Non-glee policy?

ParkRunner

Hi,

Just a brief suggestion. Im sure everyone has noticed the countless public v private sector threads that have been created over the last few months which all usually descend into the same points being rehashed over and over again.

As we are moving towards the business end of things with the budget coming up could I suggest that discussions on the inevitable cuts that occur have a strict non-glee policy as a lot of people will be facing enough problems trying to meet bills and keep their heads above the water, without the personal attacks that regularly occur in these threads.

The threads are generally well moderated in fairness but personally I believe there are too many threads on very similar topics which all develop along the same lines and fail to achieve anything constructive, and usually include at times hostile personal comments against individuals or professions.

Regards,

EF

BuffyBot

How do we police "glee"?

ParkRunner

http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1047

Here is an example of the policy in the property pin anyway. Something akin to common deceny when discussing the severe current economic situation.

BuffyBot

I think people would differ on the definition of the term "common decency".

The problem here is that your asking of specifics in a very non-specific environment. One persons hostile comment is anothers robust debate. The mods strike a balance (the best they can) but each thread is an individual, living entity no matter how similar they look. Every post is part of a bigger context, a larger network of interactions which is competely different to a thread on the same subject 6 months or 6 weeks before.

The best guidelines have to be general enough to be have flexible interpretations and applications - hence you can enforce a "common decency" type rule because there is no accepted definition of common decency. Likewise glee.

ParkRunner

I take your point about the vagueness of common decency but I think the reasonable man (or woman) will easily be able to tell the difference between a hostile comment and robust debate. Take a look at the Irish economy forum in the next week and plenty of examples will jump out.

Just thought I'd put it out there anyway in the interests of having fair, constructive debates. Ill leave it at that anyway, ive said my bit.

Rev. BlueJeans

I guess if it crosses the bounds of trolling/decency/personal abuse (in the context of one to one discussion on a thread), then the usual report the post mantra should apply.

The lads on the forums in question seem to be keeping things on an even keel there, happily without too much patronising and sarcasm, as seemed to be the case before, to this humble reader.

nesf

If it crosses into personal abuse it'll be dealt with accordingly. Honestly this is a very difficult issue for moderators. Some are so completely anti-public sector that they'd be crowing with delight if we fired everyone. There's not a whole lot we can do with this, it's an opinion, one I disagree with fundamentally but an opinion that's valid and not an incitement to hatred or abuse of a group.

Should we ban people for crowing with delight if the Green party gets wiped out next election? Should we ban people for thinking that pensioners shouldn't be spared if we're going to cut the Dole? These are value judgements and I'd lean on the side of being lenient with regard to them where possible. Diversity of opinion is a good thing!

That said if anyone is stupid enough to tell an individual poster that they were a lazy bastard and deserved to lose their job where that poster had recently been left go will get cautioned/infracted/banned.

AckwelFoley

BuffyBot wrote: »

I think people would differ on the definition of the term "common decency".

The problem here is that your asking of specifics in a very non-specific environment. One persons hostile comment is anothers robust debate. The mods strike a balance (the best they can) but each thread is an individual, living entity no matter how similar they look. Every post is part of a bigger context, a larger network of interactions which is competely different to a thread on the same subject 6 months or 6 weeks before.

The best guidelines have to be general enough to be have flexible interpretations and applications - hence you can enforce a "common decency" type rule because there is no accepted definition of common decency. Likewise glee.

I think common decency is already defined within the parameters of the rules.

No trolling, no personal abuse...

arybvtcw0eolkf

nesf wrote: »

That said if anyone is stupid enough to tell an individual poster that they were a lazy bastard and deserved to lose their job where that poster had recently been left go will get cautioned/infracted/banned.

What about a situation whereby someone refer's to a whole group of people as "bastards", I'm thinking Darkman2's recent infraction/warning (can't remember which tbh) in AH a few weeks back.

Personally I take that as personal abuse, I've given 26 years service to this country. Most of those 26 yrs I was considered the underdog and not having a ''proper job'' because I was in the defence force's. But now that the country has been turned on its head am I expected to read the various threads re. the public sector and accept this crap?.

parsi

I agree.

The Irish economy forum is becoming an outpost of d'indo.

on this forum there is a guy jimmmy who had bee banned a few times for his almost obsessive posts. Each time he's banned brigitt appears and despite the official boards line that re-regging to avoid a ban is a No-No jimmmy is still allowed to peddle his vitriol and pure innaccuracy.

Boards is becoming a cesspit - full of one-trick ponies (eg jimmmmy) who contribute NOTHING to the community. It's full of paid-for commercial entities.

I subbed to boards to help pay for boxes and bandwidth.
I didnt sub to pay for arseholes who are ignored by mods,
I didn't pay for "talk to" fora.

nesf

Whitney Wide Juggler wrote: »

What about a situation whereby someone refer's to a whole group of people as "bastards", I'm thinking Darkman2's recent infraction/warning (can't remember which tbh) in AH a few weeks back.

Personally I take that as personal abuse, I've given 26 years service to this country. Most of those 26 yrs I was considered the underdog and not having a ''proper job'' because I was in the defence force's. But now that the country has been turned on its head am I expected to read the various threads re. the public sector and accept this crap?.

If I see someone directly insulting someone I'll warn for it etc. At the moment (and this may or may not change) the line is at getting personal with another user, so saying someone has never had a proper job because they're in the Defence Forces would fall into the actionable category. Someone saying they think Defence Forces members in general don't have a real job will be dealt with in a variety of ways. Generally speaking I don't like such generalisations being made in Politics so I'll stamp down on it though I wouldn't be as hard on it as I would to someone actually directing it at an individual (the opinion might come from ignorance of what the Defence Forces do rather than spite, if it's personal it's almost certainly malicious in nature). Though anyone who keeps doing such will get banned.



The biggest problem is that there is a lot of anger, much of it justified, with the public sector unions right now. Now some people turn that into anger against public sector workers. We can and will ban/infract people for getting personal but we can't actually change the public mood and much of the ugliness in the Irish Economy forum right now is a product of the public mood rather than because we've a few users with a chip on their shoulder. The latter we can change, the former we can't do a whole lot about.

DeVore

Lads, I can see your point of view but we're just the messanger here... in fact,we're just the platform for the messanger.

What would you have us do? Whitewash people's anger? We have to draw a line somewhere.... inevitably, few are going to be happy with our line. One side is going to feel abused and the other side are going to feel stiffled.

I think the line we have is probably the best we can do. We shouldnt allow reregs (report them and if they arent dealt with, escalate it and it will be), we shouldnt allow personal abuse (and we arent)... but we cant and shouldn't pretend that that anger isnt there.

DeV.

DeVore

Parsi, you say its "full of paid for commericial entities". Can you point me at them? I dont follow you...

DeV.

Aidric

nesf wrote: »

That said if anyone is stupid enough to tell an individual poster that they were a lazy bastard and deserved to lose their job where that poster had recently been left go will get cautioned/infracted/banned.

Interesting that. I recently referred to a posters opinions as stupidity in reference to their continued trolling of people who had lost their employment. My reward was a two week ban from after hours for personal abuse.
I suppose asking for context was too much. The least you would expect is context in respect of such an emotive issue.

sceptre

Aidric wrote: »

Interesting that. I recently referred to a posters opinions as stupidity in reference to their continued trolling of people who had lost their employment. My reward was a two week ban from after hours for personal abuse.
I suppose asking for context was too much. The least you would expect is context in respect of such an emotive issue.

I suggest hitting the report post button in such circumstances rather than replying with a personal attack.

Dr Galen

nesf wrote: »

If I see someone directly insulting someone I'll warn for it etc. At the moment (and this may or may not change) the line is at getting personal with another user, so saying someone has never had a proper job because they're in the Defence Forces would fall into the actionable category. Someone saying they think Defence Forces members in general don't have a real job will be dealt with in a variety of ways. Generally speaking I don't like such generalisations being made in Politics so I'll stamp down on it though I wouldn't be as hard on it as I would to someone actually directing it at an individual (the opinion might come from ignorance of what the Defence Forces do rather than spite, if it's personal it's almost certainly malicious in nature). Though anyone who keeps doing such will get banned.



The biggest problem is that there is a lot of anger, much of it justified, with the public sector unions right now. Now some people turn that into anger against public sector workers. We can and will ban/infract people for getting personal but we can't actually change the public mood and much of the ugliness in the Irish Economy forum right now is a product of the public mood rather than because we've a few users with a chip on their shoulder. The latter we can change, the former we can't do a whole lot about.

i have to say that looking at how politics is modded and particularly the Irish Economy forum, imho a good job is being done.

Its worse than soccer over there from a modding point of view, with "difficult" posters on all sides of the argument. I don't think it's fair to talk about individual posters here, but from what I've seen, action against those who are going against the general forum rules has been taken.

The Mods could certainly come down harder and stricter, but then we'd have threads here about how they were Nazis and how boards was becoming over censored. it's a fine line, and one which the guys over there are getting pretty much right.

If you have an issue, just report the post. I see stuff there everyday that I think is puerile and just an ad hominem line being trotted out, so I report it and let the Mods make the decision.

DeVore

We've already had plenty of "their nazis" posts here too... you cant win

DeV.

TequilaMockingBird

Grammar Nazi's?



/runs

Rev. BlueJeans

Grammar Nazi's what?

/runs after the previous poster with a grammah hammah*.

*first cousin to the banhammah beloved of some hur de hur individuals on discussion fora

Jumpy

DeVore wrote: »

We've already had plenty of "their nazis" posts here too... you cant win

DeV.

They have Nazis? I want a Nazi now. Is it a subscriber thing?

DeVore

<self facepalm>

DeV.

Rovi

DeVore wrote: »

<self facepalm>

DeV.

You shouldn't have admitted that; I was under the impression that you used the term "their nazis" in an ironic way to demonstrate the ineptitude of the sort of people who use that particular debating point.

DeVore

I would correct myself but the thread now incorporates it as part of its context. I really dislike typo's like that and now it sits there, mocking me from its safety.

It burnsss ussss...


DeV.

Rev. BlueJeans

Don't worry, we won't shoot the messenger.

I'm saddened that no one spotted the superfluous apostrophe.

Rovi

Rev. BlueJeans wrote: »

Don't worry, we won't shoot the messenger.

I'm saddened that no one spotted the superfluous apostrophe.

I was going to mention it, but figured that I'd already done enough poking fun at a site owner for one day.