Boing, I didn't hop to and make your little text correction for you? I am astounded. You have a remarkable opinion of your own importance.So they do. So do a a lot of other glitches in comments that I could have corrected, if I had time and thought they were important.Malarkey. My chief job as moderator is not to run around doing minor proofreading corrections. I've never known a moderator who had that in their job description. I think we must bid farewell to your credibility as an expert on this subject.Instead of paying attention to you, and following your orders, I was communicating with the rest of the readership.And by the way, I didn't claim I didn't decide any policy. If you're going to put this much work into getting angry, why not instead put more of it into getting things right?
Most of the people I deal with aren't that bad.You are seriously from Mars. I'm not a proxy Boinger. I'm the moderator. And I don't see what my editorial work has to do with any of this.Enough. I'm tired of responding to your bizarro lectures. It's very late at night, I have a busy day tomorrow, and I've spent more time trying to make sense of your fantasies than they ever deserved.
Whew.
Quite an entertaining read. The comments, I mean. The post itself, not so much. The moderation policy is reasonable enough, even if it appears as rigid authoritarianism to some, but, as several have noted here, the implementation stinks. First off, this doesn't belong on the front page. Oh, sure, it's your RIGHT to post it there, but it's a terrible decision for way too many reasons.
I'm not going to go back and try to remember who said that the comments here were "overwhelmingly" in favor of Teresa's position, but I will politely disagree. Many of the comments here have expressed a discontentment, if not outright disgust, at the politicizing and arbitrary nature of many of these editorial decisions. The fact that this thread is so lengthy should be some indication of how polarizing this is. I'm quite sure Teresa has an edge here, but is that really so surprising? And even if only a fiftieth of BoingBoing's readership disagrees, considering the extreme popularity of this blog, isn't that enough reason to have this discussion? But too much disagreement gets you disemvoweled, or worse, so watch what you think. Nonetheless, kindly add my complaint to the list, please.
Here's what really rubs me the wrong way. I have been a fan of BoingBoing since the earliest days, and never has it seemed so insular and hive-minded as it does right now. Trolls are the scourge of the Internet, we all know that, but this post is pure showboating. Teresa has made it clear what the policies are, and although moderation serves to ease the conversation along, it only works provided that the moderator isn't making snide and unhelpful comments herself.
Malcolm Muggeridge once noted that "good taste and humor are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore." Civility is a virtue, but indignation's a vice. So often we believe that because an opinion is unpopular, it must be incorrect. We have proven that, as a species, we are uncivilized, and that we behave strangely in groups. We have further proven, time and again, that we are all deeply flawed individuals. Often we are capricious, and even more often we play favorites. Perhaps this very thread will help to expose the silliness and self-congratulation of such policies as disemvolwelment, and pave the way for similar, albeit somewhat more considerate and less humiliating forms of public shaming. After all, the haters need love, too. Even more than the lovers do. Lead by example.
Let's face it, if only a fifth of the people read the disemvoweled comments, they may as well just be deleted altogether. Yes, you thought of a neat new way to combat trolls, but so what? The term "troll" itself is dehumanizing and mean-spirited. Reader's opinions of their fellow contributors shouldn't be overtly influenced by the beliefs of a few, even if the few are virtuous. But it is not without precedent, this "us against them" mentality. Irreverence and mean-spiritedness are common traits among some of the world's finest thinkers. The world is full of idiots, and so you have the choice of being one of them, or becoming terribly alienated and brilliant. If you really believe that you're well-adjusted, chances are you're a moron.
Blindly agreeing with any kind of conventional wisdom, without even attempting to see why others might find displeasure in having to deal with such mindless complacency, doesn't even register as the expression of an opinion. And given the number of malcontents, cynics, skeptics, and misanthropes the Boingers have given innumerable pages of lip-service to over the years, this whole notion smacks of a "do as we say, not as we do" instinct. Yes, I mean censorship. Still, affixing scarlet letters might seem like fun to a sadist.
I have little appreciation for disemvoweling others' words. The sentiment has been expressed before: it is an insult to the readers of this blog who consider themselves capable of deciding for themselves what is or is not appropriate. Imagine that. Certainly many comments are deserving of deletion, but more rigorous standards should be established to ensure balance. Any suggestion that edits here have been unbiased is an outright denial of the facts. Every edit must be biased, or else the edit wouldn't occur. These prejudices with respect to certain uses of language, though arguably valid, are reflections of the moderator's best judgment, but hers is occasionally a righteously indignant judgment, regardless of how she sees it. For Pete's sake, throw in the vowel already. D'oh!
Someone asked not too long ago if BoingBoing had jumped the shark. I would say that, if it hadn't already happened, today's the day. Don't mind me, though. The fact that I disagree with this policy is proof enough that I'm disagreeable. Still, a condescending list such as this only emboldens the enemy. We're not children or terrorists, although some of the comments would seem to indicate otherwise. Most of these policies should be common sense to anyone by now, but some of them are just plain absurd. Beyond that, unless half or more of BoingBoing's readership are discourteous losers, the rest of us shouldn't be subjected to snotty primers on the merits of politely engaging in snotless discourse. Like I said, it's your right to post whatever you like, but so is scarfing down bizarre animal parts on reality TV shows. It may have not been your aim to incite such a discussion, but you must have known that it would. Who has the moral high ground?
As to the assertion that the practice of disemvowelment "emasculates" the culprit, once again I must restrainedly disagree. If after reading a disemvoweled comment I am unable to understand why such an action was absolutely necessary, I lose confidence that the practice as a whole is of any use. As is evidenced here, I know that I am not alone in this estimation. Likewise, if I am offended by any other reader's comments, I become even more upset that my needs weren't catered to with the sort of anal obsessiveness we've grown to expect from Thanatos, the Mod of Death. Just kidding, Teresa. You're catching a little heat here, and it's not entirely undeserved. Snarky mods who complain of others' snarkiness are a dime a dozen. But hey, I'm just one thinking human. I won't bother crafting a list of suggestions... I will merely state my opinion and move on.
One last thing, respectfully. According to Wikipedia, Xeni said of irritable vowel syndrome: "the dialogue stays, but the misanthrope looks ridiculous, and the emotional sting is neutralized." This would seem to imply that every person who has fallen victim to said disemvowelment is a misanthrope, which is every bit as ridiculous. Countless disrespectful comments have evaded Teresa's scrupulous eye, while several innocuous ones go the way of the spotted vowel. Bah-dum-CHING! Okay, the spotted owl isn't extinct yet... I couldn't help it.
This would be fine if it were true. Call it whatever you want, but when I left a comment on Cory Doctorow's coffee tamper post asking whether BoingBoing takes product for money it was "disemvowelled". This is a perfectly legitimate question, involved no profanity and in my opinion was disemvowelled on your whim. You can call it clever and a device to control trolls, but I call it censorship, which it is.
People want to know whether BoingBoing takes product in exchange for posting about it. Full stop. It's a legitimate question and deserves an answer. Not censorship.
Tree Shapiro:
Actually, Tree... speak for yourself. I could really give a shit. You act like they are your elected politicians or some crap. LOL They owe you.... nothing. You might as well like it.
"Jim Cowling (12): Did it ever occur to you, when you were defending the poor oppressed questions against their answer overlords, that the same person wrote both?"
You've written it in the form of an FAQ; my tongue-in-cheek summary was likewise written in the form of an FAQ. Or maybe you've never before been asked questions like those in your policy, in which case the reason it was styled as an FAQ is a mystery.
I promise that I wrote both the answers and the questions in my response. Y'know, just in case you weren't sure.
"If it's true that participating in the conversation when you're the moderator gives you undue influence, all I can say is that the effect definitely hasn't kicked in yet. I'm looking foward to it."
Well, you are the only person who alters or deletes comments in threads in which you're involved. Some would call that undue influence.
IMHO, moderation works best when it is dispassionate and unbiased. It is a rare person who can moderate that way when involved in a conversation. And when I mean 'rare', I mean that theoretically such people exist, but I've never met one. I'm sure as hell not one of them, and I've been moderating on and off since the pre-Web era.
Better that multiple moderators work as a team, and recuse themselves from discussions in which they become involved. It may not result in truly unbiased moderation, but it gives the illusion of unbiased moderation.
Anyhow, I'm just talking. In the final analysis, we can like it or lump it, and I'm more than happy to like it. I've been disemvowelled once, but I don't post often and I don't go out of my way to be an ass.
I figure that you're just an irritable and unpredictable force of nature. Posting to BoingBoing is like living in Tornado Alley. And we like the cheap real estate too much, so we take the risk of the storm coming in.
The Boingers have no obligation to their readership, but credibility is a concern for some. I'm not making demands that they 'fess up to anything. I will continue to respect them if they don't, because this is a blog, not the New York Times.
Still, it'd be nice to know that they're not accepting kickbacks from telecoms or wealthy Pastafarians.
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Hmm. Either comment posting is slow or my comment was deleted. There must be a 1337 filter.
RE post #216 by Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Teresa,
I do not object to the moderation policy at all but I can not help but notice the absolute zeal with which you are going about it. The manner by which you respond back to quite a few trolls with such enthusiasm and perhaps even glee.
Which makes me question if the real point of this exercise for you personally is not to make this place a better one but rather to expand your visibility and to essentially make the "Respect Ma Authoratai !" statement.
The need for moderation is unquestioned but I have grave concerns about the manner in which you have chosen to go about it. In my opinion, the very best societal police go about their work quietly and without personal aggrandizement (i.e. anonymously).
I have always had and will always have grave concerns (but not trollish concerns) for those who go about their policing duties with too much enthusiasm. In my opinion, moderation should be a thankless, behind the scenes job. - the kind that, you know you're always trying to pass off onto the intern or something. In my experience, moderators who make themselves "Superstars" shortly thereafter become oppressive dictators shortly before the community that they were moderating dissolves (see Kuro5hin).
I'm not saying this will happen to you Teresa, nor am I implying that this is your intent (I believe quite the opposite) - but I have never experienced any other outcome. Timef rame for this has always been 2-6 months mins and max.
Really heavy handed to mod this thread in any way. But hey last time people complained they just did away with comments altogether. (it wasn't nearly as "septic" as the mod would have you believe, I was there) Given the non response/attitude of the mods/editors maybe that was best.
Obviously I have no say, but I'd prefer no comments to this moderator.
Oh and yeah you moderated a lot of stuff that is certainly on topic and not that bad. In particular a lot of posts that I would have considered satire. But hey quash dissent all you want, I'll never look at another comment thread here. There are plenty of other weblogs posting the same stuff you do.
Hmmm... looking through this thread, it occurs to me that a significant number of the critics seem to be looking for a few basic things... each of which has an "interesting" flip-side:
1) Moderator never to actually get involved in the discussion, but rather to be invisible.
-1) No visible authority figure.
2) Not so many rules, and not so "vague".
-2) Rules simple and rigid enough for them to "hack" or evade.
3) Moderator to fix all typos and double posts promptly.
-3) "I'm the customer here, you have to do what I say, and I want better service!" (Never mind that the "customers" aren't actually paying anything....)
4) No disemvowelling, it's "disrespectful". Either delete or let it go.
-4) Serial trolls want their rejected posts to simply disappear, so they can crow about how the Fascist Tyrant is suppressing them for no reason at all. Meanwhile, they can try again and again until the mod "misses one".
5) Moderator must fully justify each and every intervention in the discussion.
-5) "Hey, the Internet's supposed to be free, so who put this Teresa person in charge?" (Free answer: The site owner.)
Jeblis @272 & 273:
it wasn't nearly as "septic" as the mod would have you believe, I was there
It was septic enough for the Boingers, apparently, which is the standard that they get to apply on their weblog. The fact that you were there participating in it, and don't see the problem now, might contribute to the way your current comments are being treated.
Perhaps this is a sign that this is not the right community for your particular style of comment? You may be wise, in that case, to leave. Best of luck in the wider internet.
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Well, I love the moderator and the site.
So there!
Technogirl @270:
In my experience, moderators who make themselves "Superstars" shortly thereafter become oppressive dictators shortly before the community that they were moderating dissolves ...Timeframe for this has always been 2-6 months mins and max.
Teresa's own weblog, Making Light, has been running since 2001, under her active, visible and enthusiastic moderation. It's a lively, active and intellectually challenging community, supportive in bad times and funny most of the time.
more generally, to many people
Two assumptions I see repeatedly here:
1. Teresa is an inexperienced moderator, and it's helpful to give her advice (Answer: vide supra)
and with that, 1a. That advice is even better when given in a condescending tone (This makes me doubt the advisor's experience in interpersonal relationships: if you're trying to be a peer, talk like one, not like you're in charge here. Moderating the moderator is like topping from the bottom.)
and 2. That your style of moderation in your community would suit either Teresa's personality or the community here.
I would be very interested to see links to communities where all you other moderators are doing your stuff. I'd love to see you in action, so that I could judge the efficacy of your advice, and the consistency with which you yourself apply it.
As for me, for full disclosure, I am the most recent moderator and front page poster on Making Light. But I'm always interested in learning new things about moderation, from people who are genuinely interested in teaching it.
Tom Neff: I have reason to think you are the uranium Tom Neff.
I just wanted to respond as well...running a mailing list for nearly 20 years, as well as a social website for 12...it is damn near impossible to please everyone but yourself. Especially when you have more than a dozen people.
Me? I just 'uninvite' people that get on my nerves...my site was originally a 'by invitation only, but if you found it, well, we'll make an exception' site for pros. I realized out of a little over 50k of folks that have registered and posted, only 25k were still authorized to do so. Almost half were 'asked' to leave.
I'm much better at it now...and have different expectations of my readers...and it is entirely because folks like Teresa have shared their knowledge. Moderation is an art...not everyone has it. And yet, I can still disagree with some of the moderations here...I know on my last post, I poked light fun of one of the correspondents based on another's post and had *HALF* my post disemvowelled! Not the whole thing, just half...that is just damn funny. Probably took a lot more effort than just pressing the DSMVWLL button. I laughed at it because it is more effort than I'd put into it, even while disagreeing...but it ain't my site, so I also understand folks have different expectations.
---
Beyond this, I wonder -- should a community be moderated differently once there is a critical mass? Should there be a different sort of accepting for the sake of freedom of speech? This is a question I've been struggling with now that I realize my own site is the voice of a two specific groups of people and there really isn't another place for them to go. When we were smaller (purposely), it was a much easier question to ask and answer. Just curious...
All right. Fine. I've dumped my manure in my own personal garden. It's early enough in the season that it might work as fertilizer. But since no one else but me is going to see it, I feel it neccessary to draw attenttion to the fact that I didn't draw attention to myself by dumping my manure in a private location. I think the moderators should personally thank me for not drawing attention to myself.
...
...
OK, it's been at least thirty seconds and I still haven't gotten a autographed postcard from any of the Boingers here personally thanking me for not drawing attention to myself. This place sucks. And yet, I'm continually drawn to it. Damn you BB, for your silent mockery of my selfless act of unpublic manure spreading.
I just want to meek out a comment here and say I am pretty impressed by the humility of letting a contrary opinion (#28 the finest example) survive without being disemvoweled like I've seen in the past. It gives hope that there can actually be discussion here and not just a one way cult of personality. Thank you!
Teresa's own weblog, Making Light, has been running since 2001, under her active, visible and enthusiastic moderation. It's a lively, active and intellectually challenging community, supportive in bad times and funny most of the time.
>My experience with Making Light was much different; I responded to some posts in Summer 2007 where habituates were soundly and repeatedly bullying the focus of the story; my protective comments first got no vowels, then got removed by THN. One thread eventually reached over 1000 comments.
I can only akin my experience in this regard as being witness to a written raping; the violence is being perpetuated and allowed by the staff of Boing-Boing, albeit sans dedicated cronies. The witty quintuple-entendres continue though.
Please cancel my subscription.
Takeshi: No, they don't take kickbacks.
And, for what seems like the dozenth time in the last two days: you don't get disemvowelled for disagreeing. You get disemvowelled for being rude.
To Post #277 evilrooster
Several points:
1. I am absolutely not going to engage in a snark-fest with you regardless of how much I like the word that I just made up.
2. Your argument which says essentially that if I can not provide you with a real life implementation of my opinions renders my opinion invalid - is a straw man argument and I will not do in that direction either.
3. My opinion is that Teresa's ideas may well work fine on her own small blog are not scalable to a larger community.
4. As I mentioned earlier, Kuro5hin is a fine example of where the site moderator became overwhelmed by trollishness . He implemented a highly visible and severe moderation policy which only served to engage in further troll wars and drive the community away. Both regulars and the site owner became discouraged and the community that had developed there is no more.
5. It should not be surprising to point out that arguments regarding
a. The tendency of human beings to abuse their authority (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? )
b. The proper role of the soldier, police-person whatever in such a situation
c. The roles and responsibilities of a person exercising free speech in a free society precede Teresa's blog and even (heavens!) the internet itself.
(OK, I did delve into snarkdom there for a minute?)
My opinions are based largely , though not exclusively on many of Plato's concepts of the soldier (read moderator) entrusted with guarding the security his society
I refer you to Plato’s Politeia in which he expresses his ideas of the "citizen soldier" as well as well as some interesting counter point from Aristotle in hos ideas about the republic and the role of the guardian in it.
Lastly, the more I think of the idea behind "disemvoweling" the less I like it and the more it seems as a thinly disguised way of someone very visibly exercising their authority over those with whom they want to make a point.
Do not misunderstand me - I absolutely loathe trolls and uncivil behavior. But the more that I think about it the mroe that I feel that the correct manner of dealing with it is silently, behind the scenes and without fanfare and adulation.
Moderation can NEVER be a war of personalities, something that will inevitable occur if the personality of the moderator is allowed to intrude onto the process; hence my stated desire for anonymous moderation.
Moderation can never be a war of personalities because the trolls will always, ALWAYS win that war for the following reasons.
a. Trolls have more time then you do. That's why they are trolls. If they had a life outside of trolldom then they would not be trolls they would be at baseball games, movies, having a beer with their friends or getting laid.
If you have two hours to wage war against a troll , the troll will have eight. If you have eight the troll will have twelve. If you have twelve the troll will take all day if necessary. You can ALWAYS give up your entire live and devote it to the war. Become just like the troll and then - the troll wins. Game over.
b. The more attention that you draw to the troll (like disemvoweling) the more the troll likes it. You've heard the saying "Never get into a fight with a pig, you just get dirty and the pig likes it.". It's SO appropos. when you disemvowel a troll you do NOT emasculate his message - you create a martyr (well in the trolls eyes you do anyway).
And you also open Pandora's other box regarding free speech issues - a box that an enormous amount of your participants will look into regardless of whether they understand the issue or not - and most won't.
See the number of comments in this thread? Right.
c. You can not win a war of personalities with a troll because you have many aspects of your personality and can see many sides of an issue. A troll does not. A troll sees only one side of an issue - HIS side. And the purity and the clarity and the focus of his thought process is as strong as any religious extremist who as ever strapped a bomb onto a twelve year old and sent him out into a crowded shopping center.
Personality must, in my opinion never enter into the moderation process. (and no, damn it , I will NOT provide you with a "workable example")
Just get rid of the message - don't take the time to "emasculate" the messenger.
Just do it. Don't take thirty paragraphs to talk about how you are going to go about it.
Don't glamorize the troll. Fatal Mistake
c.
Cats Unite,
The closest thread I can find to match your description is from October of last year, about an author who unapologetically plagiarized a recently dead writer's book, then played the disability card to try to excuse her behavior. Her agent, meanwhile, made threats both financial and spiritual.
This didn't go down well in a group of writers, many of them disabled.
Tell me, do you think bringing rape analogies into this discussion is any better an idea?
R: #283 Trs Nlsn Hydn
"Tksh: N, thy dn't tk kckbcks."
N nt kckbcks f crs bt ... wll hr's n xmpl ...
Vrzn s stll th scm f th rth whn t cms t cstmr srvc, thr hrrd FS mplmnttn nd ,h ys, tht lttl phn tppng n ch nd vry mrcn dl thy hv gng n wth th C/NS ths dys
Nw thr sts r brngng ts t ppl's ttntn nd Bng Bng sd t b prtty hrd n th ld "V" tslf n tms pst... bt nw tht Vrzn s spnsr f BBTV wht d w s n BB?:
Mrch 14, 2008
"Vrzn tmng p wth P2P cmpns, Yl, t mk fl-shrng fstr"
Lk th BB tm ds GRT jb nd dsrvs lttl csh t spprt thr ffrts bt pls Thrs d nt dld yrslf r rslvs nt blvng tht th cnmcs f spnsrshp nvr ntrds nt dtrl dcsns.
Gv s crdt fr ndrstndng hw th rl wrld wrks.
#263 said "it only works provided that the moderator isn't making snide and unhelpful comments herself."
This is the heart of my problem with Teresa's moderation style. It isn't really moderation any more when you're getting into petty fights with people, calling them out for their spelling mistakes or picking their comments apart point by point.
@ #216 You’ve had run-ins with me? And you’ll name more names later? What is that exactly? That’s neither on topic or a response to something I said. That’s just taking a jab at someone. You say you want intelligent conversation but how quickly you’ll roll around in the mud with the rest of us.
Woo hoo you guys did it! Nearly 300 posts of completely pointless bickering! I think we can top 300 here people, and to help here are some good starting points for another whine-fest:
1. Fuck whales! Those fat bastards are eating all the krill that could be going to starving children.
2. The ozone is overrated. People look better in long sleeves anyway.
3. AMD vs. Intel
4. ATI vs. NVidia
5. Windows Vs. OS X Vs. *NIX
6. I hate your baby! I hate all babies!
6. All praise to our Lord and Saviour
6. ...SATAN!
Technogirl @284:
1. I had no intention of getting into a snark-fest with you, not even if you surpass Shakespeare in linguistic coinages (please feel free to try; I like new words). I nearly added a comment to the effect that the second part of 277 was not directed at you, but real life called me from the keyboard.
2. I still prefer to see worked examples of interpersonal theories in real life. People do amazing, surprising things, many of which demolish abstract theories of human interaction. Plato's Republic, for instance, never existed, nor ever could. (And if it did, I'd rather not live there.)
Lack of an example doesn't render an argument invalid, it just makes it abstract. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; principles and theories are often a sounder basis of action than pure expediency. But the combination of abstraction and a world-weary tone, as some others have adopted here, smacks of the armchair. At some point, I want to see some examples of these lovely ideas in action.
3. That's a perfectly valid opinion, but you don't need me to tell you that.
4. I was only briefly on Kuro5hin, but I have seen other communities fall apart, temporarily or permanently. Communities do that. There's a fair argument that the previous iteration of open commenting in BoingBoing was a community, one that melted down from lack of moderation.
I don't know, any more than you or anyone else does, what will happen here. I'm interested to find out. I suspect that if Teresa and the Boingers (Bootleg?) feel that the community is not growing in the direction they want it to, they'll consider some of the things suggested in this thread. I also suspect they'll listen more to practical suggestions than purely abstract ones, but I really have no idea.
I think the remainder of your post is an excellent statement of one approach to moderation. As I said before -- and this is more than just a "put up or shut up -- I'd be very interested in seeing a good example of such a community in action. I'm sorry you've taken my request in the vein of a challenge, because it's not meant that way in this case. I'd like to go look at one. I could learn a lot.
#285
that is not the thread, but it is applicable.
rape - to seize, enjoy hastily. To take by force.
This sounds like disemvowelling; moderators (only moderators) gets a transient pleasure from doing it. They display the red bedsheets. They move on.
Popular blogs with long, negative comment threads can destroy the reputations of the targeted party; they come up on google for starters. To willfully participate in or allow such activities is temporarily satisfying but permanently damaging and this is allowed, perhaps encouraged on ML - by the moderator. Will it be allowed on BB? I don't know, but I'm not waiting to find out either.
Avram @ 56:
That's a lovely, shiny comment. Reposted in full for the sheer joy of it.
And I must say, I really like this pair of criticisms:
Kpratt @ 211:
Ogre Lawless @ 231:
Too authoritarian and too whimsical at the same time! How do you do it, Teresa?
RE: #289 posted by evilrooster
"I'd be very interested in seeing a good example of such a community in action."
You want me to show you a community where :
-moderation is handled anonymously
- no personality issues from a single moderator what so ever intrude upon the process e.g.. no demagogues
-no destruction of the original message occurs and no "emasculation" of the messenger is committed .
- the community of free to pick and choose whether or not to view the message
Well I'm simply not going to do that because as soon as point out even the most obvious example of such a thing then this argument devolves from a ransfer if ideas concerning moderation and the role of the moderator into a tit for tat of whether a given example lives up to those ideas. So I'm just not going to go there at all.
"There's a fair argument that the previous iteration of open commenting in BoingBoing was a community, one that melted down from lack of moderation."
Of this I do not doubt - it's the implementation that I am concerned with not the usefulness of the idea..
I have seen too many cases where a community dissolved from the effects of an over zealous moderator. Where,what should be a simple social policing action turned personal.
The requirements to be a moderator should be much like those for a politician, if you really love the job then you are probably ill suited for it.
-
#272 Jeblis
LET'S BE CLEAR (and shout a little)
LOTS OF THE POST IN THIS THREAD HAVE BEEN SELF-DISEMVOWELLED, IN SATIRE.
#288 Buttseks, those last 3 probly won't raise and eyebrow, let alone the 12 more comments needed to break 300 :)
I snarked myself into oblivion - and was helped by the fact the this board discards everything between the angle brackets (which I should have known) ....
My key paragraph should have read
"Well I'm simply not going to do that because as soon as point out even the most obvious example of such a thing {**cough**cough**slashdot**cough**} then this argument devolves from a transfer if ideas concerning moderation and the role of the moderator into a tit for tat of whether a given example lives up to those ideas. So I'm just not going to go there at all."
Damn you Gods of Snarkiness and your arbitrary ways!
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Teresa, for posting that fantastic document. It's as perfect a description of our aspirations for Boing Boing's message boards as I can imagine. I'm really glad you took my advice and posted it all to the front door.
Cory
Technogirl @292 & 294:
Ah, that example. Very well; we will not discuss it, neither its strengths nor its weaknesses.
I was merely hoping for some new world to explore.
The requirements to be a moderator should be much like those for a politician, if you really love the job then you are probably ill suited for it.
I think it depends which part of the job you love. If you don't love the interpersonal interaction, untangling the threads of the discussion, finding and teasing apart the quarrels before they explode, then you should probably not be a moderator. If you love the power then no, maybe get an ant farm instead.
My Gods of Snarkiness mean that I have to go through three or four error messages before posting. I think we both need to make more puns.
Technogirl @ 284:
Personality will be a part of the moderation process as long as you have human beings doing the moderation. It would be great if we had silent, machine-like moderators, capable of adjudicating objectively on every issue. Thing is, we don't--we have human beings, who are error-prone and fallible. You know this:
So why do you think that the best way to keep humans from abusing their authority and indulging their personality quirks is to keep them in the shadows? When has that ever worked? The lesson I get from reading history is that if you want accountable authority figures, you have to subject them to as much public scrutiny as possible. Which is why, in a weird, roundabout way, this whole thread has been a huge success--people are engaging in a dialogue with their moderator.*
If you have anonymous moderators, it won't get rid of personality conflicts. All it'll mean is everyone will be in the dark regarding one half of the conflict. You want a black-box system, which is wonderful in abstract but, practically speaking, impossible. The next best thing is a moderator who we all know and, hopefully, trust. If being a public part of the community breaks that trust, then the community will burn. You seem to take for granted that this will happen. We aren't so sure.
*Which is not, I note, the same thing as agreeing with their moderator.
Cats Unite @290:
rape - to seize, enjoy hastily. To take by force....This sounds like disemvowelling; moderators (only moderators) gets a transient pleasure from doing it. They display the red bedsheets. They move on.
Cheapening the word rape to make a point, and doing it in gory detail to boot. What a compelling argument for more empathy you make.
Godwin next?
long comment section is loooong.
Didn't got around to read all the comments, so I don't know if this was mentioned before, but... I think it would be cool to have an "emvowell/disemvowell" button, only for disemvowelled posts, so everybody could check by themselves the alleged douchebaggery which caused the disemvowellment. Could work just like the "spoilers" buttons I've seen in some message boards.
Technogirl @293: I think you're really hobbling yourself by refusing to use actual examples and counter-examples. Abstract discussion can only get us so far; moderation is such an art that examples are necessary to further the discussion. Really, by trying to keep the discussion at the abstract, you make it look like there's an "argument" that you're afraid to "lose", rather than a discussion about ideal moderation.
Cory @295: Just wanted to point at your comment, in case anybody missed it. Really, what's the big deal about posting to the front page anyway, when it's going to fall off the front page after about 24-36 hours? If Teresa was the raving egotist some posters here want to paint her, she'd've put it up last thing on Friday so it would have been on the front page all weekend and well into Monday, maybe Tuesday.
Theresa,
I very much appreciate your moderation. I feel like this is a site where I can honestly and safely have a conversation.
Thanks.
Most people have been making analogies to Fark, Digg, or Slashdot, and other large forums. But that's inaccurate--Boing Boing isn't a forum. It's a blog. And there are zillions of successful, widely-read blogs with absolutely idiosyncratic posting policies. And it's perfectly well understood that that's the right of the blogger to decide what topics are discussed, and what behavior tolerated, on their blog. That's the whole point of a blog: you go there to get a particular person's take on the world. It's also well-understood that the blogger is going to be posting in the same comment section that they are moderating. And it all works fine. So why are people jumping down Boing Boing's throat for doing the same?
People are getting too distracted by the title of moderator, I think. It conjures up images of forums and bbs boards, not the comments section at (insert your favorite blog here). Because Teresa isn't one of the ones making the posts, it's very easy for people to question her authority. "Who gave YOU the right to tell me what I can say?" But that's bs. The bloggers picked her to do this. She has the right because they gave it to her. They decided to trust her with it. If you disagree with their decision, then maybe you aren't quite as in tune with them as you thought you were.
@216: 'I just wish he'd figure out that my last name isn't Hayden.'
It's not? I don't doubt you, it's your name after all, but in the absence of a hyphen or a widely-known non-English name particle (e.g. von, van, ap, or ten) it's the natural assumption. (And if it's not Nielson Hayden, then I'll have to ask for a flag on the play, or burn the ref in effigy or something.)
@198: Oh, that's so Formula 1 of you.