Anyone can be a rules violator: A TU or respected community member can have bad day(s) where their conduct is trollish. An apology and change of conduct is the same accountability we expect of others. However, there is a disturbing trend of attacking the moderator, whether Meteor Blades or a kossack, claiming expressly or implicitly that moderation has not been fair or impartial.
I call them Disruptors to distinguish them from people with a legitimate issue. Any moderator can make a mistake, which I've seen acknowledged on the boards. Any kossack can misunderstand the rules or not be aware of some rules or how the rules operate. This is not the subject of my diary.
The Disruptor is different because they place their own agenda or ego above community. Their attacks are dangerous to our community. A small number of Disruptors can disrupt diaries & community by drawing energy on them rather than our progressive agenda. The Disruptor is also dangerous because attacking the moderator or our rules system is strategic. If our rules system is not fair, then why should our community perform moderation that is used for 95% of site enforcement of rules?
The Disruptor is also wrong on the facts. I reviewed our rules system to see whether there were legitimate gripes. What I found is that we have an incredible "justice" system for which impartiality and fairness are embedded into the process. We have community participation throughout the process. We have rules created by admins or community collaboration that govern conduct. We have notice of rules provided by diaries, comments and a FAQ. We have a rules enforcement process that provides incremental penalties to enable options other than immediate banning. There is transparency provided by moderation on the boards. There are mechanisms to reduce discretion that could lead to selective enforcement. While all systems need updating, unreasonable attacks on our moderators or rules system create disruption and divisiveness that interfere with our progressive agenda.
There are 3 parts of our DK Rules system: The rules, notice about the rules and the rules enforcement process. As a package, the DK rules system is inherently fair.
Rules created by community collaboration and admins responding to problems disrupting our community.
A year ago, Markos noted that "it's hard to uniformly enforce the rules if the rules themselves are lacking!"
Our community had the opportunity to participate and provide feedback on our rules system. MB created his Listening Post series to get community feedback and ideas on how the site operates, beginning with a discussion on site rules, dealing with trolls, and answering questions from newbies.
MB "codified" some existing rules and created new rules. Disruption by repeat offenders was aggravated because they remained at DK longer than desired, so the automatic tip jar was created. MB tried an innovative approach of our community participation in a collaborative writing process for rules, culminating in the stalking rule. (Links to diaries in this process are here and here and here and here and here and here.)
The substantive content of a rule can provide an opportunity for unfairness because terms in a rule might be subjectively interpreted. This is virtually impossible to eliminate. Even with complex laws in meat world that have definitions for each word in a rule, and then more definitions for the defined words, subjectivity remains. In order for a lawyer to determine what is the law, we need to look at the statutes, the regulations, the judicial opinions and the legislative history and still might not have a clear-cut answer.
However, DK has some mechanisms that eliminate or reduce subjective interpretations of rules. Anyone can ask other kossacks or Meteor Blades for guidance on a rule. Moreover, enforcement considers the subjective nature of some rules to ensure fairness and impartiality. If the rule is not "absolutely clear-cut," MB might first provide a warning or two in the comments to clarify the rules.
Our community is provided notice of the rules in diaries, comments, and FAQ page.
Diaries were written on various rules to provide opportunity for community feedback and also notice about rules and moderation: Stepped-up Enforcement of Two Old Rules (no troll rating when in active fight and no retaliatory troll ratings); Rules, Moderation, Civility; Stopping the Name-Calling, personal invective and ad hominem arguments; and Summary Banning for Threats and Calls to Violence.
Determining what are the parameters of a rule and how to apply it are not always easy. It might be beneficial to have more community discussions and share experiences or tips of "how to" moderate.
The DK Rules system provides for incremental "punishments" for violation of community rules.
Just as the meat world incorporates fairness into a system by providing due process, so does DK. The rules page of the DK FAQ states the substantive rule and the nature of admin moderation. We now have incremental enhancement of "penalties" or a sequence of penalties that increase in severity depending on the nature of the misconduct. Thus, there is a new sequence of warning, then suspension and then banning, but sometimes the conduct is so egregious that there is summary banning. For each form of misconduct, the FAQ page lays out the type of "penalties."
Today you get a warning for conduct that in the past led to a banning as the only enforcement option.
It used to be that misconduct simply resulted in banning because we did not have incremental levels of punishment. As Markos explained, one purpose of the warning system is to provide a "more efficient way to warn people of bad behavior without it being a choice between 'do nothing' and 'ban.'"
The use of official warnings, or a "statement of official policy," has existed at DK since 2006, but we now have a warning process that has layers to ensure fairness for our benefit.
Some do not understand the warning they received, so here is an overview. A red flag pops up when you sign onto DK or when you try to post a comment. The user needs to acknowledge receipt of the warning. The message of "user can not receive gift subscription" appears when a user has been warned but does not acknowledge, when there has been a removal of ratings privilege, a suspension or banning.
The warning exists to provide fairness by allowing people an opportunity to change their behavior before being banned. The number of official warnings, and whether a suspension precedes banning depends upon the particular violation. People can appeal a warning or ban to Markos.
Another feature that removes some discretion and thus provides impartiality and fairness is that we now have a system that delineates how many warnings are issued based upon the particular violation, which brings uniformity to the warning process.
There is intentional selective enforcement in community moderation.
There are two areas of selective enforcement of our rules. One, MB's admin moderation is by necessity random. Moderation is not the only function of CD and DK has hundreds of diaries and thousands of comments posted each day. Therefore, one person cannot be everywhere. So, it might happen that one person is moderated while another is not on any particular day or for any particular issue. However, this selective enforcement is not intentional and therefore cannot be reasonably attacked as evidence of not being impartial and fair. Moreover, 95% of moderation is by the community, which should be picking up the moderation that can't physically be done by MB, who provides comments with tips and guidelines for our moderation. One problem is that there is selective enforcement by community moderation that is intentional, such as uprating friends while HR'ing others for the same issue.
The Disruptor
The Disruptors attack moderators/DK rule system as not fair to avoid accepting responsibility for their own misconduct. But, attacking moderation is just one tool of the Disruptors. The disruptor likes to use different tools -- such as personal attacks, lies, racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc -- to disrupt a thread of a diary. This disruption can spread throughout the sub-community, and spillover into the larger DK community, creating meta storms of counter diaries and GBCW or TTFN.
Meteor Blades stated the DK rule on disruptors here: The general rule is that Disruptors can not be banned from diaries, but we can challenge Disruptors, and if they continue to disrupt, then the Disruptor is subject to HR and admin moderation. One exception is that IGTNT and pootie diaries can ban disruptors.
The prove it or retract it rule for lies, false claims, innuendo, and accusations.
There is another way we can civilly respond to Disruptors who toss out lies, false claims, attacks or accusations either expressly, or by innuendo, thinking that implications or insinuations provide them with wiggle room for denials. The BS breeds divisiveness and impedes moving forward with the purposes of DK. For example, the GOP often toss out BS that sidetracks, delays or impedes substantive debate or progress on progressive issues because the parties argue over the BS rather than the substantive issue.
But, what if the Disruptor's BS has a short life span because the truth is revealed immediately? One way to civilly challenge the disruptor's claims is to ask for proof or a retraction.
At DK, this rule has been used when the accuser states or implies a lie, posts claims not supported by evidence or posts false claims, makes accusations or plays with BS or word games.
It's a very simple rule. When a statement appears to be a lie, false claim, personal attack or accusation -- either expressly or implicitly, or by innuendo/insinuation – then we can ask for proof. If proof for the statement is not provided, then an apology should be issued.
It might be useful to remember that one goal of this rule is to set the record straight so that negative perceptions can't attach to the Disruptor's BS. Thus, it does not really matter if the Disruptor responds because your questions asking for proof will show readers that the BS has been challenged and should not be trusted on its face.
Daily Kos is where we "shape and advocate the liberal/progressive/Democratic message" and work toward a better future for everyone by electing better Democrats and by discussing substantive policies with analysis, constructive criticisms and new ideas. Disruptors literally hijack, obstruct and impair our mission. My guesstimate is that we have a small number of disruptors, but even a handful can have significant impacts of creating divisions to achieve their self-centered goals that are antithetical to our overall community goals.