New rule against offsite harassment

[Decay]

I have no stake in this past week's latest dramas and the rules being offered here, but after reading most of it, I find people are making some really weird hills to die on.

[Obsidian]

8 minutes ago, Killer5 said:

No. You are wrong. It does affect my life and many others.

 

For example in California they allow men who say they are trans to go into a female area of a spa. Or allow trans women in prisons (guess what the women they are in cells with are getting pregnant).

 

This forum is now affecting my enjoyment of the internet.

 

And for this reason you think you should be allowed to make this forum a less welcoming space for other people? You're allowed to have your personal opinions, but when they start infringing on other people's ability to participate in the forums you have to expect some sort of blowback.

[Killer5]

@Murdoch

I can't. If people see me express my opinion in multiple places when does that become harassment of individual people here in the eyes of some mod? You need to keep moderation restricted to Doom matters only on this particular forum.

 

@msx2plus

Like I said I understand if you are different. But you don't get to go around forcing people to fall in line with your own views.

[LadyMistDragon]

7 minutes ago, msx2plus said:

i, once again, understand the roots of your fears, but i absolutely implore you to consider how the lives of trans people have been impacted up to this point - and including this point and onwards, despite progress.

 

the queer boogeymen aren't out to get you homie, trust. don't buy into that.

And they aren't all pedophiles either. We are basically against in the same proportions as 'mainstream' America.

 

[Mordeth]

2 minutes ago, Killer5 said:

Now I will be possibly banned because of my views being bigoted.

 

If you engage in bigoted posts here on Doomworld you are likely to get a warning, possibly a temp ban, or a perm ban if you keep it up. This was already the case. If you're a bigot against a Doomworld member offsite, you're not getting moderated under this new rule. Only a sustained campaign against a specific user to the point of it becoming harassment in the eyes of the targeted user will qualify for moderation under the new rule.

[ABearInThaWoods]

It's been nice watching all this unfold from the sidelines for the past few days but I've got to speak out about these "rules" because they are pretty horrific.

 

You're greatly overstepping your boundaries by trying to restrict and/or police speech outside of Doomworld. Especially considering you're using an extremely vague framework. It's not really your place to troll across the internet to hunt down every instance of people being mean to one another. It's especially troubling because you've essentially instructed users to act as Stasi against one another and go tattle to mom and dad when someone does a meany. That's absurd. Everyone here is (probably) an adult. Worry about what's under your control here and stop acting like morality police.

 

Your criteria for the rules are extremely vague and are open for all kinds of interpretive abuse. What you would consider offensive isn't the same as anyone else. A "hurtful" comment is an entirely subjective metric. Hate speech is a poorly defined term that is usually invoked when people get upset over a disagreement. Hate speech also tends to favor the politically left leaning and is entirely exclusionary to people who lean right. For example a Christian conservative person who doesn't believe LGBT issues are moral and vocally opposes such a lifestyle can be accused of hate speech, this forces them to self-censor for the sake of others who are very likely to not give the same consideration to their beliefs. I consider dropping these criteria next to actually harmful behavior like doxxing a pretty scummy move. Mean words are not equitable to revealing a person's identity for the sake of harassment. One is clearly observably malicious while the other, again, is entirely subjective.

 

If you're not capable of seeing the glaring flaws in the logic behind these rules then I can only assume that you 1) are truly ignorant of how governmental/establishment abuse works or 2) are willing to overlook those flaws because they are socially/politically expedient to you. 

 

@mordeth and the mod team: I urge you to reconsider these rules. This isn't how you cultivate a healthy community. This is how you stifle constructive (and yes combative discussion can be constructive) conversations.

Edited August 23, 2021 by ABearInThaWoods

[Murdoch]

4 minutes ago, Killer5 said:

I can't. If people see me express my opinion in multiple places when does that become harassment of individual people here in the eyes of some mod?

 

Christ. It becomes harassment when you harass someone about it. You lack of comprehension of this is frankly baffling. You are spinning this wildly out of control, thinking Doomworld moderators are suddenly going to become power mad dictators for insert vague reason here. That is absolute lunacy and there is no objective reason to think that. You are letting your paranoia about "muh free speeeeeech!!1" colour your judgement.

 

2 minutes ago, ABearInThaWoods said:

You're greatly overstepping your boundaries by trying to restrict and/or police speech outside of Doomworld. Especially considering you're using an extremely vague framework.

 

They are doing nothing of the sort.

 

2 minutes ago, ABearInThaWoods said:

It's not really your place to troll across the internet to hunt down every instance of people being mean to one another.

 

Again, they are not doing that. Read, comprehend, think. Targeted harassment as reported by the victim, with evidence. Free Speech does not mean Freedom from Consequences. It never has, never will. It's not a license to be a fuckhead to someone.

 

4 minutes ago, ABearInThaWoods said:

It's especially troubling because you've essentially instructed users to act as Stasi against one another

 

Bullshit. It has to be reported BY THE TARGETED VICTIM. They say that, in plain english.

 

Edited August 23, 2021 by Murdoch

[Snaxalotl]

Just now, ABearInThaWoods said:

It's been nice watching all this unfold from the sidelines for the past few days but I've got to speak out about these "rules" because they are pretty horrific.

 

You're greatly overstepping your boundaries by trying to restrict and/or police speech outside of Doomworld. Especially considering you're using an extremely vague framework. It's not really your place to troll across the internet to hunt down every instance of people being mean to one another. It's especially troubling because you've essentially instructed users to act as Stasi against one another and go tattle to mom and dad when someone does a meany. That's absurd. Everyone here is (probably) an adult. Worry about what's under your control here and stop acting like morality police.

 

Your criteria for the rules are extremely vague and are open for all kinds of interpretive abuse. What you would consider offensive isn't the same as anyone else. A "hurtful" comment is an entirely subjective metric. Hate speech is a poorly defined term that is usually invoked when people get upset over a disagreement. Hate speech also tends to favor the politically left leaning and is entirely exclusionary to people who lean right. For example a Christian conservative person who doesn't believe LGBT issues are moral and vocally opposes such a lifestyle can be accused of hate speech, this forces them to self-censor for the sake of others who are very likely to not give the same consideration to their beliefs. I consider dropping these criteria next to actually harmful behavior like doxxing a pretty scummy move. Mean words are not equitable to revealing a person's identity for the sake of harassment. One is clearly observably malicious while the other, again, is entirely subjective.

 

If you're not capable of seeing the glaring flaws in the logic behind these rules then I can only assume that you 1) are truly ignorant of how governmental/establishment abuse works or 2) are willing to overlook those flaws because they are socially/politically expedient to you. 

 

@mordeth

Did you not read Mordeth's post right above yours? A sustained campaign against a specific user, not you disagreeing and holding a draconian world view.

[leodoom85]

13 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

How do we have to be more cautious? Just don't harass people. It's pretty simple and if you are a halfway decent person it's something you are doing (or rather, not doing) anyway.

Yes, it's simple. But you gotta think that any action, no matter how small it is, can bring consequences. 

"Just don't harass people".....if all people weren't like that...it would be different and we wouldn't be talking about this at this point, am I right? But here we are.

 

Anyway, I'll be out of the convo for good measure.

Edited August 23, 2021 by leodoom85

[KeaganDunn]

1 minute ago, Decay said:

I have no stake in this past week's latest dramas and the rules being offered here, but after reading most of it, I find people are making some really weird hills to die on.

Same here. I tend to avoid getting involved in stuff like this (mostly because I don't have anything worthwhile to add), but I legitimately don't know why this has sparked such a heated discussion.

We are here on a forum centered around a single video game arguing over a rule change on a single website that didn't have any explicit rules to begin with.

 

From what I've seen, though, rules often boil down to common sense and not being a dick to others. If only some people could follow that.

[Killer5]

Then change the rules to state specifics period. You cannot leave this open for any discussion.

[ABearInThaWoods]

1 minute ago, Snaxalotl said:

Did you not read Mordeth's post right above yours? A sustained campaign against a specific user, not you disagreeing and holding a draconian world view.

I did not see it. I was typing. 

 

If true then it's slightly less awful.

[General Roasterock]

Since everyone here is still dancing around the point of their frustration, I'll take one for the team here, because it's a statement I see echoed in the language of this thread and in a lot of discussion over the past few days.

 

This community does not trust the moderator team with keeping themselves from using this rule in personal and petty ways to remove content they don't want to see in the hopes of steering an entire forum to produce what they like, and they frankly don't know what could be done to prove otherwise.

 

Maybe I'm wrong about that, I really hope I am, but you have to understand that hearing "you have less control" in any variation is going to cause people to get upset, it's an animalistic thing. Watching restrictions play out one after another never bodes well to anyone's security. 

 

16 minutes ago, Killer5 said:

This forum is now affecting my enjoyment of the internet.

If it's the possibility of losing an outlet to upload maps that you're concerned about, while this is a pretty big place for it, several users have done just fine completely separated from the site a la Ribbiks. Politics are all confirmation bias, if that's where your enjoyment falters, and there's no reason to argue about them. 

 

2 minutes ago, Mordeth said:

 

Only a sustained campaign against a specific user to the point of it becoming harassment in the eyes of the targeted user will qualify for moderation under the new rule.

This is exactly what I mean, I could very easily imagine a bad argument being considered harassment presented in the correct context. It's a power dynamic that doesn't seem to have any defense for those being accused, at least explicitly stated.

[Capellan]

Two thumbs up on this policy.

 

[D4NUK1]

12 minutes ago, ABearInThaWoods said:

It's been nice watching all this unfold from the sidelines for the past few days but I've got to speak out about these "rules" because they are pretty horrific.

 

You're greatly overstepping your boundaries by trying to restrict and/or police speech outside of Doomworld. Especially considering you're using an extremely vague framework. It's not really your place to troll across the internet to hunt down every instance of people being mean to one another. It's especially troubling because you've essentially instructed users to act as Stasi against one another and go tattle to mom and dad when someone does a meany. That's absurd. Everyone here is (probably) an adult. Worry about what's under your control here and stop acting like morality police.

.

 

Sorry, but this line it's cleary out. I had see many problems unfold in DW because people can act in a civilizated way, and they produce more harm that laugths.

Also, like many had say before, it's not like we all have camaras under our PC or whatever. 

Look, im coming from a country where some of this rules apply, and like a shit ton, something that can affect stuff. Compared to this kinda of rules sets where it's only written "Don't be a inconsiderate person" it's really just something to know what kinda of users we need forward.


I Respect that you have you trougths, but not ignore the full picture, and for people comparig this to a "dictatorial power trip" just...don't. Don't be in those extremes.

 

Edited August 23, 2021 by D4NUK1
More information, more cleary.

[dew]

It's absurd that my original foreshadowing comment was removed while this transphobic rhetoric gets advocated in full force with almost no pushback by the administration. Explain something, do something... no? No, of course.

[Snaxalotl]

Just now, ABearInThaWoods said:

I did not see it. I was typing. 

 

If true then it's slightly less awful.

Of course, much better than thinking lgbt members aren't moral.

They are just people for fuck's sake

[msx2plus]

1 minute ago, dew said:

It's absurd that my original foreshadowing comment was removed while this transphobic rhetoric gets advocated in full force with almost no pushback by the administration. Explain something, do something... no? No, of course.

 

i'm all in with dew here - this seems a little lop-sided. new as i may be, thus not having so much stake in things, transparency, consistency, etc. i'll keep sayin it and all that. i'm 99.99% sure even the most mega-progressive members would agree.

[Chip]

8 minutes ago, ABearInThaWoods said:

and go tattle to mom and dad when someone does a meany. That's absurd. Everyone here is (probably) an adult. Worry about what's under your control here and stop acting like morality police.

I've mentioned several times that I'm a minor. So is Gaia, Hitboi, Good-old, and many others. 

[Snaxalotl]

4 minutes ago, msx2plus said:

 

i'm all in with dew here - this seems a little lop-sided. new as i may be, thus not having so much stake in things, transparency, consistency, etc. i'll keep sayin it and all that. i'm 99.99% sure even the most mega-progressive members would agree.

For sure, if the mods were as harsh as these folks believed they would have been banned by now.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Snaxalotl

[SleepyVelvet]

I'm a cynical person too, @Killer5.  Though I'd take a breather, if I were you - a lot of panic and despair from someone who is clearly good person.  

You aren't the only one who dislikes the diabolical side of language gerrymandering, especially by abusive people.

Hopefully it's all redundant in the worst case.  Doomworld always had a "moderate on a whim and justify it after" kinda style (which isn't bad per se, but scuffed like any other system).  With "rules", it's always a "who watches the watchmen; who enforces the enforcers; who qualifies the qualifiers" kinda thing (hopefully, not another peasants revolt).  

 

IMO: The rule posted by Major Arlene seems robust (all things entropy tho... but for now I like it).  Worst case is that it makes the dark-side of moderation worse by emboldening decisions because they are "explicitly backed by The Rules" as they are qualified in their own particular headspace.

Edited August 23, 2021 by NoisyVelvet
spelling

[Mordeth]

6 minutes ago, dew said:

this transphobic rhetoric

 

People admitting they are transphobic is something else than actually displaying transphobic content against trans members. The latter isn't allowed; the former an issue for the thought police.

 

But the number of people railing against this new rule that turns out to be simply based on their transphobia is indeed something else to behold.

[Jaccident]

Jesus Christ some people don’t seem to understand what continuous targeted harassment means, do they?

[P41R47]

11 minutes ago, dew said:

It's absurd that my original foreshadowing comment was removed while this transphobic rhetoric gets advocated in full force with almost no pushback by the administration. Explain something, do something... no? No, of course.

maybe because there is not a clear intention of being aggresive on what you call thansphobia?
People is just seriously asking how things will be and what are the limits.
Why talking about what are the limits is transphobic for you?
 

9 minutes ago, msx2plus said:

 

i'm all in with dew here - this seems a little lop-sided. new as i may be, thus not having so much stake in things, transparency, consistency, etc. i'll keep sayin it and all that. i'm 99.99% sure even the most mega-progressive members would agree.

I agree with what you said, but the other user is calling the conversation a transphobic rethoric, and thats not correct at all.

As has been said before, some people is more sensible to certain topics, nothing bad about that.
But somethings needs to be talked openly on a polite and respectful manner.
Even when some may not like it.

[P41R47]

3 minutes ago, Mordeth said:

But the number of people railing against this new rule that turns out to be simply based on their transphobia is indeed something else to behold.

I don't think its based on their transphobia, but it was indeed the most sensible topic that was brought up.
And its not casual, as it is of great importance here.

Unless it derails on proper transphobic content and slurs, i don't see why it couldn't continue.
But you are the boss here, and i respect your opinion on that.

[Chezza]

Has a few moderators objectively abused bans or engaged in poor behaviour or favouritism etc?

 

If not then I'm a bit surprised to see such a response from some members. The broad "no anti social behaviour against another member in and out of Doom World" rule sounds reasonable to me.

 

Apply manners and respect wherever you go. If you want to push boundaries or don't comprehend what the fundamentals of respect are, well more power to the mods to take action. Someone has to filter out the problem makers.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Chezza

[Capellan]

26 minutes ago, dmdr said:

@Killer5 and @ABearInThaWoods are right, this seriously needs clarification. Since Killer5 has already asked about 'hate speech' and what qualifies I'll ask about 'spreading hurtful / baseless rumors' (I would also like to know what qualifies as 'indirectly... soliciting violence'). You also need to define what counts as 'sustained harassment' especially since that word is not in the original post

 

Detailed explanation and definition is a terrible idea.  It will simply lead to line-dancing and rules-lawyering.  I've seen it before.

 

What qualifies as ban-worthy should be a collective moderator call based on their best assessment, not a checklist for people to use as a weapon to get away with bad behaviour ("but I didn't do all 27 things you said were bad, so you can't ban me!").

 

Let's remember that what's at stake is literally nothing more than your ability to post on a single internet messageboard with (at most) a few hundred active users.  There are a billion other things you can do with your time, and places to do them.

 

Mods: if you haven't already, I recommend checking how rpg.net handle this and related issues, as they have years of experience of handling "how dare you tell me I can't act like an asshole here or elsewhere" nonsense.

 

[Nikku4211]

2 hours ago, JezChrist said:

The best solution is to ask a thrid oparty before, like a friend (preferably one on the forum too).

That can get annoying pretty fast, though.

2 hours ago, Snaxalotl said:

that is very different than harassing someone. Especially someone trying to avoid a ban by hiding it somewhere else.

Yeah I know, I was just talking about the general 'don't be a pp' vague rule thing.

2 hours ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

This. Moderators who operate outside of the remit set by the admins do not remain moderators for long. People seem to be concerned that there will be some wild swing in what's acceptable on Doomworld when the same admins have been running this place for decades.

I think the fears of moderator abuse also give way to fears of the head admins being abusive, of the entire staff team being corrupted.

 

The same admins have been running this place for 23 years, but people can change over time, and 23 years is definitely enough time to change, for better or worse.

 

Not pointing any fingers. I don't know anyone here, I'm just saying general things.

2 hours ago, Killer5 said:

I will call you by your name or your actual sex.

I think sex should be irrelevant to Doomworld. At the end of the day, this is a forum about a 1990s FPS. There's no reason to step over people's boundaries by bringing their sex into it.

 

I hope you don't mean real name. Even if you could somehow find a user's real name, don't use it. People have usernames for a reason, and doxxing them and using doxxed information is just going too far.

 

Even if you believe differently about the grand scheme of things, you should still respect people and their privacy.

2 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

English is not my first language. I always think "they" is a plural form.

I've seen people get confused about it, but yeah, they should be the default pronoun for someone you don't know in general.

Quote

but that happened, because, look how strange the world is, there was not only one moderator being abusive, but two or more, too.

what happends in that case?
if there is a good amount of members of the moderating team being abusive, to whom you report?
to the administrators, of course.

But administrators are not usually around, so the answer to this may come with a lot of time.
And also, seeing a good amount of members of the moderating staff having a bad behaviour and other moderators around maybe not being abusive but doing nothing against the moderator being abusive, what do you think the other members seeing that would think?
That maybe, the administrators are on their side. And maybe there is no use on reporting

how do you think the members who saw that happening would feel?
afraid.

and that already happened.

So it has already happened? Man I can't help but be curious. I must resist this curiosity.

 

If it's already happened, then yeah, stuff like that causes more fear of potential mod/admin abuse.

Quote

I think the important part of misgendering is reading the intent. How you speak to people is important. Not everyone is going to attack or ban over a modest honest mistake, but if your rude about it or speak aggressively, thats a different story.

[...]

I've stepped on more than a few landmines there, but ive always been polite, even when dealing with unreasonably angry people. I have never had lasting issues afterward.

Exactly. I think people should care about the intent before acting upon it. I've seen so many people expect so much out of first-timers it makes me feel weird.

 

I once talked to someone on Discord who was thinking of socially transitioning a few years ago.

 

It took only 2 honest mistakes from me for them to completely sever ties with me and remove me from their circle completely.

Quote

If it's the possibility of losing an outlet to upload maps that you're concerned about, while this is a pretty big place for it, several users have done just fine completely separated from the site a la Ribbiks.

That's actually how I was going before I joined DoomWorld. I was just some guy uploading stuff like Isabelle MBF Dog to /idgames. That doesn't require a DoomWorld account, only Windows Explorer.

Quote

But the number of people railing against this new rule that turns out to be simply based on their transphobia is indeed something else to behold.

Yeah, I don't know what's going on here. This is just a simple anti-harassment rule and they're going on about sex and identity.

Quote

Under the new rules, if that joke was directed at a specific DW member - so it was targeted harassment - then the maker would be banned, but so too would everyone who posted in that thread without pointing out the conduct, since they could be said to have facilitated the conduct. That's even if they hadn't played far enough to see it. Do you see the problem yet?

Hm...

 

It'd be weird to see someone as facilitating something they didn't even know about, and to hold them responsible for something they don't know about.

 

But yeah, while definitions would lead to ruleyering and line-bouncing, I think defining facilitation would probably do more good than bad.

 

Quote

The biggest problem with "don't be a jerk" policies is that they're never actually that. Being a jerk is generally tolerated in many "don't be a jerk" places as long as it is directed towards the correct person or group.

Sadly true. Life is inconsistent by nature.

Quote

Truly neutral policies are impossible. You'd have to basically ban any discussion that could be considered even remotely political to have a truly neutral policy and even then it would be tough.

It would be tough, but I think there's value in trying.

Quote

Some ideologies are diametrically opposed and directly cause each other harm.

Yeah, extreme ideologies can be pretty harmful.

 

Edited August 23, 2021 by Nikku4211
Major edit because when I click on other pages, the reply I'm writing disappears.

[WashingMachineEnthusiasts]

The facilitation part is the troublesome part. What constitutes facilitation? Let's say someone on Site X engages in targeted and proven harassment of a DW member, and so is banned on DW. What about the other people on Site X? Are the mods there also banned on DW for not preventing the behaviour? If the harassment happened in a thread, is everyone else in the thread who didn't call it out banned on DW? How about members of the site who weren't in the thread? How about people who collaborate with the banned person in the future without knowing about any of what happened?

 

It's an extremely broad clause, and wasn't the whole uproar against the DBP ban because people shouldn't be guilty by association? Without a very tight definition of facilitation, that's exactly what it becomes - guilt by association.

 

I'll give another example based on a recent event. There was a WAD removed from Doomworld recently for a rape joke, as it should be. Good moderating so far. Before it was removed, a lot of people had posted saying the WAD was good. I'm told the reference was late in the WAD, so maybe the people saying good things about it hadn't reached that part yet. Under the new rules, if that joke was directed at a specific DW member - so it was targeted harassment - then the maker would be banned, but so too would everyone who posted in that thread without pointing out the conduct, since they could be said to have facilitated the conduct. That's even if they hadn't played far enough to see it. Do you see the problem yet?

[dmdr]

13 minutes ago, Capellan said:

Detailed explanation and definition is a terrible idea.  It will simply lead to line-dancing and rules-lawyering.  I've seen it before.

 

So what? Having no guidelines or oversight leads to ridiculous nonsense like the DBPs being banned because of... well, no-one really knows. It's not because of 'banned users' or DBPs being used as a means of 'recruitment', as matador shows here (essential reading for those who feel like they lack context for all this).

 

also rpg.net literally has a rule that you're not allowed to express support for Donald Trump... that was made in 2018 when he was still president. Definitely don't be like rpg.net.