| 4 Nov 2021 |
 @zimbatm:numtide.com | IMO there were a lot of problems in the past that could have been resolved with good moderation | 15:15:36 |
 jonringer | It's not meant as grudge, it's a way to fit that event in context of proposed changes. I'm getting really tired of how generalized of a "threat to newcomers feeling welcome" is becoming the reason for these changes, when I haven't seen much in how it will solve these issues in an objective manner | 15:15:43 |
| jonringer | I agree that a moderation could have stepped in, and instead of the discourse thread which blew up, we could have had a much more satisfactory resolution for everyone. | 15:16:51 |
| jonringer | * I agree that a moderation team could have stepped in, and instead of the discourse thread which blew up, we could have had a much more satisfactory resolution for everyone. | 15:17:00 |
 tomberek | The "instigator" comment still bothers me. | 15:17:25 |
| jonringer | But this has a lot of assumptions about moderation team being able to be effective, and trying to pursue arbitration before just banning people | 15:17:45 |
 @joepie91:pixie.town | In reply to @lourkeur:nixos.dev
Your post assumes that you know who the real victim and the real offender is. How do you determine that in the real world if everyone claims to be the victim? that's a reasonable question, and it's the point where subjective judgment of the situation by a moderator comes in. while different people approach this differently, and nobody is perfect, this is usually where experienced moderators try to suss out intent; by attempting constructive conflict resolution and looking at how the different parties involved respond to it. usually one of the parties is clearly invoking disruptive discussion techniques, though sometimes it's just a misunderstanding that can be resolved through mediation. there is no one-size-fits-all answer here. | 15:17:51 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | What's important is to be focused on conflict resolution. Banning has taken up too much space in the conversation and should really be the exception. | 15:18:34 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | (in fact, this exact question is the major reason why a legalistic approach to moderation - set hard-and-fast rules and exactly enforce them - doesn't work in practice) | 15:18:39 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | In reply to @zimbatm:numtide.com
What's important is to be focused on conflict resolution. Banning has taken up too much space in the conversation and should really be the exception. I strongly agree with this, to be clear | 15:19:03 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | I believe that so does the RFC, actually | 15:19:12 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | if I am not misremembering | 15:19:22 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | the RFC is a lot of things | 15:19:29 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | when we read it, we all see something different | 15:19:51 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | * (in fact, this exact question is the major reason why a legalistic approach to moderation - set hard-and-fast rules and exactly enforce them - doesn't work in practice - there is no deterministic upfront way to answer this question) | 15:20:02 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | * (in fact, this exact question is the major reason why a legalistic approach to moderation - set hard-and-fast rules and exactly enforce them - doesn't work in practice; there is no deterministic upfront way to answer this question) | 15:20:09 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | half of the conflict is based on some of the ambiguity of the language | 15:20:21 |
| tomberek | That is a limited view of legalistic. It also means admitting the system can fail. Checks and balances. Protections from abuse. | 15:20:23 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | unfortunately social norms don't modularize as well as code does :p | 15:20:31 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | actually, maybe a good analogy is security work; security work is notoriously difficult to modularize, because it always needs to consider the whole system to be effective, because you're dealing with some sort of adversary | 15:21:17 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | outside of conflict resolution between good-faith participants, community management is shaped very similarly | 15:21:48 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | maybe what we should do is take an empirical approach to the problem. create a small moderation team, for a limited amount of time, and see how it works out | 15:21:52 |
| tomberek | In reply to @zimbatm:numtide.com
maybe what we should do is take an empirical approach to the problem. create a small moderation team, for a limited amount of time, and see how it works out so.... 102? :) | 15:22:17 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | wasn't 102 a knee-jerk ? :p | 15:23:13 |
| tomberek | it was, but not completely unprincipled or without thought | 15:23:46 |
| tomberek | The major issue with 98 seemed to be that it was too easy to misinterpret both the language, as well as the overall intent. | 15:24:33 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | In reply to @tomberek:matrix.org
That is a limited view of legalistic. It also means admitting the system can fail. Checks and balances. Protections from abuse. you can have such protections in a non-legalistic system as well, my point here is more that a legalistic approach just fundamentally cannot work as well at this scale.
but to give an example, in PG (formerly PTIO) we have a 'community reports' room that essentially serves as a room for discussing and questioning moderation decisions. it is exempt from the community-wide ban bot, and the threshold for getting banned there is very high.
by having a dedicated separate room for this, it prevents concern trolling in the main rooms (as there's nothing to disrupt, anyone in comrep is there because they are interested in the topic), while still leaving plenty of opportunity for community members to publicly question moderation decisions
| 15:25:00 |
| @joepie91:pixie.town | that is of course a safeguard that's specifically designed for the moderation structure over at PG; different systems (RFC98 is very different!) will warrant different safeguards | 15:26:00 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | nice, we're getting to concrete things to do | 15:26:01 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | having a clear place where people can report abuse is important | 15:26:22 |
