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This is an excellent, brave thing to write and I originally had a long comment highlighting a bunch of particularly poignant paragraphs that I deleted because r

by jmduke 12y ago

This is an excellent, brave thing to write and I originally had a long comment highlighting a bunch of particularly poignant paragraphs that I deleted because really you should just read the entire thing. Neither I nor the vast majority of the people I know have ever been subject to online harassment and it makes me thankful that there are incredible people like Kathy out there. Lord knows I wouldn't have the courage for something like this. In interest of actually fostering a discussion: I think there's a lot of merit in bringing back moderation, as suggested in the article, as sort of an internet cultural norm. Maybe it's confirmation bias: the highest-quality communities I've ever spent time in, MetaFilter and Something Awful [^1], both use incredibly stringent moderation -- but I feel HN has had a huge uptick in overall quality since the comments and content moderation has stepped up over the past months. I think that Twitter and Reddit have sort of made their bones on the idea that as long as you aren't doing anything that threatens the company in any way then you're given carte blanche. Twitter's ineffectiveness with dealing with harassment et al requests is notorious; and Reddit, as much as I love it at times, is a cesspool by default. [^2] At what point does the value proposition flip the other way? [^1]: I know, I peaked in like 2004. [^2]: I know this is not a popular opinion, but is growing increasingly painful to visit a site that willingly allows to exist subreddits devoted towards domestic abuse and snuff .

verroq 12y ago
>willingly allows to exist subreddits devoted towards domestic abuse and snuff Serious question: why does this even bother you?
- jmduke 12y ago
  That's a completely valid question, and the answer isn't something concrete. I think on one hand it's just overall indicative of the site's priorities (and again, I completely acknowledge that it's those same priorities which also helped foster the subreddits that I love) -- on the other hand, I think it's just the sense of heebie-jeebies, like being a pro bono lawyer for the mob or something -- as though my presence there is somehow contributing to something that I desparately don't want to exist. More broadly speaking, I would be very willing to bet that an internet community that places harsher standards on acceptable content would result in a better environment for those involved -- but Reddit's stance during the celebrity photo stuff reinforced their position of 'Reddit as a platform', and I don't see that going away.
  - serf 12y ago
    >> I think it's just the sense of heebie-jeebies That's the start of most 'war-on-obscenity' arguments, and usually leads to no constructive ideas. I hate the topic (abusive pornography/snuff) as much as you, but that rational is inappropriate given the peoples' wide variety of tastes in this world, if the material is indeed legal for your region of the world. >> More broadly speaking, I would be very willing to bet that an internet community that places harsher standards on acceptable content would result in a better environment for those involved historically that has only served to push users to other services. the success of the regionalization of 2channel into what 4chan is now is a good example. 4chan's success is widely attributed to the pseudo-anonymity that it's users enjoy, and the founder of the site spoke at TED a few years back on what exactly the benefits of such a relationship with their userbase is. http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for_anonymity_online?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for...
    - iSnow 12y ago
      >historically that has only served to push users to other services. But this is exactly what you want - get rid of the low-quality users and offload them somewhere else. reddit has gotten itself quite a questionable image tolerating pornographic jailbait, necrophiliac porn, stolen nudes and domestic abusers on its platform for very long.
      - verroq 12y ago
        And who is to say these users are inherently low quality? Enjoying any anything socially unacceptable doesn't preclude them from creating content you may enjoy in another subreddit.
        DanBC 12y ago
        While those users are creating and posting dog porn they are of low value to me. They're creating noise not signal; consuming resources; and creating negative brand associations. By asking them to take their dog porn elsewhere I risk losing them altogether (which currently isn't much loss) or they start posting other content.
- iherbig 12y ago
  I am not who you asked, but if I may step in? It bothers me for the same reason it bothers me that those things exist. They are terrible, and should not be given a platform. I don't feel that we, as a society, should tolerate terrible things in general, much less let them prosper.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    The problem there is that the range of what people consider "terrible" is quite broad. Who decides?
    - iherbig 12y ago
      Society decides. And sometimes it comes up with the wrong answers. But I don't think that pure freedom comes up with the right answers, either. There are consequences to both sides, and the consequences of no action can be just as bad as the consequences of too much action. There is a wide gap between being hesitant and serious about prohibiting things and accepting everything for fear of overreach, in my opinion. We need to work towards a middle-ground.
  - kansface 12y ago
    May I ask where you are from? Free speech - bigoted, hateful, maybe untrue, or otherwise, is perhaps the one enduring (sacred) tenet of American society.
    - cmdkeen 12y ago
      Harassment isn't. One of the big points of the article is that when law enforcement doesn't act that is justification that the action is legal and thus "free speech". Except that law enforcement almost never acts against online harassment. There are plenty of laws restricting free speech when it harms others, and I'd hope you agree that some of the examples in the article crosses the boundary into things that should be criminal.
      - makomk 12y ago
- adrianhoward 12y ago
  > Serious question: why does this even bother you? Not the person you aimed the question at, but… I worked as a volunteer counsellor for a few years in my twenties. Some of the stuff I encountered during those years was folk who were going through horrific, long-term abuse. One of the patterns that you notice is that abusers go to a lot of effort at times to show that their behaviour as normal. Both as a tool to justify it to themselves (this is normal — everybody does it — I'm not a bad person or doing anything bad), and as a tool to further control the abused (this is normal — this is what you should expect — you won't get any better elsewhere). Anecdotally the ones who can find or create an active "community" of abusers — where two best friends both hit their partners and acknowledge it to each other, where everybody in an extended family beats on their kids, etc. — the abuse is worse because there is little or no sense of shame in what's done. It's normal. Now this was the 90s. Before subreddits were around. But this is why it bothers me. Yes, it's just words. But those words are probably making the lives of other people worse.
- calibraxis 12y ago
  Such questions are favored by Reddit trolls, because they take virtually no time to formulate, require no effort in self-education, and eat up other people's time. Without rehashing the obvious problems of giving a platform to harassment, child porn, spam, etc, just read about how Reddit supported and profited off bros like Violentacrez. Just a little research shows these corporations intervene heavily — but in peculiar ways. http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the...
- fenomas 12y ago
  Reddit isn't the government; they're not under any obligation to permit all-speech-no-matter-how-odious. The site chooses who to provide with a platform - why shouldn't the poster you quoted judge them based on that choice?
McDoku 12y ago
Freedom of speech. The one jerk of a teacher I had, made me realize this. It is better they are out in the open, that they are confronted publicly. Those standing to be counted are not the dangerous ones.... it is the 10 more who agree silently. If it is driven to silence it does not disappear but is spoken in whispers. It is better that they are challenged in the open.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  And I think that's at the heart of why there isn't a technical or legal solution to these issues. Whatever solution will be found will be a social one, that's the only way to actually change what people feel and think and believe. And if they feel and think and believe it, they'll act on it in one way or another, no matter how you try to prevent it.
  - McDoku 12y ago
    Hearts and minds
  - cmdkeen 12y ago
    There is a commercial one. Twitter doesn't have to allow them to carry on in this fashion, and it is a massive enabler of trolls. It's attitude towards online abuse is shockingly neglectful. Trolls will always act, but that doesn't mean we have to put up with letting them use the some of the most powerful communications mediums of all time to do so. Twitter has a massive pulpit to make statements that influence social change. Deleting the weev account won't stop him, but would make a very powerful pronouncement about what the company views as unacceptable behaviour, would diminish his "credibility" and change the narrative.
    - waterlesscloud 12y ago
      That doesn't solve the problem, it just moves it to other venues.
      - 12y ago
deciplex 12y ago
>[^1]: I know, I peaked in like 2004. You joke (I think) but it's more like it went through a years-long period where it was really, really terrible. It's gotten better lately as far as I can tell. I'm posting there again after giving up on it years ago. But, they don't really have stringent moderation, I don't think. It's more that when they do moderate, it means something, because you can't just register another account and back to business as usual. Being an asshole costs money there, and most assholes are apparently not willing to pay the price. I don't know how to duplicate it without getting the critical mass first. It would be interesting if reddit suddenly switched to a paid model, but I really doubt that will ever happen.
- makomk 12y ago
  Also, complaining about how they moderate - including the lack of moderation - is against the rules over there, and they do enforce that rule. "If you do not like the mods or the moderation, feel free to not post here." So if anyone is unhappy about how Something Awful is moderated they can't really complain about it or tell if anyone else feels the same way. It seems to be a very effective tactic for them.
- CanSpice 12y ago
  Yeah, I was surprised to see Something Awful listed as an example of a place that does well. Back in the day (early 2000s) it was, like you said, really really terrible. When I think of "for the lulz" I think of SA. Reddit seems to be at the same stage now that SA was back then. There's a lot of good, but there's also a lot of bad and the admins don't seem to care to get rid of the bad. Of course, that was a decade ago. Maybe I should revisit it and see if my account's still there...
freshflowers 12y ago
Now that you mention Reddit, I've abandoned it because that cesspool is overflowing. It's no longer just the obscure subs, misogynist thrash from mainstream subs is hitting the front page on a daily basis.
- taliesinb 12y ago
  Me too. You end up feeling ambushed, because you'll be reading a bunch of witty, smart, and/or playful comments on some Reddit post, thinking "I don't know these people but they're fun", and then you randomly encounter some unchallenged misogyny or racism in the midst of it with plenty of upvotes. Can these people really exist? Do I want to even be reading something that people who repulse me are also reading? If you stick to subreddits thing are much better. For example, I lurk on r/rust a lot, and like other high-quality subreddits they have a stickied code of conduct to establish the ground rules. And the community there is extremely friendly and encouraging.
  - ryanpardieck 12y ago
    Personally I find the predominant brand of humor at Reddit to be annoying too. An interesting conversation devolves into five trailing one-liners circling around a pop culture reference ... ugh.
sheltgor 12y ago
I wholeheartedly agree that strong moderation does a LOT to foster strong communities, and frankly very positive ones. Both of my favorite subreddits do this very well, as does my favorite forum, and though you get the jokes about 'fascist mods' and the genuine complainers who would rather be able to troll to their hearts content (and who inevitably flame out in a couple months time), they are very enjoyable to be a part of. Rather than having inane comments, stupid back and forths, and, in the case of one more factually based subreddit, misleading comments, you get what the majority of well-intentioned people actually come for.
Niten 12y ago
I wouldn't call MetaFilter a particularly high quality community. Discussions there can have just as many trite and trollish comments as your average subreddit. How MetaFilter differs is in that it features a rigid, hierarchical moderation structure, with gatekeepers who ensure posted content meets the stringent politically-correct tastes of its leadership. As a result I have seen legitimately interesting, good-faith discussion censored there, for no other reason than that it offended the sensibilities of some moderator. (This article was removed by a moderator, for example: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software) It is a huge mistake to confuse enforced, intellectually sterile homogeneity for quality.
- arrrg 12y ago
  Yeah, this sexist trash was removed. Thankfully. I’m happy the MetaFilter will not give misogynists like yourself a place to be. And that’s perfectly alright. Keeping awful people out is the right of any community.
  - zyx321 12y ago
    Can we please keep this us vs them bullshit off HN? The linked blog, whether you agree with it or not, keeps a reasonably neutral tone throughout (even if the author's frustration is obvious). Agreeing with it does not automatically make someone a misogynist, and criticizing a moderator does not automatically make someone an awful person.
    - arrrg 12y ago
      Tone is no excuse and if you agree with awful stuff, well that’s on you. Communities wanting to keep such people out is an awesome policy.
      - zyx321 12y ago
        It's not no much about tone as it is about making a genuine, intellectually honest argument without resorting to ad hominem insults. Hell, one of the reasons I like coming to HN is precisely because the general consensus here is in many ways contrary to my political worldview. But I digress. You've made it clear that you regard homogeneity of opinions (and possibly outright censorship) as a good thing, and I doubt I can change your mind. There is little reason for me to continue this conversation (besides maybe grinding for karma).
makomk 12y ago
From what I've seen, incredibly stringent moderation creates the illusion of a high-quality community more than anything else. For example, a while ago Something Awful forum member's boyfriend posted something claiming that she'd been raped by another forum member, and the admin at the time decided to handle it by permanently banning everyone involved including the alleged victim. You wouldn't have seen any criticism of this on the forums at the time because doing so was a bannable offence; I'm not sure most people who used the forums even knew it happened. There were rumours that some of the moderators were blackmailing women on the forums for nude pics earlier on, but again they didn't make it onto the forums themselves.
- RankingMember 12y ago
  There was a moderator who turned out to be a convicted child molester (Aatrek), and it seems they knew prior, but didn't actually take action to remove him until it became general knowledge among forum members.
DanBC 12y ago
Moderation is hard toget right and it leaves the door open to destructive trolling. So, while I agree wth you that moderated spaces are better than unmoderated we need to rememberthat it's not a panacea.
- Argorak 12y ago
  It's pretty hard to learn moderation. There are almost no good resources and you have to learn through failure and reflection. (I've been moderating bulletin boards for 15 years)
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Have you ever looked at resources for in-person mediation? I wonder to what degree those translate (or what interesting ways they fail to).
    - Argorak 12y ago
      Yes, I also worked in fields where this was a hot topic. The discussion techniques are very similiar. I can recommend reading up in those fields. The problem is that online moderation has lots of particularities, especially the lack of face to face interaction. Not a lot of them are covered in published works.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Meatball wiki has a lot of great information. The trolling stuff, and makin things unfun and uninteresting are useful. The stuff about vested contributors and concern trolls are pretty good too. http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/VestedContributor http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/VestedContributor http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/TrollingTactic http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/TrollingTactic
    - Argorak 12y ago
      Thank you!
smoyer 12y ago
I agree completely and yet ... I feel a bit responsible too. In my mind, Kathy has credibility because she built it the old fashioned way - being worthy of trust. Being a Java developer, I watched JavaRanch grow and I especially loved watching her presentations (the BoS talks are amazing). And yet I under-appreciated what these attacks were doing to her as well as how severe they'd become. No having celebrity of my own, perhaps I can't understand it fully but what I could have done is at least speak against the growing hatred. I'm going to start refuting trolls (when I can) and I'm going to try to be that person who's dependable under fire - Kathy, I've got your back ... and I'm sorry for my quiet complicity with your past attackers. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Great attitude. But I wonder if 'refuting trolls' is the same as feeding them. What else is there to try?
  - unchocked 12y ago
    Regardless of attitude, she is most definitely feeding the trolls.
    - AnimalMuppet 12y ago
      Did you actually read the article? That's not feeding the trolls. That's, after six years of ignoring the trolls, deciding that it's gotten toxic enough that she needs to make a public refutation of weev's reality distortion field.
      - unchocked 12y ago
        Aren't trolls getting lulz off of this? If so, they've been fed, regardless of whatever reasons it's so. Nobody feeds trolls to keep them fat and happy; people feed trolls because they are against trolling, so we have to remind them to stop because it's counterproductive. I do think it's going to prove counterproductive for internet discourse as a whole.
golemotron 12y ago
> I know this is not a popular opinion, but is growing increasingly painful to visit a site that willingly allows to exist subreddits devoted towards domestic abuse and snuff. How do you feel about visiting a country that allows freedom of speech and association? I don't like many of the worst of the subreddits either, but allowing them is probably much better than forbidding them for the same reason that we allow such things within the US.
- mononcqc 12y ago
  That something is legal does not force it to be acceptable by any business whatsoever.
  - golemotron 12y ago
    That's not my argument. My argument is that there is inherent good in providing space for all opinions. That's what liberal democracy is about. Reddit gets to choose whether it will be one of those platforms and it looks like they have. You can boycott Reddit for that choice but why not boycott the US for permitting speech you disagree with too?
    - tedks 12y ago
      I agree that the American government shouldn't regulate speech. I don't trust the government and I can't easily replace it, so it's worth the legality of NAMBLA that the activist groups I belonged to could exist. But being legal and being able to exist are totally different things. If you're a business owner, you can disrupt white supremacists by denying them the use of your business. Hotels do this all the time, to the point where it's difficult for militant white supremacists groups (that aren't, say, the police) to find places to meet (maybe the police will get theirs eventually). I'm okay with this because there are a lot more hotels than governments, and they're a lot easier to replace. If a hotel I wanted to go to started prohibiting communists from using it, I'd just use a different hotel. Or AirBNB. It's a great world we live in. To put it in a word, the government and private entities are different, so they should obey different rules. This is not a hard concept to grasp, but very frequently people literally do not think about these things, they pattern-match on the first argument that leads to what they want. Which in this case is the ability to objectify, harass, and sexually assault women. There is no inherent good in providing space for all opinions. Free speech is not an end in itself, but rather a means. You are confusing the two.
mintplant2 12y ago
Related: Does anyone know of a good-quality place to go for discussion that doesn't center around news and links? Something akin to MetaFilter or HN in terms of standards, but not focused on aggregation. Are mailing lists/Usenet groups good for this?
- ryanpardieck 12y ago
  Mailing lists, in my experience, can feature incredible discussion. I participated on one centered around a somewhat obscure literary topic for some years. You almost develop a sense of kinship. However, mailing lists seem to be going extinct. Even back then it had a quaint, ancient feel to it.

by jmduke 12y ago

verroq 12y ago

>willingly allows to exist subreddits devoted towards domestic abuse and snuff Serious question: why does this even bother you?

jmduke 12y ago
That's a completely valid question, and the answer isn't something concrete. I think on one hand it's just overall indicative of the site's priorities (and again, I completely acknowledge that it's those same priorities which also helped foster the subreddits that I love) -- on the other hand, I think it's just the sense of heebie-jeebies, like being a pro bono lawyer for the mob or something -- as though my presence there is somehow contributing to something that I desparately don't want to exist. More broadly speaking, I would be very willing to bet that an internet community that places harsher standards on acceptable content would result in a better environment for those involved -- but Reddit's stance during the celebrity photo stuff reinforced their position of 'Reddit as a platform', and I don't see that going away.
- serf 12y ago
  >> I think it's just the sense of heebie-jeebies That's the start of most 'war-on-obscenity' arguments, and usually leads to no constructive ideas. I hate the topic (abusive pornography/snuff) as much as you, but that rational is inappropriate given the peoples' wide variety of tastes in this world, if the material is indeed legal for your region of the world. >> More broadly speaking, I would be very willing to bet that an internet community that places harsher standards on acceptable content would result in a better environment for those involved historically that has only served to push users to other services. the success of the regionalization of 2channel into what 4chan is now is a good example. 4chan's success is widely attributed to the pseudo-anonymity that it's users enjoy, and the founder of the site spoke at TED a few years back on what exactly the benefits of such a relationship with their userbase is. http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for_anonymity_online?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for...
  - iSnow 12y ago
    >historically that has only served to push users to other services. But this is exactly what you want - get rid of the low-quality users and offload them somewhere else. reddit has gotten itself quite a questionable image tolerating pornographic jailbait, necrophiliac porn, stolen nudes and domestic abusers on its platform for very long.
    - verroq 12y ago
      And who is to say these users are inherently low quality? Enjoying any anything socially unacceptable doesn't preclude them from creating content you may enjoy in another subreddit.
      - DanBC 12y ago
        While those users are creating and posting dog porn they are of low value to me. They're creating noise not signal; consuming resources; and creating negative brand associations. By asking them to take their dog porn elsewhere I risk losing them altogether (which currently isn't much loss) or they start posting other content.
iherbig 12y ago
I am not who you asked, but if I may step in? It bothers me for the same reason it bothers me that those things exist. They are terrible, and should not be given a platform. I don't feel that we, as a society, should tolerate terrible things in general, much less let them prosper.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  The problem there is that the range of what people consider "terrible" is quite broad. Who decides?
  - iherbig 12y ago
    Society decides. And sometimes it comes up with the wrong answers. But I don't think that pure freedom comes up with the right answers, either. There are consequences to both sides, and the consequences of no action can be just as bad as the consequences of too much action. There is a wide gap between being hesitant and serious about prohibiting things and accepting everything for fear of overreach, in my opinion. We need to work towards a middle-ground.
- kansface 12y ago
  May I ask where you are from? Free speech - bigoted, hateful, maybe untrue, or otherwise, is perhaps the one enduring (sacred) tenet of American society.
  - cmdkeen 12y ago
    Harassment isn't. One of the big points of the article is that when law enforcement doesn't act that is justification that the action is legal and thus "free speech". Except that law enforcement almost never acts against online harassment. There are plenty of laws restricting free speech when it harms others, and I'd hope you agree that some of the examples in the article crosses the boundary into things that should be criminal.
    - makomk 12y ago
adrianhoward 12y ago
> Serious question: why does this even bother you? Not the person you aimed the question at, but… I worked as a volunteer counsellor for a few years in my twenties. Some of the stuff I encountered during those years was folk who were going through horrific, long-term abuse. One of the patterns that you notice is that abusers go to a lot of effort at times to show that their behaviour as normal. Both as a tool to justify it to themselves (this is normal — everybody does it — I'm not a bad person or doing anything bad), and as a tool to further control the abused (this is normal — this is what you should expect — you won't get any better elsewhere). Anecdotally the ones who can find or create an active "community" of abusers — where two best friends both hit their partners and acknowledge it to each other, where everybody in an extended family beats on their kids, etc. — the abuse is worse because there is little or no sense of shame in what's done. It's normal. Now this was the 90s. Before subreddits were around. But this is why it bothers me. Yes, it's just words. But those words are probably making the lives of other people worse.
calibraxis 12y ago
Such questions are favored by Reddit trolls, because they take virtually no time to formulate, require no effort in self-education, and eat up other people's time. Without rehashing the obvious problems of giving a platform to harassment, child porn, spam, etc, just read about how Reddit supported and profited off bros like Violentacrez. Just a little research shows these corporations intervene heavily — but in peculiar ways. http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the-biggest-troll-on-the-web http://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-the...
fenomas 12y ago
Reddit isn't the government; they're not under any obligation to permit all-speech-no-matter-how-odious. The site chooses who to provide with a platform - why shouldn't the poster you quoted judge them based on that choice?

McDoku 12y ago

Freedom of speech. The one jerk of a teacher I had, made me realize this. It is better they are out in the open, that they are confronted publicly. Those standing to be counted are not the dangerous ones.... it is the 10 more who agree silently. If it is driven to silence it does not disappear but is spoken in whispers. It is better that they are challenged in the open.

waterlesscloud 12y ago
And I think that's at the heart of why there isn't a technical or legal solution to these issues. Whatever solution will be found will be a social one, that's the only way to actually change what people feel and think and believe. And if they feel and think and believe it, they'll act on it in one way or another, no matter how you try to prevent it.
- McDoku 12y ago
  Hearts and minds
- cmdkeen 12y ago
  There is a commercial one. Twitter doesn't have to allow them to carry on in this fashion, and it is a massive enabler of trolls. It's attitude towards online abuse is shockingly neglectful. Trolls will always act, but that doesn't mean we have to put up with letting them use the some of the most powerful communications mediums of all time to do so. Twitter has a massive pulpit to make statements that influence social change. Deleting the weev account won't stop him, but would make a very powerful pronouncement about what the company views as unacceptable behaviour, would diminish his "credibility" and change the narrative.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    That doesn't solve the problem, it just moves it to other venues.
    - 12y ago

deciplex 12y ago

>[^1]: I know, I peaked in like 2004. You joke (I think) but it's more like it went through a years-long period where it was really, really terrible. It's gotten better lately as far as I can tell. I'm posting there again after giving up on it years ago. But, they don't really have stringent moderation, I don't think. It's more that when they do moderate, it means something, because you can't just register another account and back to business as usual. Being an asshole costs money there, and most assholes are apparently not willing to pay the price. I don't know how to duplicate it without getting the critical mass first. It would be interesting if reddit suddenly switched to a paid model, but I really doubt that will ever happen.

makomk 12y ago
Also, complaining about how they moderate - including the lack of moderation - is against the rules over there, and they do enforce that rule. "If you do not like the mods or the moderation, feel free to not post here." So if anyone is unhappy about how Something Awful is moderated they can't really complain about it or tell if anyone else feels the same way. It seems to be a very effective tactic for them.
CanSpice 12y ago
Yeah, I was surprised to see Something Awful listed as an example of a place that does well. Back in the day (early 2000s) it was, like you said, really really terrible. When I think of "for the lulz" I think of SA. Reddit seems to be at the same stage now that SA was back then. There's a lot of good, but there's also a lot of bad and the admins don't seem to care to get rid of the bad. Of course, that was a decade ago. Maybe I should revisit it and see if my account's still there...

freshflowers 12y ago

Now that you mention Reddit, I've abandoned it because that cesspool is overflowing. It's no longer just the obscure subs, misogynist thrash from mainstream subs is hitting the front page on a daily basis.

taliesinb 12y ago
Me too. You end up feeling ambushed, because you'll be reading a bunch of witty, smart, and/or playful comments on some Reddit post, thinking "I don't know these people but they're fun", and then you randomly encounter some unchallenged misogyny or racism in the midst of it with plenty of upvotes. Can these people really exist? Do I want to even be reading something that people who repulse me are also reading? If you stick to subreddits thing are much better. For example, I lurk on r/rust a lot, and like other high-quality subreddits they have a stickied code of conduct to establish the ground rules. And the community there is extremely friendly and encouraging.
- ryanpardieck 12y ago
  Personally I find the predominant brand of humor at Reddit to be annoying too. An interesting conversation devolves into five trailing one-liners circling around a pop culture reference ... ugh.

sheltgor 12y ago

I wholeheartedly agree that strong moderation does a LOT to foster strong communities, and frankly very positive ones. Both of my favorite subreddits do this very well, as does my favorite forum, and though you get the jokes about 'fascist mods' and the genuine complainers who would rather be able to troll to their hearts content (and who inevitably flame out in a couple months time), they are very enjoyable to be a part of. Rather than having inane comments, stupid back and forths, and, in the case of one more factually based subreddit, misleading comments, you get what the majority of well-intentioned people actually come for.

Niten 12y ago

I wouldn't call MetaFilter a particularly high quality community. Discussions there can have just as many trite and trollish comments as your average subreddit. How MetaFilter differs is in that it features a rigid, hierarchical moderation structure, with gatekeepers who ensure posted content meets the stringent politically-correct tastes of its leadership. As a result I have seen legitimately interesting, good-faith discussion censored there, for no other reason than that it offended the sensibilities of some moderator. (This article was removed by a moderator, for example: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software) It is a huge mistake to confuse enforced, intellectually sterile homogeneity for quality.

arrrg 12y ago
Yeah, this sexist trash was removed. Thankfully. I’m happy the MetaFilter will not give misogynists like yourself a place to be. And that’s perfectly alright. Keeping awful people out is the right of any community.
- zyx321 12y ago
  Can we please keep this us vs them bullshit off HN? The linked blog, whether you agree with it or not, keeps a reasonably neutral tone throughout (even if the author's frustration is obvious). Agreeing with it does not automatically make someone a misogynist, and criticizing a moderator does not automatically make someone an awful person.
  - arrrg 12y ago
    Tone is no excuse and if you agree with awful stuff, well that’s on you. Communities wanting to keep such people out is an awesome policy.
    - zyx321 12y ago
      It's not no much about tone as it is about making a genuine, intellectually honest argument without resorting to ad hominem insults. Hell, one of the reasons I like coming to HN is precisely because the general consensus here is in many ways contrary to my political worldview. But I digress. You've made it clear that you regard homogeneity of opinions (and possibly outright censorship) as a good thing, and I doubt I can change your mind. There is little reason for me to continue this conversation (besides maybe grinding for karma).

makomk 12y ago

From what I've seen, incredibly stringent moderation creates the illusion of a high-quality community more than anything else. For example, a while ago Something Awful forum member's boyfriend posted something claiming that she'd been raped by another forum member, and the admin at the time decided to handle it by permanently banning everyone involved including the alleged victim. You wouldn't have seen any criticism of this on the forums at the time because doing so was a bannable offence; I'm not sure most people who used the forums even knew it happened. There were rumours that some of the moderators were blackmailing women on the forums for nude pics earlier on, but again they didn't make it onto the forums themselves.

RankingMember 12y ago
There was a moderator who turned out to be a convicted child molester (Aatrek), and it seems they knew prior, but didn't actually take action to remove him until it became general knowledge among forum members.

DanBC 12y ago

Moderation is hard toget right and it leaves the door open to destructive trolling. So, while I agree wth you that moderated spaces are better than unmoderated we need to rememberthat it's not a panacea.

Argorak 12y ago
It's pretty hard to learn moderation. There are almost no good resources and you have to learn through failure and reflection. (I've been moderating bulletin boards for 15 years)
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Have you ever looked at resources for in-person mediation? I wonder to what degree those translate (or what interesting ways they fail to).
  - Argorak 12y ago
    Yes, I also worked in fields where this was a hot topic. The discussion techniques are very similiar. I can recommend reading up in those fields. The problem is that online moderation has lots of particularities, especially the lack of face to face interaction. Not a lot of them are covered in published works.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Meatball wiki has a lot of great information. The trolling stuff, and makin things unfun and uninteresting are useful. The stuff about vested contributors and concern trolls are pretty good too. http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/VestedContributor http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/VestedContributor http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/TrollingTactic http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/TrollingTactic
  - Argorak 12y ago
    Thank you!

smoyer 12y ago

I agree completely and yet ... I feel a bit responsible too. In my mind, Kathy has credibility because she built it the old fashioned way - being worthy of trust. Being a Java developer, I watched JavaRanch grow and I especially loved watching her presentations (the BoS talks are amazing). And yet I under-appreciated what these attacks were doing to her as well as how severe they'd become. No having celebrity of my own, perhaps I can't understand it fully but what I could have done is at least speak against the growing hatred. I'm going to start refuting trolls (when I can) and I'm going to try to be that person who's dependable under fire - Kathy, I've got your back ... and I'm sorry for my quiet complicity with your past attackers. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Great attitude. But I wonder if 'refuting trolls' is the same as feeding them. What else is there to try?
- unchocked 12y ago
  Regardless of attitude, she is most definitely feeding the trolls.
  - AnimalMuppet 12y ago
    Did you actually read the article? That's not feeding the trolls. That's, after six years of ignoring the trolls, deciding that it's gotten toxic enough that she needs to make a public refutation of weev's reality distortion field.
    - unchocked 12y ago
      Aren't trolls getting lulz off of this? If so, they've been fed, regardless of whatever reasons it's so. Nobody feeds trolls to keep them fat and happy; people feed trolls because they are against trolling, so we have to remind them to stop because it's counterproductive. I do think it's going to prove counterproductive for internet discourse as a whole.

golemotron 12y ago

> I know this is not a popular opinion, but is growing increasingly painful to visit a site that willingly allows to exist subreddits devoted towards domestic abuse and snuff. How do you feel about visiting a country that allows freedom of speech and association? I don't like many of the worst of the subreddits either, but allowing them is probably much better than forbidding them for the same reason that we allow such things within the US.

mononcqc 12y ago
That something is legal does not force it to be acceptable by any business whatsoever.
- golemotron 12y ago
  That's not my argument. My argument is that there is inherent good in providing space for all opinions. That's what liberal democracy is about. Reddit gets to choose whether it will be one of those platforms and it looks like they have. You can boycott Reddit for that choice but why not boycott the US for permitting speech you disagree with too?
  - tedks 12y ago
    I agree that the American government shouldn't regulate speech. I don't trust the government and I can't easily replace it, so it's worth the legality of NAMBLA that the activist groups I belonged to could exist. But being legal and being able to exist are totally different things. If you're a business owner, you can disrupt white supremacists by denying them the use of your business. Hotels do this all the time, to the point where it's difficult for militant white supremacists groups (that aren't, say, the police) to find places to meet (maybe the police will get theirs eventually). I'm okay with this because there are a lot more hotels than governments, and they're a lot easier to replace. If a hotel I wanted to go to started prohibiting communists from using it, I'd just use a different hotel. Or AirBNB. It's a great world we live in. To put it in a word, the government and private entities are different, so they should obey different rules. This is not a hard concept to grasp, but very frequently people literally do not think about these things, they pattern-match on the first argument that leads to what they want. Which in this case is the ability to objectify, harass, and sexually assault women. There is no inherent good in providing space for all opinions. Free speech is not an end in itself, but rather a means. You are confusing the two.

mintplant2 12y ago

Related: Does anyone know of a good-quality place to go for discussion that doesn't center around news and links? Something akin to MetaFilter or HN in terms of standards, but not focused on aggregation. Are mailing lists/Usenet groups good for this?

ryanpardieck 12y ago
Mailing lists, in my experience, can feature incredible discussion. I participated on one centered around a somewhat obscure literary topic for some years. You almost develop a sense of kinship. However, mailing lists seem to be going extinct. Even back then it had a quaint, ancient feel to it.