Update: I am going to have to work out the logistics of this a bit more clearly. I realize now that whether I report on comments that are still open for marking or not makes a huge difference. I'm not sure if I should try to be timely, or try to be archival. Comments and suggestions greatly appreciated. For now I'm going to go to a daily format, I think. All of today's comments not covered here will be in tomorrow's diary. And then perhaps a weekly wrap-up; the daily diary will be as brief as I can get it.
In my previous diary (three diaries, actually, which I termed a "flash series" because they were all posted simultaneously) I recommended an approach to dealing with DK4 site moderation. One part of this plan is an open discussion diary in which I will summarize the moderation activity going on, primarily by presenting what's showing up on the Hidden list. Any TU can view the list, but not everyone bothers, particularly as doing so can lead to any number of quagmires and pie fights. Still, if you are a TU, helping to moderate the site is part of your responsibilities, so hopefully this will make it easier to at least stay informed and somewhat aware of the situations which come up. The goal here is not to inform you who's the good guys and who's the bad guys, though it might well be part of the process to try.
I'm a little unsure of the logistics. My idea is to open this diary each Monday and continue to add to it with edits all week. I don't know if that is actually going to work, though, or even possible. Any advice you may have will be appreciated, just leave a comment. For now I'm just going to try it this way and see what happens.
The comments are open for discussing these hiddens and moderation policy in general. Feel free to post questions or ask for advice, though I must warn you at this point this is an entirely unofficial effort. I will try to consider these HR calls from perspective of the standard moderation policy ("no insults, no uprating insults") as well as my own more specific (and in my mind more practical and effective) guidelines, documented in The Proposal, the third diary in my flash series. For explanation of some of the nomenclature I'll be using, see the second diary in the series, and for information on who I am and why I'm doing this, see the first.
Monday:
This inaugural edition of The Hiddens will start with the post-Aidos era. That user, a deeply disturbing hard core troll (presumed to be a Person With Problems) was disrupting primarily (but not exclusively) LGBT diaries on a tirade in opposition to anal sex. It was the dust-up caused by that user which seems to have prompted the chain of inspiration which lead to this series, and that case will act as something of a baseline. That situation was resolved (with the user's banning, though it is unclear whether that was due to a hide-on-site triggering of autoban, admin intervention prompted by messaged complaints, or one users diary bringing attention to the situation) on Saturday night, so this gives us an easy week-to-week structure for the diary.
The first Kossack lucky enough to hit the hiddens following the Aidos incident was in the diary complaining about the situation which I mentioned. The subject line was "PURIFY DAILY KOS! CRUCIFY! CRUCIFY! CRUCIFY!", and I don't think anyone would be surprised at the content or the pastry. Nevertheless, with currently 11 hydrates, there is one uprate. The uprater seems to be sympathetic to the "no more witch-hunts" perspective, although it seems obvious both the commenter (who admitted to this) and the uprater are unaware of the details of Aidos's "contributions" to DK. Both actions (posting the comment and uprating it) seem to be isolated incidents. Although the commenter is in the practice of occasional inflammatory rhetoric, no trolling is occurring.
Disposition: questionable but isolated. Status: non-controversial.
The next hidden continues the trend: a user complaining about 'witch hunts' and 'public stonings' and 'Stalinist purges' on DK, but has a more specific focus. 12 TUs from somewhat diverse perspectives considered it uncontroversially unacceptable. Although it was claimed to be due to a "Godwin violation" (the Stalinist bit, I guess) the primary offense seems to be caused by a "you don't speak for everyone" complaint about the diary itself, which was on the subject of trans-Americans and the Chaz Bono documentary. Although expressed badly, the goal of the comment seems to have been to express skepticism of overly-PC moderation practices by conflating the complaint and the presentation of the complaint. If you are going to complain about moderation being overly-concerned with political correctness (ie, "purges") then it is best to avoid politically incorrect verbiage when you do it. Further, the author of the hidden comment seems to be relatively disappointed in the President's performance, and at least one other comment on that topic has been HRd, but not hidden.
Disposition: of concern but isolated. Status: controversial (TU)
Next we have a longish anti-nuke comment trying to make the case that the current state of the Fukushima debacle was inevitable and purposefully downplayed (or simply dishonestly denied) by the authorities, based primarily on amateur analysis. The comment was in the author's own diary on that subject. It has 11 hides (including one from me) and one uprate. The hydration seem to be based on the use of the word "shill" to attempt to paint anyone with (in their opinion, which seems valid) a more rational consideration of the situation as beholden to the nuclear power industry, a charge made obviously false by the fact that those he is conversing with are generally anti-nuke, but do not feel it is necessary to creep so close CT in their opposition of it. The uprater simply ignored the use of the term "shill", and while that is a violation of MB's rules, I personally think it is supportable. (You will notice that my own guidelines require a comment to be lacking information other than the insult, and while the hidden comment was, as I mentioned, an amateur and potentially CT analysis, it was not entirely without content. As for the conflict between my HR and my recommended guidelines, I believe it is a matter of transition. I have no intention of trying to buck the consensus, only refine it.) This is not entirely isolated, a second comment in the same diary was hidden for (apparently) using the terms "group think" and "double down".
Disposition: of concern, CT (see below). Status: possible accidental subject trolling (nuclear power)
And now we have my favorite. With 20 (slightly diverse) donuts and four uprates in opposition, it is a screed against teacher's unions. It even quotes extensively from the Wall Street Journal, approvingly. Nevertheless, the commenter seems to be simply an opinionated Kossack not yet convinced that government spending improves the economy and that teacher's unions are nefariously responsible for almost every ill of the educational system. While those certainly aren't mainstream Democratic positions (non-mainstream opinions seems to be a hallmark of this user) I think based on the remarks and the rhetoric that it is more likely that this is a simple matter of an uninformed opinion expressed aggressively, rather than a purposeful attempt to troll. At least one of the upraters responded directly to the comment, and the conversation seems to have progressed without being derailed either by the talking-points-friendly comment or the hiding of it.
Disposition: questionable. Status: of interest
Just after posting (I'm still not sure how I'm going to handle timeframes and scheduling on this project; suggestions are needed) we had the hidden I've been waiting for show up. An account under the name "travelchacha" has posted three commercial spam diaries over three days. This account needs to be terminated by admin. Kudos to the dozen or so TUs who have hidden the tip jars. It is worth pointing out that those who are posting comments to those diaries are wasting their time; it isn't like the "author" doesn't know it's commercial spam or will be shamed into caring it is a FAQ violation.
Dispostion: positive identification of troll (commercial spam). Status: awaiting admin deletion of account for commercial spamming.
Discussion:
The trickiest issue, in my mind, concerning these comments is the CT in the anti-nuke hidden. Conspiracy theories in general are forbidden, and while this rule seems to have been derived specifically in response to Truther trolling, I consider any suggestion (which might be construed as an accusation rather than an intellectual discussion) that "there are" some particular professional trolls on DK, without supporting evidence or specifics, work to undermine any possibility of trust or unity which we might be trying to develop here. As such, even rather uncontroversial claims that there are, for example, GOP shills currently posting should be considered CT unless the allegations are more specific than general. The position that it should be "common knowledge" there are opposition operatives active on this site and that everyone here should distrust everyone else on that basis is so monumentally disruptive to civil discourse that it doesn't seem tolerable to allow. And, of course, if this discussion has led to you considering the possibility I am myself a GOP plant intending to engage in mischief, that's understandable. If you take the idea seriously, however, you're part of the "paranoia problem" that the ban on CT is (in my mind) meant to derail. Making people distrust each other is easy, getting them to trust each other is practically impossible. Comments moving us in the easy direction are more suspect as generated by trolls than comments urging us in the other direction, I think.
That's it for now. Maybe this will be a weekly diary and I will summarize more and discuss less, maybe I'll need a new diary every day to prevent this one from becoming mega-long. Maybe I'll hit my stride and do it better, with your suggestions. Feel free to chime in.