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Sort of. It's like shadowbanning/hellbanning. It solves a lot of problems for moderators and prevents angry people from escalating the situation into actually b
by malwarebytess 5y ago
Sort of. It's like shadowbanning/hellbanning. It solves a lot of problems for moderators and prevents angry people from escalating the situation into actually being banned.
I've used it before as a moderator. For the above reasons, but mostly because I'm lazy and don't want to deal with angry people. Still censorship though. I think that ideally censorship ought to be communicated.
- lmilcin 5y ago>because I'm lazy Yeah, you described it well. Start by understanding, Mr Moderator, there is a hell of a lot of difference between public posts and private messages.
- cronix 5y agoNot if your goal is to censor a viewpoint. They are one in the same whether it's a viewpoint made in public or private - the main point of censorship is to not allow you to communicate certain thoughts. It amazes me that some posts here (not yours, but like the one you're responding to) have already seeded the censorship ground. For them it seems the question isn't whether it's ok to censor opposing viewpoints, but whether they should be told they've been censored. The censorship part is a-ok, but not if you're not informed?
- ericbarrett 5y agoI've moderated a forum before. Some people on the Internet are just crazy. If you ban them, they will come after you—maybe even in person. Shadowbanning on forums (setting aside the FB case) is sometimes abused, but it serves a vital purpose: preserving the time and safety of volunteer moderators.
- pseudo0 5y agoDon't they just get twice as annoyed when they realize that not only were they banned, but they were silently banned and wasted time writing posts that went straight to /dev/null? The only time shadowbanning seems like a good solution is outright commercial spam and link farming, where slowing them down is a win in itself.
- wvenable 5y agoThey get annoyed but not in the same way; the craziest want an audience and if you don't give it to them they generally move on.
- hutzlibu 5y ago"They get annoyed but not in the same way" I would be carefuly about that. "and if you don't give it to them they generally move on." The craziest has lots of stuff going on. Lots of anger and hate. So if they decide, that you are their mortal enemy for shadow banning them, they might not move on.
- wvenable 5y agoIt's not worse than just directly modding them -- that gives them more direct rage fuel.
- prawn 5y agoI’ve run a forum for 15+ years and found shadowbanning vital in dealing with nutbags. As OP said, some people will pursue you personally and get obsessive. They have one forum they are obsessed with. You have thousands of users that are potentially like this.