Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.

Thenomain

Ganymede

@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I actually think the lack of downvotes has increased the amounts of dog piles and negativity.

This is entirely possible.

On the other end, though, I think people wanted downvotes turned off because it created the perception of silent witch-hunting. Some people just didn't like others, and allegedly used the downvote function just to point that out, without discussion or rhyme or reason.

It's not pleasant to see your "popularity" decrease with each post you make, just because a cadre of folks are on a campaign to pull down the rating. Even if you stay out of the Hog Pit. Even if you say nothing but positive things. That, to me, fits in the definition of bullying.

I realize that we can't stop bullying altogether or entirely, even if we were to shit-can dogpiling here entirely, and enact harsh penalties for it. I think we can try harder, though, to make this place just a little bit safer for everyone to put up their thoughts and (dare I say it?) feelings without a squad of people boot-heeling them in the virtual sidewalk.

Lithium

@ganymede So change it so downvotes don't touch popularity? The whole 'popularity' metric needs to get tossed on it's ear to begin with, it's complete bullshit.

Ganymede

@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

So change it so downvotes don't touch popularity? The whole 'popularity' metric needs to get tossed on it's ear to begin with, it's complete bullshit.

By "popularity," of course, I mean the up-voting function, and, to my knowledge, the down-votes will affect whatever vote score is out there, or not.

(Childishly, yes, I like the fact that I have the most reputation, ha ha ha, peons, grrr, no, not really, but anything I can do to tweak Arkandel.)

But if we remove the function, then, based on your reasoning from before, the foreseeable consequence would be people posting to support someone else's negative opinion of another, thus starting a dogpile. So, let's say, you and I were to get into a disagreement about something; it is foreseeable that someone who hates you and has a vendetta might pipe in to support my opinion, and then take a snipe at you. And then, you respond to them, and they reply back, and another person backs them up with another post and a snipe, and then, the cycle continues.

I'm ambivalent, truly, on the idea of up or down votes, but I think they are calculated to minimize the number of "me too" posts that may crop up.

faraday

@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

@ganymede So change it so downvotes don't touch popularity? The whole 'popularity' metric needs to get tossed on it's ear to begin with, it's complete bullshit.

I don't think you can, at least not without writing your own custom nodebb plugin code.

But I think it's a tradeoff. No downvotes = no serial downvoting bullying. BUT with downvotes there's a way to register disagreement with a post without 10 people feeling the need to post saying: "Dude, you're an idiot". Dunno which is the lesser of two evils there. There is a nodebb plugin that has some interesting rules like minimum rep-levels for downvotes and max number of votes per thread and even an option where a downvote costs you a rep point, which I think might tone down serial downvoting a bit. But who knows.

Lithium

@ganymede said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I'm ambivalent, truly, on the idea of up or down votes, but I think they are calculated to minimize the number of "me too" posts that may crop up.

And I am of the opinion that downvotes would do the same but against negative posts.

Which would we rather see reduced here? Me too support posts, or me too negative posts?

surreality

I'm not terribly fond of the popularity thing, either, and I've been in the top 3 for like... ever.

That we've had people calculating popularity metrics here and arguing their status based on it, and how people should react to them accordingly, is not something I think is a net positive.

I like the 'avoid the ME TOO' aspect of upvotes.

I wish we had a different metric, which may or may not be possible with nodeBB. I like the more 'agree/disagree/click if this was helpful' sort of setup that I've seen here and there. That feels less about 'cheering people on' or 'telling someone they should be down', and more practical and useful on the whole -- and it's less personal somehow. It's harder to mistake that for 'I just don't fucking like you', or 'I will always cheer on my buds no matter how horrible or wrong the thing they said is', which the more nebulous setup does get co-opted for often enough.

I forget which site has it, but there was one -- it's not a forum so this may be totally unhelpful -- that has a number of things you can check like 'agree, disagree, helpful, funny, sad, happy, gross'/etc. I suspect they get a much better read on things from that data than any of the options we've had. If there's a plugin or feature that could allow for something like that? It'd kick some serious ass, I think.

Ganymede

@faraday said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

But I think it's a tradeoff. No downvotes = no serial downvoting bullying. BUT with downvotes there's a way to register disagreement with a post without 10 people feeling the need to post saying: "Dude, you're an idiot".

@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

And I am of the opinion that downvotes would do the same but against negative posts.
Which would we rather see reduced here? Me too support posts, or me too negative posts?

I'm quoting both because I want to respond to both at the same time.

I agree, Lithium, that putting downvotes back on probably would reduce the "me too" negative posts. But upvotes, in a way, reduces the same; if someone else voices their disagreement, and you support that disagreement, you could always upvote the dissenter. That is a way to register your agreement with that position -- however negative or ugly -- without spitting out a "me too" negative post.

Not that people will think that way if they are truly in the mood to grind someone down, though, right? I think that if people want to say something demeaning, pejorative, or nasty, they are going to go out and say it. And if people want to passive-aggressively do the same, they can hit that downvote button and thereby hurt someone, especially if they know that person is sensitive to their own reputation. We took out the downvote, I think, to address the latter problem, and the rest I think is a matter for the mods to handle.

It's a good suggestion, though. I also like the idea, if possible, of having different kinds of "likes," like what surreality's talking about.

faraday

@ganymede said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

That is a way to register your agreement with that position -- however negative or ugly -- without spitting out a "me too" negative post. Not that people will think that way if they are truly in the mood to grind someone down, though, right

This gets into psychology of forums a bit and it's complicated. I won't pretend to be an expert or anything. But just food for thought - I think that there's a bit more of a visceral satisfaction from downvoting a post that's silly than there is upvoting agreement with somebody voicing dissent. Maybe that's just me?

At any rate, as much as the Bartle-Achiever in me likes my rep number here and on StackOverflow and whatnot, I also would happily live without it. I think that a per post reaction metric like you see on chat and social media systems is far more useful than a "you've been liked a bunch of times" reputation score.

Arkandel

@ganymede I can't think of a better outcome than solving our social problems here with a code change, and I'll obviously install and setup any plugin we need. Upvotes, weighed downvotes, you name it.

But let's face it, although such things might help they can only take us so far.

The other thing (which you already know of course) is that although we do try to make MSB universally appealing to the community it's well understood that we can't do that. Any choice we make - or don't - will be liked by some and disliked by others, and of course we are that much more likely to hear back from the latter than the former. It's just how human beings work; there's a stronger incentive to go "ugh" than "yay".

That's why I try to not care about how popular any decision is, or on how many people support it, and focus more on how strong the arguments against or for it are. Sure, that's subjective deal but that's why we get paid the big bucks.

Ultimately cliques and dogpiling aren't solved problems either within MSB or the community it represents. This isn't a separate space with different people than those who frequent the games where we play and carry baggage from, nor can it, and perhaps it shouldn't. Posters here bring their histories with them - it's part of the forum's appeal, after all, that it gives us all a persisting identity that transcends any one game, which has its upsides and its uglier side-effects.

To go back to what you and @Auspice both pointed out... it'd be nice - as in, it'd make our task easier in the exact things we are explicitly being asked to do here by many - if once we do step in and clear our throats at someone there was an understanding that we are not trying to single anyone out.

"But Bob did it to me before!" may or not be a legitimate concern, and one we can address as well seperately, but at that time it's irrelevant. Are you doing something wrong at that time? Is the fact we had to step in and bring you back in line fair? That's what matters, because if we're just going after you to be dicks and you didn't do anything objectively wrong then that's on us, but if you're the one being a dick then it doesn't matter what Bob did to you 'before'.

Don't be a dick.

Auspice

@arkandel said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

"But Bob did it to me before!" may or not be a legitimate concern, and one we can address as well seperately, but at that time it's irrelevant. Are you doing something wrong at that time? Is the fact we had to step in and bring you back in line fair? That's what matters, because if we're just going after you to be dicks and you didn't do anything objectively wrong then that's on us, but if you're the one being a dick then it doesn't matter what Bob did to you 'before'.

There's also the fact that we're adults.

It doesn't matter if soandso did it to you before. This isn't an acceptable excuse when you're ten and it certainly isn't acceptable as an adult.

Now as to downvotes: they were disabled because they affect a person's ability to post. Someone was followed around and downvoted to such an extent that they lost their ability to post entirely. I think one person did this to another rather than a group of people, but it showcases just how it could be used to bully silently.

Some of these suggestions are good, but please remember that we are beholden to a forum suite that is in beta, has plugins that are often not carried over to the beta versions, and none of us have the time nor capacity to code new ones.

And chances are? Any plugin one of us (probably me ;)) does find is going to break as soon as the forum updates to a new version.

So we should focus on solutions that we can enact without coded crutches.

faraday

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

So we should focus on solutions that we can enact without coded crutches.

Not to be defeatist or anything, but if we rule out manual moderation, and we rule out automated tools, and we've demonstrated that policies by themselves don't help, ummmmm..... what's left?

Ganymede

@faraday said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Not to be defeatist or anything, but if we rule out manual moderation, and we rule out automated tools, and we've demonstrated that policies by themselves don't help, ummmmm..... what's left?

I don't think we've ruled out manual moderation or policy fixes.

Kanye Qwest

@auspice said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

There's also the fact that we're adults.
It doesn't matter if soandso did it to you before. This isn't an acceptable excuse when you're ten and it certainly isn't acceptable as an adult.

But "what are you, ten?" isn't a helpful response at all in the context of the discussion, which was about people feeling singled out.

Fairness is about consistency. No one is perfect, and no one can perfectly be consistent, but meeting complaints about consistency with dismissive glibness isn't the way to enable understanding.

faraday

@ganymede said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

I don't think we've ruled out manual moderation or policy fixes.

@arkandel said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

Heavy policing of every thread is simply not going to happen.

@arkandel said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

since the appearance of civility still leaves a lot of leg room to be a shithead to others, it's beyond the scope of administrating MSB.

More moderation sounded pretty ruled out to me? Maybe I'm missing something.

As for policy fixes... when the bulk of the problem is people ignoring the already-existing policy about keeping the mud in the hog pit, forgive me for not thinking that additional policy is a viable solution.

Lemon Fox

It might help to have a little sign or banner across the top of the site somewhere reminding people that there is an actual person on the other side of the screen. It's easy to forget that we're not just replying to a screen name with no feelings or an abstract representation of a character from a game we played at.

Just a small reminder somewhere. A little kindness can go a long way.

Arkandel

@lemon-fox That sounds more like a CYA thing to me. I mean... do we need a banner to remind ourselves to behave? And if we're not planning to, is a banner going to change anything?

Ganymede

@faraday said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:

More moderation sounded pretty ruled out to me? Maybe I'm missing something.

From our conversations beyond the curtain, the answer is still undecided.

Clearly, there has to be some moderation, but I think the issue is whether we are going to dip in and monitor the place with an iron fist, simply keep an eye open, as we usually do, or somewhere in between. I take Arkandel's comment to mean that we aren't going to go with the former, even if I wouldn't have a problem cracking down like ICE in El Paso.

Regarding policy, I take Arkandel's comment to mean that forcing people to be nice to one another is beyond the scope of what we'd like to do. Grumpily commenting when there's dog-piling or shit-storming isn't the same thing, in my opinion.

Wizz

"We've got moderators, but we don't want to moderate, but there's a still a problem" is the conversation that is still happening like five months after I went back to occasional lurking?

I'm not sure what you all expect. I'm still of the opinion that sometimes, you do have to come down like the fist of a vengeful god and not worry when ~~people~~ (edit: sorry, the people you are reprimanding) complain about it, that's just the nature of the role you all accepted. It's not something that can be fixed with a widget or putting "THIS IS THE SUBFORUM WHERE YOU CAN ALL BE SHITTY TO EACH OTHER" in bold across the top of the page, it's not something that can be fixed by deleting the forum's backlog, if you want to see a certain shitty attitude disappear, you have to disappear it.

IMHO.

Like, that's not a fun "job" to have, but in most forum communities and especially in this one, I just think you're going to find it's necessary.

Thenomain

What I always disliked about the downvote is its anonymity. It's why I was fired from administrating here; I told everybody that I would out any downvote list and carried through on that promise for myself which was (quasi-understandably) considered an abuse of power. (It was more complicated than this, but it's how strongly I feel about this.)

Seeing who is dog-piling on whom in this community is important. I strongly believe that negative statements need qualified, and when anonymous negativity is allowed, you end up with...well, The Internet.