selig wrote: ↑23 Sep 2017
If someone 'shitposts' and no one replies, it quickly goes off the radar and is not an issue.
Though ideal may be a little unrealistic. This requires 100% awareness and cooperation of non response among all users. Also I think that it's not always clear when it is happening at first. The first post could just appear to be someone having a genuine problem, or in need of an understanding of what is going on.
But who knows, .. maybe non-response will catch among long term forum users after they realize their attempts to reason with them will be futile.
The more deliberately antagonizing, particularly on a personal level, I just think on principle alone warrants moderation.
selig wrote: ↑23 Sep 2017
IMO the bigger problem and the one I'm always commenting about is WHY are all these flies attracted to the shitposts?
There are variants of motivations. Some just want to clarify their position. So the person says, "you're just saying my problem isn't important and that it's
my fault and that I have to check
my settings. Propellerhead don't care about us." A well meaning member may try to explain.
And then you just have the outlet graffiti. I guess it's much more of a social thing. You have someone coming into the forum with the clear intent of just muddying the waters. This might all be about basic human emotions wanting to root out bad actors.
selig wrote: ↑23 Sep 2017
Again I would ask what defines a shitpost? We have been fairly lenient (more so than I would want, TBH), and STILL we get the "mods are being too PC and deleting/locking every thread that…(fill in the blank)" responses.
There are no hard and fast rules, though I think that persistence regardless of facts is a strong indicator. If someone says, "you're doing X," a person response, "no I am not, you simply misunderstood me," and then the person baits them, calling them fanboys and so on and in general creating a sour feel then I think we have a strong candidate.
It's difficult to pin down and define, which is an age old problem of law. Personally I think in a much more beysian manner. I imagine you could probably train a spam filter to flag potential shitposts, ... ... ...
selig wrote: ↑23 Sep 2017
We can't win, we always offend someone whether we step in and take action or stand aside and let it play out.
I think some feelings are less important than others. If someone is genuinely misbehaving or being unsociable, to hell with their sour feelings. They are not only not contributing, but they are probably discouraging valuable contributions.
I mean, a few members left at the time of the VST announcement because they anticipated this. There are probably a dozen or so beginners who may have benefited from fruitful technical discussion but were turned off by the shitposts.
I know I've seen it before, and this was among a civil forum who were just convinced someone was lying of their identity and drove him out.
selig wrote: ↑23 Sep 2017
Anyway, it's probably time in the life of this forum to reflect and make some choices, which I'd like to be influenced by the user base. So let's keep this conversation going, by all means!
Well I think you guys have done a fantastic job. I in all honesty considered creating a forum to replace the PUF myself. I have the skills, I have the servers, but nah, I knew that that sound moderation was beyond my capabilities.