New rule against offsite harassment

[Jacek Bourne]

4 minutes ago, Killer5 said:

If people cant deal with the consequences of shit they have already spewed on this site then they have bigger problems to contend with. It is not my responsibility to fall in line in order to protect the smallest of minorities (the fraction of people using this site who care about this) from bad people on the internet.

 

I absolutely agree.

[msx2plus]

5 minutes ago, dew said:

This is a valid point, but then you need to realize that doomworld is run in the US, by a citizen of the US, so that citizen needs to cover their back using the legal framework of their country. No get out of the jail free cards because XY is legal in Vanuatu.

100% - i imagine their example will tend to lean more toward cultural norms than legal norms (especially in regards to language), though, so it'll probably come down to discussing the topic rather than "ok that's enough of this then"

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by msx2plus

[Morpheus666]

I feel like the only people who really have to worry about this new set of rules is the ones who are breaking it lol, Overall I'm all for this new set of rules, I myself have seen time and time again other people being harassed by Doom Community members for stuff that they had no control over, yet end up getting targeted because they were associated with something.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Morpheus666

[Major Arlene]

4 minutes ago, dmslr said:

Why was my post deleted in this thread? Please, give me at least a warning.

trying to avoid unnecessary derailment/memeing/shit-slinging. be kind to each other on this thread, please. everyone may have an opinion about the new rule but personal attacks on each other on this thread are unnecessary.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Major Arlene
clarification

[7Mahonin]

13 minutes ago, Killer5 said:

If people cant deal with the consequences of shit they have already spewed on this site then they have bigger problems to contend with. It is not my responsibility to fall in line in order to protect the smallest of minorities (the fraction of people using this site who care about this) from bad people on the internet.

Who’s asking you to fall in line to protect other people? It seems all this is saying is they will investigate offsite abuse. What is it you feel you’d be unable to do with a rule like this in place? 

[dmslr]

10 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

trying to avoid unnecessary derailment/memeing/shit-slinging. be kind to each other on this thread, please.

Again you're operating without transparency. I was not memeing/shitposting. Why are you creating an illusions of that? It's not derailment neither. We're discussing rules. Will rules also target mods? Because some of you guys really like to be hostile towards users.

Edited August 22, 2021 by dmslr

[dac]

Look, if we're asking for the Doomworld staff to act in good faith regarding these new rules, then it's completely reasonable that we also do our part and not perform the ancient french art of enculage de mouches regarding what's forbidden speech or not. And while I share the usual worries about how edge cases will be handled, a) what Mordeth mentioned about serious harassment and not wanting people to report on behalf of others does a bit to alleviate these fears, b) usually "different political views" are so blatantly hate speech you don't need a lawyer's definition of what it is.

[msx2plus]

i agree with the removal of needlessly inflammatory/derailment but also agree with the bid for more transparency on it by @dmslr above - that's the most important part of moderation, imo, because it's the part everybody can learn from. less confusion, more betterment for the whole community.

 

[edit] i've been on forums where moderation logs and reasons were almost always made public (aside from where privacy was a legal concern) and those tended to get the best responses from people - not only is the poster aware of the issue, but others are aware of it as an example moving forward, and there's room for discussion because of it too.

Edited August 22, 2021 by msx2plus

[Killer5]

@TelicAx7

Exactly. The rest of us must follow their rules when we are investigated. In other words we must say what these mods want or else we get banned.

 

This is beyond idiotic. Doomworld thinks they are the arbiters of morality.

[msx2plus]

Killer5, i understand your concerns as i've experienced communities with overreaching mods a number of times, but i don't think that's what's being said here at all - if you're extrapolating "hate speech" to mean an actual difference of opinion and not use of slurs, bigoted language, etc, then i think you're taking it a bit far - again, would need moderator input, but i imagine the community in general would agree on that.

[PrincessProzac]

Straight up .... Why won't anyone from here go speak to 40oz and establish some ground rules together so it doesn't feel like a power thing of ... Because DW SAYS IT ITS FACT .... 

 

Its a little insane to just be like hey this is your last chance and if you don't comply there is that... Can someone please just speak with 40oz and come up with something mutual ...

 

 

Like if DW wants the respect of people on DB to not speak about them Ill will shouldn't that go both ways ??? Maybe you all should stop talking so much shit about 40oz and the Doomer board members ... Just a thought. 

 

Jon (40oz has told me in person he is will you speak to someone here if they are aswell ... So maybe open that conversation up ! ) 

[Killer5]

No. I am not taking this too far.

 

'if you're extrapolating "hate speech" to mean an actual difference of opinion and not use of slurs, bigoted language, etc, then i think you're taking it a bit far' - this right here is idiotic. Doomworld is going to determine what they believe is bigoted and then determine if they believe it is a ban. This is beyond stupid and should never be supported.

[rehelekretep]

can someone give a tl;dr as to what has caused this change?

[Devalaous]

15 minutes ago, Major Arlene said:

but personal attacks on each other on this thread are unnecessary.

 

I think you meant to say 'personal attacks on each other are unnecessary in general'. They are NOT welcome ANYWHERE on this forum, or outside of it.

I've had friends attacked recently over the DBP situation merely for liking those wads, and this rule will hopefully stop that. But I also have friends that want nothing to do with Doomworld's community because there seems to be a precedent for allowing harassment here, and ive seen multiple times that moderators will ignore it, or worse, join in. Anti-harassment is all or nothing I'm afraid.

[Snaxalotl]

Preventing harassment against users here shouldn't be controversial... just be nice to each other, its not that hard. Additionally the mods here have standards they have to set, and that's what is being done, nothing wrong with that.

[dew]

20 minutes ago, dmslr said:

Again you're operating without transparency. I was not memeing/shitposting. Why are you creating an illusions of that? It's not derailment neither. We're discussing rules. Will rules also target mods? Because some of you guys really like to be hostile towards users.

You would be surprised how much I agree with you. You're not the only one with innocuous posts getting deleted.

[Mordeth]

17 minutes ago, dew said:

You're not the only one with innocuous posts getting deleted.

 

Offtopic posts or derailments are being hidden, with a message to the poster on the reason. Activity in this thread is already high without users going off into unrelated tangents.

 

Edit: with a message to the poster on the reason Turns out this is broken, my bad.

[JezChrist]

.

Edited August 22, 2021 by JezChrist
Deleted following Mordeth's post.

[P41R47]

1 hour ago, MattFright said:

I'd rather deal with a few people trying to find loopholes and inevitably getting clowned on by the community than seeing everyone fearful of moderators potentially abusing their role to do selfish things that don't actually benefit the community.

i support this to some extent.

Clear things or its the same as nothing.

@Linguica i know you may trust your staff, but for the community, they are members like us, humans like us, and not every human follows the same morality. For some members of the moderators staff it seems that is obvious to be respectful to the members, and i can't say if others share that vision.
In recent event, a lot of people showed concern about how they are fearful of the moderating team, and how they were even afraid to speak about it.
Thats not sane for any community.
For the same situations, two moderators may see different things, one a problem, another nothing to care about.

So the real problem here is the job of the moderators themselves.
(ah, msx2plus ninja'ed me with that :)

This may sound like coming from a book (one of my favourites) ''who watch the watchmen?''.
But its seems to be the real issue here.

So its better to try to understand what a moderator should be:

-a neutral person that tries to be partial on different situations and tries not to act on personals opinions, just someone that tries to keep the peacefulness of the whole site by not taking sides.

 

-a person that respect the other members. Insulting other members or using foul language to them is not what a moderator should be doing.

-a person that informs a member before applying the penalty, no matter if it is new or old member. Past member behaviour shouldn't be taken in account or as a mark on their registry if the warnings are separate long enough between them. Also, lost of different kind of warnings not mean that the member deserve to be banned, just reiterate offenses of the same kind should lead to that, and again, only if they are one after another in a short period of time.
Better inform inside the thread itself about the member commiting a mistake before even send the member in question a proper warning.
That way, other members could know that the moderation is being taken clearly and at the sight of everyone.

-a person that inform of the changes ''for the community''. Making polls and so if needed.
 

-a person that don't take sides even inside the moderation staff and shouldn't take desicions by themselves, or in association with the moderating staff.
The community is first and foremost the important here, not what the moderation staff thinks.

 

-moderator shouldn't have to be able to resort to deleting comments on threads. That not only may lead to ''revisionism'', but also to moderators start deleting what they think its not important to them.

Transparency is the important here.
So if a comment seems to be conflictive or something, moderators should contact the user on the same thread, only if the comment in question is reported to the moderator, and politelly ask to change it because ''x'' reason to the user in question. The user in question may answers why they think the comment is important and decide to change it or not. User is able to defense his stance.
Moderators must wait for the answer.
After that, the outcome is simple.
As moderators should not take sides, and the comment in question was indeed reported, there is only one option.
Refusing leads to a warning. Refuse with a ''why'' leads to a minor warning that goes to that persont to please moderate his comments for the peace of the site. Accepting, no problem.
Only comments that could be potentially deleted are those that can be missinterpreted on future readings of the thread if the thread is still activelly visited and people still comment about that comment in question, or when they are intentionally offensive. And only if the user refused to change it before hand.

In this cases, its better left the comment in question in the thread but completelly blank with a message that saids ''this comment was deleted for being intentionally offensive'', ''this comment didn't added anything to the thread and just provoked derailments'' or something along the lines.

 

As you can see, the last item was being wrote at the same time things happened on this same thread, and Mordeth took the best course of action at last.

Probably this kind of things could be extended on future revisits, and with other members here suggestions, too.

 

 

1 hour ago, Killer5 said:

Wait. This website is trying to restrict speech anywhere on the internet in the form of a ban? This is idiotic. Now we all have to pay the price because of all of this shit flinging in the past few days?

 

God forbid people now have different political views than the fragile souls of this website. This is actually one of the dumbest things I have read in a while (and that includes everything going on the past few days).

 

37 minutes ago, Killer5 said:

@TelicAx7

Exactly. The rest of us must follow their rules when we are investigated. In other words we must say what these mods want or else we get banned.

 

This is beyond idiotic. Doomworld thinks they are the arbiters of morality.

 

No, man you have it wrong.
only the cases of harrasement, stalking, and the others that are reported will be taked in account.
If you want to talk of something in private with someone or publicly, and nobody reports you, you are good to go.

As long as you don't attack other member for not thinking like you, or because they have a different opinion than yours, hence ''hate speech'', you should be fine expressing your own opinion, political or not.

At least thats what i understood, if not someone else please correct me there.

Edited August 22, 2021 by P41R47

[Killer5]

No. You expect me to believe that a site which was brought down to its knees because of drama they caused should have this kind of power? Get over yourself.

[JezChrist]

Trying to list all the rule is falling in the rabbit hole of "Never enough precision" and thus there will be a need for always more specific rules.

 

"Don't be a jerk" is quite explicit. If you can't understand that, wtf are you doing in an online community like this one ?

 

For those who fear breaking the rules because they are unsure of the limits here's a tip :

 

"If you have doubts : stop."

 

[NuMetalManiak]

I just wanna be a responsible member of every Doom forum I'm on and I don't want cross-forum craziness killing anything. If I somehow bother you I'm sorry but I won't directly harass anyone so please don't harass me either. This forum has great users, especially the ones who cheered me up when I felt suicidal last week, and I don't want to see problems continue to arise just because gimps on other sites can't stop infighting.

 

(please don't hurt me)

[msx2plus]

5 minutes ago, P41R47 said:

-moderator shouldn't have to be able to resort to deleting comments on threads. That not only may lead to ''revisionism'', but also to moderators start deleting what they think its not important to them.

Transparency is the important here.

i keep mentioning it but this is the big one - revising without informing creates a gap in understanding for new members - if people can see why things were removed, the context they were in, etc, they can get a much better feel for the vibe of the place. in mild cases hiding the message behind a click with a notice up front is good, and in extreme cases replacement with an admin log of some kind is the better choice.

[ViolentBeetle]

The rule doesn't seem like it would be any use. If one is disrupting the peace on Doomworld, no extra rules seem to be required. If one is doing something off-site, banning them on Doomworld doesn't seem to have a purpose. The rule seems to be designed to penalize someone from saying mean things off-site, in a way that can be traced to Doomworld account, yet somehow not breaking rules on Doomworld directing, which is useless except when using as pretex for some kind of purges, and in either case protects no-one.

[Snaxalotl]

Just now, ViolentBeetle said:

The rule doesn't seem like it would be any use. If one is disrupting the peace on Doomworld, no extra rules seem to be required. If one is doing something off-site, banning them on Doomworld doesn't seem to have a purpose. The rule seems to be designed to penalize someone from saying mean things off-site, in a way that can be traced to Doomworld account, yet somehow not breaking rules on Doomworld directing, which is useless except when using as pretex for some kind of purges, and in either case protects no-one.

It is up to the moderators how they run their own website, if they see people escaping bans by harassing people on other platforms and act accordingly what is the problem? I say good riddance, there is no need for that behavior.

[rehelekretep]

its funny because lots of people who are super against government moderation of the internet as a whole, are often the ones who get really angry when private websites and their owners ban or restrict their 'free speech': you cant have it both ways - a private enterprise can ban you for whatever reason they want and that is their right.

[JezChrist]

2 minutes ago, ViolentBeetle said:

The rule doesn't seem like it would be any use. If one is disrupting the peace on Doomworld, no extra rules seem to be required. If one is doing something off-site, banning them on Doomworld doesn't seem to have a purpose. The rule seems to be designed to penalize someone from saying mean things off-site, in a way that can be traced to Doomworld account, yet somehow not breaking rules on Doomworld directing, which is useless except when using as pretex for some kind of purges, and in either case protects no-one.

I disagree.

 

The new rule works only if the harasser is dumb enough to keep both accounts linked.

The mods intervene also only if moderation on the other site was warned and did nothing.

We're talking harassement here. Most other social media will intervene themselves.

This is for extreme cases. I can't see purge happening.

 

But if you would feel safer with additionnal safe guards against this power, I would support the idea 100%.

 

It will protect people getting harassed for DW related reasons, but everywhere else exept DW.

[LexiMax]

I'm a little confused by the fears of moderator abuse.

If you think a community has abusive moderators that are acting in bad faith, there's literally no framework of rules and regulations that can protect you.  Internet forum rules aren't laws and only people higher on the informal ladder of power have any say, with the top dog generally being the person paying the bills for the servers.

[ViolentBeetle]

2 minutes ago, rehelekretep said:

a private enterprise can ban you for whatever reason they want and that is their right.

In a shocking turn of event it's possible to be critical of something without trying to involve government.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I have never used Discord or Twitch or any other forum for talking about DOOM or anything else, so I don't know exactly how places like that work (I don't really know what a Twitch/Discord "raid" is, I don't know what /VR/ is, I'm just not into that stuff), but this seems like a step in the right direction. I would hope that any forum would at least try to do something if their members are being doxxed or threatened with violence. Infringing on a person's wishes to remain anonymous/pseudo anonymous is a terrible thing and can lead to severe repercussions for the victim, even sometimes on a legal/political level depending on their location and culture. People who do that need to be eradicated as soon as possible.