Should we bring back a moderator team?

[Shulem]

I went with the flow and voted for additional moderation. It might prove helpful and keep things in check. It might even be an incentive for others to actually join the board and add to the discussions.

I just hope that new moderator(s) will give ole Shulem an occasionally wink and a pass. Extra privileges for me!

What to do you say, Jersey Girl, anything goes for Shulem? Or do I have to go to that little room over there at you-know where to say my nasties for Chickie girl? U know what I'm talking about.

[Atlanticmike]

You guys nag the hell out of someone if they lean conservative to try to make them stop posting.

Rather, most of that comes from the frustration of trying to converse with folks who made it a habit to avoid discussion in favor of primarily posting talking points or insults.

You’ve made subgenius your poster boy for oppression. He was a ‘stop the steal’ cheerleader and was heavily invested in innuendo, snark and insult as his substitute for actual discussion, at least in SP. That was just his style.

subs posted in many of this board’s subforums and had been a part of the community for over a decade. You could even find an occasional post from him in the Celestial kingdom, where he engaged in the same respectful dialog as anyone else there. He participated in SP as much as he wanted and to assume that he was ‘driven off’ from the entire board by anyone challenging his ‘stop the steal’ propaganda in SP shows a major misunderstanding of his personality and intent.

Your behavior is your own. Using subs as your excuse to spam thread after thread, and then dragging that behavior into Terrestrial (where none of your ‘examples’ were even posted, originally), doesn’t work.

Saint canpakes, good try! But even Shades recognized what was going on in spirit paradise before I got here. Here's his opening post in the "Be careful what you wish for" thread in spirit paradise.

Dr. Shades
Founder and Visionary
Be careful what you wish for.
Post Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:12 am

I'm just about ready to put a call out for moderators in the Terrestrial Forum, but before I can do so, I need to know something:

If you're willing to accept that our two new participants' personal attacks and off-topic derailments be sent to the Spirit Prison forum when they're directed at you, are you willing to accept that your own personal attacks and off-topic derailments be sent to the Spirit Prison forum when they're directed at Ajax18?

If you are, then I can put out a call for moderators. If you're not, then the status quo should remain intact


See! Even Shades recognized that you guys derailed threads and personally attacked poster like Ajax18 waaaayyy before cultellus and I came along. You guys are mean in spirit prison. Did you not read the Doc Cam post I provided?? That's some personal insults right there buddy. Those post by Doc Cam are meant to drive a certain poster away from spirit paradise. You don't call someone a seditious paint chip eating retard mushroom dick sucking asshole for nothing!!

[Gadianton]

Oblivious as I may have been to all this, in my placid Terrestrial house here, it does sound as though we really need moderators for Spirit Paradise.

Collective self-policing seems to be stalling out at mutual recrimination; even if the right is actually mostly on one side, there’s no way to settle things. The town needs a sheriff who can make calls and enforce them.

Whether that means a full-blown mod team across all boards, I don’t know. Maybe Gadianton can just be a troubleshooter.

That might be worth trying, because the problem with having mods is that they should be respected long-term frequent posters, so that people are willing to accept their judgements as fair and representative of the community. Making solid citizens into cops like that, though, risks burning out our community pillars. Moderating can be stressful and time-consuming.

SP is a unique place, in part because the main participants have been there a very long time and have found an equilibrium that works -- rule breaking and all -- until something upsets the balance and then as Shades has mentioned, it will be a full-time job trying to make everybody happy. I wouldn't want to attempt moderating SP, although it would be a good test of any logic I've learned up to this point in my life: If A is allowed to say b and C is allowed to post gif d, then is B allowed to derail 4 threads with z?

However, keeping Terrestrial from going off the rails to the extent it becomes the extended war zone for battles in SP won't take that much effort if Shades puts the sheriff badge on me just for this one problem. Again, the problem is stopping problems in SP from bleeding into Terrestrial. With SP contained, then people can decide on the best way to moderate it or maybe just let it go.

[Gadianton]

For the last, "block his posting in other forums aside from SP entirely," if you end up going that route, could you make Spirit Prison/Telestial be the only place he can post freely? That would be more in keeping with the rules, which are at least theoretically the same for Terrestrial and Spirit Paradise. If I recall correctly, that was Dr. Shades' solution for ldsfaqs' problems in Spirit Paradise.

Sorry, by SP, I meant Spirit Paradise. Block everywhere but Paradise and lower.

Here's the fundamental problem:

SP has become the de facto political mudslinging forum that has maintained a culture of frequently breaking forum rules yet the main participants there range from either liking it this way, to accepting it this way, to opportunistically not liking it this way if it's their side suffering, to not liking it this way. For years at a time, it limps along and works, however.

As much as I might not care for A-Mike's posting, aside from some of the worst of the crude language and insults: trolling isn't against the rules. Posting lots of dumb threads isn't against the rules. And "f-off" type of personal attacks and insults have long been allowed. Derailing topics with insults and memes has been allowed -- and often funny. Personally, I wouldn't want to see it totally cleaned up by force because it's become it's own thing that more or less works for the people who post there most of the time.

[canpakes]

You guys are mean in spirit prison.

Yes, I’m an absolute monster. You should definitely run whenever you see me.





That said, ‘mean people’ in Spirit Paradise’ isn’t an excuse for you to be copy/pasting posts from there, to here in Terrestrial.

You’re trolling for yourself.

[Res Ipsa]

Oblivious as I may have been to all this, in my placid Terrestrial house here, it does sound as though we really need moderators for Spirit Paradise.

Collective self-policing seems to be stalling out at mutual recrimination; even if the right is actually mostly on one side, there’s no way to settle things. The town needs a sheriff who can make calls and enforce them.

Whether that means a full-blown mod team across all boards, I don’t know. Maybe Gadianton can just be a troubleshooter.

That might be worth trying, because the problem with having mods is that they should be respected long-term frequent posters, so that people are willing to accept their judgements as fair and representative of the community. Making solid citizens into cops like that, though, risks burning out our community pillars. Moderating can be stressful and time-consuming.

SP is a unique place, in part because the main participants have been there a very long time and have found an equilibrium that works -- rule breaking and all -- until something upsets the balance and then as Shades has mentioned, it will be a full-time job trying to make everybody happy. I wouldn't want to attempt moderating SP, although it would be a good test of any logic I've learned up to this point in my life: If A is allowed to say b and C is allowed to post gif d, then is B allowed to derail 4 threads with z?

However, keeping Terrestrial from going off the rails to the extent it becomes the extended war zone for battles in SP won't take that much effort if Shades puts the sheriff badge on me just for this one problem. Again, the problem is stopping problems in SP from bleeding into Terrestrial. With SP contained, then people can decide on the best way to moderate it or maybe just let it go.

I respectfully disagree with your assessment of Paradise, Dean Robbers. There has not been an equilibrium in Spirit Paradise that works for everyone. Not for years. Some folks chose to exploit non-enforcement of rules. Any attempt to carry on a substantive conversation is subject to hijacking. in my opinion, people do adjust their behavior to substantially conform to rules as long as the rules are enforced.

I agree that the problems in Terrestrial are minimal, and that moderating the Mormon Discussions area of the board would be much less work. It may make sense to have a "team" where one moderator is primarily responsible for each area of the board (although they would have the discretion to moderate the other side.)

[Atlanticmike]

Sigh again. I'm sure whatever was contributed is more of the same trolling. His reputation precedes him.

Shades, no rush, please take care of yourself first. Many here are willing to help, if that's something you can consider, even just temporarily. Trolls are everywhere, but hopefully legitimate discussion will win out.

Why should someone... experience esthetic pleasure in triggering the outrage of an interlocutor through adopting preposterous and yet obnoxious stances? The ultimate answer might [be that] the only source of empowerment they can rely on is that of breaking the machine of conversation itself, exactly like a player who overthrows the chessboard because she or he is unable to escape checkmate or, with an even more appropriate metaphor, like the child who, not being able to understand how a toy works, breaks it into pieces.

Unfortunately, the toy that an increasing number of trolls are disquietingly seeking to destroy is not a minor one: it is public discourse.

Massimo Leone, 2018. “The art of trolling"

Lem, you spent a lot of time in spirit paradise trying to get rid of conservatives. I'm not the first. You constantly picked on leeuniverse, even asking Shades to give him a "queue time out" because he was irritating you. Here's one of your post joining in on the fun.

LEM
God
Re: Biden's "Ministry of Truth" in full force...
Post Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:24 pm


Ldsfaqs, it's a pleasure to have you back. Your lack of logic is as bizarre as ever, and your fomenting, frothing posts are quite an insight into the mental weirdness of a certain segment. It's like having our very own lab experiment. Or focus group- if you can have a focus group with only one really REALLY crazy-ass demented person. In any case, we love you, you weirdo!!!!! You do you, honey.


So basically anyone you, Lem, deem unworthy to be in spirit paradise, you attack by saying they LACK LOGIC, have FOMENTING FROTHING post, they're MENTALLY WEIRD, you pretend he's a LAB EXPERIMENT, or HE'S A REALLY CRAZY ASS DEMENTED PERSON, and he's a WEIRDO.

You got all that in one post!!! Is that considered trolling????

[Lem]

…I wouldn't want to attempt moderating SP, although it would be a good test of any logic I've learned up to this point in my life: If A is allowed to say b and C is allowed to post gif d, then is B allowed to derail 4 threads with z?

Also Gad

…because it's become it's own thing that more or less works for the people who post there most of the time.

I picked out these two parts of your two comments Gadianton, if you don’t mind, because you have expressed perfectly what I learned from my reading about trolling.

Researchers have noted frequently that trolls take full advantage of the fact that moderation is difficult, and that moderation, a single post at a time, doesn’t automatically or easily pick up on overarching trolling techniques. Add in the fact that people who post here most of the time, as you mentioned, may very well occasionally exhibit a singular behavior that, when done in vast multiples, qualifies as trolling. In that sense, I fully empathize with Shades’ comment from the trenches that moderation efforts are not even just a job, but a career.

However, keeping Terrestrial from going off the rails to the extent it becomes the extended war zone for battles in SP won't take that much effort if Shades puts the sheriff badge on me just for this one problem. Again, the problem is stopping problems in SP from bleeding into Terrestrial. With SP contained, then people can decide on the best way to moderate it or maybe just let it go.

I haven’t been here as long as some others to know whether the main purpose is to keep Terrestrial alive, but if so, this may sadly be the best interim solution possible. I know, mostly just from reading without participating, that there is a very strong non-Mormon-related community that has developed as a result of having a place like Spirit Paradise to post. Hopefully, restoring that to an equilibrium can also eventually be accomplished.

At the moment, I hope Shades knows how much we appreciate his efforts, and are on his side in whatever challenges he is facing. hopefully he is okay with letting you step in a bit to relieve some stress, because it sounds like a good plan.

[Moksha]

Lem and Doc Cam formed a "clique" of sorts in spirit paradise starting just a few weeks after the new board was formed back in November. Doc Cam's role, he was the ENFORCER, as you can tell by the post I supplied.

There is some truth to that. Lem took exception to what I considered to be a helpful suggestion and all of a sudden I got jumped by Doc Cam with some pretty nasty haranguing. But this was not just a twosome. They even brought in Alter Idem (reminded me of how Juliann was able to dredge up Sista Soul for a tongue lashing) who had been absent for so long. Fortunately, others came to my defense, and ultimately Honorentheos took on both Lem and Jersey.

It is probably wise to not have much invested in this board when some innocent comment can draw such nasty daggers and I suspect that can happen to anyone here.

[ceeboo]

Hey Gad!

SP is a unique place, in part because the main participants have been there a very long time and have found an equilibrium that works -- rule breaking and all -- until something upsets the balance

From my view (and as someone who hangs out in SP quite often) this entire part of your post is completely accurate. Spot on!

However, keeping Terrestrial from going off the rails to the extent it becomes the extended war zone for battles in SP won't take that much effort if Shades puts the sheriff badge on me just for this one problem. Again, the problem is stopping problems in SP from bleeding into Terrestrial. With SP contained, then people can decide on the best way to moderate it or maybe just let it go.

I am not challenges this part, I am asking you if you can elaborate a bit and possibly offer your opinions - especially on the bolded part.

First, let me be clear and say that I totally understand why people don't want things from SP leaking into Terrestrial - Among other things, Terrestrial provides a specific space for discussions around fairly specific topics (for what it's worth, I don't post a lot in Terrestrial, but I still read it some and usually enjoy it quite a bit) - Having said that, do you see this community as one community? What I mean by this is do you see one forum (say the dining room) and another forum (say the kitchen) as two separate rooms in the same house? Or do you see them as two completely separate houses?

Please know that I personally struggle with those answers but at the end of the day I do believe that this board is one house with separate rooms. And because I see it as one house, I think everybody who is living in the house should understand, recognize and care about all the rooms in the house. If you're hanging out in the library and you start hearing rumors of pipes leaking in the bathroom - and/or you start smelling a foul odor coming from the bathroom - should you get involved? Maybe leave your comfortable seat in the library and go see what's happening in the other rooms? Or should you have no concern as long as these leaky pipes and foul smells don't make their way to the library?

I know it's a tough call but I'm not convinced that -- as you put it - "the problem is stopping the problems in SP from bleeding into Terrestrial" - Rather, I think the problem is that there is a room in our house that has some leaky pipes and foul odors - So maybe we should call a plumber so it can be repaired for everyone. Who knows, there may come a time that you might want to leave the library and partake in the bathroom (unless you have tremendous bladder control) After all, it is a room in the house you're living in. Isn't it?