Moderation and censorship is out of hand

Warhawke_80

Oceanchanter wrote: »

I think a poll would be a good idea.

I can't think of a single instance when a Poll actually solved an issue...

Wait was that Sarcasm?

SilverBride

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Some players may not think saying something like "I find your argument rude and in bad faith" as an insult to the poster, but many of us do see it that way. Instead of calling a post rude, ask something like "Please clarify what you mean by this". That is a nonjudgmental statement and could clear up any confusion as to what the poster meant.

I dunno...the problem I see is we have instances of "I disagree with you ergo you are being rude"

And that seems to be a valid reason to be moderated which both saddens and confuses me.

Disagreeing with a suggestion or idea only addresses the topic and does not come across as a personal comment against the poster. That is perfectly acceptable.

Actually posting that another player's post is rude or in bad faith comes across as making judgements against the poster that they make rude posts and post with bad intentions.

That is the difference I see.

Franchise408

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Some players may not think saying something like "I find your argument rude and in bad faith" as an insult to the poster, but many of us do see it that way. Instead of calling a post rude, ask something like "Please clarify what you mean by this". That is a nonjudgmental statement and could clear up any confusion as to what the poster meant.

I dunno...the problem I see is we have instances of "I disagree with you ergo you are being rude"


And that seems to be a valid reason to be moderated which both saddens and confuses me.

Some people find it offensive to be called out for "bad faith"

I find it offensive for people to weaponize the mods against those they are debating with because they don't like it when their arguments are called out, countered, or opposed.

Again, we are talking with adults. It is not my job to walk on eggshells and handle you with kid gloves.

JustLovely

Franchise408 wrote: »

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Some players may not think saying something like "I find your argument rude and in bad faith" as an insult to the poster, but many of us do see it that way. Instead of calling a post rude, ask something like "Please clarify what you mean by this". That is a nonjudgmental statement and could clear up any confusion as to what the poster meant.

I dunno...the problem I see is we have instances of "I disagree with you ergo you are being rude"


And that seems to be a valid reason to be moderated which both saddens and confuses me.

Some people find it offensive to be called out for "bad faith"

I find it offensive for people to weaponize the mods against those they are debating with because they don't like it when their arguments are called out, countered, or opposed.

Again, we are talking with adults. It is not my job to walk on eggshells and handle you with kid gloves.

Some people feign to be offended when the are called out for making bad faith arguments they know they're making in bad faith too. Then they report the posters pointing out their actions made in bad faith. There are three people on this forum I have on ignore for this very reason.

SilverBride

Franchise408 wrote: »

Some people find it offensive to be called out for "bad faith"

I find it offensive for people to weaponize the mods against those they are debating with because they don't like it when their arguments are called out, countered, or opposed.

It is not my job to walk on eggshells and handle you with kid gloves.

It is also not our job to criticize other posters and tell them that are posting rudely or in bad faith.

Posters generally don't flag posts that are just countering their argument, because that is how we debate and is perfectly acceptable. If they do flag such a post nothing will come of it.

But posters will flag posts that are insulting them personally, because that is against the Community Rules and is not acceptable. And that is not weaponizing the mods.

Our only job is to know the Community Rules and follow them.

Oceanchanter

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

Oceanchanter wrote: »

I think a poll would be a good idea.

I can't think of a single instance when a Poll actually solved an issue...

Wait was that Sarcasm?

No. I simply wanted to see what the general vibe, as the youngsters say, is here.
And polls are one of the tools to do so called "vibe checks".

Franchise408

JustLovely wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Some players may not think saying something like "I find your argument rude and in bad faith" as an insult to the poster, but many of us do see it that way. Instead of calling a post rude, ask something like "Please clarify what you mean by this". That is a nonjudgmental statement and could clear up any confusion as to what the poster meant.

I dunno...the problem I see is we have instances of "I disagree with you ergo you are being rude"


And that seems to be a valid reason to be moderated which both saddens and confuses me.

Some people find it offensive to be called out for "bad faith"

I find it offensive for people to weaponize the mods against those they are debating with because they don't like it when their arguments are called out, countered, or opposed.

Again, we are talking with adults. It is not my job to walk on eggshells and handle you with kid gloves.

Some people feign to be offended when the are called out for making bad faith arguments they know they're making in bad faith too. Then they report the posters pointing out their actions made in bad faith. There are three people on this forum I have on ignore for this very reason.

Agreed, I even have people from this very thread on mine. Probably some overlap between our lists, I'd imagine.

Varana

SilverBride wrote: »

Actually posting that another player's post is rude or in bad faith comes across as making judgements against the poster that they make rude posts and post with bad intentions.

That is the difference I see.

"With bad intentions" - maybe. But then, actually talking about it, instead of running to the mods, is the adult way of dealing with situations like this. Maybe it turns out that the intentions weren't even bad to begin with, and then we all can move on.

"Rude" ist just a question of tone. And tone is wildly subjective. And, as Syldras is tirelessly pointing out - and which is mostly ignored, I'd observe - highly dependent on cultural background. It's usually not about content or argumentation but just word choice.
"Nice people don't post rude comments" - yes they do. Because what I perceive as "rude" may be entirely normal to other people. Calling out a post for appearing rude to me - please note I'm not saying being rude - is informing someone about how their post is perceived. It in no way reflects badly (or well) on the poster.
Not to mention that this is the internet and communication entirely text- and smiley-based (and, again, cross-cultural). There will be misunderstood comments, it's unavoidable.

If the poster can clarify what they meant, then the situation can be defused by the posters themselves, which is always and generally preferable. But in order to be able to clarify, I have to inform them about my perception or impression of what they wrote.

And to be honest, I don't really trust the mods to always make the right calls about vague things like that. (Not to mention it needlessly occupies their time.) They're just people and subject to the same biases, misunderstandings, and occasional poor calls as every single other poster.

SilverBride

Varana wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Actually posting that another player's post is rude or in bad faith comes across as making judgements against the poster that they make rude posts and post with bad intentions.

That is the difference I see.

"With bad intentions" - maybe. But then, actually talking about it, instead of running to the mods, is the adult way of dealing with situations like this. Maybe it turns out that the intentions weren't even bad to begin with, and then we all can move on.

I believe that following the Community Rules and not criticizing other posters but rather sticking to the topic is the adult way of dealing with this.

But for some reason there are posters that bypass the Rule of not making personal comments or taking jabs at other posters, then they get upset if their comments are moderated and blame it in the poster that flagged their inappropriate comments.

Varana

That post, while not really enganging with the main points of what I wrote, is full of unspoken assumptions (like that what we're talking about even is "making personal comments", or the - in my opinion - very specific and somewhat unconventional interpretation of what THE RULES actually mean), and I don't think that's helpful.

Disclaimer: Please be aware that this comment makes does not reflect any assumption about any poster (or non-poster) as a character or as a person.

spartaxoxo

The problem with the whole bad faith thing is some people use it as a way to attack someone for disagreeing with them.

Even when it's accurate though, it is still an ad hominem intended to make others dismiss the speaker and not the opinion. And I don't think that's appropriate for the forums.

SilverBride

I understand that cultural differences can affect how we post and perceive what others have posted. And I understand that some posters may find it appropriate to tell another poster that they found their post rude and had no ill intentions in doing so.

But it's not appropriate because the Community Rules say we are to stick to discussing the topic. And because we do see things differently it's even more important to not say anything we know others may be offended by.

If a player wants to discuss a post they can ask the poster to clarify if they meant this, or if they were really saying this without bringing concepts such as rude into it, because posters may be offended by that and take it personally.

Syldras

I think the thing that works best in an international environment is being aware that differences exist (different communication habits, ideas of politeness and appropriateness, meanings of words, interpretations of a situation, etc) and not taking things too seriously.

So while, yes, everyone should try to be as considerate and friendly as possible when wording things, I do think it's also important to be a bit tolerant and don't expect every weird wording or slightly impolite sounding phrase to be an insult. There's an idiom in my country that can roughly be translated as: "Don't put every word on a weighing scale."

There's another saying that comes up often: "No one is responsible for someone else's feelings, we are only responsible for our own." And indeed what we feel "offended" by is a choice. I agree that cases exist where an insulting intent is clear, like calling someone a swearword or a slur, and in such cases assuming hostility absolutely makes sense. But there are also many cases where it's less than clear, and in these situations it's indeed everyone's own decision whether they consider some unclear wording a deadly insult or just think "This person isn't a native English speaker and usually helpful and friendly, it's probably just a misunderstanding" and dismiss it.

Franchise408

Syldras wrote: »

I think the thing that works best in an international environment is being aware that differences exist (different communication habits, ideas of politeness and appropriateness, meanings of words, interpretations of a situation, etc) and not taking things too seriously.

So while, yes, everyone should try to be as considerate and friendly as possible when wording things, I do think it's also important to be a bit tolerant and don't expect every weird wording or slightly impolite sounding phrase to be an insult. There's an idiom in my country that can roughly be translated as: "Don't put every word on a weighing scale."

There's another saying that comes up often: "No one is responsible for someone else's feelings, we are only responsible for our own." And indeed what we feel "offended" by is a choice. I agree that cases exist where an insulting intent is clear, like calling someone a swearword or a slur, and in such cases assuming hostility absolutely makes sense. But there are also many cases where it's less than clear, and in these situations it's indeed everyone's own decision whether they consider some unclear wording a deadly insult or just think "This person isn't a native English speaker and usually helpful and friendly, it's probably just a misunderstanding" and dismiss it.

100% this

One's feelings may be valid, but they are entirely the responsibility of that person.

Yes, blatant and obvious insulting language should not be tolerated. Someone getting offended or feeling insulted by any semblance of push back is entirely that person's responsibility.

SilverBride

I agree that understanding where the other poster is coming from and how their societal norms may be different than ours will help us to communicate better. And posters, such as @Syldras, I would be inclined to approach privately if a comment made me feel offended, because they are a pleasant and reasonable poster and I would give them a chance to clarify their intent.

But there are a lot of posters that just immediately criticize any poster that doesn't agree with their view and that is not someone I want to deal with.

As far as ""No one is responsible for someone else's feelings, we are only responsible for our own." Well some people in real life use that as an excuse to be as mean and rude and inconsiderate as they want and shun all responsibility for their actions, and I hope that never applies to how we treat each other here.

Shara_Wynn

At the end of the day, there is always that middle road...

spartaxoxo

Syldras wrote: »

I think the thing that works best in an international environment is being aware that differences exist (different communication habits, ideas of politeness and appropriateness, meanings of words, interpretations of a situation, etc) and not taking things too seriously.

So while, yes, everyone should try to be as considerate and friendly as possible when wording things, I do think it's also important to be a bit tolerant and don't expect every weird wording or slightly impolite sounding phrase to be an insult.

It's also considered rude where I live to assume negative intent in conversations with international people and online communication.

I was taught at work to not assume negative intent from online communication and instead read things neutrally because we don't have body language and facial expressions. And this same advice was given to me at university when dealing with international students.

So, I try to practice that and assume all statements made are neutral unless they are obviously or explicitly stated to be good or bad.

Edit

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141125212408-10714894-email-tone-often-misinterpreted

hiyde

Some of the content in this thread be like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife. 🤣

But seriously, I don't envy the moderators. I've done that type of work for decades, from business social media & forums to discord to reddit and it can be grueling trying to apply the rules appropriately. There *does* need to be rules for a forum like this to keep the flow respectful.

One thing I think is hugely important is to glean history & intent before applying punishment and to just as aggresively discipline professional tro...ublemakers who dance on the technical line but who's intent is clearly to disrupt and be agrumentative above all else.

Aravel

JavaRen wrote: »

Can someone explain why people type in chat channels that no one else can see? I have seen multiple people complain about being alone in an instance or using /say with no player nearby and having action taken against them for their words. But why were they typing?

I type in /say rarely when I am feeling the RP itch, which usually manifests as harassing rude guards. So I can rationalize someone typing in /say for stuff like this with no audience. I used to scold NPC party members in FFXIV, so that was definitely just for me. I can see typing a nasty reply to Bastian when he asks if I'm stuck or just standing still.

If folks are just OOC venting in ESO, maybe they should take up journaling. 😅

xylena_lazarow

hiyde wrote: »

Yup, because it's incredibly possible to follow the letter of the law while still being highly disruptive and then weaponizing the report system when someone questions the behavior, even respectfully. 🤷

Happens all the time in PvP, where problem individuals will ruin zone chat for hours on end, spam hate tells calling people bad trash zerglings or whatever, nothing is ever done because they technically didn't say any bad words, mountains of player reports get ignored because they know how to constantly be a jerk without technically breaking rules.

Amottica

Syldras wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

It is best to take a step back and consider what is about to be posted to ensure it is appropriate to prevent an accident.

The big problem still remains: Both the interpretation of the rules as they are currently worded, as well as the idea of what is "polite behaviour" and what not (or the definition of "insult", or "politics", or "a discussion about religion", or whether a topic is "appropriate" or not) varies a lot from culture to culture. And if there are language difficulties, which is a normal thing in a big international forum, it gets even more complicated. The big question to me is what to make of this?

Amottica wrote: »

We know (or should since it has been made clear) that "polite criticism" of the idea or topic is acceptable but not of the person in any manner, and it is not relevant to what each of us is willing to take or what we find acceptable.

We're discussing our ideas for (potential) changes in moderation here, so I think it's fine to make suggestions and explain what we think would work best, as well as elaborating whether there is some general concensus we could build on.

Amottica wrote: »

The apartment analogy is excellent. Knowing the neighbor makes a big difference, especially when one thinks that, with that knowledge, they would welcome the feedback. However, it does not always turn out friendly, and we have examples of violence due to noisy neighbors. Take that to the forums, where we feel we have the protection of anonymity in that no one can cause us actual harm, and it is easy to see how such a conversation is getting out of hand. All we have to do is spend time in Cyrodiil where rage whispers after killing a character starts off out of hand.

So in case someone (we don't know a lot about) might react violently it's better not to talk with each other at all?

From my point of view, there are rules for social behaviour, seen as a common ground, and in general we first rely on them and expect others to follow them too, just as we do. One usual expectation is that strangers treat each other politely at least. Of course it happens sometimes that this unspoken rule is broken. But that doesn't mean we should expect everything ending horribly to be the normal result, no?

If things get really unfriendly, mods can still intervene.

1. I do not understand how many understand the rules just fine as they are worded and others do not. People always comment about an idea, but criticizing the person is unacceptable.

2. Zenimax takes action to prevent a situation from escalating if it has not already. I do not think they will be willing to let strangers work it out and risk escalation, especially in the open forums.

Oh, also, a lot of forum moderation is a direct result of players reporting the behavior. This includes reports from the offended person. I seriously doubt moderators are reading every post in every thread. Oh, I have also received hate mail from supposed friends after moderation occurs, which shows people are willing to escalate a situation.

3. If I know the person and we get along, sure, I would knock on their door or give them a call. I will not confront them if I do not know them in person. I will call the police or report them to the management. In a case like that, it is better to avoid confrontation. The news often tells us this is a wise route to take. Oh, when I lived in an apartment, I had an occasion where I reported a situation to management and the police. Then, there was the time I reported a situation to the FBI. That did not go well for that particular person. I chose not to confront that person.

Syldras

SilverBride wrote: »

As far as ""No one is responsible for someone else's feelings, we are only responsible for our own." Well some people in real life use that as an excuse to be as mean and rude and inconsiderate as they want and shun all responsibility for their actions, and I hope that never applies to how we treat each other here.

The saying is (or was originally supposed to) focus on the ability to control one own's emotional reactions so it's possible to get through dire situations without them bringing one down, and on not feeling "over responsible" for everything that goes wrong somewhere (or even falling for emotional blackmail), but of course, every idea can also be abused. And yes, I agree, of course I don't want people who clearly misbehave (and shift the guilt to anyone else) in this forum.

Amottica wrote: »

3. If I know the person and we get along, sure, I would knock on their door or give them a call. I will not confront them if I do not know them in person. I will call the police or report them to the management. In a case like that, it is better to avoid confrontation. The news often tells us this is a wise route to take. Oh, when I lived in an apartment, I had an occasion where I reported a situation to management and the police. Then, there was the time I reported a situation to the FBI. That did not go well for that particular person. I chose not to confront that person.

Interesting, there might be cultural differences at play which also play a role in our moderation discussion here. Where I live, it's considered complety unacceptable to call police before trying to sort things out on one's own (except it's an emergency situation or the people involved are known to be violent). In fact if police is called, they'll ask whether one tried solving the issue oneself already, and if one hasn't, they suggest to do it and call them again if it fails (unless, as I said, the call is about a person one already knows is violent). To call police or a lawyer before trying to sort things out in a way that may solve the issue without possibly leading to legal consequences or some official punishment, is a behavior that's not only considered unfriendly (it's interpreted as aggressive, as "this person doesn't want to solve the situation peacefully by talking"), but, to put it mildly, absolutely frowned upon by most of society. So everyone here usually just talks to someone they have some minor conflict with (which is an everyday occurrance, as most people live in apartments here), and in over 99% of cases, nothing bad ever happens. This certainly influences my idea that, even if we factor online anonymity in, this principle would also work on this forum. And even if some people would not be able to respectfully talk with each other, what's the worst that might happen in an online forum? A few bad words (which the mod could delete and issue a warning to that user then), or am I missing something?

JavaRen

Concerning the analogy of speaking to a neighbor yourself or calling the authorities (police or management) there are two types of situations where I have done this: I either don't respect them enough to give them my time or they are clearly too nuts for me to engage with. My best example of the lack of respect was when I walked past a neighbor smoking drugs in the courtyard, in the early afternoon, while wearing an ankle monitor. Nope, you are too dumb for me to converse with.
In the second case (too nuts) I was once woken up at 3am by the power tools the upstairs neighbor was using. Nah, no use talking to them.

How does this translate to forum posters/ in game behaviour? Well the first category is about the same. The second would amount to blatant racist or hateful statements, or other outright TOS violations. If you spout *** rhetoric or solicit RMT I'm just gonna report and move on.

Edit: interesting, the initials of the hate group I used as an example were censored out. I have mixed feeling about that, one the one hand, yeah they suck, don't want their ideas here, on the other we can't even mention their name to use them as an example of people who suck.

spartaxoxo

I actually don't have a problem with "I read this as x, did you mean it that way?"

I think that's a good example of something that is against the rules with only over the top communication standards. It shouldn't be just any and all references to another person is disallowed. They should be all be constructive to dialogue though.

I do have a problem with things like "so and so is a liar, bad faith participant, troll, did this and that in some other thread, etc"

Then it becomes less of a judge of a post and moreso a judge of someone's character. If the intention isn't to do that but to gain clarity, that's when something should be sent as a DM. There's other examples of things that should be handled as direct messages that aren't constructive to dialogue that doesn't need to result in anything more than a snip, imo. Where I am from, public call outs of this sort is considered rude. But pulling someone aside and being like "Do you have an issue with me because it seems like you're being rude on purpose." Or whatever would be considered way more appropriate to do before going to an authority figure.

Franchise408

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I actually don't have a problem with "I read this as x, did you mean it that way?"

I think that's a good example of something that is against the rules with only over the top communication standards. It shouldn't be just any and all references to another person is disallowed. They should be all be constructive to dialogue though.

I do have a problem with things like "so and so is a liar, bad faith participant, troll, did this and that in some other thread, etc"

Then it becomes less of a judge of a post and moreso a judge of someone's character. If the intention isn't to do that but to gain clarity, that's when something should be sent as a DM. There's other examples of things that should be handled as direct messages that aren't constructive to dialogue that doesn't need to result in anything more than a snip, imo. Where I am from, public call outs of this sort is considered rude. But pulling someone aside and being like "Do you have an issue with me because it seems like you're being rude on purpose." Or whatever would be considered way more appropriate to do before going to an authority figure.

There's a difference between "so and so is a liar" and "that's a bad faith argument"

When you are calling out bad faith arguments, or even actions a person has taken in previous threads, you are discussing the actions, and a person's actions impact their overall credibility in a discussion.

If a person is a troll in other threads, and presenting bad faith arguments, then their commentary is probably going to have little credibility. If a person plays victim, and weaponizes the mods against people they don't like to get them moderated or banned, then their commentary is going to have little credibility. If a person is arguing honestly, presenting their case in a well reasoned and logical way, even if I disagree with their take, I'm probably going to lend their posts credibility.

Credibility is entirely relevant when discussing someone's actual argument, and if someone has behaved or conversed in a less than credible way, comments on that behavior are absolutely relevant in a debate. It is relevant because this behavior is directly tied to the argument at hand.

I have people in this very thread who are blocked on my list because of their behaviors in prior interactions that have lent them to be discredible posters. They have weaponized mods against people they don't like, they have ignored the points that are made to them, they cherry pick what the other person has said to attack very specific points while ignoring the rest of the very clear context... those are not credible posters to debate with, and the fact that they are acting in bad faith is relevant to that conversation. When someone can ignore what is being said to them, twist the words of other posters (whether intentionally or not), make inflammatory comments that dismiss the other poster and their point of view, weaponize the mods against them, and then resort to comments like "you won't convince me otherwise" as a last resort when there's no more rebuttals to make, that is bad faith debate. If you're unwilling to hear a different point of view because "you won't convince me otherwise", then you're not arguing in good faith because you're not willing to consider the other person's point of view at that point. You might not be convinced of the other person's side, and you certainly don't have to be, but if you are going to dismiss their whole point with "you won't convince me", then the conversation is dead. When you weaponize the mods because you don't like what the other person has said, then the conversation is dead. When you cherry pick what they say, twist their words, argue against things that they never said, and outright dismiss their point of view, the conversation is dead. Nothing is happening in good faith, and it is not bad etiquette to point that out, as the behavior is entirely relevant to debating the actual argument.

SilverBride

Syldras wrote: »

Where I live, it's considered complety unacceptable to call police before trying to sort things out on one's own (except it's an emergency situation or the people involved are known to be violent). In fact if police is called, they'll ask whether one tried solving the issue oneself already, and if one hasn't, they suggest to do it and call them again if it fails (unless, as I said, the call is about a person one already knows is violent). To call police or a lawyer before trying to sort things out in a way that may solve the issue without possibly leading to legal consequences or some official punishment, is a behavior that's not only considered unfriendly (it's interpreted as aggressive, as "this person doesn't want to solve the situation peacefully by talking"), but, to put it mildly, absolutely frowned upon by most of society. So everyone here usually just talks to someone they have some minor conflict with (which is an everyday occurrance, as most people live in apartments here), and in over 99% of cases, nothing bad ever happens. This certainly influences my idea that, even if we factor online anonymity in, this principle would also work on this forum. And even if some people would not be able to respectfully talk with each other, what's the worst that might happen in an online forum? A few bad words (which the mod could delete and issue a warning to that user then), or am I missing something?

I live in the middle of a big city. It is considered unsafe to confront people that we don't know because we have no idea if they are violent or not. The safe thing to do here is call the police rather than get into a confrontation with strangers that could end up deadly.

As far as the forums are concerned, I have no obligation to approach someone that has insulted me, especially if they have done it several times before. I will flag the post and let the moderator look at the situation and make their own decision on how to handle it.

Also, I am not going to risk my own account by getting into a back and forth with another poster to "work things out".

I'd like to add that it's not always the poster being insulted that flags a post. I've logged in to find posts directed at me that had been snipped, but I hadn't even seen the post yet and was not the one that flagged it.

spartaxoxo

The problem with claiming it's about crediblity is a lot of the examples you noted are things I may consider rude rather than something that undermines the credibility of an argument.

Take the trimming down of quotes, for example. That is something that is actually something someone may be doing specifically to comply with the forum rules that state you're supposed to avoid posts taking up too much space in a discussion. In many forums that I have participated in the past, quoting the entire thing is considered rude (at least with longer posts). And it's something that might get automatically moderated. On this one, it's just a community rule although it is not stringently enforced.

I don't think trimming quotes down to the points someone is trying to discuss is something that harms the credibility of an argument at all, unless that person does so in a way that makes the quote say the opposite of what was meant rather intentionally or unintentionally. Or rewords it in a way intended to mock the user. That sort of thing. What we write and intended isn't always how a reader will interpret what was written.

Also often times on emotional topics with a general group consensus, people will claim that disagreeing with the group is trolling. But, everyone is entitled to their opinions and I don't think such things need to be called out in unrelated threads.

We all define things differently. But calling another user out because one wants to discredit their ability to discuss a topic does not promote a civil discussion imo. It's something better handled by either pulling the user aside, blocking them, or reporting rule breaking posts.

Syldras

SilverBride wrote: »

I live in the middle of a big city. It is considered unsafe to confront people that we don't know because we have no idea if they are violent or not. The safe thing to do here is call the police rather than get into a confrontation with strangers that could end up deadly.

This again shows cultural differences, I guess. I live in a big city too (about 4 million inhabitants) and no one expects talking to a stranger, especially a neighbour, leading to murder. Of course one wouldn't want to approach someone who is already showing violent tendencies in one way or another, but the usual expectation is that a problem can be resolved civilly. Growing up like this and living our lifes like this, of course it shapes our world view and our ideas, which leads to the belief that politely criticizing someone is possible without some horrible outcome.

I'm still wondering what's the worst thing that could happen in a forum, to be honest. After all, physical violence is impossible here. The way I see it, in any way, the worst thing that could happen is being insulted (again). If I criticize someone and that person insults me (once more, because that's what lead to the conflict after all), I can still decide to report them. The only difference to reporting them before trying to talk is that they don't get the chance to resolve a potential misunderstanding. Other than that, it's more or less the same, nothing gets worse by trying to talk about the issue first. Maybe it's even better because, as I said, not trying to solve an issue without moderative action could, especially if it's indeed a misunderstanding, come across as being unwilling to resolve things peacefully which might only harden the fronts and increase the whole conflict.

SilverBride

Syldras wrote: »

I'm still wondering what's the worst thing that could happen in a forum, to be honest. After all, physical violence is impossible here. The way I see it, in any way, the worst thing that could happen is being insulted (again). If I criticize someone and that person insults me (once more, because that's what lead to the conflict after all), I can still decide to report them. The only difference to reporting them before trying to talk is that they don't get the chance to resolve a potential misunderstanding. Other than that, it's more or less the same, nothing gets worse by trying to talk about the issue first. Maybe it's even better because, as I said, not trying to solve an issue without moderative action could, especially if it's indeed a misunderstanding, come across as being unwilling to resolve things peacefully which might only harden the fronts and increase the whole conflict.

The poster could risk their own account by getting into a discussion that could turn into an argument with someone that has already insulted them, maybe multiple times.

But all of this could be avoided if posters followed the Community Rule that says we are not to make personal comments about or take jabs at other posters. If we think a post is rude we can flag it or we can ignore it, but we can't just tell a poster we thought their post was rude and expect them to not flag it.

Regardless of our personal expectations, what matters here are the Community Rules in the context of the forums. And I feel that calling posts rude is against these rules.

Varana

That is not what the Community Rules say.
That is your interpretation of what they say.
Saying that a post comes across as "rude" is not a "personal comment" and certainly not a "jab" at anyone, including the author of the post. So doing that is entirely within the guidelines, as I read them.
But with that, we're at the same point where we were two pages ago.