there are no rules in kintsugi

I don't want to speak for anyone, but I know some of my friends are not very active posters, and scrupulosity is one of the stated reasons. I think that when a lot of folks have come from "we won't tell you what could be a problem until you stumble onto it and then you'll be punished," it's hard to believe that "we can't tell you what could be a problem until you stumble onto it, and then we'll try to manage the fallout" could be any different.

It has been my perception that on this forum, it's less important to do things "right" the first time, or indeed at all, and more important to be willing to communicate when other users (including mods) respond (even if that communication is nothing more than "I don't have the spoons for this right now").

It would be really useful if we could identify more of the unspoken norms that have developed in this forum's culture, or other situations that might be different here than elsewhere, and sort of explicitly describe some ways to recognize them and some tips for navigating them.

That sounds like a massive undertaking. Maybe compiling some seebs quotes about these situations that people can peruse would be useful. Idunno, my mind is wandering.

 

I agree that the "we can't tell you what could be a problem until you trip over the landmine" is kind of an issue that can at least partially be addressed. Not in the sense of "figuring out where all the landmines are before someone steps on them", because that's probably not going to happen, but at least in terms of marking the landmines that have been discovered so far. And I'm pretty sure that we've discovered some pretty reliable landmines. Bayesian updating works outside of the lab sometimes.

For example: suicide baiting: probably a landmine. Has been a landmine in the past, can reasonably assume it will continue to be a landmine in the future. Probably don't want to have to make the discovery anew every single time

As much as I appreciate the insistence that everything will be handled on a case-by-case basis, that's not terribly informative. And as much as I appreciate the new radical transparency, it's still not terribly informative in terms of what users might want to do or not do in the future. And as much as I appreciate that the mod team really doesn't want to intervene unless absolutely necessary, intervention occurs nonetheless, but except for lingering grudges it doesn't appear that much information is publicly gleaned from such interventions.
There may not be many rules, and there may not be many guidelines, but there are definitely...conventions? Norms? Expectations? Unspoken for the most part, but when they're spoken we could at least write them down somewhere.

Please put flags next to the landmines. A flag doesn't stop someone from stomping on a landmine if they want to, but at least it lets people know how to avoid stomping on landmines if they don't want to.

Or, perhaps in more actionable terms: every time the mods wiggle a post, that mod might check to see if the reason for wiggling that post is on the public list of "known landmines" or whatever that would hopefully get posted in the Guidelines thread or something, and if not, add it in. Maybe user suggestions could be gathered for what ends up on the list. But I really do think the repeated implication of "I can't guide you at all because case-by-case is statistically indistinguishable from uniform random" needs some work.

 

You're describing a casuistic system of ethics, which I suspect seebs is implementing without realizing it.

 

There is no reason why a policy cannot give significant weight to such things. That weight can be assigned through Rules (hard) or through comparison with other cases (also hard, but in a different way).

But whether the system is rule-based or not there needs to be something systematic unless you want to spend lots of your time playing personal host to this motley crew.

 

See, now we run into the problem of arbitrarity. How do we, the regular users, make a deliberate attempt to avoid doing something that requires mod attention, when the mods refuse to give even the least bit of information about what might require mod attention?
Sure, rules are no. I think we've established that pretty clearly by now. The only rule is that there are no rules except for the rule establishing that there are no rules. Got it.

But if you are going to insist that every case is an edge case without even hinting at what might become a case at all, I think you're doing all of us, including the outliers, a disfavor. Sure, there might be cases where it's best for you to leave blatant suicide baiting unspoilered in the middle of a Fan Town thread about children's cartoons. But I for one am capable of inferring stuff from cases, and all of the cases I've seen of users having problems with the mods have been either "I didn't know this was a problem, why am I being punished?" or conversely "this is known to be a problem, why isn't anything being done about it?"
And I trust that these judgments are not arbitrary, because I am trusting, and indeed nothing that has happened makes me think that they're truly arbitrary. But it is possible to be indistinguishable from arbitrary and there we have a problem. Because despite "radical transparency", facts without structure are noise. You hand down decisions from which nothing can be inferred, but what does that mean for me, well-intentioned user who would like to not trigger anyone but is somehow unaware that telling people to kill themselves might cause problems? I cannot learn from your decisions? I cannot guess what actions of mine will result in my posts getting tossed in the moderation queue or the wiggler? I have to learn the hard way, every single time? I'm perfectly happy to flip coins all day, but there are easy ways to lower the entropy.

I am happy you are trying to be flexible, but for the sake of deniability you are asking us to live in the dark. You are asking us to run across this minefield in the dark.

 

I guess that's where we're going to agree to disagree, but it really concerns me.
What if this situation had ended worse, and f&g decided to actually attempt because your insistence on putting a spoiler on their post made them feel like no one really did care? That's the kind of thing I'm thinking about that would need to be addressed right away.

Yes, we're trying to protect everyone, but you also need to put the other person in mind at the same time, especially in a situation like this.

To be completely honest, your response really scares me. I know you lack some empathy, but that's treading on dangerous levels to ignore someone's possible cry for help to where your actions could pull the trigger, figuratively speaking.

 

@seebs but did any of you think to at least message f&g while all this was going on to try to help them?

 

Although seriously, seebs, once in a while you will say that you and/or the mod team "pretty consistently" do such and such and I think we would do well to compile those things, maybe in the guidelines or faq. That would be a thing people can look at to have an idea of what has historically required mod action, so people who have anxiety about authority and such can have a somewhat less ambiguous model of How To Forum. Even with disclaimers that context matters and that "pretty consistently" doesn't mean "always."

(hmm, searching for that phrase isn't helping me find many examples, but I feel like the idea has been expressed a few times even if the wording isn't the same)

 

At the risk of being that jackass who said they were leaving because drama but sticks around and continues to get involved in drama, I think the problem here is that for many people, mods editing your posts (in any way) without consent because someone else is or might be hurt by your words is more akin to shit blowing up and not funny honks. I know for me, I wouldn't consider it funny at all and would be pretty fucking furious about it, even if I agree with why the mods are doing it... and I'm not even someone with a history of being taken advantage of by authority figures. Add the part where you'll never know under what circumstances it'll happen (because special cases and 'this will be implemented at our discretion') and you've got a pretty shit situation all around. Flags for landmines or honking horns would be appreciated.

 

The answer to "I didn't know this was a problem, why am I being punished" isn't "You aren't being punished." That is not an answer. That is "your feelings of persecution are invalid." That is "this is for the good of the community". That is "I'm going to dodge the question".

And it's true that the troublesome spots are more like bicycle horns than landmines, because you can step on a bicycle horn more than once. And so we have this completely unexpected situation where the same bicycle horns keep getting stepped on, and everyone is surprised every time because what is object permanence.
And yes, sure, it's not that specific types of posts tend to get moderator attention, except for suicide baiting, and calls for ostracization, and doxxing, and etc etc etc. Those were all special circumstances that just happened to occur 99% of the time. Completely indistinguishable from uniform random.

You don't have to make rules. You don't have to make policies. You can tell people "we did this before, but we are not bound by that decision". All I am asking you to do is to say "suicide bait might get mod attention". And when you decide to ignore it later, you can say "it got mod attention, and a decision was made". The point isn't to constrain you to do or not do certain things. It's to warn people away from dangers that they don't know about. Guide them, one might say, with some lines of text.

 

I think michi was talking about seebs in particular... not like a 'mods didn't do this' sort of deal, just seebs specifically didn't do the thing.

Edit: Wait, just read the 'any of you' part... huh. Not sure then?