A General Feedback thread

nesf

K-9 wrote: »

You've After Hours or other sites if you can't meet the higher standards here.

He's perma-banned from AH, so it's not an option for him.

BluntGuy

The IRgAy wrote: »

Secondly, swearing neither adds nor detracts from proceedings, so it should not be blocked just to appease overly sensitive posters. I'm sure the majority feel this way. You can conduct a poll to be sure.

Well it certainly doesn't add to proceedings but it does have potential to detract and unfortunately the line has to be drawn somewhere. Sure, I suppose the mods could for example ban gratuitous swearing, but someone is going to be unhappy with that too. "Why was my swearing banned and his wasn't?" etc. Surely it makes more sense to avoid that needless situation in the first place, with the added benefit of maintaining a higher standard of debate. If there was a tangible net loss in banning swearing, where certain points were prohibited from being made, I might agree with you. But that simply isn't the case. Every possible relevant point can be made without swearing, and the benefit of a better standard of debate outweighs the loss of "freedom of speech/expression" if you will.

Soldie

There are too many stickies and sub-forums. Above all, though, a much, much stronger moderator presence is required. This latter point only ever seems to be resisted by those who have nothing but sound bytes and glib one-liners to add. I'm both surprised and disappointed that virtually nothing came out of this thread from the Feedback forum. The General Election thread should be deleted after having its contents merged into the main forum. The European Union, Political Debate and Political Theory sub-forums are used so infrequently that it I think it would be more sensible if they were integrated into the main forum, too (perhaps add more thread icons). I still don't understand the purpose or need for the Politics Café forum. The Irish Economy sub-forum also seems strange to me, although I'm not quite sure how it could be reformed.

I have no issue with the quality of Politics forum's moderation, but I do have an issue with the consistency of the moderation. It seems clear to me that there are just not enough moderators for the forum, and the quality of the discourse is suffering badly as a result. The arbitrary and pointless sub-forums seem to compound the problem, as do the stickies taking up far too much room (admittedly, to a much lesser extent). Given that this is a feedback thread, I hope that I can enjoy some kind of parliamentary privilege when I say that this thread was clearly started by a troll with no interest in honest discussion. I would otherwise have been very much interested in participating in the discussion, but after having my report ignored I realised that I'd do myself a favour by steering clear of the thread instead. I'm sure that I'm not the only person who ignored it for similar reasons. There are many, many threads that follow along this line (see, for example, the discussion in the London riots thread being drowned out by casual racism and other nonsense).

Overall my feedback is that I greatly appreciate the effort and time put in by the mods, but please bring in a lot more mods and overhaul the sub-forums. There seems to be a great reluctance to do this, but I don't know why - it's like a papal conclave. Every time one of these threads crops up either here or in the Feedback forum, there seems to be a whole lot of talking and very little action. I know that a lot of posters have been driven away from the forum as a result of how the standards have slipped over the last year or two. On a final note, the whole "scumbag" debate seems so much more secondary to the more systemic problem the forum clearly faces.

Monty Burnz

nesf wrote: »

He's perma-banned from AH, so it's not an option for him.

Fair credit to him. You have to go a bit to get perma-banned from there.

Lockstep

Personally, I find the biggest problem to be trench warfare threads: issues like Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, the public sector and libertarianism to name but a few. Posters see see the thread and rush to take sides, digging into the thread and firing shots at each other, reporting the other side's posts constantly, claiming personal attacks (when there is very little to go on)

These threads quickly become trainwrecks, with multiple tangents and clunky, unreadable posts that dissuade any newcomers getting involved.
It also results in accusations of mod bias when they either sanction a troublesome poster. Either that or they don't see anything wrong and get accused of bias for NOT reprimanding the poster.

Liam Byrne

Since we've banned the sweeping generalisation of "the s word", can we also ban the sweeping generalisation of "populism" and "rabble, rabble" ?

They're just an obnoxious way of dismissing what - in my case at least - has SFA to do with what tabloids might say (because I don't read them) and what is - despite what whoever uses them might want to imply - is an informed opinion based on the facts.

Permabear

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Lockstep

Permabear wrote: »

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To be fair, the thread in question was difficult to moderate mainly as tone is a difficult thing to moderate and that's were most of the problems arose. Where personal attacks and accusations were made, interventions were made. However, the vast majority of reported posts from both sides were completely oversensitive and smacked of each side trying to get one over on the other through mod intervention.

The thread wasn't locked because of refutations. It was locked because it was incapable of being saved and had descended into sniping and tangents.

Permabear

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nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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The problem is that it's near impossible to have a open mike good form debate on any controversial ideology as libertarianism is. The only possible way of doing it is to restrict the debate to a handful of pre-picked debaters from the pro and anti sides of the discussion.

If we have an open debate on libertarianism, conservatism, socialism or whatever, then we'll have thread spoiling by people fundamentally opposed to the ideology whether they realise it or not.

Lockstep

The problem is that it can be very difficult to decide when someone is trolling or not. Tbh I saw little enough trolling in the thread, rather, people with fundamentally different viewpoints who argue back and forth. Again, this is something very common to trench threads.

Permabear

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nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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How do you tell deliberate thread spoiling from someone with a fundamentally opposed point of view sharing their opinion on the ideology? If someone is obviously trolling we can step in, but someone isn't obviously trolling just because they have some fanciful ideas of the implications of an ideology. Be it thinking socialism leads to communism or libertarianism leads to child labour.

Permabear

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nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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You do realise that because you're a committed libertarian it's likely a lot of stuff will look like trolling to you that other people might not view as trolling?

nesf

nesf wrote: »

You do realise that because you're a committed libertarian it's likely a lot of stuff will look like trolling to you that other people might not view as trolling?

Are you serious? Half the thread was about baby killing and other ridiculous stuff

The IRgAy

What is evident here is an alarming lack of agreement between the mods on what defines trolling. This explains why some mods wade in and lock threads while others are more relaxed and allow the debate to flow without interference.

Too many decent discussions are killed by over eager mods itching to click the lock button.

Lockstep

More so people asking about what happens to kids and the poor in a libertarian society and using hyperbole. That's not trolling and it's something that trench warfare threads quickly revolve around: posters equating disagreeing with them as being trolling.

I appreciate it seems like trolling to you as you believe so strongly in libertarianism, but trolling is a different kettle of fish entirely.

nesf

bluewolf wrote: »

Are you serious? Half the thread was about baby killing and other ridiculous stuff

Which is the kind of utter nonsense that some hard lefties hold about hard right positions. You see the exact same stuff, except claims about inevitable mass killings instead of child labour etc, coming from rightists about anything remotely hard left.

It's not necessarily trolling, just people arguing against straw men.

Permabear

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The IRgAy

Permabear wrote: »

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If you were a true Libertarian you wouldn't believe in forum moderation.

Permabear

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nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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He started the thread with:

Putting my cards on the table I really dislike libertarianism. I think it is a selfish ideology that doesn't take reality into account and is a detrimental influence on society. It would be fine if kept as a theory but the libertarians are influencing society in the form of disaster capitalism and particularly the republican party in the us. Also I see posts in almost every thread telling us how if only we understood it we would see what a great idea it is.

That's hardly playing the innocent bystander luring people into the discussion, he opened it being completely hostile to the ideology!

Lockstep

Lockstep wrote: »

More so people asking about what happens to kids and the poor in a libertarian society and using hyperbole. That's not trolling and it's something that trench warfare threads quickly revolve around: posters equating disagreeing with them as being trolling.

I appreciate it seems like trolling to you as you believe so strongly in libertarianism, but trolling is a different kettle of fish entirely.

Were you answering me there?

Permabear

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Permabear

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Lockstep

Permabear wrote: »

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And I don't need to be told "I've been at this game longer than you have." when being accused of being patronising.


You're accusing others of trolling with little basis. Probably because it's a personal issue. Sorry, but I'm just not seeing it.

bluewolf wrote: »

Were you answering me there?

Sorry, no. That was for PB.

(I opened the reply box then got caught up looking at pictures of cats. By the time I'd responded the thread had moved on)

gandalf

Some feedback as requested.

When infracting/warning users put the reason in the post so others can learn from problem with the post. Otherwise and especially for users using the mobile site it appears that those type of posts are ok.

Be more proactive. Just by scanning over the Politics and Irish Economy forum I can spot threads that either don't belong there or are not of high enough quality to be deemed a discussion. You need to start to do this on a regular basis and either move or close threads.

More active moderators. 3 active moderators are not enough. Moderators disappearing for six months are not the type needed in high volume forums like Politics. I know when I couldn't commit to the work load I stood down as mod here and as the cmod of Society. I'd expect the same from any others who couldn't commit to being available on a semi-regular basis. Politics is too high profile a forum to have fair weather moderators.

One thing is clear from this thread and the four threads that have appeared in the feedback forum in the last six months about politics and the standards in it and that is a lot of contributors care about the standard of discussion in the forum. Now between this and those other feedback threads it should be clear that simple things need to be done properly and if more resources are needed they should be made available. If not then eventually the feedback threads will no longer occur and a lot of people who in the past have made politics a quality forum to read and contribute to will abandon it.

K-9

Permabear wrote: »

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Personally, I'd say you should look over the threads he/she has started and report it to the mods. If it's soap boxing, they'll act on it.

From reading a couple of the threads you seem to be the voice of reason on the libertarian side but get caught in the middle. There's one or 2 Libertarians you should be reporting as well as they don't help your argument at all!

nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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Is there something fundamentally wrong with asking for that? And given his full frontal attack earlier were people expecting him to be an unbiased listener or something because that's extremely naive.

Permabear

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Permabear

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nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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No I simply explained why something will definitely look like trolling to you and not look like trolling to a mod. It has nothing to do with libertarianism and everything to do with ideological posters having trouble seeing the wood from the trees for understandable reasons.

beeftotheheels

Permabear wrote: »

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Okay, a modicum of context here. There are a number of self "appraised" libertarians posting on this forum who view ZH as being a definitive resource. they clearly have no access to Bloomberg, don't read the better bloggs like FTAlphaville or Kid Dynamite's world or perhaps just don't get finance. Do you not agree that we should view such posts as trolling? From the liberal point of view if we allow such posts we have every right to criticize libertarianism on the back of them

It strikes me that if Libertarians want the moral high ground then they need to weed out the lowest common denominator. So long as they allow the LCD to exists they cannot claim that high ground. While I couldn't class PB or BW as the LCD neither of you has rejected the concept of delawarization.

Permabear

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Permabear

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Permabear

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nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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Oh quit being so peevish. I'm explaining a fact of life, if you hold an ideology dear it tends to make you very sensitive to people criticising it and tends to make you far more likely to see trolls and the real life equivalents when all there is is people who disagree strongly with you. We see this all the time in reported posts in ideological threads.

nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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This, as I explained earlier, is a problem with any ideology. If someone tried to seriously discuss communism here they would get nowhere because a lot of our more right wing posters would be jumping down their throat ranting about the inevitable evils of any such kind of system. Would these people be trolling? No, they're just expressing their view in a thread.

We've an identical problem with Republican threads, they turn into fist fights between the pro and anti Republicans. Over and over. To the point where there is a private forum for Republicans so they can discuss their worldview in peace. And it's always the same posters taking pot shots at Republicans in these threads. They're not trolls, they just have a serious problem with Republicanism.

Libertarian threads, the same as Communism or Republican ones will always attract those vehemently opposed to them. You just have to deal with it.

Please do report posts, but do not be surprised if we don't agree someone is trolling. Trolling does happen in these threads but far less in the eyes of unbiased observers than of the thread participants themselves.

beeftotheheels

Permabear wrote: »

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Ah, but you see since it annoys me I would tend to view is as being done to disrupt the discussion (they never acknowledge that they are wrong and are not open to being convinced of it, they find more and more rubbish sources which agree with their PoV) which is where I think you are coming from in relation to the anti-Libertarian posters.

They annoy the hell out of you and misrepresent your facts therefore they must be trying to derail the conversation.

So I agree, it is not how we actually define a troll, it is just how we define a poor thread but you have to acknowledge that as a poster there is a subjective element to what you would view as trolling. Someone who seems immune to fact, logic or reason who keeps posting a contrarian PoV may seem like a troll if they are posting about something which you feel strongly about. Yet they need not actually be a troll if reviewed objectively.

GuanYin

gandalf wrote: »

More active moderators. 3 active moderators are not enough. Moderators disappearing for six months are not the type needed in high volume forums like Politics. I know when I couldn't commit to the work load I stood down as mod here and as the cmod of Society. I'd expect the same from any others who couldn't commit to being available on a semi-regular basis. Politics is too high profile a forum to have fair weather moderators.

Wow. You have a huge issue with this. As stated before you posted this.
1. I didn't disappear. my whereabouts was stated and known.
2. My being away in no way contributed to the running of the forum. I didn't get any PMs that went unanswered, I wasn't taking a space from someone else.
3. I don't know why I wasn't demodded. Maybe my co-mods felt I had or have something to contribute, maybe they're lazy. I'll work that out with them.


Really those, you're making a straw man based on your very very obvious (and unknown to me) dislike for me.

Lets try stick to the forum issues and discuss the problems that you feel exist now, differ from those you expressed, say, 6-7 months ago?

GuanYin

sorry for the double post.

As a more general comment.

I'm not sure why the moderators should be expected to moderate opinions.

Look, I read many, many posts and opinions here that I just dislike, on a molcular level. They aren't breaking any politics forum rules, but, imho, probably break rules that should exist to allow you to be a functioning member of society.

As a (current) politics mod, with the power to do something about it, I'm left feeling conflicted. At the end of the day, I realise, that the forum is about multiple opinions and I'm there to facilitate discussion, not hamper it.

NOW, occasionally, politics gets "trends" (I'm going to discount the "you haven't been here in 6 months" posse because it's always been this way, and hasn't changed in the past 6 months, and won't change in the next 6 months". Much like twitter gets trends. It becomes fashionable to come and post on boards.ie politics forum concerning a politics subject. Often this is just a case of current climate galvanizing an opinon that many people express. Sometimes it's an organized effort. We know this, because we see posts on politics.ie and p45 and in extreme cases, places like stormfront where they tell people to come visit us.

There really isn't anything 1 or a million politics mods could do about this. They're generally sporadic and transient and we could add a few mods but come a lull, politics then becomes "overmodded" (we get that complaint frequently enough to). OK, I'll concede, NI and Israel are probably ongoing "problem" topics, but again, the feedback receive there are generally less to do with how much we mod so much as "how" we mod.. depending on the complaining posters point of view.

And that is often what politics complaints are down to. Point of view. If we went super strict with 15 mods eliminating certain types of posters, next week we would have as many posters complaining that politics is elitist, biased and rife with censorship.

I don't really want to see a forum like that (even if I have been absent, I still care). I would rather see the poorest and the greates contributers pool to result in a forum where strong argument and discussion wins over censure or uninformed opinion. Most observers of politics are smart. They can see an idiot a mile away. Rather than engage and have them drag you down, simply show them up with on topic debate and discussion. They will go away or maybe, if you're lucky, rethink their views. How great would that be.

Or we can just ban everyone that a select few feels isn't up to their level.

Soldie

I appreciate that threads on libertarianism can become extremely divided. I also appreciate that those participating in such threads may have a different take on trolling to those not participating in them. I don't accept (or appreciate) the explanation that this discrepancy automatically exists for ideological reasons. I take an interest in libertarianism and I'm drawn to threads where it's discussed here, so as a by-product I'm familiar with the posting habits of others who frequent such threads. I think most people who frequent the forum can make such a claim for the topics they're interested in. It is because of my familiarity with the posting habits of the person who created this thread that I deliberately avoided the thread. As it happens, I reported the thread before anyone had taken the bait, and before it developed into trench warfare (and on that note, I think some of those arguing for libertarianism in that thread should be disciplined, too). The original poster did touch on (and I use that term in the most generous possible way) some valid criticisms that I would have been happy to discuss, had I of known that the thread was started in good faith. But it patently wasn't, as the poster in question has a lengthy history of making glib and goading comments to people who have espoused libertarianism. I'm convinced that the only way anyone could possibly think it's not trolling is due to a lack of familiarity with the poster which, I think, brings me back full-circle to my criticism that there are simply not enough mods.

nesf

Soldie wrote: »

I appreciate that threads on libertarianism can become extremely divided. I also appreciate that those participating in such threads may have a different take on trolling to those not participating in them. I don't accept (or appreciate) the explanation that this discrepancy exists for ideological reasons. I take an interest in libertarianism and I'm drawn to threads where it's discussed here, so as a by-product I'm familiar with the posting habits of others who frequent such threads. It is because of my familiarity with the posting habits of the person who created this thread that I deliberately avoided the thread. As it happens, I reported the thread before anyone had taken the bait, and before it developed into trench warfare (and on that note, I think some of those arguing for libertarianism in that thread should be disciplined, too). The original poster did touch on (and I use that term in the most generous possible way) some valid criticisms that I would have been happy to discuss, had I of known that the thread was started in good faith. But it patently wasn't, as the poster in question has a lengthy history of making glib and goading comments to people who have espoused libertarianism. I'm convinced that the only way anyone could possibly think it's not trolling is due to a lack of familiarity with the poster which, I think, brings me back full-circle to my criticism that there are simply not enough mods.

Should we be banning people who make glib or goading comments about Republicans or Communists too? Because it'd be a pretty bloody long list (you could probably include me on it too). Or FFers for that matter.

A certain amount of rough and tumble is to be expected on a Politics forum. My general advice would be to grow a thicker skin and just ignore certain poster that you know have a serious problem with your ideology because you're really just wasting your time arguing with them.

Soldie

nesf wrote: »

Should we be banning people who make glib or goading comments about Republicans or Communists too? Because it'd be a pretty bloody long list (you could probably include me on it too). Or FFers for that matter.

I think it's clear that that's not what I'm saying. I'm merely pointing out that those familiar with the poster in question would undoubtedly be aware of his endless baiting and trolling. Low-level trolling is still trolling.

A certain amount of rough and tumble is to be expected on a Politics forum. My general advice would be to grow a thicker skin and just ignore certain poster that you know have a serious problem with your ideology because you're really just wasting your time arguing with them.

But I have ignored the thread. I'm explaining why I ignored it. Many other genuine and articulate posters who usually take an interest in libertarianism ignored it, too, undoubtedly for similar reasons. The troll was successful. Curiously, this doesn't seem to concern you.

Laminations

Suggestion: posters perma-banned from AH should automatically be banned from politics. Just do some cross referencing. It's like expecting people to walk when they couldn't demonstrate their ability to even crawl and then wondering why they are in politics thrashing about on the ground.

Permabear

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Nodin

...if you think I'm picking those toys up for you, you've another thing coming.

nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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Oh please, we're listening to people and adding more mods in response. What we won't do is capitulate to every request where we disagree.

nesf

Soldie wrote: »

I think it's clear that that's not what I'm saying. I'm merely pointing out that those familiar with the poster in question would undoubtedly be aware of his endless baiting and trolling. Low-level trolling is still trolling.

And my point is that I could ban an awful lot of people for such "trolling" simply because they have a serious problem with some political position and don't keep quiet about it when given the opportunity to attack. For instance if I ban people for being glib and goading on a libertarian thread, I'm going to have to turn around and ban a whole heap of libertarians for the same behaviour on socialism threads.

I really don't want to have to do this. I'd hate to have to ban someone for just being passionately opposed to some position.

Soldie wrote: »

But I have ignored the thread. I'm explaining why I ignored it. Many other genuine and articulate posters who usually take an interest in libertarianism ignored it, too, undoubtedly for similar reasons. The troll was successful. Curiously, this doesn't seem to concern you.

The "troll" wants to pick a fight with libertarians because they have a serious problem with the ideology. This just happens. If he starts derailing threads by turning them into fights about libertarianism then yes we'll step in but setting up a thread which begins with an attack on the ideology leaves no one in any doubt as to what the thread is going to be like so as far as I'm concerned anyone choosing to post in it implicitly accepts that their ideology is going to be attacked in a whole array of ways and that posts in it will probably be goading and annoying for them.