Wiki and Forum Policy - General Discussion

Depends on what "unflattering" means. There is bannable ranting and non-bannable ranting. And unless you have a record of misconduct we probably aren't reading your private messages so we won't notice.

The only people I know were banned for hollering were spammers or very very obviously hollering in bad faith. Falsely hollering a mod only gets your holler ignored. My previous post is the explanation why the banning threshold for bad hollers is much higher than for bad private messages.

What exactly is the difference between 'bannable" and "non-bannable" ranting here? I'm asking for genuine clarity, because this seems extremely unclear.

And assurances "we won't read your D Ms" when there's still an underlying message of "but we could and you could be banned for stuff in there" isn't very reassuring. Like, will they only be read if there's a holler? if there's a suspicion of coordination? If someone is thumped elsewhere?

Telling us "you can be banned for insulting the mods via PM." There seems to be no specificity here beyond "bitching" which is both subjective and extremely broad.

Echoing the above concerns, as well as just wanting to say...It still gives off the impression of "if you cross or disrespect the mods in any way, we can suspend you from the entire wiki until you publicly show yourself pleading forgiveness." Folks can be forgiven for fearing that exposing themselves as having dissatisfaction with those same mods to their faces with hollers won't result in similar or worse if the mods will wiki ban them for expressing dissatisfaction in private.

The differential I would draw is explaining/venting compared to actively pushing a narrative/hate campaign.

So if somebody P Med another user to explain “Yeah Silas gets very weird about X subject, he’s actually said J on it before”, or even “that bloody rabbit has gone and said something dumb on Y again” I don’t see what the issue is. I’ve actually sent P Ms that boil down to “Yes I know E is being dumb about O topic, but don’t respond or you’ll start a fight, just walk away as I’ve already sent a holler”.

The issue would come about if there was some kind of constipated action in the sense of ”let’s holler all of Silas’ posts to try and get him banned” or smear campaign like “yeah Silas is secretly a reindeer serial killer and changes his avatar like that when out hunting”, then I’d expect mods to step in. But not before then.

Edited by Silasw on Dec 21st 2022 at 10:28:55 AM

Yeah, this all seems pretty vaguely defined and beyond seeing it's been actioned in the past we non-mods are pretty in the dark here.

Yeah, like...people are going to complain about authority. That's just something that happens. Telling us there is the possibility that can result in consequences without strict definition of where the line is? That's not really breeding trust as a community when we're discussing the potential for retaliation

I’m hoping that Septimus was just being inelegant with their wording, as what they’ve laid out doesn’t even line up with how I have seen P Ms policed.

Like in the example where I know a person got a ban for calling a mod a pedo in P Ms, I called multiple mods dumb in that exact conversation and faced no action for it.

Given the example cited by Ravok? The largest offense was "bitching about the mods behind their backs" and "how would you like it if someone called you dumb in a private channel?"

I don't know about the pedo thing, but....the above, coupled with the comments here? Concerning. Especially when the reassurance is "Well, we probably won't see it anyways"

Edited by Lightysnake on Dec 21st 2022 at 2:33:03 AM

It's partly because I am posting this from a phone and it's late in the evening. Posting style becomes less good then.

Yeah I’m in a pretty special position to give the benefit of the doubt here, because I’ve bitched about the mods in P Ms that I know they’ve read, so I’m comfortable with the idea that they’re okay with such comments to a reasonable extent.

All of this, intentionally or not? Gives off the energy of "be afraid the mods will wiki ban you for any move you make against them, because they can and will", and it further explains the inherent issue with someone like Fighteer getting to run rampant while others cower in fear that he'll find out they have an issue with him and suspend them. I know I, as a longtime user, was certainly shocked and made a mental note of "watch out, the mods will get you" when I saw, as recent as two months ago, they suspended someone for vague "bitching" and mocked them in public about it when the user came to EB genuinely confused about what line they crossed. Even if the suspension was valid—which I have yet to see proof of—the attitude taken was not appropriate at all IMO, and very much a furthering of the "mods can do what they want and we have to be quiet about it" mindset that myself and others have had for years.

Edited by Ravok on Dec 21st 2022 at 2:39:30 AM

This may not necessarily be everyone else's experience, but as far as I know, the moderation has only went out of their way to read my inbox when I specifically request it.

That said, when I made a post in this very thread directed at a different mod, about a botched launch where I had specifically advised the user against using the TLP due to an editing suspenion, requesting an investigation of the messages in question, Fighteer, who handled the case, ended up reading those PMs.

I will acknowledge that his response to said troper may have been blunt and harsh, but to be fair, I was admittedly very irate myself that this other user did not heed my advice.

Then again, I understand the position that Moderation may need to be more tactful.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Dec 21st 2022 at 6:01:44 AM

I think it would help if there were clear rules of conduct for the moderators in place for handling things like P Ms, which are inherently out of sight of tropers, and for there to be some admin oversight.

But then, the admins are rather hands-off on this website. Are they even aware of disputes like this one happening?

I'm not sure if I have much to say that hadn't already been said by others here, but I would like to bring in a little anecdote. Back when both me and Fighteer were still attending the Hearthstone thread, we would now and then discuss about what is and isn't healthy for the game. To not go too much into specifics, I noticed that if Fighteer had an opinion, he would swear by it most of the time. Whatever discourse was had, it generally didn't go anywhere - it would inevitably repeat with the same arguments used the next time.

Now, that's obviously much more low-key compared to some of the other examples used here, but I observed a similar trend in the Social Media thread on OTC; back when it was first established (huh, Fighteer himself set it up only in April this year), Musk still had a relatively benign reputation of an eccentric asshole with an annoyingly large and vocal fanbase - but also someone whose genius contributed to the world at large. As it became increasingly more obvious that's not the case (especially in case of the Twitter buyout), Fighteer would either try to pretend the discussion was going off-topic by mentioning Musk and his industries or stick to his guns and remain the thread's most vocal supporter of Musk's.

It took him a while to actually swear off Musk, and by that time the musky rat was already rubbing shoulders with Nazis and going on about Woke Left - and even then he would still defend Tesla and other technology Musk helped develop (except apparently he didn't even do that either, but that's neither here nor there), like that was a defense of becoming the Right's top billing supporter.

Yeah uh, if I'm venting to a friend that I think a poster (who happens to be a mod) is crossing a serious line with their behavior and asking what I can say to make it stop, that doesn't exactly inspire faith in me that said mod won't dig through my P Ms and punish me for it since technically that too would constitute "bitching about the mods behind their backs". In fact, there have been many such posts where Fighteer was being incredibly abusive that I haven't said a wink to anyone about because, knowing that the mods can do such things, the possibility of him digging through my P Ms for dirt is greater than zero.

I've being very open about my thoughts on the matter to make it clear. Several other posters in this thread can back me up that any harsh P Ms I might've made about any members of the moderation in the past don't look any different from what I've been saying here. So for the record, if I ever end up getting banned from the forums for trashing a mod, you guys will know exactly why and you can judge for yourselves whether what I said warranted it or not.

So yes, for the purposes of transparency and good-faith engagement with the community, I would very much like a clear and delineated guideline from the moderators as to what does and doesn't constitute bannable statements about the moderators behind their backs. Obviously calling one of them something as horrific as a pedophile on weak grounding other than "I don't like their arguments" is crossing a massive line, especially when said poster had a history of being abusive in their own right^note IIRC they used to argue aggressively that we should let all US southerners die if their states keep electing Republicans, ignoring that elections are skewed by massive voter suppression. But that's such an extreme example that it doesn't really clarify the boundaries any. And if your guidelines do include things like "no negative posts about the mods under any circumstances, even in private", then at least be honest about it so people can know ahead of time.

Edited by AlleyOop on Dec 21st 2022 at 6:43:29 AM

Not rejoining, but I want to clarify I gave a very poor definition(moreso I forgot a word) when I spoke of the dogpiling issue I had. The definition I read was saying that "a bunch of people criticizing someone or something", so it doesn't refer just strictly to a person. I was on mobile and with my poor memory I legit said that wrong. Either way, apologies for the misinformation on that regard.

(For the record, I do agree there is an issue with his behavior, but I still have never felt the moderation actually shield him so much as what was noted, that the attitude displayed makes it so he's unintentionally shielded because people are afraid to holler. Which is a completely different issue and very clearly one, yeah).

That's all I want to say on it, though. Again, I don't feel comfortable actually rejoining at this point.

Private messages should be just that. Private, it's in the name. The only exceptions should be when the recipient is being abused and harassed.

Talking shit behind someone's back isn't nice but it's not actionable either.

In my opinion, it shouldn't be. But it apparently is.

Agreed. I haven't used PMs for anything but very basic messages, but I'd prefer just not having them if it makes the site easier to run.

I do feel that the Mods have to make it clear where the line is on the matter. It's another thing that has come up in this thread where the concept isn't unsound (if someone does something ban worthy over DMs then the mods do need to be able to step in and do something about it), but so far we've gotten "we don't normally do this, but there is a line that we will ban you if you cross it, but there's no definition of what that line is, but by the way if you bad talk us in private that's bad."

This isn't pointing fingers, the active mods here are busy and talking via mobile, but for the health of the forum it does have to be spelled out what behavior is on the safe side of that rule so people don't think mods can just ban you for venting about them privately. Not that I think they would, but we're already in a situation where people have the impression that a moderator is getting preferential treatment and it'd be good to have the policy cleared up.

True enough, and I did mention the mods were busy and talking via mobile to reference it, but I should have been more clear on that point.

Edited by Shaoken on Dec 21st 2022 at 10:37:38 PM

I should point out that just a bit up Septimus seemed to admit that they’d been communicating their point poorly and that they need to sleep (if their location is accurate it’s past midnight for them), so we may well get a response some time tomorrow and not need to emphasise the point right now.

Edited by Silasw on Dec 21st 2022 at 11:32:03 AM

Right. We haven't had a concrete response on the Fighteer issue, either, which I would attribute to mods being busy with, well, life. We'll just have to be patient, I suppose.

I also think the policy should be made clear as to what circumstances mods are allowed to view our D Ms, so as to clear up any potential fears that a particularly vindictive mod, either now or in the future, will have the capacity to essentially wiretap all our messages for criticisms against them.

Perhaps the rules can have it so that the moderators require explicit permission or requests from posters before they can view D Ms, or if they feel the need to investigate messages from potentially harmful people who are unwilling to say yes, they can get the forum equivalent of a search warrant to look through them.

Also, this is from several pages ago, but since I just finished reading through this whole ordeal properly, I just had to comment:

On the subject of Musk more specifically, I can definitely say that I held no strong opinion and knew little about the man before I saw Fighteer start getting into arguments with people over him, and I can definitely say his defensive attitude towards him is something that soured me on the guy just by itself, and that was before I started learning more about the man himself in detail.

So I think Alley Oop is definitely right in saying Fighteer's own behavior about the subject has contributed to precisely the situation that he describes, that a lot of people on the forums really don't like Musk. And I don't think it's unreasonable that they resent the fact that he often seems impossible to discuss honestly without having someone go "yes but have you considered the fact he's a futurist genius who's gonna colonize Mars?", and that someone being a person they can't realistically do anything about simply because they're a moderator. I apologize if that seems unfair or like a strawman but I do think it's a situation that many users on the forums find genuinely frustrating.

And on a purely personal level, I also have to agree with iaculus that complaining about the left hating Musk when he's turning twitter into a playground for far-right douchebags who make minorities feel unsafe is in pretty poor taste.

But honestly Alley Oop is right that this is a deeper issue that goes back to how Fighteer just gets very unreasonable and insists on doubling down on particular subjects, it's just this one is more serious than his opinions about Sylvana in Wo W or whatever.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Dec 21st 2022 at 8:46:13 AM

Again, I'm not trying to whitewash Fighteer. I'm just stating that as far as I KNOW, nobody's been surveying my messages without MY permission.

If mods HAVE been snooping on others without anyone requesting it? That's a serious breach of trust.

I'm just not aware of anyone snooping through MY messages unsanctioned.

Especially when Musk allows Putin and Khameini to go unchecked on Twitter.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Dec 21st 2022 at 6:42:11 AM