OTC Thread Culture

I like the idea of only bringing up Elon Musk in the social media thread when his actions are relevant to Twitter as a site. It seems like the fairest compromise, since (IMO) a blanket ban of even mentioning him seems odd and maybe a step too far. It would keep the thread on-topic and not just become "why Elon Musk sucks: The Thread".

Edited by harryhenry on Apr 7th 2023 at 8:03:00 PM

From my understanding, that in itself is already a hard rule of how it works.

It's other factors that we're having issues with, including derails very constantly every week.

For some reason, the thread is treated a lot more like Yack Fest than an actual serious topic. Possibly due to the type of topic it is, where shitposting is what's normally done on Social Media. Or it could be a few specific people who refuse to control themselves. It's hard to say without sifting through pages(but it might be a necessity).

Hollers are kind of necessary to keep it on track as people just plain out refuse to moderate themselves. A one-off joke isn't too big of a deal, but when it goes well before 3 posts total it overtakes the topic pretty fast and everybody delves in(keeping in mind this can happen in other threads... but it almost never does either. People do a fairly good job at keeping on task with rare off-topic thumps coming out, and usually those are able to get a quick Mod Hatted post and things get fixed up well). The key difference between those threads and Social Media is the current rules and the mod hats aren't working to actually tone them down like was hoped.

The rules got heavily refined. It's pretty crisp clear. The most we've had of any other issues is not providing a source or just providing a fairly bad source(this can also include very poor descriptions. A somewhat earlier one that was strictly about Twitter was confusing and made it sound like it applied everywhere). This is still easy to fix with just a tad more work on our descriptions and making sure to always provide a source(so no "my friend said this" kind of posts either, as that's not appropriate for the thread and the forum in itself, rules).

It's a matter of how we deal with these constant off-topic derails. Maybe this won't happen again, maybe. But we have some pretty hefty evidence of a significantly high amount of off-topic posts that really need to change. Every week we're guaranteed a derail. One of my suggestions was to simply figure out the pages and bring it up to the Moderators so they can look over to kind of figure out who started the problems, though this is still a lot of work. Another is it's only really Twitter that tends to cause these, and while Musk bashing is still annoyingly going on without people refusing to act with actual decorum, we run more into a bigger problem that people want to post about any random thing he talks about, no matter if it's actually a change being enacted or not. A change in itself being thought about is a technical problem in the sense is creates a lot of panic and crazy posts. On the other hand, waiting to be sure it happens(I don't mean waiting for a news post) isn't much better, suggesting Musk cannot talked about maturely. Maybe.

Though that said, we've been getting better about handling Twitter talks, so that might be fine without doing more(as long as it doesn't derail into a bashfest overall and as long as we're making sure to properly label our information and get the exact information out), but we're still dealing with random shitposts in the thread. How do we deal with the shitposts? Hollering is getting a bit too often right now that it's a little much for the topic when since Fighteer left at least, what, maybe 30% of the pages were full of thumps?(I'm probably super off. It might be way more, but there's still 20+ pages, which is a loooooot). This isn't counting a once in a while rude one-off posts either. This is just about the off-topic nonsense we've dealt with for a while now. I'd like to brainstorm some solutions here, preferably that isn't "sifting through the topic to find every page to figure out who is the catalyst." If that's the only feasible option, it's a far bigger problem than I thought. More hollers would also help a lot.

I would also support a ban on social media links.

Using articles is preferable.

Agreed.

That's going to make it impossible to source a LOT of things.

The three goals of 'talk about ongoing and newsworthy events', 'provide sources for things you're talking about', and 'only sources that have been picked up by print media' aren't completely compatible with one another, not to mention the biases this immediately introduces in what CAN be sourced.

Edited by RainehDaze on Apr 8th 2023 at 4:12:14 PM

I guess we can make an exception for creators doing official announcements on social media if there's nothing else, but generally, social media should not be the primary source for news.

I'm going to have to once again point out exactly how reactionary and tightly-controlled the British print media is, as well as the constant attacks on trans rights here (and LGBT rights in the USA more broadly). Yes, there are LGBT publications, but that's a tiny minority and hardly able to keep up with everything that happens. 'Only link to print media sources' starts pulling in a lot of biases without actually intending to.

Then there's the secondary problem of a lot of primary sources being news shows, which may or may not provide clips, but some also have official accounts. So, that's a further reduction—now non-print journalists aren't a valid source either.

But randos on social media are definitely not journalists, hence why they are not a good source.

Also. Thanks to Twitters blue mark being purchasble by anyone. We have no clue if the person being cited is that actual person and not just a troll or disinformation account. So citing it would be worse than a media outlet where at least you know the guy who wrote it is the actual person who wrote it.

That's a bigger problem, but when the actual account hasn't changed, then it's not as if everything is automatically less trustworthy.

And I really don't think in a climate of incredible hostility to LGBT groups, going 'only full web articles in reputable sources can be used as a basis for any conversation' is a good move.

If people get their news from TV source sources they can just say that that’s where they got their information from.

I honestly think that OTC has gotten to into sourcing everything. Sure source contentions stuff or when asked, but I trust the OTC regulars to generally take them at their word when they say something has happened unless it’s very out there.

I think the point is also that we want to lessen the breathless reaction posting about social media a bit.

To a minor degree.

Our biggest issue we've had thusfar is the extreme off-topicness(something we still need to tackle).

General Social Media links is just a normal rule we've had forever, and we're making a minor exception for an official post from actual rules posts from an actual Social Media, but only cause it's the Social Media Thread too. So lots of caveats, yeah. Doesn't work anywhere else.

We haven't actually agreed to allow this exception, either(moreso still in discussion), though I think it makes sense. Not that I'd be against keeping it purely proper news outlets regardless, but I haven't seen any reason so far why the exception wouldn't work yet. Journalists don't work due to the verification problem. Nor do they count as official staff posts like Musk's would, so they have no good reason to be an exception. Too unreliable.

For those of us who don't have all the legacy blue check accounts memorised, how should we tell the difference?

And conversely, I've noticed something that happens sometimes is that someone will cite a tweet which is itself a link to a formal news article or blog post. That doesn't do anything but let Twitter collect views as an intermediary, and makes me question whether the poster actually read the article or is just summarising someone else's summary or reaction.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Apr 8th 2023 at 6:18:42 PM

Generally because the entity in question will refer to some other site (if it's an organisation or some sort of journalist) and that then links back to the twitter? It's not like the checkmark has always been the sole way of confirming something is the right page.

This has happened several times in the US Politics thread, where the person who links to the Twitter posts just copies what the Twitter writer said even though it leaves out important context from the article. Heck, one person obviously didn't read the article in the tweet because it wasn't even the actual article, it was just a screenshot of the headline.

Edited by Parable on Apr 8th 2023 at 11:12:10 AM

I prefer linking to news myself over tweets from randos.

Twitter checkmarks always being in flux is an argument for, not against, and I'd rather have less confirmed verified discussion points than more potentially unconfirmed discussion points. I could see an exception thus: if Alice Journalist works at Online Outlet but isn't bluechecked and is tweeting out a breaking scoop, an additional link to Online Outlet's staff page proving that Alice Journalist works there and her twitter is indeed the handle being linked could work as verification. Or something. The onus of informing us of the reliability of the account is on the post sharer.

Edited by Synchronicity on Apr 8th 2023 at 3:08:04 AM

I've left Twitter links leading to other sites if they came from someone like Jason Schreier and the source is a paywalled article. Schreier is a trusted figure for video game industry news, and the fact he often summarizes in the replies means there's something to point to.

Edited by Karxrida on Apr 8th 2023 at 1:08:10 AM

Regarding this argument:

"to keep people up on US 2024 elections"

Is TV Tropes a good secondary source of live news? While I don't think it's an issue if people would like to discuss current updates and links are quoted properly, I'm highlighting this point in case someone would like to comment.

Also remind me if the quotations rule was amended because the Ukraine thread had issues with doomposting.

I'm pretty sure some tropers use it as their primary source, to be honest. I'm not sure that is a good idea, we are not a news site for US politics. And it certainly isn't our job to keep people up to date on the elections.

Edited by Redmess on Jan 1st 2024 at 12:49:53 PM

I would also be concerned with doomposting becoming a problem in a hypothetical 2024 election thread. I'm not sure how feasible it would be to make it for only posting news, like poll results, or if that would also devolve into posting any article about the election regardless of reliability or relevancy.

People posting articles generally isn’t how we’ve gotten doomposting, that’s come from either posters own anxieties or from people reading unsubstantiated claims on social media.

Oh yes I know, that's why I was wondering if it would be feasible to restrict posting to reputable articles only, rather than discussion or sharing any article/twitter post people come across.

We've been trying to get people to stop using twitter links as direct sources for a while, especially as it keeps getting more locked down. I don't think it's been entirely effective.