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Starting today we’re implementing a new moderation system across all the FDL sites, including MyFDL.
Many people have expressed the desire for members of the community play a stronger role in developing actions, content and community standards for FDL. The membership program is one of the ways we’re trying to be responsive to those wishes, and our new content moderation system is another.
If you look down to the bottom of each post, you’ll see a link that says “flag this post as inappropriate”:
You’ll see one at the bottom of each comment, too:
While we’ll still be screening comments for spam and inappropriate language, we’ll also be looking at the number of times a comment or a post gets flagged by members of the community, and factoring that into whether or not someone is appropriate content. It doesn’t mean that a group of people can gang up on one diarist or commenter and get them booted, but it does mean that if something upsets a lot of people, we’ll know that and can take it into account when making those decisions.
But that system depends on your participation. So if you see something you think has crossed the line, let us know. Disagreeing with someone’s respectfully expressed political perspective is not sufficient reason to flag a comment as inappropriate. Eliminationist rhetoric, threats, hate speech and free iPhone spam are.
There’s a vast gray area between the two polarities, however, and as a community we make decisions about what is appropriate and what is not every day. If those standards were static the job would be easy, but because of the fluid nature of language and the evolving ways people communicate online, they change all the time.
We hope this new flagging system will give the members of our community a greater role in making the decisions about community content. We know there are other changes people would like to see to the commenting system, and we hope to be implementing those soon as well.
But as we roll out this new system, we want the FDL community to know we are listening to what you say, and that we are working consistently to be responsive to your needs. We look forward to working with you to make FDL a better site, and appreciate the time and effort you put into making that happen.
147 Comments
Mods will still be patrolling the various threads, but not necessarily as quickly as the commentors?
Heh, nobody is ever as quick as the commenters.
But to your question — we are going to take a lighter approach to the threads in the future. We’ll still be looking at them, we have to, but we’ll be gauging what the community thinks first backstage via the flagging system.
I meant to ask this before, but will we see how many inappropriate flags a comment receives? I would like to see the number of “recommends” a diary receives and the number of “inappropriates.” I know that I sometimes recommend without commenting and will see a diary move to the “recommended” list with only two comments. I’m not against that, it is just that I would like to know how many actually are required to move a “recommend.” Perhaps you could have an “inappropriate” list.
Heh, Mz. Hamsher highlighted Kelly!!!
LMAO!
And his was a great reply at the time, too . . .
Too funneh . . . love this town . . . *G*
Thanks for all you and the staff you do for us readers Mz. Hamsher.
Jane, are you planning on ghosting out the body of your post and replacing it with the words “never mind?”
Seriously, it is good to know that community participation is important.
BearCountry raises an interesting point.
Also, a flag symbol by itself next to the reply button would be equally effective and less intrusive.
Just an opinion.
Thank you for taking the time to write about this.
PS Great illustrations!
With sufficient due respect, is it my imagination or are the diaries on the recommended list not a function of the political preferences of the powers that be.
The short approach: Is this not an example of censorship?
Seconded
Great idea . Let`s follow the Roatary Club`s motto. ” Is it true, is it nice,does it hurt someone`s feelings,does it distrub the status quo.” Too long has American liberalism tolerated dissent among it`s ranks.
Zenostoa
It doesn’t mean that a group of people can gang up on one diarist or commenter and get them booted, but it does mean that if something upsets a lot of people, we’ll know that and can take it into account when making those decisions.
Lets see how this works I am concerned but hope it does work.
Some of us who post here also are members of communities at other blogs, and will link and recommend diaries and posts here to them. I always encourage friends to comment, but for some, they prefer to carry on a direct conversation – so while recommendations are usually put in, often comments go elsewhere. This does mean that sometimes few comments will be placed at FDL, while a lively conversation has gone on about the post.
Wait, what? The diaries on the rec list are there because the people that use the site rec’d them. It has nothing to do with the administrators of the site (I don’t believe, and I assume that’s who your PTB are) and therefore nothing to do with their political opinions.
And I’d hardly call the community self-monitoring censorship.
“we are going to take a lighter approach to the threads in the future.”
Does this mean that moderators will be less involved in the dialogue?
‘…is it nice,does it hurt someone`s feelings,does it distrub(sic) the status quo.”
Hell, if my comments followed the above kiss ass triumvirate of mediocre sellouts, I didn’t do my job to raise the heart rates and force those ensconced in their fairy tales and illusions to look at the obvious a little differently.
And the truth be told, the Roatary(sic) Club is not exactly the cutting edge of progressive thinking.
Oherwise, have a great day.
People who are fast to claim censorship are frequently those who are most like trolls in their comments.
Duarte Rotary Club – they got their charter as ‘Rotary’ pulled because they admitted women to membership, and then had the satisfaction of being ahead of the curve (as the Duarte Ex-Rotary Club) when Rotary decide that women could be members after all.
That right there ought to get you flagged for offensiveness….
It’s called ‘Don’t diss the management’, idjit.
I did not realize that, thanks for the info.
Really? I have always found it rather odd that a diary can be recommended without any comments and when it first hits the most recent diaries queue.
Perhaps you or another can help me understand this glaring contradiction.
Oh, and I would like to think that anyone who recommends a diary has a reason for so doing, and should at least go on record with some form of comment other than recommended.
Well I’m up for the new experiment. I definitely patrol this portion of the cyberverse flagging roboSPAM. It was a bit disturbing yesterday when a SPAMbot posted on a thread-in-progress on a front-paged post (Cynthia’s post about Mr. Kelly’s ambitions here) but, fortunately, I was right there to toggle the “Flag this comment as inappropriate” widget then did a quick cross-check for where ever else the beast had left “gifts.” Other than that, I never use it.
One person’s concept of offensiveness is to another merely the laughter of the gods.
And regarding: “It’s called ‘Don’t diss the management’, idjit.”
It’s a good thing the commenters here don’t feel that way about the present sitting President.
And regarding your choice of the word ‘idjit’: what a foolish, chilish, and unnecessary ad hominem attack.
Shame on you!
If a comment or diary receives a certain number of flags, it will automatically disappear. Anything else sticks around.
Seeing the number of recommends is an interesting idea – I’ll see the feasibility for a future update.
Yes – in the “nevermind” post you’re referencing I addressed this. A big priority will be moving the Flag to be next to Reply and have it just say “Flag.” It’s so ugly now!
Flagging doesn’t boot people, but does remove certain pieces of offending content if enough people have flagged it. But we’ll be able to see on our end if people are abusing the abuse flag as well.
“The diaries on the rec list are there because the people that use the site rec’d them.”; not an accurate statement. There is a ‘secret’ algorithm used -at least that is what I was told when I queried about it- and it is QUITE evident that mods/editors also choose what gets on the ‘recommended’ list.
It WOULD be interesting to see what would be recommended if it was JUST number of comments but some very good diaries would then be missed by the readers.
Just remember this; life is not ‘fair’, good things happen to bad people and vice-versa and the ‘wheels of justice’ turn VERY slowly.
Huh?
Is it true is the only part I care about.
Is it nice or hurt someone`s feelings? Snort. Deliberate personal attacks have no place in intelligent discussion, but neither does hypersensitivity.
does it distrub the status quo The rotary Club may see that as a bad thing, do you?
PJEvans @ 11:20 am
I would hate to think that the gross intellectual product of progressive thinking is that anyone who might have a different read on a given situation or fact pattern
“…are most like trolls in their comments.”
I think that Clarence Darrow has the best response to your statement:
“To think is to differ.”
Sorry Dore you are completely mistaken on that. It is strictly number of rec’s over a period of time.
There’s clearly already a method in place to count the number of recommends on a post, as one presumes that the Recc’list uses that number to form some kind of determination.
Call that method with the post ID and add it to the document template.
This should be roughly a 2-3 hour job if you’re not already familiar at all with how the recommend feature tabulates its data.
I am not really sure where to put this, but I believe it belongs in this general discussion…just thinking from a business standpoint here…perhaps the “algorithm” (mentioned below) has something to do with site traffic.
If a post generates a lot of readers for the site I would assume that it is a good thing for Firedoglake.
Interesting, some sites have tickers that tell you how many “reads” a post has.
It would be nice to have such a ticker here. That would give posters an idea of what interests the passing public, don’t you think?
This is a reply to Bill Egnor May 14th, 2011 at 12:00 pm (it is frustrating that the ‘reply’ buttons keep getting left off replies);
Bill this is ABSOLUTELY accurate: “a diary can be recommended without any comments and when it first hits the most recent diaries queue.” ; I’ve seen it many times.
Yeah, someone reads it and recommends it. They don’t comment. Given the fact that an author can recommend their own post that does not seem at all odd to me.
That damn Kelly! *shakes fist at self*
Flagged three of these things in the past couple of days myself, I think. They are disruptive. Malicious even.
Like this?
https://skitch.com/nathan.aschbacher/r9cwg/fdl-flag-reply
Rearranged in Chrome Inspector in a couple minutes. It’s a very minor structural and style change.
I’m glad that some input about appropriacy will come from commenters. Moderation has gone overboard from time to time, IMO. For example, a famous quip about beatings and morale that is printed on Disney merchandise got moderated. That’s too much.
My concern is that some will flag comments based on substance. Since I have been called a troll for posting (innocuous, imo) comments meant to generate a legitimate discussion, I hope that flagging comments will not limit the range of ideas that are acceptable to discuss. There is enough groupthink over at Orange. Please don’t let it get a foothold here!
How will you control trolls who dislike the topic from charging in with targeted flags on a post just to make it disappear?
Jane,
Since you’ve mentioned the subject of evolving community standards of acceptability and the importance of involving community members in the process of moderating what is posted via the flagging-comments method together with noting that the moderators will be basing their decisions to some extent on what the community wants — changes that I generally support btw — I’m going to take this opportunity and respectfully ask you to please reinstate Rusty1776′s privileges to post here.
I miss his passion, poetry, and powerful voice. The lake has not been the same for me since he was banned and, although I missed brouhaha, I reviewed available information here on the site and came to the conclusion that the incident was avoidable. I respect people on both sides of the issue and I do not want to open old wounds and make new enemies, but geez louise.
We are better than this, a lot better, and if this community can’t tolerate a passionate effort to light a fire in people’s hearts to dump Barack Obama by characterizing the need to do so as a moral necessity, then this community is not very tolerant or willing to consider criticism and engage in self-reflection. Whether one agrees or disagrees with him, he had something important to say and there is no shortage of evidence to support what he said.
I also miss Rayne. I often disagreed with her but I respect her. In fact I feel like they are part of my family. I miss their voices and I want them back.
Finally, I think we can avoid flame wars here if we have a clear set of rules establishing the boundaries of acceptable comment AND the procedure to be followed in determining whether to suspend or banish someone from our family.
Banishment is equivalent to the death penalty and should be reserved for only the most extreme cases, such as threatening to harm someone.
For all of these reasons and to clear the air, I urge you to reinstate Rusty’s and Rayne’s privileges to rejoin our family and resume blogging here.
Thank you,
Masoninblue
Here comes the elephant in the room…:)
It’s the hat. It draws wrath. Don’t go out in a lightning storm.
“It doesn’t mean that a group of people can gang up on one diarist or commenter and get them booted, …” I wonder.
As part of its international public relations campaign to improve Israel’s image despite its ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, Israel’s foreign ministry maintains a large team of paid workers who surf the internet 24 hours a day to spread positive news about Israel:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10671.shtml
There have been a growing number of fdl posts about Israel’s human rights abuses recently, and as more and more of us are educated about what is happening, there will be even more. Given that many supporters of Israel firmly believe that any criticism of Israel’s actions falls into one of three categories: “antisemitism,” “blood libel,” or evidence of being a “self-hating Jew,” we can expect to see well-organized attempts to flag down and eliminate posts that focus on what Israelis are doing to the Palestinians.
A Jewish friend recently told me that another Jewish friend is “afraid to self-identify as Jewish” in our small town. Why? Because of people like me who supported a proposed boycott of Israeli products at our Food Coop in order to pressure Israel to stop its flagrant human rights abuses against the Palestinians and comply with international law. The goal of people who think this way is to shut down legitimate discussion.
Hey that looks better, now take out the “flag this comment as inappropriate” and just leave the flag symbol. Or would that not be self-explanatory?
Nice work!
I think it needs to remain with a full explanation, or the “Reply” link needs to be converted into an icon as well, and then they both both need to have tooltips on hover that explain them.
Also, the “flag” icon would/should probably be turned into a tiny version of something like this:
http://axainforma.com/Cursos/DEFINITIVO%20INTERACTIVO%20CEDULA%20A/interactivo%20cedula%20a%20flash/imagenes/Para%20PPT/600px-Warning_Yellow_svg.png
Now I did not know an author can self-recommend.
Nathan, below w/yellow triangle traffic signal: great!
Hey, what’s with the clock and the time stamps?
Even in the activity directory, what’s up with the ’7 hours’ thing?
How does that all work?
Ok, but it would ‘seem’ as though there would need to be more than just one ‘rec’d’ for the diary to go to the recommended list. Perhaps the ‘review’ could be revised so that if there are no comments, recommendations aren’t considered?
I agree. Free speech is obviously and fundamentally a good thing, this is one of the public squares. Yes, don’t swear ‘n stuff, but banning certainly is an absurd and extreme penalty for a passionate appeal to morality and then the strained nuances drawn from that. We live in times of unspeakable shoot through the eye evil, and we need appeals to right versus wrong or this democratic experiment is dead.
Anyway, some of us are here because we’ve been banned without explanation by those in that dark room on ‘the other side’ at dailykos. More of the same here, I guess but hope not, probably related to election-season (the only time when it matters) loyalty to the Democratic Party. It’s early, but things will need to be cleaned up ’round here for that 2012 re-election thing.
This is weird, there’s no reply link after Nathan’s comment at 12:50 or Crane’s at 12:54
But anywhoo
This is a reply to Nathan at 12:50
2nded
And I don’t know what kind of icon for reply, but recommend could be a thumbs up … maybe a picture of Fonzie ;-)
There is a difference between “the Democratic Party should be sent to the deepest pits of hell” and “you are a no good rotten weasel motherfucker for not agreeing with me that the Democratic Party should be sent to the deepest pits of hell.”
People have not been banned for their opinions, per se, regarding Obama and the Democratic Party. They have been banned for spamming their abuse against those who have disagreed with them.
nice idea.
what about the five-star system?
Wait. Not enough stars for some of the posts, never mind.
There is a site that has a one-to-ten system.
Is this too much like grades?
http://my.firedoglake.com/cranestation/2011/05/11/the-rapture-research-project/
Did you notice…there’s also a “flag this member as inappropriate” flag at the members directory.
Not to be negative, but does it occur to anyone else that only having a button “Flag as inappropriate” — yet not a button “I agree” — is default negativism…?
For example, if I see a comment I agree with, [such as Masoninblue May 14th, 2011 at 12:27 pm] but have nothing to add, or otherwise do not want to comment, I read it merely move along, and nobody will ever know that I [and possibly others] agree.
Meanwhile, if I see a comment that is patently offensive or otherwise inappropriate, I can be interactive and “Flag” it…
Therefor, if a user doesn’t want to actually comment, the user’s only possibility of interaction within the comment section is to flag a comment as inappropriate: except for commenting, the system has been designed to only allow negative responses, (perhaps naturally only breeding negativity.)
And this is the complete opposite of the diaries themselves … besides actually commenting, my only allowed response to a diary is to recommend it.
Logically, there should be both a “Recommend” and a “Flag this as inappropriate” for each– both diaries and for comments.)
[While I'm taking the effort to type a comment, tangentially related to comments and user interaction, a notification if somebody has replied to a comment of mine would be useful.]
Did you like this comment (please select one):
[ ] NO [ ] HELL NO
Agreed on Rusty. Not so big on Rayne because I suspect that she had something to do with getting certain other people banned.
Sorry, now I notice that diaries also have “Flag this post as inappropriate”
Please clarify “disappear.” If it means “disappear into moderation,” I’m cool with the process. Otherwise, I have concerns.
:>)
What I would love more than anything in the world (even world peace and long walks on the beach? Yes!) is (new) for comments I haven’t viewed yet.
4cdave made a Firefox plug-in script via greasemonkey that does exactly that. Here’s the download location: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/98880
Here’s the diary where he gives steps, etc http://my.firedoglake.com/4cdave/2011/03/11/fdl-plus-a-firefox-greasemonkey-script/
I have a concern that this will turn out like Huffington Post when a group pf people can get someone’s comments put into automatic moderation just because they don;t like what that commentator is saying. I know you sort of tried to address this concern up top but I wanted to express my belief that this is ripe for abuse.
Thank you.
I like the ideas proposed in theory but have concern in practice. My concern, like some previously stated comments, is that the “Flag as inappropriate” will be used, uh, inappropriately in order to push someone into being modded just because. I hope that doesn’t happen, but in a free-wheeling situation like this one, there may be some who take advantage. Hope I’m wrong, but if not, hope that is observed and dealt with somehow appropriately.
This comment is well-written, funny and pointed but not insulting, with easy-to-read language and a concise, well-chosen illustration of the point.
This comment deserves a recommend flag.
I totally disagree. There are many people who purposely mislead the public with false information and vested conclusions. When these people are called out, they get very upset and demand political correctness. If anyone is to be censored it should be the liars, but that would require fact checking on every line, which is beyond the responsibilities of the site. We need not be concerned if feelings are hurt, as almost any statement can provoke hurt feelings of some group. Even statements of proven fact hurt the feelings of those trying to maintain fantasies, like religious dogma for instance, on the subject of evolution, or gay rights. Disrupting the status quo should be required, not suppressed. Corruption is the status quo, and without identification, most governments tend to become corrupted. It is usually the criminal element calling for censorship. Our children are claimed to be at risk of “dirty words”, but words are not corruption, secrecy is the tool of corruption. Media is a reflection of society good and bad, and frank discussion is always needed.
Spot on. I wonder if it’s possible to track who it is doing the flagging, that way if they are abusing the system, that too can be dealt with? That seems like the best way to keep the system fair.
I agree and that’s why I believe we need
(1) a set of rules or guidelines (or whatever one wants to call them) that sets out the boundaries (perhaps in the form of a series of thou shalt nots — without the stone tablets as, for example, thou shalt not threaten to harm or kill another person);
(2) a set of graduated penalties, such as a warning, a suspension, and finally banishment; and
(3) due process or some sort of informal process where the accused is provided with an opportunity to explain why they said what they said and what they meant by it and apologize, if they so desire.
I’m not thinking of any sort of formal procedure with lawyers or representatives and a judge, but a process nevertheless that’s fair.
I think that a set of rules, graduated penalties, and a fair process would benefit everyone and, besides, it’s the mature adult thing to do. Anything short of that creates more controversy and hurt feelings that does not serve anyone’s best interests.
On the question of how some blogs become “recommended”, I assume that selection is from the editor, based on content of interest to the community. There may be editor bias, but that is the prerogative of an editor. If a person does not like the editor’s choices, they are free to read from sites that only serve their pre-conceived notions, of which there are many. As far as selecting blogs based on recommendations, there can be none until after the blog has been exposed to reading, so that is a catch 22.
Many sites do not reveal the number of likes and dislikes until after your selection, so as not to try and influence which titles are read. I prefer to select titles of interest rather than to be led to subjects, but of course the presence of titles on the site is already due to someone’s selection. I would like to have an agreement button available, as sometimes the previous poster has said what needs to be said.
I hope this site does not institute any political correctness standards as that is more censorship than truth can allow. I think posts should only be banned for extreme harassment or pointless profanity, or incitement to violence.
I need a little help here in gauging my future comments.
Is this still a foul-mouthed fem-blog?
(please say yes)
Agree with you and Margaret. I don’t really understand the need for more moderation. We all scroll the trolls pretty easily, and even when we don’t, they get smacked down pretty brutally.
I’m frankly worried that this is going to become ripe for censorship when a poster goes against orthodoxy on a particular subject. I’ve seen some otherwise traditional liberals or progressives hammered here when the disagree on issues like illegal immigration, gun control, etc.
I’d respectfully ask for Rusty, Missling, Michael Kwiatoswski, and any others who were disappeared and/or banned during that same time period, Jane. I didn’t see all that went on either, but it seemed a bit on the hidden side, with no explanations save for other commenters weighing in on behaviors on either side of the issue.
I ask this in the name of democratic-expression, even though when Rusty’s email was published, I emailed to ask him what was going on, and received, in the end, what I considered abusive responses for not having been more vocal in supporting him. I didn’t care for it at all, but I still liked his diaries and passion, and consider that he may have been targeted for his crankiness toward one or more moderator/site captains.
I know it’s a tough thing to run a blogsite and cover all the bases that might be needed to further dialogue that some don’t care for, even if it isn’t directly contravening the Terms of Service agreements, which can be interpreted in many different ways.
Thanks for posting this, Jane.
good suggestions.
stone tablets, red cards, yellow cards, penalty boxes, time-outs, due process: I can see another diary coming!
flag the flagger!
What about dunce caps?
You are grounded.
(This is how we communicate now. This is what we have sunk to.)
“I think posts should only be banned for extreme harassment or pointless profanity, or incitement to violence.”
I agree with this.
Second the motion.
Hell, why not amnesty for all?
Hugh, LibbyLiberal, etc.
We live in troubled times. We are going to get passionate and disagree. At times, we’re even likely to hate each other for awhile. We should assume that’s going to happen and create a system that can deal with emotional overloads every once in awhile.
WTF, let’s also set an example for all of the other blogs to follow. There is no downside to doing this.
Maybe someone else has also noted this, but many of us here have been asking for the format to revert to the way the main FDL pages are with edit functions. Instead we get a new — and as far as I can tell, un-asked for — moderating system. Cart before horse?
Again, I’m down with what Mason and Wendy said.
Anybody have any kind of semi-comprehensive list of who has actually been banned?
Many of the banned people who commenters are arguing for reinstatement were banned for exactly that; extreme harassment and/or incitement to violence.
And it’s telling that those same screen names are banned at many other web sites, and I’m not talking DailyKos.
Yep. People don’t get banned quickly or gratuitously at FDL. Not that I’ve seen anyway.
You wouldn’t believe the shit I get in email, since I don’t blog psuedonymously, and it’s relatively easy to get my email addy.
No death threats to date, but it’s really quite amazing. And from some of these banned commenters people want reinstated.
Some of them are sheer lunatics.
Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well. The Jasmine Revolution he so feared from afar, has at last arrived at these hallowed shores.
Kelly Canfield May 14th, 2011 at 4:32 pm
___________________________________________
Wow! That’s no good. All of the ones I’ve seen banned were pretty hopeless to begin with. Do they think you carry some special weight with the PTB here?
Yay! I just flagged my very first comment. Flagged for pimping your shit!
Wow. I actually just flagged something. Lord love a duck.
BTW, Check out this person’s commenting history. It’s all pimping, all the time.
This thing has been popping up a lot recently, it seems.
Gah…Fuck threads could be flagged as inappropriate. Nevermind that they are. I like *that* kind of inapproriate.
Huh.
Is it conceivable that if we self-police ourselves, then management does not need as many cops and their concomitant costs?
After all, this is a for profit business, and reduction in personnel is one easy way to increase the bottom line.
Gee, with that line of reasoning, the next thing management will do is outsource the commenters! Yes, snark! :>)
Margaret May 14th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
—————————
No. I never have shared such emails. It’s my choice to blog with an open identity and I just deal with it.
How convenient that a flaggable comment popped up. So, how’d the flag thingie work for you?
I actually went to profile and flagged the member as inappropriate.
Apparently, they put another one into my post. I mentioned this in Water Cooler last night because it seems to be almost malicious. I am starting to feel like a broken record.
LOL, thanks Crane, (and then I almost accidentally Flagged you as inappropriate, out of habit from other sites where I would naturally agree, or vote up, or whatever …)
As an aside; others’ concerns about abuse of the Flag button would be moderated by an Agree button — if the two are roughly equal, obviously a comment or article is not inappropriate by community standards…
I feel like I was involved in this same conversation a few years ago at another site …
You rule.
Wow! I didn’t know you could do that. That’s sorta scary but if anybody deserves that kind of treatment it’s one of these people.
I think they are leaving it there to illustrate a point, maybe.
To flag or not to flag, ah that is the question. Whether it is nobler to suffer the slings and arrow of mods or suffer the manifold torments of our fellow pups.
‘Tis a tangled quandary me thinks, worthy of Alexander’s attention.
Hey, by the way, did the guy with the lamp catch up to you yet?
Be kind to your web footed friends, ’cause they might be somebody’s husband! :>)
How did that one turn out?
In that case… I just flagged it. That was easy.
I did not know this.
Me want my precious
Me want voucher.
It works so well at Agent Orange’s website, why not try it here? It’s not like this system can be abused to silence dissent or anything, right? /snark
Funny, I have a difficult time visiting an orange site. What an unfortunate choice of color.
How do you now who has been banned from other sites and for what reasons?
Googling. Pick your screen name of interest and go for it.
That should read know instead of now.
(Edit function, please.)
Hey buddy, this ain’t the freakin’ United Nations. Could we have a translation of those two fragments.
I would like to think that they are irritations to a mollusk scattered before the porcine herd. :>)
Things kept evolving …
I was gonna’ mention, allowing the person who wrote the article the ability to delete comments worked out well there with spam posters like ‘kaidi699′ … and if the author deleted a comment it automatically sent an email to the commenter and if the commenter felt it was deleted for ideological reasons rather than for being abusive or inappropriate the person would then contact the moderator and get the comment re-instated. Basically, as doremus35 said, it was a ‘police ourselves’ concept, with the burden being on each author to keep their ‘diary’ civil and spam-free and the mods only called in as a last resort.
I don’t know if someone told you, but the “precious” is from Lord of the Rings. “My precious” is what Gollum called the Ring.
I really am interested to see how this works over time. I wonder how often I will get flagged because I don’t mark my comments with /s.
I just noticed that your own comments don’t get the ‘inappropriate’ flag when you see your own.
Burnt orange. One of the few things I don’t miss about Austin.
I seriously doubt that’s going to happen. I believe that the people who will abuse it are most likely to be right wing trolls.
“It’s not like this system can be abused”
how about armies of trolls flagging comments they’re directed/payed to flag?
Only been there one time. They have an amazing independent bookstore. One of the best.
That orange school color sucks though.
Why thank you partner. Much obliged. But I am still at a loss of why this Jewish Frankenstein guy-Golem- likes rings and since I didn’t follow the trilogy, say what? :>)
Thanks for your help, I think.:>)
oops, you beat me (couple posts above) to the punch by a few minutes… guess i’ll have to flag your comment as inappropriate! (/s or “owe ya a drink” or sumthin)
They have several amazing independent bookstores. Which one are you talking about? Bookwoman? Monkeywrench? etc…
Self-policing as a form of outsourcing the moderation duties
(i.e., privatizing/outsourcing per your suggestion) with payments by voucher instead of money (the Paul Ryan approach) redeemable in the FDL store (my suggestion).
Voila! a genuine bipartisan solution.
Thus, do vouchers become precious and corrupting.
Funny you should ask. I asked the same question and have pieced together this reason.
To punch your own flag would be an act of self-flagellation. Right?
And since FDL is against all forms of violence, you can’t punch yourself on their time. :>)
I don’t know what is going on, but on my computer the “reply” button doesn’t come up on every comment. Margaret@6:10 and Doremus35@6:02, just to name a couple. BTW, Doremus35, Lord of the Rings is a fun read; one novel in three books.
Very good.:>)
“Thus, do vouchers become precious and corrupting.”
Only when they are accepted by an FDIC bank as legal tender.
A plethora of commercial mugs, T-shirts, etc. no matter where they come from, ain’t going to pay the bills or change a person’s vote, not that voting really matters at this point in the game.
I think that this one should stay up for laughs. What does “Service is our Lift” mean?? “Quality is our Dignity”?? What dictionary are they using?
Nested comments only allow four in the comment thread.
Thanks.
The comment above is about a spam entry that has since been deleted.
“but it does mean that if something upsets a lot of people, we’ll know that and can take it into account when making those decisions.”
Some of the greatest works of literature “upset a lot of people” at the time of their publication. Moreover, some issues polarize, loved by many and hated in equal measure by others. But as you only allow negative votes, you have no way to guage this.
I suspect this year will be my one and only year of membership of this site. Sorry, but you are going the wrong way about things. “Arianna-like” things are the diametric opposite of what you want.
And as someone pointed out. We asked (in large numbers) for an edit button and got a comment moderation one instead. That’s not really how a democratic community is supposed to work.
@ yellowsnapdragon May 14th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
I’m getting very tired of this falsehood. Ever since you decided that rebukes I made in the comments of my postings about Turkey and the Flotilla Massacre to macaquerman (a user since banned for posting quite appallingly viciously racist comments) was directed at you’ve been claiming that you’ve been called a troll.
Unless somebody else has called you a troll I suggest you refrain making this claim.
markfromireland
My friends Doremus 35,PG Evans et,al.I believe my Rotary club allusion may have thrown you off a bit. You may wish to re-read what I meant not what I wrote. I get moderated off all the time because folks do not like the words I say not how I say them. Let`s all just follow the tenth commandement of the republican party and change the word republican to progressive. ” Thou shall not speak ill of a fellow progressive.” Censorship may be a bad deal for the truth but a good deal for the censor. Never, never, never,be anything but rabidly pro-choice. We have to draw the line somewhere.
Zenostoa
Hey Jeffroby, I get moderated all the time and to my knowledge I have never been so inept and stupid as to use racial epithets or profanity. I was warned that the term Chinaman was racist and I should have used the term Chineeze. The Queen Boedacia wannabees moderate me off before they even read my stuff. I wrote once that most college edcuated women are pro-choice because they want to bust the glass ceiling and not have to amrry the drunken MBA student they stumbled into at the GE mixer. Orthodoxy above all. Zenostoa
I appreciate this place very much. Also, the willingness expressed in your post, Jane, to be responsive to the needs of the community. Thank you, for both.
I think that the most serious obstacle to the goal of responsiveness is that you’ve already pushed the WordPress software about as far as it can go, in terms of community building.
When you look at what it was originally intended for–weblogging–versus what you’re trying valiantly to make it be–an online community–I think it’s easy to see that you’ve pretty much reached the limits of what it can do.
“Recommended” and “inappropriate” are very blunt instruments.
I’d encourage you, or the more thoughtfully inclined among your tech staff, to do a bit of looking around at other models, such as those found at Slashdot and Reddit. There are even better ones out there too, but these two have both enjoyed a lot of success over the years. In brief, they both allow for a lot more nuance through a system of upvoting/downvoting.
This of course is for the long-term.
In the short term, the best thing you could do is to mandate more transparency when it comes to moderation.
It’s disturbing as hell when comments disappear without a modnote.
It’s ten times worse when posters get disappeared without an explanation.
I wish you the best going forward. Even with all the structural problems, this is still even now the last-best-biggest place to come for prog sharing. Blessings.
vL
*G*
N what YSD said, too . . .
*G*
How is anyone supposed to believe you if there’s no transparency? “Trust us” and democracy don’t go together, and that’s the essential lesson of black box banning.
It’s a common tactic I’ve seen the past 12 years or more as a new person comes in all smiley n nice, begins to escalate the amount of diaries they post, escalate their comments, suddenly one or more other ‘new’ people show up and begin arguing with each other.
Half the time it’s the same person just stirring up shit, n then at some point there’s a spectacular meltdown leading to ISP’s being looked at and bans enforced.
That was EXACTLY what happened this last round
Rayne, I miss dearly She was a newspaper/journo/editor hoss of a wizard and knew not only those fields but was well versed on most matters of life we are all interested in.
And I thought she did a GREAT job in calling out shit for what it was when shit disturbers flang their poo, which was beginning to be all the time.
I’ve yet to see any official announcement of her departure. But I liked her, she gets MY vote any day.
Frankly, HER moderating never bothered me one bit. There were OTHERS that were overboard, I’ll agree *nonames*. Things have toned down considerably post ‘MeltDown’ ’11, both commenter wise and moderator wise.
*G*
I’ll tell ya why not.
They are agitators, not real members of any community. IT’s what they live for, to infiltrate and then disrupt, they do it over and over again and again in site after site.
IMHO, you and Mz. Davis are missing the essential being of some of those folks . . . . I don’t know why Kwaitowski was ‘goned’, I thought he was pretty spot on with his points of view at times, and he sure did call shit for shit when he saw it . . . oh well.
Who? What? WHere?
Ya toss out some delicious dirt to tease us n then . . .
*G*
I guess if one is gonna use a nickname for a special part then ‘my precious’ is as good as any . . .
*G*
“I wish you the best going forward. Even with all the structural problems, this is still even now the last-best-biggest place to come for prog sharing. Blessings.”
Yeah, x1,000,000++, what vers L said.
Amen, pass the jug!
And while the jug is coming around, let’s take a moment of silence to remember OpenLeft. I constantly worry that FDL will go the way of Chris Bowers’ blog there, where one day he made the announcement to close it down, and within a week, it was.