"user moderated" is a contradiction in terms.

Anyway, the site currently has no meaningful user moderation, other than the mute function.

The mute function is absolute user moderation. You have the right to completely remove all users and threads. Just for you.

@Synapse,
Yes, but that would take too long. Can I get a single button for "mute all users and threads"? A nice, blank forum screen. That would be bliss.

I'm sure theres a way to do that with the current HTML vulnerabilities hecks ;)

You're talking to an English major. I haven't coded anything since I dropped my CS minor to take more Chaucer classes, and back then we were using the hot new thing: C++98.

Thanks for chiming in, Kestas. And for what it's worth, everyone please note that I contributed nothing to the thread in question. I wanted to get a dialog going when that thread got locked and it seems to have done the job. I don't actually think there is any reason for porn on here, even as text links, but this site has been the wild wild west of free speech for a long time and recently we have started seeing more and more restrictions. That is not necessarily a bad thing. But it needs to be monitored and a set of standards (G, PG, PG-13/Teen, R/Mature, you get the idea) should be relayed to the community so we know what is expected of us.

Right now we have -

Don'ts...
No threats against other members or their families
No porn
No violent imagery? (define violent, by the way... Does it include a still from say Scarface as he says "Say heelo to my little friend."?)
Spam (loosely defined but we all know when we are spamming)

OK's within reason...
Foul Language - even to some pretty major extremes
Racial/homophobic/sexist slurs
Really bad "arguments" that don't even bear a semblance to sane, rational, or even logical

Does that about cover it?

For what it's worth, my approach on forum moderation is the lesser, the better. I think I have only silenced people a couple of times as a mod and it was for excessive spam.

For me, threats against people are not acceptable, but everything else is loosy-goosy. I think there is an argument to be made of not posting explicit porn titles/threads, but I don't think porn as a topic is necessarily a "must not," though porn usually doesn't add that much to the conversation.

That's my "for what it's worth."

I think the mods should just have to ability to tag threads as NSFW in nice red letters next to the thread title. Then there's no reason to complain about inappropriate threads at work or under similar circumstances, and there's no question as to whether or not the thread in question has inappropriate content.

I can actually see the argument the other way. An entire site can get flagged if the spider engine crawls it and discovers porn, thereby stopping someone from using the site on their lunch break or whatever. The question is (and I don't know having never written one or looked into it) do the spidersbots look at all the text and try to resolve a url from every little "http" or "www.", or do they just look at anchor tags and javascript?

@Draug,
Maybe *that's* why Kestas disabled hyperlinking. I think google's spiders only chase hyperlinks, not text addresses.

I know Google only chases hyperlinks via anchors or javascript, but Google also only chases relative hyperlinks as it is interested in a sites content, not the content of external pages it may link to. The question is whether the blacklist spiders do hyperlinks or text too. I know they look at image urls to block images from certain sites.

@abge: I get what you mean, and don't want to get hyper-sensitive about links off site really. I don't really worry much about the idea that people will post accusations in links off site and disguise them as NSFW links, and like you in clearly marked threads I'm not even too worried about porn links.

But I also wouldn't want people to take such a decision as a green light and start posting links to things to try and shock people. I know people don't have to click the links, and I'm sure not going to be following anything looking suspect, but I can just imagine it getting blown out of proportion and people trying to aim these things specifically at kids, trick people into following, etc, etc.


I'm starting to lean a bit against having hard & fast rules, because there seems to be some with a mentality of taking the rules and quickly figuring out the most provocative thing they can do while still following the rules.
I'd rather post some general do's and don'ts, and have the mods or people involved come to me about tricky cases.

I don't want a forum where you can't post any links but you can post death threats or ASCII art of porno etc, because of a specific interpretation of the rules, I'd rather people follow common sense because everyone knows there's a line and most know when they're crossing it.


People here are smarter than needing everything to be spelt out in rules, and we have a great mod team who will ask when in doubt and great decision review process for any abuses, and if the community disagrees with a stance on the forum I'll always listen to debate

I also hate favoritism and cliques when it comes to mods. I know how that kind of thing can just kill a community and create an us vs them atmosphere when everyone should be on the same page.
The tricky part is filtering out favoritism from suspicion of repeat offenders etc.

The best way to fight against anything like that you see on the forum is to write a clear e-mail showing me how two different judgements were made in similar circumstances, and I'll review it and see what I think.
Even though I might not always be able to thoroughly/quickly check each case in detail if I get e-mails / PMs regularly about a certain type of favoritism/bias it'll quickly draw a picture and help keep everything in balance.

Mods are just people to and even though we have a great team it's a very easy trap to fall into, so of course oversight is needed. (Though I've worked with lots of mod teams and we are lucky to have ours)

@kestas

I agree with most of what you said. I certainly would hate to see NSFW threads occurring more than rarely and I, of course, don't think anyone should be tricking members into viewing things they don't expect.

I think the bigger issue here is how the thread was locked and not so much what was in the thread itself. I agree that the mods typically do an amazing job and I understand that they are currently very busy, but the way they handled this was bound to cause problems.

I don't even think it was really their fault, as they really haven't been properly prepared to moderate content, which is why I think this discussion is very helpful.

Here is what I think might be a sensible proposal: Generally speaking, though porn is widely available for free, the "general rule" of the world is that porn is for adults - 18 and older, and to enter and actual porn site you are supposed to have to provide age verification (again...I know, it's everywhere for everyone for free...but you get my point)

So if you want to make a rule that would eliminate porn, simply say that no links are allowed that would "generally speaking" require age verification.

How's that for a back-door ban to porn?

That actually seems fairly reasonable.

More places require verification than NSFW sites though.

Bo - I understand, but you also can't walk in to a book store and buy porn without ID...that's the reference I am trying to make there. It is probably technically illegal for under-18 to access porn...that's the standard. It's a legal standard, and therefore has nothing to do with anyone here trying to decide what should/shouldn't be limited.

I'm actually trying to offer a pretty straight-forward solution to what is a legit concern. By this standard, it isn't the mods being dictatorial, or anyone trying to play Morality Police...it's simply saying that the web site will attempt to generally abide by the law.

Other "age verified" web sites are, generally speaking, probably age limited for other reasons than the legal-accessibility of the content.

Is under-18 an American law or does it apply to other countries? I know some that are 16, I know of a few that I suspect are 21 but I don't feel like looking it all up.

It probably varies by state...

Could in theory. I guess I don't know. That's my whole point, not to try and crash the topic, but to figure out how that could realistically be implemented because it's a good idea.

===D O-:

Bo - other countries law are not applicable - this is a US based web site.

Has anyone noticed the Mods are completely out of control nowadays.
On an unrelated topic I can hear an owl outside and it sounds really cool.

Nigee, I'm docking you all your points for saying that.

We're completely under control.

That's a joke, right? ^

@Goldie - doesn't the owl get a mention?

what does the fox wsay