Am So, 13. Dez, 2020 um 10:23 A. M. schrieb Adrien Glauser
The MLs clearly define what is / is not offtopic Sorry Simon, they do not, and could not, because topicality is not the kind of concept that admits of a definition (in terms of individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions). It'a concept that essentially depends on how someone interprets something in some context. Of course, you might try to *approximate* something like a universal definition -- until it runs into a counterexample and chokes.
To make explicit something implicit in my proposal above: there is a key difference between: - a flock of anonymous people being toxic on instant messaging channels; and - people who've known each other for weeks if not years and who have a propensity to knock each other's egos. Rubbing the latter under the brittle "on / offtopic" notion, and then adopting a "warn then mute" approach is losing a key opportunity to *actually solve the issue*. Instead the relational issue is just hidden and may come back stonger next time.
But we have users and offtopic mailing lists (and everyone has their private inbox!) to solve those issues without having to drag the whole list, which has wildly different default topic, with them. None of us are advocating just warning and muting anyone that sends a message slightly off topic, the role of moderators is to feel out the conversations and in case they are heading in a direction which isn't list appropriate (or just not appropriate in general), nudge the people to finish the conversation in a different place. The warning and mutes are tools for clear cut spam and guiding principles violations more than anything else. This is no different from people suggesting different channel on irc, telegram, discord, matrix for finishing up their conversation. I would assume that concept should be fairly well understood, since I see that done all the time in all 4 of those. Forums are slightly different since topics can be moved between the categories, and span multiple categories, so moderators do have the ability to act on topics after the fact of them being created and used.
Involving the Board I am glad I nowehere implied that the idea of "treating the root cause of behavioural / relational issues" on the MLs or oS communication channels required the Board. You can have your "moderator" do the thing I am describing (helping two members overcome their animosity) and turn to the Board only if all other failsafes have failed. And it's probably for the better, since people from the Board are often -- from what I've observed -- involved in these problematic exchanges.
That's very much not a good thing for an impartial body over conflicts ;) LCP [Stasiek] https://lcp.world