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ToleranceTolerancePosted Aug 15, 2012 17:37 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1)In reply to: Aurora: DEFCON: Why conference harassment matters by louie Parent article: Aurora: DEFCON: Why conference harassment matters The problem is that I have a very high intolerance for censorship. It's hard for me to take that step, even in the face of an account that has been a repeated, ongoing problem. I'm also increasingly intolerant of people who want to wreck the site I've spent so long building, though. In this particular case, I think there is going to have to be some sort of action soon. Sigh.
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Tolerance Posted Aug 15, 2012 17:53 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]
I feel for you. Its like balancing on a razor, but maybe you could consider making it easier to add people to the ignore list (like a button right next to the post). My simple (although probably wrong) perspective is that the easier you make it to ignore someone the better the community will work.
Tolerance Posted Aug 15, 2012 17:57 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] That's probably a worthwhile addition, yes.I've also been pondering ways of altering the presentation of comments posted by people who are being filtered by a lot of people. The account in question here is currently #2 on the list.
Tolerance Posted Aug 15, 2012 18:11 UTC (Wed) by edomaur (subscriber, #14520) [Link]
Both idea are good, I thinks.
Tolerance Posted Aug 15, 2012 19:28 UTC (Wed) by fracek (guest, #85785) [Link]
What do you think about hell banning people like Hacker News does?
Trolls can still post but only other hell banned people can see them. In this way they won't signup again because they were banned.
Tolerance Posted Aug 15, 2012 19:41 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I would humbly suggest a "report abuse" button; check three violations of the "polite, respectful" rule, ban the user. It is not censorship but ostracism.
Tolerance Posted Aug 15, 2012 22:36 UTC (Wed) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link]
One problem with the current filtering I have is that it doesn't fully work work in combination with "Unread comments". Comments to a filtered comment aren't marked as such if the filtered comment is already read.
That makes it harder to really ignore subthreads started by $troll which probably leads to more answers and thus more fun for the troll.
Tolerance Posted Aug 16, 2012 21:23 UTC (Thu) by biged (subscriber, #50106) [Link]
Hacker News has a small collection of effective tactics (which need not be publicised but are worth looking into)
On a social/human level, a time-limited ban has been found effective on at least one site. It helps reform behaviour of those who are merely ignorant rather than wilfully misbehaving.
It's certainly worth expending some effort on this: LWN comment quality is one of the major features of the site, and as you start to lose the battle the ones misbehaving increasingly get the feeling their behaviour is tolerated or even appreciated. This is a slippery slope, and only LWN features can fix it.
Tolerance Posted Aug 15, 2012 18:05 UTC (Wed) by louie (subscriber, #3285) [Link] I have a very high intolerance for censorship as well. I think a lot of us who have been around the net for a long time have had that baked in (it's a big part of why I give to EFF and ACLU, for example). So I totally agree you're in a difficult spot. But where there are alternative venues for the speech, it may be useful to think of it as being an editor (or a party host), not being a censor. The position needs to be "feel free to say stupid things, just not at my conversation/party, where I want my friends to feel welcome" rather than "never say stupid things."
Tolerance Posted Aug 15, 2012 18:22 UTC (Wed) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link] The position needs to be "feel free to say stupid things, just not at my conversation/party, where I want my friends to feel welcome" rather than "never say stupid things." Yeah. But it's a challenge to keep the moderation from becoming a huge pile of no fun. You're now dealing with real people rather than bots, and they're better at evading your filters. And there will be a few people that want to test (and argue about) precisely where you draw the line. You can end up spending most of your energy dealing with the most annoying 1% of your readers.
Tolerance Posted Aug 15, 2012 18:45 UTC (Wed) by louie (subscriber, #3285) [Link]
Oh, absolutely agreed on all points. It's an unfortunate cost of having a community that is both high-profile and high-quality.
I'd add that I agree that Jon's suggestion to surface the information that "this guy has been filtered regularly and by many people" would be a good step. It's still gameable, of course, but it's a good social cue. Think of it as people walking away from the Creep at a party - maybe not as good as throwing the Creep out, but still sends the signal that "we don't approve of what this guy is doing." Worst case, it helps people understand that this person is not representative of the community, and best case, perhaps surfacing that signal (like the red/green/yellow cards discussed in the original article) gives people an opportunity to learn.
Tolerance Posted Aug 15, 2012 18:44 UTC (Wed) by daglwn (subscriber, #65432) [Link]
We should not censor the ugly truth. People need to see it to understand.
Tolerance Posted Aug 16, 2012 8:17 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]
Does that mean you'd *not* toss out the guy who, uninvited, tries to lick the tatoo of one of your female guests at a party in your house, because the rest of the party-guests "need to see the ugly truth" ?
Or do you at some point say: "If you want to stay at my party, you must treat all my friends with respect, if you can't do that I must insist that you leave."
Tolerance Posted Aug 16, 2012 12:48 UTC (Thu) by tcabot (subscriber, #6656) [Link]
I would definitely bounce the person you describe. Assault and speech, however, are different things and must be treated differently. Censorship is a very, very slippery slope.
Tolerance Posted Aug 16, 2012 13:07 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]
Yes. But hateful or harassing speech (especially when it is directed at a minority that you wish to feel welcome), isn't a good thing. And if you silently tolerate it, the minority can easily get the impression that the community accepts this kind of behaviour.
If I had 20 guests over at my place, 3 of which where black, and some person started spouting white-supremacist nonsense, you can be sure that I'd speak up about it, and demand that they either treat everyone with respect, or else leave the premises. They've got the right to free speech, but I have no requirement to let them borrow *my* living-room for the purpose. Furthermore "free speech" is not a "get out of jail free" card that allows you to harass other people.
Harassment that is verbal, is still harassment. It's reasonable, and indeed sensible, to insist that people do NOT engage in harassment of any kind, and to warn and/or expel those who are unable or unwilling to refrain from it.
Tolerance Posted Aug 16, 2012 13:34 UTC (Thu) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link]
"if you silently tolerate it"
I think it's fair to note that that isn't what happened here.
Tolerance Posted Aug 16, 2012 20:17 UTC (Thu) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
If someone started spouting white-supremacist nonsense at my party which didn't even have coloured people I would ask them to stop or leave.
If it wasn't my party I would probably ask the organizer to do the same.
People are different, it would be a boring place without it, but that doesn't mean you can't have respect for others.
Tolerance Posted Aug 17, 2012 21:21 UTC (Fri) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]
I believe "coloured", along with "Negro" and--amazingly--"Black" are now considered unacceptable descriptive terms for what we're not supposed to call "African-Americans", even if they are neither African, nor American.
Tolerance Posted Aug 18, 2012 13:23 UTC (Sat) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
I'm not from the US, my first language isn't even English. So I have a question for you:
What is the term for people who are not white/Caucasian ?
Non-Caucasian ?
Tolerance Posted Aug 18, 2012 14:05 UTC (Sat) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link]
I am not a native speaker as well, but here - in Germany - when speaking english the term People/Person of color is used at times. I think I remember this being used in the US as well.
Tolerance Posted Aug 18, 2012 18:40 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
In the UK "black" is in common use and does not appear to be offensive.
Tolerance Posted Aug 16, 2012 1:38 UTC (Thu) by duffy (guest, #31787) [Link]
I used to feel similarly about censorship. Over time my attitude has changed, after speaking with people in person who quietly bowed out of conversations and even whole projects because they felt unwelcome when a person making particularly unhelpful (but not usually egregiously offensive) comments on a regular basis was allowed to continue without admonishment.
Now I feel like not saying anything to the person whose behavior is allowed to continue unchecked will result in the censorship of the folks it scares away.
For whatever it's worth. A lot of times folks interpret silence from the perceived 'adults in the room' as consent. This is why - getting back to the topic at hand - a conference simply adopting an anti-harassment policy makes me feel a lot more comfortable about the conference. It makes it clear the organizers do not intend to tolerate the kind of funny business Val describes in the post.
Tolerance Posted Aug 16, 2012 8:44 UTC (Thu) by Company (guest, #57006) [Link]
It's not just true for projects, but also webforums.
When was the last time John Carmack posted on Slashdot? How many Ubuntu developers post on OMG Ubuntu? How much interesting posts is there left on Planet GNOME?
I believe the quality of content on any site depends not only on the participants and the technology used, but also on the policies and behavior (or as others say: censorship) enforced by the maintainers.
Reddit and Slashdot do it by letting users vote on posts, Planet GNOME does it by selecting the people that may write new posts (gnomememes? commit digest?), Facebook and Twitter make you maintain your own view on the posts. LWN so far only displays the status and id of the poster to give you an idea wether you're posting to someone "important".
Tolerance Posted Aug 16, 2012 8:13 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]
That's why we love you, Corbet.
But I concur. A line needs to be drawn somewhere. Tolerating people who consistenly, over time, degrade our community, scares away people who're are more valuable. It sends the signal that this kind of behaviour is acceptible here.
Please draw the line here. By all means - warn people first. But if they're unwilling or unable to change, kick them out.
Tolerance Posted Aug 17, 2012 14:55 UTC (Fri) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link]
> In this particular case, I think there is going to have to
> be some sort of action soon.
No, Jon. You've got to leave these comments here. If all I see is a woman complaining about harassment, I tend to think "that doesn't fit in with what I've seen at the events that I've been to, I wonder if there is some exaggeration in the story?". Then I see comments from cavemen like "slashdot" and others, and I think, OK, these gits really do exist but somehow I've not noticed them (or maybe I've just been to the better conferences).
Tolerance Posted Aug 17, 2012 22:11 UTC (Fri) by Julie (guest, #66693) [Link]
>The problem is that I have a very high intolerance for censorship.
Good!
'Slashdot' was concentrating so hard on being blinkered, pathetic, and puerile I actually thought his comments were kind of funny (in a way he no doubt never intended).
I mean, seriously:
>Now, would you rather be killed or be raped?
Really.
But still, I prioritize anti-censorship because as an adult it is of the utmost importance be given the opportunity to make up my own mind - which is as good as anyone else's - about what I read and decide how I'm going to deal with it myself, and this goes hand-in-hand with accepting that I will read difficult and upsetting stuff sometimes.
There are other ways of handling crap than calling in the censors. For example, if I don't think I can hack it, I can always filter it out. Or I can try reasoning or answering back, like others are doing here ;-)
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