Poll: Moderating aggressive forum members

[kzinti]

I'll just point out that since this thread was started, the offender has had an exemplary behaviour. He is engaging in a constructive way with other people. There has been no insults and not demeaning behaviour.

It seems to suggest that calling out the bad behaviour and discussing it was the right thing to do.

I am happy to see this. There are a only upsides for everyone in a community where people respect each others.

[bzt]

I did not wanted to post in this thread, but there's one thing I would like to reflect to.

Technical statements might be controversial but they should not be moderated. If I claim that 1+2=5, that's within my right. I am wrong but I should not punished for my ignorance. However, if I state "1+2=5 and the reason why you cannot believe this is that you are all pathetic apes", the latter part of that sentence certainly should be moderated.

In general I agree, however I also think that statements like "1+2=5" should not be allowed. Not a ban, but at least a moderator saying "fact check: fake" would be very much needed. Since moderators aren't doing this, it is left to the forum members to do the fact checks.

I think perceiving forum members doing the fact checks as aggressive or offensive is the root of the problem, not that someone does the fact checks. If it were a moderator saying "fake", there would be no problem, everybody would accept that. But since it's another forum member with the same rights saying so, some might think he is asking for a flame war, when in reality he doesn't, he just said "fact check: fake" for all of us. I think we as a community should encourage fact checks for all of our sake and build some kind of etiquette on how to handle those in a civilized manner (by not thinking it's a personal attack for example).

(I'd like to point out while it's not perfect, but in general this community handles these things well. Yes, there are occassional confrontations, yes there are flame wars sometimes (we are only humans after all), but except a few cases those are mostly civilized technical debates as they should be. On OSDev there are already a lot fewer flame wars as on any other similar forums, maybe that's why when there is it makes the news.)

Cheers,
bzt

[iansjack]

(If the dysfunctional people thread was created as a reaction to the Rust thread, I am not sure what the poster wants to imply.)

I note that the OP in that thread, and this, has not answered any of the points raised in either of them. Making controversial posts, and then not partaking in the resulting debate would be defined by many as classic trolling. Perhaps the moderators should delete, or immediately lock, such threads?

TBH, the whole content of this thread would be better addressed privately to the moderators via PMs. And if they decide not to take further action, then the referee's decision is final. To make it a poll, rather than a discussion, is just poring more petrol on the fire.

[Korona]

In general I agree, however I also think that statements like "1+2=5" should not be allowed. Not a ban, but at least a moderator saying "fact check: fake" would be very much needed. Since moderators aren't doing this, it is left to the forum members to do the fact checks.

That could provoke discussions with the mods though.

However, I do think that a reminder "Hey guys, the discussion is getting heated. Person X and Y has stated their position already, you're unlikely to convince them. Let's just go back to the original topic." can work wonders (and it's best if such a reminder is posted before there are 15 posts of ad-hominem attacks).

@iansjack: I am not a fan of discussing moderation issues in private (unless they affect yourself ofc). But it might be a good idea for the participants of a discussion to resolve their "personal" issues in private.

[bzt]

That could provoke discussions with the mods though.

But that would be a different issue than having an unwanted and long, heated discussion with another forum member. A moderator's opinion would always be more significant, and should ask for a PoC and in lack of that simply put an end to the discussion. Working out an etiquette that requires PoC to see who is right could stop this easily, the problem I think is, people are not used to PoCs (for several reasons, but let's not go into that). If a statement is in question, then the poster should be asked to demonstrate with working examples, simple as that, no hard feelings. This for example works great in hacker groups, if you say you have found a vulnerability without a PoC, everybody would laugh at you and nobody would take you seriously. On the other hand if you can demonstrate what you're saying, then nobody questions that and they accept no matter how ridiculous it may seem. Simple, no flames nor heated discussions (on technical and security matters of course, there are other things that can provoke flame wars).

However, I do think that a reminder "Hey guys, the discussion is getting heated. Person X and Y has stated their position already, you're unlikely to convince them. Let's just go back to the original topic." can work wonders (and it's best if such a reminder is posted before there are 15 posts of ad-hominem attacks).

I absolutely agree. A friendly warning from a moderator could avoid 99.999% of these discussions. I admit, sometimes it would be great to get these, because although I have no offensive intentions, I can forget about myself and only focus on the facts and forget about the other forum member's feelings. it's not that I want hurt them or anything.

Cheers,
bzt

[Ethin]

Apologies for bumping this topic but I have toagree with Korona on this matter. I acknowledge that I have (negatively) contributed to some topics, if not outright derailing them entirely. I acknowledge that I can be a bit over-aggressive -- I sometimes find it difficult to pick my battles, and I loathe those who deliberately and knowingly spread misinformation even after they have been told that they are wrong. However, the state of moderation on this forum is, IMO, abhorrent. If the discussion between bzt and I that occurred in the topic about writing kernel debuggers had occurred in any other forum, a harsh warning from the moderators -- if not probation of some kind -- would've been doled out to both bzt and I because we both crossed the line of civil discourse that is expected of all members within any community. bzt would've (I think, though this depends on the community in question) been banned a long time ago for continuing to spread misinformation and disregarding corrections from others. Furthermore, the entire discussion between he and I after Nexos post was erased. There was no post about it, no explanation, no warning, no PM... Absolutely nothing. Though I understand the intent of whomever executed the deletion, I vehemently disagree with it, because that's deletion of history. (Perhaps the posts were hidden, but I don't see any notice of that fact.) Regardless of whether the conversation was deleted or hidden, it is still something that should (not) be done. It is, in effect, an attempt to falsify the public image of this forum, and I do not agree with such tactics. I am in no way implying (or attempting to imply) that this forum is a bad or abhorrent place; I in fact find this forum quite refreshing compared to the drama-filled forums I have been on in the past, and I appreciate that the drama is far less here. However, I disagree with the blatant and deliberate hiding or deletion of posts without any reason or explanation. It does not give me any confidence in the active moderators here if they cannot explain their actions with rational and well-reasoned arguments, or at least some kind of notification.
I understand that I am approaching this from a more personal viewpoint. I further understand that I have, unfortunately, contributed to some of the negativity here. The only explanation I can provide for this behaviour is that I very much dislike individuals who deliberately and knowingly distribute false information and who disregard all attempts to correct them. However, I also acknowledge that this isn't a truly valid excuse for such behaviour, and I could've stood by and simply ignored the aggravating posts in question, which would've been the more mature thing to do. But I post this reply primarily to inquire as to why it appears as though the moderators can go unchecked and can do anything with very little community oversight, as has been done today. My image of the moderator(s) may be skewed by this, however, and I have generally seen them as being good people just trying to do the best that they can. But I consider what happened today as going way too far.
Side note: perhaps there was some kind of notification or post about the deletion/hiding of the posts in question, but if so I didn't see it anywhere.

[Combuster]

The moderators may help others follow the rules above in a variety of ways (...) by deleting posts that the poster may find embarrassing in future

[nexos]

One thing I want to add that concerns me is how hard it is to discuss some topics on here. For example, if somebody likes UEFI, they shouldn't go around and start provoking fights towards people who dislike. The inverse obviously is true as well. This forum is a place where people should be able to express opinions, true or not. If you disagree with somebodies opinion, that fine! You just need to be able to rebut in a civil, polite manner. Calling somebody a "troll" or reporting a post isn't necessary. If somebody has an issue with UEFI, I understand, but it is not acceptable to act uncivil towards the other party. This is a repeated issue here, as I have said before. For this reason, I agree with what @Korona has said to this point. A warning from moderators would go a long way to help people (myself included) know that causing toxicity doesn't go unnoticed. Bans wouldn't be necessary if people knew from the beginning that uncivil arguments were not tolerated by the community.

Just a few thoughts I wanted to add here.