Thanks. I’m pretty good at it. If you ever feel like having a normal conversation about something philosophical, just let me know. But the whole, “men and women are not the same species” just isn’t even close to interesting. Not to mention that the more you type about that kind of stuff, the more you’re exposing about your own distorted view of the world, as opposed to what you seem to think, and that is that there is something of any philosophical substance to the ridiculous assertions that you can’t seem to help yourself from trying to sell. I mean what am I supposed to do with someone who’s wrong and can’t understand how even when the explanation is given to them? Some people just aren’t as smart as they think they are. You can type all the long winded, jargon filled nonsense that you like, but it’s still nonsense.
The reason why this webforum lacks philosophy is more the lack of permabanning trolls than the definition of “philosophy”. In other words: ILP has too many trolls.
Let’s grant that this is true. What’s the best method for identifying and banning those trolls? And how effective do you assume banning to be for preventing someone from posting on ILP?
Welp I haven’t gotten any warnings or bans, but I agree with Ucc. If I were mod I’d be a bit ruthless. No ad hom, people have been getting away with personal attacking instead of attacking the position in a debate. “You don’t agree with me, you’re an idiot”. The only time I will say something is if someone starts calling me an idiot or insulting me, we may do philosopby but this doesn’t imply we shouldn’t or won’t defend ourselves when provoked.
So to identify the trolls, you seem to recommend an I-know-it-when-I-see-it approach, is that right? And then you recommend banning early and often. First insult a permaban? First off-topic post? Or just when a user continues to rub the moderator the wrong way for a long time?
Mostly you, but the question is for the room (and bakes in some of Artimas’ ideas that you seemed to agree with).
I appreciate Uccisore’s moderation style, it’s very different from my own and in many cases better. He can clarify if I misstate his approach, but as I see it, Uccisore is better at enforcing obvious standards of quality, where I tend to emphasize articulable standards. I generally err on the side of permissiveness, where I think Uccisore would err in the other direction (to a lesser extent, of course, and we would likely disagree about what it means to err in the case of moderator intervention).
I think both approaches are useful, both have their time and place, and both have in turn won us praise and cost us users.
More generally (and this I don’t intend as in contrast with Uccisore), I’m pretty easy going, and I don’t find trolls that annoying, nor am I offended by offensive ideas. And I value noise; there can absolutely be too much, but there can also be too little noise.
Most importantly, I distrust humans when it comes to moderation, myself included; trolls that disagree with me are more annoying than trolls that don’t. That’s why I favor articulable standards, it keeps me honest and removes human lapses from enforcement. I think that’s important on a philosophy forum, because it’s easy to find ideas that someone considers appalling amid discussions such as these.
So I tend to under-enforce, because I expect that to be less harmful. But I could be wrong.
It is right that I recommend an I-know-it-when-I-see-it approach. But one requirement is that the moderator is capable of practicing it rightly. If so, then the moderator can ban early and often. Ad homs, insults, off topic should lead to ban or even permaban, but again: the moderator must be capable of practicing it rightly.
I like to typically use a black mark system, first time usually always being a warning, maybe even a second warning, then a suspension from posting but threads still viewable perhaps, then if they come back and keep on going then a ban is probably good.
Or just simply put a 1-5 mark system 5 marks is perm ban. Maybe more marks depending.
