Stop here
Stop here
Posted Sep 30, 2025 12:35 UTC (Tue) by jzb (editor, #7867)In reply to: I'm just sad by rbranco
Parent article: NixOS moderation team resigns
Before this turns into a big thread of folks talking past one another and sparring with each other, let's stop here.
Posted Sep 30, 2025 17:06 UTC (Tue)
by prokoudine (guest, #41788)
[Link] (20 responses)
Posted Sep 30, 2025 17:54 UTC (Tue)
by daroc (editor, #160859)
[Link] (17 responses)
... but I agree that we could probably do a better job of indicating _why_ a particular subthread is asked to stop.
Posted Sep 30, 2025 22:32 UTC (Tue)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link] (15 responses)
Or to put it another way, LWN moderation sometimes comes across like an awful primary school teacher saying "I don't care who started it" and acting like everyone involved was *equally wrong*.
Posted Sep 30, 2025 22:52 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
In the old days when it was just Jon, there wasn't much calling out of off-topic (to be honest there wasn't much calling out), but LWN has grown and I think there's also more people looking for places they can stir up trouble (I gather there's quite a lot of Russian "espionage/subversion" going on), so I can understand the team clamping down.
But I do feel it doesn't seem there's much attempt to clamp down on the real bad boys - although the problem there is one person's bad boy is another person's "agent provocateur" is another person's "just asking questions".
I think PJ's rule of "if I wouldn't have it in my living room, I won't have it on my site" was a good one, but it relies on getting to know your posters ...
Cheers,
Posted Oct 1, 2025 7:55 UTC (Wed)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (13 responses)
When we do take action against a specific user, such as putting them on permanent moderation, we do not make public proclamations about it. You just don't see unpleasant stuff from that person anymore and never notice.
We are doing the best we can; if you see us as an "
Posted Oct 1, 2025 10:53 UTC (Wed)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (12 responses)
Posted Oct 1, 2025 11:26 UTC (Wed)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link] (5 responses)
The net result can often be:
A) "Dispassionate" but toxic statement
B) Well-deserved call-out
Mod) This is getting heated, please stop
That comes across as the problem being exclusively the heat, not the toxic statement, or other toxic comments like people attacking the call-out for being "impolite" (where the implied "polite" would be "tolerant of intolerant/toxic people").
This is one of many patterns where it's important to flag the underlying problem, and not doing do lets people get away with trolling and incitement, repeatedly.
Posted Oct 1, 2025 11:50 UTC (Wed)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (1 responses)
This highly-relevant comic came across my feed just yesterday:
https://leftycartoons.com/2025/09/26/doin-discourse-with-...
Posted Oct 3, 2025 10:02 UTC (Fri)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
From my vantage point, no one in that cartoon looks good, at all, and it's a damning indictment of the political system that fostered it.
Posted Oct 1, 2025 18:02 UTC (Wed)
by ferringb (subscriber, #20752)
[Link] (2 responses)
You pretty much nailed it on the head, in regards to the most dangerous version of behavior.
It's absolutely the hardest to keep in line w/ CoC- it never crosses the line blatantly, but the responders all get nailed as problematic or crossing the line in the sand. Eventually you get additions to CoC and moderation to try and address the lawyering, etc. Said additions to the rules just makes things worse, and harder to bring back to the spirit of the communities original intent.
This sort of thing is what I now watch for in communities; if it's left unchecked I just find somewhere else to go, assuming I have any choice in the matter. If I have to consume their code, sure, but even bug reporting is something I'd prefer *not* to do since I just don't want that crap in my life.
Posted Oct 1, 2025 22:27 UTC (Wed)
by amacater (subscriber, #790)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 2, 2025 4:26 UTC (Thu)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link]
Posted Oct 1, 2025 11:47 UTC (Wed)
by hkario (subscriber, #94864)
[Link] (5 responses)
that only upholds the status-quo and is not conducive to constructive criticism
and yes, calling out toxic behaviour is constructive, even if it's not "polite"
Posted Oct 1, 2025 11:51 UTC (Wed)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link]
Posted Oct 1, 2025 14:36 UTC (Wed)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (3 responses)
I'm not sure what you're advocating for, that the LWN mods then start to "constructively criticise" people in the thread? That may well just make things worse - it will make LWN worse. LWN is not mired in the US-culture-war caustic shite that other parts of the media/net are, to any significant extent. LWN commenters seem largely sensible and able to take hints to shut-down chains that have stopped being useful. Advocating for moderation solutions here that assume it is may be counter-productive, and cause it to MOVE TOWARDS that undesirable state of toxicity, as much as anything else.
Or ??
Posted Oct 1, 2025 18:05 UTC (Wed)
by madscientist (subscriber, #16861)
[Link] (2 responses)
I don't believe that this is how the LWN mods intend for it to be perceived: they are talking about the entirety of the thread not specifically about the post they're replying to.
I suppose the people concerned about this perception would prefer that the LWN mods should back-track the thread to find the post that appeared to be primarily accountable for the problematic digression, and reply to that rather than the "latest post".
I'm not sure how feasible that is; it is assigning blame much more directly and thus, could cause more arguments than it prevents. Is it enough for us all to understand that the reply is not intended to indict the direct parent post? Or maybe there needs to be some standard disclaimer language in moderation comments?
Posted Oct 3, 2025 9:55 UTC (Fri)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
OTOH, it's a fairly small and long-standing community here in the LWN comment threads. I suspect the vast majority of us are well aware of what a "Gentlemen, ladies, time to stop." style LWN-mod-comment means and does not mean.
And the breadth of injury that may result from a few misunderstanding appears to be very very limited and not worrying about.
Finally, LWN's resources are very limited - however much we may think there is some better system of moderation that LWN could apply, there is also the question of whether working towards that is in any way worth the effort and cost. And the marginal benefits may be tiny compared to the high cost in precious LWN editor time.
The system currently largely works. If the LWN editors see easy ways to improve it, sure, great. However, I see no great pressure for them to spend any significant amount of their precious time on that either. I'd rather see them doing the stuff we value them for - producing the excellent content of the site.
Posted Oct 3, 2025 22:56 UTC (Fri)
by bauermann (subscriber, #37575)
[Link]
If this is the issue, perhaps it can be improved with a UI change? E.g.:
Instead of the moderation comment being a regular comment in the thread that went into the weeds, the UI could instead collapse that thread, and display the moderation comment on top. The user could still be able to click through the overlay and expand the thread to see it.
Of course, a reasonable argument can be made that there are better things to do with the limited resources available to develop the website UI.
Posted Oct 3, 2025 0:11 UTC (Fri)
by prokoudine (guest, #41788)
[Link]
Posted Oct 2, 2025 9:49 UTC (Thu)
by rbranco (subscriber, #129813)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Oct 2, 2025 10:36 UTC (Thu)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
This is the essence of it. The elites - at whatever level of combination of conscious planning and emergent behaviour arising out of the class incentives - use all kinds of delineated rhetoric to divide and conquer the masses, on lines of ethnicity, religion, culture. But never, never along the lines of class.
And we lap it up. And on occasion, when the curtain briefly splits for a second, and we see how the elites supposedly representing different factions - "Dem" and "Republican", "Labour" and "Tory", "Fianna Fail" and "Fianna Gael", "Al Qaeda" and "CIA" - hobnob together, laughing and slapping each other's backs, few seem to see it.
Too distracted by fighting other little people about whatever little line, whatever flag, they've been cultivated to obsess over, to notice.
Stop here
Stop here
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Wol
Moderation is not something anybody here at LWN wants to be doing; perhaps it is not surprising that we do not do it as well as some would like. When a thread is going off the rails, our first objective is to get it to stop; that seems rather more important than determining who should be decreed guilty for starting it. We also lack a ready strike team ready to react within milliseconds of the first bad post, sorry; we can only react after we see a problem.
Where moderation steps in
awful primary school teacher
" I can only apologize. Time for recess!
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Many communities exist on a barely articulated common understanding that lasts until someone questions it.
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Where moderation steps in
Stop here
Stop here
Stop here