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[Mizhara]

Public Service Announcement

According to a chat with a moderator, this forum currently has a moderation policy that I find hard to live with. This is about using abusive, name-calling, aggressive language about actual people. While I admit I occasionally do use terms such as "smacktalking fucktards" in certain contexts behind closed doors myself, I do not feel such have a place on an open board that intends to build a community welcoming to everyone interested in a gameplay style, not just friends of those already in or people who agree with the ones using such language.

Even if not directed against a particular person, such abusive language and behavior creates an environment that turns the community on itself and discourages people from getting involved. I feel if Backstage wants to be a general RPer forum for EVE, the moderators  should work to create an environment where people are not attacked. An alternative would of course be just to keep it as a semi-closed invite-only board, and not advertise in ways that pretty much equates it as "the community".

If I disappear suddenly in the middle of a conversation here, it is likely because my backbone caught up with my typing fingers related to this, not because of you.

Don't worry, you'll find Silver or someone will moderate to your liking I'm sure. I'm never going to apologize for using harsh language, particularly in relation to individuals or groups where there's behavior like what I've pointed out in this thread nor am I going to consider it a good thing to be 'welcoming' to the point of having no standards. If this is not to this board's liking, moderate away. Want to protect the kind of people who Trump-spam local during events from being offended if they see my posts? Well, I'm sure mods can find excuses for that in the ruleset as it is, however offensive that notion itself should be.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

 1) I'm not interested in apologies, I'm interested in better moderation.

2) The issue is not whether you insult particular targets of the vitriol, nor whether I agree or disagree with you about them. It is that repeated outbursts of completely out-of-the-line language and behavior have an effect on whether *completely unrelated* people want the be involved with this "community".

3) There is a difference between "harsh language" and outright verbally abusive attacks.

[Samira Kernher]

Moved this discussion to the moderation discussion forum.

[Samira Kernher]

And now so I can actually reply:

I discussed my personal policies with you, Elsebeth. Not this board's. The board has a policy that is closer to your considerations and moderators who have and do moderate to that capacity. You can only browse this forum to see that there are differences in opinion as to how much moderation is considered appropriate. I, personally, did not come onto this forum to handle enforcement, I was part of a mod team at the time and my focus has been on administrative stuff and clear cut cases (obvious spam and so on). Other mods do more on enforcement. Silver continues to moderate content as evidenced by several previous discussions over the last few months.

I do not appreciate that discussion being taken as board policy, though I recognize that now that things have dwindled to me being the only mod around that it might seem that way. The board policy though is generally in favor of more moderation rather than less.


And to clarify my own position, it is this: I have always believed in hands-off moderation and allowing discussions to progress freely and people to work out their own problems where possible. I generally do not believe in moderating harsh language as a sole criteria, provided that the post in which it is included is continuing to move a discussion forward.

The conditions I look for in handling reports is these:

* Is it racist, sexist, doxxing, or otherwise attacking a player's personal life, or is it just usual internet flaming?
* Are multiple people reporting the same post?
* Is the reported element able to be excised without cutting up the entire thread to do so?
* Is the post containing the reported element furthering discussion, or was it posted just to target someone? 
* Is it a case of "you're doing it wrong?" This is an area where I very clearly differ from the rest of the mod team, as I do not consider "you're doing it wrong" posts something that should be modded.

As I told you before, I do not believe 'unacceptable discourse' is necessarily 'moddable discourse'. Something can be crude and harsh, and something I would not consider an appropriate form of discourse, while still not venturing into what I would consider needing moderation. But I am just one mod, and my personal position is just that. That was communicated to Havohej and the rest of the mod team when I was brought on board. Other mods have different positions, though there is a definite problem in it having shrunk to basically just me and Silver (who is less active).

[Mizhara]

1) I'm not interested in apologies, I'm interested in better moderation.

2) The issue is not whether you insult particular targets of the vitriol, nor whether I agree or disagree with you about them. It is that repeated outbursts of completely out-of-the-line language and behavior have an effect on whether *completely unrelated* people want the be involved with this "community".

3) There is a difference between "harsh language" and outright verbally abusive attacks.

1. I think the history of this board, since we first created it in the smoke-filled back rooms of Scagga's forums after having similar issues with Chatsubo and its moderation, is pretty much an endless struggle between all manner of different views on what constitutes "better moderation." I too have pretty much since its inception been 'interested in better moderation'. I suspect we think of very different things, and there's bound to be quite a lot more viewpoints than ours in that regard. Which will prevail lies pretty much entirely in the hands of the current owners, i.e. Silver. I am quite serious when I say the likelihood of you getting his sympathies and agreement is quite high.

2. Our definitions of "completely out of the line language" is also a matter of opinion. Culturally, I'm from a place where very harsh and crude language is perfectly normal and very much part of completely day to day conversation. While the saying loses quite a lot in translation, it goes roughly "The southerners may call a spade a spade, but we call a spade a horse cock.". I would in fact argue that censoring something as utterly harmless as harsh language is just as damaging to any community, because it has a significant chilling effect on honest and good discussion and debate, as well as setting the very difficult problem in front of us of "Where's the line then? What's okay, what's not? Who gets to determine this?" and then there's forever endless rules lawyering. The line, as far as I'm concerned, should never go further than discriminatory or hate speech. Simply because any further than that, and you're basically just trying to set up a morality police with "safe space" trolling and abuse of the rulesets rather than countering arguments, etc.

3. That there is, and frankly getting all sorts of offended at harsh language while ignoring the amount of far more insulting implications, accusations and attacks couched in dishonest yet "inoffensive" language is nonsensical as far as I'm concerned. This is something we see constantly on these boards, in in-game channels and so on all the time. Harmless 'inoffensive' language carrying straight up personal attacks, claims, insults and more and yet... that's okay, isn't it? Because there's no cussing. There's the deniability and dishonest "oh I didn't mean it that way wink wink nudge nudge mmmhm" thing to hide behind. This is far more prevalent as far as I can tell, vastly worse in terms of behavioural issues and community toxicity, and yet pretty universally accepted here and elsewhere. As long as that is the case, I can't really take any umbrage over harsh language seriously, because if there was any real concern for "the community" this would be far less accepted.

Like I said, I'm not going to apologize for my use of language, unless I do cross the line and use sexist or discriminatory language - which I on occasion have done and have since apologized for -. I am however sympathetic to your viewpoint. I can understand the concern. I can however not even remotely agree with it, because taking steps towards censorship of language is a path that can never avoid taking severe chunks out of some of the cornerstones of good discourse. I would however invite discussion on specifics, for both clarification and potentially changing my or other people's minds.

Where do you feel the line should be? What's okay, what is not? How can a place like this limit speech, without doing significant damage to the discourse? It's a discussion well worth having.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

Samira: I'm sorry if I was unclear, but I thought I made it clear in context that I am asking about moderation on the board and what *you as a moderator* think. Theoretical board policy matters less to me than what actually gets enforced.

Miz: I am not really going to discuss this further with you. How this board is moderated is not my call, so the *exact* place where *I* would draw the line matters little. It would surely be in a different place from where it is now and I *have* moderated enough in my life that I know that curbing shit-talk without curbing opinions *is* possible. I have stated my opinion, do with it what you will.

[Mizhara]

There's nought I can do with it, really. I have zero powers on these boards and that's how it's going to stay I suspect. However, when you call for different moderation, it's usually prudent to be clear on how you feel that difference should be. The vaguer you are, the less useful it is in terms of criticism and possible changes in the status quo.

Sadly, I think it's rather telling that the activity on these boards have dropped in favor of unmoderated venues. There's a lot of grey names here of people who used to be regular contributors, then ended up in a dispute with the moderation team and then deleted and dropped.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

What "unmoderated venues" are there that would be a replacement for these boards? I'd be interested in checking them out.

That said, considering that inside the few hours since I posted my original piece on this, three different people have approached me to say thanks for posting, and what I talked about is why they don't post here anymore, I am not sure your interpretation of why it's quiet is correct.

(I meant it when I said I am not going to discuss with you about where I would draw the line. I have also moderated enough in my life that I know that if you really cannot imagine how to express your opinions without shit-talk such as you had in your post, nothing I say will change that, and any attempt to explain would just lead to further nitpicking by you in an attempt to show that if you cannot draw the line exactly you cannot draw it all.)

[Louella Dougans]

Culturally, I'm from a place where very harsh and crude language is perfectly normal and very much part of completely day to day conversation.

Having no barrier to entry, no expectations of class or quality is not a good thing for anything, it never has been. Police your own group, maintain some culture and class, and I'll happily welcome anyone.

I can get crude and harsh language anywhere here as well.

What I can't get, is an interesting conversation about internet spaceship games.

I think it's rather telling that the activity on these boards have dropped in favor of unmoderated venues. There's a lot of grey names here of people who used to be regular contributors

that's your opinion. From another point of view, it seems Nissui deleted their account as a result of the thread that sparked this one.



It is exhausting, wading through a flood of profanities and deciphering what you think the meaning was.

It's not fun, and I'd rather do something else.

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

Four people, now, if you count Louella.

[Mizhara]

What "unmoderated venues" are there that would be a replacement for these boards? I'd be interested in checking them out.

That said, considering that inside the few hours since I posted my original piece on this, three different people have approached me to say thanks for posting, and what I talked about is why they don't post here anymore, I am not sure your interpretation of why it's quiet is correct.

(I meant it when I said I am not going to discuss with you about where I would draw the line. I have also moderated enough in my life that I know that if you really cannot imagine how to express your opinions without shit-talk such as you had in your post, nothing I say will change that, and any attempt to explain would just lead to further nitpicking by you in an attempt to show that if you cannot draw the line exactly you cannot draw it all.)

I don't particularly count them as replacements myself, but there's plenty of effectively unmoderated venues out there. The Slack channels, several in-game ones with no moderation, etc.

As for being approached by people thank you for posting, I can point at the same many times over, over the years on these boards. People not cool with the overzealous moderation, people afraid to voice their views publicly against the moderation team, etc. They were pretty irrelevant then too. Not being willing to speaking out pretty much invalidates the view, as far as I'm concerned. Especially in this instance where there's no moderators to fear when doing so. We do know for absolute certain a lot of the names left because of overzealous moderation. It's right here in this very forum section. You'll find many outright statements from the accounts in question stating that clearly. Others may be inactive because of different reasons.

I do repeat though, if the moderation team and admins feel harsh language stymies the board's activity, they are the ones with the power and tools to deal with it.

You can call it shit-talk all you want. Personally, it's not that I can't imagine how to post without it, it's just that anyone who gets offended by some harmless harsh language have absolutely no value to me in terms of opinion and views. I genuinely don't care if people get offended. Being offended is inherently harmless. It's the least useful thing in the universe. It's a whine without substance or any harm coming before it. Whining about being offended does more harm to discussion than being offensive as far as I'm concerned.

I'm offended by countless things, especially whines about harsh language being used as an excuse to ignore the actual discourse or debate. I am offended by the existence of Justin Bieber and places like Dubai. Trump spam in local is offensive as fuck to me. There's countless things on these boards, in-game and elsewhere that's offensive as hell and should be to any free thinking individuals and yet they should most certainly not be censored until they cross very particular lines. As far as I'm concerned anyway.

Now, if people had maybe come to me and asked nicely, or perhaps addressed the matter being discussed alongside the whine, perhaps their views wouldn't be so much hot air but until that happens why exactly should I care one whit what they think? They've already made it abundantly clear they'll use it as an excuse to avoid discussing the topic at hand, so taking it seriously does not seem to be worthwhile.

[Louella Dougans]

anyone who gets offended by some harmless harsh language have absolutely no value to me in terms of opinion and views. I genuinely don't care if people get offended.

So, people who find seemingly endless streams of harsh language reminiscent of a campaign of domestic verbal abuse, and consider it something they don't enjoy dealing with in what is supposed to be a fun hobby, have no value to you. Good to know.

There's countless things on these boards, in-game and elsewhere that's offensive as hell and should be to any free thinking individuals

ah, it's this thing again. "anyone who disagrees isn't a free-thinking individual"

[Mizhara]

Quote me a "seemingly endless stream" of anything if you can.

[kalaratiri]

You're welcome to ignore me Mizhara, and I'm sure you will, but I personally consider the sheer prevalence of your outwardly aggressive and abusive method of communicating to be one of the primary reasons why people have been so eager to find alternative platforms for discussion.

It is exhausting.

It makes it a laborious chore to reply to your posts because of all the profanity that has to be filtered out just to find your actual points.

I know it's a direct cause for me posting here far less than I used to. Having spoken with others on the matter I know I'm not alone in that.

Surely you've noticed that outside of individuals posting in their own fiction threads, and threads it's impossible to argue about like the art thread, that Backstage at this point is basically "Mizhara and the Four People who can Stand Him"?

[Mizhara]

Yeah, I'll believe that when someone can actually quote these "all the profanity", "sheer prevalence" claims. I have been going through my posting history and the percentage of it is ridiculously low. Also, the fact that Backstage went even more inactive when I did, seems to indicate that you're basically full of it. These are all measurable metrics you can look up, while your claim seems rather anecdotal from someone who tends to never actually reply to what's being said and instead pick out some excuse to not do it.

Want to see the actual numbers? If you want I can probably export the stats and do a count.