Unhappy with moderation and personal attacks?

[dirkhh]

I'm here for the pony. I was told there would be ponies.

There are. Check the Reputation Points thread. It explains things in detail in a little more than 530 posts. It's really straight forward.
And yes, ohmman. Moderation. Good. Both in how you respond to other members' opinions, and in what the moderators do.

 

[Andyw2100]

I'm here for the pony. I was told there would be ponies.

That's the problem. Some of the cars are missing a lot of the ponies.

 

[Benjamin Brooks]

That's the problem. Some of the cars are missing a lot of the ponies.

Wisest thing I've heard on TMC today.

 

[schonelucht]

Banned is not a derogatory word. It's factual, like awake or asleep.

I don't like this ban, but that's not the reason I'd quibble with it.

Factuality is not a defence. If someone is factually being an idiot and I would call him an idiot, then moderators will take action against me, as they have done in comparable cases.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

A common note here is that the reason for moderation actions and bans is between the moderator/administrator and the banned. Just to let you know I never received any notice of ban or why I was banned yesterday (which I was after my participation in the wk057 thread), when my account was inactivated as a silent ban which showed to nobody but stopped access to posting and PMs. It remains so today. It is my understanding not even wk057 has knowledge of what exactly prompted his ban (he got an actual ban that showed), from my exchange with him. So, it seems in these cases the information is merely available to the administration, not the banned at all.

For example, I don't believe I said anything out of line with rules yesterday, so I have no idea what prompted the action. If there is a genuine desire of both some due process and more importantly of change in particular action, my wish would be that moderation or administration (as applicable) would make it clear, very specific, to the offender why some action was taken - especially when something as drastic as a ban is involved. I would like to think the idea is not to lead through fear of arbitrary action, but actual guidelines that can be followed. An important part of that is the ability to understand causality, why some action was taken and how that can be avoided in the future. Personally I would even make decisions public so that they can withstand public scrutiny, there is nothing to hide when things are done well.

IMO, yesterday was quite a day even by TMC standards. You all know my views on that part. Maybe that will never change. But the above, at the very least, I think could be considered. One concrete idea: Maybe the offender could get, say, top three URLs to the messages that were the cause of the ban and a short tweet length summary of the reason, as policy.

 

[trond.strom]

A common note here is that the reason for moderation actions and bans is between the moderator/administrator and the banned. Just to let you know I never received any notice of ban or why I was banned yesterday (which I was after my participation in the wk057 thread), when my account was inactivated as a silent ban which showed to nobody but stopped access to posting and PMs. It remains so today. It is my understanding not even wk057 has knowledge of what exactly prompted his ban (he got an actual ban that showed), from my exchange with him. So, it seems in these cases the information is merely available to the administration, not the banned at all.

For example, I don't believe I said anything out of line with rules yesterday, so I have no idea what prompted the action. If there is a genuine desire of both some due process and more importantly of change in particular action, my wish would be that moderation or administration (as applicable) would make it clear, very specific, to the offender why some action was taken - especially when something as drastic as a ban is involved. I would like to think the idea is not to lead through fear of arbitrary action, but actual guidelines that can be followed. An important part of that is the ability to understand causality, why some action was taken and how that can be avoided in the future. Personally I would even make decisions public so that they can withstand public scrutiny, there is nothing to hide when things are done well.

IMO, yesterday was quite a day even by TMC standards. You all know my views on that part. Maybe that will never change. But the above, at the very least, I think could be considered. One concrete idea: Maybe the offender could get, say, top three URLs to the messages that were the cause of the ban and a short tweet length summary of the reason, as policy.

This is a forum, people will get into heated discussions I seriously cannot see the issue here.

Apart from that I wish to convey that WK057 made the agony that is waiting for your own Tesla much more bearable for me. I will miss him on this forum

 

[WarpedOne]

He will be back. Soon.

 

[Andyw2100]

He will be back. Soon.

I hope you are right, WarpedOne.

The reason I thought the admins made a mistake in banning wk057 is that as others have pointed out, almost without exception, when he has become snippy and crossed lines it has been in response to others who have also crossed lines. I didn't see any glaring offenses yesterday, which means that as one of the admins wrote, a ban can be based on a history of action. That's fine. But when evaluating a history it would seem it would be appropriate to kind of factor in the total number of posts and the number of times a poster is attacked. What I mean is if someone who has made thirty posts has gotten snippy and crossed a line in ten of them, and was provoked in only three of them, that is a very different situation from someone who has made over three thousand posts, gotten snippy in one hundred of them, and was provoked in sixty of those. Yes, the second poster is overall more snippy, but not as a percentage of their total postings.

When someone is taking a view here that is seen as being anti-Tesla, one takes a lot of heat for it. wk057 has done that on several topics, as have I. It is difficult to remain completely "in-line" with our responses when some of the attacks on our views are not "in-line" themselves. It's also difficult when it's not exactly clear where the line we're not supposed to cross is. I mean some responses would clearly be across the line, and obviously so. But others are much more subjective.

My feeling on the wk057 issue is that there must have been a lot of those close ones, that really could be seen as being on either side of the line, that the admins viewed as being across the line. I would just hope that in light of the fact that wk057 wasn't regularly and blatantly being downright abusive towards people, the ban might be lifted.

 

[Electroman]

You are filling up disk space AnxietyRanger.. valuable disk space. As soon as the mods were freeing up space, you were filling it up.

So they had to quiesce you for sometime until the enough terrabytes of disk space was freed up. Now you get another week to fill it up!

 

[Andyw2100]

Please report the posts where people were attacking him. I remember people disagreeing with him and him turning things up a notch out of frustration I assume. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't give you the right to treat people like that.

I don't disagree with you about "not turning it up a notch out of frustration."

As for reporting posts in which he was attacked, I'd have to go back through a lot of threads, and to be honest I don't want to take the time. But as one example that jumps to mind, if you look at the thread he started about autopilot being late--this one--

Autopilot lane keeping still not available over 6 months after delivery

he was attacked pretty regularly. People kept talking about him threatening to sue Tesla when he had not made those threats. If you really would like me to, I'll look through that thread and find some posts that I'd consider attacks later, but I expect if you skim through it a bit you'll see what I mean.

There are posts made since his banning that I think are worse than anything wk057 said yesterday that haven't been moderated away anywhere last time I checked. Posts implying that I'm a moron, posts that tell sorka things like he should admit he's wrong for once in his life, (or something like that.) I'd go find those, and edit this post with them, but then this post might get moved to snippiness when those posts do.

Edit: I just reread your post, and saw that you said "report." Since you asked, I --will-- go find the posts I referred to above, and report those, just so you can see what I'm talking about. (I don't care that much if they get moved or not. My point was that they were more offensive than anything wk057 said yesterday, and were left alone.)

 

[AnOutsider]

When you see a post that you feel brings down the tone or goes against the TOS, please report it. There's just no way for mods to read every single post, and even when we do, we may miss a subtlety in a post that may be untoward. Report it so that it can be brought to our attention and acted on if need be.

 

[dsm363]

unhappy with moderation

I don't disagree with you about "not turning it up a notch out of frustration."

As for reporting posts in which he was attacked, I'd have to go back through a lot of threads, and to be honest I don't want to take the time. But as one example that jumps to mind, if you look at the thread he started about autopilot being late--this one--

Autopilot lane keeping still not available over 6 months after delivery

he was attacked pretty regularly. People kept talking about him threatening to sue Tesla when he had not made those threats. If you really would like me to, I'll look through that thread and find some posts that I'd consider attacks later, but I expect if you skim through it a bit you'll see what I mean.

There are posts made since his banning that I think are worse than anything wk057 said yesterday that haven't been moderated away anywhere last time I checked. Posts implying that I'm a moron, posts that tell sorka things like he should admit he's wrong for once in his life, (or something like that.) I'd go find those, and edit this post with them, but then this post might get moved to snippiness when those posts do.

Edit: I just reread your post, and saw that you said "report." Since you asked, I --will-- go find the posts I referred to above, and report those, just so you can see what I'm talking about. (I don't care that much if they get moved or not. My point was that they were more offensive than anything wk057 said yesterday, and were left alone.)

In that very first post he does bring up the possibility of him taking legal action against Tesla. Some interpreted that as he meant to take action if he didn't get what he wanted. He disagreed and said he never said that. I really don't think that rises to the level of a personal attack. But as AO said feel free to report the posts.

 

[dirkhh]

When you see a post that you feel brings down the tone or goes against the TOS, please report it. There's just no way for mods to read every single post, and even when we do, we may miss a subtlety in a post that may be untoward. Report it so that it can be brought to our attention and acted on if need be.

So I frequently report posts that I think are out of line. One thing that makes this frustrating is that there is never any feedback. No "yep, that was bad, I took care of it", no "come on, she was just kidding", nothing. Sometimes I go back after a day and notice with dismay that the posts are still in place. Sometimes others around them get moved away but the ones that I reported are still there, sometimes hald the thread is gone by the time I check back.
I know (see above) that moderation is hard work. But a mechanism to let a reporter know that the report was seen and evaluated (and for bonus points, how it was evaluated) might motivate more of us to report things. Which in the end hopefully will result in more balanced reporting.
Or maybe I'm making all this too complicated?

 

[ohmman]

Or maybe I'm making all this too complicated?

My view is that your request nearly doubles the load of the moderators. Not only must they filter through the postings, moving things around, but also try to respond to everyone who reported it (which could be done in bulk, I understand). I like it better not getting anything back - I trust that they've seen my report, and I trust that they're doing their job. It's possible they don't see eye-to-eye with my report, and that's fine.

Btw, Dirk, I reported your post. Reason: making things too complicated.

 

[Nigel Tufnel]

I'm here for the pony. I was told there would be ponies.

There were ponies but they grew into horses who then died. Now apparently our job is to beat them.

 

[bollar]

There were ponies but they grew into horses who then died. Now apparently our job is to beat them.

This is the correct answer and now we can close the thread!

 

[AnxietyRanger]

You are filling up disk space AnxietyRanger.. valuable disk space. As soon as the mods were freeing up space, you were filling it up.

So they had to quiesce you for sometime until the enough terrabytes of disk space was freed up. Now you get another week to fill it up!

FYI, if someone is wondering why I'm not heard from more, I am still banned - as in a moderated account, so no PMs can be sent and no real-time posting. It is not really inductive towards contribution, but it is what it is. I have no idea what rule I may have broken, but I feel like a newbie again.

 

[dirkhh]

Btw, Dirk, I reported your post. Reason: making things too complicated.

Let's hope the moderators rejct your request and send you a nice "give me a break" message in response

 

[Andyw2100]

I have occasionally reported posts, and perhaps I should do it more often.

One of the reasons I have been reluctant to report posts is that often it will result in the moderators having to move the posts that were in response to the offensive post to snippiness as well, which will often severely disrupt the conversation. So I've opted in favor of leaving some snippiness or rudeness in exchange for a more complete discussion. It's a sticky situation.

 

[dirkhh]

I have occasionally reported posts, and perhaps I should do it more often.

One of the reasons I have been reluctant to report posts is that often it will result in the moderators having to move the posts that were in response to the offensive post to snippiness as well, which will often severely disrupt the conversation. So I've opted in favor of leaving some snippiness or rudeness in exchange for a more complete discussion. It's a sticky situation.

Which is what leads to the rather non-even-handed moderation that many in this thread seem to be complaining about...
It's a no-win scenario :-(