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Obviously, nobody comes here to break the rules, or to upset anyone, but we are human, we break them and try to do better. Cut and dry rules do not apply in extreme conditions because members and FPs are not scientific samples and we are always adapting.
A very valuable point for a progressive blog is a non-banning rule. It would make ET proud to be respectful, gentle and flexible enough to let members find their own space, let them be and let them go on their own. The idea is to ´direct´ the excessive comment or diary, when absolutely necessary, not the member.
To be truly transparent, there should be a front pagers´ guide that is updated like the NUG, as they find ´best policy´ suggestions. I appreciate and wouldn´t want the FP´s responsibility of switching hats from commenter to administrator, in a fair way, because that´s asking a lot.
There should be a suggestion for ´new comment´ users that jumping into a thread without reading it all, is running the risk of looking foolish and losing credibility, especially when judging, or ´correcting´ another. The reading and staying on the appropriate topic mode shouldn´t need to be repeated.
The factual moving-pack effect of up to 10 members down-rating another to make a comment disappear, not because it is offensive, but because they refuse to see a true criticism, should really be discouraged.
We need ´insurgents´ to stretch our limits, improve ourselves and society by not being rule-driven about it. The best policy is the most accepting and flexible practice. _Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. --Charu Saxena._
I don't think dk is a model to follow either and I'm not getting the meaning of the last phrase, right now. _Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. --Charu Saxena._
To re-phrase the last sentence, ordinary users might not have noticed all the insults or spamming that has been hidden, toggled or deleted (in the current case: it wasn't just the videos, also image spamming, and lots of personal insults), and not catch references to content in invisible trollish comments.
You assume the best in all people, but that's just what trolls like to exploit. Why there are people who enjoy such behaviour, I don't know, but they definitely exist. I don't know when you arrived on the web: was it the blogs? Or already web forums? Web boards? USENET?
I began on USENET, where trolls had much freeer rein than on later discussion formats. And I could tell you of utter asshole-ness that I could never imagine people capable of, not pre-internet. People who notice a new user, play all nice to him/her for a while, then either turn on him/her or use them to turn on others, and repeat this with new users several times. People who make the nastiest comments to users who tell of some personal grief, say the death of a wife or being diagnosed with terminal cancer. People who use up to 30 sock puppets, jumping in and out of several invented personalities (including pedophile and neo-Nazi), and even have these sockpuppets discuss, support or flame each other. People who invest a lot of time to first appear and be accepted as a normal member, then start to incite big fights, and it turns out they lied about their identity and have done the same routine on other forums with other assumed identities before. Your alarm bells aren't ringing because you haven't witnessed such.
While I rarely understood what motivates these people (there's not much common even in the real-life persona of the few I saw tracked down: there was trailer-park white trash kid, middle-aged hermit living on a farm in the mountains, a businessman, a housewife among them), what is clear is that it's not discussion they are interested in, but attention, say when they hijack a thread (as happened yesterday). You should (as I have to) also think of the victims of trolls, for example the one whose thread was hijacked yesterday. Allowing the abuse of and driving away of people who don't regularly go bonkers doesn't make us look good in any way. *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
Well, we frontpagers don't exactly keep to fixed guidelines ourselves, but your transparency idea sounds compelling: I may collect all the loose spamming, banning, ratings abuse and community policing policies onto a single page with intro text. (But certainly not before Tuesday, when I have my oral exam.)
Also sounds reasonable. Do you mean as addition to the ETiquette page, or the FAQ or NUG itself? (Again, I'd do this later next week.) *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
