h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My personal opinion on the bans is that lifetime bans are unenforceable. In practical terms I think we should have banning periods of:

1 week
2 weeks
1 month
3 months
6 months
2 years

Regarding people banned by the BBC, I think we've got two options.

1) We can work on a "don't ask, don't tell" basis - the Beeb won't tell anyway and probably can't - they would probably be in breach of the data protection act if they handed over correspondence with researchers so we wouldn't know the details of why someone had been banned. In this scenario anyone could re-join but wouldn't have access to their previous accounts and we wouldn't know they had previously been banned. If they played nicely they wouldn't be re-banned but if they behaved badly then we'd apply the moderation and banning processes as normal.

2) We ask banned researchers to contact us and we reinstate their original accounts (assuming we can) and either put them on pre-mod or let them use the site. Again the processes would apply and if they were still being tits then they'd be re-banned anyway.

I'm knackered and have no ability to think about your second questions right now.

Ben

Thanks, Ben.

I'm not exactly tired, but my ability to focus has always had limits. I guess I'm supposd to write a document on moderation. I was supposed to have a partner in this, but finding out who I'm supposed to be working with will mean sifting through a lot of threads. Anyway, I have a Google docs acocunt, but I don't know if that's the place where the Consortium's version of it will need to go.

I also need to go back and reread the current guidelines, and maybe Google some material on basic moderation approaches and libel laws. What I will be looking for are the obvious things that should be forseeable.

You could start by summing up what's in these two threads and seeing what you've got: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F20484620?thread=8094010 and http://groups.google.com/group/h2g2communityconsortium/browse_thread/thread/b9580f8e23b57144?hl=en I'd suggest dividing what you write up into four sections: Moderation Guidelines or Principles - (at a VERY high level) ie what it's ok and not ok to post or write. Moderation Processes - again at a VERY high level. Disciplinary Guidelines or Principles Disciplinary Processes Less is more - you could try writing a paragraph on each and seeing if that covers it. And then add a bit, and add a bit more. Ben My feeling is we're pretty much there at the high level.

Do you want me to help? I had to do a draft proceedure for the insurance quote we got for libel insurance.

I would welcome your help, Dr. Z, because I'm a consensus guy who benefits whenever I have other people to bounce ideas off of.

Also, Thanks, Ben. I've been religiously reading reading everything that's been said about moderation issues in the RSS feed in my email, as well as related threads here. It's just a question of going to the disparate strands and pulling things together....

As I said, we're just at the high level stages at the moment. You are right, we do need consensus though, but my feeling is that we've got a lot of consensus on most things.

B

I've collected everything in the two threads, and will start sifting through them to see what happens.

Ben, do we need all the banning periods that you suggested? I'm thinking that one week, one month, six months, and a year would be enough. In special cases, two or three years might be called for...

I do think the fewer the better. It makes it a little clearer, and if someone has done enough to justify a banning they must be pushing is pretty hard.

Simpler's better. I'm easy.

Right, Moderation.

There are two main issues, legal and niceness..

Legally people may post libelous or illegal content, which has serious consequences for the site.

The legal side of it is that user generated content can be a threat to hte site.

If I sign up to the site and post something libelous against you then the site counts as a published, so you can sue the site for libel. One libel suit could ruin the site, so we have to take a sensible precaution against this. The most common way of doing this is to get insurance, insurers care about our moderation procedure as it affects libel and illegal activities, not about swearing.

Now in recent court cases settlements are less if the offending material was removed on request, so that we would save money if we had a system that hid a yikes post until a moderator was able to see it. Then the moderator could decide whether it should be hidden or not.

We need to draw up some new house rules as well, we'll need those to get an insurance quote. Should we just keep the ones that we have?

There was a suggestion that I should float my opinions here.
(There were also a couple of suggestions that I ought to grow up, but that's another story).

It seems to be accepted as fact that we need a moderation system to protect us from lawsuits, and because of that we are going to have one. The only possible debate is about its form.

I question that idea. We can protect ourselves from litigation by hypersensitive souls by declaring suitably clearly that those entering the site might find challenging content. We only need to consider how we're going to handle aggressively offensive material.

I'm convinced of the need for moderation, but it should be activated under only two circumstances, in response to:
- postings that are calculated to cause hurt
- plagiarism

First priority: we need to reject the moderation methods that are being applied at the moment. Carefully considered writing is being disappeared by pedants and idiots (There Minas, I said it again). It's happening to a lot of people, and it's damaging their morale and commitment to the site. This is intolerable. We should develop and exercise tactics to embarrass the BBC over it.

Next priority: we need to get away from the shotgun yikes-button habits of some Researchers. This leads me to oppose the idea of anonymous yikesing. We should not only be able to see who pressed the button, we should be prepared to take the step of censuring trigger-happy individuals. There needs to be a disciplinary procedure not only for those who behave offensively on the site, but also for those who feign offence and in so doing cause good writing to be lost.

I reserve my deepest contempt for plagiarists, but book-burners come a close second. And there are book-burners among us, posing as moral individuals.

In any writing community, the ideal and aim should be to have no censorship. If the best we can do for now is minimum censorship, then at least let's make sure that it really is at a minimum.

I think a lot of the issues around moderation are going to be financial. If we are going to have insurance against lawsuits then the moderator procedure will affect the cost of the insurance. A moderation system that enables content to be hidden instantly would be A LOT cheaper (ie affordable) whereas one that enabled content to stay up would probably mean that insurance was out of our reach.

Otherwise we would have to take the risk of having no insurance - and hope that no one sues us, given the libel laws in the UK, I don't think that warning people that they may find things offensive would cut the mustard in a court of law.

Would people be happy to take the risk and manage without insurance?

>> Would people be happy to take the risk and manage without insurance?

No.

Well, I hear you Z, but there are some things being debated here that are IMO better left to the new owners. I don't think I'd be too keen on investing in an organisation that was preoccupied with constraining its business prospects before it had actually got any.

So if we lose the bathwater focus, then what about my other two points?
ie, how are we going to rid ourselves of incompetent, slapdash and uncaring mercenary moderators hired on the cheap by the Zombie Landlord?
and:
how are we going to rid ourselves of petty individuals whose reflex when they don't like something personally is that nobody should see it?

This last point is the fundamental problem. Are you resigned to perpetuating a system where a single opinion stops everybody else from having the chance to form an opinion? Because I think that notion is deeply stupid and moreover ruinous to on-line writing communities.

>> We can protect ourselves from litigation by hypersensitive souls by declaring suitably clearly that those entering the site might find challenging content.

You couldn't be more wrong. http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/freedebate/ Briefly, the UK is the go-to jurisdiction for libel suits because our libel laws are so biased against writers and publishers.


>> We should not only be able to see who pressed the button, we should be prepared to take the step of censuring trigger-happy individuals. There needs to be a disciplinary procedure not only for those who behave offensively on the site, but also for those who feign offence and in so doing cause good writing to be lost.

I like that. I also think that when a post is yikesed it should not only say who yikesed it, it should also say who the post was by. So:


Subject: Hidden
Posted 21 minutes ago by Pinniped
Hidden at the request of Mrs Zen

This post has been hidden so that it can be reviewed by the moderators.

Pinniped has had 15 posts hidden since the 1st January 2011. 14 were later reinstated and 1 was removed.
Mrs Zen has requested that 15 posts be hidden since 1st January 2011. 1 was subsequently removed.



And:

Subject: Removed
Posted 2 hours ago by Pinniped
Moderators alerted by Mrs Zen

This post has been removed because it contravened the Terms and Condidtions of the site.

Pinniped has had 15 posts hidden since the 1st January 2011. 14 were later reinstated and 1 was removed.
Mrs Zen has requested that 15 posts be hidden since 1st January 2011. 1 was subsequently removed.



When it comes to hiding things and secret informers, transparency is all...

>> there are some things being debated here that are IMO better left to the new owners

Um. Pin. The Community may BE the new owners....

Should someonebe able to yikes without having a user account?

Um. Ben. The Community will HAVE to be the new owners if we convince potential investors that we're long on administration and short on creativity.

(No probs with the transparency thing btw. 15's an underestimate, but I might have known it was you)

Hi, Pinniped.

I've been to unmoderated discussion boards, and the things that I've seen have made me cringe. People direct personal attacks at each other, using every device possible to inflict pain. I don't relish seeing this site evolve in that direction, no matter *who* owns us. If we have our own moderation policies that appeal to the consensus views of mosr active researchers, we can do our part to keep the threads that we participate in as civil as possible.

Perhaps we will be running the site ourselves. There is sort of a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" air about this. We won't know if we can put together a viable bid unless we know how much everything costs, but we won't know how much everything costs unless we act as if we were going to put together a (hopefully) viable bid.

There are various methods of alleviating disputes. One method that has been proposed (though not in this thread) os that the board of directors would vote on particularly acrimonious moderation disputes. This has several advantages: 1. Everyone on the board has gotten their position by being elected to it. If the directors are not up to snuff, the voters could replace them. 2. Imposing a resolution in a timely fashion clears the air and prevents the matter from eating away at everyone's morale. 3. This sends a message that the people running the site are listening to what's happening, and are engaged.

Like I said, long on administration and short on creativity.

I'm starting to think we don't need Magrathea so much as a 'B' Ark.