Introducing the Current Affairs/IMHO forum

Muahahaha

yeah the Arbery and Floyd threads completely blew up more or less at the same time, each had thousands of posts in the space of a few days. Some real cesspit posting on both of them, at times I thought I was on 4Chan. I couldnt believe it when a white supremacist was offered up as a credible source when they were just spreading deliberate lies, racism and disinformation. I went down a rabbit hole off the supremacists website and was pretty shocked at the bile these people engage in. Let them at it but its not something I want to see infect Boards and some posters seem to get all their information from these types of sites and then take it as gospel.

Would hope the Arbery thread could be re=opened at some stage with warnings issued where necessary. Its still a live topic and a fair bit of new information has come out since it was closed.

As for After Hours is it just me or has it got pretty quiet lately? Seems that way but I could be wrong.

Deebles McBeebles

Nice to see some instant action on the Floyd thread, fair play, Beasty.

Beasty

Deebles McBeebles wrote: »

Nice to see some instant action on the Floyd thread, fair play, Beasty.

Alas the R0 of the reported post forum has grown to 2

As soon as I deal with one report another two have appeared!!

EmmetSpiceland

Beasty wrote: »

On the question of bans being applied across both AH and CA this is something that does not happen anywhere on the site. It applies to sub-forums, but AH and CA sit alongside each other in the hierarchy. It would also appear that since the inception of CA the problems have tended to migrate over there

We do now have a bit of a track record of posters in CA, and I am conscious that a number of posters are getting close to permanent bans from the forum. Equally one poster posting some particularly nasty stuff today received a 1 month siteban, with the threat the next one will be permanent.

Might I suggest giving repeated “thread” bans as opposed to forum bans? I, personally, feel that forum bans are “counter productive” for the wider site, in general.

The forum really does an excellent job of keeping the malcontents, dribblers and the types who spell lose as loose distracted in their own little “sty”.

Forum bans will leave them “wandering” the site leaving filthy trotter marks all over the shop and causing a, general, stink.

At this point, I would like to re-affirm my opion that the “Current Affairs” forum has been a resounding success and that the moderators are doing an excellent job with it.

Gatling

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

Forum bans will leave them “wandering” the site leaving filthy trotter marks all over the shop and causing a, general, stink.

The joys of a discussion forum people are free to post when and where they choose unless thread banned ,

It's like saying a anyone who posts in CA should be locked into posting there ,or other forums it's a one street to an echo chamber ,

Quantum Erasure

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

Might I suggest giving repeated “thread” bans as opposed to forum bans? I, personally, feel that forum bans are “counter productive” for the wider site, in general.

The forum really does an excellent job of keeping the malcontents, dribblers and the types who spell lose as loose distracted in their own little “sty”.

Forum bans will leave them “wandering” the site leaving filthy trotter marks all over the shop and causing a, general, stink.

At this point, I would like to re-affirm my opion that the “Current Affairs” forum has been a resounding success and that the moderators are doing an excellent job with it.

gave me a smile anyway, good man

EmmetSpiceland

Gatling wrote: »

The joys of a discussion forum people are free to post when and where they choose unless thread banned ,

It's like saying a anyone who posts in CA should be locked into posting there ,or other forums it's a one street to an echo chamber ,

Yes, G, but if they are “thread banned” there is less chance of them wanting to leave the forum, itself, they’ll just move onto another CA thread and start spiting bile in there.

If they start getting “forum” bans, well, they could go anywhere but they’ll probably end up in “After Hours” and there is a noticeable decline in the posting “standard” of that forum when they do descend on it.

Obviously, not all CA posters are creeps, oddballs, weirdos, malcontents, Sinn Fein voters, mouth breathers, sickos, psychos, or general “undesirables” but there’s a lot of them in there. An awful lot.

So the more that can be kept out of AH, and other, more normal, forums the better. For everyone, really.

EmmetSpiceland

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

Yes, G, but if they are “thread banned” there is less chance of them wanting to leave the forum, itself, they’ll just move onto another CA thread and start spiting bile in there.

If they start getting “forum” bans, well, they could go anywhere but they’ll probably end up in “After Hours” and there is a noticeable decline in the posting “standard” of that forum when they do descend on it.

Obviously, not all CA posters are creeps, oddballs, weirdos, malcontents, Sinn Fein voters, mouth breathers, sickos, psychos, or general “undesirables” but there’s a lot of them in there. An awful lot.

So the more that can be kept out of AH, and other, more normal, forums the better. For everyone, really.

Eh have you read many of the threads started by a specific poster in AH that fit alot of the above, along with one or two regular AH posters who regularly try to be edgy in both forums?

True since CA has been created you have the CT believers, bigots and FG supporters (and for here it appears being the first two or all three is a requirement for some) posting there, but not exactly true to say that they spend all their time there.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Muahahaha wrote: »

yeah the Arbery and Floyd threads completely blew up more or less at the same time, each had thousands of posts in the space of a few days. Some real cesspit posting on both of them, at times I thought I was on 4Chan. I couldnt believe it when a white supremacist was offered up as a credible source when they were just spreading deliberate lies, racism and disinformation. I went down a rabbit hole off the supremacists website and was pretty shocked at the bile these people engage in. Let them at it but its not something I want to see infect Boards and some posters seem to get all their information from these types of sites and then take it as gospel.

Would hope the Arbery thread could be re=opened at some stage with warnings issued where necessary. Its still a live topic and a fair bit of new information has come out since it was closed.

As for After Hours is it just me or has it got pretty quiet lately? Seems that way but I could be wrong.

Yeah, I think the Coronavirus forum is pulling a lot of users away from AH. People are distracted with that and other current affairs at the moment. I think many people still aren’t thinking that much about trivial matters.

Tokyo

Myself and Beasty do the majority of the modding in the CA/IMHO and COVID-19 forum these days. Given the time difference between our two locations, we can give almost 24 hour coverage, but even with that, it's an unrelenting task. To give an idea of the workload, I logged in at 6:30am yesterday my time to three full pages of reported posts from the CA/IMHO and COVID-19 forums. That's three pages - 60 odd reported posts. In the space of a few hours where myself and Beasty or one of the other mods didn't overlap like we usually do. And given the current affairs of the world this past week or so, some of the threads have been particularly fast moving. That's not an overly unusual 6:30am for me if a mod hasn't been about the evening before, and I doubt it's an unusual evening back home for Beasty either when I'm offline.

There are a couple of factors I'd like to bring to the discussion though. A lot of the arguments put forward in feedback tend to be along the lines of "if the mods were more on point..." or "with better modding..." or "why aren't mods stamping down on <insert issue here>". I'm not saying there isn't merit to that side of the discussion, and for the most part, the responses have been courteous while pointing out genuine concerns. But IMO, there needs to be equal measure given to poster accountability too.

The George Floyd dies, Ahmaud Arbery, and Everyday Racism threads are particularly challenging to moderate because in order to allow for both sides of the discussion, one must first ask if a question was asked, or a point of view was put forward in bad faith. Using "nïgger" as an epithet is always hate speech. It doesn't matter if the person saying it thinks they are a racist or not, or if they think they are denigrating a whole class of people in order to insult one, they are being racist and using hate speech. But there is a lot of language in between that (In my opinion at least) requires time to break down the poster's true intent. Wanting a discussion that explores more than a binary conversation of "White cop = bad/racist, Black man = oppressed" doesn't necessarily make the poster a racist. How they go about exploring that point is the key. There is a nuanced distinction between views that are only stupid and/or ignorant, versus views that are both stupid/ignorant and offensive, which can take more than a singular post to get a measure of.

As a moderator, I find myself more and more having to draw these lines for people, and I'm not convinced that this should be a moderator's role. The purpose of the mod team isn't to play 'mammy' and replace the average poster's common sense, yet more and more I see "discussion" becoming about "winning an argument" than any genuine interest in taking onboard different points of view.

A summary of the types of reported posts we receive:

• Faux Outrage - "why was I warned to stop the bitching/whataboutery and this poster wasn't?" Not carded, or banned mind you, but asked to quit what they were doing.
  
• Death by a Thousand Reported Posts - Poster gets carded. Poster proceeds to trawl through every possible thread to report every perceived slight, as some sort of "I'll show you" to the mod team.
  
• I'll bait you, now I'll drop you in it - Poster #1 baits Poster #2 into a response. Poster #1 then reports Poster #2 to get the mods to do their dirty work for them. For bonus points, Poster #1 reports the post a second or third time, outraged that Poster #2 wasn't publicly eviscerated.
  
• Why is this thread still here - Poster#1 reports thread as being irrelevant. Poster#1 then immediately posts in thread, argues with the OP, and keeps the thread at the top of the front page until the rivers start turning to blood. This one I genuinely don't get. Given the pace of the CA forum these days, shïtposts would die off the front page in minutes, if posters weren't so hell bent in keeping them alive.

I do appreciate that there are very valid concerns being aired here, and equally, very valid reported posts coming in that we do try to address. But no matter what the mod action, there will always be a very vocal section of the community running straight to feedback with a complaint.

• Merge two threads - "OPPRESSION!!" "TRYING TO HIDE THE ISSUE AWAY!"
  
• Delete posts or thread - "OPPRESSION!!" "TRYING TO HIDE THE ISSUE AWAY!!" "****ING BIASED MODS!"
  
• Let a thread run in the hope that people respond sanely - "ALLOWING THE FAR LEFT/RIGHT TO TAKE GROUND! ALLOWING RACISM/XENOPHOBIA/TRANSPHOBIA TO FLOURISH!

^^Genuine feedback, in the last 24 hours alone.

I'm not sure there is a clear cut answer because different posters want different things from the forum. A certain tier of posters want it policed like the Politics forum, in which case, why not post in the politics forum. Others want a free for all, which will result in another Thunderdome. Anything in between results in moderators being accused of having full scope for bias and capriciousness with zero accountability.

One thing I've started doing in threads that you know are only going to go in one direction unless nipped in the bud from the outset is to have a zero tolerance policy - any breaches of the rules gets a card, accompanied by an instant, permanent threadban. OR week long forum ban, depending on the nature of the breach. So far it seems to be having an effect and it's something I plan to do a lot more of in future. Threadbans have been questioned earlier, but from the abusive PMs myself, Beasty, and no doubt the other mods have been receiving, threadbans seem to have more impact on posters than a yellow or red card. Maybe it's the psychology of being able to still read the thread, with no technical obstructions to posting in the thread other than a line of bold text from a mod - I don't know. But they seem to shake people up more than a card in my experience.

I also think ANY post where a person merely links to a video or article or blog without his/her own summary and thoughts ought to be modded. I'm not going to watch a random 30-minute video or try to negotiate the NYT firewall on the off chance I might understand your point. I'm against adding specifics to the charter as from the outset, our goal was to keep the charter simple, and depend on people using their common sense as to what 'being a dick' entailed, but this one I'm seriously considering making an exception for.

TheValeyard

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

Agreed. Its now even gone down the route of threatening violence against children who express anti racist views.

Didn't see anyone threaten violence? Could have missed it. Just seen frustration directed at a groups tweets.

Tokyo

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

Agreed. Its now even gone down the route of threatening violence against children who express anti racist views.

Joey, can you please point me towards the specific post that threatens violence against children?

Dial Hard

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

Yeah, I think the Coronavirus forum is pulling a lot of users away from AH. People are distracted with that and other current affairs at the moment. I think many people still aren’t thinking that much about trivial matters.

The other issue with AH is the constant stream of absolute nonsense threads being started by one particular poster. I don't really go near the place any more, tbh, it's just one stupid question after another.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

Dial Hard wrote: »

The other issue with AH is the constant stream of absolute nonsense threads being started by one particular poster. I don't really go near the place any more, tbh, it's just one stupid question after another.

Yes, that too. Some of those many threads have managed to blossom into a proper discussion but the hit rate is not very high. They are mostly just nonsense threads.

Muahahaha

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

Yeah, I think the Coronavirus forum is pulling a lot of users away from AH. People are distracted with that and other current affairs at the moment. I think many people still aren’t thinking that much about trivial matters.

Im all Coronavirused out so rarely go into that forum anymore. It just seems to be a daily battle between two groups on an economy vs. public health debate and it goes around and around in circles.

Dial Hard wrote: »

The other issue with AH is the constant stream of absolute nonsense threads being started by one particular poster. I don't really go near the place any more, tbh, it's just one stupid question after another.

I dont click in but what harm is he doing really. I mostly just roll my eyes at those threads and dont want to participate but at least it generates discussion for posters. AH lives off people making new threads, many posters there never bother.

@mike it sounds like modding the CA and Covid forum is almost a full time job. I hadnt realised that you could login and have 60 reported posts to decipher and judge upon. Between the general election in February, the new Covid forum in March and now the Floyd thread its blown up over the last few months. I dont envy ye, especially with the racism stuff that is often very subtle in its nature. Perhaps an idea to bulk up the mod team so you're not spending hours day after day sorting out petty squabbles.

TheRepentent

Dial Hard wrote: »

The other issue with AH is the constant stream of absolute nonsense threads being started by one particular poster. I don't really go near the place any more, tbh, it's just one stupid question after another.

2nd this ^^^ Thankfully its only in AH and nowhere else

Beasty

The last few days have been pretty exceptional in terms of "controversial" topics and threads. I arrived home yesterday evening and between 7.30 and midnight dealt with nearly 30 reports, with a dozen or more PMs across 10 threads. A few weeks ago it may have been a similar number of reports but across 2 or 3 threads, which is easier to handle as you get a better feel for the threads in question

Having said that, the Coronavirus Forum has without doubt been the busiest one that I've ever experienced and I suspect materially busier than any other in the history of the site. At one stage we were getting perhaps 40% of site-wide posts in a single thread. Things in that forum have settled down a lot now and the daily posts are perhaps a quarter of what they once were (bearing in mind the forum is less than 3 months old). I suspect yesterday's announcements will have placated a few of those who were shouting loudest about the easing of restrictions. Hopefully the forum will continue to decline as although that may seem imply less site activity it should also signify a decline of the virus itself

Problems with the search function at present do not allow me to check the figures, but based on prior searches I've done I think the Coronavirus forum has not necessarily increased site traffic that much, but has diverted traffic from other forums (Sports ones being good examples where there is relatively little to discuss at present, but that applies across the site given the way Coronavirus is affecting us all). Even now the upturn in CA traffic due to the George Floyd issue has broadly matched the decline in the Coronavirus forum

Beasty

TheRepentent wrote: »

2nd this ^^^ Thankfully its only in AH and nowhere else

Just on this point, one thing to bear in mind is that if the threads are not particularly interesting they should quickly drop off the front page. I personally think it's better to just ignore any such threads rather than giving them any oxygen by replying. The message will hopefully get through. However it's difficult for mods to take any action if threads started are getting regular replies

TheRepentent

Beasty wrote: »

Just on this point, one thing to bear in mind is that if the threads are not particularly interesting they should quickly drop off the front page. I personally think it's better to just ignore any such threads rather than giving them any oxygen by replying. The message will hopefully get through. However it's difficult for mods to take any action if threads started are getting regular replies

Yeah totally agree , that user isn't breaking any rules etc...but still posts sh1te:)

Imagine being so known for your nonsense, your name doesn't even have to be said.

TheValeyard

Dont see a problem with nonsense threads, can be a nice distraction from serious threads or daily life. Zero harm in them.

Also think that poster has got people talking in certain threads and other posters are enjoying them, why complain or stop them?

Beasty

AH thrives on nonsense. Having said that, this thread is about CA, so let's not dwell on a particular point relating to AH

Is there a function to actually thread ban a user, or are users just required to not post in a thread once a mod says so?

The only reason I'm asking is that users who a mod posts as thread banned have continued to post in threads afterwards and in the same way that the mod issued the thread ban for.

This is it

DubInMeath wrote: »

Is there a function to actually thread ban a user, or are users just required to not post in a thread once a mod says so?

The only reason I'm asking is that users who a mod posts as thread banned have continued to post in threads afterwards and in the same way that the mod issued the thread ban for.

There's no function they're just not supposed to post. If you see it it's probably best to report their post and quote the threadban in the report if you have it handy. Make it easier for the mods.

hullaballoo

Admin: a reminder of the requirements to have 100 posts and 3 months' membership as a minimum before posting in the Feedback forum.

Was CA just used to kill the Unpopular Opinions thread in AH?

It was moved to CA when it obviously shouldn't be there and then it was unceremoniously closed because it wasn't suitable there. It should be moved back, not closed.

Beasty

Deleted User wrote: »

Was CA just used to kill the Unpopular Opinions thread in AH?

It was moved to CA when it obviously shouldn't be there and then it was unceremoniously closed because it wasn't suitable there. It should be moved back, not closed.

I'll discuss with the AH mods, but it is not a suitable topic for CA

If they are happy to have it back then we'll move it

EmmetSpiceland

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Was CA just used to kill the Unpopular Opinions thread in AH?

It was moved to CA when it obviously shouldn't be there and then it was unceremoniously closed because it wasn't suitable there. It should be moved back, not closed.

While I don’t think it should have been “closed”, I mean, nothing posted in there wasn’t being said in countless other threads, but I, personally, don’t believe moving it back to AH is a good idea.

Up until today the thread served as a giant dung “beacon” that CA posters couldn’t resist feasting on. Some would then hang around, “fouling” up other threads.

I can’t argue that it’s not, exactly, a “current affair” but it would, certainly, fall under the remit of “IMHO”. Would it not?

It should also be noted that the AH mods have done a great job of late, moving threads at speed and not allowing any to “fester”.

I’m well aware there’s a lot going on at the moment, keeping the dregs of the site preoccupied. In some threads it’s just a “circle-jerk” of hate, which is fine when it’s contained like that.

But there will come a time when the rioting and protesting lessens or when Rowling fades back into obscurity and when that time comes it is not going to go well for AH. Particularly, if that thread gets “dumped” back. Will not go well at all.

If someone can't handle unpopular opinions, they shouldn't click in. Half the posts are about random stuff like food and half are about politics or something happening.

There has to be a place on this site for unpopular opinions. It's moddle-coddling us if there isn't, and if the site wants to close that thread because it doesn't suit the sunshine and lollipops attempt in AH, it should be a separate forum with one opinion per thread.

I got into a debate yesterday about teachers being overpaid. There isn't really anywhere else on the site for that discussion to take place now.


And IMHO should be removed from CA as it doesn't work. Unpopular opinions is perfect IMHO and it stuck out like a sore thumb.

Beasty

I've just re-opened it in CA. There is a warning that regardless of the thread topic any posts that contravene site rules/ToU are not allowed