new rules & regulations - public discussion

[The NZA]

for many years, i'd accepted that this place values having loose (if any) rules over much else, and it took a while to realize that "much else" included a more diverse community.  as it stands, i've come to learn over the years that we can:

 

a) have a forum where ideas from varying perspectives/sensibilities can flourish (with moderation)

or 

b) host a handful of people either actively stifling that or quietly okay with such

 

we simply can't have both.  there's been countless examples of this, and i'd like to preface this by stressing than those offending parties have (fortunately) been vastly in the overall minority, but without any code to actually stand by, it hasn't always felt that way.  

 

put another way:

 

 

to that end, i've been working with our moderation team to come up with a universal system to actually adhere to our TOS/intended vision, and while disciplinary action is a last resort, it's gotta be on the table if we're gonna be a better place than we were in the past.  

 

here's what the framework looks like, by enabling a warning system employed by our moderation team (paraphrasing stilly but adding stuff here): 

 

On 8/10/2018 at 3:21 AM, Stilly said:

So basically, there are currently 6 warning "types" with various values

• Initial Warning - 0 points
  • So we can give a quick "hey stop that" without it counting
• Spamming - 1 point
  • 1 point after the initial warning, and then go from there (this includes continually posting irrelevant info to a thread, bumping of old topics likewise without relevant info, etc)
• Bigotry - 3 points
  • Self-explanitory - racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia & the like are not to be tolerated.
• Hositily - 3 points
  • Self-explanitory - attack an argument, not each other 
• Other - X points (case-by-case basis, and the like)
• Spam Account - 500 points
• Abusive Behavior - 500 points

All of these points (except the last two) automatically expire after seven days. I also have it set up that when the user hits 5 points (currently), they are restricted from posting for a 24-hour period. They can still use the hollabox, because I can't really stop them without banning them from that.

 

Now, the last two are insta-bans (hence why they have a crazy point value). At 500 points, an account gets banned from the site, and it's really super unlikely that we're going to just give someone that many warnings in a week anyway. So unless they're a true spam account, or pull some MM shit or post cp, they're not going to hit that threshold.

 

"abusive behavior" is currently defined as atrocious shit like posting personal pics/etc of members without consent (a la MM), hacking our board, illegal/terrible shit like posting kiddie porn, etc. - as you'd imagine, bannings are reserved for either the most egregious offenses, or the repeated/unwavering ones.  

 

as we currently have a full staff of moderators, actions will be reviewed in their context & appeals will be heard as well (unless it's just a spamming account/etc).  i can't stress enough that no one here is eager to punish/restrict anyone; just that, if we don't leave the option on the table, we could very easily backslide and allow hostility/bigotry/etc to chase people off & create an environment no one wants to partake in.  

 

before this goes into full effect, i want input from the community - this is your place, too. did we miss anything? or bits unclear, or strike you as potentially unfair?  i really think we've reached a much better time in the board's life, and i want as many folks as possible to take part in shaping a way to foster that - we need something universal, since i/certain other admins won't be around forever & we just can't leave whoever's on at a given time to take the heat of addressing an issue by themselves.  everyone brings something different to the table & context matters, but overall: are y'all with me on this?  i'm essentially asking to prioritize the desire to foster an inclusive community over the freedom to inhibit that.  before going forward, i need to know that we're all on the same page with going forward in this direction - and if so, what that looks like to you. 

[the division of joy]

Ah fuck off

[The NZA]

...no one wants to chime in?   that's what i get for posting this at nearly 5am

[FireDownBelow]

I wasn't sure how to respond... I didn't know if Ross were being serious or not... But if I ignore the ambiguity of that post and just address yours:

 

I think the policy is fair. It points out that we don't want to tolerate assholes but also means people really really have to screw up to get in trouble. I have no problems with it. Proceed.

 

However...in my opinion...bear with me, I'm trying to articulate this. I am not a fan of chaos and jerkery. Which, let's be honest, was a hallmark of this place back in the day. I don't think that is what we deliberately cultivated, though. I simply think that's what we ended up with. We didn't actively promote Hondo's as a safe space. We had many people with many beliefs. Strong people who were willing to defend those beliefs. Sometimes a bit too zealously. Hondo's was not a place for those weak of heart or persuasions.

 

So, while I have no issue with the rules as presented, I do have to disagree with the principles behind them.

[the division of joy]

Was legit not being serious. But y'all can't take jokes any more I guess, so where are my 3 warming points (Hondo's Inc dollars?)

 

Amber said it about as good as I can.

[FireDownBelow]

I can too take a joke! Only problem is, sometimes I don't get the joke. I've got a staircase wit and I'm not very clever, which is why I like puns. They make me feel clever even though they aren't

[Keth]

I really need to work on my pun defending thread.

 

 

[The NZA]

...do you? 

 

DoJ - it was early and i legit half expect that response from some people, citing Poe's law.here 

 

amber - 

7 hours ago, FireDownBelow said:

Which, let's be honest, was a hallmark of this place back in the day. I don't think that is what we deliberately cultivated, though. I simply think that's what we ended up with. We didn't actively promote Hondo's as a safe space. We had many people with many beliefs. Strong people who were willing to defend those beliefs. Sometimes a bit too zealously. Hondo's was not a place for those weak of heart or persuasions.

 

i think between fight club, our mock myspace logo ("a place for fights"), etc i think to an extent we really did cultivate that, though - i remember even thinking that civil war nonsense would help be cathartic & get us past the swirling drama. what it did was highlight/give attention to those causing it

 

politics, for example, eventually became a battleground for two such seemingly strong people, and we basically ceded it to them. by not enforcing anything, we at best cosigned this stuff, no? 

 

really hoping you & others expand on the principles behind this that strike you as troubling.

[FireDownBelow]

I concede your point to a degree. While we never intended it, the fact that we did nothing means we eventually did. Silence gives consent, as it were.

 

I don't find it troubling...just puzzling. I don't see how clear rules will promote and foster diversity. I can certainly see how rules will allow us to do this without being bogged down in douchebaggery though.

 

So, as I said, I don't have a problem with rules. I quite like them. You know I've always been one to promote kindness. Not having to worry about assholes is great.

 

It's really just a questions of semantics and me being pedantic really. Though, going back and reading your post, I seem to be coming up with my own interpretation. And I'm tired so things don't make as much sense as they did.

 

TL;DR: Rules are good. I'm splitting hairs.

 

Though, one question, only vaguely related to rules: How so we get some diversity going? Sometimes you can hear the crickets here.

[The NZA]

oh yeah...i absolutely don't have an answer to that,. you're right. I've never really had much success recruiting new members honestly..and that was true even well before social media. 

 

i should rephrase that part: i think there's a lot fewer voices now then there would've been had i done more to foster such an environment years back. it's a moot point now, sure, but it'll absolutely continue to happen if we don't take measures to weed out the few toxic elements that can still present themselves. 

 

im not great at getting people in the door, but i want to be better at making a place where they're inclined to stay.

 

 

come back, matr hollingsworth

[the division of joy]

That's fair. But I do feel like now I'm back a bit, I'm almost walking on eggshells with what to post 

[Da Cap'n 2099]

43 minutes ago, the division of joy said:

That's fair. But I do feel like now I'm back a bit, I'm almost walking on eggshells with what to post 

 

If that's how you feel then you're moving in the wrong direction anyway.

[Dag]

1 hour ago, the division of joy said:

That's fair. But I do feel like now I'm back a bit, I'm almost walking on eggshells with what to post 

 

Maybe you are just over thinking things?

[FireDownBelow]

I'd say you're definitely overthinking things.

 

Don't think too hard about what to post. At least I don't. Post. If you're respectful, that can shine thru. If you're genuinely curious, that can shine thru. You've never been a jerk that I can recall. You don't attack people or name call. And we're all you're friends, so just post. It's ok to have unpopular opinions as long as you aren't a douche.

[Jumbie]

I'm on board with most of this. I'm not a fan of the arguments that turn into personal attacks especially.

 

My big problem is how do you decide that the sin of bigotry has been committed? Who is the arbiter?

 

We had a debate about gay marriage about ten to fifteen years ago devolve into the question of whether anyone opposing gay marriage is automatically homophobic and the consensus seemed to be yes, it was. Under these new rules, I can't see a debate about the topic happening because anyone opposed would get muzzled.

Similarly with debating immigration policy and accusations of xenophobia, debating religion and Islamophobia, as well as queer issues and trans-phobia and bi-phobia.

What about relatively new PC sensitivities like not calling people crazy because it's able-ist or not using words like fat or old etc?

 

Where's the line? Who's drawing the line? Who's policing the line?

And how can you have debates with a line there?

[Jables]

I agree about the eggshell thing and previously had put it down to my own inability to communicate effectively.  then Panch posted.

 

What admin are asking of existing and new members is perfectly reasonable.  Whether this is your first time on hondos or returning from old,  we absolutely want to have a moral equator.  What that calls of you though,  admin,  is meeting in the middle and not high roading at every chance like Panch up there. 

 

I'm not talking shit,  just asking for true balance as advertised. 

[FireDownBelow]

Well, you know, to address both Jumbie and Jay, I think in order to keep balance, we take the moral pulse of the community as a whole.

 

Take the recent fracas with Drifter. If the new rules had already been in place, was he clearly violating? Ehhhhhh....maybe. It's open for debate. Which we did. We took a vote. We discussed it. I think that's something we should add to policy: the need for discussion and an avoidance of hasty actions. Things often look different after some thought.

[Jables]

It's probably good for all to have a triage though,  poor Stilly handled the Jont thing with aplomb,  but at the time it can't have felt good to be unsure of process. 

[Stilly]

My main response to all that is as such: I don't want to do that again. I didn't want to do it then, but I really had no other tools and it seemed to me that the situation, as it were, was already out of control. 

 

I reacted swiftly and harshly...and incorrectly. 

 

This "new way" is effectively a system of checks and balances. Panch can revoke a warning I issue, for instance. We have a place to discuss these things now. That's part of why things expire after a week, too, so there's no permanent "consequences" unless you're toxic enough that we all (being, all of Hondo's) think you should get the boot. 

 

As far as debates go, they have to take place as part of any discourse of ideas. You can discuss whether or not you agree with gay marriage without using slurs. That's the line for me. 

[Da Cap'n 2099]

Here's the thing: if I can make the adjustment then ANYONE can.

[the division of joy]

7 hours ago, Da Cap'n 2099 said:

 

If that's how you feel then you're moving in the wrong direction anyway.

So, I didn't mean it earlier in the thread, but I do now.

 

Ah fuck off.

[The NZA]

eh - he's being caustic, but panch is in the right spirit of things.  to elaborate: 

 

hondos (in my mind) was born in the spirit of an early aughts durnken conversation between myself (hippie abolitionist/non-comforimist), aadil/piggylover (anarchist/anti-authoritarian), jumbie (proto-libertarian) and yahve (board founder, left-leaning but proto-authoritarian).  the valued sentiment was: we should be able to speak on all ends of the religious and political spectrum.  this was a core tenet that drunken deities - and later, under me - hondo's bar was founded under.  

 

the problem came later: we never addressed fascism as viable option.  as in, the sentiment that liberties such as LBGT issues, minority ones etc were treated, in other ideologies, as superficial/just as much a castaway as political ideologies.  it was very much a naivete we were afforded by not having been exposed to notions we would've easily dismissed then - but have sadly become widely popular in the time since.  you don't have to search far into social media to see white supremacists/etc treating their terrible moral/political choices as though they should, by nature, be treated with the same respect as the scale that our early members operated on (important note: they shouldn't, your inclination to treat a governing body with more or less autonomy shouldn't equate a degree to which you accept or deny the humanity of a minority group.  that's an important distinction).  

 

2 hours ago, Jumbie said:

I'm on board with most of this. I'm not a fan of the arguments that turn into personal attacks especially.

 

My big problem is how do you decide that the sin of bigotry has been committed? Who is the arbiter?

 

We had a debate about gay marriage about ten to fifteen years ago devolve into the question of whether anyone opposing gay marriage is automatically homophobic and the consensus seemed to be yes, it was. Under these new rules, I can't see a debate about the topic happening because anyone opposed would get muzzled.

Similarly with debating immigration policy and accusations of xenophobia, debating religion and Islamophobia, as well as queer issues and trans-phobia and bi-phobia.

What about relatively new PC sensitivities like not calling people crazy because it's able-ist or not using words like fat or old etc?

 

Where's the line? Who's drawing the line? Who's policing the line?

And how can you have debates with a line there?

 

as two people involved in that original conversation: i don't think it's as terribly complicated as you're hinting at here, imam - can you abstractly question/talk about rights insofar as gays, in terms of civil liberties vs post-enlightenment values held by slave-owing founding fathers?  sure, that's obviously a topic worth getting into.

 

a discussion that hinges on a preconceived notion that gays/"deviants" are an aberation requiring a preconceived defense of their humanity?  absolutely not, that's an argument rooted in homophobia.  likewise: an argument about trans rights, insofar as they as an identifiable minority in western society?  how much is expected of the status quo to abide? etc..there's degrees there. a jordan peterson argument that begins on the presupposed notion that transgender discussions only start from individuals with mental disabilities/other demeaning terms?  no, such an argument literally begins from a place of poor faith & works from there, and is thereby bigoted & not worth indulging.  

 

without such standards, historical discussions would be bogged down by trying to start by arguing over bullshit like nazi apologism, or otherwise genocidal denial.  science discussions would have to argue around flat earthers and intelligent design fans & others very clearly not interested in honestly engaging the subjects at hand.  

 

it's 2018.  if you're still posting on a message board - especially a small one like this one - you're enlightened enough to know the basics, which means you don't subscribe to such deeply anti-intellectual bullshit.  we're not going to get anywhere interesting if we have to treat those fringe ideas (however popular) as though they somehow deserve merit.  

 

1 hour ago, Jables said:

I agree about the eggshell thing and previously had put it down to my own inability to communicate effectively.  then Panch posted.

 

What admin are asking of existing and new members is perfectly reasonable.  Whether this is your first time on hondos or returning from old,  we absolutely want to have a moral equator.  What that calls of you though,  admin,  is meeting in the middle and not high roading at every chance like Panch up there. 

 

I'm not talking shit,  just asking for true balance as advertised. 

 

i mean, panch was clearly posting from the same frustration some of us have felt for a while now.  but since you've invited this sidebar....

 

one failure of communication i've long noted is the status quo of americans posting vs foreigners - honestly, most of said group we've retained has been irish, brit, assuie etc groups with a flair for dry, sarcastic humor that works in video formats, but less so online.  what i mean is: i've studied & spent time online to do small subtle shit like put the quiet/piss-taking part at the end of the post in italics, often in small font, so that the sentiment is hopefully minimized as a tongue-in-cheek footnote.  this sounds minor, but i've come to learn the extra weight attached to my posts means that i need to speak faux-objectively in the regular post, and hope for the best with the piss-takes.  i used to think this an important distinction, but honestly, it's done wonders for my shit-talking.  if you've ever wondered why your (as you'd see it) clearly in-line shit-talking post was taken as a slight, it prolly has to do with perception & tone.  i know this sounds to some as weirdly fragile, but too many times (based on folks i've known on both ends & perceptions) ive seen people upset at posts that i took for par for the course, but others took as being maligned.  i know it's awkward pushing for people to be on the same page for what strikes some as minor transgressions, but speaking from experience, you know what's worse? being misunderstood 

 

1 hour ago, FireDownBelow said:

Well, you know, to address both Jumbie and Jay, I think in order to keep balance, we take the moral pulse of the community as a whole.

 

Take the recent fracas with Drifter. If the new rules had already been in place, was he clearly violating? Ehhhhhh....maybe. It's open for debate. Which we did. We took a vote. We discussed it. I think that's something we should add to policy: the need for discussion and an avoidance of hasty actions. Things often look different after some thought.

 

drifter oddly made it pretty clean-cut to me: he planted his flag on some shit that - of those who spoke on it - no one was cool with. 

 

when the group is small enough, you don't need a poll - if you drink at a bar with 5 people and 1 or 2 say you're being a dick, you can safely assume that those staying quiet are either in agreement or don't feel strongly enough to speak up either way.  he chose to take this as persecution & saw himself out for the moment.  i don't see it as anyone should chase him back in so much as it should be a learnable moment before the next visit, is all.  

 

1 hour ago, Jables said:

It's probably good for all to have a triage though,  poor Stilly handled the Jont thing with aplomb,  but at the time it can't have felt good to be unsure of process. 

 

yeah, much of the point of this effort was to minimize the time anyone felt alone in such actions.  i need more of my staff to feel confident in acting when shit goes down without feeling like they're on their own when trying to do the right thing. 

 

43 minutes ago, Stilly said:

My main response to all that is as such: I don't want to do that again. I didn't want to do it then, but I really had no other tools and it seemed to me that the situation, as it were, was already out of control. 

 

I reacted swiftly and harshly...and incorrectly. 

 

This "new way" is effectively a system of checks and balances. Panch can revoke a warning I issue, for instance. We have a place to discuss these things now. That's part of why things expire after a week, too, so there's no permanent "consequences" unless you're toxic enough that we all (being, all of Hondo's) think you should get the boot. 

 

As far as debates go, they have to take place as part of any discourse of ideas. You can discuss whether or not you agree with gay marriage without using slurs. That's the line for me. 

 

agreed on nearly all fronts 

[The NZA]

fuck i'm needlessly verbose when drinking, sorry y'all 

back to mario maker

[Jumbie]

Not hearing anything I disagree with, but my questions aren't answered.

 

Nick is essentially saying we'll know the line when we see it, but different combinations of groups see things differently so basically the middle ground becomes left-wing if it's a mostly left crowd and vice versa and that's a feedback loop to lack of diversity in thought.

 

(That said, I acknowledge the issue of letting the extremists have the floor and ceding the airwaves to the loudest voices in Politics especially is something I personally am done with. I just have a real struggle with the mechanisms to use. I've evolved on how I see Hondos. It's not some public sphere place to me any more. I don't think it can be that and be useful. I think it has to be more like the conversation that started it - which is hanging out in a good friend's living room being safe to say what you really think. And insulting fellow guests etc in your friend's living room is a sure way to not be invited back.)

 

The other thing is that Stilly mentioned homophobic slurs and that's clear-cut, but the issue back in the marriage debate was that the majority of the board felt that opposing gay marriage for any reason, no matter how politely and analytically stated, was inherently homophobic. So are we prepared to accept 'homophobic' arguments if they are not personal? In that case the policy on homophobia has to be clarified to account for it.

 

Final thing: Yes, props to Stilly for the temporary cool down nature of the warning points. Feels like it makes for a less intense moderation process.

 

[Stilly]

I mentioned that as a metaphor, more than anything. You can have a different opinion without it necessarily being "X-phobic". 

 

The second you get vitriolic, though, it becomes bigotry.

 

"I don't agree with ⚧ people for x, y, z" is one thing, "tr*nny f*ggots" is another.