As I said earlier, multiple times in fact, I don’t think regulars should be given long term bans unless something truly horrific transpired. Clearly that was not the case here.
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This has got to be a case-scenario you envisaged. What happens when a community leader devalues much of the community interaction in a place by repeatedly and steadfastly reminding everyone that the real, deep value the community members find in the space is not what that leader had ever intended to happen and, in fact, probably does not want to happen in their space?
Talking about building communities and fostering a spirit of cooperative action to help moderate for the benefit of all is great but perhaps the people who engage in building the community, who constitute the substrate from which it emerges, shouldn’t get ahead of themselves and think that the contributions that they value have any value whatsoever to the community as it was intended to exist.
I’m not sure how one would create tools to remind a user base of this fact. Perhaps decade long bans for personal reasons really are the best tool to achieve this? I’m not being sarcastic.
This has been a wake up call for me. The only thing I can think to do is introduce a general thread where we discuss the realities of the community here.
What is it really? What is it allowed to be? Where have we gone wrong in assuming that building what we thought was a strong community was the point? What kinds of community interactions in such a space are of little value to the owners of the space? What kinds of assumptions about the structures of functioning communities should be left at the door on entering the space? What kinds of top-down authoritarianism, however episodically applied, can be expected?
People here have long assumed that because it was the best place on the internet for fostering a kick-ass community (IMO) that that was the intention. It seems we have taken up the encouragement to form a community through application of our best behaviour, misunderstood the intention and run with it; entirely displeasing the owners.
J’s timely reminder that “this is not your space and you can leave if you don’t like how I do things,” might seem almost reasonable if we weren’t labouring under the misapprehension of intent for the community in the first place?
I know you’ve previously encouraged updates to the community guidelines but perhaps the nature of the community could be more explicitly stated in a preamble or throughout the document to more accurately portray the intended use-case of the board?
“This is not a space to build the type of community that functions with the primary goal of being a community, it has a specific purpose. We are here to discuss BB posts within a very narrow limit. Within those bounds, good community behaviour is expected but don’t ever feel any ownership of that behaviour or the intention to form a good-faith, strong community as you understand it. Mods are human and should not be expected to be consistent or un-emotional in their dealings with the community. They may also take part in the community as functioning members but do not forget that their role as moderator is mixed up with that, so when you are replying to an empowered community member, it is incumbent upon you to also remember that they are a human being, with human failings and have mod power to enact any punitive actions against you they see fit. They have the last say. Community feedback on these decisions is most unwelcome.”
I think the interpretation of the word “community” is what’s really causing the problem in this case and because it is open to interpretation, and has obviously been misinterpreted by many people here, a far more specific and concrete appraisal of exactly what is meant might benefit all?
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So what are The Powers That Be going to do to fix it? Are you all really going to just leave OM punted for a decade? Will you revisit and repair the other bans that piled on after the rash and impulsive ban of OM?
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I haven’t really chimed in on this but it was kind of crushing to hear from staff that people in this community are essentially disposable. I’ve followed Boing Boing almost daily since 2001, forwarded and shared more articles than I could possible count, watched BB families grow, fight illnesses, I know way more about the Haunted Mansion than I should, and still haven’t mustered up the courage to ferment something of my own…but I will someday.
It was sad to hear that this blog is just for authors and their friends. I kind of thought I was a friend.
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I’m guessing that generally the non-authors who are aware of this current drama have been scared off, hence what you see (and don’t see) here, and the plethora of white/blank avatars in the Likes. That’s what it’s like when you sense the total power one group has over another and how the message can be manipulated ostensibly based on policy and guidelines but at unfortunate times massaged by pure whim and unwarranted defensiveness. Reminds me of how Texas hits the rest of the nation with revisionist textbooks; the obliteration of dissent and history.
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Let’s not drag the gun topic in here, since that would be both tedious and tone-deaf.
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Even his avatar is holding a gun! He’ll shoot! 
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Hey, back on topic.
I was thinking about the problem of people getting overheated and behaving in ways they later regret, and how apocalyptic that can get when it’s two people who aren’t used to having that experience, and/or when there’s a power imbalance of some sort. And how some structures encourage people to “double down” in the face of mounting intransigence.
Just noodling here, but what about a two-key system that doesn’t rely on two people, but rather sets up a 24-hour waiting period.
So, I am so angry right now I will ban you for millenia! gets changed to Hmm, I banned this dishrag yesterday. The software wants me to decide on a ban term today.
Does this make any sense in the software architecture? It’s got notifications already.
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I considered doing this, except the 24-hour period would punt the offending posts to a Reviews Court thread. If the judges come to a majority decision to impose further punishment, then it would be applied. Or the judges could vote to release the poster instead.
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I think that’s part of the idea where flagged posts have a “cool down period” where you can’t edit and update immediately - specifically to account for what you are describing.
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http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=259017&highlight=ban+from+thread
I know XenForo also has this feature. They call it a Reply Ban, which is enforced per thread.
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I do honestly believe that topic bans (either total or timed) would be useful. Mods on more than one occasion have needed to step in because two posters have decided to turn a given topic into a personal grudge match. It’s probably more for the software to track, but I think it would have merit. I’m nearly positive it’s a tool I’d employ in specific cases.
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This. Right here.
If a user is elevated to Regular why even bother with that elevation? This is a community. OM is someone who invents games made from words on a message board and had caused me to rethink how such structures work in the first place. That’s powerful creation from things in the sandbox that were not designed to go that way.
But, is that wrong or just petty to say “my sandbox, go 'way”?
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All this is well and good, but knowing what I know, I can state rather categorically that none of these proposals would “fix” the problem at hand.
Not that they are bad proposals. They would be treating symptoms only, the patient is still terminal. Something deeper is needed.
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I am saddened almost beyond words to hear this. 
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We ain’t dead yet, mind you. But I need people to think bigger in this case, because that is the scale of the underlying issue.
We are not gonna be able to rub the software 'tussin on this particular boo boo.
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What’s the real problem then? Us? Does someone think they need a better grade of commenters? Because I’m not sure they’re out there, honestly.
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For us new-to-the-fold and non-techy types: what exactly are we trying to cure the patient of?
I might be off on this, but it seems like a lot of the kerfuffle around this latest situation is coming from lack of transparency. People are seeing the results of this section of BoingBoing’s TOS: We may, in our sole discretion and without any forewarning, suspend or terminate your account for violating these Terms, or for any other reason we choose. We can remove your User Content without any forewarning, for any reason we choose. (emphasis mine), and are concerned that they don’t know where the lines are.
Now I have heard there is a message that goes with deletion, explaining what happened. But people (being people, not code – or if they are code it’s buggier than an ant farm) usually want to question when they get told “no”. So my question to that is – is there a mechanism for appeal or clarification ? If so, is this mechanism clear to everyone, even new users? Does it explicitly state that appeals and requests for should go through that channel and that public hashing out of the issue is grounds for a ban? If so, then that needs to be made clear to all users of the site, and to be pointed to in cases like this as well as being cited on the profile page with the ban. Jokes may work for community flags, but mods using the nuclear option might consider being as clear as possible. Again, people are people, therefore it’s expected feelings will get involved. People will still be angry that they or their friends have been banned, but at least it will be crystal clear as to why.
When content gets removed, is there a reason there isn’t a placeholder stating that the content violated the guidelines and/or TOS? I know it confused me as a new user seeing people quote a comment that didn’t exist and wondering what they were talking about (I figured it out eventually). A placeholder could help even something like “per our guidelines, content may get eaten at our discretion. This comment made itself look tasty” at least acknowledges there was a comment and it was, for whatever reason, not good. It’s a little clearer.
If the problem is that people aren’t listening when the above is pointed out, I don’t know what to do, because people. At the same time, I did see some very upset people calming down when a fuller explanation became available. We are in extremely uncertain times right now, and more uncertainty and worry is unsettling to many of us.
Now, if the problem is that TPTB want no forum at all, anymore, well, they are TPTB. My experience in those cases is that any steps by users are just delaying the inevitable. Even if every comment was on point and everybody calmly accepted every decision, eventually the place would still close up shop, simply because the boss doesn’t want to do it anymore.
If it’s a combination of things you can’t discuss for legal / personal reasons, I get that.
I like the BBS. There are great people here. I learn things, and I have interesting conversations. It’s a community where I don’t have to constantly think “is that too weird?” when talking about the things that I love. I don’t want to see anything bad happen to it. I want to help if I can if there’s hope to be had. I hope there is.
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Many of us have asked for this in the past.
In fact there’s entire threads on this:
And others, too.
I have nothing against posts getting deleted but it would be great to see something filling in the gap even if it’s an inline box saying something like “X posts removed for reasons: spam, driving trollies, etc.”
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