Are you using 'Trolls' the way most people nowadays use the term? Basically tagging anyone who has a contrary opinion to one's own too often get labeled a troll.
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Simply Put, Too Much
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Are you using 'Trolls' the way most people nowadays use the term? Basically tagging anyone who has a contrary opinion to one's own too often get labeled a troll.
Where are there posts with PRSI content in this forum or thread?
In the macrumors news or iPhone thread, discussing trump, conservatives, liberals is PRSI content.
The really cool calm interaction between the admins and the users is AWESOME. One of the reasons I'm a proud member of this forum and a contributor. Nice work admins / mods / and users.
The analogy of police only catching some of the violators is really accurate imo. Those that are caught, discretion is left to the officer to deal with it or not.
The analogy of police only catching some of the violators is really accurate imo. Those that are caught, discretion is left to the officer to deal with it or not.
That's my point. I don't think they are. In another thread, posts that are very similar to posts in this thread were deleted with the reason being that they are PRSI in nature.
Politics Religion Social Issues - https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/politics-religion-social-issues.47/
Basically referring to this portion of Macrumors.
I use it to define not someone who has a differing opinion, but an “opinion” rooted in complete falsehood and supported by flat-out lies, and who continues to repeat said “opinion” over and over after being called out on it.
For instance “the unemployment rate was terrible under Obama but has been amazing under trump! It was like 9% at the end of Obama and is under 2% now!” You keep repeating that, you are a troll, not someone who just sees things differently.
But what if the the view of the person accusing the first person of “falsehood and lies” is actually wrong? In other words, what if the first person is demonstrably right and the accuser is demonstrably wrong? What then?
In your example, you are assuming that there are certain facts that everyone agrees upon. That is not always true.
I guess I'm showing my age... back in the day, the definition of "troll" was someone who states a contrary opinion for the specific purpose of causing others to respond with anger. The goal of the classic troll was to stir up strife. It's a poster's motivation that defines them, not the position they take.
I think in most cases that is what is happening. But it's being masked as debate. Supporters of one point of view will push the boundaries in an attempt to get the other side tossed.
There were definitely moderated posts in that contain PRSI content outside of the PRSI forum. However, it's possible us posters don't see the entire picture.
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There is some of that all over the place, with thinly veiled comments (or light-weight insults such as: "you need to read more carefully") designed to get someone to "bite".
Funny you mention that, I got reprimanded for something similar and when I reported for the same thing was told it was not worthy of action. It depends on the mod and the day but they're often inconsistent and you don't know whether specific posters are given a free pass for donating or whatever.
Another example is I've posted an image in reply to another post, had it reported and removed with the reason something like "posting images without content is not allowed" then you look and there are several posts with images without content and are left as is.
If nothing else, they need to work on consistency. Too much of it is subject to the mod and their personal feelings on the matter. In the end, it's not fair to either party when they do that.
That is never a factor and not something we even pay attention to.
The image only one is a little tricky. If it is an image with text on the image that would otherwise be allowed, then it is not considered a frivolous post. Images with text that is just a meme, or an image with no text is considered frivolous and removed.
For example your avatar (below) with the "Shut up and take my money" text would be considered an overused meme and removed. The same image with text on it that said, "The budget is out of control", would be okay since if you just posted that text it would be okay.
So it seems like, if I condense the last few pages into a sentence or two, that the complaint is about mods not being consistent amongst themselves. Users who get punished see others get away with stuff that got them punished and feel sore about it.
From the mods perspective they do their best not to interject their bias in their rulings but as humans that is difficult to do consistently across the board.
I know users whom I’ve talked to that were suspended have mentioned certain mod names saying they were being picked on because the mod didn’t agree with them politically. In all honesty I can see why the mod did what they did as users definitely step over a line to get noticed. But it does seem like some mods are far more active/responding to certain posts than other mods.
I still put out there that I’ve been a member of other forums where moderation was 10x worse and done by kids. Mods here, while not perfect, do an above average job. The fact that threads like this exist and admins take time to review mod decisions is great. And the three strikes rule is pretty lenient vs instant ban hammer.
I still stay out of PRSI. I’ve mentioned why before but it just makes more work for the mods and can result in unwanted mod action if people complain.
I really like @jkcerda returning to the psri section. Nice to see him there again. Wish I had that skill.
From the mods perspective they do their best not to interject their bias in their rulings but as humans that is difficult to do consistently across the board.
I know users whom I’ve talked to that were suspended have mentioned certain mod names saying they were being picked on because the mod didn’t agree with them politically. In all honesty I can see why the mod did what they did as users definitely step over a line to get noticed. But it does seem like some mods are far more active/responding to certain posts than other mods.
I still put out there that I’ve been a member of other forums where moderation was 10x worse and done by kids. Mods here, while not perfect, do an above average job. The fact that threads like this exist and admins take time to review mod decisions is great. And the three strikes rule is pretty lenient vs instant ban hammer.
I still stay out of PRSI. I’ve mentioned why before but it just makes more work for the mods and can result in unwanted mod action if people complain.
I really like @jkcerda returning to the psri section. Nice to see him there again. Wish I had that skill.
This is exactly right, and the users who were punished while others were not for the exact same thing have every right to be sore because they're not being treated equally, particularly when it's a cut and dry offense without question. Whether they penalize it let it slide, it should be consistent or it just comes across as biased.
Of course, there is the consistency thing.
However, I don't think the pinnacle of moderation perfectionism will ever be achieved, just like, as others have noted, police officers may appear to police inconsistently.
But it would be a whole lot easier and the mods could actually recline in their easy chairs if posters posted paid attention to the spirit of the "rules for appropriate debate'.
If that happened the mods wouldn't have any work to do. But it seems as if what some are really asking is: how much can I push the boundaries to poke, troll and annoy other members before a post get's moderated or a poster gets a time-out.
Interesting, good to know. It gets tiring to see the same memes as gifs masquerading as a post.
I am not sold on the premise that certain mods either target certain posters or target certain points of view. I'm thinking it may have more to do with timing relative to the 24hour clock when posters post and moderators mod and who is online at a particular point in time and when a reported post gets reviewed or the mods just happen to trip over a post that requires review. I am of the opinion, the mods strive as much as possible to make sure the conversations adhere to the rules. There may be blips here and there, but those blips can seem magnified as evidenced by this thread. Then there is the human touch, unlike Facebook.
But we see image memes with or without text/content all the time in posts, not just in PRSI but in other forums as well. It appears that the only time it's removed is if/when it's reported. I would consider this one of the biggest inconsistencies of moderation here at MR.
Yes but life is never fair is it. We do have ways of taking issue via contact form with moderation we don't think was appropriate. I've come close once or twice but so far managed to shrug and figure ok let it go it's just pixels.
In a way I'm surprised to find myself taking some exception to complaints about moderator inconsistency, since on more than one occasion I've had posts taken down that I have (at least momentarily) felt should have been left up since "other stuff like that gets left up all the time" etc.
Sure, we've all seen images put up w/o comment, or even sometimes an emoticon or one-word posts. The thing is, in context of the thread stream at that point a lot of them make perfect sense so no bothers to report them... unless the image or the one-word post offends someone's sensibilities -- and in that case if it's reported, then the mods are forced to consider how it violates guidelines, which may or may not be related to the reporting user's sensitivity. The consideration is more likely over the basic "don't put up a one-word post or offer images without comment" which sort of posting in some forums may have to do with trying to bump a post count.
But in PRSI where posts aren't counted towards one's total post count anyway, and where memes galore get put up that do have text in them, and where videos with titles on them are posted without comment, how many of them are ever even reported? So members may get used to seeing the images up there where an implied commentary may be pretty obvious, and on topic (and best of all, succinct?!).
So in PRSI at least, people may report even fewer of the relatively few posts that contain just some image or GIF or emoticon or single word, especially if in context of thread flow it's pretty clear the post itself is an on-topic offering.
The mods have made it clear they don't read through threads in any forum looking for violations, they just deal with what's reported to them. I'd bet most of us don't even think about whether a post is a violation when we encounter a one-word or wordless image post that seems to fit into the flow of the thread... UNLESS it also happens to tick us off personally, or UNLESS we happen to have had a post deleted for such a violation in the past.
Bottom line on meme posting, even if it has words in the image and seems to be on topic, and isn't the tenth time you've put that meme up in the same forum... the safest thing to do is tack in a one liner-intro... "oh, you mean like this?"
I would just add this: since it's annoying to have any post taken down if one has bothered to look up citations from reputable sources, etc., it certainly pays to have constructed the post in an external document, in case the post gets deleted for reasons that are tangential to its content. For instance, sometimes posts are deleted because they are in a set of numerous replies to some other post that had veered way off topic or was deleted by mods for some other violation. If you still have the external document you may be able to make the point of your deleted post in some other thread or appropriate context without reworking the ideas or redoing citations research.
On the topic of consistency, it appears that some people want perfection of the rules and moderation. If that is the case, those people need to lower their expectations somewhat.
The only real way to achieve perfect consistency is if life, existence itself, were binary, black & white, 0's and 1's. However, that is not the case of the universe and the human condition. Everything is very much gray and messy.
Opinions of what is a violation and what isn't are always going to vary. Seldom will everyone agree on the same thing. If someone gets moderated for a thing and someone else doesn't for a similar thing the first person probably will be sore about it. Just as when a red car and a white car are both going well over the posted speed limit and the police officer only stops the red car, the driver of the red car is going to be sore that the white car wasn't stopped instead. That doesn't negate the fact that the driver of the red car was still speeding and they got caught.
Life isn't fair. Get over it. Have some personal accountability and tend to yourselves and don't worry so much about what the other person has done.
The only real way to achieve perfect consistency is if life, existence itself, were binary, black & white, 0's and 1's. However, that is not the case of the universe and the human condition. Everything is very much gray and messy.
Opinions of what is a violation and what isn't are always going to vary. Seldom will everyone agree on the same thing. If someone gets moderated for a thing and someone else doesn't for a similar thing the first person probably will be sore about it. Just as when a red car and a white car are both going well over the posted speed limit and the police officer only stops the red car, the driver of the red car is going to be sore that the white car wasn't stopped instead. That doesn't negate the fact that the driver of the red car was still speeding and they got caught.
Life isn't fair. Get over it. Have some personal accountability and tend to yourselves and don't worry so much about what the other person has done.
This is partly true. If a moderator runs across a frivolous image, we remove it, but in large part we rely on reports to draw our attention to problems. I would not say it is inconsistent, it is just a matter of moderators only reasonably being able to see a given number of posts in a day.
If you see problems, you can really help us by hitting that report button.
We just want the mods to follow your own guidelines with consistency, it's not really perfection we're asking for, it's objectivity applied equally.
That nirvana of objective moderation perfection will never happen. As @LizKat said, “they are just pixels”...move on.
How do you propose that should be done when everything is situational and there are numerous variables and gray areas to consider?
Example; if I were to reply to this by saying "it's not my fault you don't understand your own rules, you should read up on them".
The implication is there, it now becomes personal.
Subjective? Maybe. However, if I were reprimanded for that - then the next person who does it is not, for similarly (nearly) the exact same thing, it then feels unfair. Regardless of the topic or the opinion.
How can you guarantee that the next post, in your example, is taken care of given the thousands of posts made daily? If you would have said that to me, anywhere on this forum I wouldn't have been offended and I wouldn't have reported it. So now what? You seem to think it is a violation and I don't - given that it was said to me. So, how do you answer that in the context of consistency?