| 22 Nov 2021 |
 @ryblade:matrix.org | * that "discretion to reject reports" section seems to vaguely declare that certain people are naturally incapable of being victims or perpetrators. i'm more a believer in "hate is as hate does". | 16:43:49 |
 @piegames:matrix.org | I always measure "good faith" on the reaction of people when called out. Do they acknowledge a mistake, do things actually improve afterwards (if it happened repeatedly), or do they double down on their bad take? | 16:43:58 |
| @ryblade:matrix.org | In reply to @piegames:matrix.org
I always measure "good faith" on the reaction of people when called out. Do they acknowledge a mistake, do things actually improve afterwards (if it happened repeatedly), or do they double down on their bad take? this depends on the definition of a mistake and operates on the assumption that the person being called out has made a mistake, which is often subjective. there are situations where a plaintiff may have unfairly perceived malintent (i'm guilty of this a LOT, getting that chip off my shoulder is a lifelong work), or situations where a defendant might not understand why what they did was wrong. so in either situation, "doubling down" might not necessarily be a result of abject belligerence. for this reason i've never been a fan of heavy application of community moderation, except in the cases of fighting against "abuse of service" types of behaviour, like spamming and flooding. sorry for the tl;dr. | 16:51:19 |
| @ryblade:matrix.org | In reply to @piegames:matrix.org
I always measure "good faith" on the reaction of people when called out. Do they acknowledge a mistake, do things actually improve afterwards (if it happened repeatedly), or do they double down on their bad take? * this depends on the definition of a mistake and operates on the assumption that the person being called out has made a mistake, which is often subjective. there are situations where a plaintiff may have unfairly perceived malintent (i'm guilty of this a LOT, getting that chip off my shoulder is a lifelong work), or situations where a defendant might not understand why what they did was wrong (been guilty here too). so in either situation, "doubling down" might not necessarily be a result of abject belligerence. for this reason i've never been a fan of heavy application of community moderation, except in the cases of fighting against "abuse of service" types of behaviour, like spamming and flooding. sorry for the tl;dr. | 16:51:44 |
| @ryblade:matrix.org | * this depends on the definition of a mistake and operates on the assumption that the person being called out has made a mistake, which is often subjective. there are situations where a plaintiff may have unfairly perceived malintent (i'm guilty of this a LOT, getting that chip off my shoulder is a lifelong work), or situations where a defendant might not understand why what they did was wrong (been guilty here too). so in either situation, "doubling down" might not necessarily be a result of abject belligerence, but a misunderstanding. for this reason i've never been a fan of heavy application of community moderation, except in the cases of fighting against "abuse of service" types of behaviour, like spamming and flooding. sorry for the tl;dr. | 16:52:08 |
| @ryblade:matrix.org | in any case, that's a bit outside the scope of what i was worried about in that document, but still, i'm not comfortable with the idea of moderators being given the power to literally determine intent in the minds of other people, over limited communication mediums where nuances like body language, tone of voice, etc. are lost. when those very same moderators have the power to close discussions, ban users and sculpt the very society around them, there is a 100% chance that bad decisions will be made, and that such power will ultimately lead to corruption. | 17:06:59 |
| @ryblade:matrix.org | * in any case, that's a bit outside the scope of what i was worried about in that document, but still, i'm not comfortable with the idea of moderators being given the power to literally determine intent in the minds of other people, over limited communication mediums where a lot of the nuances of communication are lost. there's no body language or tone of voice, and speakers of the same language may have completely different cultural understandings and meanings of certain words. when those very same moderators have the power to close discussions, ban users and sculpt the very society around them, there is a 100% chance that bad decisions will be made, and that such power will ultimately lead to corruption. | 17:09:58 |
 @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:matrix.org | 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:matrix.org | 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:matrix.org | 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:matrix.org | 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:matrix.org | 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:matrix.org | 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:matrix.org | 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:matrix.org | 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 |
