Dear friends,
First, a big thank you for all the comments and suggestions you have posted on this blog and sent to me by email. This was such a huge volume of comments that I had to ask my assistant, Amarynth, to organize them into groups. Then I read them all, alongside some emails I got and suggestions from members of my team. All in all, this has convinced me that we are doing pretty well and that was is needed is some minor tweaking and not gigantic reforms.
The first thing which I did was to update the rules of moderation. You can see the updated list here: http://10.16.86.131/moderation-policy/. Let me immediately admit that some the moderators were pretty lax in their interpretation and implementation of these rules. I will ask them to stick a little closer to them in the future.
Second, everybody can have a bad day, so I would ask that moderators use, when needed, a simple warning but without the removal of the offending commentary. This would particularly apply to off-topic comments (which should be posted in the Café).
Third, one idea which was suggested to me by many and which I like a lot is temporary bans. These would be like a warning shot, showing that we mean business, but without permanent consequences.
Fourth, I am thinking of implementing a EZ-pass system in which trusted commentators who have made regular and high-quality comments and how strictly adhered the rules for a long time. Their comments would allowed to bypass moderation and be posted immediately. This would not be a right one could demand, but moderators could nominate candidates for that status while the final decision would be made by me. Needless to say, this privilege could be revoked at any time.
All of the measures above would be aimed at helping and encouraging those who want to participate in our discussions.
There are also measures I want to take against two categories
- real, bona fide, trolls and paid propagandists
- stupid and/or narcissistic people
I am really sick and tired of both. I will therefore ask that posts which clearly fall into one of the two categories above be reported to the moderators (maybe via a “report this comment” button) and by the moderators to me. Frankly, I want to ban these characters as soon as they turn up and with no further waste of time on them. Trolls and paid propagandists are not welcome here, and this blog is not aimed at people with low intelligence, sorry. If you fall in either category, it is time to pack and leave.
That’s about it on my end.
Your turn now, what do you think of the above?
Kind regards and many thanks,
The Saker
You have my support.
Let ‘twilight’ stay…. j/k :D
Now lets get serious:
Yes there is certainly a rationalization to ban propagandists and agitprops,
but look at it this way: you deny them a venue to exert their job (which is
war, albeit informational war), they might loose their jobs and now funds are
freed up to be redirected elsewhere (for instance buying a grenade that will
kill a Syrian civilian). So there is always a trade off. Something to contemplate about.
You’re the expert, of course. The ideas seem very reasonable to my amateur view.
Is good work Saker does.
LZ
One thing certain, Saker.
What pisses you off should be dealt with promptly, and it has usually been for good reason generally agreed by all who care for the Vineyard because the offense is self-evident.
The temporary ban will work nicely, too.
Well said and I agree with all.
Auslander
Dear Saker,
I offer for your consideration an amendment to policy rule number 1.
Number 1: “Absolutely no use of CAPITAL LETTERS (as this is considered SCREAMING).”
There are times when all capital letters denote commonly known abbreviations which streamline verbose phrases in commentary, such as but not limited to: POTUS, (President of the United States), DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea), DUMA (Russia’s legislative body), MOD (Ministry of Defense), etcetera, etcetera.
Therefore, could the moderators (i.e. MODS) be given some license to use their commonsense judgement when applying this rule, so as to not toss into the “bin of irreverence” what would otherwise be a thought provoking opinion?
presumably also for such as IMO, IMHO and other shortcut texting “”words” too……?
Agreed!
For abbreviations caps will be allowed.
I will amend that rule immediately
thanks!
The Saker
It will be difficult to ban anyone on a blog without requiring user registration. Anyone can enter anything as their name, including a bunch of people all commenting as “anonymous”. Shotgun approach (banning the whole lot) will put off decent commentators off this place.
IP ban may or may not work. I have a static IP at home, but the whole world has a dynamic IP on their mobile phones… And I also have a VPN, so…
Not sure how much can you do without user registration and login requirements. A bunch of moderators reading thoroughly all comments and deleting on a case-by-case basis is the only option, but time consuming and will tend to relax over time.
That is the problem with stupid people – the supply is unlimited :P
The points @+Mikie is referring to are to be taken seriously imho.
Especially the last line. You may laugh about this, but he is absolutely right.
This is ‘minor’ with a few commentators, but will grow when the commentators section grows.
To give a stupid example, apart from the ‘Anonymous’ posts of which it is vague who they are (though quite a lot of their postings make sense imho), there is e.g. a second commentator ‘Rob’ on this site, whose comments are definitely not mine. Though I can appreciate the opinions of my ‘partner in name’, do people reading this site know who is who?
And do we take this for granted?
When you want to narrow down on this, it will need to introduce ‘accounts’ with the additional checks, an inevitable SQL database involved, and the necessary maintenance on it (‘release all people not logged in the last 2 years’). It will take time and efforts that maybe is not wanted, but maybe needed in the future.
On the moderation rules I would propose the following: You are the host and we are the guests. I can imagine all points, and though I’m not completely cheering about all of them, I understand them and would propose a practical point of view: Just impose them for, say, 3 months and then evaluate them internally.
Just my few cents.
Cheers, Rob (the one from western Europe ;-))
Rob, thx for the heads up. I have asked the other commenter calling himself “Rob” to change to “Rob1” so the other commenters all know its you and not the other “Rob”. Mod
I claim Ralph – not Ralph1, Ralph2 etc. Of course, from the Mods pov, when somebody uses a name other than Anonymous, the name goes with the e-mail address as given (but unseen to the public).
I normally do not read comments to your blog since to often I have found to many of them belongs to the same groups that you want to disappear. When I experience those bad comment I get upset and stop reading. So if they are reduced in numbers I will reconsider reading comments since you are doing a great job with The Saker.
Sounds good, Saker. It’s really important to keep your unique truth-seeking, truth-telling blog going. Do whatever it takes.
The Saker,
I think your ideas re possible change to moderation policy are very sensible, but I would just like to Thank your moderators for the Brilliant job they do.
However, I think this idea of “EZ-pass system in which trusted commentators who have made regular and high-quality comments and how strictly adhered the rules for a long time” should appear completely transparent (and not recognisable) to the vast numbers of people who read this blog. Maybe a few people who have been reading this blog – for maybe a few months or much longer, may finally decide that they want to make a comment. They should in no way feel in the slightest way inhibited, from making a contribution to your blog.
I read it for about a year, before I commented here, and I did the same at Alternet more than 10 years ago.
Years before that, whilst I was working in the computer industy, I wrote a little shell script, and inserted it for an hour or so, on one of my favourite blogs (about the year 1999, 2000) (absolutely nothing to do with my job) – but it was lunchtime.
I realised that this was slightly improper, but I was amazed at the results. The amount of traffic was completely phenomenal, but far less than 1% of the people who read the blog, ever commented, and I suspect the real numbers were less than 0.1%, but I felt guilty for doing it, and removed my shell script after lunch.
It was not my blog, I do not abuse trust, and there is no way I would be a moderator, unless it was my own blog…
So again
I thank your moderators for the Brilliant job they do…and please delete everything I write, when I have obviously drunk too much alcohol…..and the words start to blurrrrrr..and they are totally off-topic and not making a lot of sense (even though they are obviously true or I wouldn’t have written them).
I seriously Respect, The Work that you guys do.
Tony
These suggestions seem very reasonable to me.
I do hope – and expect – that they’ll be executed more reasonably than the rules put in place by Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo. Some years ago, there were very heated exchanges over Israel in which I participated. Marshall decided to change the rules and promised that no one would be banned until they had been given at least one or two warnings in advance.
Then a week later there was another heated argument over Israel. Marshall, a “closet Zionist”, proceeded to ban me and several others with no warnings whatsoever. No overt Zionists were banned – only those opposed to Israeli policy.
This sort of thing happens a lot on blogs. Once you push the blogger’s “hot button(s)”, you’re gone soon after.
I’m certain The Saker and his moderators will be far more fair than I’m used to.
I agree with your assessment and remedy. EZ-pass interests me not because I have ever before sent in a comment, nor have I ever accessed them on your site, but because from what I gather you do receive interesting and pertinent comments from certain readers. In that case I shall start checking out the comments. In any case I much appreciate your work and honesty, as do people of my entourage.
Saker,
All sounds good. Two comments:
(1) I agree with tony_0pmoc that “EZ-pass”, if implemented, should be totally transparent from the perspective of blog visitors.
(2) If the “report this comment” button you mention were to be available to all blog visitors, my concern is that it could be abused to create more work for your moderators. I.e., trolls could just randomly report a third of the comments on every article and the mods would have to spend a bunch of extra time figuring out whether the complaints were legit or not.
Thanks again for all the hard work you and your team put into the Vineyard!
Acacia:
A report this comment button definitely makes sense. On a few occasions I countered some comments that were written in an agitating style. Funny thing is that my respective response to some of those comments didn’t make it, although I didn’t use any derogatory language.
If your only concern is trolling, then I’ve got bad news for you. You don’t need a report button for trolling and causing a huge workload for moderators.
Sounds great, as long as the moderators don’t go anal about cnp’ing material from articles and essays.
I would suggest one addition to your ‘rules of moderation’: Ban the username ‘Anonymous’. Require some splitting-out of individuals, even if only by Anonymous3, Anonymouser, etc. I can’t tell you the number of times I have had questions about which Anonymous held which position on something, especially if three Anonymous in a row are arguing. Protect identities, but minimize confusion…
very nice idea.
yeah, let people remain anonymous, but stop using “anonymous”
lemme see how this could be implemented
thanks!
The Saker
That task is nearly impossible. You may try to attach some unique “anonymous” to an IP-address for 24 hours. The downside is that this may keep people from posting comments.
I can only speak for myself, but I wouldn’t use the same anonymous nickname several times – neither voluntarily nor forced. It’s already annoying to use a recognizable nick on some other alternative news web site. I would rather abstain from commenting. But that’s just my two cents.
Anonymous, my intent was not to have someone readily-identifiable over time. It was more in the course of a single blog. So, say, 3-5 days. After that, Anonymous3 can disappear and be Anonymouser in the next blog. It would let us readers have more hair, rather than pulling it out in exasperation trying to identify which Anonymous had which point. Just a short-term identifier…
” It’s already annoying to use a recognizable nick on some other alternative news web site.”
Why is this so?
I am genuinely curious.
In what way is it more uncomfortable to use, say, Tom, Dick, or Harry instead of the name Anonymous?
Because, Anonymous is just another name, one that multiple people choose.
Katherine
“yeah, let people remain anonymous, but stop using “anonymous” ”
I don’t understand the problem here.
Anyone can choose any handle and remain anonymous.
I don’t know who most people here are, from their handles. Only a few use their real names, that I know of. Even those may be pseudonyms.
The only purpose I can see for using Anonymous is, in fact, to confuse other commenters as to who one is, from the point of view of the message (since real identities are veiled anyhow).
That is, other commenters are prevented from creating a context for an Anonymous’s comments.
So, I still think commenters should be obliged to choose a handle and stick with it.
Not that I am nuts about this.
There may be good reasons for not doing this that I don’t know.
In which case, what are they?
Katherine
The key issue seems to be ‘who’ said what, rather than what is said/written.
Ok, in the world of identity focus this carries value for some people.
With a few notable exceptions who have risen to regular ‘expert’ status I personally find the ‘who’ to less valuable.
So perhaps for those participants who do not value a perpetual Saker blog identifier/personality why not just require that each participant uniquely identify within a post thread — e.g., “Anon1; Anon2; Anon3;… Anonx” etc. I agree that would help with following long threaded responses.
As one off quick post deposits are probably not expecting any conversational response (and thus no need for identifications) why not adopt the convention that if a set of responses do develop in a thread then the first “Anonymous” is deemed to be “Anonymous1” (and will use that in response) and those following in that thread will adopt some other “2,3,4,5…) unique random suffix and stick to it in that thread etc.
Just a suggestion.
And as for the ‘button’ feature — a good idea, imo. Even if a evident 5% use it adversely correct use by the 95% will save a lot of time and effort I’m sure. Always being ‘controlled’ by the 5% is tail wagging dog etc.
One small gripe I have which does not seem to get consideration is having some type of sorting feature. I like to drop in from time to time to see discussion progress. However, on long response posts (e.g. n=195) it is very difficult to see what is recently added among all the subbranches etc. And even getting to the sequential end using an iPad/iPhone type device entails spending 80% of the time simply flicking down to the end of the list. Surely someone in your tech dept can work out a simple feature whereby we can get a “Last first” type sorting. I personally use the macro “Latest Articles” feature to begin my browsing — so why can’t this approach also be use within articles with a “latest posting” sort feature?
How about limiting it to civil, intelligent, thoughtful comments and dialog for the adults in the room? I really enjoy your articles and posts, and read comments to see if there is a level of intelligent discourse or lack thereof by neanderthals in the room. I call them out and nail the trolls which sometimes shut them down. Don’t respond to their drivel other than the simple reply, Troll !
How do you stop someone using the same alias as someone else? Won’t this place a burden on moderators to check IP addresses, which can change? Other sites prevent the same alias being used.
Hi guys
is it worth monitoring the changes—-might mean lots of work—but a worthwhile reduction of the “nonsense’….eg, by comparing recent patterns and over next coupla months of the amount of traffic, reads of an article, is there an upwards trend at the moment, %age of readers versus contributors, will the trends continue to rise as quality of engagement increases or level off bell curve or decline …does it matter compared with other comparable blogs etc…..same people visiting thousands of times cf the occaisional visitor……..etc etc
I would like to have some method of marking which comments I have read. Sometimes I read the comments when there are 20 or 30, and then it’s difficult to come back a few days later and find what is fresh to me.
I would also like to have the ability to filter. Certain commenters I’m no longer interested in reading what they have to say. I won’t mention names. Filtering could include a blacklist and a favorite list.
Thanks to the Saker and all the enlightened people who comment here.
Very much like your EZ Pass system Saker. It makes sense – why waste the time and energy of a moderator having to “check” someone who is long proven to not need it? And to reward good consistent comments is very fair, also.