| 22 Nov 2021 |
 @jkarlson:kapsi.fi | can you specify what does community moderation mean, what is the complement to that? | 17:14:05 |
| @jkarlson:kapsi.fi | I am assuming (not knowing) that most people think some sort of moderation might be needed | 17:15:21 |
 ryblade | i can only speak for myself, not most people, and on that note i'm not much of a fan of mob rule, either. community moderation is when moderation is applied to people's behaviour and conduct as it relates to one another, rather than how it relates to use (or abuse) of the protocol or platform itself. language policing is but one example. again, i only speak for myself, but if i find someone offensive, i just disregard what they have to say. if it gets worse, i block them, and i'd only ever think of calling a moderator if that person, say, were signing up a bunch of sock puppets to evade my attempts to block repeated harassment from them. | 17:19:00 |
| ryblade | considering how sophisticated things like advertising bots, scams, phishing and and spamming has gotten, i'd feel a lot safer knowing that a moderation team is always available to deal with real threats when they appear, rather than being tied up all the time having to arbitrate over complaints of offensiveness. think of it like fire safety. it's mostly the responsibility of the homeowner, but the fire department is there when your own personal diligence fails. if your house is on fire, your hope is that your local station has an engine or two and a bunch of firefighters hanging around. if they're busy putting out fires everywhere, you're less likely to get help in time. | 17:24:40 |
| ryblade | i agree that moderation is needed too, just not on the level that is being proposed. it simply doesn't work out the way it's intended. never forget what paves the road to hell. | 17:27:20 |
| ryblade | and i say this as a person of so many marginalized communities it would make a lot of heads spin | 17:28:56 |
 problems | that is why we want to create a sustainable community team that helps equip the community with the tools they need to defuse most situations on their own without a community team member needing to be involved at all | 22:22:48 |
| problems | we shouldn't need to rely on moderators to resolve small things that don't require hard power | 22:23:28 |
| problems | but in order to do that, we need a lot of community education and involvement | 22:23:49 |
| ryblade | i suppose if it comes from a perspective of education it's less worrisome, in an educational setting people can feel less afraid of making mistakes, provided the pedagogues are gentle and patient. | 22:38:57 |
| problems | that's the hope | 22:45:48 |
| problems | we maybe didn't stress it enough in the rfc text (and we're working on rectifying that) but we do want bans to be a last resort | 22:46:36 |
 Irenes | yeah ... we have an entire paragraph about bans being a last resort, and why, but we need to add a lot of stuff on what to do instead, because it's not obvious to people who haven't been exposed to these ideas before | 23:12:27 |
| ryblade | i had suggested earlier perhaps a kindly worded tutorial on how to utilize different blocking features on things like element, github, etc. some user interfaces are less intuitive than others. by kindly worded, i'm thinking something along the lines of suggesting it as a form of empowerment and self-agency, rather than it just being a throwaway "just block 'em, bruh" kind of response. | 23:14:54 |
| Irenes | right, I mean, we've already had block evasion in nix :/ | 23:18:04 |
| Irenes | what we need is some sort of communal agreement as to whether that's even a good thing or a bad thing | 23:18:21 |
| Irenes | but I do think a tutorial is a good idea also | 23:18:31 |
| Irenes | it just kinda places a lot of the burden on the person receiving the unwanted communications | 23:18:43 |
| Irenes | and I think it's fine to place some burden there, but there has to be a balance | 23:18:52 |
| ryblade | In reply to @irenes:matrix.org
what we need is some sort of communal agreement as to whether that's even a good thing or a bad thing i disagree with this, "good thing" and "bad thing" are highly subjective and loaded concepts. for example, my opinion is that blocking is a good thing (you should see my procmail recipe file...). since it works for me, i may suggest it to others as a matter of practicality, but i'm not going to necessarily make a moral ruling on the matter. | 23:21:16 |
| Irenes | that's fair. | 23:22:36 |
| ryblade | and block evasion would certainly be an example of when moderators need to step in, because moderators have access to more "nuclear options" compared to individuals, such as range-banning. | 23:22:42 |
| Irenes | I mean, I do think that even in an ideal world blocking needs to exist. | 23:22:47 |
| ryblade | in an ideal world, i'd have a third faucet next to my hot and cold that dispenses maple syrup :) | 23:23:21 |
| Irenes | even in settings where someone might naively suggest that since the purpose is heavily constrained and there are other mechanisms to escalate, it shouldn't be | 23:23:27 |
| Irenes | the best example I know of is people blocking coworkers on Slack | 23:23:41 |
| Irenes | you "shouldn't" need to, but sometimes your coworker is also your abusive ex who refuses to leave you alone and is protected by HR | 23:23:58 |
| Irenes | especially in large organizations | 23:24:06 |
| Irenes | no system should presume itself to be perfect | 23:24:22 |
| Irenes | I hate to compare mod teams to HR because the latter is an extension of corporate hegemony, and the former doesn't need to be, but they do serve analogous functions here | 23:25:05 |
