Moderation level

[Boidhre]

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&p=161573
Made me vote for too much.

Ok, I've seen at least a dozen people advertise go lessons on here without issue. So what's the exact problem with this one?

[Bonobo]

IMO the mod should NOT resign. That's the first time completely disagree with him. But I prefer this place with his contributions and decisions than without them.

+1

The harm is done. No need for new one. Change the TOS.

Couldn’t have said it better, thank you.


Cordially, Tom

[Bantari]

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&p=161573
Made me vote for too much.

Very unfortunate.

This makes me think. There should be a sub-forum for Go-related ads. They are very relevant to the game and to the community, and should not be suppressed like that. I understand the no-advertising rule, but we also need to be reasonable. A lot of the stuff people say here can be seen as ads (threads about book recommendations or reviews, for example, or tournament news) - so there is certainly room for that.

Of course, ads will have to be closely monitored so they don't become spam, but info about teaching or a new book coming out, or whatever...

[dfunkt]

I would say the mod did not overstep their authority though, they were just following the rules.

I want to disagree.
He should have been following the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.
The TOS was not written to cover every potential issue in detail. This should have been a judgement call in the other direction.

It's a slippery slope. As soon as you allow mods to make their own interpretations of the rules you end up with KGS.

[Uberdude]

The red mod text says "Posting or private messaging advertisement is not allowed...."

That ... is very significant. The TOS says:

Posting or private messaging advertisement is not allowed. However, if the advertisement is for your own product, it is Go-related, and it's not intrusive to the forums, then it is allowable to have it in your signature and brought up in threads only when appropriate.

if the advertisement is for your own product = TRUE
it is Go-related = TRUE
it's not intrusive to the forums = TRUE
threads only when appropriate = Creating thread in Teachers subforum seems appropriate to me

I don't think the mod (who I only now realized is JoazBanbeck) followed the TOS correctly if we are being letter-of-the-law-following mindless ban machines, and certainly not the spirit. And certainly not how I would like L19 to be run.

[dfunkt]

The red mod text says "Posting or private messaging advertisement is not allowed...."

That ... is very significant. The TOS says:

Posting or private messaging advertisement is not allowed. However, if the advertisement is for your own product, it is Go-related, and it's not intrusive to the forums, then it is allowable to have it in your signature and brought up in threads only when appropriate.

if the advertisement is for your own product = TRUE
it is Go-related = TRUE
it's not intrusive to the forums = TRUE
threads only when appropriate = Creating thread in Teachers subforum seems appropriate to me

I don't think the mod (who I only now realized is JoazBanbeck) followed the TOS correctly if we are being letter-of-the-law-following mindless ban machines, and certainly not the spirit. And certainly not how I would like L19 to be run.

Great post. I have never read the TOS here and assumed (incorrectly) that it was being enforced strictly. I reverse my earlier position. Thank goodness there are people out there who actually research instead of making assumptions.

[ez4u]

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&p=161573
Made me vote for too much.

Ahhh... The availability heuristic raises its pointed little head again, leading to another round of mountaining out of molehills.

[Uberdude]

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&p=161573
Made me vote for too much.

Ahhh... The availability heuristic raises its pointed little head again, leading to another round of mountaining out of molehills.

Well, when I first saw this thread I was thinking of voting "too much" or "perhaps a little too much" but I didn't want to vote for the 1st option as L19 isn't as bad as KGS, but thought the wording of the 2nd was too gentle (there's no perhaps about it). The thread where JF complained about pro's inaction made me re-open redrose's post which I then saw had been admined too harshly so I voted.

[ez4u]

http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&p=161573
Made me vote for too much.

Ahhh... The availability heuristic raises its pointed little head again, leading to another round of mountaining out of molehills.

Well, when I first saw this thread I was thinking of voting "too much" or "perhaps a little too much" but I didn't want to vote for the 1st option as L19 isn't as bad as KGS, but thought the wording of the 2nd was too gentle (there's no perhaps about it). The thread where JF complained about pro's inaction made me re-open redrose's post which I then saw had been admined too harshly so I voted.

A quick scrape of the index page shows me a total of 155,342 posts in 9,039 topics to date. So I'd have to say that all those who voted based on a couple of examples that came quickly to mind did, indeed, fool themselves.

[Boidhre]

A quick scrape of the index page shows me a total of 155,342 posts in 9,039 topics to date. So I'd have to say that all those who voted based on a couple of examples that came quickly to mind did, indeed, fool themselves.

I'd agree that voting based on any recent incident doesn't work very well (I didn't vote, I didn't agree with any of the options) but I do think it's healthy for a community that there's some discussion between admins and users regarding decisions.

[ez4u]

I would agree... for some definition of 'discussion'.

[Boidhre]

I would agree... for some definition of 'discussion'.

There's a tendency for things to deteriorate into a witch-hunt and for some people to use it as an opportunity to grind long held axes (look at any KGS thread and this is something I've seen on almost all forums I've been involved with). Still, it can be fairly useful once you take out the noise and no feedback being taken can lead to a wide gap between admin and user which is rarely healthy.

[moyoaji]

Ok, I've seen at least a dozen people advertise go lessons on here without issue. So what's the exact problem with this one?

Perhaps the rule is that anyone who posts about teaching must be an established member? (If so that should be clearly stated in the TOS.) This was a post made in January where the same thing happened: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=9782

No one complained when it was just a random 4d player who got his thread shut down. So is this really about how the admin was enforcing the rule or is it about who the admin was shutting down?

I do, however, find it dishonest that the admin in both cases cut out the end of the TOS to make their case better. I hadn't noticed that before, but that does seem questionable. When tchan made note of my post he included the entire rule. Shouldn't that always be the policy?

All this said, I agree with Boidhre that it is good for the community to discuss moderation openly and we mustn't allow this to become "us vs. them" in any way. Just a couple of days ago there was a long string of spam posted all over the forum and a mod was nice enough to clean that up. They do a good job in general and I think we all need to remember that.

[RobertJasiek]

if the advertisement is for your own product = TRUE
it is Go-related = TRUE
it's not intrusive to the forums = TRUE
threads only when appropriate = Creating thread in Teachers subforum seems appropriate to me

Precisely.

Now, TOS §8 "... if you disagree with something that a mod or an admin has done, please do not air your grievances on the forum..." prevents us from expressing our opinion on the mentioned moderation.

Therefore, it is impossible to discuss applied moderation level without violating the TOS.

Regardless, it is essential to know about existing teachers, books and other products and services. I have been under the impression that the Teachers/Club Leaders forum also is for advertisements / announcements by teachers, the Go Books forum also is for advertisement / announcements by retailers, publishers or authors, the Go Book Reviews forum also is for reviews by retailers, publishers or authors, the Computer Go forum also is for advertisements / announcements by publishers or programmers, the Gobans and other equipment forum also is for advertisements / announcements by manufacturers or retailers and the New Products/Upgrades/Sales forum also is for advertisements / announcements of products not falling into one of the other more specific categories.

If any of this is wrong, administrators and moderators should declare precisely which kind of advertisements / announcements shall be in which of these forums.

Another thing also is still unclarified: is proper citation considered proper or is it considered to be and confused with advertisement? May an author cite properly from his own texts? May a third person cite properly from some author's text? Regular law, good scientific practise etc. require proper citation. However, on L19, I still do not know if proper citations are allowed or prohibited.

In all of these cases, the problem is more fundamental than moderation level. The problem is ambiguity of how the TOS rules are expected to be interpreted. It is too difficult to comply with TOS rules that are ambiguous. Therefore, the TOS should be made as unambiguous as possible. Then administration, moderation and message posting are easier for everybody.

[Boidhre]

I think a fundamental problem is that people are treating the TOS similar to a legal document rather than just a set of guidelines. Keep it general, leave the specifics to the situation at hand. Dialogue between user and admin is far, far preferable to quoting a line of text at them.