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This is a real problem. My project dealt with someone who dominated discussions and frequently responded with outright false information. We tried very hard to

This is a real problem. My project dealt with someone who dominated discussions and frequently responded with outright false information. We tried very hard to work with them, but they wouldn't change, and after asking a lot of other maintainers how they would handle it, and giving many warnings, we eventually banned them despite them not really breaking rules per se. What ultimately convinced us banning was appropriate was people reminding us that it was within our rights and duties as community maintainers to create a welcoming environment for everyone, and seeing regular members stop participating because of them.

barkingcat 3y ago
What's wrong with banning someone you've asked repeated to change their behaviour while interacting in a space that you host? Nothing!
- csnover 3y ago
  Right or wrong, it can be a really difficult thing to do when the problem behaviour is not due to malice. You’re taking away a community from someone, and in my experience, usually it’s someone who doesn’t have many other social outlets. It does not feel good to get pleading emails from these sorts of folks, knowing that you have to stand firm and say ‘no’ for the health of the wider community.
  - cgriswald 3y ago
    Sometimes these people need a hard truth. I’d say most times. They usually won’t “get it” in the moment, but the only way they can ever get it is if someone respects them enough to say it. These sorts of bans aren’t just good for the community. They’re also good for the recipient. (I’d only say that in the short term, depending on the person, there could be a danger of self harm and people should always be kind and careful.) It doesn’t feel good. But that pain you feel is you caring about that person. Understanding that makes it easier.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - Pannoniae 3y ago
      "someone respects them enough to say it." "They’re also good for the recipient." I've never seen anyone learning anything from being permabanned from anywhere. This is just post-facto justification to make yourself feel better for removing those people - but don't believe it even for a second that you've helped them in any way. Helping the community? Could be. Helping the banned person? Hell no.
      - cgriswald 3y ago
        Is it your experience that the only party to benefit from ending a relationship is the one ending it?
        Pannoniae 3y ago
        Correct
        cgriswald 3y ago
        That’s a pretty singular experience.
        Pannoniae 3y ago
        All of us have a singular experience, I only shared mine because it wasn't matching with yours. What's wrong with it?^^
        cgriswald 3y ago
        To the degree that anything is 'wrong', it's your argument. You haven't experienced a thing even indirectly, therefore, you conclude, anyone else who claims to have experienced this thing must be lying (at least to themselves) to make themselves feel better about bad actions which harm others. This is just cynicism. Your argument also requires the hidden assumption that the person making the claim you disagree with (specifically me), was the person performing the action rather than the recipient of the action. While it is true I have ended relationships (including permabans), it was by being the recipient of such endings that I came by my knowledge so this assumption in a practical sense is false.
  - sublinear 3y ago
    > usually it’s someone who doesn’t have many other social outlets You can always push them to a misc channel and if the community really likes them they'll chat over there?
  - echelon 3y ago
    This is the difference between banning in the aughts versus now. Banning used to come with a lot of consideration and sympathy. Often multiple attempts to outreach were made. In the social media era, not only do we ban without prejudice, we shadow ban (leaving them to think they're talking to people), ban on presumption (banning Redditors based on other subreddits they use), and take joy in shutting down those we disagree with (freedom of speech for me, not for thee). The new tactic on Reddit is to block someone when you disagree with them - this prevents them from ever interacting with any thread you post in, even the sibling posts. We love to silence people these days. I just wish it didn't come with a wide blast radius beyond peoples' own personal consumption.
    - fireflash38 3y ago
      Nah, people were always ban happy, and often rude or ghosting. That hasn't changed one bit.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      I find blocks are almost necessary for me to be able to stand to use Mastodon. There are a lot of decent people there and participating can feel really worthwhile to me but there are a lot of very angry people and even 1% of crazy angry toots can wreck my mood and I feel I wouldn’t want to participate otherwise. One kind of behavior I can’t stand is people who call other people “fascists” indiscriminately because they are comfortable in their own skin or think we should have a police department or because they are a landlord evicting a tenant who didn’t pay the rent, or whatever. Much of the time I agree or largely agree with them on a lot of issues but it’s the hate I can’t stand. So I am really quick to block on expressed hate, particularly when associated with certain issues that quickly get flagged on Hacker News as it seems many participants immediately resort to name calling against anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest or even expresses uncertainty on the issue. You could make the case that these people really deserve a correction and that, who knows, the way they are they are driving people away from their side and helping “the fascists” get elected (for any political activity I think you have to ask the question of “who does this really help?”). This behavior is self-reinforcing and unfortunately these people surround themselves with other people who do the same things and many of them respond quite hatefully when you call out their behavior so I’d be doing nothing but arguing with these people and getting exhausted… without the block button.
  - jiofj 3y ago
    >You’re taking away a community from someone, and in my experience, usually it’s someone who doesn’t have many other social outlets. This is not your problem.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > usually it’s someone who doesn’t have many other social outlets A support forum is not a "social outlet".
    - xethos 3y ago
      Depends how few people you interact with on a day-to-day basis
    - naniwaduni 3y ago
      That only requires you to scrap the word "other" without really changing the underlying point...
- d0mine 3y ago
  "not really breaking any rules per se"
  - j16sdiz 3y ago
    It's easy. You are the host, you define the rule.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mid-kid 3y ago
People should be reminded that rules are more of a guideline than a strict plan to follow, especially in the online world. Banning people is a crucial part of forming a community, and you should feel no shame for applying it where necessary to guide the atmosphere towards a better place.
hitekker 3y ago
Most internet community rules seem to spawn from a fear of authority. A mutual fear from the rank-and-file and the rulers. Endlessly debating a million little rules is safer than questioning each other's judgement. Authority resolves both those situations efficiently, but it demands a morality: a fair standard applied across all people. A lot of rules seem to be trying to create that standard on paper, when that standard does not exist in the heart. If I were to go on a limb, "inclusivity" is the fear of being exclusive, which forms only in a vacuum of authority: the unquestioned power to decide who is in, and who is out.
- posix86 3y ago
  You might be describing how the Bible got created
  - hitekker 3y ago
    Possibly. I was thinking more about Bay Area tech people who can't handle deep conflicts and outsource morality to their managers. But hey what do you know there is a Bible verse for this: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18%3A15&version=RSV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18%3A15...
Modified3019 3y ago
Good call. A good video related to this: "Assholes Are Ruining Your Project. Donnie Berkholz (RedMonk)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSli7QW4rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSli7QW4rg
Fradow 3y ago
I've been there. On a Discord I used to moderate, there were a few people like that who did not really break any rule, or not in an egregious enough manner to deserve a ban individually A rule was made for that situation: "If the effort and/or stress associated with moderating you regarding rules or general behavior becomes too much of an issue, we will remove you from the server.". That rule has been used a few times since its implementation.
- tapland 3y ago
  Oh, why didn't it strike me to put that rule in writing. Some users waste hours and hours of moderator time per week and it would be nice to have a written rule to point to for a timeout
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    I use to run a lot of tasks on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and the hardest problem I had was the people I call “Superturkers” who would do a very high volume of work that is just barely acceptable in quality. On some level they are very hard working and if I banned them it would take longer to get my tasks completed. If they did 5% of the work that they do the low quality wouldn’t bother me because (1) a little of that diluted in the whole is OK and (2) the individuals would not come to my attention. With some feedback some of those people might get better (I was always open to paying more for quality) but I also didn’t want to get into arguments with those folks.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  Save yourself the rules-lawyer hassle and add a rule saying essentially "all the other rules are good-faith guidelines, but we can ban you for any reason we want." This is already a de facto rule in all forums/etc; forums that don't state it explicitly just have moderators stretch and contort the other rules to essentially become this rule anyway.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  A general principle I've used in moderation is that after I admonish someone about a behaviour what I expect is that they will scrupulously seek to keep as far clear of that line as possible. If they're hovering right over it, they're out, based on the administrative burden principle. The other rule is that all arguments with moderators are short, and lost.
Lacerda69 3y ago
I swing the banhammer early and often without remorse. If you don't learn after being reminded, there is no use keeping you around. 1 bad person can ruin it for everyone else - not having that. I believe in second chances but not in online communities.
Dudester230602 3y ago
At least there is some punishment for you Discord-peddling lot.
boxed 3y ago
That can happen on github too..
Arisaka1 3y ago
It's even worse because whoever has enough free time to lurk and misinform also has the free time to network, so those people won't get necessarily banned but sometimes also be rewarded for being active in the community. For example there's a bot Discord servers can utilize that awards users with points and levels for nothing more than volume. So you see the colored name and the wall of ranks and the beginner thinks "so they're recognized as an authority around here therefore they're correct".

barkingcat 3y ago

What's wrong with banning someone you've asked repeated to change their behaviour while interacting in a space that you host? Nothing!

csnover 3y ago
Right or wrong, it can be a really difficult thing to do when the problem behaviour is not due to malice. You’re taking away a community from someone, and in my experience, usually it’s someone who doesn’t have many other social outlets. It does not feel good to get pleading emails from these sorts of folks, knowing that you have to stand firm and say ‘no’ for the health of the wider community.
- cgriswald 3y ago
  Sometimes these people need a hard truth. I’d say most times. They usually won’t “get it” in the moment, but the only way they can ever get it is if someone respects them enough to say it. These sorts of bans aren’t just good for the community. They’re also good for the recipient. (I’d only say that in the short term, depending on the person, there could be a danger of self harm and people should always be kind and careful.) It doesn’t feel good. But that pain you feel is you caring about that person. Understanding that makes it easier.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Pannoniae 3y ago
    "someone respects them enough to say it." "They’re also good for the recipient." I've never seen anyone learning anything from being permabanned from anywhere. This is just post-facto justification to make yourself feel better for removing those people - but don't believe it even for a second that you've helped them in any way. Helping the community? Could be. Helping the banned person? Hell no.
    - cgriswald 3y ago
      Is it your experience that the only party to benefit from ending a relationship is the one ending it?
      - Pannoniae 3y ago
        Correct
        cgriswald 3y ago
        That’s a pretty singular experience.
        Pannoniae 3y ago
        All of us have a singular experience, I only shared mine because it wasn't matching with yours. What's wrong with it?^^
        cgriswald 3y ago
        To the degree that anything is 'wrong', it's your argument. You haven't experienced a thing even indirectly, therefore, you conclude, anyone else who claims to have experienced this thing must be lying (at least to themselves) to make themselves feel better about bad actions which harm others. This is just cynicism. Your argument also requires the hidden assumption that the person making the claim you disagree with (specifically me), was the person performing the action rather than the recipient of the action. While it is true I have ended relationships (including permabans), it was by being the recipient of such endings that I came by my knowledge so this assumption in a practical sense is false.
- sublinear 3y ago
  > usually it’s someone who doesn’t have many other social outlets You can always push them to a misc channel and if the community really likes them they'll chat over there?
- echelon 3y ago
  This is the difference between banning in the aughts versus now. Banning used to come with a lot of consideration and sympathy. Often multiple attempts to outreach were made. In the social media era, not only do we ban without prejudice, we shadow ban (leaving them to think they're talking to people), ban on presumption (banning Redditors based on other subreddits they use), and take joy in shutting down those we disagree with (freedom of speech for me, not for thee). The new tactic on Reddit is to block someone when you disagree with them - this prevents them from ever interacting with any thread you post in, even the sibling posts. We love to silence people these days. I just wish it didn't come with a wide blast radius beyond peoples' own personal consumption.
  - fireflash38 3y ago
    Nah, people were always ban happy, and often rude or ghosting. That hasn't changed one bit.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    I find blocks are almost necessary for me to be able to stand to use Mastodon. There are a lot of decent people there and participating can feel really worthwhile to me but there are a lot of very angry people and even 1% of crazy angry toots can wreck my mood and I feel I wouldn’t want to participate otherwise. One kind of behavior I can’t stand is people who call other people “fascists” indiscriminately because they are comfortable in their own skin or think we should have a police department or because they are a landlord evicting a tenant who didn’t pay the rent, or whatever. Much of the time I agree or largely agree with them on a lot of issues but it’s the hate I can’t stand. So I am really quick to block on expressed hate, particularly when associated with certain issues that quickly get flagged on Hacker News as it seems many participants immediately resort to name calling against anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest or even expresses uncertainty on the issue. You could make the case that these people really deserve a correction and that, who knows, the way they are they are driving people away from their side and helping “the fascists” get elected (for any political activity I think you have to ask the question of “who does this really help?”). This behavior is self-reinforcing and unfortunately these people surround themselves with other people who do the same things and many of them respond quite hatefully when you call out their behavior so I’d be doing nothing but arguing with these people and getting exhausted… without the block button.
- jiofj 3y ago
  >You’re taking away a community from someone, and in my experience, usually it’s someone who doesn’t have many other social outlets. This is not your problem.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > usually it’s someone who doesn’t have many other social outlets A support forum is not a "social outlet".
  - xethos 3y ago
    Depends how few people you interact with on a day-to-day basis
  - naniwaduni 3y ago
    That only requires you to scrap the word "other" without really changing the underlying point...
d0mine 3y ago
"not really breaking any rules per se"
- j16sdiz 3y ago
  It's easy. You are the host, you define the rule.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

mid-kid 3y ago

People should be reminded that rules are more of a guideline than a strict plan to follow, especially in the online world. Banning people is a crucial part of forming a community, and you should feel no shame for applying it where necessary to guide the atmosphere towards a better place.

hitekker 3y ago

Most internet community rules seem to spawn from a fear of authority. A mutual fear from the rank-and-file and the rulers. Endlessly debating a million little rules is safer than questioning each other's judgement. Authority resolves both those situations efficiently, but it demands a morality: a fair standard applied across all people. A lot of rules seem to be trying to create that standard on paper, when that standard does not exist in the heart. If I were to go on a limb, "inclusivity" is the fear of being exclusive, which forms only in a vacuum of authority: the unquestioned power to decide who is in, and who is out.

posix86 3y ago
You might be describing how the Bible got created
- hitekker 3y ago
  Possibly. I was thinking more about Bay Area tech people who can't handle deep conflicts and outsource morality to their managers. But hey what do you know there is a Bible verse for this: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18%3A15&version=RSV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+18%3A15...

Modified3019 3y ago

Good call. A good video related to this: "Assholes Are Ruining Your Project. Donnie Berkholz (RedMonk)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSli7QW4rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSli7QW4rg

Fradow 3y ago

I've been there. On a Discord I used to moderate, there were a few people like that who did not really break any rule, or not in an egregious enough manner to deserve a ban individually A rule was made for that situation: "If the effort and/or stress associated with moderating you regarding rules or general behavior becomes too much of an issue, we will remove you from the server.". That rule has been used a few times since its implementation.

tapland 3y ago
Oh, why didn't it strike me to put that rule in writing. Some users waste hours and hours of moderator time per week and it would be nice to have a written rule to point to for a timeout
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  I use to run a lot of tasks on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and the hardest problem I had was the people I call “Superturkers” who would do a very high volume of work that is just barely acceptable in quality. On some level they are very hard working and if I banned them it would take longer to get my tasks completed. If they did 5% of the work that they do the low quality wouldn’t bother me because (1) a little of that diluted in the whole is OK and (2) the individuals would not come to my attention. With some feedback some of those people might get better (I was always open to paying more for quality) but I also didn’t want to get into arguments with those folks.
mcpackieh 3y ago
Save yourself the rules-lawyer hassle and add a rule saying essentially "all the other rules are good-faith guidelines, but we can ban you for any reason we want." This is already a de facto rule in all forums/etc; forums that don't state it explicitly just have moderators stretch and contort the other rules to essentially become this rule anyway.
dredmorbius 3y ago
A general principle I've used in moderation is that after I admonish someone about a behaviour what I expect is that they will scrupulously seek to keep as far clear of that line as possible. If they're hovering right over it, they're out, based on the administrative burden principle. The other rule is that all arguments with moderators are short, and lost.

Lacerda69 3y ago

I swing the banhammer early and often without remorse. If you don't learn after being reminded, there is no use keeping you around. 1 bad person can ruin it for everyone else - not having that. I believe in second chances but not in online communities.

Dudester230602 3y ago

At least there is some punishment for you Discord-peddling lot.

boxed 3y ago

That can happen on github too..

Arisaka1 3y ago

It's even worse because whoever has enough free time to lurk and misinform also has the free time to network, so those people won't get necessarily banned but sometimes also be rewarded for being active in the community. For example there's a bot Discord servers can utilize that awards users with points and levels for nothing more than volume. So you see the colored name and the wall of ranks and the beginner thinks "so they're recognized as an authority around here therefore they're correct".