FWIW it was not singular:
I completely agree, but you are applying the uneveness differently than many others have already pointed out.
So its okay to lower our dialog and communication to delroth’s level if its for “the right reasons”? I think not.
I and many others share this same sentiment for the last few years or so. It goes both ways.
100%
What rule did he violate? Where’s the moderation log today?
This is completely out of control.
For the record, I was the one who issued the mute. First of all, let me say that generally I am very much aware about the issue of tone policing, and for that reason I want to allow people to be angry and express frustration within reasonably large bounds. See also for example me explicitly not acting upon Joepie telling Jonringer to fuck off months ago (n.b. see a pattern?), because of the context of situation which caused that statement.
You can also see concurrent reactions by two effectively asking for disengagement, followed by another message from delroth. (In retrospect, that may have been written earlier due to federation delays, but that is only of secondary importance.) In that moment, I saw a situation escalating further and the quickest way I could find to force disengagement was to issue a mute. Delroth immediately left the room thereafter.
In my moderation actions, I make a difference between actions targeting people and actions targeting situations. However this is a difference in intent, and may not easily be differentiated from the outside without additional communication. The latter is usually quick and temporal in nature, and thus only documented in rare occasions (imagine writing down every time a thread gets locked). The former is a lot heavier and usually takes a lot longer, especially since many actions require a wider team consensus.
In retrospect, I think I made the wrong judgement call in a heated situation. But more importantly, there was a communication breakdown, because there was no clarification about the intent of the actions taken. I deeply regret that this turned out to be the one drop too much for a person already on the edge of leaving.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Hey
Thanks for giving context and sharing your thoughts. I think we all are trying our best, and even when we try our best we sometimes mess up. And that’s okay; we learn, we do better, and we move on. I can’t see the whole conversation but I don’t think I need to. I can guess based off of what you shared that the conversation had been heated for a bit. Based on what I can see, I don’t think that a temp mute is the worst decision. And arguably it is a good move when tensions are running high and people need to step away for a moment. Still it is sad to see delroth leave because of it.
Lastly, thanks for being a mod and doing this incredibly tough job. I appreciate your and the rest of the mod team’s hard work.
I’m not sure, but I think you and the other mods are doing a fantastic job in general. Thank you!
The moderation log has since been updated after deliberations in the moderation team.
If you want to discuss the ban specifically, please note that we have a policy in place, about where that discussion needs to happen. Further interaction on this particular subthread will be considered off-topic.
Second this. The usual approach to moderating public spaces is to not allow sensitive discussion at all: not as a policy of censorship, but as a policy of not burning out the entire moderation team within a week.
NixOS moderation team actually facilitates difficult conversations, and imo they are doing an excellent job here, given the inherent complexity of the problem and the sheer amount of hard work this requires.
This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.
To clarify the flagging you are seeing: there is some combination of users, trusted users, and limits that will have this effect when people hit the “flag” button under the messages. The exact limitations and whose flag is weighted how is a configurable setting. You are likely seeing not the direct action of a moderator, but the result of such flagging by regular users. (though, someone can correct me if i’m wrong)
Let me also add that I do not think that this muting incident sent a troubling message as mentioned in the original post, but actually sent a message that moderation can be applied equally and fairly to everyone.
I believe you intended to post in the other topic.
I could see that message being validly posted as on-topic in either of these discussions, as it broaches the intersection of them.
Occam’s razor has joined the chat
Its fine if a general rule needs to be radified on the spot, and its fine to ban-then-figure-it-out over a couple days. But after a couple bans absolutely need to follow some kind of rubrick to avoid discrimination and picking favorites. Rules should be applied uniformly, with evidence of that rule being broken.
I think a rule that a user should be banned from a conversation if/when they make a bad-faith counterpoint (scarcasm, personal attack, etc) to an argument would help this situation. This means not only scarcasm, blatant staw man arguments, false dichotomies, etc without apology when corrected. And while sealioning/baiting is much harder to confirm, they do fall under near this; Moderators would have to use judgment on whether or not an argument was made in bad faith but I think that is within their jurisdiction to do.
I disagree with Jon. I have searched Matrix, Discord, and Discourse, and have read each message in context. I’m still looking for a bannable offence because disagreement alone dosn’t make him deserve a 6 week ban. If he does deserve a ban, the evidence should be presented.
If anyone stays banned for 6 weeks with no rule broken, then this truly is the beginning of the unraveling of the nix community.
No, moderators should have discretion to moderate as human persons and not merely hot-blooded rule-applying algorithims. We don’t need to have a list of every possible bad word someone could say, we don’t need an exhaustive set of every possible misbehavior. The moderation team must act in the name of the common good, and be free to make judgement calls.
But if JonRinger stays banned for 6cmonths with no rule broken,
Brief note because I think typos like these can quickly cause misunderstandings in heated debates like this: According to moderation/moderation-log.md at 2ebb1fa9267045db77d589b9ecac840e05f71463 · NixOS/moderation · GitHub, the ban is
“for 6 weeks (until 2024-06-10)”, not months.
This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.
Would you allow that there are more subtle ways than these examples to be arguing in bad faith, or more generally to be disruptive or unwelcoming?
You can indulge in pedantry all you want, but my criteria are pretty clear: if Jon Ringer stays banned (EDIT sloppy wording on my part, sorry: I meant if his ridiculous ban is not reverted ASAP, with apologies from and/or consequences for those who enacted and enabled it) and this request (or, I guess, an attemped victory lap) is satisfied, then this organization is irrepairably broken. That would make me very sad.
Further edit (slow mode, sorry!): this is not about political camps, not for me anyway. It’s about simple organizational hygiene and compartmentalization. The madness just needs to stop, which means the adults in the room must step in. Except so far I see no such adults.
What we need to address right now is a structural problem in our organization, not anyone’s problem. Until then, there is no point directing these problems to any single person, especially just to show your anger.
Likewise, what we need is a resolution of disputes between all parties, rather than continuing to take sides. Does Jon Ringer take more power than cafkafk in this regard (now)? I would expect no. Still does cafkafk takes more power than Jon Ringer? Still no. So what’s the point of this decision?
Also Jon Ringer will not stay banned, as the moderation log states, he is banned for 6 weeks, and this decision has not be changed yet.
