On Saturday 19 January 2008 05:09:10 pm Pascal Bleser wrote:
Rajko M. wrote:
On Saturday 19 January 2008 09:12:03 am Druid wrote:
People who want to abuse and troll will keep on doing it, they'll cloak, they'll use other servers to connect with a different IP, they'll create new email addresses on gmail or yahoo, etc...
There is also different ways to troll. Some are blatant, some not easy to detect. Different people have different opinion what is trolling, etc.
This is why Pascal is correct and the voting thing you've proposed is completely doomed to fail.
Automated is far fetched idea, but voting system is not.
Maybe you should explain in a little more detail what you actually mean with voting (from a technical point of view). My understanding of what you wrote is that when someone is abusing/trolling, he's put up to a vote of anyone on whether he should be banned or not.
That would be one of uses for voting results. The basic idea is probably the same as trust rating system enhanced with details on user behavior measured, for instance, by 4 criteria in Code of Conduct, quality of answers, and maybe more. There is a question who should be included. It is planned that trust rating is applied only to those that have user directory. When it goes about mail lists there should be either obligation to use user directory to access any media under opensuse.org, which may have positive effect on subscribe/unsubscribe problems (it is not obvious how to do that), or to keep separate list of users for mail lists that will be populated by list-owner, or still non existing community list moderators.
I don't see that as a practical approach, just because 1) abuse on IRC has to be stopped immediately, it's real time, it's annoying for the 200+ people in the room 2) abuse on forums is legion, moderators spend quite some time removing and banning spam and trolls every single day
On mailing-lists, it might be possible, but even there it's just too slow of a process.
The rating is not meant to give solution for a problem that has to be solved in real time, but as assistance for moderators to make right decision. To prevent overreaction on moderator's bad day. One day it can be automated so you click on mail link, fill minimal complain, send to special account that receives complaints, where script parses email and after 10-20 complains from different email addresses, target account is automatically suspended. Next day list owner solves the problem. The other idea is to have more than one moderator with right to suspend someones account. Having more people available is good as there will be always someone that can take over when one moderator has a bad day, and tendency to overreact. BTW: If there is no way to organize at least few more moderators and give them more rights to decide what is right and what not, if all actions have to be performed by Novell stuff that can override any community decision than there is no community. There will be always clear division.
Board needs something that will give them idea what majority of users want. In market economy is bad idea to ignore majority, it strikes back hard, and openSUSE is supported with companies that live on the market.
We're not in a market economy. It's obviously important to know what the majority wants, but it's also important to know what the best solutions and choices are, based on experience (technical, community, ...).
As long as main sponsor is in market economy, we are too. Knowing what majority wants is the way to look for best solutions. Looking elswhere for some academic best solutions we can find them, but who is going to use them.
The problem is: "How to detect what is acceptable for majority?"
You can't, because the majority isn't even participating in polls/votes nor discussions like these (and that's much more important issue than the code of conduct, but I'm not sure whether it can be solved).
One poll that no one can avoid is openSUSE wiki popular pages. I used them to see where to put effort when for a days I felt pretty alone editing wiki. Speed up the effort for user directory, count hits and publish results. Having results hidden is shooting yourself in the foot.
That situation, btw, can only be improved through more communication, accessible communication channels, unification of the various parts of our community (people helping on mailing-lists, people busy on the several forums we have, regulars on IRC, packagers, developers, translators, wiki contributors, etc...).
My preferred way is static mail or even better usenet. You know, typing is not the best of my skills. Besides NNTP has couple of fine features: - I can delete post if notice errors too late. - When it is used one server posts appear on the spot, just like IRC I still can't understand why some people prefer IRC with its mess of messages instead of nice threading in NNTP.
I don't think there's anything wrong with - having guidelines that define what we think are good practices and a good ground for fertile collaboration, contribution and use (note that "we" = the community, as the Guidelines have been discussed at length on this mailing-list)
Every group larger than few people need guidelines. Ours came right in time.
- having moderators who enforce those rules, and other aspects they think are necessary for having a working community
See above BTW.
[...]
Those who will step up to be "moderators"
[...]
Nobody was asked to step up. Volunteer is not only self appointed (that is how it works right now), but
How do you mean, "volunteers are self appointed right now" ?
Aren't they? If someone don't step up as private person and take moderation role (and flames) unwanted thread will go on. Novell can't help there. There is no enough employees to take over 24/7 duty of moderating. Sad thing is that guy that wants to keep order is treated by offenders really bad. The problem is that offenders appear to me lesser and lesser as spontaneous undisciplined guys, and more as guys with intention.
also the one that is invited and accepted invitation. Volunteer moderator is not necessarily with power to enforce decision, but for sure the one that has good judgment how to deal with irregularities (most of the time). It is actually good idea to separate judgment and execution. That will prevent personal affinities to influence decision.
What you are writing may apply in a government, but certainly not for the actual matters we're discussing. This is about a code of conduct for communication and behaviour, most specifically in things like mailing-lists, forums and IRC. When you have someone with abusive behaviour (insulting, blatantly trolling, spamming, etc...) who generates a lot of frustration and bad mood on a community media, you have to get rid of him as quickly as possible, as it's driving people away. There's no time to make a public vote at a parliament and then have administrators close down accounts.
In real life you don't wait for a voting to put robber in a jail, but also police is not a judge. Having more persons that see decision is good idea. Some have to be police and some judges. That is all.
Take volunteer as Board trustee in communication media content matters.
I really don't think the analogy applies.
It is not analogy, it is just another description what moderator should be. If Board has no confidence in anyone to ask him to be a moderator and to give him tools to performe duty, than all talk about openSUSE community, is just talk.
It seems that it doesn't work quite well, otherwise Board will not come with idea that something has to be done.
To me the reasons are two-fold: - it is currently working reasonably well, but can be improved
What is reasonably well in calling guys that are trying to keep order 'anal retards' and repeating that in another post. Any reaction? No, I haven't seen. What is the message to those that tried to keep list civil without Board or Novell amen: "<any insult>, you should not do that".
- it's mostly about having it written black on white somewhere (which is mostly the case but in different locations, written by different people, ...)
It is good to have background for moderators, but as Marcio mentioned it is all about doing, not contemplating.
[...]
Who is solving disputes between moderators?
Nobody, in a meritocracy that's usually not needed, people are sensible enough to get to a common conclusion without needing to vote.
Meritocracy is not good if you are trying to convice somebody to use your product or you have to deal with volunteers. It works within company, where people are bound with will to make money, but outside is useless.
Actually it's the exact opposite. Meritocracy is a distinctive feature of communities as ours (opensource communities), and doesn't apply _at_ _all_ in the corporate environment (in companies that want to make money).
While I have misunderstood Marcio's comment, discussion is not about meritocracy (which has pretty blurred definition, and it is applied in real life heavilly), but "How to solve problem between moderators?" ...
The others, the "wannabees" as you call them yourself, are not helping the community and hence.. who cares.
Hmm. Everybody without ability to stop someones trolling is treated as 'wannabe'.
And before you pick on that point, the community isn't some beast that has to be nurtured by sleepless nights of its enslaved contributors. The community is us. It's you, it's me, it's the users, it's the contributors. But to me, the very first condition for being part of a community is wanting to take part in it.
Nice words. Now how to attract those that still don't find compelling reason to take part in it. Being called names helps competition.
How user can verify that he/she is warned by moderator?
They already do in the appropriate media
It is about verification that warning came from officially appointed one, not from wannabe one. It is not only warning for one person, but for all that read the thread. Final warning will anyway come from list operator.
See, that's what meritocracy is all about: the mods aren't wannabees.
Is that the answer on question "How user can verify that he/she is warned by moderator?"
And what would an "officially appointed one" be ? Someone from Novell ? Someone designated into that role by .. whom, public vote (where? how? is that representative of a majority?), the board, Novell ?
Could we just grow up and stop looking up to Novell or "officialness" to actually get something done ?
If you don't have plug, you can't do anything. Having a plug makes person 'official'. Novell or Board can give access to that plug. The other option is to create own communication media, and not beg anybody for permission or trust. -- Regards, Rajko --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org