Cracking down on racism?

There's one quote that kinda disturbs me.

'The first result is STORMFRONT.ORG. And David Duke's website. (name removed) is literally expressing agreement with the KKK. And one of the only moderator actions in the thread is telling people to stop ganging up on him.'

Soo... What is the current policy on racism, sexism, and other stupid shit? Is this something your authorised to say?

The amount of it i've seen, and the fact that people seldom call them out on it is bugging me. *thumped for switching the topic to a person* Racism and related things are bad, period. Yet the few mod actions I seem to see are *thumped* *thumped* *thumped* *another thump* *thumped* ect.

I suggest you mods make the current policy stricter. Or if there isn't one I suggest making one so that it's not 'mod A thumps post, never tells other mods so when another racist post is made, mods simply thump again and again'.

Or something. Brainstorming might be useful here.

Also, please don't zap this thread on sight.

edited 16th Oct '11 11:43:16 AM by kyfhv

Please see the rest of my post. The policy doesn't seem to be enforced very well, or at least very inconsistently.

edited 16th Oct '11 12:07:45 PM by kyfhv

What are you referring to in your first post? There is a quotation there and I have no freaking idea where it is from or why it is relevant. The conversation starts in the middle.

Thank you for you constructive criticism on the work that the moderators do and how well we do it.

The quote is from a zapped thread in OTC, I think. Someone else may remember it.

The quote was from what I believe was moderator misjudgement. I belive it's relevant.

edited 16th Oct '11 12:17:02 PM by kyfhv

OK, so this is a quotation from a zapped thread of someone else's interpretation of moderator action.

SO to put this another way:

A says that the moderators did this, but there is no way to verify whether or not this accurate because the thread the original statement was in is now gone, but someone else may remember it.

It was an example of what I think was misjudgement. Regardless, it just shows that the current reactions to racist posts are not as good as they could be. I believe it could use work. Something beyond endless post thumpings, and never calling people out on racism, fear of thumping.

If there is no guidline on how to deal with racist posts, I think one should be created. This would hopefully stop a daleema: Poster A being racist, getting post thumped, however, a different moderator doesn't know the poster is racist in the past, so just thumps again, and again, never getting banned.

SA. Please don't hijack the thread though, I intentionally said I didn't know where the quote was from, fear of thread zapping.

edited 16th Oct '11 12:27:10 PM by kyfhv

If you don't know the source of the quote where did you get it from?

I don't think any one is trying to hijack the thread. However, when you start a discussion with a quotation that you are using to support your position and NO ONE ELSE has access to the source material it is really hard to find context.

Short version, you don't think the mods are doing a good enough job dealing with racism in the threads and you think you have a better idea.

What i'm thinking is someone creating a guideline, or even a policy on how to deal with racist posts. I believe the current very lax, inconstistent policy of dealing with them is very bad. Posts are thumped endlessly, but the racism never stops.

My suggestion for a policy or guideline? Well, one of the first things that come to mind are, obviously, temp banning. Maybe something like thump on first offence, temp ban of second offence, would work. In short, I believe the reactions to racist posts should be harsher, with greater penalties, maybe even with less warnings.

But i'm only one person, and not even a mod. Brainstorming and suggestions from tropers and mods alike would be helpful right now.

Do you personally think my suggestion is an impovement? What about other peoples suggestions, if any are made?

edited 16th Oct '11 12:51:41 PM by kyfhv

To tell the truth, I only got involved in this conversation because I was irritated by the sloppiness of the original post.

This is the third thread started by the same person asking for increased moderator presence or more temp bans on threads, each time there is a slightly different approach, but always with the same intent. On one of the threads, this person has gone through and edited out all of their posts. I am not going to participate in this discussion any more.

I thought not being racist was one of those unspoken rules that only an idiot wouldn't realize. Racism is just another form of bad behaviour, I don't think it needs to get any special treatment over how vandalism and dick-ery is handled.

If moderators aren't properly getting informed of something when another mod thumps something, that's a problem with the system as a whole not limited to racism.

As Meta Four said in post #2 being racist falls under "Don't be a dick". And from what I've seen racism is usually taken care of as long as it's reported. So if you want to crack down of racism start by reporting it when you see it.

I'm just thinking that if racism is dealt with more harshly than now, rather than simply thumping posts, there will be less of it. If you know that your gonna get penalized for being racist, rather than just getting a post thumped, i'm thinking that people would exersise caution before posting.

Sure thing.

Regarding the post blanking, I was kinda embaressed when I realized that there were a billion things that had priority over that, and that the system already worked in the first place. In other words, I was an idiot, sorry.

Making 3 similar threads was a mistake, but reading though the SA thread, people seem to be saying that 'moderators need to actually moderate'. First I suggested that more mods would be a solution to the constant stream of crap. Now i'm obviously suggesting a harder line is simply taken on rule breaking, specifically racism, based on the goons comments. But whatever, that's a different topic.

edited 16th Oct '11 1:52:44 PM by kyfhv

Now I don't like racism either but I think the system we have works well enough. I don't know if the mods comment on people they thump for racism but I think it's possible that they don't and if a person is thumped by different mods every time it might take a while before they realize that it's a consistent pattern, but as I said I have no idea of what happens behind the scenes.

I would be wary of basing thing on a thread with the purpose of digging up the worst possible things, since a lot of what they post is not representative of the whole. I'm not going to make a comparison between SA and TV Tropes but at least here you don't need to pay extra for the mderation report function.

Well, this is where we disagree. I don't like the status quo and believe in harsher penalties. You obviously like the current system. Right now though, only 4 people have voiced there opinion on this.

I'm just trying to think of some way to get rid of the worst stuff on the site. More mods, stricter policys, something. Racism is one of the worst things on the site. I think it exists too much. The status quo works, but I think it could be improved. I think eliminating it as much as possible would positively benefit the site and the sites image. Thats about it, really. The basic reason for cracking down would be to improve the site.

I don't know, I'm obviously the only one advocating for change, but I just don't see how allowing it to exist as much as it does now is a good idea.

edited 16th Oct '11 3:42:29 PM by kyfhv

You haven't proven a need to change the system. "Getting tough on crime" for its own sake can only end badly.

I don't see huge amounts of racism here. I see occasional real racism, for which a troper was in fact recently banned. I see more frequent cluelessness and speaking-without-thinking on the topic, which if it's brought to mod attention tends to get swift action (generally the post will be blanked and the perpetrator warned).

We tend to run a system of quiet moderation here, by which I mean that we don't make a point of "naming and shaming". We don't leave offensive posts up so that people know what went on. We don't keep a public log of warnings, suspensions or bannings. This has its good and bad sides. Sometimes people think we're OK with something just because they never see it publicly slapped down.

Do we need to have our policy against racism more explicit and obvious? I'm not sure.

I think that it should simply be dealt with more harshly. Something like one warning, than a tempban, or something. On some forums racism is often tempbanned on first offence.

I did notice there is nothing against racism in the rules, other than 'don't be a dick'. Perhaps adding a clause would discourage it.

Regarding 'quiet moderation', I don't have much of an opinion on that, but a goon did say:

When you get called out, you tend to react and not do it again, assuming your not a troll. For example, blackcat right above. But this might be simply differences in moderation, not something important. I don't really have an opinion on the matter.

We ban those people. And as for "shut-in", one of these things is not like the others.

Everything has to be approached on its own terms. Moderaters can't always read the context of an entire thread and thus don't always know if it is trollish kind of behavior, joking around or sarcasm. If something is reported to the mods it usually is the trollish kind, but saying "zap it quickly and teach everyone a lesson" is not going to fix it.

^^ Yeah, well, your goon is not really trying to help us. He's justifying his being a dick.

We do have a rule about not importing drama. Please don't share any more crap from that source. We're not interested.

edited 16th Oct '11 5:21:01 PM by FastEddie

We rely on problem posts and edits being reported to us. We don't actively police the wiki. Further, we are not going to become harsher, more active, or otherwise modify our moderation policy because someone got their knickers in a twist over it.

Grow up a bit and help us by working with the tools that are provided to you, rather than making wild posts DEMANDING ACTION without saying anything useful or constructive. Hell, even a link to a post or article that you found offensive would help.

Also, SA can go stuff a sock in it. We are not going to answer to people who can't be bothered to do anything other than snipe at us from offstage.

edited 16th Oct '11 5:20:11 PM by Fighteer

I do see racism sometimes in OTC, but as the recent fiasco showed, sometimes you get smacked for "dogpiling" so I'm rather hesitant to start sending hollers if even disagreeing with someone can get me thumped.

Perhaps this is more of a technical issue then a moderation one. Is there a system that keeps track of who gets thumped and for what? If someone gets smacked down and it's marked "racism" in some folder that the mods have access to and those start to pile up, it's easier then a post-by-post basis, right?

The mods do have a tracking system for thumps.

Reporting a post you find questionable won';t get you smacked for "dogpiling" Dogpiling happens within the thread, when a number of posters all start turning their posts from what someone said/believes to how bad (s)he is for saying/believing it.

We are not going to change our moderation policy to satisfy some SA goon. Or even a bunch of SA goons. Their purpose is to pick and complain. Even if we were inclined to allow some other site to set our moderation policies (which would be stupid), we could never satisfy SA, because they would simply find something else to pick at.

We do not google every thing someone says in the possibility that they might be quoting from an offensive website. Even if we wanted to, there aren't enough hours in the day.

edited 16th Oct '11 9:48:33 PM by Madrugada