Subject:
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Re: No gimmicks, just some free background images
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Fri, 18 Feb 2000 01:02:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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922 times
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Lorbaat wrote in message ...
> In lugnet.admin.general, Frank Filz writes:
>
> > Either contribute something useful to the discussion or go jump in a
> > lake.
>
> In what way was my post not a useful contribution? I'm seriously trying to
> determine at what point someone has shown themselves to be enough of a • violator
> of T&C to warrant disciplinary action.
Because it contributed NOTHING to the discussion. This one does. I'll
respond below.
> You say that you would support action against repeat offenders- so how • repeat
> would they have to be in your mind? Obviously, Scott doesn't qualify- so
what
> would?
Ok, I'll detail what my response to Scott's latest post is. I don't remember
all of Scott's previous posts, but any new way of dealing with things is
going to have to mostly let water which has already passed under the bridge
go, so I'll make some reference to the older ones, but not cover them all.
First off, my suggestion is that posts which are deemed inappropriate for
ANY reason sufficient to consider warranting any action be canceled, and the
poster told what is wrong with the post, and be given the opportunity to
re-post a corrected post. This reduces the damage to the time spent by the
moderator(s) and the damage done to anyone who has already read the
offending post. If the moderators (and I do think that the only way we are
going to have a workable solution is to have more than one moderator -
though it would only take one moderator to pull a post, further action would
have to be decided on by consensus, and the original poster would be free to
appeal the pull to the whole moderating team) feel that they are spending
too much time on a particular person's posts, they have several options:
- block all posting by that individual until they express to the moderators
that they understand the T&C, and why their posts have been pulled. If they
feel the potential misunderstanding is fairly specific, they may chose to
block only certain groups, however I am in favor of generally blocking all
access to ensure that the poster will stop and read the T&C and respond to
the complaint.
- install an automoderator for the individual which sends any post which has
certain keywords to the moderators to approve, this may be in effect for a
sub-set of newsgroups (heck, key it into the same scanning which is used by
the search engine, though it may be able to be more powerfull than the
general search engine since it can presumably kick a post into grep or any
other tool, which tools may not be practical for searching the entire news
database)
- block posting by the individual to one or more groups for some period of
time. This should be a near last resort type of deal, of course the extremes
of this sanction extend the list of groups to all groups, and the length of
time to infinity
The moderators should also examine the T&C and related documents if they see
a pattern of abuse. The moderators should also consider whether a post is
worthy of action, many transgressions are not worthy of action.
Ok, back to Scott's latest post. Moderator sees a post which he believes is
an auction announcement, he pulls the post and tells Scott what is wrong.
Probably Scott re-posts (to bst ONLY) making it clear that he is offering
straight sale or trade, and indicates that if he doesn't get an offer by
Saturday (or whatever) he will put the stuff on eBay. On the other hand,
Scott may feel that his post was ok as is, and appeals to the whole
moderating team. They'll probably tell him to re-write the post the way the
first guy did, but they might offer more suggestions, or they might be a
little softer overall (and some might say that they didn't see anything
wrong with the post in the first place, but now that the issue has been
raised, Scott should make it more clear [if I was one of these moderators, I
probably would have pulled it - I initially thought it sounded a bit much
like an auction posting, but understood what Scott intended based on prior
dealings, of course on carefull reading, it was easier to see Scott's
intention, but still, people's first reaction shouldn't be "this is an
auction post in bst"]). Now unless Scott makes a habit of repeating this
laziness, I don't see any long term issue which requires any sanctions, even
taking Scott's prior history into account. The only prior incident I really
remember was the rapid fire misplaced posts and apologies. I don't know what
went wrong there, but I would encourage the new T&C to indicate that the
poster should just cancel a post like that (or ask one of the moderators to
cancel the post), and NOT post an apology. My guess is that the moderators
would have gotten a little irked at Scott, probably blocked all his posting
until he read the T&C, and allowed life to move on. If Scott posted the
apologies, they should come down a little harder. If Scott canceled the
posts, or asked them to cancel the posts, they might be a little more
forgiving. Scott, if you're reading this, would you care to elaborate on
what went wrong there? When I see something like that, I wonder if the
person did it intentionally, or if they were having a bad day with whatever
software they were using to post. Of course if the Scott was just having a
bad day with his software, and had canceled the mis-placed posts
immediately, they would have gained essentially no exposure of the auctions,
and it would have been clear that there was no intent for people to actually
see them.
Wrto automoderation - I just had an idea. Since there is a small set of
words which cause problems, how about setting up an automoderator which keys
on those words (with allowance for newsgroup). When it kicks back a post, it
includes a one time password which will allow the poster to re-submit the
post if they believe that they know what they are doing (and the rejection
note will make it clear that if they don't know what they're doing, they
will get burned). They can just include the password anywheres in the body
of the post. Of course the post will get kicked back to the automoderator,
which will see the password, strip it out, and post the article into the
news database. People with legitimate reasons to post what they were trying
to post, will start to learn how to word their post better. Of course some
jerks will try and get around the automoderator. Fine. That is easy to
detect. Burn them.
Some things I would key on:
- the various no-no swear words
(I see no potential for any false hits here, if we don't want this
language on Lugnet, there is no reason to have it anywhere on Lugnet, I'd
even be inclined to not give a password to allow posting of this)
- www.ebay.com outside lugnet.market.auction or lugnet.market.theory (or
discussion if that suggestion of mine takes hold)
(the only
- auction in the subject outside lugnet.market.auction or
lugnet.market.theory
- FA surrounded my non alpha characters in the first 5 or so characters of
the subject outside ...
> I'm sure we all appreciate the relative orderliness that having T&C brings.
> I'm sure that none of us would want to see lugnet.* degenerate into the
> relative chaos that r.t.l has become. Unfortunately, that means that at • SOME
> point you have to draw the line. At SOME point you have to say "this • person
> has gone too far". I'm just wondering at what point *you* draw that line. • You
> say in your earlier post that you would support ToSsing repeat offenders, • but
> then you say that Scott Arthur's actions don't warrant disciplinary action.
> That seems like a bit of a contradiction to me. I'm honestly curious how • they
> balance out in your mind. I'm sure you have a valid opinion as a member of • the
> Lugnet community concerning this, as do I. I'm trying to engage you in a
> discussion about it. It is, to me, a very important matter, as it seems to • be
> to you. I know the matter is distasteful, and I'm not trying to be an • ogre,
> but it's a decision that Lugnet is going to have to come to in order to • move
> forward as a healthy community.
Where do I draw the line? I think Scott's actions are in a borderline
situation. One of my biggest hopes is that if we improve the T&C and the
moderation capabilities, Scotts actions would have been somewhat different,
and this would not have blown up. I also don't think counting the total
number of mis-posts someone has done, with no consideration for the
different types of violations, the intentionality of them, and the time
between them, is a good way to go. Like I've said before, three strikes and
you're out doesn't work. You will start kicking people out who perhaps had a
bad start, reformed, and then just had a bad day.
The ONLY things I see wrong with Scott's latest post is that it was
crossposted when it should not have been, and was a little too fuzzy about
being an auction posting. I truly believe that Scott's intent was to offer
the stuff for sale or trade, prior to being put on eBay. I think that intent
counts for something. As I have said before, this is a HOBBY, let's cut
people a little bit of slack (and my answer to Todd's slippery slope issue,
which is valid, is to start canceling mis-placed posts).
> In any event, as I said, you should at least be prepared for people who • feel
> differently than you about matters to post and say so. There seem to me to • be
> a lot of people reading these posts, but not discussing them, and I can • only
> assume that means they haven't made up their minds. If you can feel free • to
> post your opinions, I can only assume that you would want someone with a
> dissenting opinion to post theirs, in the spirit of discussion and open
debate.
Yes that is fine. You didn't need to repeat yourself with a post with no
constructive content however.
I'm also not really clear on how you want Lugnet to be run. What I draw from
the way you have posted, is that you want people to be burned badly if they
happen to mis-post once in a while, never mind what impact it has on others.
Do you even care that a valued member of the community has left (or is very
close to leaving) because they got caught in the crossfire here, because
they posted something that some people considered as an auction, even though
it didn't call itself an auction, but could have been better worded (I
considered it an auction myself)? Do you even know who left (or is very
close to leaving - actually there is more than one person who is very close
to leaving)? How does this mesh with how Jonathan Wilson was treated? Do we
treat Scott worse than Jonathan? How does Scott's transgressions compare to
Jonathan's? In my opinion they are on different planets. I also think that a
reasonable solution was found for Jonathan, and thankfully he has mostly
cleaned up his act.
Now part of the problem may be that there were no sanctions for Scott's
earlier transgressions. I think there needs to be a stepped response. Don't
go from "blocked access until you make it clear to Todd that you understand
what you did wrong" to "blocked from market.auction and
market.buy-sell-trade" for 6 months.
Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: No gimmicks, just some free background images
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| (...) I think it's always a bad idea to close your eyes to history. (...) I agree with Todd's current policy on cancels. I think that publicly pointing out that a post is incorrect (which ALSO ends up in the permanent record of Lugnet) is all that (...) (25 years ago, 18-Feb-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: No gimmicks, just some free background images
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| (...) In what way was my post not a useful contribution? I'm seriously trying to determine at what point someone has shown themselves to be enough of a violator of T&C to warrant disciplinary action. You say that you would support action against (...) (25 years ago, 17-Feb-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
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