Habitual Problem Posters
Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 9:10 pm
The recent moderator issues in the larger Myst-Uru community brings up an ideological issue for me and that ties into how forums are moderated. In some ways we have considered some of this but I think material takes on a different aspect.
I believe bad behavior on a forum cannot be corrected with silence; action needs to be taken. A long term approach to challenging and correcting poor posting styles as well as miss information needs to be in place and used. However, there is the problem of fanning the flames, so to speak, and a basic corrective action is to stop responding. The hope being they will have nothing to respond to and be quite. While it may work in some measure, that action is too subtle for some. It can also play into the hand of an agenda and be used to serve a purpose counterproductive to a forum.
There are also Public Relations matters to consider. How other uninvolved members see and interpret the threads. The impression it gives readers.
I think because in general people give the benefit of doubt and recognize that they don’t have all the information we assume others think and behave similarly, rationally. I recognize some people do not think along those lines. Some are gullible and believe whatever they read. Some are followers. Some are reactive. Handling these fairly remains problematic in the face of those with an agenda that are willing to abuse and distort.
There is the issue of privacy and NDA’s. Privacy on a forum is often a courtesy. For moderators and admins it can also be a matter of avoiding embarrassing members and personal respect. NDA’s Non-Disclosure Agreements are imposed by various entities, usually site owners, to protect information they wish to keep confidential or other legal issues. Admins and moderators can be restricted as to what they can say. Both can severely handicap those that could present facts germane to a subject. Unless one has read a Cyan NDA they can’t know how restrictive it can be. This is an even larger handicap for the forum based Myst community.
Combining all of these things it remains my belief that silence is a poor solution to most of these problems. Those that want to run an agenda can easily work that system. The idea being they can get their ideas out, push the point and have the thread locked. That leaves mostly their posts in place without counters. The more rational and reasoned comments are prevented. My belief is that leaves a slant and misinformation in place.
I have often seen a ‘locking’ or ‘closing’ post placed by the moderator/admin. I think that is a good idea. In controversial threads and especially when we have problem people posting in the thread, I think that final post becomes important. I think it is probably looked at by a significant number of readers, at least I look to see what they wrote.
Having the reason for the lock seems only practical and common courtesy to the forum readers. I also see it as a place to put forth the available facts for the closing. But, that requires moderator time. I also see problems with possible bias in the post when the moderator is involved in the discussion.
I think there is also an opportunity to provide corrective and educational information to the community. Many in the forum have shown they do not to understand various problems seen in posts. I believe people without a strong sense of respect of others are influenced by posting styles they see. Therefore a closing post is one of the few places available to educate and counter poor styles of posting. Rule violations are obvious things to point out and will go in a PM to the offender. Including similar in a closing post would, I think, help others. I think that would put on the record the reason for the moderator action and that could also defeat some agendas. It could also help with quality control for moderators in a public way.
The more subtle posting problems are where there is opportunity to start to make the problems apparent to the community and provide educational material. Moderators’ warning posts could use the same ideas and guidelines as closing posts.
There are community members that consistently use a poor posting style. I suspect in many cases that is lack of understanding or experience, especially in forums where there are lots of young people. For others I suspect it is just a matter of having never thought about it. For others it has become a learned habit. For a few it is deliberate and others their personality. For me the point of placing more educational material in warning and closing posts is to reach people in the earlier groups.
With a good set of rules, guidelines and definitions providing such information could be reasonably simple to provide and mostly impersonal, which of course I hope this section provides. Referring to sections on a subject would be somewhat more direct than what I have seen and yet allow less specific and blunt comments.
Whether or not these posts should be impersonal, avoid statements obviously targeting a specific individual or individuals, is a consideration. In many cases, especially with those repeating a problem, I think a direct response will be more productive. I see these warning and closing posts as needing to escalate as a problem continues. While I think warning posts should generally be more subtle and gentle and closing posts more direct and blunt, I think both would need to escalate the severity of language used when a problem is not resolving.
Not only should the purpose of warning and closing posts be understood by moderators and forum members the direction corrective action is headed should be known in advance. The purpose, in my thinking, is to maintain or improve the quality of posting and the forum environment. Corrective action is directed to eliminate the problem by education resulting in change or when problem posters fail to learn their removal from the forum community.
I think turning these concepts and considerations into guidelines for the fans and moderators is how one implements them. In doing that, the ideological conflict I have is over the effectiveness of ‘not feeding trolls’ and the need to educate and improve the quality of forum posting. (Matters on the philosophy around trolling is in another thread, please discuss those there, thanks).
In discussing a problem post in PM several quotes were provided by one showing the problem phrases a poster was using. None of the individual quotes were particularly offensive. They did set a consistent belittling tone and all were hyperbole. If such quotes were used in a warning post, I’m sure a problem poster would try to debate them. However, I think they would be very educational for all involved. That brings up the idea that discussion of moderator comments is not permitted on forum and must be taken to PM. To discuss even the concepts in a warning or closing post another thread needs to be started. I think the ‘no discussion of moderator posts, rules are in place as off-topic rules.
To some measure we have ideas and guidelines for how to address problem posters in warning posts. Here I am suggesting we add an educational purpose to them and use more obvious examples of the problem by using quotes and references to the writing that is problematic and formalize it in guidelines. Also, enoughs moderators to use references to larger explanatory material less specific to the immediate issue... less specificity about this issue and more generalization about style. It could be less personally threatening and embarrassing to the subject.
Is it acceptable to quote a section of a problem post, point to a rule, a definition or example in the guidelines and warn a poster publically?
Does one start warning levels in private (PM) and then move to public?
When one locks a thread and posts the reasons is it acceptable to again quote and point to rules and examples in public?
When one does lock a thread is a note made in the moderator reference material for future use?
How many warnings and closings are allowed before more serious action is taken?
I believe bad behavior on a forum cannot be corrected with silence; action needs to be taken. A long term approach to challenging and correcting poor posting styles as well as miss information needs to be in place and used. However, there is the problem of fanning the flames, so to speak, and a basic corrective action is to stop responding. The hope being they will have nothing to respond to and be quite. While it may work in some measure, that action is too subtle for some. It can also play into the hand of an agenda and be used to serve a purpose counterproductive to a forum.
There are also Public Relations matters to consider. How other uninvolved members see and interpret the threads. The impression it gives readers.
I think because in general people give the benefit of doubt and recognize that they don’t have all the information we assume others think and behave similarly, rationally. I recognize some people do not think along those lines. Some are gullible and believe whatever they read. Some are followers. Some are reactive. Handling these fairly remains problematic in the face of those with an agenda that are willing to abuse and distort.
There is the issue of privacy and NDA’s. Privacy on a forum is often a courtesy. For moderators and admins it can also be a matter of avoiding embarrassing members and personal respect. NDA’s Non-Disclosure Agreements are imposed by various entities, usually site owners, to protect information they wish to keep confidential or other legal issues. Admins and moderators can be restricted as to what they can say. Both can severely handicap those that could present facts germane to a subject. Unless one has read a Cyan NDA they can’t know how restrictive it can be. This is an even larger handicap for the forum based Myst community.
Combining all of these things it remains my belief that silence is a poor solution to most of these problems. Those that want to run an agenda can easily work that system. The idea being they can get their ideas out, push the point and have the thread locked. That leaves mostly their posts in place without counters. The more rational and reasoned comments are prevented. My belief is that leaves a slant and misinformation in place.
I have often seen a ‘locking’ or ‘closing’ post placed by the moderator/admin. I think that is a good idea. In controversial threads and especially when we have problem people posting in the thread, I think that final post becomes important. I think it is probably looked at by a significant number of readers, at least I look to see what they wrote.
Having the reason for the lock seems only practical and common courtesy to the forum readers. I also see it as a place to put forth the available facts for the closing. But, that requires moderator time. I also see problems with possible bias in the post when the moderator is involved in the discussion.
I think there is also an opportunity to provide corrective and educational information to the community. Many in the forum have shown they do not to understand various problems seen in posts. I believe people without a strong sense of respect of others are influenced by posting styles they see. Therefore a closing post is one of the few places available to educate and counter poor styles of posting. Rule violations are obvious things to point out and will go in a PM to the offender. Including similar in a closing post would, I think, help others. I think that would put on the record the reason for the moderator action and that could also defeat some agendas. It could also help with quality control for moderators in a public way.
The more subtle posting problems are where there is opportunity to start to make the problems apparent to the community and provide educational material. Moderators’ warning posts could use the same ideas and guidelines as closing posts.
There are community members that consistently use a poor posting style. I suspect in many cases that is lack of understanding or experience, especially in forums where there are lots of young people. For others I suspect it is just a matter of having never thought about it. For others it has become a learned habit. For a few it is deliberate and others their personality. For me the point of placing more educational material in warning and closing posts is to reach people in the earlier groups.
With a good set of rules, guidelines and definitions providing such information could be reasonably simple to provide and mostly impersonal, which of course I hope this section provides. Referring to sections on a subject would be somewhat more direct than what I have seen and yet allow less specific and blunt comments.
Whether or not these posts should be impersonal, avoid statements obviously targeting a specific individual or individuals, is a consideration. In many cases, especially with those repeating a problem, I think a direct response will be more productive. I see these warning and closing posts as needing to escalate as a problem continues. While I think warning posts should generally be more subtle and gentle and closing posts more direct and blunt, I think both would need to escalate the severity of language used when a problem is not resolving.
Not only should the purpose of warning and closing posts be understood by moderators and forum members the direction corrective action is headed should be known in advance. The purpose, in my thinking, is to maintain or improve the quality of posting and the forum environment. Corrective action is directed to eliminate the problem by education resulting in change or when problem posters fail to learn their removal from the forum community.
I think turning these concepts and considerations into guidelines for the fans and moderators is how one implements them. In doing that, the ideological conflict I have is over the effectiveness of ‘not feeding trolls’ and the need to educate and improve the quality of forum posting. (Matters on the philosophy around trolling is in another thread, please discuss those there, thanks).
In discussing a problem post in PM several quotes were provided by one showing the problem phrases a poster was using. None of the individual quotes were particularly offensive. They did set a consistent belittling tone and all were hyperbole. If such quotes were used in a warning post, I’m sure a problem poster would try to debate them. However, I think they would be very educational for all involved. That brings up the idea that discussion of moderator comments is not permitted on forum and must be taken to PM. To discuss even the concepts in a warning or closing post another thread needs to be started. I think the ‘no discussion of moderator posts, rules are in place as off-topic rules.
To some measure we have ideas and guidelines for how to address problem posters in warning posts. Here I am suggesting we add an educational purpose to them and use more obvious examples of the problem by using quotes and references to the writing that is problematic and formalize it in guidelines. Also, enoughs moderators to use references to larger explanatory material less specific to the immediate issue... less specificity about this issue and more generalization about style. It could be less personally threatening and embarrassing to the subject.
Is it acceptable to quote a section of a problem post, point to a rule, a definition or example in the guidelines and warn a poster publically?
Does one start warning levels in private (PM) and then move to public?
When one locks a thread and posts the reasons is it acceptable to again quote and point to rules and examples in public?
When one does lock a thread is a note made in the moderator reference material for future use?
How many warnings and closings are allowed before more serious action is taken?