Island Life: Who's laughing?
82 Responses
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merc,
They are very good ideas.
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a flag on their IP
You should log IPs where admins/mods can find them, so that it's easier to catch people with multiple id's and sockpuppets, but don't make them the basis of automated behaviour, because organisations with broken servers will result in you applying your discipline to many many innocent people.
If I were designing a system from scratch I would also make it easy to for admins/mods to use cookie data to catch shared logins and sockpuppets. Multiple people sharing a login, and one person with multiple logins both break the principle of letting people create an identity and care about its reputation.
You know what? You should identify operators and designers of successful forums and offer them a modest consulting fee. Seriously. Give Matthew Haughey a couple of grand for his advice and that will save you weeks of fooling around.
I am also available at modest, beer-money rates. But I have no credentials at all :)
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PS: email me so I don't forget, but I know someone who did a 50 page thesis on Metafilter as a case study in online behaviour. I don't have to find it now but it would repay study if you are planning on working in this area.
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And also for Che: A group is its own worst enemy.
The classic work from Clay Shirky. Lots of food for though there.
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One shouldn't hype MeFi too much, though. Some aspects of the moderation irritate me enourmously, and a lot of them come back to the benevolent dictator model: in particular, the benevolent dictator lets some "old hands" act in ways that would get newer users suspended or booted because, hey, they're old buds; the dictators can also get sand in their panties about some topics and simply block-delete them, leaving others going WTF?.
(Personally, I find MeFi to be a bit Leiberman Democrat, but perhaps that's just me)
Benevolent dictators are great when you trust their tastes, but I'm not sure that's a great model.
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my weak attempt to slander mr farrar aside
Channelling Zelig, I went & stood behind Mark Blumsky & beside David Farrar, in front of Parliament and made a pitch on your behalf.
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rodger: Metafilter is good, but I agree it's not perfect.
In fact that highlights a particular challenge for a government entity that wants to encourage discussion. At the end of the day, a private site owner can say "this is my site and this is how I run it and if you don't like it, start your own." But a state-run site has expectations of freedom from bias and neutrality that make it near impossible for a powerful mod to exercise much discretion and still be seen to be fair. In that case I think the only answer is a detailed and prescriptive policy. Freewheeling discussion will suffer as a result, but tough.
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Digg is having the same problem
http://engtech.wordpress.com/2007/03/27/five-ways-to-fix-diggs-comment-system/
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What did you pitch at them? Something sticky and smelly?
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(Personally, I find MeFi to be a bit Leiberman Democrat, but perhaps that's just me)
Really? I find some of them a bit... 'simplistic libertarian'. I still read the site obsessively, though...
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What did you pitch at them?
I introduced myself as Che Tibby & demanded a co-star slot.
I imagine that they'll be very surprised to find out that the real Che is about 4 feet taller than me, and has neither an appalling speech impediment nor a comical limp.
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Stephen, damn you, where was that list before I wrote the admin manual for Bardic Web and had to work all that out myself?
-- seed the group early on with people who set the tone you want to have; then cultural norms develop and posters become self-policing.
We get a long way with this. And so does Kiwiblog.
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NoRightTurn seems to be a case study in how to run a political blog with a minimum of hysterical nuttiness.
The secret of his success seems to be an even-handed approach - he's just as dismissive of crazy lefties as he is of rightwing wing-nuts - and a healthy lack of the spin, shilling and general political lickspittlery that's widely prevelent in other New Zealand political blogs. -
I wish it was my list - it's just the composted wisdom of Metatalk, Monkeyfilter, Shirky, and other clever people.
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I imagine that they'll be very surprised to find out that the real Che is...
my funniest farrar story is from the last great blend.
we rocked in and sat down next to gemma gracewood, and lo and behold, on the far side of gemma was mr. farrar.
my gf up and walked away to buy us some drinks and gemma commented, "she's hot". knowing that farrar was within easy earshot i replied, "sure... you want her, you know, me casa su casa".
farrar visibly leaned away, and moved to stand somewhere else shortly thereafter.
gf thought it was hilarious. i still don't know if he knew it was me.
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merc,
That's brilliant, with a little of The Mount in it, luffly.
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he he great. i expect he loped off to the toilet for a few minutes?
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Heh - that may explain recent blind gossip items.
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Ahem ahem! May I refocus your attention on the subject of David's (the other one) post?
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The best forums/irc channels I've frequented always have a firm policy on banning ad hominem attacks and violent threats.
However, there really isn't a lot a small but popular site/channel can do if a person or people get serious about trying to disrupt it. You just have to hope your enemies are not leet or at least tire easily. Having mad skillz helps too though.
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oh alright. well on the positive side, the bravest people i know are the people who don't do one amazing thing, but the men and women in emergency services.
a friend of mine attended an absolutely horrific child fatal the other day, and is back at work again (believe me you wouldn't want to know the extremely gory and tragic details). i've been to a couple and it is intensely awful - the people that do it on a regular basis are way brave and of genuine service to humanity, even more than like Mike McRoberts in the Kabul Sheraton. -
Heh - amidst the faintly righteous back-slapping about how tolerant we are in comparison to other blogs (and rightly so), I feel a little unease about sentiments aimed at 'limiting these dicks' - even though dicks some of them most truly are ......
Not that I in anyway condone 'dick-ism' but I guess its about trying to keep online debate at a civil, non-personal, non-abusive level rather than simply expelling those whom we violently disagree with, right? (otherwise its just like-minded people continually talking to themselves isn't it?). The question is how to you prevent the slide into 'dick-ism'?, Is is possible?, is 'dick-ism' nature or nurture? Do they deserve rehabilitation?
Which reminds me, off topic, one of the latest US based HR hot trends is the rather obvious ' Don't hire Arseholes' policy.
Thats why I think fessing up to your real name is a great starting point, and why PAS generally works so well. In saying that I understand that not everyone can or should or wants to, but it certainly limits the ease with which a robust debate can end with someone anonymously slipping into 'loony fringe-speak'.
Not sure if that makes sense. To paraphrase Sam Neill, I'm wary of the 'Blogosphere of Unease' ........
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It's stories like this that make me want a licence to be human - without a licence you don't get to participate in civilised society.
Yeah I know, completely impractical and in the end probably wrong (in that grand sense of right and wrong)
but oh so tempting
Of course implicit is the idea that I would be the ultimate moderator able to revoke someones licence at will - which of course is the reason the idea is so wrong :)
Meanwhile Stephen's ideas sound great
and I really trying hard to not breach the rules myself:).
cheers
Bart -
merc,
But merc is my real name, I've even got an autobiography and everything.
And blessed are the dicks for they make me feel smug...at night...in my duvet, until I realize...what a dick I am. -
i agree the list stephen's provided is a good one.
i guess the licensing/moderating objectionalbes goes back to the old free speech thingy. what isn't often mentioned by those apt to squeel about free speech rights (and sorry for sounding like a grandpa), is that they also invoke duties. so to keep the right you have to observe duties of care. free speech has never been an unqualified right, hence defamation laws, the offence of yelling FIRE in a crowded picture theatre when there ain't no fire, etc.
so from that pov, there's no problem in limiting particpants' input. and following the the guidlines in the abovementioned list gets pretty close to as good as it gets in terms of the moderator/despot issue.
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