You mean like what constantly happens on this forum?
Reallyā¦ you are way off topic here 
But instead of flagging you and ZOMG censoring you I want to address:
The purpose of forum moderation is not to impose censorship, itās to keep topics on-topic, not allow posts that violate community guidelines and terms, etc., and doing this is all built into the software.
Discourseās flagging system can be used by any member of the forum, however it usually gets most use from mods to create private message to users about their posts, also to invite other users or moderators to the PM to further discuss /examine things as needed.
When someoneās post gets flagged and hidden they can edit their post to fix whatever problem it was that caused their post to be flagged. If they donāt the post will be hidden (from public view, not to forum admin/mods).
Back to the topicā¦
For certain words being censored, like what @Meta.Staze was talking aboutā¦
Technically, itās easy to have a (verbatim) censored words list, but people will also just be l337 & gh4y up their text to avoid the filter.
However, in general, attempting to watchdog mute / kick or ban people for using ādirty languageā in a video game, is (arguably) a very terrible idea, sorry but not sorry.
Players have the privilege of free expression as defined by rules but no āfree speechā (absolutely), and in the current rules, rule 4 address violent speech which repeatedly targets an individual and instructs both players and admins on how to treat this and what to do.
##Separate āChat rulesā
A newly drafted āChat Rulesā will accompany these streamlined āmain rulesā, and will still outline what kind of stuff isnāt allowed by rule 3&4 (currently).
###All admins should already be kick/banning anyone breaking rule 4, and reporting them on forums.
2 Likes
9/10 youāre flagging me and Iām getting a PM from spark plug.[quote=āromdos, post:13, topic:2016ā]
The purpose of forum moderation is not to impose censorship
[/quote]
Yet that is what has happened.
Let my people troll
FASCIST FASCIST FASCIST
Hardly. Most all posts that get hidden are stuff like 1 line comments where a heart/like should be used, stuff like some replies from non-admins on admin applications (like people saying they will vouch), ad hominen attacks where someone demonstrates they have nothing to contribute to the discussion.
If all that gets ācensoredā is shitposts, as the saying goes: āif itās brown flush it down.ā
Also posts that contain ad hominem attacks that is embedded in content that would otherwise be appropriate get flagged, as well as posts that contain significantly off topic stuff that would be better suited in another existing/new topic, but is embedded with otherwise on topic content gets flagged. But in such instances of flagging, the poster is given an opportunity to make corrections to their post.
In any case, the purposes/functionality/nature of the forums are different from those of game servers, hence the reason for differences in standards/rules.
Guys please, itās an important toppic ā¦
This seems to warrant itās own thread.
Iāll just split it. Its quite clear that this discussion is heading to a direction that would not return back to the OP.
flags on discourse are a curious thing, they do not work in the way you would think. they are free to be used by any user on the forum (not just mods) for posts that fall into certain categories and/or go against the spirit of the User Guidelines.
flags do eventually āhideā the post (honestly its behind a single mouse click tho) and the content remains intact. additionally, the content becomes unhidden once you have edited the post (assumingly editing it with the purpose of modifying the post in a way that abides by the guidelines).
however, its not supposed to replace the need for moderators. moderators are supposed to practice their due diligence to make sure people donāt make malicious flags and act accordingly. we can defer flags if necessary.
@hero I do not blame you for being taken aback with flags, as I seriously doubt most people are aware of how they actually work. Even then, it certainly does start āmob reactionsā to mass flags, as weāve seen before. I do not like how people can flag posts without giving specific reasons, sometimes making it difficult for the āoffendingā user to figure out what needs to be changed. Additionally, I also doubt most people are aware of how flags work on this forum in the first place (perhaps later this week iāll start a thread about it).
@hero Next time you feel that your post was unjustly flagged, just PM a moderator (example: me) and Iāll practice my due diligence to take a close look at it.
You have to chose a reason when you flag:
- āItās Off-Topicā āThis post is not relevant to the current discussion as defined by the
title and first post, and should probably be moved elsewhere.ā - āItās Inappropriateā āThis post contains content that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or a violation of our community guidelines.ā
- āItās Spamā āThis post is an advertisement. It is not useful or relevant to the current topic, but promotional in nature.ā
- āSomething Elseā āThis post requires staff attention for another reason not listed above.ā (with this option the flagger would include a message with more detail but I believe that only moderators can read it)
There is also an option to send a pm to the poster about the post through the flagging menu (moderators automatically have access to private messages sent through the flagging system).
Sure, but sometimes a post can contain both āoff-topicā and āinappropriateā matter. Falling for offtopic might result in the post being flagged again for inappropriate, etc. āSpamā barely happens these days and afaik, āSomething Elseā is the only option requiring a justification by the flagger.
Ofc any improvement to the current flagging system requires programming/time/resources/etc, but IMO it should atleast allow you to select which part of the post is being flagged. Having a decent post be crippled because of a small aspect can piss people off.
I should add that it didnāt look like the Discourse developers showed much interest in this feature suggestion. So if such a feature was going to be done, someone would probably have to independently develop a plugin for it.
1 Like
tl;dr i disageee with your post because of [REASONS]. i flagged ur post because iām a NEGATIVE INSULT. protip: ur post is unhidden after youāve edited it, please use that opportunity to remove the violating sentence from an otherwise decent post. kthx.
First, lets define ācensorshipā real quick:
Full Definition of censorship : the institution, system, or practice of censoring
Simple Definition of censor : a person who examines books, movies, letters, etc., and removes things that are considered to be offensive, immoral, harmful to society, etc.
The question to be asked is: āIs flaggings considered censorship?ā Well, it is a tool for others to use āremoveā (hide) things considered to be against (but not limited to) the Terms of Service or the User Guidelines.
So yes, in my opinion, this is ācensorshipā.
@Menace13: This by itself is not an issue. A public website is a privately-owned space on the internet and to an extent, the people behind said website will enforce ācensorshipā for various reasons. Local laws, rules users need to abide by, productivity, etc.
The āto an extentā part of what I said is important, because it seems that the system @dGr8LookinSparky and @romdos wants to implement is to also give people the extent to express themselves without (for example) personal attacks:
(User Gudelines): We, too, are a shared community resource ā a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation. ā¦ Use these guidelines to keep this a clean, well-lighted place for civilized public discourse.
To further illustrate my example:
Unfortunately Menace, I in fact will be the [NEGATIVE INSULT] who is compelled to flag your post. Why? The first reason is because I am a moderator and I am expected to act in my role regardless of my personal opinions. Secondly, its obviously against the User Guidelines, a thing which I am expected to enforce as a moderator, regardless of my personal opinions.
Lastly, I believe you deserve an explanation from someone other than the two site administrators. You see, posts like the ones youāve made above are not designed to create an environment where people can share or debate ideas reasonably. Posts like yours (personal attacks) are meant to cause a reaction from the other person, perhaps along with the idea you are trying to get across.
For the average human being, they cannot always stay objective when personal attacks are used. Lets assume (for the sake of my argument) [PERSON] cannot stay objective (a natural response to a personal attack). I can see that the reason you made this [NEGATIVE INSULT] is to get across to [PERSON] that flaggings are a retarded idea. How will you get this across? By making an otherwise decent post, but blemishing it with an insult.
HOWEVER, what [PERSON] will focus on instead, is you calling him a ā[NEGATIVE INSULT]ā. Inevitably, this could cause him to reciprocate the attack back (in whatever form he deems fit) and eventually both of you will be fighting each other. AKA āa drama shitstormā.
See:
But, remember to criticize ideas, not people.
Thats why Iām inclined to agree with the ideals the User Guidelines is attempting to set on the community because speech like āpersonal attacksā are more likely to derail otherwise decent conversation. The goals of GrangerHub do not align with this type of free speech.
That being said, Iām not against a discussion regarding how the current flagging system works. I do believe that it does have legitimate flaws, some of which are not simple to solve because (as Sparky has mentioned) we lack the programmers to adapt them to the Tremulous community.
Why, exactly? As a counter-argument, I do not especially mind flags being used as a way to force users to modify their post to adhere to the rules, before a moderator intervenes. Having flags only used for āextreme rule-breakingā might as well be deferred to moderators sending warnings or PMs.
That could be because theyāre not meant to be very specific rules, like we have on GrangerPub:
These are not hard and fast rules, merely aids to the human judgment of our community. Use these guidelines to keep this a clean, well-lighted place for civilized public discourse.
However, if you feel there are rules that are too vague, why not bring them up now?
Lets keep it real. The āshadow realmā is putting your post behind a mouse-click. The post isnāt completely deleted nor is the contents stripped away from the userās ability to edit them. Additionally, your post is no longer hidden once youāve edited it. Perhaps this can become less of an issue by raising the # of flags required to hide a post?
1 Like
Flagging should be like a voting system. If enough people flag it, then it gets hidden. Itās not our faults people get butthurt over small issues.
i got a final warning in pms about useless off topic post. by hendrich and other L9s and result in ban if they continue to flag me
Preface: This is regarding a PM I sent to Spamo 9 days ago regarding his recent behavior. He didnāt respond, until now, right here. There is a concern of possible derailment, unless he makes it relevant to this thread.
@Spamo How exactly is this relevant to this thread? Do you believe this PM was an example of censorship on GrangerHub? Iām genuinely curious in your response.
You mean this āfinalā warning? :
Actually explain what is bothering you and how it relates to the thread you are posting in. Otherwise, ignoring this PM and continuing this behavior will lead to a formal warning (and eventually) formal action.
2 Likes
Because spamming āqueerā as the only word in your messages is censorship.
On the other hand, Menaceās entire post was hidden because of 1 word.
:))
Git censored scumbag
[details=Off-topic about the definition of Spam (relevant to the flagging system)]
Spamās definition in the flagging system & dictionaries is incomplete, interestingly enough; spam is most of the time referred to by the majority of the people on the internet as sending many messages with the same content (usually with useless content) (which applies to scam/ads e-mails, but doesnāt directly mean it is going to be of an advertising nature at all), for example in tremulous cvars spam is sending the same identical message over and over and differs from flood which is sending non-identical messages over and over, and in e-mails spam is just unwanted shit or scam you get from some guy in Africa, commercials, your stepmother trying to figure out how her inbox works, or some retard that figured out what your address was and is trying to piss you off.
Now Iām unsure whether people are misusing the term, but since it is a term that the internet gave birth to (assumedly), and the majority of people are using it (probably evolved the term), Iām more inclined to say that it is the actual definition in the dictionaries that has to change.
Spamoās queeer posts are both spam, inappropriate and off-topic by (proper) definition.[/details]
2 Likes
Actually because of one sentence as I understand it, and the poster could easily fix such a hidden post by removing the portion of the post that was determined to be flag worthy. (as a side note, regarding that particular post, I was neither the one who flagged it, nor the moderator who took action regarding that flag).
Something else to consider, why should it be acceptable for someone to repeatedly grief a/some targeted individuals simply because they they bury such repeated griefing in otherwise appropriate content? Iām not going to name names, but more than one person has done this on these forums with more than one person being targets of such griefing.
Anyways, wid epreead griefing, shit flinging, hostility, excessive drama, and overall toxicity not only is counterproductive, but it drowns out and distracts from constructive activity, it drives both contributors (i.e. developers, mappers, admins, server owners, etc) and ordinary players away, and it tends to lead to the destruction of projects. We intend to go in a different direction with GrangerHub. People are allowed to voice their opinions regarding, critique, and disagree with ideas, but civility is a must.
You guys try way too hard.
2 Likes
@Spamo Is that seriously your response? Not only did you fail to respond to a moderated PM for 9 days, but you completely ignore the questions presented to you (to bring a discussion of your incident in relation to censorship), fail to explain itās relation to the thread and present a back-handed statement instead?
Spamo, recent posts (as found in your profile history) such as:
dear lordā¦
My god people still replying here. No one even scrims anyways
Itās not even a continuous problem either. This thread is nothing but a
pointless drama to create. For those of you who act like your life time
career is to be an admin on grangerpub/club as if you get payed to do
so. Fuck off with these insane retarded rule book.
Ohhhhh fuck off you people no need to get butt hurt or turn this situation into some 2 year court case.
queer.
queer.
queer.
queer. (Yes, this was actually spammed FOUR times.)
These could have been re-worded to make a point (Donāt be so srs guys, because of [REASONS]), but instead they are in violation of the Community Guidelines, specifically:
- Name-calling.
- Ad hominem attacks.
- Responding to a postās tone instead of its actual content.
- Knee-jerk contradiction.
- Donāt post no-content replies.
Would this be considered censorship if there are attempts by moderators to repress such speech? Iām inclined to agree, but not because of your ideas, but in the form that you decided to present them in. As exemplified above, there are limits to the speech you can perform on GrangerHub because this forum is considered (by the guidelines) to be a:
shared community resource
For anything Tremulous. Not a free-for-all FREEDOM OF SPEECHā¢ blog hivemind. Posts like these are the reason why the flagging system is in place, even despite the flaws @Menace13 has shown.
You are correct. The far easier decision (on pretty much every other hugbox circle-jerk forum) was to simply throw the banhammer down. Iāll take your statement to heart from now on.
Finally, Iād like to mention that, because you failed to link this incident to this thread, I donāt see how this particular topic can be relevant any longer. Donāt be surprised if you are disregarded.