Question on ban announcements

[Shri]

i mean if the current plan is to ask us to **** off if we don't like it i'll make sure that i promote the site to edgy teenagers exclusively until the experience begins to suck for everyone

i'll ruin this place before i leave it tbh

introduce some cricket 19 mods here exclusively and next thing you know cw sinks lower thank pkanetcricket

 

[sledger]

Watson was neither summarily dismissed nor dealt with via the process. He just posted dire stuff with impunity until finally, and after the damage with done, some action was taken. Same with blocky realy.

 

[sledger]

And to a lesser extent Miyagi and Cass. Neither of these two were as prolific as the aforementioned, but they still lasted longer than they should have, given that it was clear from very early on that they were manifestly awful

 

[Spark]

I will freely and straight up admit that we dropped the ball hard on watson and that was unacceptable. He should never have been given such free reign to post consistently racist and fascist apologia on this website.

The main thing with watson was that it was always just below the line. Everyone knew what he actually meant, but he was very clever about not going out and posting what he truly thought, i.e. "non-white people are subhuman". And, although we do try very hard to keep politics and moderation distinct and keep it to the the way posters interact with other posters, I suspect he took advantage of the committed small-l liberalism of the most active contingent of the mod team wrt the N+P section, meaning that we're reticent to ban people because of their politics unless they go full 1488 or Stalinist. Nonetheless, we (I) should really have put the hammer down earlier because it's not like we (I) didn't know exactly what he was actually saying, and I don't blame Jono one bit for finding both it and our moderation intolerable in that regard. Eventually we did just go and get rid; mindless legalism with regards to "can we shoehorn individual posts into infraction categories" shouldn't have been an impediment to "yeah look this is just not acceptable".

I know it's an issue that's cropped up several times with various posters about the difficulty of dealing with consistently bad, aggressive and disruptive/trollish posters within the bounds of the infraction system. Blocky, Miyagi etc etc fall into this category too. I don't know what the answer is short of scrapping the infraction system full stop, but I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Spark]

Incidentally after watson was finally banned we got a lovely email that, amongst other things, contained a message targeted at me personally and accused me of being pathologically anti-white-people. Lovely fellow.

 

[cnerd123]

why can't you invoke the 'forum atmosphere' rule more often

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Incidentally after watson was finally banned we got a lovely email that, amongst other things, contained a message targeted at me personally and accused me of being pathologically anti-white-people. Lovely fellow.

Lol if you don't post the email.

 

[Spark]

I think I deleted it tbh.

 

[trundler]

why can't you invoke the 'forum atmosphere' rule more often

Yeah, I think this is a good idea. Miyagi circumvented a lot of rules but he sure as **** ruined the atmosphere. I mean, his intention was there for all to see.

 

[nightprowler10]

I think I did too but it basically called Spark a bigot, and that he banned him because of his political views when Spark hadn't even pulled the trigger on it.

I think some of the delays with watson boiled down to me taking a step back from the issue since I felt personally involved. I'm not sure if Spark felt the same way, but I probably would've been a LOT more vocal in the mod forum if that wasn't the case. There was a time I took quick action on TumTum for disparaging racial comments, and this is exactly what I should've done with watson and not worry about how it would look to others. I certainly won't make that mistake again.

 

[Spark]

I think I did too but it basically called Spark a bigot, and that he banned him because of his political views when Spark hadn't even pulled the trigger on it.

I think some of the delays with watson boiled down to me taking a step back from the issue since I felt personally involved. I'm not sure if Spark felt the same way, but I probably would've been a LOT more vocal in the mod forum if that wasn't the case. There was a time I took quick action on TumTum for disparaging racial comments, and this is exactly what I should've done with watson and not worry about how it would look to others. I certainly won't make that mistake again.

Yeah I think this played into it for me as well.

 

[sledger]

oh man tum tum

I had (blissfully) forgotten about him

 

[cnerd123]

@trundler

I don't think someone has to 'intend' to ruin the atmosphere in order to ruin it.

You can have posters who genuinely think they're posting well but who are turning the place to ****. The rule should apply to them as well

Obv the problem with leaving this to the mods to decide is a) their biases get in the way and b) a vocal minority can gang up and get someone banned off the site. Someone who actually isn't a bad poster shouldn't get banned just because everyone can't handle their unpopular opinions. We don't want to CW to become one giant hivemind.

But **** Miyagi. The day I wrote that essay breaking him down should have been the day he got banned

 

[Adders]

I think I did too but it basically called Spark a bigot, and that he banned him because of his political views when Spark hadn't even pulled the trigger on it.

I think some of the delays with watson boiled down to me taking a step back from the issue since I felt personally involved. I'm not sure if Spark felt the same way, but I probably would've been a LOT more vocal in the mod forum if that wasn't the case. There was a time I took quick action on TumTum for disparaging racial comments, and this is exactly what I should've done with watson and not worry about how it would look to others. I certainly won't make that mistake again.

This is the key IMO. For the vast majority of posters the infraction system does it's job.......99% of members are decent and here with good intentions, occasionally we can all get sucked into something, react poorly and the process is sufficient to keep the masses under some semblance of control.

What I'm advocating is that you moderators have the power once you identify a poster who is clearly never going to change and is just here to cause a ruckus in one way or another.......to deal with them permanently more swiftly. And **** what it looks like to them or anyone else.

Sure you may get the emails or other posters commentating in here that it's harsh or how can you do that when x poster gets away with worse etc etc. But y'know......we are talking about the Watsons, Blocky's, Miyagis, Cows, Spintolose etc of this world, posters that blind freddy can tell are only ever going to provide a negative value to this site no matter how many chances they get to improve their behaviour.

 

[trundler]

If someone has bad opinions and it inadvertently causes a ruckus then it's not on them. See: TJB saying England's 05 win was down to ball tampering. It's when someone like Miyagi flaunts his obnoxiousness to get attention and then drops the biggest stinking turd to get a rise out of people that we have a problem. I think that's when forum atmosphere should be generously invoked. SpinToLose was also very obnoxious with his crap opinions.

 

[Adders]

@trundler

I don't think someone has to 'intend' to ruin the atmosphere in order to ruin it.

You can have posters who genuinely think they're posting well but who are turning the place to ****. The rule should apply to them as well

Obv the problem with leaving this to the mods to decide is a) their biases get in the way and b) a vocal minority can gang up and get someone banned off the site. Someone who actually isn't a bad poster shouldn't get banned just because everyone can't handle their unpopular opinions. We don't want to CW to become one giant hivemind.

But **** Miyagi. The day I wrote that essay breaking him down should have been the day he got banned

The mods are chosen because (presumably) they have a track record of posting decently and with balanced opinions. I have faith in each and every one of them to use that power responsibly and without bias. My only concern would be Harsh hitting the red button by mistake tbh.

I won't name any names but I'm sure we've all got posters here that we think are dead set muppets and cross swords with more often than we should/would like........none of my irritations here would fit the bill for an instant on your bike, They might **** me to tears on occasion but every post of theirs is not dogshite, we just clash for whatever reason but I can still see that they provide value to the sight in one way or another.

 

[nightprowler10]

But y'know......we are talking about the Watsons, Blocky's, Miyagis, Cows, Spintolose etc of this world, posters that blind freddy can tell are only ever going to provide a negative value to this site no matter how many chances they get to improve their behaviour.

It's easy enough to say that now, but it was clear to me that banning watson in 16/17 would've generated some "banned for his political views" type of comments and would definitely have given birth to split opinions in the mod team.

I can't speak to the others because I was genuinely not active enough when they posted their ****.

 

[Adders]

It's easy enough to say that now, but it was clear to me that banning watson in 16/17 would've generated some "banned for his political views" type of comments and would definitely have given birth to split opinions in the mod team.

I can't speak to the others because I was genuinely not active enough when they posted their ****.

I would have thought Watson would have been the easiest one of those named to drop the axe on tbh. 100% zero tolerance policy to racism no matter how veiled it may be presented. If his political views were racist then **** off.....those views aren't welcome here.

 

[cnerd123]

Doesn't CW have a track record of Mod's going crazy and abusing their power? I can see why the current lot are a bit more cautious.

I love this back and forth btw. It's great when we can actually talk about these issues.

 

[OverratedSanity]

It's easy enough to say that now, but it was clear to me that banning watson in 16/17 would've generated some "banned for his political views" type of comments and would definitely have given birth to split opinions in the mod team.

I can't speak to the others because I was genuinely not active enough when they posted their ****.

You're right. And Spark was spot on when he said Watson for the most part framed his shite in a coherent and almost polite way without explicitly going full blown white nationalist. I wrote an email to you guys ages ago saying exactly that, so I totally get why he wasn't banned sooner for being explicitly racist, because his posts weren't, atleast when viewed in isolation. It also made reporting anything futile because apart from a handful of shockers, there wasn't much that would point to what he was, unless you looked at the tone of his posts as a whole.

The annoyance for me atleast was that it became clear that he was very very poor for the forum's atmosphere. And that atleast should have been enforced more than it was, especially considering so many people here are non whites who've settled in other countries.