intfiction.org

Well, aside from the spam cleanup, all the moderator activity is already rather visible. If I warn someone, I typically do it in the thread rather than via PM. If a thread gets locked, the icon changes and nobody can post there, so that's pretty clear.

Deleting a thread is problematic because the thread gets purged from the database. It's gone and no one can see it, not even admins. I felt it was justified in this instance - the user posted elsewhere that he knew he was wrong but was going to keep posting the same accusation here for a few days. I regard that as morally equivalent to spamming, if not worse - spam at least has a reasonably pure profit motive - and I delete spam threads.

However, it's also a more drastic action than is typical, so I thought it was important to discuss it.



I do read those reports, from you and others. I'm not sure what to say except that I don't always feel a strong call to act on each report. If I don't, I leave the report open for either David or Merk to read, under the theory that they may respond differently. So you won't necessarily get feedback because it's hard to say when we've all made the decision not to respond.

If a general consensus emerges that it's OK, I would be comfortable locking and rant-tagging individual posts, as a more fine-grained approach to locking an entire thread. The standard here could be somewhat lower; two or three reports might be sufficient, if no one else quotes that post in the meantime and it makes sense for the conversation to continue.

We could probably milk this one all day long.


Robert Rothman

So are we just weaning ourselves off the main topic?

Thanks. I guess.

Yes, definitely, and that is where I was going with "(especially when limited to works that have received plenty of critical acclaim)". I'm quite confident that you and Aaron and Emily can "take it," and I do think our resident trolls have been pretty good about respecting that line. That said, I don't think anyone should have to take it, and a lot of people do not have experience distinguishing work-critique from a personal attack.


To some extent, yes. Not that I'm saying that this forum has anything like the malicious troll infestations that these articles are talking about, but:
http://geekfeminism.org/2011/10/13/on-b ... nt-events/
and http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Don% ... the_trolls


Tangentially, this strikes me as uncomfortably similar to "They're only catcalling you because you're so pretty! No one ever does that to me..."


I sort of assumed your middle name started with a 'p'


Spot on. When I want trolls, I'll read manboobz.com.

Well, now that you've gotten that off your chest . . . .

(I know, we're probably starting to sound like a bunch of boobs.)


Robert Rothman

I thought a post could only be reported once -- I've often clicked on the icon and been told it's already been reported. (For spam posts; I'm not sure whether I've ever flagged something for what I considered trolling, but if I did that didn't happen very often.)

Exactly.

And yes, my second name starts with a P. I'm a Prama Queen.

I thought you had the same name as a city in China: P-King.


Robert Rothman

Oh, I didn't realize that. There goes that plan.

Maybe some sort of karma / reputation mod would be a better way to go. If anyone knows of a good one for phpBB, please let me know.