| 24 Nov 2021 |
 @zimbatm:numtide.com | mediation should probably stay optional | 10:59:56 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | "thinking of blocking somebody? contact us" :) | 11:00:26 |
 joepie91 🏳️🌈 | what does 'optional' mean here, though? because if there is a conflict that people can't sort out amongst themselves, that conflict needs to be addressed somehow. is mediation 'optional' in the sense that you get banned if you don't pick it? because that would not truly be optional. or would it be 'optional' in the sense that you can choose to not resolve the conflict? then we're back to square one, with effectively no moderation mechanisms for the worst case | 11:01:25 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | it depends on your views of the role of moderation | 11:03:17 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | should the moderators read every message, and enforce their own opinion? | 11:03:38 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | or should they let the community sort things by themselves, and be pulled in when requested | 11:04:14 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | neither. | 11:04:30 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | with all the grey and nuance in the middle | 11:04:40 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | is the moderation team monitoring behaviour, maintaining list of problematic people, gestapo style :p | 11:05:51 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | 'read everything and enforce their opinion' fails because you essentially end up with a channel only for moderators. 'be pulled in when requested' fails because it only addresses overt conflict, and even then only in part of the cases. the job of a moderator, IMO, should be to address problematic conflict in every sense; both that which is overt, and that which is not (with bigoted comments being a concrete example of the latter) | 11:05:57 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | so it is their job to keep an eye on the community and pick out problematic things, but only in the context of their responsibility to keep the community healthy | 11:06:26 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | that certainly is going to involve some subjective judgment (though that's much less of a problem when you have multiple moderators working together), but that is still very far removed from "enforcing moderator opinions" | 11:07:18 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | as a concrete example, the only cases where I've (very occasionally) banned people in the technical communities I moderate for disagreement on technical opinions, are those cases where someone routinely provided dangerous advice and refused to consider feedback about that. besides that, it is not my job to police technical opinions | 11:09:05 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | * as a concrete example, the only cases where I've (very occasionally) banned people in the technical communities I moderate for disagreement on technical opinions, are those cases where someone routinely provided dangerous advice to newbies and refused to consider feedback about that. besides that, it is not my job to police technical opinions | 11:09:16 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | In reply to @zimbatm:numtide.com
is the moderation team monitoring behaviour, maintaining list of problematic people, gestapo style :p I don't think "gestapo style" is an appropriate metaphor to invoke here, but yes, most every experienced moderator will maintain a mental list of people to keep an eye on | 11:10:13 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | it makes me think of a rate-limiter, where every infraction bumps the counter | 11:13:39 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | sorry, you're over the rate-limit, 401 Unauthorized | 11:14:15 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | it's a bit fuzzier than that, but not too far off from how moderation often works | 11:14:30 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | many "exactly on the boundaries of acceptable behaviour" equal one overt transgression, basically | 11:14:57 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | I knew you were going to say something in those lines :) | 11:15:03 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | * for example, many "exactly on the boundaries of acceptable behaviour" equal one overt transgression, basically | 11:15:15 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | it's a bit the same argument the some cops uses in movies, to justify not following the law. The bad guys are not following the law, and it's just a hindrance to true justice. | 11:17:20 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | * it's a bit the same argument some cops uses in movies, to justify not following the law. The bad guys are not following the law, and it's just a hindrance to true justice. | 11:17:28 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | those are really not comparable for multiple reasons; 1) this is a community, not a nation state (to which fuzzy moderation just can't scale for social reasons), and 2) there is no real accountability to the population in government policing systems, despite what it sometimes says on paper | 11:18:41 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | the problem with fuzzy judgments by cops are not the fuzzy judgments, but the outsized impact that 'getting it wrong' has on society | 11:19:33 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | because of their specific position and circumstances | 11:19:56 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | I have no problem with cops making fuzzy judgments for non-punitive reasons, for example, like trying to decide whether someone needs assistance (in the countries where that actually is a thing, that is...) | 11:20:40 |
| joepie91 🏳️🌈 | I don't really want to go too deep into the political weeds here, but basically the entire field of law exists to answer the question of "fuck, subjective judgment doesn't work at this scale. how do we deal with that?" | 11:22:00 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | yeah I didn't mean to open a pandora box. But... I'm pretty sure the cop would use all of your arguments :p | 11:25:54 |
| @zimbatm:numtide.com | ttyl, lunch time! | 11:26:12 |
