Your Thoughts on Forum Culture

I just read a great blog post by Teresa Nielsen Hayden (link below) discussing online community, particularly key points for moderating virtual spaces.

That article and other ongoing discussions I’ve had here at Linden have raised several key questions, but I keep returning to this important one: How do we determine the difference between open, free exchange of ideas and outright damage to a community due to hostile and aggressive posts/residents?

Keep in mind that we aren’t looking for mass chaos or zero-moderation, I think Teresa is on the right track with her first comment on online community: "There can be no ongoing discourse without some degree of moderation...Providing the space but not tending the conversation is like expecting that your front yard will automatically turn itself into a garden."


So my question is this: In your opinion, where should this line be set for our community?

Read the Complete Article Here:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006036.html#006036


Thanks!

check out this link: http://www.penny-arcade.com/community.htm

Having a 'mostly anything goes' area and a newbie-safe area seems like the best solution I've seen on the net...

Jeska - it might be helpful to go into the archives and post the links to the previous discussion initiated by Robin about the how best to deal with the Forums.

Seems we keep discussing this over and over, yet the behavior IMO has gotten worse.

Take away the forums altogether! That'll learn 'em. They're boring anyway these days

Typically, I mark the line between aggression and freedom of ideals at the point where a land owner, forum poster, or plain vanilla resident forces their practices on another individual - ethically, physically, etc.

For example:

Land owner A sets up a club in Sim B. Subsequently, the neighboring museum in Sim B begins to experience traffic not "up to their standards" - and museum owner in Sim B files an abuse report on Land owner A.


However, there's also a distinction to be drawn for when a resident cannot, personally, take action into their own hands.

Using the example in this case, our museum owner could move to another location fairly painlessly, assuming they find the land in a timely fashion.


I think, from a community standpoint, that when a resident cannot take matters into their own hands, or in the cases that doing so would be against TOS or otherwise out of the control of the resident's "skill" in doing so - this is where the Lindens, or any hired/volunteering "officials" in their stead, should step in and seek to solve the problem.

One thing that I feel may ultimately be required, as the SL community continues to grow, is Lindens may need to hire more "Liasons" in a strictly CSR role, to aid residents in disputing matters similar to Second Life's closest relative, the MMOG. One of the problems with this, though, is things may slowly become less "intimate" in terms of support, as a CSR is hired for the most part to resolve issues effectively and efficiently, not stick around to see everything has gone well. A balance in this sense of things will need to be maintained.

With regards to posting behaviors on these boards, however, I feel the fall of the coin is a bit different. Freedom of ideas is not the "problem," as I have grown to see it here - instead, holding residents to the thoughts they posit on the forums is. If residents could be held more accountable for their actions on these boards, good for bad, we might see some actual credibility emerge at the expense of some being too fearful to post. A balance would need to be struck there.


As for direct, where I personally would "draw the line?" Here are my suggestions.

In-world:

- Direct "Griefing" is intolerable. A few more solutions, such as frontlining abuse reports with preset "proof," would be beneficial.

Example: Prim-spawners and firebombers. If number of spawned prims in region from select owner exceeds a certain quantity, land owner has the option to hit the abuse button. These abuse reports then take higher priority than free-response ones.

- With the advent of the concierge program, an idea I fully endorse even though I myself no longer own land, a group option to this "service" may, also, be a wise idea - since not all of us own a quarter of a sim ourselves*

- Aesthetic "Griefing" - such as spawning giant ugly structures - is discretionary, and only crosses the line when a resident owns more than a fourth of the sim, the effort is concerted/premeditated, and is causing very real problems for the owner (pornographic material, severe render slowdown, etc).

- Sandboxing behaviors could use slight tweaking as many attempt to fill a sandbox with their scripted nonsense. Removing prims for inactivity from these regions is a must, or if at all possible, an out-of-SL build tool would be preferable (something I've worked long and hard to make a reality in its own way)

- Land Barons, Monetary abuse, and all out general Social Engineering problems are totally discretionary, and advisable to not have a litmus test for. However, commonly I find myself siding with the less aggressive of the two (or more) individuals in disputes such as these.


Forum Behaviors:

- Posts should always be routed to their proper forum, if they don't fall at least 15% into the category posted.

- Any thread containing illegal, overtly slanderous, or offensive material, without disclaimer, should be locked.

- A "Rant" forum should be established, ignoring the above rule, for those of us here to do so. Any thread containing material deemed a "rant" should be moved there.

- Major breaches of etiquette, such as repeated counts of flaming or illegal activity, should have repercussions on that person's Second Life character, no exceptions. Up to, and including, a complete ban of that character from the "game," and if necessary, further measures.


Anyway, that's my $0.02. Happy posting, folks.

Edit: I realize, also, that this is a very circular discussion. A part of that is due to the fact that the problem doesn't simply lie with "the system," but also the people that call it home. As long as people are people, you'll probably see this debate come up until the end of time.

Great. Then all the posters that are famous for it get to have the last say and engineer the closure of any thread that doesnt go their way.

Hence next comment, "Rant" forum.

Right. Because people take so much notice of all the rules of the other forums. I'm sure they'll just keep their personal attacks to a rant forum.

I know many people that simply never come to the forums because of all the trolling and noise. Also so many people simply don't know what the forums are or how to use them. More in-world awareness of the forums might help too, maybe create some in-world lessons on how to use the forums and what they're for ? I've only recently discovered I can mute/ignore people here. I personally wouldn't mind much stronger moderation in the forums, but that will always be seen as inteference by some people. Perhaps a rigidly enforced forum etiquette should be introduced into some forums (especially the technical forums) while others could be left freer as they are now.

I say nuke them from orbit, just to be sure.

But then you'd have a lot of addicts climbing the walls at work

I'd say, put in M and PG forums to mimc in-world sim standards, and let people do what they want within those guidelines. Why should the forums be any different than what is allowed in-world?

You don't lock the Thread. You delete the thread - or you delete all of their posts from the Thread. As you point out, letting them have the last word simply rewards them with the attention they seek. The trick is to deny them satisfaction, if you want to discourage their behavior...

Then you warn them. Repeated violations are reason for forum-wide Muting or Banning.

Sierra and WizKids both have (or had) systems whereby players accumulated "penalty points" on the forums (assigned by employees / moderators). Certain threshold values would cause the user to get muted &/or banned. Certain actions would be a cause for immediate banning, too, of course. Penalty-points dissipated over time automatically, I believe. I'm not saying that SL should necessarily set a system up like this (although I'd love to help with something along these lines, if LL were to hire me)... But some sort of system to track offenders would be valuable!

To me, it seems there are three crucial steps to making a user-contributed community forum work:

1) Set behavioral and language limits.

2) Enforce those limits as strictly as possible.

3) Make sure new users see the limits at some point during sign-up. That way they have no excuse to plead ignorance when they violate a basic rule.

Its like training a dog or a child... they have to be punished when they go beyond the boundaries - and they have to know why they are being punished. The cause-and-effect must be closely connected; and it has to be consistently applied.

Its not for the faint of heart, surely!

Anyone interested in basic psychology should read Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" (and ignore that godawful movie they made)... Excellent discussions about morals and psychology of groups and societies in the book, both in obvious passages and hidden elsewhere.

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

P.S. Don't know if SL would be interested; but one thing Sierra does, is have some users as "volunteer" moderators to help provide more continuous coverage of the forums, from a "violations" standpoint. They "pay" the volunteers by rewarding them with a little bit of free product every month or two. This does, of course, add to the "management" load on the customer-service / community-development employees - but can provide more "front-line defense" on the forums in return.

Thank you, Tread. I thought that went without saying, considering half the reason you "lock" a thread in the first place is to deny people the satisfaction they seek and, in the case of the rampant "I am here to ruin your thread," take preventative measures such as post deletions, bans, or as you actually put it, strict penalties (my opinion is the other measures work a touch better, though yes - negative attention for them can be gleaned by locks or deletions). I thought that went without saying, but oh well.

It was what I was getting at with:



And Kris, I'll sidestep the sarcasm you seem to love by saying: A "Rant" forum is functional to Lindens, or any representative moderator, moving the threads that step out of bounds there - thus providing a place to deposit potentially flammable posts other than General, as needed. SLUniverse does it, as do many other forums, and it seems to work pseudo-well. Again, I'm pretty sure my original post stated that.

Getting off the defensive, though, since we seem more focused on forum behavior a la topic of thread, I do think that a large part of this involves a more "hands on" approach to how posts are handled. Be that by Lindens, hired representatives, volunteer members, or lower down the chain, my main point is these forums could use some teeth to back up TOS. People may post as they please, but the laissez-faire attitude is not always a good thing - and, if anything, these forums do succumb to the tragedy of the commons in their own, distinct, way.

So, maybe it's time for a few janitors.

The line should be set where the forum cultures no longer make yoghurt and start to make diseases.

I am on the SL forums under the dominion of LL, and as such, I remain and shall continue to remain respectful of the rules (TOS, Community Standards) as posted in fine detail -- on top of a foundation of being gracious to others and considering opposing viewpoints respectfully, while taking the time to listen and learn from those I may not agree with now... but who I may agree with later.

And if I disagree vehemently... there are many, many other alternatives on the Internet: many more Forums I can post on. Free exchange of ideas abounds in the digital sphere, and we are blessed to have so much diversity in abundance. I suggest that if someone want to be more in control of how they go about interacting on a Forum, then they are free to visit a 3rd-party one such as SLUniverse.com as mentioned, or start their own forum. That to me surely facilitates further freedom. While we're in Linden Lab's ballpark through, we play by your rules.

Jeska, my feeling has never been that there is a specific "the line must be drawn here!" but this is rather a continuum, like SL inworld itself is: it grows, things change, things are adapted. Humans make judgment calls that are not "perfect" but are refined through the actions of life experience, and I trust your judgment based on what you have done so far. I am very much mindful of not making your job harder, and I speak solely for myself in this regard, although I do know I have fellow avatars who agree. Living to learn and making progress is essential to who we are, because this is an open book with many pages left to be written.

A funny thing is that a repeat offender, by their actions, is revealing more about themselves than the people they attack. Sometimes, a Moderator does not have to do much more for awhile than oversee what is happening, be able to knowledgably predict the direction of a thread based on textual heuristics and whatnot (especially if a poster keeps blathering out abusive personal insults), and then moderate accordingly a short time later. If this keeps up, after several warnings -- like strikes -- the mod can safely and securely declare "YOU'RE OUT!!!" Just like the ol' ball game.


So:

Continue to enforce the TOS: firmly, but gracefully.

Clear warnings and appropriate consequences for personal attacks.

Proceed to encourage respect of one another, and encourage inquisitive minds to be curious and ask more questions instead of firing right away.

Inspire more "active listening", and reciprocation of expression.

Share what we have in common to further strengthen our bonds as a community, while also sharing in what is sometimes a technoculture clash.

As a "discussion board", this, to me, represents a solid state of "free exchange of ideas".

If someone else disagrees with me but agrees that we are both to be secure in our own opinions, how can I feel threatened?

This is the courtesy to which I refer.


I would like to see more Residents post to the SL Forums without fear of being verbally attacked. Or if they are, I hope that they can hop over it and "Report Bad Post" while continuing a constructive discussion without headbutting in a flame war. While I have been in Forums that have had far, far worse destructive behavior than this one, I do look to the skies above and hope we will continue to improve.

Maybe a big part of the problem is a lack of a "line." We all have a vague idea of sort of what's out of bounds and know that sometimes some content like that might be edited, locked, or reprimanded. But we don't have a clear cut policy.

Personal attacks go on all the time, in fact some people seem to follow each other from thread to thread just to attack their enemies, but only a tiny portion of those attacks when they go "too far" get deleted. Why not make a clear line that say "no personal attacks?" And start handing out suspensions for every violation. It would only take a week or two of heavy policing to get the point out that this simply isn't allowed and then like the article that was linked, the community would tend to police itself because the older members would know the rules and pass on those community values to others.

What is the point of continually having the same people flaunt the vague, sort-of rules and requests for civility day after day, locking their threads, and then letting them jump right back at it tomorrow?

Similarly, if the policy is that totally off-topic junk should be kept out of threads not in off-topic then enforce that. I think once you have a culture of rules and a real threat of consequences for violating them, then you can allow for honest mistakes and people who forgot or "let something slip" but the problem is we don't have any base to go from. Unless you tell people that they can't use the forums as a playground to throw taunts and fill every thread with random comments on pie, it only ends up seeming unfair and arbitrary when you come back and pick out one or two to edit, lock, etc.

I checked with VBulletin this morning about an idea I had for these forums. They referred me over to Vbulletin.org to get this implemented, and it seems like a small modiification to make.

Why not turn on the forum Reputation system? Then hook a user's reputation to how many posts they can make per hour or day.

It has the same failings as the in-world rating system. But, it is something. This way, if everyone decides a certain poster is trolling, that troll will progressively be silenced. If the troll starts posting normally and boosts their reputation, they can rejoin the community by posting more frequently.

IMHO, the forum culture is here to stay. Whether it happens on SL's site or a 3rd party site is the implied question here, yes? Positive: LL has to spend less time policing the forums. Negative(s): 1) You think you've seen forum drama now? Woah, wait until the Lindens are no longer editing and deleting threads! 2) A ton of educational posts and information MIGHT be lost in the fray (I hope that doesn't happen).

I like Tread's idea of a point system that when a certain theshold is reached results in muting or banning from the forums. The biggest fly in the ointment is trying to draw a clear line between what's an attack or harmful to the community and what's simply disagreement over a relevant topic strongly stated. For some people, any disagreement is seen as an attack, while other thicker skinned people might have a hard time guaging the line because they expect other people to have as strong a tolerance to disagreement as their own. I'm sure wherever the line gets drawn I'd have a few warning points, as would most of the other regular posters... not that it would be a bad thing. I think much of the forum community that's evolved is good, playful, and has a good personality. I'd hate to see the baby go out with the bath water. I'm also well aware that I'm a guest here. When I get invited to someone's house for dinner I don't feel I'd have much of a right to pick fights with the other guests, but in the case of SL I wonder if the forums act as a pressure valve. Does letting people duke it out on the forum help cut down on in-world incidents, or does it act as a catalyst? I don't have a guess on that one.

Personally, I see no purpose in the Off-Topic forums as far as SL goes...not that I haven't posted in them.

I happen to believe that off-topic does not belong on a game forum...and I view SL as a game. Why the first part? Simple. As some have posted elsewhere on the forums, a number of denizens of the forums hang out here solely because they can, because they have time on their hands, to avoid work --- essentially looking for a way to amuse themselves, whether that involves a verbal sparring match with someone or a round of serious trolling. That has NO POSITIVE purpose as far as SL goes.

Ergo, all non-game related posts should be wiped with prejudice - er, deleted.

If verbally aggressive posts were edited or deleted by a mod on a fast and consistent basis - and I am not talking by an unpaid volunteer - then that would provide clearer examples of what was and was not accepable than any posted TOS/forum rules. And therein lies the current problem in my opinion - inconsistent moderation.

People will disagree. Some will cross whatever line is set. As soon as the line goes from a sharp one to a vague one, the problems will multiply as people search for the new boundary edge between acceptable and unacceptable.

People being people, there WILL BE unacceptable behavior. It is up to the forum owner/provider to set the limits... forum visitors will eventually follow whatever rules are enforced, whatever micro-societal norms are required if they truly want to participate.

Sucks to say but people being what they are, only deliberate moderation AND strict limitation of what is allowed will create/provide a "quiet" forum.




Then again, as I said, I see no reason for the off-topic forum for a game anyway... certainly a statement that will not be approved of by most here... but the opening post here asked for comments. Outside of that, any post sequence in any thread that steer that thread off-topic by more than four posts should be deleted.

What you need are highly censored forums and lowly censored forums.

Certain disagreeable posters will learn to avoid the highly censored forums, or at least self moderate.

Most of us will migrate to the highly censored forums, I suspect, simply to get away from the troll factor.

They tried removing the off topic forum. Folks just posted them in the SL specific forums. A majority of people seemed to want off-topic.

This sounds to me like you think that all people in SL should only ever want to converse with each other on the subject of SL? Maybe, just maybe, we'd like to talk to the people we know in SL about OTHER stuff?!

Who gives a crap if it has positive purpose?! Are we really getting to the stage where people are starting to say "if it doesnt relate to Second Life and have a positive overall impact on Second Life, don't say it at all?".

If it's off topic, you know exactly where you stand. If you don't want to read 'idle chatter' then don't visit the forum.

This smacks of the political correctness that is sapping our wills to even express ourselves.

Here's a hint, if I'm not saying something that isn't pissing *someone* off, then it probably isn't worth saying. There is no way to please everyone, and there is certainly no way to guarantee that I won't offend.

So how about being adults and taking it, instead of expecting the whole world to cater to each persons perception of 'nice', because it simply won't happen. Neuter the forums, and all of this won't simply disappear, it will just go in-world, where most of this conflict is seeded anyway.

As much as I hate political correctedness anything would be preferable to the current state of affairs.