I’m just going to jump in here to offer the public service announcement that I offer anytime anybody talks about wanting a pony.
Fact: Ponies are assholes. My grandpa had a couple of ponies when I was growing up and they were bitter, hateful creatures that transferred their frustration at being so short and cute into loathing for everything else in the world … especially little girls. You do not want a pony. And you definitely don’t want something with the equivalent niceness of a pony.
I disagree with the comment limit idea. That just breeds ninjas, posters who jump in, post once (usually inanely) and jump out, never to be seen again.
They make a nice lasagna, though.
your Point #3, times a gazillion
Just pointing out that you can click or tap the topic title and it will always take you to the top of the discussion in one go.
I find myself reluctant to flag anything except spam. It makes me feel like I’m being a tattletale or a snitch. I’m much more inclined to look for a snarky picture or an animated gif that points out someone’s assholery.
Maybe it would be useful to have a “flag discussion for moderation” option? That way people would not have to single out a particular comment/person, but could direct attention to the entire discussion.
Maybe. We could add it as a button at the bottom of the topic, but
It is a good idea though because it divorces the person from the flag, which I agree, is the right way to look at this. Let me think about it some more.
I’ve been a moderator on other systems. There’s nothing “snitch” about saying “hey, moderators, we could use a judgement call here if you haven’t already looked at it.” If it’s over the line, they want to know about it and should know about it. If it isn’t, no harm done except possibly wasting the moderator’s time.
But first the moderators need to set a clear baseline for what they want to be informed of. Otherwise they risk either being saturated with cases they don’t need to know about, or not hearing about the ones they do need to know about.
I don’t think we’ve established the norm yet. Or at least, if we have, it isn’t one I consider desirable. Until that’s done, relying on volunteers to do the reviewing for you is NOT going to work; the very folks who would be best at it will be most cautious about not flagging idiots they disagree with to avoid risk of suppressing the disagreement rather than the idiot.
That’s right, and I also think this community is one that is extra-extra-careful to let each mutant, of whatever type, have their say.
In other words, this is a community that is IMHO particularly sensitive to not wanting to trample on the rights of others to speak. That is a good thing! But we also need to acknowledge that there is a line between mean-spiritedness and freedom to express yourself. And unless we delineate the position of that line, and actively work to enforce that line, together, as a community, not by making the moderators shoulder all the work – because they can’t – it will continue to blur.
Also as for the official statement on “the norm”, it is here:
And that is referred to a bunch of places, and also in a pop-up TL;DR summary with link as you begin typing your first post as a new user…
If that needs to be made more clear, perhaps another topic should be started (feel free to “reply as new topic”) to host ideas on what those changes would be.
Flagging should be seen as a pleasure.
Alas, the more people must flag, the more their interest flags…
Well, that’s your prerogative
I don’t really care what other people post. if they make me angry, then that means they win, so why give them the satisfaction or fuel their “they’re against me and i’m the heroic truthsayer” mindset? flagging is acknowledgment. everyone can see their wack comment and their username, so if that’s the rep they want, it’s not like there’s a space constraint, just skip over them. plus, I want to know what people really think (even awful people,) not have others filter the opinions I read. so I don’t do that for other people–kind of a golden rule scenario, in a weird way.
I’ll flag spam in an instant, though. that’s different.
One suggestion I would make to both of these points is for BB editors to take more ownership / be more involved in the threads for the topics they post. From my personal experience, I’ve contributed in the comments to the evolution of the narratives initially broken by BB editors, or asked questions of specific editors (including @-mentions thinking that would aid in the song of summoning), and have had hardly any replys/interactions with the editor/poster. And my likes received exceed my post count, so I know I’m not posting total crap. Frankly, it seems easier to get their attention on twitter than via BBS.
If you want to engender greater richness in the discussions, I would encourage the editors to help foster the positive discussions that result from their provocations, which are plenty, by participating more in their threads. At a minimum, to help curtail tangents or flaming, but ideally to engage with the readership.
I understand this suggestion doesn’t scale well, but community building and tending has never been a terribly scalable endeavor. Perhaps, given how BB has grown, each editor could have their own intern, to help sift through the responses and surface interesting discussions for the editors.
BB has great curators, who have great natural voices that pull for dialogue, so it’s natural for regular readers to want to converse with them on the BBS.
When this came up some time ago I suggested a limit of the square root of the number of posts. At the time I had just pulled that out of my ass on the spot because it was a simple formula that felt about right. Since then I have looked at some post counts of real threads and actually it looks like a surprisingly reasonable rule of thumb. Therefore I would like to reiterate that as a slightly more serious suggestion.
If you have more than the square root of the number of posts in a thread that you didn’t start, then you should not be able to reply again until the discussion has moved on and you are back under the limit.
Of course there are lots of ways how the exact formula could be tweaked, if that is too restrictive.
Everybody always blames teh n00bs.
It’s like how when something goes missing in an office everybody blames the cleaners.
It isn’t always noobs. But noobs at least have “I didn’t realize I was over the line” as a plausible defense, and should be treated with a modicum of patience. If someone really should know better, and persists after a gentle correction, a Bigger Hammer is justified.
