On Alerting Tropers to ATT Discussions

This has been a hot-button topic for a little while now and I think it's high-time we finally have an actual discussion about it; the topic being, should we default to summoning tropers to ATT discussions about them?

I for one think that in a lot of cases, doing so can be extremely harmful. Plenty of ATT discussions derailed into toxicity and a public meltdown because the person who was summoned couldn't handle the public criticism or felt personally attacked. I feel that while it's good to send notifiers and summon tropers if it's just a simple matter of disagreement (like an Edit War), it shouldn't be the default because, well, simply put, not every discussion is one that necessitates inviting the troper being discussed.

But this is just my take. I don't think it's a bad thing in every case and we really should be going case-by-case, but we have to be careful and we shouldn't just default to "let's summon them" unless the discussion actually needs them to be present.

If they have a meltdown because someone is talking about them then they probably aren't a good fit for the wiki,just saying

Well, yeah, it's definitely a sign of serious instability. But we also want to avoid public ATT meltdowns where people can respond and unwillingly keep the fire going.

On the contrary, having public AT Ts without summoning the person feels like trash-talking them behind their back. I think part of the reason people melt down is when they're summoned late in the process they see what's already a long thread criticizing them without them being given the chance to share their side of the story. That's certainly how I would feel if I was in that situation.

Plus, from reading edit banned the most common complaint is "why am I suspended without anybody warning me first", and a lot of people who do edit wars don't know they're supposed to discuss things in ATT. I feel like always summoning people to ATT right away would help with those issues and is the better way to go.

In a lot of cases, the person has been warned before. Off the top of my head, three tropers who had public meltdowns were repeatedly told, before the ATT report, about their behavior. At least one of them was a ban evader who was already informed of the problem while on their original account.

Then you get issues that are just things like people not using correct grammar or formatting, and those things are very often addressed over notifiers, which again, is a warning.

So it's honestly pretty rare for these tropers to not have been warned before. A lot of time, the response in Edit Banned is that they were warned through notifiers or thumps, and I think that's also the case with ATT reports.

A lot of them are also not intended to be full-on discussions about their behavior. I know that when I make a report it's because I have tried to warn the person, I have tried to settle things elsewhere, and I'm at the end of my rope and so I make the report, in part, to get mod attention- not to have a full gossip session. I don't do it to argue with or about the troper in question, I do it to resolve the issue I couldn't resolve through other means, and very rarely are these issues things that get resolved through ATT discussion if they couldn't get resolved through direct contact.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jun 15th 2021 at 5:18:18 AM

Me, I worry that inviting tropers like that will turn Ask The Tropers threads into fights between the reporting troper and the reported troper. And the "talking behind backs" thing has never been considered a problem, I think.

I'd like treat it like a private report,ergo the people who can chiefly see it are the reporters and the mods,but thats it harder to enlist other tropers to mend whatever damage they've done

I'd like to able to restrict troper reports so the troper can't see them somehow but other people besides mods can

Also, I agree that a lot of times people did get warnings and disregarded them. Sometimes the issue is something that warnings don't help with (grammar issues, mainly), too.

In short, I think the advantages of of notifying people do not outweigh the disadvantages.

I see it as advantageous to have a venue where we can discuss problematic editing before moderators have to step in. A user who is causing problems may not be aware of what they are doing, and making them aware is a necessary first step that doesn't have to occur in the Edit Banned thread. Optimistically, we've failed if it gets that far.

However, this conflicts slightly with the use of ATT for reporting problems to moderation, since users "summoned" to such threads may feel that they are being ganged up on or gossiped about. I would like to cut down on the popcorning and backseat modding that occurs in ATT, but not at the expense of the ability to work out editing problems before mod involvement is needed.

Consider the various venues for handling problems:

• Report Page. This functionality sends a Holler directly from a wiki article. It's the fastest way to call moderator attention to something and should be used if there is an urgent problem or blatant rules violation.
• Edit reasons. These can serve as a quick reminder but are not a feasible venue for conversation. They can and should direct conversation to a Discussion, ATT, or forum thread if needed.
• Notifiers / PMs. These should be used if edit reasons are insufficient and/or as canned responses when something is being done incorrectly. The user may or may not choose to engage with them. If not, escalation is needed.
• Discussion pages. These can serve as a venue for short conversations between users, but because of their relative obscurity are not good for engaging the community. Hollers can be sent from Discussions.
• Ask The Tropers. This seems to have become the de facto chatroom for wiki regulars, but has disadvantages. There's no automatic paging feature, no notification/watchlist system, and no direct way to report a post or thread to the moderators.
• Forums. Opening a new forum thread to discuss problems with specific users/articles is discouraged because of clutter. We direct those to ATT. However, articles that are under specific or general repair/cleanup actions should be discussed in those threads, and users running afoul of such efforts should be directed there.

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 16th 2021 at 8:17:11 AM

I'd like to amend that the report page function should only be used if a problem has to be reported confidentially (e.g a sockpuppeteer with a habit of going to ATT). For I see the fact that folks know how reports are handled and what we issue suspensions for as a big advantage of Ask The Tropers over the private or more off-the-beaten-path venues.

Your point reminds me of another point a mod (I believe you, actually) raised in the past—ATT allows for users to essentially do the investigative work for the mods, reporting other areas where problematic tropers have created problems and thereby highlighting more issues with said tropers. I obviously can't speak for you, but I can imagine that's a plus.

On the other hand, I am aware of at least two cases where reported tropers starting issuing suicide threats to the other tropers in ATT threads, which I think is at least something to consider.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Jun 16th 2021 at 2:59:18 PM

It certainly helps draw out people who are not healthy or stable enough to participate here. To me that's mostly a plus.

We should not succumb to those plays for sympathy/guilt or feel responsible when they happen. TV Tropes is intended for people who are capable of being responsible for their well-being or are under responsible supervision.

Edited by Fighteer on Jun 16th 2021 at 4:48:39 AM

Nobody is saying we should give into them, however if they meltdown I'd rather they do it somewhere mods can thump them. A lot of these meltdowns occur when no mods are online, allowing things to get out of control while ordinary tropers try in vain to put out the flames.

I wasn't aware this thread existed, and hopefully I'm not necroing this after some inactivity but... I was redirected here by Warjay after they plugged the link in an ATT report.

Honestly, I don't like the idea of summoning problem tropers to ATT to negotiate the issues for the most part. I can understand if issues arise from either ignorance or misunderstandings where said tropers don't really have any malicious intent behind their edits, but where my issue stems from this has to do with THESE types of tropers below:

• Single-Issue Wonk Tropers: They are rarely cooperative and reasonable, and if anything, inviting them to ATT will either result in denial or passive-aggressive arguing trying to justify their agendas.
• Suspected Ban Evaders: This is a case where trying to summon them to ATT is a lost cause entirely, because what else are they going to say other than deny that they are ban evading? This is the type of thing that should be left alone for the mods to handle, since confirmed ban evasion = automatic bounce and reverted edits.
• Tropers who willingly engage in Edit Wars with little-to-no regard for the rules: Like with Single-Issue Wonk Tropers above, they are rarely cooperative and trying to get them to realize that they're engaging in Edit Wars (especially if they have some sort of agenda behind it) rarely pans out well.
• Political Activists and Extremists: This one is pretty much self-explanatory but, I don't feel really comfortable trying to negotiate with tropers who do politically-charged edits of any kind, especially if they trap themselves in their own echo chambers unwilling to listen to anyone. I feel immediate mod intervention is needed in these cases.
• Trolls: Do I really need to explain this one?

I agree with that assessment.

couldn't have said it better myself.

it is good that we can assist the mods, but we should not try to take their duties upon ourselves.

I'm more of an opinion that everyone should be heard out, but we don't have to wait for the explanation if there's a blatant rule violation. Unless they're vandalizing, there's no way of knowing what's been going on in their head, the problem page may indeed warrant a discussion in a future thread.

Most offenders reported seem to just either not know the rules or justifying their edit in the wrong place. If anything, I think people feel discouraged to talk issues out in PM and consider Edit War a comment-mode of sorts.

If they Can't Take Criticism or start lashing out, that's the only harm they can do and it would just make their talk in the EB thread faster, but if they respond to ATT, it's a win if they can revert their edits themselves then reread the rules before appealing.

It may be worthy to have a "reporting guidelines" of sorts.

Edited by Amonimus on Oct 30th 2021 at 10:43:38 PM

Basically, the higher risk there is of a flame-out, the less helpful it is to ping the person. Sometimes I even feel the need to specifically request people don't alert the tropers I'm talking about just because I'm afraid of that sort of reaction.

On that note, I also typically get annoyed whenever I've sent someone multiple notifiers and the reaction is still "should we ping them?". Like, if they didn't listen to my PM, what's the point of talking on ATT? And since I almost never make an ATT report without having warned the person beforehand, I pretty much expect other people to do the same thing. Alerts only seem useful if the person legitimately wasn't warned before AND isn't so likely to just explode.

Edit: This exactly why posts like make me tip my head a little. As established in the earlier posts, most people who get ATT reports made about them have been warned before. At a certain point, the time for diplomacy has passed.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 30th 2021 at 3:43:24 PM

But there's no way of knowing if the troper has been notified unless the person who sent the notifier says so right away. If they were and they've ignored the message, sure, there's no need to talk to them further.

Edited by Amonimus on Oct 30th 2021 at 10:45:52 PM

For the record, I always make it clear if I've notified the troper in some way beforehand. That's why it always frustrates me whenever people insist on pinging the person anyway. The tropers I've reported have caused some of the biggest meltdowns just because I pointed out they were being rude or uncooperative, so I have some big reasons to not support calling people over. I don't believe you were around to see those meltdowns so I don't blame you for not really thinking about them, but they were horrible. I feel like I need to go out of my way to avoid seeing people explode on ATT, and it worries me to no end when other people don't seem to understand the issue with it.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 30th 2021 at 3:49:50 PM

Offering my two cents from what I've seen on the ATT threads. One of the more troubling issues I've noticed is that there are some tropers who adopt an attitude of "We should summon the offender to this thread so they may answer for their behavior." It's rather haughty and arrogant, and not conducive to an actual conversation.

Ideally we should be trying to solve issues with notifiers and PMs before an ATT report becomes necessary. If they don't listen, then summoning them to an ATT thread isn't really going to solve anything.

If there was a note on the top of ATT page to not report tropers with a single non-violating problem and talk it out with them in private, and to show the full history of actions taken when making a reporting query, would that help?

Honestly, I get notifiers for things I didn't actually do (rather, things I simply failed to correct because my attentions were focused on a different issue). As such, I have a hard time believing that it's in any way common for users who've repeatedly broken rules to never got notified.

If they don't actually read said notifiers, that's on them.

Honestly, I don't think there's much merit in summoning someone to ATT unless you could reasonably expect doing so will actually accomplish something. In most cases of deliberate or repeat offenders, it never does.

Speaking of notifiers, there's an ongoing discussion on what could be done with those as well.

The point I'm making is about the first-time offenders, as people keep reporting them but indeed made no contact with them at all, sometimes revealing they've joined the Edit War themselves. If someone's reported edit history shows the systematic problem, in many cases (not all of them) it's clear they don't have good intentions.

Well, yeah. I'm generally opposed to reporting first-time offenders myself. An Edit War or something is one thing because that's usually an automatic suspension and usually the issue can be talked out afterward. But unless these things become a pattern of behavior, there's no point in starting a fuss about it.

On that note, some people seem not to even realize that ATT reports are made to get mod attention, and not to chat about people's behaviors. I've lost count of how many people suggested that the writer of an ATT report "take it to the mods". That's one of the reasons it irks me when people want to summon tropers over; because if it's bad enough where you need to report them to the mods, what's a ping gonna accomplish that mod tap won't? And since ATT isn't a controlled enough environment, when things go out of control they really go out of control. There's a reason Edit Banned has such strict rules and a limit as to who can post there.

Lately I get nervous just reporting tropers, because every time I'm worried that I'll cause a controversy somehow. It's happened way too often for my liking. I shouldn't need to get anxious every time I say "Hey, this troper's causing issues". I shouldn't have to ask people not to drag out the discussion and call tropers over and turn it into a bigger issue. I shouldn't have to be stuck between the options of "make it private" or "risk a meltdown".

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 30th 2021 at 4:44:43 AM