This is very accurate. In practice the best thing is just to enjoy this. Chatting on KGS is always dangerous and there's a degree of fun in the diplomacy required to do it and not get banned. Of course this is far from the intended friendly atmosphere, but such is life. Hopefully that other server currently in development will do better - I don't believe it's possible for KGS to change.

I'd have to agree with UnclMartin when the subject digresses to a subject which is not very family oriented. I'd hate to find out that some young kids did something stupid because a bunch of adults joked about certain subjects which gave the kids the wrong impressions. Especially in the case of this subject, prevention is much better than crying over spilled milk.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A private blog on Asian go books and interesting go sightings
Now open only for a select few.
Go is such a beautiful game.

On the other hand, anyone who is on KGS (or L19 for that matter) has access to ...the internet. A tasteless joke or a naughty word is hardly eyebrow raising, as anyone who has googled Santorum can surely attest. Policing the internet is a pretty fruitless endeavor. Troubled people are better served by open discussion than by censorship.

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"When you are learning, it is not so important whether you are right or wrong." - Bill Spight

I'm sure the admins and moderators of KGS (or L19 for that matter) are more interested in making sure that their respective parts of the internet are not the cause of or contributors to any unnecessary mishaps. They are not responsible for policing the rest of the internet.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A private blog on Asian go books and interesting go sightings
Now open only for a select few.
Go is such a beautiful game.

What I find somewhat interesting is that the go community is so concerned with making everything super appropriate for young kids. They are for sure using more vulgar language with their friends anyway. It doesn't need much for someone in the chat to always start with "watch the language, there might be kids here". Although it hardly changes the experience for me, I don't see it as our responsibility to keep the chat oh, so joyfully politically correct at all times.

The admins should just make it clear what we can expect. Admins can ban everyone on a whim if they feel like it, and they also have every right to do so. We, the users, don't have any rights there (unlike e.g. this forum makes it look like) unless the owner of the service mercifully grants them to us. Also, the admins shouldn't feel the need to go down on the level of the average member who was banned and each time to carefully explain the reasons thoroughly - this makes it common practice to challenge the admins, leading to these discussion on L19x19...

So, power to the admins, or something, but let adults be adults if you ask me

(Maybe slightly off topic, but oh well)

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/harassment

i think this episode about online harassment does the job incredibly well about what online (gaming) communities are experiencing and possible solutions. i feel KGS falls in the same type of community and as they say, we should ask them to provide tools (more or better) to prevent these kind of ppl of megaphoning all kinds of foul things.

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admin of the ASR league and KGS admin

They make some excellent recommendations. The Automute for people in the tails of the distribution is quite nice. As they point out, someone would be welcome to uncensor a person, but at a certain point, with certain people, they become an "opt in" not an "opt out".

I also love the idea of making chat conditional on a certain level of achievement. I think this would be a great way to handle some of the recurring trolls. Make it simple, you are chatbanned in every room (except for the help room) and every game (except for your own) until you have 5 games under your belt.

Suddenly, trolling just takes too much work... I mean jeez, can you imagine if these people had to play 5 games before they could get themselves banned?

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Let my comments be as eggs thrown on stones... explosive and hard to wash.

If shapenaji had his secret desires granted with KGS, it'd be chatban in every room until you are ranked at least shodan with at least 5 games under your belt.

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A private blog on Asian go books and interesting go sightings
Now open only for a select few.
Go is such a beautiful game.

When it comes to L19 it should be remembered that it is a community owned forum.
There is no owner dictating rules, only forum members trying to get along.
The moderators are simply those members who have been trusted to act as servants in interpreting the will of the community.
It is of course paramount that that these servants are able to adjust their judgment so it conforms with whats expected in the forum,
and in doing so act in a predictable manner.

To ensure this, all actions taken by moderators in L19 should IMHO be made public and motivated (perhaps in a separate sub-forum),
so that every forum member can review them. Because the forum members are the owners.



I should perhaps point out that I'm not talking about harassment or rudeness. These are things that should be avoided. But at what price?
To stop people from calling each other bad names is probably all for the good. To stop people from making questionable jokes may be warranted.
To stop people from expressing opinions that may cause disagreement will certainly make things calmer.

I think it is a fallacy to see things in terms of them (the evil) and us (the good).
It is so easy to think that all problems are caused by some small group that can be separated from the rest of us.
Preferably some despicable group no one cares about. Diseased cows.
Reality is in most cases much more complicated.

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"The connection between the language in which we program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close" -- Bjarne Stoustrup

To be honest, I actually end up talking the most to folks on KGS under shodan, that's where the most exchange comes from.

They ask the most important questions, (when they're asking questions and not making various statements like "black should resign", "Why isn't black resigning", "Black is worthless", "What's this guy's REAL rank?") the simple questions.

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Let my comments be as eggs thrown on stones... explosive and hard to wash.

I was under the strong impression that Jordus owns the forum. (Certainly in the metaphorical sense this community owns itself, and in practice he is a benevolent despot of the laissez-faire variety.)

All of this was discussed a lot during the transition from GoDiscussions to L19 in February 2010.
Other options were considered but Jordus did, as far as I remember, abstain from any rights concerning the ownership in favor of the community.
That fact was, again as I remember, very important when the community chose L19 as its new home.
Perhaps I'm misremembering?

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"The connection between the language in which we program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close" -- Bjarne Stoustrup

What insane says seems closer to how I remember it. But I'm not 100% sure.

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When you think your opponent has made a mistake, that's when you should be the most cautious.

I have some (excruciating) experience here. In the mid-1980s I was asked to join the volunteer customer service staff of an online conferencing service. To my amazement I found that we spent half of our time discussing what to do about one (!) user, who was always pissing off other users. That's one out of about 1500 active users. (We had more users, but only about 1500 posted to the service on a weekly basis or more frequently.) Finally management banned that user. What a relief! To us and a number of users. After that we could concentrate on just helping people.

As for banning in general, the user who owned a discussion thread or chat room had control of that thread or room. That worked quite well.

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Sheik Yerbuti -- if that really is your name --

this is exactly what i would like to have for KGS. i own the ASR and i had the unfortunate experience of having someone upsetting the room constantly and even harassing admins. the only way to get rid of him was to get a KGS admin to get him banned. after a few weeks of this i had to take desperate measures. what i did was very tough and a long shot but it worked. I first banned him from the league and the ASR and i had to lean heavily on him to make him leave (even lie a bit, thats how desperate i was on getting rid of him) and told him he was banned for 3 months for harassing, trolling and just being anti social. he finally left to minutes after he left getting banned for trolling/spamming the EGR. He tried again to join the league after a month on a secret account on which he DID EXACTLY THE SAME, quick fix and after that i havent heard from him since.

These kind of ppl come along a few times a year and it takes me a lot of energy and stress to "fix" this problem, i simply have to use desperate measures to get rid of them and it also affects my personal life because my mood is just bad when these things happen.

note: i've built on the ASR for over 2 years now and i feel strongly attached to what is going on there, maybe a bit too much but i feel the need to do it. i'm now taking some time off because of personal stuff though, see how that goes:P

ending my long rant now, KGS must see that the structure now used for punishing is getting outdated and too easily evaded. i hope for the future sake of KGS and for its users that they will listen to the community so it becomes a place to love even more then we all do now.

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admin of the ASR league and KGS admin

I would agree if the forum were your property. I think that there is a point to be made that "undesirable behavior" is very objective.

I personally don't like banning at all.

This is actually a very pragmatic tale. Many times i feel the discussion ends up being about what can you do to turn trolls/flamers into valuable users. Like if it were a constitutional guarantee or a Habeas Corpus.

I havent faced such a situation yet, but im inclined to benefit the good community in detriment to bad users, than the other way around.

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Founder of Kaya.gs

Part of my point is that you really can't separate the good community from the bad users.
They often turn out to be one and the same.

Not only is "undesirable behavior" something very objective, so is what is considered "contributions".
Certainly it's possible to keep such a strict regimen that everything said/posted is entirely relevant and unoffensive.
There is however a price to pay for this, since it will decrease the amount of socialization between the users.
All social interaction between people will lead to certain amounts of friction.

If you want a living community there is a balance that has to be kept, or you will end up with something dead and sterile.

Some comic relief

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"The connection between the language in which we program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close" -- Bjarne Stoustrup