Clarification and Addendum to the "No Insults" Rule

[Idontcare]

Hi Folks,

In addition to the recently announced vacation penalty that are to be handed out for members who insist on posting insults and making personal attacks, we are instituting one more caveat to the "no insults" rule - only the person or persons being insulted by a poster may report the post/poster as far as the moderators are going to be concerned when it comes to enforcing the "no insults" rule.

Basically it will be aligned with the same way we handle the "no intentional misquotes" rule in which it is solely up to the individual being misquoted to decide whether or not the misquoting is a problem for them at a personal level. This is also how we generally manage member callouts in sigs.

So too is how personal attacks and insults in P&N will be handled going forward.

We are having too many third-party members reporting posts as being personal attacks only for us moderators to spend time contacting the two other parties involved and discover it was an inside joke/sarcasm/banter/etc.

So...please don't report posts as being insults or personal attacks unless you are the victim of the attack or insult.

This thread is being left open as an open mic thread for members to discuss the specifics of the enforcement "no insults rule". Please do not derail this thread. If you seek clarification on the rule then you may seek it here instead of Moderator Discussions.

Do not turn this thread into a mod-challenge/mod-callout thread, do not turn this thread into a member-callout thread.

Administrator Idontcare

edit:
Just to put data to words, and to highlight just how out-of-balance the resource demands are for P&N versus all the other subforum combined, here is a pareto chart of the most recent 200 reported posts across the entire forum:

This subforum consumes nearly half of all our resources allocated to the reported-post queue.

 

[Infohawk]

Wasn't one purpose of the rule to have a civil environment? This addendum will prevent that. There's basically going to be a ton of insulting by the people that love it (close to 50% of the sub-forum.) Of course they're not going to want the rule enforced. You can say almost anything is mere banter, but 95% of the insults in this forum are between people with different views who are genuinely angry. Also, you can probably expect to see a lot of posts along the lines of: "Poster X reported me to the mods. LOL."

 

[Lemon law]

Dear Idon'tCare, I could quote what you openly posted on 5/15/2012, but why bother as your opening post on this thread does much to address my concerns.

But in all due respects to fellow forum members, I wonder if this new policy will really do much in the long run. Simply because it addresses only the symptoms of a personal attack disease without addressing the causes.

As I maintain its impossible for anyone to have a rational argument with someone else, unless all parties share the common principles of logic. And if there is no forum moderated logic enforced, the currency of logic is debased. And quite often when a given poster uses totally bogus logic, the natural by product is too often a personal attack in return. Of course maybe a better forum response might be, in all due respects so and so, IMHO, your logic is totally bogus and here is why.

But still, In complex issues, I maintain people with wildly different end opinions on a given subject can respectfully discuss their differences if they share a common currency of logic. Without that common currency of logic enforced by moderators, trying to police this form without a standard of shared logic is like trying cat herding IMHO.

But still we are all now going to have to watch our P and Q's better, and you already addressed my pet peeve of being quoted for something I never said is something I regard as a unforgivable personal attack. But still, if you take controversial positions on any forum, best have a thick skin. As for me, there should be no joy in personal attacks we better refrain from, but being proved right in the end is the only thing that is priceless.

Just my 2 cents on this new policy.

 

[LunarRay]

(snip) my questions seem better answered by another's questions... thanks though

 

[Moonbeam]

A couple of questions, IDC:

I don't report people for insulting me. For one thing, it is a truism for me that, as they say, the truth hurts. This means, first of all, that folk who can be hurt by the truth will first of all deny it is truth and secondly attack the messenger. This just a fact of the nature of denial. First off, folk are absolutely convinced they already know the truth couldn't possibly be wrong, and secondly they are egotistically attached to their false ideas. We are protective of our delusions.

For this reason folk will attack anything that threatens their ego security if they have a lot of ego security issues. So, this is a part of what truth is, that folk will put other people down verbally. If they didn't do this they would be healthy and in no need of the truth. So if we deny people the opportunity to expose this as fact, we deny them the opportunity to see who they are, that they experience this need deeply.

Also, all the hurt that people feel is from long ago. Nobody can hurt anybody with words on the internet. All they do is rip the armor off old wounds that happened in childhood. We carry our sore toes with us wherever we go and stick them out so people can step on them and hope people do, because we want to experience that pain vicariously. This is also a truth that is not well understood.

So my first dilemma is this. The moderators want the forum to be more civil, if that is the right word, and I will work against that if I don't report people if they attack me. But for the sake of the folk that do, I don't want to report them. I feel their attacks just demonstrate what I say that offends them. So I am caught in the quandary of whether to support the stated intentions of the forum or the individual member according to my lights. I will report folk if it is expected of me but I won't voluntarily. Which way do you want me to go?

The other issue is that I insult people all the time just by being me. There isn't really much of a line between the truth hurts and the truth is insulting, again, of course, only for folk in denial. So here is this dilemma: I have recently become aware of scientific experiments that indicate that conservatives have a number of brain anomalies that cause them to exhibit irrational and fearful behavior, denial, certainty of conviction, truthiness as it is now called that connects a gut feeling of certainty, in other words, bigotry, with the ego pleasure of feeling right. I have refereed to this scientific body of evidence as evidence of a conservative brain defect, one which I also see exhibited on the forum here all the time.

A lot of people might be offended by the notion that they have a brain defect, even if they are not at fault for having it. This goes right back to the issue of the sore toes we walk around with. People who have been shamed and made to feel guilty feel they are at fault for a lot of things and see everything, therefore, that contradicts their fixed thinking as an accusation. Thus is comes to pass that facts themselves are insulting if you have a guilt complex. Now folk with guilt complexes don't know they have them. It's the very thing that cause them to deny. Being made to feel guilty hurts and we can carry that old pain.

So do we lie about facts that science is uncovering about conservative thinking and not say they have brain defects which, of course, is sure to insult them if they are in denial about that, or do we use some euphemism that will keep them blind to their real condition? I know for a fact, for example, that no amount of telling them they aren't responsible for having defective brains does the slightest good. They can't see their defects much less it's not their fault.

What would be your advise here?

 

[JEDIYoda]

But still we are all now going to have to watch our P and Q's better, and you already addressed my pet peeve of being quoted for something I never said is something I regard as a unforgivable personal attack. But still, if you take controversial positions on any forum, best have a thick skin. As for me, there should be no joy in personal attacks we better refrain from, but being proved right in the end is the only thing that is priceless.

Sorry but mis-quoting is not a personnal attack no matter how you spin it!
But under the set guidelines can be an offense....
Calling somebody an idiot....or a mentally retarded slow learner is a direct personnal attack!!
Just because you quote something that can be interpreted several different ways and somebody calls you on that quote does not mean it was a personnal attack.......
Was it an attack?
Hell, yeah.....but it was not a personnal attack!!

You leave no room for credibility or for what you call a rational discussion.....especially when you consider that all of your "predictions" are usually irrational.......

Just because you percieve something to be a personnal attack does not mean that under the set guidelines it is a personnal attack as defined by the guidelines......sorry!

yet - calling somebody or trying hide a personnal attack veiled as a question...is still a personnal attack.......

Are you just a mentally retarded slow learner or a serial liar?==personal attack by You aimed at me....

 

[LunarRay]

What would be your advise here?

The floormat into Anand's house says "Don't wipe your feet on the Door mat"

So like a good poster you march out to the lawn and wipe your feet... you enter his house and there behind you are the clippings of a freshly cut lawn... You have complied! But some are going to shout... 'Look at that moonbeam... and look at all that grass' Why should he be allowed to bring that mess in here... Along come the mods with vacuum cleaners in hand. They look at you, the grass and the door mat... No harm no foul but they still have to clean up the mess...
Facts are facts and unsupported opinion is just that. A malicious verbal attack does not contain facts or truths, I maintain. IOW, a truth cannot be interpreted rationally to be a malicious attack by the one with the vacuum. To those who are standing in the cut grass they can think what they may.
Use terms like 'people' instead of 'you'. I imagine a whole hord of conservatives will jump on you for a truthful blanket indictment but I don't see how a personal attack can exist with out the conduit twix you and the recipient... 'You' is that conduit.

 

[Abraxas]

Seen this policy shift on other boards, usually backfires horribly. I'll skip the step by step, but it usually ends with a lot of the more colorful posters getting banned because one side or the other manages to weaponize the mod staff by posting incredibly provocative material that doesn't violate any rules and then report everyone who gets angry or offended. A lot of bans follow, since most of them are on one side, the other screams bias and bails, the people who stay get bored and wander off to other forums that offer the environment that kept them there in the first place, the community dies off.

Sudden shifts towards authoritarianism from communities that draw their vibrancy from their very unstructured, free-form nature, in my experience, always end badly.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Seen this policy shift on other boards, usually backfires horribly. I'll skip the step by step, but it usually ends with a lot of the more colorful posters getting banned because one side or the other manages to weaponize the mod staff by posting incredibly provocative material that doesn't violate any rules and then report everyone who gets angry or offended. -- getting angry or getting offended is NOT against the rules!! It`s how you conduct yourself that is the issue....don`t blame the mods for enforcing the guidelines!!


A lot of bans follow, since most of them are on one side, the other screams bias and bails, the people who stay get bored and wander off to other forums that offer the environment that kept them there in the first place, the community dies off.-- the mods opn these forums happen to be more than fair! It`s the few who try to bend the rules and constantly get banned who cry the loudest!!

What is so hard about following the guidelines??
Before these rules were even implemented there was ample room for discussion and questions opened to all who felt the need to get involved....

 

[Lemon law]

Sorry but mis-quoting is not a personnal attack no matter how you spin it!
But under the set guidelines can be an offense....
Calling somebody an idiot....or a mentally retarded slow learner is a direct personnal attack!!
Just because you quote something that can be interpreted several different ways and somebody calls you on that quote does not mean it was a personnal attack.......
Was it an attack?
Hell, yeah.....but it was not a personnal attack!!

You leave no room for credibility or for what you call a rational discussion.....especially when you consider that all of your "predictions" are usually irrational.......

Just because you percieve something to be a personnal attack does not mean that under the set guidelines it is a personnal attack as defined by the guidelines......sorry!

yet - calling somebody or trying hide a personnal attack veiled as a question...is still a personnal attack.......

Are you just a mentally retarded slow learner or a serial liar?==personal attack by You aimed at me....

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I somewhat agree with JediY here, because for both of us it comes to the crux of the shared logic argument.

As I still maintain with all international logic behind me, that the the Israel claim of land by conquest is illegitimate. Yet every time JediY is proved wrong on this very point, easily 50 times and counting, he comes right back, with the Hitler type great lie, and again maintains that land by conquest is legal when no nation in the world, including the USA, recognizes that bogus JediY or Israeli claim.

Just my precise point moderator IDon'tCare, if this forum allows serial abuse of the an internationally recognized truth, rational discussion of anything on this forum becomes impossible. When the common logic we should all share becomes debased by total falsehoods. So yes I stand behind my calling JediY out on that very point, especially when Jediy never rebuts the point and instead waits to post his great lie again and again.

After that JediY and I can agree to disagree about our personal predictions about the future of Israel in a mid-east hostile to Israel, and in that I have no problems with the JediY opinions. Opinions I have no problem with as JediY is a forceful advocate for Israel and makes valid points I can respect. But when in controvertible facts are fractured, yes I have a problem with that and a forum that fails to police it.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Just my precise point moderator IDon'tCare, if this forum allows serial abuse of the an internationally recognized truth, -- hahah serial abuse...rofl......rofl...rofl.....
rational discussion of anything on this forum becomes impossible. -- you really have to be kidding...an internationally recognized truth??? hahahahaaa.......now that is a real good one.....
So what about other countries such as Russia and China.....and other that gained land via war????
You see you are like the Palestinians...you only want 100% your way......there is no other side to the story unless you agree........so sad.....why single me out?
There are others like cybersage...EagleKeeper.....and many more who do not agree with your bloviations concerning the Palestinians/Israeli issue......

When the common logic (here we go a code word---common logic...rofl)we should all share becomes debased by total falsehoods. So yes I stand behind calling JediY out on that very point, --so you admit to personally attacking me?? You also claim that you called me out?? You also erealize that you admitted to breaking the no personnal attack rule? Under the guize of calling me out....hmmmm.....especially when Jediy never rebuts the point and instead waits to post his great lie again and again.

Actually why rubut your point when it is just regurgitated over and over again??

Thanks for just admitting that you knowingly ahead of time and PURPOSELY violated the rules!!

 

[Pr0d1gy]

As I still maintain with all international logic behind me, that the the Israel claim of land by conquest is illegitimate.

And yet how did our country come to be? How did all of those international countries come to be? They won their wars or sided with those who did. Do you think Native Americans care what your view is on this matter?

That said, when was this insult thing instituted because I didn't see it until just now and I insult people plenty of times? I can't believe you guys went anti-freedom on this, though, either way. That's pretty weak.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I still think this is a bad though well intentioned idea. It isn't pretty but political discourse which approximates free speech has been contentious throughout history. Parliament was physically designed so opposing members couldn't give t he other a quick swipe with a sword. Note I used "approximates" because as a former admin I understand this is not public forum, however it was decided to have this subforum and we lived with it. A question to consider is who's sensibilities are being protected? Anands, the members or the staffs? This is not a technical subject, it involves a much broader topic with potentially far reaching consequences. I'd rather have an honest attack on myself than a contrived topic that begs for a slap by someone who has figured out how to troll the forum with impunity.

 

[fskimospy]

Seen this policy shift on other boards, usually backfires horribly. I'll skip the step by step, but it usually ends with a lot of the more colorful posters getting banned because one side or the other manages to weaponize the mod staff by posting incredibly provocative material that doesn't violate any rules and then report everyone who gets angry or offended. A lot of bans follow, since most of them are on one side, the other screams bias and bails, the people who stay get bored and wander off to other forums that offer the environment that kept them there in the first place, the community dies off.

Sudden shifts towards authoritarianism from communities that draw their vibrancy from their very unstructured, free-form nature, in my experience, always end badly.

Very much this. While I think moderating insults is a stupid idea regardless, this is a primary problem. There are so many things people can and do post here on a regular basis that probably wouldn't meet the criteria of 'personal insult' but which are deliberately meant to be insulting anyway. The clearest example on here would be the constant posting of 'liberals believe X', where X is something ridiculous and horrible. It's clearly meant to insult other posters who everyone knows are liberal, and yet it's not a personal attack.

There are plenty of antisocial behaviors that take place on here all the time that will remain unmoderated on here, and there are plenty of these behaviors that absolutely deserve insults as a response. This was a terrible idea from the start, and I'm glad to see that people who initially supported it are moving against it now. I hope it goes away for good in a month, as I have no plans on altering what I say to people.

 

[Idontcare]

Wasn't one purpose of the rule to have a civil environment? This addendum will prevent that. There's basically going to be a ton of insulting by the people that love it (close to 50% of the sub-forum.) Of course they're not going to want the rule enforced. You can say almost anything is mere banter, but 95% of the insults in this forum are between people with different views who are genuinely angry. Also, you can probably expect to see a lot of posts along the lines of: "Poster X reported me to the mods. LOL."

If member X insults member Y, then member Y can report member X's post and the mods will follow-up with member X to determine if a violation has occurred and to sanction them for it.

If member Z reads member X's post about member Y and member Z takes offense to member X's post then member Z is expected to (1) just move along, or (2) contact member Y by pm and convince them of the injustice that will transpire unless member Y takes the time to report member X's post.

This has to be done because we are literally being overrun by false reports of what can be described as "faux outrage" by member Z's in this subforum.

Over the past 2 months I, and others, have come to the conclusion that we have a contingent of members in this subforum who come here looking to be insulted. Spoiling for a verbal fight but are quick to take offense when they think they have read something somewhere by someone that they just don't get along with.

In short, the environment is very much like a 3rd grade classroom. And so we are finding ourselves needed to tool up with a very different set provisions for determining when an actual offense has transpired.

We are still very much interested in eliminating personal attacks and insults as directed by the community vote, but we are in an unsustainable cycle at the moment wherein the false reports by third-party members who are looking for excuses to take offense to in these forums have exhausted the strength of your volunteer moderator resources.

So, if you see a post that you believe to be a personal attack on another member then you need to convince the member who you believe is being attacked to report the post. If the member being attacked can't be convinced to care enough to invest the time to report the post then that is an efficient method of self-correcting our resource allocation to the true problem areas of the forums.

It is the exact same issue we had with intentional misquoting and the rule that went into effect on that was exactly what the doctor ordered, worked better than we ever expected.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

So you based this decision on a poll with 100 votes? Well have mercy on me if someone almost assuredly reports me today because I just heard about this.

 

[Infohawk]

This has to be done because we are literally being overrun by false reports of what can be described as "faux outrage" by member Z's in this subforum.

...

We are still very much interested in eliminating personal attacks and insults as directed by the community vote, but we are in an unsustainable cycle at the moment wherein the false reports by third-party members who are looking for excuses to take offense to in these forums have exhausted the strength of your volunteer moderator resources.

So, if you see a post that you believe to be a personal attack on another member then you need to convince the member who you believe is being attacked to report the post. If the member being attacked can't be convinced to care enough to invest the time to report the post then that is an efficient method of self-correcting our resource allocation to the true problem areas of the forums.

It is the exact same issue we had with intentional misquoting and the rule that went into effect on that was exactly what the doctor ordered, worked better than we ever expected.

What is this about an "actual" offense and "faux outrage"? I thought the rule was no personal attacks. It should be quite clear when that happens. If someone says, "you are a moron" that's pretty much a person attack and should be easy to enforce. (Not buying at all that people were joking with their buddies.) It sounds like the rule is now "no hurt feelings" which is completely different.

With this tweak, you're not getting rid of the problem. Instead, you're just making people less likely to report it. Imagine if someone uses a racial slur and the "victim" doesn't report it for whatever reason. It brings the level of the forum down for everyone, not just the victim.

The misquoting is different because in the end only the poster can say for sure if the quote misrepresents what he intended to say. Calling someone an idiot isn't ambiguous at all.

 

[Lemon law]

And yet how did our country come to be? How did all of those international countries come to be? They won their wars or sided with those who did. Do you think Native Americans care what your view is on this matter?

That said, when was this insult thing instituted because I didn't see it until just now and I insult people plenty of times? I can't believe you guys went anti-freedom on this, though, either way. That's pretty weak.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You do have a point here, as I should have better classified the fact that land by conquest is illegitimate applies only to UN members after they join the UN. As land by conquest is not legitimate is a founding principle for UN membership. In the case of Israel, they joined the UN in 5/1948, so the gains of Israel's 1967&73 wars are not legitimate.

Before the formation of the UN, land by conquest was often used to gain land and territory.

As I hope it better explains it to you.

 

[cybrsage]

Hi Folks,

In addition to the recently announced vacation penalty that are to be handed out for members who insist on posting insults and making personal attacks, we are instituting one more caveat to the "no insults" rule - only the person or persons being insulted by a poster may report the post/poster as far as the moderators are going to be concerned when it comes to enforcing the "no insults" rule.


So...please don't report posts as being insults or personal attacks unless you are the victim of the attack or insult.

Administrator Idontcare

I did not see this yesterday, will start following it today.

Out of curiousity, how long is the vacation penalty?

 

[cybrsage]

What is this about an "actual" offense and "faux outrage"? I thought the rule was no personal attacks. It should be quite clear when that happens. If someone says, "you are a moron" that's pretty much a person attack and should be easy to enforce. (Not buying at all that people were joking with their buddies.) It sounds like the rule is now "no hurt feelings" which is completely different.

With this tweak, you're not getting rid of the problem. Instead, you're just making people less likely to report it. Imagine if someone uses a racial slur and the "victim" doesn't report it for whatever reason. It brings the level of the forum down for everyone, not just the victim.

The misquoting is different because in the end only the poster can say for sure if the quote misrepresents what he intended to say. Calling someone an idiot isn't ambiguous at all.

My best guess is that they were being swamped with reports and it was just too hard to verify them all. With the reduction in who can report a post, it means less reports and therefor it is far easier to handle.

Just a guess.

EDIT: Missed the post which said what I basically just said. Appears I had guessed correctly.

 

[Idontcare]

What is this about an "actual" offense and "faux outrage"?

It is quite obvious to the mods, and it has become problematic.

We have member X and member Z. Member X and member Z get along like gasoline and a lit match. Member X and member Z report each other's posts with reckless abandon, essentially leveraging the mods into being their e-thug minions. Just another instrument in their personal arsenal of petty ways to harass one another on the forums.

So we deal with a fair amount of faux outrage, which is to say we have members who claim to have their delicate sensibilities offended while at the same time they are always right there in the thick of things throwing insults themselves up until the point where someone calls a mod in to settle the squabbles.

Calling someone an idiot isn't ambiguous at all.

Member X and member Y get along just fine, and they enjoy friendly banter, they call each other idiots. Member Z despises member X, sees the friendly banter but reports it anyways.

Calling someone an idiot is not ambiguous as the word "idiot" is right there for all to read; however, concluding that the word "idiot" was written with the intent to insult someone is fraught with ambiguity.

 

[Idontcare]

Out of curiousity, how long is the vacation
penalty?

100% dependent on the member's history of posting violations, but the minimum allowed by the VB system is a 1-day vacation. So obviously we start there and see where we end up.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Out of curiousity, how long is the vacation penalty?

Weighing your options?

 

[cybrsage]

Weighing your options?

No... :sneaky:

 

[Bowfinger]

It is quite obvious to the mods, and it has become problematic.

We have member X and member Z. Member X and member Z get along like gasoline and a lit match. Member X and member Z report each other's posts with reckless abandon, essentially leveraging the mods into being their e-thug minions. Just another instrument in their personal arsenal of petty ways to harass one another on the forums.
...

Have X and Z been vacationed yet for abusing the <Report> button, or at least sanctioned? When I brought this up in the Open Mic thread, that a small number of people would bury you in complaints, either you or Perk said such behavior could also be sanctioned. It would seem to solve the problem without impacting all the other members who can handle themselves just fine without crying to moderators.