Important Going Forward

[LTR]

I would disagree, I think the central question of whether the Sietch is intended more as a place that values free discourse primarily, or if it's intended specifically as a "right wing" space is very pertinent to the idea of how things will be moving forward. Of course, if you're telling me to drop the discussion then of course I will, with apologies for the misunderstanding.

It's not off topic. It's besides the point in that while there's some interest in having a discourse on the topic you mentioned, any spaghetti discussion back and forth is detrimental to the idea of generating ideas on 'Going Forward.' This thread is already approaching twenty pages long and it's mostly been the same back and forth we've had in other threads and very little in the 'Going Forward' style suggestions that was the original intention of the topic and thread.

Stating, I think there should be more of a focus on Free Discourse as opposed to a Right Wing Space is fine (and has already been brought up ad nauseam in this thread) but the discussion hasn't actually led to any actual substantial suggestions beyond the original point and the many words generated in the ensuing discussion. After a while it's just noise that dominates the thread in lieu of anything else substantive.

 

[Spartan303]

I resent the implication of that second paragraph, though I do appreciate the civility and of course you're entitled to your opinion. Everything I have said has been a true representation of my opinions and thoughts on the subject at hand, and I believe every post has been pertinent to the discussion of the thread it has been in. I am more than happy to defend each and every one, and I don't see a difference between posting where I know my views will be challenged, and seeking out debate and discussion. It seems to me that you're inherently inclined to view any poster who doesn't have inclinations that fit a certain mould as an agitator.

I dont mean to cause offense, and that may not be your intent. I'll take you at your word that it isnt. But it is an observation I've made. And in light of LTRs post I wont bring it up further.

As for moving forward, I was wondering if maybe host gaming events. Like, How many here play BattleTech on Tabletop? Maybe have a Forum wide game or series of games to view and or participate in?

 

[Erwin_Pommel]

Because of some of Lord Invictus's actions, Zoe was put in a position where she either shut down the site immediately or she sold it. The only reason it wasn't shut down is that Sunhawk was already prepared to take legal ownership.

What 'appened?

 

[Husky_Khan]

What 'appened?

Important - Lord Invictus | The Sietch (the-sietch.com)

 

[Megadeath]

Well then, I feel the most obvious suggestion is a very strict standard of moderation in any political debate, with a larger and more clearly enumerated rule base specifically for politics. Attach specific point values to political infractions, with points escalating exponentially for violations. Have clear point value demarcations for various levels of thread or subforum bans. Have increasing ban lengths exponentially for repeatedly banned offenders. Allow appeals only on strict technical or regulatory grounds.

Clear rules and repercussions is the best way to encourage a fair and level playing field, regardless of belief. Specifically listed consequences is the best way to avoid accusations of partisan moderation, accurate or not. Appeals governed by specific rules rather than staff opinion aids in both.

-Snip-

As for moving forward, I was wondering if maybe host gaming events. Like, How many here play BattleTech on Tabletop? Maybe have a Forum wide game or series of games to view and or participate in?

I quite like that idea. TS may be a smaller community relatively, but that idea plays into it as strength rather than weakness. A smaller, more tight knit community can support such an idea better than a large and faceless one. Another possibility to consider is table-top simulator. I know there's a reasonably strong quest forum, what if that could be enhanced upon? It might take a hell of a GM, but it could be possible. With sufficient management, it could even be possible to have multiple gaming sessions set in a shared "world" with GM collaboration and interparty interaction.

 

[Terthna]

Many of these discussions are besides the point.

This thread isn't meant to be an alternative 'Sietch Commentary Thread.'

Now that you mention it, is that thread ever going to get unlocked?

 

[Spartan303]

Well then, I feel the most obvious suggestion is a very strict standard of moderation in any political debate, with a larger and more clearly enumerated rule base specifically for politics. Attach specific point values to political infractions, with points escalating exponentially for violations. Have clear point value demarcations for various levels of thread or subforum bans. Have increasing ban lengths exponentially for repeatedly banned offenders. Allow appeals only on strict technical or regulatory grounds.

Clear rules and repercussions is the best way to encourage a fair and level playing field, regardless of belief. Specifically listed consequences is the best way to avoid accusations of partisan moderation, accurate or not. Appeals governed by specific rules rather than staff opinion aids in both.

I actually had an idea that would seriously address this. The idea of closed debates compared to 'open discussions'. I went into it on a previous post. The question is, can it be done with the Software is the question.

 

[Megadeath]

I actually had an idea that would seriously address this. The idea of closed debates compared to 'open discussions'. I went into it on a previous post. The question is, can it be done with the Software is the question.

The idea for more curated debates? I saw that, and think that's good too. It also addresses the potential issue of dog-piling and like your other idea I think it's a clever way to work with the smaller site size to achieve a better result than can be had with larger ones.

As for technical issues, XenForo does allow for thread collaboration in some form, so maybe that could be leveraged? Or, have a particular subforum section for the current big topic debate. Have new thread permissions off, so only mods or admin can make them, and have even the active thread 'locked' but make the 'debators' into subsection moderators, with permission to post to locked threads, or to unlock the thread for just long enough to post.

I'm not exactly familiar with the back end, but some thoughts based on my knowledge. It would also require some degree of trust, depending on how permissions can be set up, but I'd just have instant permaban for any violation of that trust.

 

[LTR]

This is all me rambling so it's nothing official or whatever. I didn't even proofread it but...

Points don't actually matter for our moderation.

One of the things that's planned is clarifying how the rules and moderation actually work. For example...

Most of the tools beyond just warnings/friendly reminders at use for moderation are usually meant for 'timeouts' in the form of threadbans and 1 or 3 day forum bans. The idea is that temporarily removing disruptive individuals is more effective at fomenting discussion then giving them point based e-felonies and misdemeanors.

Actually 'punitive' stuff is usually something that is reserved for repeated offenders or intentional trolls or people who violate the Terms of Service. And even then (at least until a few months ago) those processes took weeks to gain any traction unless it was something exceptional (and usually related to ToS). With the change in ownership, the ToS thing will likely be less heavy handed now since there aren't as many legal issues wrapped up in everything.

The original idea was to hit people with threadbans and other timeouts like that in an abundance of caution or regard and it could just be reversed or deleted later if it was seen as unneeded or the moment of concern had passed (ie the discussion moved beyond the flamebait or cententious issue or whatever) or it got appealed down. But the drawback was that there was still the idea of a mod 'consensus' in discussing even minor warnings and threadbans/timeouts would be a process that could take hours and days... and by then shit can hit the fan and it's too late to just issue a few timeouts.

So there's an issue of say coming into a heated thread where people are telling each other to fuck off or people doomering themselves up into speaking very unwisely is do you just give everyone involved in a kerfuffle a one day threadban and hope people weren't just being 'ironic' or wait a bit and get those second and third opinions on things in case your interpretation of the rules might be wrong or couldn't be applied unless you squint really hard.

I mean I'd prefer the former. Having people bitch about the Staff in open appeals or other threads is basically whatever to me at this point of my depressing internet life. But the balance is having a moderator go into a thread and clean it up by just shooting off a bunch of one day threadbans to clean up a discussion versus... waiting who knows how long for consensus opinions and the thread maybe being metasized into a more serious problem.

I'm just rambling incoherently now but I'll say all of the above is open to change. But that's how I've seen things up to this point.

TLDR

1: Points don't matter.
2: Threadbans and 1 to 3 day Forum Bans are meant as Timeouts, not point based e-crimes which are meant to be initiated for the health of the discussion/thread more then punishing somebody.
3: Longer term bans are meant for Repeated Offenders and the like and the process isn't meant be done quickly (except if it's ToS shit or something overt trolls/"invaders")
4. Appeals are meant to be open and easy to do.

As for specifically enumerated rules and thresholds, having a litany of rules and regulations and then appeals only based on regulatory procedures sounds nice but it usually just leads to legal LARP over a ten point infraction or something on other forums which is more labor intensive then anything. With how light the rulings here, there is still a lot of legal LARP going on so adding to that wouldn't be particularly endearing. And it'd go against the idea of a 'free speech based' forum if everyone had to keep a Rules Tab open before they post something. And I've never in my experience saw more specific rules and lots of them as ever actually being a curb on misbehavior unless your on some corporate forum or website or whatever.

With that said this forum isn't some rules and weapons free type of place and never was and won't be. The idea of civility was enshrined from the beginning. If people wanted a truly free speech zone where you can throw around fighting words and trolling and slurs and other things, there's already places on the internet you can do such things most likely.

 

[robertliguori]

I know I'm relatively new here, but I like this forum, and am glad that it appears to have successfully undergone one transition. But I think that the closing of the Politics forum is overkill.

If you are seeing a lot of suddenly problematic politics threads, then drop specific, actionable temp-rules into banners, and start tempbanning for a week on the first offense (and ramp up for repeat offenders).

Shit is happening right now. To want to ban the politics subforum is surely understandable now, given the targets being painted on Parler et al. But to close off political speech here is to actually say "No reasonable person has anything civil to say about recent events." And that is, to my mind, a dangerous thing to say, even when said by implication.

 

[Megadeath]

@LTR I get that's the way things have been, and I think it's even the best way to keep things going forward. Except in regards to politics. In that one regard, I think having some very specific lines that say Do Not Cross would be a very good thing, and having a very obvious and specific stick to swing at anyone who ignores it is a good idea. I think that would improve things IRL, and I think it would be better for the forum too.

Now, I'm not saying have stringent, stifling rules. If people want to call others cuck, or boot licker, or NPC or skinhead, or whatever, when they're disagreeing with a political stance, if the forum says that's okay then cool. Hell, if the forum wants to say that a post saying "Violent secession is inevitable and a good idea." is okay, so long as it doesn't follow up with "So come meet me at X to make it happen!" then that's also fine. I'm just saying, consider ahead of time exact definitions and implementations for things like that, and make very clear where that line in the sand is.

To my mind, the only other option is a disproportionately large (Compared to other similar sites.) modding team, who enjoy very solid trust. I mean, @Spartan303 has suggested I'm an agitator of sorts. Now, he's a decent guy in my experience and wouldn't just kick me from a thread on that suspicion, even when I'm saying stuff that rile up the general pop. Is there enough other people on the site we could say that about to expand the mod team to 3-4 times it's current size? Like, right this moment there's one admin and no other staff online. If you're going to practice real time, gut based moderation of something as fast moving and antagonistic as current affairs, you need way more than that. I honestly don't know the user base well enough, but do you think you could pull 4 other people up right now to play deputy without worrying about bias?

One thing that could help with consensus moderation is something like advisor roles. Not sure if one of the various user tags is equivalent, but if there was a dedicated, bipartisan advisor group, specifically given access to the politics subforum, that could work. Have two mid toilet, two mid to right, and if you get one from each side willing to agree a post is uncivil well then you smack them with a tempban or whatever without further regard.

 

[The Original Sixth]

I know I'm relatively new here, but I like this forum, and am glad that it appears to have successfully undergone one transition. But I think that the closing of the Politics forum is overkill.

If you are seeing a lot of suddenly problematic politics threads, then drop specific, actionable temp-rules into banners, and start tempbanning for a week on the first offense (and ramp up for repeat offenders).

Shit is happening right now. To want to ban the politics subforum is surely understandable now, given the targets being painted on Parler et al. But to close off political speech here is to actually say "No reasonable person has anything civil to say about recent events." And that is, to my mind, a dangerous thing to say, even when said by implication.

The mods and no one here wants to ban political discussion. Or even political views.

For every successful product, there is an X-factor. Something that drives the passion of a small group of people, whose energy in turn draws in others. Because you can't appeal to everyone all the time. The forum here lacks an X-factor. Because when it comes to political discourse, you go to Parler or Twitter to do that. You don't go to a web forum. People go to web forums to read stories, to play RPGs, or for a very specific purpose (ie, dating or porn or anime or chess) and that's why they stay.

A political forum for the sake of politics is not feasible right now, because when people go to web forums, they want to relax. Not get worked up in a political debate. With people they don't know. This forum lacks its X-factor. That's why instead of attracting people who want to debate fictional settings or do RPGs, we've got a small cabal of right-wing voters who are increasingly unhinged as they listen to fucking QAnon and Tim Pool, with the occasional left-wing troll that wanders through for shits and giggles.

The most productive that the politics forum got was when aggressive leftists came by for some fisticuffs with their ideological opponents.

That does not drive a web forum.

So I propose that the political sub-forum be closed until further notice. Ideally, it should be closed until the site can generate an X-factor that draws people in. And yes, that means liberals. Because the vast majority of liberals, even if they hated Trump with the passion of a thousand suns, don't hate conservatives. Radicals do--and they believe delusional things like secret conspiracies to destroy the left, political purges, and deliberate malice on even the most innocent of statements, but hey, so do half the retards who post in our own political subforum.

It's just that they replaced the irrational fear of the right with the left. They voted for Trump instead of Biden. But these are the same people. And without a political left to produce some sort of 'balance', the natural 'balance' of a forum that is politically right is going to be between moderate conservatives and stopping just short of white nationalism--and only because that's more or less a bannable offense here.

So the sub-forum should and must remain closed. Probably for a good 4 months, so we can refocus the forum on that x-factor. Not so people can repeat their political grievances and knee-jerks for the next 8 months until the staff gets fed up and shuts the whole project down. Which has already almost happened...what, twice?

You all have Parler, you all have Minds, and you all have Discord. Or PMs.

Until the site is strong enough that it can handle a political row, then you all need to take this shit somewhere else. There's enough fucking virgin-ass nerds on this forum that we should have decent discussions on Star Trek, Star Wars, Halo, Dragonball Z, and what have you. The best we got is Carl autistically spamming that part of the forum in the vain hope that he's going to generate interest. Even if he were good at it (and he isn't--sorry Carl), he's ONE MAN. He can't produce hard hitting stuff every day for the forum.

So if you all want a successful forum, you need to cut this shit out. Restrain yourselves. But just here. There are discords you can form around this forum where you can take the political stuff. You can connect with Parler. Or Minds. But until this forum has developed its niche, your enthusiasm to express yourself is just going to drag the forum into the red.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Is there enough other people on the site we could say that about to expand the mod team to 3-4 times it's current size? Like, right this moment there's one admin and no other staff online.

"More mods" is sorta a perpetual solution-but-not, because people who can be trusted as mods do not exactly grow on trees. Especially since people who are highly active members tend to be highly opinionated, and while that's not a bad thing in and of itself, being able and willing to self-segregate moderation decisions from personal opinions is *not* a common trait among highly opinionated people.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Well then, I feel the most obvious suggestion is a very strict standard of moderation in any political debate, with a larger and more clearly enumerated rule base specifically for politics. Attach specific point values to political infractions, with points escalating exponentially for violations. Have clear point value demarcations for various levels of thread or subforum bans. Have increasing ban lengths exponentially for repeatedly banned offenders. Allow appeals only on strict technical or regulatory grounds.

SB tried that; that is literally what Whitehall is/was, and it kinda turned into a severely bad joke.

 

[The Original Sixth]

SB tried that; that is literally what Whitehall is/was, and it kinda turned into a severely bad joke.

Over-modding is an issue, though SB had a unique variation on it.

First, you need to look at what a mod can achieve with bans and punishments. It's to change behavior. I would encourage anyone to think back to the Vs Debate forums on SB. How many times did people get banned for debating that Star Trek would beat Star Wars? Lots. Did any of those bans change the position or beliefs that those posters held? No. In fact, they believed (wrongly or not) that it was their beliefs that caused the ban. What those bans did do though, was adjust behavior.

If you didn't present any evidence the last time? Well, now you generally will. Maybe not well, but you'll do better. Because you don't want them to use the excuse of you not presenting evidence as a reason to silence your opinion. Or maybe you made too many personal attacks. Okay, you insult people less. Or you weave it into a larger argument. Or you use less direct insults. Or maybe you used too many logical fallacies. Well okay, you're not only going to google that, but you're going to report anyone else who does it too.

SB's bans became a tool to address beliefs, not behavior. Behavior became the pretext to banning someone who held the wrong views. It went from being able to argue whether or not Trump was a racist--and you better have iron-clad arguments-- to insisting by any stretch that Trump wasn't a racist was deemed as debating in bad faith, because as far as the mods were concerned, it was acceptable scientific fact. Not a political opinion. And that's why no manner of polite discourse could prevent a ban. Because the offense was the wrong belief, not how you conducted yourself.

Sure, you might be able to skate on by if you conducted yourself perfectly, but most people can't and that naturally weeds posters out of the sub-forum and limits their ability to express themselves. The result is a forum where only one half of the American political spectrum is allowed to express itself.

 

[LordSunhawk]

Just an FYI, I have begun reviewing bans with the mod staff. Decisions will be announced in their own thread.

Here is a rough schedule of what we will be doing going forward.

First, reviewing existing bans.
Second, reviewing moderation procedures and making adjustments
Third, opening up applications/invitations for new mods
Fourth, revising the rules to clarify where needed
Fifth, reopening the Politics sub forum

 

[Terthna]

Honestly, I've already been thinking/planning on disengaging from social media, specifically forums again.

In part because let's just say it had to do with seeing how MODs and much of the user base on the other forums started ganging up on people to lecture em and call them stuff

Either way, regardless of all the stuff's that happened, I liked my time here, more-or-less

I'm more-or-less a loner IRL surrounded by REALLY hyper overenthusiastic people that get in my face and can't get that I do NOT like alcohol or apples or tourism, but let's just say starting from FFN it's been sort of a long road that led me to the forums where I was surprised there were guys who didn't like the douchey Naruto fics and actually enjoyed even the side-characters, then as I said before I saw how increasingly or surprisingly douchey at times guys were whenever things could be somehow related to politics over there

And take note, this was long before I really did start finding out how even more surprisingly douchey SJWs could be

I may or may not quit soon and do another few months' long detox and wait and see if anything's changed and try focusing on finishing my massive collection of stuff I've compiled and my frequently broken sleep cycle and weird body chemistry doesn't exactly help

You do what's best for you; I can understand the need to take long sabbaticals from the internet. If the forum is still here (and still worth posting on), when you decide to come back (if you decide to come back), I'd be glad to welcome you back. Take care of yourself.

Just an FYI, I have begun reviewing bans with the mod staff. Decisions will be announced in their own thread.

Here is a rough schedule of what we will be doing going forward.

First, reviewing existing bans.
Second, reviewing moderation procedures and making adjustments
Third, opening up applications/invitations for new mods
Fourth, revising the rules to clarify where needed
Fifth, reopening the Politics sub forum

Thank you; it's nice to have updates on what's going on.

 

[sander093]

In short:

Userbase wants politics.

Administration wants CrW and other nerd stuff.

Personally, if you jettison the politics section completely I'll just wander over to QQ. Seeing as it's the only reason why I'm here.

 

[Spartan303]

In short:

Userbase wants politics.

Administration wants CrW and other nerd stuff.

Personally, if you jettison the politics section completely I'll just wander over to QQ. Seeing as it's the only reason why I'm here.

You misunderstood then. We're keeping the Politics but trying to expand our other parts of tje board to balance things out.

 

[Terthna]

You misunderstood then. We're keeping the Politics but trying to expand our other parts of tje board to balance things out.

And that is something I can get behind. I simply don't support cracking down on and curtailing political discussion in order to foment that expansion, as some seem to want.