Bad faith should absolutely be punished, for its own sake, and by name. But permanent bans are the dumbest thing a moderator can do. It guarantees nobody learns. It chases people to new accounts. It gives people every reason to go behind your back and tell people you’re a power-tripping bastard.
What needs tolerance is telling trolls to fuck off. Even when their actions don’t rise to whatever asinine cutoff a moderator thinks trolling is - forcing people to play nice with dishonest assholes is psychic vampirism. They fundamentally need to be taken seriously, for their bullshit to work. ‘Assume good faith or else!’ is a gift to trolls.
In theory this sounds good but in practice it has problems. First, not everyone agrees on what constitutes bad faith interactions, as that’s a poorly defined term to begin with. So first you’d have to build consensus around that. Secondly, most definitions are going to revolve around the user’s state of mind, which isn’t possible to know and in my experience is often misunderstood due to the sometimes heated nature of online discourse.
So how is it fairly enforced? If this question can be answered to my satisfaction, then i agree. But I don’t think it can be. Therefore the best approach is to build rules and examples of bad behavior that are objectively verifiable. If these are comprehensive enough then the trolling and bad faith issues will be solved but we won’t have people getting banned for being bad at spelling or other BS you see on this com.
Trying to define shitty human behavior objectively is a fool’s errand. People can be bastards beyond defense, in perfectly G-rated language. Forums with a mile-long list of nitpicky little rules are miserable compared to any straightforward version of ‘don’t be an asshole without a good reason.’
Bad faith should absolutely be punished, for its own sake, and by name. But permanent bans are the dumbest thing a moderator can do. It guarantees nobody learns. It chases people to new accounts. It gives people every reason to go behind your back and tell people you’re a power-tripping bastard.
What needs tolerance is telling trolls to fuck off. Even when their actions don’t rise to whatever asinine cutoff a moderator thinks trolling is - forcing people to play nice with dishonest assholes is psychic vampirism. They fundamentally need to be taken seriously, for their bullshit to work. ‘Assume good faith or else!’ is a gift to trolls.
In theory this sounds good but in practice it has problems. First, not everyone agrees on what constitutes bad faith interactions, as that’s a poorly defined term to begin with. So first you’d have to build consensus around that. Secondly, most definitions are going to revolve around the user’s state of mind, which isn’t possible to know and in my experience is often misunderstood due to the sometimes heated nature of online discourse.
So how is it fairly enforced? If this question can be answered to my satisfaction, then i agree. But I don’t think it can be. Therefore the best approach is to build rules and examples of bad behavior that are objectively verifiable. If these are comprehensive enough then the trolling and bad faith issues will be solved but we won’t have people getting banned for being bad at spelling or other BS you see on this com.
As opposed to when?
Trying to define shitty human behavior objectively is a fool’s errand. People can be bastards beyond defense, in perfectly G-rated language. Forums with a mile-long list of nitpicky little rules are miserable compared to any straightforward version of ‘don’t be an asshole without a good reason.’