Your Thoughts on Forum Culture

"The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen." ~Tommy Smothers



"Obscenity is not a quality inherent in a book or picture, but is solely and exclusively a contribution of the reading mind, and hence cannot be defined in terms of the qualities of a book or picture." ~Theodore Schroeder

<sarcasm>Hahahah. Yeah I agree! CENSORSHIP is the way to go!</sarcasm>

"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas." ~Alfred Whitney Griswold, New York Times, 24 February 1959

<sarcasm>
I say we have a three strikes and your out policy.
1 Bad Post: Warning;
2 Bad Posts: Account Suspension
3 Bad Posts: DEATH BY FIRE.
</sarcasm>

"Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have, or the views they express, or the words they speak or write." ~Hugo L. Black, U.S. Supreme Court Justice 1963

Sarcasm and 4 quotes by other people. Okay.

Putting so much stock into other peoples' words as you do, would you then say that showing children pornography, or standing in an elementary school reading a book describing explicit sexual acts would be okay? Since "obscenity is not a quality inherent in a book or picture" that would be okay, right? I tend to think such charming little quotes are not absolute, nor is the idea as simplistic as they like to make it seem.

Thats an interesting question to pose, and one worthy of an actual answer; unlike your original rant.

In my own days at school, many times i was witness to 'art' displaying the entire nude (male and female) human figure. Is this 'pornography'? I personally didn't find much difference between it and the pictures I have come across on the internet - other than its age. Obscenity is in the eye of the beholder. There are some out there that would say it should all be removed from the curriculum. What next, remove Science & Evolution? (oh... wait...)

As for reading to children about explicit acts; any situation involving a public school is under slightly different rules than the rest of the world, but regardless if accepted by the institution in which it takes place what right do you have to stop it? Is it wrong for children to be taught about sex before actually experiencing it? I'm sure there are many sexual education classes across this nation (and probably the world) where young children entering 5-6th grade are taught just that.

On the other hand if your trying to tell me that there are very specific illegal instances where the freedom of speech has and should be abridged then I agree. For example, falsely shouting 'Fire' in a crowded movie theatre. This can cause injury to others and has no value whatsoever. What I don't agree with is the idea that any situation similar to that could ever happen on an online forum, which is what we are discussing.

Just out of curiousity, in what actual concrete situation would you suggest censorship be used on someones post? What guidelines would be followed to decide whether or not someones ideas were 'valid' enough to be shared with the rest of us?

Publishing real life information about another poster. Ridiculing someone for their religious beliefs, or lack thereof. Using degrading racial or gender slurs and publishing 'hate speech.'

I never advocated the censorship of 'ideas' though you obviously believe you read that somewhere in my post. What I advocate is weeding out the rubbish from the ideas, which requires some censorship and moderation, as we have now. I've been on plenty of forums with no moderation, and without fail they always turned to chaotic flame wars and eventually closed down. I'd rather not see that happen here, because there is some good content between the crap.

Edited to add: And to address the other points.. I was not refering to artistic nudes. I was referring to pornography. Showing children pornography is perfectly acceptable according to your quotes. I disagree that the freedom of speech issue is that simplistic or black and white.

Its called the TOS and that is already done. What I believed you to be saying is that you want someone to specifically go through the conversations and make a decision:
A) This post can be labeled an 'idea' and is valuable to our society and worth dissemination or
B) This post has no value and should be supressed as 'garbage'

If that wasnt your point then you must have confused me by saying originally "if the goal is a communication of ideas, then some censorship is needed, because the ideas get lost in the garbage more often than not."

I don't believe a system like that has ever turned out for the best. Better to let people make their own decisions.

As John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, 1859 -
"We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still." ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

Yes, it is already done. This thread is asking how much forum moderation we think we should have here. Some say none. My opinion is that with None it would turn into a big ole clusterf*ck real quick. You've read the forums, you must have seen the name-calling and insults, and the posts against TOS. Now imagine what would happen if people knew they could post whatever they damn well pleased with no consequence, and no removal of those posts.

I welcome debate and varying ideas and viewpoints, because it forces me to rethink my own opinions. I would not advocate the removal of dissenting opinions. But calling someone a racial slur because their forum icon is darker than yours? Yeah, I don't think that's much of a loss at all.

I couldn't agree more - you are absolutely right. It is unfortunate that the immature asses do seem to be the loudest - but does that mean because they abuse the very freedom most of us hold so precious that we are no longer entitled to it?

I still think it boils down to a matter of choice - for us as adults and I still believe that no matter what the consequences, we are entitled to our freedom of speech, in whatever form it may take. I don't believe there are exceptions...however, in my perfect vision of the world, I would like to think that the adults (parents, teachers, etc.) would have the common sense to decide what is best for a child to know and not know. Pornogrophy? No, most adults probably shouldn't even know about that. Sex? Absolutely - I do believe every child who is capable of engaging in sexual activity should know everything necessary to protect and prevent...now of course, this is coming from someone who lost her virginity at age 14. Hmmm - I may be proving my point with that information considering my mother never told me anything!

Anyway, standing by my original response but I do appreciate the very valid comments being made here - extremely good thoughts for ponder!

I agree with everything you said, except for the part about there not being exceptions. As an extreme example (Because there absolutely would be extreme cases): Say I post a thread wanting people to post the locations of the builds they find most inspiring, (or to tug at the heartstrings), say it's a memorial thread to a resident who's passed on... Now say someone comes along and posts 213 posts only containing "the C word" and "the N word". That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about censoring out. Not peoples ideas.

I absoutely believe there are exceptions to what is needed or wanted on these forums. No one is being denied their right to express any sort of valid opinion, and I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that Jeska (or anyone they may appoint as moderator) can differentiate between what an opinion is, and what trolling forum spam is. We all can.

Okay yes, absolutely very valid point you have there and I think you're right - that's not freedom of speech to me that's just being an asshole and yes, I for one have no problem with someone being in charge of getting rid of postings in forums like that. But, as long as it's just postings like that. Is that a responsibility for just one person? Just one Jeska? Okay me thinks I may be trying to dive in too deep. Wouldn't it just be wonderful if everyone followed the rules and acted like the mature adults they are supposed to be? *sighs*

Alright, slight tangent here -- well, getting back to the subject, really...

How about this?

Before their first post, users must "unlock" their accounts by reading this http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/ or something similar, and then score 60% or better on a related test. Ha ha, only serious.

Where should lines be drawn? I have a vivid memory of trying to get a friend to sign up for SL who, looking over my shoulder while I was on the forum page, snorted "You actually pay money to keep company with these lunatics?" I was disappointed enough, and embarrassed enough for the SL community to consequently have a yearning for clear sharp lines -- while simultaneously harboring no belief that such a line can, or should, be drawn.

Certainly there are obvious laundry-list boundaries that no civilized person will disagree with: no hate speech, etc. But that's not much of a problem in the SL forums. If the places where each of us become uncomfortable could be plotted on a scatter gram, I'm sure the chart would indicate a no-mans-land with a very thick and very gray shell-ridden line. There is much in the forums which I find horrifyingly disturbing -- but it is the function of those who compose such posts to do just that: to shake people like me up, to make me think.

I see forum moderation then, less as a sharp line drawn in the sand, and more like a chess game -- wherein conduct is regulated as a response to the overall tone, the overall direction of a thread. This is admittedly reactive and can be very arbitrary, even capricious. Although I'm suspicious of advocating it, I believe it leaves the most room for open dialog if moderated artfully -- I can think of no other word for it. What dictates this art? I liked the analogy earlier where someone said in effect "Where bacteria ceases to be yogurt and begins to promote disease." But where that happens, who can say? I know I can't and have it hold true and fair for all of us.

To my sensibilities, it's when a thread ceases to be about ideas or issues, and becomes one about identifiable people. I approve of say, the no-naming rule, but I consider it an often "gamed" band-aid of marginal utility -- where someone will post suspicions of an SL resident "whose name rhymes with..." or "who owns land at Whateversim (34,50)" I am nauseated when an identifiable resident is held for public display under suspicion to a mob, and who must thereafter justify him/herself to that mob. If there is anything to the suspicions that motivate such posts, those suspicions should be given to the Lindens for review. It is not for the community to ask for, demand, or evaluate "evidence" of an individual's actions. I see no place for public scrutiny of living, breathing people in the forums -- only for ideas and issues. Many will eloquently disagree with me on this, and I cannot conscientiously suggest it as a line; it is simply my point on a gray scatter gram.

I would charge a forum moderator with only this: Protect the exchange of ideas; protect the individuals in your community. At their best, the forums are reminiscent of The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers -- where people who gave a damn argued ideas to create a country. Promote that as you can with the tolerance and sound judgment of your experience. I am prepared to trust you with that.

Jeska,

In some of the most rambunctious boards here, you cannot draw a clear line at all. The process of policing these boards – the process of protecting the people who are really here to participate sincerely and bring value to this culture – needs to be an active, intuitive, personal process. Almost artistic, certainly craftsman like. The moderator needs to make decisions on a case by case basis, always keeping in mind that we are here to accomplish one thing first: the business of building a world. I’m sure this level of control frightens some people – maybe even yourself – but it shouldn’t. It’s much better to have a policeman from the neighborhood than to use the National Guard to respond to our domestic disputes.

If you like, you can maintain boards for other things. You can have off topic boards, special interest boards, bug reporting boards, etc., as we do. Each of these should have a stated purpose as well. And when people turn the bug reporting board into some sort of multitudinous melee, then they need to be pushed out of that board by whatever means are most efficient. My own board for the Leftists group has a much different purpose from any other board, and anything that does not defeat that purpose is allowed.

However, the boards that have been created for discussion of ideas and principals should not have a rigid ruler applied. We are most certainly going to exceed it often, and perhaps vigorously, even in discussions that move the culture rapidly forward. With specific guidelines beyond the TOS, we’ll put aside getting the job done, and switch to endless whinging about how or whether or why the rule was broken or not enforced or enforced unfairly.

Instead, you, and anyone who follows you, must focus on the duty of keeping this a (relatively) safe place (obedient to the TOS and Community Standards) for us to do the hard work of creating a cultural engine. People who find that strenuous, or too disturbing to watch, should be encouraged to go to another forum area where there ARE more rigid rules.

If we are to become something more than a collection of idle dilettantes pretending that ten bucks, a smile, and our mere presence are all we need to contribute, then we’re going to have to find a way to work with strongly opposing perspectives. It won’t help to simply tell them to stop being strongly opposed. We begin far apart and work to find the middle. If anyone has found a consistently polite and bloodless way to do that, then they’ve left me off the mailing list for it.

So, I would avoid creating a rule of “calmness” or “politeness” in the Working Boards. I would adhere to a continual awareness of how a discussion does – or doesn’t – contribute to the actual process of world-building.

Let those looking only for friendship have a nice quiet room for that - somewhere else.

I would just be happy if people quit namecalling. Anyone at all should be able to recognize that namecalling (calling a person, a human being, a whore for example) is abusive. Namecalling serves only to make the namecaller feel an inch taller than the person he or she is castigating, so only serves to perpetuate a diseased interaction. I would like to see people voluntarily cease from namecalling behaviour, recognizing the inherent ugliness and uselessness of the activity, but failing that, I would like to see posts that contain namecalling removed. that alone would serve to make the forums friendlier. ~ Perse

Love that site, gene. I will add it to some of my rl coursework for students in my English 100 course.

*bows* Now all I have to do is ensure that those students never, ever figure out my RL identity.

Those were both great posts, you guys, and echo my own feelings.

The problem of hijacking threads, however, is a real one, IMO. It's on my mind lately only because of a couple of threads I've started, looking for help in creating my corner of the "cultural engine," have been hijacked quite badly. (This one, for instance.)

While in this case and others there may be some other corner of the cultural engine that's being hammered out by the people who hijack threads in this way, I started the above-mentioned thread with a specific purpose in mind, in order to explore a specific corner of SL. To my eye, the usefulness of the forums as a tool for doing that is highly compromised when this sort of thing goes on.

I don't propose that Jeska lock or move threads whenever this happens -- I don't know what the solution is. (In this case, I've PM'd her saying I wouldn't complain if she moved the thread to off-topic.) But it would be nice if we could find some way to solve a problem like this.

One thing I've done in the past, which has worked, actually, is to leave the original thread to the people who've hijacked it and just start a new thread with the original idea restated. But in this case I don't have the energy for it, to tell you the truth, as even this brief episode has been a bit disheartening. It's not like I'm going to leave SL or the forums over it, but it makes it less likely that I'm going to try to explore ideas here in the future. And for that reason, I think there must be something that needs to be done.

The Lindens should leave everything about their forums exactly the way they are now, with exactly the same level of moderation or lack of moderation. In a new world, with so many genuine class and culture disputes, the forum is a healthy and even vitally necessary outlet. It absolutely must be left free, or else the Linden world will go the way of much the other predictable socialism-induced world they have created.

People constantly attack me, some quite viciously, some stalking me in the game, for my fervently expressed forum views. My mode of expression does not violate the TOS -- I have not been banned. It is the perception of some with whom I disagree that I "damage" or "hurt" SL but as I've pointed out many times, you can't damage a large, amorphous, chaotic, virtual world. Their sense of community, their closeknit, smug, self-righteous, self-referential, aggrandized sense may feel a puncture, but hey, that's what robust commentary in a democracy is all about (Times v. Sullivan).

Large totalitarian and repressive structures, whether the Catholic Church at various historical stages, or the Soviet government, or even [your favorite government to hate] use the same method: they mount a concept that there is a collective, and the lonely individual violates the collective ethic. They say that dissent against a theological creed is "blasphemy of the Holy Spirit". They say criticism of the government is "deliberately false fabrications slandering the socialist state". They say that the lone dissenter is a "parasite" or a "wrecker and a splitter". All of those types of systems fail, because they have no open, transparent, self-corrective mechanisms. Don't let SL become that way, too, because of the smug, narrow-minded notion of what a "community" is and what "damages" it or "doesn't damage it".

The reason forums become so nasty and bitter is not due to moderation problems but due to lack of in-game, in-world, reliable and respected dispute procedures enforced by Lindens or by respected players. There is no Better Business Bureau -- and there should be -- one where respected players, without fear or favor of Lindens, can investigate serious (not frivolous) allegations of poor or unscrupulous or even criminal business practices, and work to both eliminate them through naming and shaming, and work to establishing an ethical business culture. This will be a sliding scale hotly debated by some -- some won't stop unless ruthless rapacious oligarchic capitalism rages, and some won't be happy until stifling socialist forced equity prevails, but some happy norm can prevail with just some collective common sense by the mass of players, rather than the select few in the government experiment sims.

The Lindens have not figured out how to charge for CPU usage and strain on the servers. Most disputes have to do with sim-lagging, and they have not figured out how to make it so that some methed-out pea-brain with a stupid boxy laggy club with dumb weapons and banning scripts on 2048 square meters -- or for that matter, the oligarchic land baron who happens to grab half a telehub sim -- can be prevented from lagging adults trying to enjoy their purchases on 4 neighbouring sims, totalling hundreds of thousands of square meters. They need to do that, or they will lose customers.

Viewblockers and ugly builds are another major, major reason for disputes, and the Lindens need to allow players to form community associations on sims, or across sims, that attempt to examine and mediate such complaints and attempt to get selfish inconsiderate viewblockers and laggy box builders to become more considerate, and to get priggish self-righteous mediocrities to tolerate some experimental builds better. The way to encourage this process is not to change a thing about the posting of these issues here in the forums, but better yet, to encourage their resolution in the game in a player-based organizational mode where players can function without fear of accusation of TOS violation.

If the Lindens would create zoned residential and zoned club or mall sims, 90 percent of the player disputes would dry up, and 90 percent of the forum sniping would dry up. When the Lindens fix their game, they will have fixed their forum.

I belong to about 15 different internet forums that I actively post on. These forums vary but include, curly hair, cars, mommys, geek, football, secondlife, black republicans, and Zen. All of these boards and others not mentioned have disputes between posters and threads turn nasty. That is human nature, especially on the internet, there is no way to avoid it and it is pointless to try. The boards that I have been on that have decided to rule with an iron fist have died a quick death, because posters just leave. People enjoy conflict as much as they claim to wish to lead drama-free lives, if they didn't we wouldnt have thriving Televion, Movies, and a culture of gossip.

The forum culture reminds of the movies Gremlins. With the forum goers (myself included) more like the scaley ones than the fuzzy ones

I don't get it what you are saying, Prokofy. Because we don't have mediators that makes forum culture bad? I think the idea of being more respectful to one another in and out of world would go a long long long long way toward making forum culture more positive. And, engaging in namecalling (nomatter the behaviour or profile of the person called down) acheives the namecaller nothing other than a misplaced sense of importance.

Genuine self esteem and community culture can never result from putting someone else down. Namecalling is abusive, pure and simple. get rid of that and you get rid of 80% of the nastiness in the forums.

Fix the game and the lack of dispute resolution mechanisms that are player-based and reliable and trusted, and you will fix the forums. The forums are merely an outlet of the egregious frustrations of the game.

There are no mediators in the game that are trusted to establish not only TOS, but harder-to-legislate things like respect for neighbours. You cannot be in constant goody-goody Mr. Community Helper mode all the time, a role that some play with fake sincerity, when there are some really sharp issues at stake and real clashes. You can't gloss over them.

I think the Lindens are pretty vigorous in warning people about name-calling. Don't confuse a sharp determination, or a pointed comment with "name-calling". When people degenerate to writing "you ignorant twit" the thread is usually winding down anyway, and the Lindens are about to lock it anyway. But don't confuse that problem of lack of forum decorum, with the rightful and just explanations of why classes of people happen to *be* ignorant twits for whatever reason.

I don't think so.

I DO agree that a dispute resolution mechanism for the game is sorely needed, but I don't think that would have much impact on the forums.

People who are reasonable ALREADY don't flame (i.e. the kind of people who would accept adjudication results and move on). The fact that someone lashes out with insults, character assassination or slander is evidence enough that they are NOT inherently reasonable and probably will NOT accept any judgement anyway. They are no less likely to rant just becuase some kangaroo court has pronounced them wrong.

Declaring winners and losers will introduce gloating into the mix, and may make the forum flames worse instead of better. vs will NOT be pretty.

1. There can be no ongoing discourse without some degree of moderation, if only to kill off the hardcore trolls.

i agree with this.

It takes rather more moderation than that to create a complex, nuanced, civil discourse. If you want that to happen, you have to give of yourself. Providing the space but not tending the conversation is like expecting that your front yard will automatically turn itself into a garden.

i would say it takes rather more effort than that to create complex, nuanced, civil disourse. moderation is not limited to removing posts, locking threads, quelling posters, etc.; it is also about encouraging the threads one wants to grow. using the front yard metaphor, one pulls the weeds and water the plants.

ll is decent at weeding, but not very good at watering the plants.

in general, removing posts or posters is an undesirable action.

2. Once you have a well-established online conversation space, with enough regulars to explain the local mores to newcomers, they’ll do a lot of the policing themselves.

while this is often true, this is less true in sl at this time, because the local mores have not been established.

3. You own the space. You host the conversation. You don’t own the community.

this is why rearranging the forums, closing threads abritrarily, and removing things like the rants forums rankles people in the forums.

but you own the space, and if you decide to do something, own up to it, and face the (most often unpleasant) consequences. this does one very important thing; it earns respect. respect is the greatest source of power a moderator has; a moderator with no respect has no power. i'm not talking overt power, but social power.

and the counterpart of that is, if one makes a mistake, then one should own up to it, also. again this build respect, but it also lowers the bar on how perfect forum goers expect the moderators to be.

and that goes back to comments i made long ago about clarity, consistency, and transparency. when a moderators actions are clear, consistent, and transparent (as often as possible), then there is much less bitching when the moderators use their powers. for example, when pathfinder linden closed a thread because he deemed it irrelavent, that violated consistency because no thread of that type had ever been closed for that reason before. that also violated clarity, because relevance is a subjective measure; obviously someone thought it was relevant, or they would not have ressurected the thread. and the first two violation with the suspicion that pathfinder was weaseling around the real reason he closed the thread was because he didn't like it; this violates transparency - the reason something is being done become obscured.

clarity, consistency, and transparency are not things that need to be codified or even explicitedly stated - at least not is a dynamic social situation, because their existence is given substance through demonstrated actions. one's actions demonstrates that one follows those principles; codifying the principles does not mean they will be followed.

4. Message persistence rewards people who write good comments.

this is true for smaller forums whose threads roll off the first page less often, but having a linden resurrect a 3-4 day old thread might be considered a reward

rewarding good behavior is something ll is not very good at - actually ll is really bad about this. ll tends to respond to threads where people are complaining, which tells people if they want to get heard they should complain. ll hardly ever responds publically to threads they like, which tells people that being civil doesn't get results. among other not so good measures. i've said this over and over - rewarding good behavior is much more effective than punishing bad behavior. and in most social situations attention (any kind of attention) is a kind of reward.

5. Over-specific rules are an invitation to people who get off on gaming the system.

amen. follow the spirit of the law - not the letter. watching ll sit on their hands in cases where the spirit of the law has been clearly violated, but the letter has not is very frustrating.

7. Things to cherish: Your regulars. A sense of community. Real expertise. Genuine engagement with the subject under discussion. Outstanding performances. Helping others. Cooperation in maintenance of a good conversation. Taking the time to teach newbies the ropes.

i'm going to harp on this again. ll is bad about rewarding people in the forums for doing what ll likes to see.

10. Another important rule: You can let one jeering, unpleasant jerk hang around for a while, but the minute you get two or more of them egging each other on, they both have to go, and all their recent messages with them. There are others like them prowling the net, looking for just that kind of situation. More of them will turn up, and they’ll encourage each other to behave more and more outrageously. Kill them quickly and have no regrets.

the sl forums have seen instances of this over and over.

This is a big part of the problem: the assumption that any of us flawed humans is so much superior to any of the rest of us flawed humans. That thinking is downright baboonish (note i did not call a person anything, but a behaviour something). Baboons create social stress for one another pretty much the same way we humans do. This need to try to assert how great we are because other people are ignorant twits is just low evolution behaviour.

It is true that I was born with all the same baboon traits as namecallers and without wings, but by golly I learned how to board a plane anyway. We can muster our resolve to evolve into the higher order of life that we claim to be. One really good example of this would be to not assume that we are better than others because we have an opinion they don't share or a skillset that they don't share. I could pick at people's punctuation errors (such as mine earlier in the thread(missing a semicolon)) all day long to make myself feel better and think to myself everyone else is an ignorant twit. But in fact, that would just make me an ignorant twit. hehe. We are each in our process. If we were perfect, we would be done and should be dead already. In other words: we are ALL ignorant twits, so don't feel too special over there. ;-D

Wow Torley very well said I would have to agree with this also. I have nothing to add.

Cat