Goals of Forum and Comment Moderation on MD

[ninjadork]

@dankdevice Well done. You're already attacking people instead of their arguments.

This is exactly the sort of ego-driven boundary-pushing I talked about in my post barely half an hour prior.

 

[dankdevice]

@ninjadork who are you again? i literally read no prior comments other than OP's. if you feel personally attacked i apologize. however if you want to talk about why you feel attacked by my comment, please do tell

 

[Zephyrus]

@Bainhardt
There is no feature at this time that notifies a reporter that action has been taken. The first step is a warning, disciplinary action, and then increasingly harsher punishments until the user has either lost all privileges on their account or they are permanently banned.

@Ixlone already keeps an eye out for alternate accounts and bans them when he finds them.

As for your other questions, they are certainly good ones and will most likely need answering at some point in the future. I don't have any answers for you at the moment. I suspect that we will start hammering out some sort of system if/when the forum moderator team grows.

The ultimate goal at this moment is to make both forums and comments a relatively pleasant place to be.

@Dysisa
You can certainly report spoilers. Please make sure that these comments are indeed spoilers and not speculation. I'd also like to caution you that it's unlikely that we'll ever really be able to stamp out spoilers but we'll do our level best to do so.

@Thoraxe41
You're nothing but shark bait!

@ninjadork
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Everyone will be treated equally at MD. I don't favor one type of reports over another. If you're afraid that people will hide behind the rules, don't be. As I mentioned in an earlier post (I honestly can't remember how far back it was) the spirit of the rules are just as important as the letter of them. If someone is maliciously breaking the spirit of a rule, they'll not be able to hide from justice!

I have to be honest, I'm not very enthusiastic about the idea of an appeals system. It seems like so much work for so little return. Most people who troll and break rules on a regular basis have little interest in reforming and so an elaborate justice system seems like a giant waste of time. Perhaps my feelings on the matter will change, but not at the moment.

As far as shadowbanning goes, that's precisely what the block feature does, to an extent. It's your own personal shadowban! People will never know that you've blocked them, unless you tell them of course.

@alacaelum
There has been talk of an emoji-like system but no one wants to deal with upvotes and downvotes as they can very easily be abused.

 

[Leftism_Is_A_Disease]

I wanted to know if you guys have plans to put some type of "like" system for the comments

Please for the love of God don't implement a like system for comments. If you want a perfect example of why thats a bad idea just go look at the comments of anything on kissmanga, it turns into a circlejerk of people telling terrible unfunny jokes to each other while any discussion about the actual manga is drowned out.

 

[Wolvenworks]

soo basically it all runs down to "stop being a dick about it"

agreed. wish most of the net can be so fucking less salty about shit. especially in games.

 

[ItsQuote]

I have to be honest, I'm not very enthusiastic about the idea of an appeals system. It seems like so much work for so little return

based solely on my time moderating 4chan i can agree with your sentiment. virtually all of the appeals that i worked on were either "unban plz" or a cavalcade of racial slurs, which was surprising at first since a fair chunk of bans were 1-3 days from one board. seems like giving someone a forced vacation is more effective in some ways!

 

[Holo]

Allowing users to react to posts with a limited set of emojis (like facebook) is in the plans.

 

[darkomantis]

I agree with Kierlak. I don't want individuals with their own agenda, especially on things I want to avoid, trying to be in power positions. Too many times have I seen communities destroyed because of it. All I want is laid-back and chill Mods and Zephyrus seems to want to provide and be that.

I wanted to know if you guys have plans to put some type of "like" system for the comments

@alacaelum We don't need a liking system. Comment vote systems always has a net negative effect since it promotes herd mentality, encourages excessive celebrity/funny posts, discourages dissent, decreased constructive discussions, and etc.

 

[Noir]

I don't participate much in the comment section, so i don't really care if you guys wanna police comments. But if you get offended because of something someone said on the internet, then you need to grow a thicker skin.

 

[ninjadork]

@dankdevice Well, opening with "who are you again" as if my identity is more important than my words speaks to a fair bit of contempt on your part. But concerning your previous post, openly declaring that everybody who is concerned about the possible fallout of this policy change are probably assholes and/or rule breakers who deserve to be chained is very much a violation of the "argument, not people" principle.

@Zephyrus My primary concern is your interaction with Hexxy concerning "hate speech". I have very rarely seen a forum, internet or otherwise, where "hate speech" was anything other than an opaque cover used for pushing identity politics (from multiple sides), mass silencing people on a whim, and creating the echo chambers that we purport to loathe. Experience both professional and personal leads me to well and truly despise vague terminology that is easily abused.

I don't have complaints about Mangadex moderation up to this point. But I have spent much of my life watching people and groups ruined because a policy change that "seems reasonable" had no hard cut off point. I've had enough good conversations with residents here that I am highly invested in seeing this remain a healthy community.

 

[Sola]

@OniBarubary

I humbly volunteer to moderate comments too, if it proves necessary. There's nothing I'd want more than for them to stop being toxic cesspools of chan behavior and actually not push away women or LBGT readers from discussing because it's a website about manga so "it should be expected that the readers are awful"

I would expect them to just privately recruit people as moderators. By that I mean, if they see someone who posts frequently and who appears to be well-behaved and can get along well with others, they could just send a PM to that person asking if they'd like to be a moderator.

At least, that's how I'd hope they do it since, from what I've seen in other forums, it's often the most effective way of finding people who can do that task (moderation) well.

In any case, I happen to believe that scouting is the best method, rather than open recruitment.

 

[ununseti]

I wanted to know if you guys have plans to put some type of "like" system for the comments

See this discussion thread: #25948: Reddit like comments rating

Anyone that volunteers for forum moderation should automatically raise a red flag. There are a few that might be doing it for proper reasons, but most are seeking a position of authority from which to enforce an agenda.

True that. Actually, this reminds me of a certain page on Wikipedia... "The solution to all of Wikipedia's problems".

I'm fully in support of (fair and reasonable) moderation because it prevents the broken window effect from making the atmosphere excessively toxic/unpleasant.

 

[ninjadork]

No moderator who volunteers should ever be accepted. That's just begging for interference from power plays and personal bias to destroy a decent, and more importantly developing, community. Just like how no open volunteer study is ever usable for statistics.

Suggestion; add a button to each profile. Whenever someone sees a comment they like, they can go to that profile and click the button. This will add one point to a hidden score that can't be seen by anyone unless you go digging through the code. When that score reaches a high enough point (I'd prefer 1,000, but I'd be willing to negotiate), this will send a flag to the moderators to review this member's comment history for potential mod recruitment. If the mods agree, then an official offer can be extended over private message.

 

[theskrie]

@Holo Will we be able to opt out of that system on our end? I'd rather read comments without the distraction those cause.

 

[kenx]

@dankdevice
My first reaction was "Nice, it's finally growing". Sorry, I'll refrain from posting hereafter.

 

[Yautja]

The intention seems well placed but I can't say I'm all that trusting considering the link @mikegnesium provided and the comment by @Anonyan minutes before which fit together perfectly. Getting that bent out of shape at someone using the word 'gay' to describe something they dislike is reaching. Calling something you dislike gay is no different than calling some dick you met on the bus a dick. Doesn't mean I hate dicks or men or gays. I can call a gay guy gay, I can say some dude's dick is hanging out but I can also call dickish behavior like Maroon 5 teasing Sweet Victory and never playing it gay without the intention or implication that the alternative meanings to those words are inherently wrong.

Using a word that can and has meant multiple things to say something is stupid or bad is way different from describing a thing and using it as an insult. That said, the more I think about it, the more I understand where 'the other side' is coming from; I can see the grey area and wonder where the line is myself. Perhaps it's a complex issue comprised of the intention and context that really matters not just a blanket description of *insert*-phobia/ism/ist^{Not so subtle sarcasm...}. Frankly, it looks like Mike was pretty on point. The rules are vague and being enforced case-by-case, with personal biases and presumptions of intentions / beliefs. And to make matters worse, Mike got banned with one hell of a reach for disagreeing and disobeying. I don't expect the mods here to be superhumans, but I've seen way worse shit that never even gets a nod even when explicitly noted and ridiculous inconsistency in general.

And to tie this in, those comments by @OniBarubary made me cringe. It reminds me of the reddit mod-dictators. Maybe it's genuinely well-placed intentions, but regardless, it sure looks like an ideologue trying to grab internet power. I really hate it when ideologically charged shit goes anywhere, this kinda stuff in particular, which is often used as an excuse to control other people's beliefs & words and start a political conversion war. It's the kinda stuff that's mutilated a lot of reddit. I fucking hate the "hate speech" excuse, it's another fantastic example of a word being repurposed to be an ideological weapon because it sounds scary. This is going to be an interesting mess.

p.s.
@dankdevice
It's usually not a good idea to say "if you don't agree with this, you're the bad guy" and then respond to criticism with patronism and pretentiousness.

 

[firelight]

>SJW volunteers to be moderator
You're supposed to act innocent until you become mod, not reveal to everyone that you can't be trusted.

>Create good discussion
>SJWs start posting to rant about ableism, xenophobes, and a bunch of other made up words that didn't exist before 2015
>Discussion now becomes a flame war between people who just want to enjoy their time on the site and SJWs trying to censor everything and ruin the lives of people they don't like

I miss the old internet.

 

[Hadski]

It's time to insult like a gentleman ? Just kidding

 

[RecycledCabbage]

I'm all for this, as long as it doesn't hurt my comments that shitpost the characters or the series itself.

 

[Zephyrus]

@Yautja
@mikegnesium has never liked my style of moderation for whatever reason. I suspect it's mostly because I made a mistake and missed a report he'd made against someone else in the same thread that he was warned in some time back.

He then inserted himself into a moderation action that had nothing to do with him and proceeded to pick a fight. I warned him twice to drop the subject and he persisted in being argumentative and snide. That was his decision to make.

As far as the "gay controversy" goes, there is a post further down that you either missed or did not wish to draw attention to.

The link to the post: https://mangadex.org/thread/17101/1/#post_423705

The quote:

@kenx
The warning that I issued actually sparked a staff debate on whether or not the usage of gay is offensive and therefore actionable.

The conclusion was that from this warning on, it would not be actionable except in the hopefully rare instance where it's used as an insult.

It also sparked the announcement thread I created to make clear why and how I moderate.

I didn't think it worth retracting the warning for various reasons, but mostly out of laziness and seeing no need to do so :v

I appreciate you bringing up your concerns in a friendly manner!

If mike had been polite and brought up his concerns in a reasonable way that didn't imply moderator abuse of powers or outright accuse me of lying, he might have received this answer instead of being temp comment banned for his behavior.

We don't feel like we need a ton of rules concerning posting because really, good posting can be summed up in two words: Be Civil. A lot of that sort of behavior is common sense.