Life In 19x19

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.

stalkor wrote: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.

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?

shapenaji wrote: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) until you have 5 games under your belt.

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.

tchan001 wrote: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.

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.

Insane wrote: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.

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.)

jts wrote:

Insane wrote: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.

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?

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

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.

Bill Spight wrote: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.

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.

Joaz Banbeck wrote:...

It is not about elistism, it is about property rights. ...

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.

Bill Spight wrote: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.

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.