5 ms·

People who are caught doing bad things tend to lie about it (they are already people who are willing to break the rules, so lying isn't such a stretch). Man, t

People who are caught doing bad things tend to lie about it (they are already people who are willing to break the rules, so lying isn't such a stretch). Man, tell me about it. I was a moderator for the Vault Network message boards back in the days when it was still around. It's hard to overstate how hard some people will work to make people they disagree with look bad. People would post super racists, hateful, gross comments and images to the board, get a ban, and then try to go on an alt account and complain about the moderator who banned them. The moderator would remove that post (discussing mod actions was against the rules) and then that person (and others) would use that as a reason that the mods were evil, biased people just trying to silence disagreement. They would go so far as sending personal messages to individual mods (both on and off the boards) who they assumed were responsible. The worst attacks somehow usually made it to a mod that wasn't involved, usually a woman. It really gave me an appreciation for how hateful and deplorable some people can get when they can remain anonymous.

M_Grey 10y ago
At the end of the day, broken, obsessive people with no jobs and no lives will always be more committed to their activities than the functional people who monitor them. The only true solution is that a vast majority of people learn to recognize them online, and ignore/avoid them. Anything else will eventually be subverted or overrun.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  This is the best argument I've ever seen for hellbans. Yes, they're capricious and unfair and opaque, but troll-hours so outweigh mod-hours that it's worth considering any tool that helps create leverage for moderators.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    I couldn't agree more, and I'd just emphasize that no one likes hellbans, including the people who have to impose them. On and offline, we always seem engaged in some form of distasteful, yet necessary asymmetric conflict.
Bahamut 10y ago
I've experienced this during my time modding - there are some truly awful people out there. Eventually this particular site took some significant actions to shut down the problem and did a lot of banning (even IP banning users), and those users defected to sites like 4chan...things became quite peaceful in the decade or so since then. No more having to deal with drama like a user tricking an underaged girl to send him nude pics and then posting them on the forums, or users creating erotica or demeaning fanfics about other users they hated & having it stored behind a server that routed you to different content depending on whether you had an IP address of a mod, or trolling of heightened proportions. Moderation is a thankless job.
jobu 10y ago
> It really gave me an appreciation for how hateful and deplorable some people can get when they can remain anonymous. Back in 2004, Penny Arcade wrote a comic that articulated this better than anything else I've seen (https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19) Normal person + anonymity + audience = total fuckwad The caveat being that some people only need an audience to completely lose social inhibitions and act inappropriately.
y7 10y ago
> (discussing mod actions was against the rules) To be fair, I think that's a bad rule. Any type of government – even when it's something small like the moderator team of an internet forum – should have some accountability towards the people it governs.
- Goronmon 10y ago
  To be fair, I think that's a bad rule. It's a bad rule, but necessary. If you allow people to argue about mod actions then it basically means any thread requiring mod actions now needs to be locked because then the topic would become arguments about moderation practices. Additionally, at least half the threads on every board become arguments about "Why was so-and-so banned?", "Why was this topic deleted?", "Why are the moderators so terrible?". If you edit/warn/ban 3 people in a thread, you would have 3+ (someone unrelated always has to butt in, or maybe someone uses both their main and alt accounts to complain) new threads arguing about why you are a terrible mod. I mean, we had no problems sharing information anyone requested it via personal message, within reason.

M_Grey 10y ago

At the end of the day, broken, obsessive people with no jobs and no lives will always be more committed to their activities than the functional people who monitor them. The only true solution is that a vast majority of people learn to recognize them online, and ignore/avoid them. Anything else will eventually be subverted or overrun.

Bartweiss 10y ago
This is the best argument I've ever seen for hellbans. Yes, they're capricious and unfair and opaque, but troll-hours so outweigh mod-hours that it's worth considering any tool that helps create leverage for moderators.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  I couldn't agree more, and I'd just emphasize that no one likes hellbans, including the people who have to impose them. On and offline, we always seem engaged in some form of distasteful, yet necessary asymmetric conflict.

Bahamut 10y ago

I've experienced this during my time modding - there are some truly awful people out there. Eventually this particular site took some significant actions to shut down the problem and did a lot of banning (even IP banning users), and those users defected to sites like 4chan...things became quite peaceful in the decade or so since then. No more having to deal with drama like a user tricking an underaged girl to send him nude pics and then posting them on the forums, or users creating erotica or demeaning fanfics about other users they hated & having it stored behind a server that routed you to different content depending on whether you had an IP address of a mod, or trolling of heightened proportions. Moderation is a thankless job.

jobu 10y ago

> It really gave me an appreciation for how hateful and deplorable some people can get when they can remain anonymous. Back in 2004, Penny Arcade wrote a comic that articulated this better than anything else I've seen (https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19) Normal person + anonymity + audience = total fuckwad The caveat being that some people only need an audience to completely lose social inhibitions and act inappropriately.

y7 10y ago

> (discussing mod actions was against the rules) To be fair, I think that's a bad rule. Any type of government – even when it's something small like the moderator team of an internet forum – should have some accountability towards the people it governs.

Goronmon 10y ago
To be fair, I think that's a bad rule. It's a bad rule, but necessary. If you allow people to argue about mod actions then it basically means any thread requiring mod actions now needs to be locked because then the topic would become arguments about moderation practices. Additionally, at least half the threads on every board become arguments about "Why was so-and-so banned?", "Why was this topic deleted?", "Why are the moderators so terrible?". If you edit/warn/ban 3 people in a thread, you would have 3+ (someone unrelated always has to butt in, or maybe someone uses both their main and alt accounts to complain) new threads arguing about why you are a terrible mod. I mean, we had no problems sharing information anyone requested it via personal message, within reason.