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Forum Rule Changes including Introduction of Infraction System
- Thread starter James
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Teja.
Global Moderator
Only people in the India-England thread who matched the individual effort set by GingerFurball yesterday were Vicleggie and Sirmallya. Both banned.
Apart from the one-off
comment, No-one else was consistently baiting the other team.
GIMH
Norwood's on Fire
Yeah mate, that's your opinion and I'm sure you're aware that mine is different.Only people in the India-England thread who matched the individual effort set by GingerFurball yesterday were Vicleggie and Sirmallya. Both banned.
Apart from the one-off
Teja.
Global Moderator
Also, moving away from the general sentiment of the previous dozen or so pages in this thread, I'd like to come out and state that I have deep appreciation for the mods of the forum. It's an incredibly thankless job normally and even more so when every decision this way or that way is checked and dissected for consistency with past punishments and what not.
Howe_zat
Audio File
Said it once before, but it bears repeating now.
Spark
Global Moderator
Hmm.
I haven't gotten involved in this debate but I have watched it closely. I've been involved in various forums for many years now, mostly on boards which are far more intense in the level, harshness and fierceness of debate. I realised I've not been here very long, but I think that I can add some cents worth.
I have no interest in getting involved in the mods being biased towards the subcontinental vs. the "Western" posters, it quite frankly looks like a manifestation of the mods being biased towards libs or conservatives debate I see on other forums. That's not to necessarily say there isn't (or for that matter is) any, it's just a bit tiresome and useless IMO.
Personally, I do not like a points-based infraction system. It's not a real biggie but if you were to force me to hand-on-heart lean one way or another, I would scrap it entirely.
DISCLAIMER: What follows may be unreadable, or tripe.
1. It enforces an arbitrary method of quantitative "value" to a offence, so is in a sense "standardizes" the whole thing. That would be fine if A. there were quantized levels of trolling/abuse whatever and you were able to use an comparative examples-based system for "comparing" whether one offence deserves X number of points based on comparing it to an example post displaying said offence which has been publicly pre-agreed on to be worth X amount of points. Of course you can't do it, because it's ridiculously time-consuming for a volunteer mod on an internet forum to be trying to do, but that's not the main issue. The other case is B. all trolls were equal and there was a clear distinction between posts that were made with the intention to rile/troll whatever. But it doesn't work like that - there is no clear line where a post is either trolling or not trolling. So you will not be able to accurately and justly enforce a system that sets a quantized - not to mention somewhat arbitrary - value on an offence because posts are so tied up in levels of context that may or may not be clear to anyone but the poster that what the precise, 100% accurate, fully understood meaning of a post is - which is what you get down to when you decide whether to infract one of these borderline posts or not. I mean, it's not like you have a "troll-o-meter" where you can enter a post and it'll spit out 0.613 or whatever on a trolling scale, and then decide that anything about 0.6 gets infracted for 5 points or whatever - that would work, but it's not possible. The point is this - with a necessarily quantized system, the line between "OK" and "too far" needs to be well defined. But it isn't. In answer to GIMH's point, no there is no double standard. There is no standard at all in terms of a definitive line that you cannot cross, because you can't draw the line, let alone find it.
2. Similarly, because of that quantized nature, you're going to have an incredibly difficult time making the punishment proportional to the crime. And it's no use breaking the system up into smaller point scales - that just increases the arbitrariness of the whole thing, especially when applying the same system to a variety of offences. It'll degrade into "well just how much is one point worth?" which is not a question you can answer fairly.
3. The mods are called forum moderators - not forum police. I hate to say it but this feels bizarrely like a demerits points system - get six points and your license is suspended for a year or whatever. It needlessly degrades forum atmosphere by overly unlevelling the playing field between members and mods - it puts them on a pedestal. It's not a good look.
4. It degrades the ban. Banning someone is supposed to be an extreme deterrent, a last-resort warning to clean up your act or face the ultimate penalty. It should not be used as a fairly minor punishment for a string of minor offences. Suppose a threshold of 40 points is set for a ban and a member is on 39 points. Then if he gets one more point, which is in all likelihood a very minor offence in the grand scheme of things, then he gets banned. This sounds to me, frankly, ludicrous. Bannings are exceptionally disruptive events. They can completely change the poster's posting style, his relationship with other members, mods (especially), and his general status within a posting community. They can also have a huge ripple effect amongst the wider posting community. Bans should only result from severe offences or an unacceptable repetition of notable offences. In the case above, the person should either have been A. banned for the offences that got him 39 points in the first place or B. not banned until a major offence. The "line of death" that comes about is IMO wrong. Bans should be enforced by a mod consensus that a member either needs removal or needs an extreme last-resort warning. They should not be handed out lightly, not handed out on a demerit-points basis and absolutely not on a somewhat automated basis as we have here.
There were a few other things I thought of whilst writing this but I've forgotten them now. I'll add if I remember them.
My cents.
I haven't gotten involved in this debate but I have watched it closely. I've been involved in various forums for many years now, mostly on boards which are far more intense in the level, harshness and fierceness of debate. I realised I've not been here very long, but I think that I can add some cents worth.
I have no interest in getting involved in the mods being biased towards the subcontinental vs. the "Western" posters, it quite frankly looks like a manifestation of the mods being biased towards libs or conservatives debate I see on other forums. That's not to necessarily say there isn't (or for that matter is) any, it's just a bit tiresome and useless IMO.
Personally, I do not like a points-based infraction system. It's not a real biggie but if you were to force me to hand-on-heart lean one way or another, I would scrap it entirely.
DISCLAIMER: What follows may be unreadable, or tripe.
1. It enforces an arbitrary method of quantitative "value" to a offence, so is in a sense "standardizes" the whole thing. That would be fine if A. there were quantized levels of trolling/abuse whatever and you were able to use an comparative examples-based system for "comparing" whether one offence deserves X number of points based on comparing it to an example post displaying said offence which has been publicly pre-agreed on to be worth X amount of points. Of course you can't do it, because it's ridiculously time-consuming for a volunteer mod on an internet forum to be trying to do, but that's not the main issue. The other case is B. all trolls were equal and there was a clear distinction between posts that were made with the intention to rile/troll whatever. But it doesn't work like that - there is no clear line where a post is either trolling or not trolling. So you will not be able to accurately and justly enforce a system that sets a quantized - not to mention somewhat arbitrary - value on an offence because posts are so tied up in levels of context that may or may not be clear to anyone but the poster that what the precise, 100% accurate, fully understood meaning of a post is - which is what you get down to when you decide whether to infract one of these borderline posts or not. I mean, it's not like you have a "troll-o-meter" where you can enter a post and it'll spit out 0.613 or whatever on a trolling scale, and then decide that anything about 0.6 gets infracted for 5 points or whatever - that would work, but it's not possible. The point is this - with a necessarily quantized system, the line between "OK" and "too far" needs to be well defined. But it isn't. In answer to GIMH's point, no there is no double standard. There is no standard at all in terms of a definitive line that you cannot cross, because you can't draw the line, let alone find it.
2. Similarly, because of that quantized nature, you're going to have an incredibly difficult time making the punishment proportional to the crime. And it's no use breaking the system up into smaller point scales - that just increases the arbitrariness of the whole thing, especially when applying the same system to a variety of offences. It'll degrade into "well just how much is one point worth?" which is not a question you can answer fairly.
3. The mods are called forum moderators - not forum police. I hate to say it but this feels bizarrely like a demerits points system - get six points and your license is suspended for a year or whatever. It needlessly degrades forum atmosphere by overly unlevelling the playing field between members and mods - it puts them on a pedestal. It's not a good look.
4. It degrades the ban. Banning someone is supposed to be an extreme deterrent, a last-resort warning to clean up your act or face the ultimate penalty. It should not be used as a fairly minor punishment for a string of minor offences. Suppose a threshold of 40 points is set for a ban and a member is on 39 points. Then if he gets one more point, which is in all likelihood a very minor offence in the grand scheme of things, then he gets banned. This sounds to me, frankly, ludicrous. Bannings are exceptionally disruptive events. They can completely change the poster's posting style, his relationship with other members, mods (especially), and his general status within a posting community. They can also have a huge ripple effect amongst the wider posting community. Bans should only result from severe offences or an unacceptable repetition of notable offences. In the case above, the person should either have been A. banned for the offences that got him 39 points in the first place or B. not banned until a major offence. The "line of death" that comes about is IMO wrong. Bans should be enforced by a mod consensus that a member either needs removal or needs an extreme last-resort warning. They should not be handed out lightly, not handed out on a demerit-points basis and absolutely not on a somewhat automated basis as we have here.
There were a few other things I thought of whilst writing this but I've forgotten them now. I'll add if I remember them.
My cents.
Last edited:
Spark
Global Moderator
What I would prefer in place if it were up to me (which it obviously isn't), is a more strongly formalized warning system. In fact, I would keep everything about the infraction system in place - in terms of officially warning people for specific posts - but remove the point values. Remove the quantization aspect and keep it somewhat flexible - and hence you can, as a human being, "modify" the warning to suit the offence (from a non-negotiable cease-and-desist type warning to a fairly gentle push), and I think it would work much better.
And make the report button a bit easier to see.
And make the report button a bit easier to see.
benchmark00
Request Your Custom Title Now!
Never gonna give up the fight as long as I have #TIGERBLOOD running through my veins. The trolls will not defeat us! #WINNING.
Nate
You'll Never Walk Alone
I've been pretty unimpressed by some of the posts made by Indian members in the Ind vs Eng Thread. But I was equally offended by the retaliation of the English posters. So while I can understand the infraction of GF, I would hope there was similiar punishment for the instigators.
Can also exclusively confirm that GIMHeroin is a buffoon.
Can also exclusively confirm that GIMHeroin is a buffoon.
Spark
Global Moderator
But a similar punishment would be a ban. Is that in any way fair?
Nate
You'll Never Walk Alone
I'll answer your question with another question?
Teja.
Global Moderator
Nope a similar punishment would be an infraction. GF's ban is not a direct consequence of his posting yesterday, It's accumulated infractions over time.
fredfertang
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
No he's not, he's an eternal optimist, although I do concede there's an argument for saying that's a distinction without a difference
Has benchy ever been a mod?
Spark
Global Moderator
See my post above.
benchmark00
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