| So I think most of the people who got banned on Friday are back, so this should be fine enough to finally talk about. Well, this thread became a mod-user discussion on how mods enforce their policy of insults. THIS IS NOT A MOD RANT THREAD. We'll only be discussing the general topic of insults and that's it. So for new people to this thread, it's a place to discuss the mod policy on "insults". Of course, there's a lot of things to discuss on that matter. Topics range from what an "insult" is, to how warnings, bans, and the like should be handled. But in going along with what this thread originally was, the original topic of this was: After a bajillion pages, the new topic is: Should you be banned for insulting someone? What changes can you suggest MAL's current policy on insults? (refer to Kineta 11/04) Please also try to refrain from discussing specific gripes about a previous warning or ban you may have incurred, unless it can be explained in such a way that it has a general message for the purpose of the thread. —Kineta MellowJello said: Mahou_Kony said: For the past... 13 pages, we've discussed what an insult is, why they should or shouldn't be banned, and various other "philosophical" things on the nature of insults.Also, can anyone give me a tl;dr of this discussion so far? Finally someone named Red_Keys posts an actual moderation system (specifically for insults), which prompts the discussion to shift to that. However, it was pointed out that without the moderation team's official policy, we can't do anything regarding suggesting changes. Now that we have (posted two days ago) the policy, it would appear that almost everyone is "oh, okay, well now that I see the policy, everything is suddenly sensible". Hence why... there's still no discussion :/ Mod responses:
If you need a screencap of the original OP, just check here http://i.imgur.com/5aloTF7.png |
MellowJelloNov 9, 2013 7:24 PM
| No. If they're banning people for calling someone else an insulting word, they should censor that word first if they think it's so awful. |
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| Founded, constructive criticism is not an 'insult'. Though you may get offended, it is not wrong. Shallow personal attacks in themselves are, however, unacceptable. |
Thoth_ said: So is it unacceptable in the fact that you should get banned for it? Explain.Shallow personal attacks in themselves are, however, unacceptable. |
| I don't think you should be banned for insulting someone. Harassment is another story. Although if you're getting problems, why not just compliment them instead? Mod Edit: Removed discussion about thread being locked. |
KinetaOct 27, 2013 11:22 PM
| Want to talk? Club! "Would you like an anti-psychotic?" *Bonus points if you leave a comment about the meaning of my signature.* |
MellowJello said: Thoth_ said: So is it unacceptable in the fact that you should get banned for it? Explain.Shallow personal attacks in themselves are, however, unacceptable. It offends someone and that has consequences, sometimes on the forum as a whole. It's also juvenile to assert your negative judgments against someone if said judgments are shallow. It is juvenile because judging on shallow grounds is erroneous, quite like a child. |
| I don't think you should get banned for speaking your mind. |
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Thoth_ said: So "offending" someone should now be a ban-able offense? And acting like a child is a problem why?It offends someone and that has consequences, sometimes on the forum as a whole. It's also juvenile to assert your negative judgments against someone if said judgments are shallow. This is because judging on shallow grounds is erroneous, quite like a child. |
| I think a warning-ban system would work. We're all guilty of insulting. Not acting like a child. Possessing childish qualities is a problem because that implies disorder, and thus friction with civility. |
JustaCratOct 27, 2013 3:32 PM
| If it's a creative and intelligent insult, hell no |
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-Tyler- said: It depends on the severity of the insult. I think personal attacks such as racist comments and whatnot should be an instant 1-week ban, because the targeted individual may very well be hurt by such things whether he/she admits it or not. Stuff like "ur dum lol" should probably be ignored. I can't think of any kind of insult that should be permabannable. This too. |
| I don't think people should get banned for an insult, but there comes a limit where enough is enough. Even if this is the Internet, it doesn't mean that you aren't talking to real people and can act how you want with zero consequence. Sometimes I think that this is too much to ask for and too difficult for certain immature individuals to grasp when I visit the Casual Discussion, but of course there are good guys around, and those are the ones that I like. /moralrant |
| i don't think someone should get banned for insulting another, although true harassment should be examined i just think people on message boards in general should quit being so vicious. Really, what do people get out of it? Does the person doing the insulting gain some sort of unwarranted feeling of superiority? people need to calm down and examine their own behavior. |
| I will proceed to give my totally unbiased opinion on the matter: If a user makes an alt account with the intention to troll people in order to anger them or otherwise bait negative emotions from them, goes straight onto the forums after making the account so it is without doubt that they are, and goes and makes the troll thread, angering users etc. but "technically" staying within the rules, and I insult them, should I really be the one who gets banned? If you're banning me for insulting someone because it might hurt their feelings, then why are you ignoring the fact that the user is someone who's only aim is to cause grief? More to the point, they aren't even going to be insulted by it because it's their first post and they know that I don't know who they are, so why are they going to care? If anything they'd be happy that they got such a negative response. I assume it isn't simply the rude words that cause people to be banned, because MAL swears all the time, so what is it then? I know you have very particular rules, but the blessed thing that differentiates mods from robots is that they have brains and can see past the rules and see the context. That's why you should ban someone who makes and obvious troll account even if they don't technically break the rules, and that's why you shouldn't ban someone for deriding someone who's trying to cause grief. In a more general sense, i.e. the issue of whether we should be able to insult one another, I understand that serious harassment is something to be enforced, and calling someone a cunt, shithead, fucktard, asshole, rape apologist, ass bandit, daedric, retard etc. may possibly be considered too far, but "idiot"? If MAL is indeed based on the general rules of democracy (I know it's a stretch to believe but bear with me) then should we roughly have the same rules regarding freedom of speech? I.e. if you are not harassing someone, causing racial/ginger/female hatred, discussing how to make a bomb or are being too vulgar then you can say what you like. If two people disagree and honestly think the other person is an idiot why do they have to pussy-foot around insulting each other? Do we have to rephrase "You're an idiot" to "you're being idiotic"? They are not exactly the same but they will be construed the same, one is fine though, the other is not. How serious does the insult have to be to be bannable? I said silly goose a great deal before I dropped the ball and said cunt, apparently saying silly goose was fine even though I clearly intended it in a much more aggressive and insulting sense than it at first appeared, which is why I used it. At what point does it become too much? When I say stupid goose? Really? Calling someone stupid is enough to get them banned and I assume adding the word "duck" to the end wouldn't help matters. So at what point do you feel that the user I'm calling "a _____ goose" will suddenly become insulted? Can I keep calling people more and more serious words before you banned me to find out? tl;dr I think the rules are a bit silly. |
InfiniteOct 27, 2013 4:05 PM
| A lot of people insult me and they never get banned. Mod Edit: Removed unfounded mod complaints not contributing to constructive discussion. |
KinetaOct 27, 2013 11:09 PM
JD2411 said: I've been called a cunt, a fucktard, and a dickhole, and none of the people I've reported have gotten a ban either.A lot of people insult me and they never get banned. Another problem is that I quote-chain someone calling OP an idiot and I get banned for 3 days. That level of consistency needs to be discussed. Mod Edit: Removed unnecessary sarcasm not contributing to constructive discussion. |
MellowJelloOct 28, 2013 2:32 AM
| No, I don't think so. On the discussion of the "rules": MAL doesn't even try to enforce their supposed rules with any sort of consistency. |
LoneWolf said: @Josh makes me sad to call myself Canadian. |
| You know, Youtube does a pretty good job regarding insults. The person just gets a strike. The strike expires after a period of time, and if you get another one while you already have one, you're out. |
| .. |
bada9412 said: I wasn't even aware that system existed.You know, Youtube does a pretty good job regarding insults. The person just gets a strike. The strike expires after a period of time, and if you get another one while you already have one, you're out. As far as I know, someone insults you, you get butthurt, deal with it. And if only the warning system like that worked in MAL. From what I've gathered trying to pry information from them, warnings never expire until you get banned. |
MellowJello said: bada9412 said: I wasn't even aware that system existed.You know, Youtube does a pretty good job regarding insults. The person just gets a strike. The strike expires after a period of time, and if you get another one while you already have one, you're out. As far as I know, someone insults you, you get butthurt, deal with it. And if only the warning system like that worked in MAL. From what I've gathered trying to pry information from them, warnings never expire until you get banned. MAL is kinda exaggerating if you ask me. And I wasn't aware of the Youtube system either until I got a strike haha |
| .. |
| Placeholder for new thread. |
MellowJelloOct 28, 2013 2:51 AM
| Thread Moved & Cleaned. This topic began in Casual Discussion as a general thread about how insults should be policed. When the discussion veered to MAL's specific moderation policy, MellowJello and I reviewed the thread together and transformed it into a Support topic. There has been a lot of discussion that moderator-user communication is insufficient and that more issues should be discussed in public, rather than in private messages. So, I thought that this would be an interesting topic to give this idea a trial run. However, I want to make it clear that this is not a mod rant thread. The purpose of it is constructive discussion about the specific topic of how insults are moderated on MAL. I don't want to hear anything about how "the new mods suck", or even specific discussion about "Mod X does this" or "Mod X did that". Please also try to refrain from discussing specific gripes about a previous warning or ban you may have incurred, unless it can be explained in such a way that it has a general message for the purpose of the thread. The purpose here is not to resolve an event of the past that only you and your warning/banning moderator are aware of; these discussions should always be taken to private messages. Instead, the purpose is to discuss how insults are currently moderated and how this might be changed in the future. Furthermore, if this is going to be a moderator-user discussion thread, then I want to moderate this thread as little as possible. So please post seriously and constructively so that I/we don't need to. I will try to discuss any moderation I may need to take with MellowJello beforehand, to keep things fair. If your posts contain sarcasm, aggressiveness and other content which make this thread a hostile environment for the moderators, then they are not going to want to post. This thread will become an obligation, instead of a communicative and constructive discussion. Please try to keep this in mind as you are posting. Lastly, as a moderator-user discussion thread, every post made by each moderator will be viewed by most readers as representing the entire mod team. This means that there will need to be some review on our side before the posts are made to ensure we are in agreement of what is being said. This, along with the regular moderating duties that all staff need to see to, will likely result in moderator replies being infrequent. Please do not take this as us ignoring you, or us censoring things before posting. What I hope it will be is another way to ensure the mod team is as consistent as possible and that can only be a positive thing. |
| I am an admin of a much smaller forum elsewhere, we have one rule to deal with this. Repetitive hostile comments won't be tolerated. |
StevOz said: Right, that would be considered harassment.Repetitive hostile comments won't be tolerated. But what would your moderation policy be on single-time insults to a user? |
| I think bans should be given out to the people who proceeded to aggressively insult another user where he/she wasn't being provoked. If it's just a general insult than I think a ban should not be given. A warning should suffice and a possible ban if they continue such things. Also only the original member who insulted another user out of nowhere should be given this warning/ban, and not anyone who quotes it. I do understand many insults are uncalled for, but the ones I've seen are usually aimed at obvious trolls, which the thread creator deserves to be warned for creating a thread with the intention to not hold a proper discussion. |
SexySantaOct 28, 2013 3:06 AM
| It should be fine if it's in the context of the thread but..it's hard to distinguish for mods at all in that context. Outright bashing of people in an obvious attempt to troll/belittle a specific user is ban worthy in my opinion. Which makes it all the harder to decipher in such threads, it may be in a thread like the "insult the user above you" or something to that effect, but who's to say that the insult wasn't serious based on a personal vendetta? I believe trash like that should just be avoided completely. Too long didn't read. No more insult threads, no more bashing. Shame, shame. |
Aerea said: Could you clarify what you mean "in the context of the thread"? I get what you mean when you're referring to forum threads, but could you make an example of when it's fine in a Casual or Anime Discussion thread?It should be fine if it's in the context of the thread but..it's hard to distinguish for mods at all in that context. |
j0x said: i also agree that censoring foul words by the forum software is a good thing too I disagree with this. Just because some words are considered "foul" by a few people, doesn't mean you shouldn't have the right to use them. Like for example I don't think there's anything wrong with saying "I had a fucking nice day today" or "Shit I love this anime" or "Wassup nigga, haven't seen you in the chat lately". It's all about the context that these words are used in. |
| This is a joke. Any form of trolling or insulting at all should be bannable and not because people should just be nice to each other. No, its much more fundamental, You don't just go around acting like a dickhead to people because they're going to retaliate. What happens when people retaliate? Shit storm posting, shit posting, trolling, flaming, and overall whiny bitchyness that doesn't belong on a forum. Yea it's an anime forum, and the userbase is going to have people that jerk off to naruto doujin on fakku, people that can't contain their homo/hetro lust for their favorite characters and make annoying clubs that make this place look bad, people that act way too serious about being kawaii desu. Whatever word you wanna call these people, weaboos, faggots, kids, children, noobs, it happens, and there's threads and subforums all over Mal where people just throw crap at these users. They retaliate and the shitposting and shitstorms commence. Yes, get over it, there are people who are rather fucking annoying on the site, if you don't fucking like them just fucking ignore them. There's no reason to say "GTFO", "pls go", "die fgt" because you're just making your self look like an asshole and get reported by someone who's mad they were targeted. The fact a user collected post and bookmarks etc recently to get a group of users banned just goes to show people like drama and enjoy being a general asshole on the site. As soon as someone lurks into the wrong thread or wrong subforum that a bunch of people have already made a valid stand on or claim of territory shit flies all over the fucking place on MAL. You can't not ban people for insults because people are just going to wind up getting banned anyway and more frequently as the daily shitfest continues all over MAL. How about everyone just grow up, install greasemonkey or a similar user script program on their browser and download one of the many ignore mal user feature scripts and block anyone they don't like... ya know, and maybe stop treating people like shit. If someone is annoying you report them to a mod describing why a certain user is generally annoying a group of people in a forum/subforum/thread... and move on. |
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worldeditor11 said: That's what we're here to debate on.The thing is, what classify a member's comment as insulting? Adramelech said: Try not to insult anything here, yet. Nothing has been changed so far, so try to keep your insults to a minimum.Even the idea is idiotic. Yes that is sarcasm. Like using unusual euphemisms! You prickly pear! |
| There's nothing to even debate about. It's simple. Act like an asshole to people and get suspended. Get suspended three times and get permabanned, no alts. If someone annoys you ignore them with a userscript or just don't respond to their post. If it's clear a user is annoying a group of people intentionally or obviously flamebaiting, report the user and move on. |
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| I got banned for calling someone "stupid" months and months ago within a very large post, I've had similar issues in the past close to that as well. Instead of trying to make it so I can break rules, I simply understood this is an all ages site and also one with a very diverse userbase - and I went out of my way to genuinely change how I interact with everyone here because I'm mature enough to understand why the rules are in place. We don't need 20-30 year olds telling 13 year olds they are 'fucking idiots' or to 'kill themselves', or having people bash those with mental disabilities by calling them retards even if they aren't intending it to be directed at that aspect of them, and so on and so forth. "Stupid" - in passing and in the context of an otherwise 'real' post? Sure, who cares. But anything further than that is crossing into dangerous territory that shouldn't be allowed and/or is simply breaking many other rules (if you just post "you are an idiot" you are spamming, which is against the rules), aren't actually contributing to the discussion, being off topic, and actively trying to upset other users - which is, oops, a form of HARASSMENT. So, unless you write out a real post, like this, and then say someone is stupid within that - you are stupid, Mellow - it's typically fine and dandy and should continue being so. As I already told Mellow - the issue should not be 'make it not against the rules to insult people', but should be 'make sure mods enforce rules in context'. Spoilers - MODS ALREADY ENFORCE RULES BASED ON CONTEXT. Sometimes this equates out to inconsistencies, however the rules are already enforced based on the specific situation and if what you said would genuinely be something that offended someone or very easily could. The staff is already one that works based on the entire situation (which is also why they take so long to deal with many 'basic' issues), however sometimes - again - things can be inconsistent or mistakes can be made. So saying insults equate out to bans being a problem is simply factually wrong - as you can insult people and NOT be banned for it, as long as you are doing it within a sensible context, it's nothing serious (nothing more than 'dumb' 'stupid' or 'idiot') and actually CONTRIBUTE TO THE THREAD as well. You are asking if bans should stop being given for insulting a user, they already aren't half the time. Stop being a dick and shitposting and attacking users and you wouldn't be banned. Not only that, but mods also enforce rules on YOUR PAST BEHAVIOR as they do keep logs on that. Someone who commonly goes around posting nothing but one line of shitty things or insults per post is much more likely to be banned as an ACCUMULATION of ALL THEIR STUPID SHIT. Just like you can get 3 felony speeding tickets - and even if the final one is SLOWER than the other two you still go to fucking jail. This also explains why - just hypothetically - if you did the exact same thing as someone else YOU might be banned while THEY might not, as they may be a perfectly clean user aside that while you may have many strikes already. A post that consists of nothing but an insult is very clearly "harassment" - not "insulting". Especially when it's, lets say for example, a group of people repeating that same exact insult, as now it's a gang of bullies harassing someone. Also, stop jerking yourself off, it's obnoxious when you didn't even earn it. edit: And, as already mentioned by moot, one person being a dick = everyone responding in kind, and this ruins the thread and then the entire site, as it spreads and also creates personal vendettas. If I call you a piece of shit, you'll respond with an insult, and then it turns into just nothing but pure shit. Don't you fucking edit this. |
TallonKarrde23Oct 28, 2013 3:40 AM
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MellowJello said: StevOz said: Right, that would be considered harassment.Repetitive hostile comments won't be tolerated. But what would your moderation policy be on single-time insults to a user? Well there would be no action taken and we consider that all our users are out of kindergarten and all know the old poem. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me. |
StevOz said: MellowJello said: StevOz said: Right, that would be considered harassment.Repetitive hostile comments won't be tolerated. But what would your moderation policy be on single-time insults to a user? Well there would be no action taken and we consider that all our users are out of kindergarten and all know the old poem. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. I disagree. This is an anime forum. None of us really have any right to be insulting anyone at all. |
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j0x said: RandomPerson4 said: j0x said: i also agree that censoring foul words by the forum software is a good thing too I disagree with this. Just because some words are considered "foul" by a few people, doesn't mean you shouldn't have the right to use them. Like for example I don't think there's anything wrong with saying "I had a fucking nice day today" or "Shit I love this anime" or "Wassup nigga, haven't seen you in the chat lately". It's all about the context that these words are used in. that answer of mine is base on my experience on another large forum called Warez-BB, and its very effective people do not bash much around, the censored words are replace by words like ~love~ = fuck ~smart~ = stupid ~good~ = shit those are not the actual words and meaning since i forgot about them but i just describe how they done the word censoring people on that large forum (over 3 million users) have come to accept that kind of word censoring so if you want real evidence on a huge forum then Warez-BB is the prime example Well just because one forum does it, doesn't mean others should. Especially since it won't help anything and will only cost money. For example the insulted won't care that instead of "You're an idiot" the post turned into"You're an ~good~" cuz it'll still be obvious they were insulted and the insulter should still be warned for it. It'll only cause confusion with what the poster actually meant to say. |
| Okay, I'm going to focus on two points. TallonKarrde23 said: So as long as you the insult isn't serious, they shouldn't be banned for it? And of course, they still have to contribute, right. So saying insults equate out to bans being a problem is simply factually wrong - as you can insult people and NOT be banned for it, as long as you are doing it within a sensible context, it's nothing serious (nothing more than 'dumb' 'stupid' or 'idiot') and actually CONTRIBUTE TO THE THREAD as well. You are asking if bans should stop being given for insulting a user, they already aren't half the time. Stop being a dick and shitposting and attacking users and you wouldn't be banned. Yeah, attacking people is harassment, I'm not cool with that either. Just wondering what you think isn't a "serious" insult (like examples you listed) and is. BUTTDEVASTATOR said: But by that same logic, you're also encouraging that we become sugar-coated fairies full of bullshit. When you say "any" that literally means I could call you dumb and get banned. And we know mods don't have the ability to enforce every time a very minor insult occurs.This is a joke. Any form of trolling or insulting at all should be bannable and not because people should just be nice to each other. No, its much more fundamental, You don't just go around acting like a dickhead to people because they're going to retaliate. What happens when people retaliate? Shit storm posting, shit posting, trolling, flaming, and overall whiny bitchyness that doesn't belong on a forum. Right, that goes into harassment. A completely separate issue. If it keeps continuing, you lock/delete/clean-up the thread, which is what they currently do now. Mod Edit: Removed misconceptions which have since been addressed. |
KinetaOct 31, 2013 1:22 AM
MellowJello said: Okay, I'm going to focus on two points. TallonKarrde23 said: So saying insults equate out to bans being a problem is simply factually wrong - as you can insult people and NOT be banned for it, as long as you are doing it within a sensible context, it's nothing serious (nothing more than 'dumb' 'stupid' or 'idiot') and actually CONTRIBUTE TO THE THREAD as well. You are asking if bans should stop being given for insulting a user, they already aren't half the time. Stop being a dick and shitposting and attacking users and you wouldn't be banned. So as long as you the insult isn't serious, they shouldn't be banned for it? And of course, they still have to contribute, right. Yeah, attacking people is harassment, I'm not cool with that either. Just wondering what you think isn't a "serious" insult (like examples you listed) and is. I was stating how rules are enforced here, not my opinions. What I consider not a serious insult isn't relevant. My post wasn't about my point of view, it was about how the staff works already proving your whole thread pointless. Also, I can't really give an example because IT DEPENDS ON THE CONTEXT AND USERS INVOLVED. But for my opinions: I stated very clearly anything past "stupid, dumb, or idiot" is over the line - those are as well unless accompanied by an actual thread-relevant discussion-developing post. If all you post is "you're an idiot" you are the idiot and you are shitposting, which is against the rules. And along with that, it still would depend on the user and further context. You don't read shit I write to you, not here or anywhere else, it's really infuriating. You also cherrypicked two points because you know I'm right on the rest, good job. Mod Edit: Removed reply to deleted post. |
KinetaOct 31, 2013 1:21 AM
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j0x said: RandomPerson4 said: It'll only cause confusion with what the poster actually meant to say. i disagree the point of word censoring is to stop insults (for example) before it happens and that is what it does on that huge forum there are far less insulting at each other on Warez-BB Doubt that. It'll only stop the usage of certain words at most. Like instead of "You're stupid" they'll say something like "Bet you have Down". It also won't help anything cause the mod will still have to respond to a censored post to ban/warn them. |
j0x said: RandomPerson4 said: j0x said: RandomPerson4 said: It'll only cause confusion with what the poster actually meant to say. i disagree the point of word censoring is to stop insults (for example) before it happens and that is what it does on that huge forum there are far less insulting at each other on Warez-BB Doubt that. It'll only stop the usage of certain words at most. Like instead of "You're stupid" they'll say something like "Bet you have Down". then that clearly is an insult that should be reported immediately its like bypassing the word censor in place Not to mention the latter is ten times more offensive than calling someone stupid. |
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