I guess, then “offensive” should be removed as a flagging reason. Because there is not limit to what some people find offensive. Its not a useful predicate for moderation decisions.
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No moderating decisions have been taken. Everyone can still read your comments and they are only hidden by default because some amount of people have found it better to report them.
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Only the reader or receiver of your messages are able to decide if they’re offensive or not. You, as the purveyor of those messages, are not in a position to decide such things.
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This is not reality, and your attempt to lasso people into the “other” group is part of the problem.
it isn’t, and you’ve completely failed to understand how the discourse software works. People can still read your flagged posts, and no moderator action has been taken on those posts.
Are you one of the “whiny” people? You sure are whining a lot about this.
You don’t have harder skin, look at how whiny you are about several people flagging your post. Perhaps you should take it as a hint to compose your messages more thoughtfully.
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The problem is that “abusing the flag system” is a thing that can cause you to be banned. If it is fine to flag whatever thing you disagree with by calling that offensive, maybe there is no way to define “abusing the flag system”?
Is it? It seems like being flagged excessively is a sign that you’re a disruption to the community, and being a disruption to the community can get you banned, yes.
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Brigading by definition?
inb4 “Oh but it is not being coordinated”
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Not sure about the level of trolling required for a ban. I just don’t understand how people consider things as offensive. I think discussion on policies, without shaming or criticizing certain grouo or value, shouldn’t be treated as offensive. But whatever, I guess people will just say I cannot decide for them because I am not in the situation.
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Yes, because flagging and hiding by default is (10^(6*10^23))% not a barrier.
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You could do some reading or internet searches on the subject rather than remaining ignorant.
Yeah, totally. But the issue here is that people are heaping on certain groups or values, and that is offensive.
There are a lot of assumptions here without any proof. Where is the proof of this? Please provide it.
It is highly charged right now, yes, but going around in circles is only making it worse, not better.
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Frankly, your interpretation of term “safety” to only include physical safety is worrying. Dismissing the open letter is not productive, since you were not the addressed party.
Similarly, picking on the minority protection aspect, which was only one example of what the new governance structure could address, is leading to an unproductive discussion, of which we had far too many these last few months. Your closing statement makes the whole post look like an attempt at trolling.
We recommend against doing that kind of edit, since it might give the wrong impression about evading moderation action.
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But was it “offensive, abusive or hateful”, though? Or was the flagging made with bad intent and to lie about its severity to get it muted? You fail to address the main point of the OP.
You also introduce blanket terms like “worrying” and “not productive” which mean everything and nothing, giving you the freedom to decide subjectively on when to apply them. This reminds me of the language that autocratic governments use to silence dissidents. For example, in China you can be sentenced for being destructive to “Social Harmony”. I am not implying what goes on here is as bad as China of course, but merely stating the danger of vague language like you employ.
Obviously more than one person thought it was. What you said is in the same vein as the “all lives matter” thing that made its way through the USA. Do you understand why that was distasteful and hurtful? It is the same reason.
It is true that it is very difficult not to offend anyone. For example, this topic shows that you were offended by the fact some of your posts were flagged by other people, even if I do not think they were actively trying to offend you by clicking on that flag button.
Some of my posts were also flagged and hidden. It was hard to take, obviously, as I couldn’t see how a simple and calm question could be an issue ; but I took some time to wonder why was it so, and now I think I understand, and I am not offended anymore. Also I will try not to repeat my mistakes. I could even apologize, if it wouldn’t be adding too much useless noise.
Now, to answer your proposition: I think that, at least in the current context, it would be a bad idea for the integrity of the community.
We can talk about most things, but currently multiple members of the community already expressed they were tired of making again and again the same statements on a couple of divisive issues. A non negligible number of very involved members even left our community because of this, so this is very concerning.
Both of your posts are targeting “protecting minorities” / “marginalized groups”, which is one of the most divisive thing right now. Therefore, random posts about this question which do not add anything new on the table will probably trigger a fast “please do not raise this like that right now” response from those who are already exhausted about this question. In other words, people can easily get offended by a mere mention of this because of recent heated arguments about it. People could also think this question by itself deserve a full topic, so bringing that in other places where this is not central and unique is off-topic (ie. should be offloaded to another place or closed). So I guess your 2 posts could have been flagged for those 2 reasons.
Now, I will answer your 2 posts. But first, I will try to provide a bit of context from my point of view.
“The community is more important than the product”, so I think one of our priorities should be to protect the community. For this, I guess it is important to protect its members, especially those who explicitly stated they didn’t feel safe.
Some members are trying to protect Jon against “injustice”, but I saw him plead guilty, so I do not think any protection would make sense for him. More importantly, I do not think he asked for it, did he ?
Some members are trying to protect Eelco against a supposed “coup”, but he was the one to publish the board letter, so I do not think it would be comfortable for him to be forced back on the throne. More importantly, I do not think he asked for it, did he ?
Now, some members of “minorities” / “marginalized groups” inside our community did state they do not feel safe, and did ask for more protection. So I think we should protect them.
No, I am obviously not saying that we should over-protect them, or that we should protect only them, or that we should refuse to protect others from them if they do harm anybody themselves (ie. this is protection, not immunity).
In your first post, you state protecting minorities has “no relevance”. If it was the case to you, why would you even mention it ? If you really just didn’t want to talk about it, please feel free not to. You did, so why would you say they don’t need protection, against them saying they feel like they do need protection ? Do you consider yourself in a better position than them at judging their feelings ? But one can think saying this is actually abusive: one can think you are speaking to the people from minorities who felt threaten, and refuse them any protection. Maybe you want to harm them more ? It could explain why you want them not to have protection. I sincerely hope this is not the case, but actually, and sadly, your intentions here do not really matter: I think explicitly refusing protection to people who asked for it is a moral injury by itself.
If you can see that, I guess an apology would be welcome.
In your second post, you state that you refuse to read the letter, as it would be “a waste of [your] time”. This letter claim having multiple undisclosed authors from our community. Writing and editing this certainly required several order of magnitude more time than what it is required to read it. So when you tell them this is a waste, I think they have the right to feel offended. Also, providing your views after having admitted you refuse to listen others can be seen as abusive: it can look as if you force everybody to follow your point of view.
Maybe, the main issue in your case is that those guidelines only provide guidance on “how not to behave”. Which can be hard to see, and is subject to interpretation. Therefore I think you should consider reading (at least) the paragraph " We are respectful" of the brand new foundation/governance/zulip/coc.md at 7d64dd370687fceac2a9cf5dcf20a9218e2cf40a · NixOS/foundation · GitHub and maybe foundation/governance/zulip/deescalation.md at 7d64dd370687fceac2a9cf5dcf20a9218e2cf40a · NixOS/foundation · GitHub ; they don’t apply here on discourse, so you won’t be flagged or moderated for not following that, but still, they provide nice guidance on “how to behave” to allow constructive dialogue, so following those is probably easier and safer: I think if you do, you won’t get flagged again.
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There’s a mirror to the situation complained about in this topic. Moderators can unflag the posts and then they cannot be flagged or hidden anymore (you get an alert saying something like “you don’t need to flag this as it has been already reviewed”).
If we throw into the mix the moderation bias that many people have been complaining about (and that I consider true) then we have a powerful discourse control mechanism, in which messages that would have been hidden otherwise due to user interaction are then protected, while others are left to rot.
I have personally seen this at least once this week. Which side of what discussion was whitelisted is left as an exercise for the reader.
By the way, correct me if I’m wrong as I’m on the phone, but:
How can I proceed to appeal this moderator action?
This question (which is the main topic!) has not received an answer.
Can we get back on track?
It seems you have a very large cognitive bias preventing you from seeing the other sides perspective.
Given that the actual question of the topic has not received an answer, even from people from the moderation team that have already posted here, I’m tempted to assume there’s no actual interest in answering and the many digressions have provided an appropriate excuse to ignore this concern. I don’t think it’s the first time a legitimate concern is ignored like this.
As I’ve been doing these past days, I encourage everyone discontent, feeling unwelcome, marginalized, and otherwise unsafe with the current state of the community moderation (and other aspects) to try making a positive impact in the governance processes being set up. Please check here for details.
I still think the playing field is not levelled and, chances are, the outcome might end up strengthening the current state and worsening the situation. You could even consider any result coming out of this to be illegitimate from the start, but honestly, at this stage you can only try having your voice heard, if only to ensure a way to safely disengage from this community instance while remaining able to contribute where it really matters.
The answer is documented and currently is that “certain members can ask about moderation actions in the channel.” There is no way to appeal moderation decisions (this excludes topics that are flagged by users, which are generally reviewed by the moderation team.)
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