Welcome to The Hiddens, a daily diary devoted to (unofficial) discussion and documentation of the Community Moderation process on DK. Please feel free to post any questions or opinions you have on the subject in comments. My name is T. Max Devlin, and I am your author, editor, and facilitator. Thanks for your time. I hope it helps.
Yesterday things got uglier than I've seen them in, oh, a week or so. The former high point of CM was the Aidos Debacle, when a Person With Problems that had been skillfully trolling the LGBT community for years was finally banned from the site. Last week, a TU had a melt-down and started a troll thread in a Feminist (the feminist's diary, in DK terms) that went on for days. Neither of those things compare to the fun (or lack thereof) that was yesterday's DK experience, at least for me...
There were some honest-to-god pie fights (where both sides get splattered with pastry and everyone ends up looking silly) yesterday, and one pure troll booted off the island unceremoniously, plus some tasty single-donut action if you were following the threads. But it wasn't the big "BK vs. LGBT" face-off that made it a rough day for me, but my own knee-deep shamble into a WPWG diary. (For those of you who don't know, WPWG is White Privilege Working Group, a group of mostly 'white' Kossacks who are trying to deal with subtle racism on DK and in general. They nominally share 'identity space' with the BK [Black Kos] group(s), but the relationship is dicey and fluid.)
You could say I trolled BK. You could say it plain, and there wouldn't be a single possibility of a deductive method for me to prove it wrong. Proof positive that trolls are easy to spot, but easier to imagine, because all I did was calmly and reasonably make a point. Well, that's what I tried to do, anyway.
My point was that the term "race traitor" shouldn't be used in general, and certainly not flippantly. The problem with that is that the term is used in a very precise technical meaning within the academic study of racial issues. It is meant to indicate, by its apparent if blunt candor, that advocating against someone of one's own race for the benefit of someone of a different race is reacted to and punished harshly through social forces. Anyone who has a conscience and an awareness of race-based social inequality should be proud to be called a race traitor, and it is outrageous (and a sign of racism) that I would suggest the term be avoided, was the general nature of the response (charitably paraphrased, of course.)
Which is all well and good in the context of academic racial studies. And does jack-all when trying to deal with racial interactions in a non-academic open forum. My thinking is that use of the term, if not the term itself, engenders the very stereotypes we're trying to convince people to get past, and inflames emotions needlessly. It doesn't have any more validity when used here by someone with an academic background than it would if launched against the President. Is President Obama a racial traitor? Is that a good thing?
I'm not sure where to go with this. I'm not sure what to do. I would desperately want a conversation to happen in this edition of The Hiddens discussing the various BK and BK/LGBT appearances in The Hiddens over the last few days, and even my contribution to their threads. (I did get one donut, with two uprates, for one of my comments. It fills me with angst to think that they are probably from the two worst racists on BK, whoever that might be, to the point where I'm not even going to bother to look at who it was that uprated me.)
But to take our minds of that, for the moment, while everyone hopefully carefully formulates their comments and replies, let's do a record.
This popped up late last night, on a comment from before last night's edition closed:
Incident: 'Would you (or: in Texas this is like 'hello')'
Incident notes: 'stuff it' (0/3/1(7))
Diary notes: GOP, weather
User notes: newbie
HR notes: 'mind seeing just how far you can insert your head in a hole?'
Disposition: gruff Status: prickly
This incident makes an important point in relation to aoeu's note reprinted in yesterday's edition. The participants got over it, and there was back-and-forth, both instructive and personable. All that got hidden, because of the over-reliance on this "insult" rule. Confusion between social and community moderation, I tell you. And in this case, they should have stuck with the social sort alone. Hardly HR abuse, but c'mon. Hiding a comment can happen after you determine it isn't just some social jostling, no need for a hair-trigger.
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Last night, a diary was published by the Amateur Left group, and republished by several others, which was essentially an Obamaphobic troll diary ("White House shills") with a nice bit of "Won't get fooled again" CT paranoia. (Needless to say, Yours Truly is contributing my thoughts in the comment threads.) That diary has (so far) dropped two comments into hiddens:
Incident: 'White House Shills 1'
Incident notes: 'poutrage' (1/6/1(7))
Diary notes: DFH, creepy McCarthyism
User notes: TU, old timer, Krugman fan
HR notes: trivial pie fight; hidden for hiding
Disposition: boomerang Status: DFH, open
That was the DFH side getting the lemon meringue; there is splattered pastry on a number of nearby comments.
Then the Obot contingent caught some coconut cream:
Incident: 'White House Shills 2'
Incident notes: Recipe for 'dirty rat stew' (4/18/4(27))
Diary notes: DFH, creepy McCarthyism
User notes: TU, older timer
HR notes: trivial pie fight; recipe was satirical call-out
Disposition: recipe Status: DFH, open
The tradition of making unflattering comments in reply, HRing tip jars, and posting recipes are all time-honored DK traditions. None of which, apparently, are okay to use against Obamaphobes.
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Yours Truly has been engaged in the diary from the above cases. I have, of course, been criticized for claiming I can be fair and reasonable as a moderator while using the term "Obamaphobia". I contend that it would be impossible to be reasonable, or fair, while avoiding the term. I don't think I need to support the idea that ongoing irrational distrust or distaste with President Obama, particularly among anyone who is white (caucasian, non-black, however you want to define whiteness) is most parsimoniously explained by white-privilege-inspired Obamaphobia. A diary on DK promoting the kind of McCartheyesque claptrap as the above diary is a troll and an embarrassment. That is the only fair and reasonable position. Diaries can't be hidden, comments can't be deleted. The people who think that to be a DFH, a real Democrat, or a good Kossack means to consider President Obama a failure or lacking in leadership are Obamaphobes, not principled liberals. What else could we possibly call worries that a Democratic website is going to be "infiltrated" by "shills" working for (gasp) the Democratic Party?
On that note, we have another troll diary advocating for a primary challenger for the President. The propriety of doing so is clear: if you want to primary an incumbent, you should advocate for doing so. What makes these things "troll diaries", though incredibly popular ones, is the tone, the accusations against detractors, the willful smearing of the leader of our party on false pretenses with inflammatory rhetoric. Feel free to find and read them yourself. Let me know in comments if you agree, or not, and why.
It is unfortunate that this issue has been brought to the foreground (most of my detractors no doubt are certain in their minds that insulting "the President's critics" is the entire purpose behind my efforts here) just before the following unfortunate but almost inevitable announcement must be made: Yours Truly needs mojo. I seem to be all tapped out, and lost my TU status (thanks to my inability to resist commenting on and near pie fights, of course.) Please tip this diary (and/or previous editions) if you are reading this, or congratulate yourself silently and hope like hell nobody else does.
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Well that didn't take long. I was almost hoping I wouldn't have to bother with this anymore. The ways of mojo are mysterious, though; I doubt the five whole tips I got in this diary put me back over the top, but who knows? Keep this in mind for the future. I appreciate that most of you want to stay anonymous, don't want to seem like you are picking sides, or are nervous about supporting me too much. But if you're reading The Hiddens, I'd appreciate a tip at least once in a while. It's only fair.
So back to it, eh?:
Incident: 'Reid Report v FDL'
Incident notes: Tip jar and advocating for GOP (1/18/3(37*), 1/8/4)
Diary notes: Primary challenge to President
User notes: old timer, non-TU (first I've seen!)
HR notes: trivial pie fight, 'clarification' message was double-down
Disposition: fudge Status: 3rd party, open
I truly wish Jane Hamish and Glen Greenwald would get over themselves. They're such smart people; why are they being so dumb?
Still more from the DFH 'Shill' diary:
Incident: 'White House Shills 3'
Incident notes: "middlebrow minds" (0/7/2(7*))
Diary notes: DFH, McCarthyism
User notes: personal nemesis
HR notes: unremarkably justified
Disposition: South Park Status: pseudo-intellectual
This hidden comment lead directly to the next one. Yours Truly posted a followup comment stating I was tempted to uprate this comment so that everyone could see what a vile cretin the user was. (Note, the term 'vile cretin' is a paraphrase. See below.)
So now we have the much anticipated inclusion of Yours Truly as an incident in The Hiddens:
Incident: 'I'm tempted'
Incident notes: personal insult (w/profanity) (0/6/1)
Diary notes: DFH, 'White House Shills'
User notes: Yours Truly, arrogant annoying prick, wannabe, gadfly, TU*
HR notes: in defense of hidden comment and in protest of righteous snark
Disposition: NLF Status: double-flip, open
When I made a crack about the previous hidden comment, I gave my critics an opening to try to bully me by including the description "nasty little fucker", which careful readers of The Hiddens will remember I used to describe two particular Kossacks. One of them had a flame-out over the last few days (see 'Fuck x2' and related records) and (I was informed this morning) lost his TU status (getting hidden does cost mojo). The other one is the TU labeled 'personal nemesis' in the preceding record, and who's allies dutifully hid my insulting retort to his insulting spew. It is likely that it was getting this comment hidden was what caused me to lose (temporarily) my TU status earlier today. (Again, getting hidden does cost mojo.)
A return to I/P country, for:
Incident: 'suck up'
Incident notes: I/P (I) (1/2/3(6))
Diary notes: I/P (P), Harry Reid
User notes: TU
HR notes: 'palestinians are anti-democratic'
Disposition: brief Status: chutes and ladders, open
A mundane expression of simplistic thought which crossed the line. But what else is I/P for?
That brings us current, for now. I'm sure there are plenty of people patiently waiting to try to tear into me, so I'll post the update and then start checking comments and replies. More later, if there is anything more later.
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Picking up after the I/P "suck up" comment, and ignoring fill-ins for now (I think I'm going to start calling them "hop ons", and laugh maniacally every time I use it, let us know in comments if you know why) there's more I/P, because of course Harry Reid and JEWS!! said something.
Incident: 'ugly truth (or: like we haven't heard that before, again)'
Incident notes: I/P (P) (0/4/4(10))
Diary notes: I/P, 'Who needs enemas?'
User notes: we'll say its an average Kossack
HR notes: nominal
Disposition: Foreign Aid Status: 'as much as 50%', open
Despite the nominal Community Moderation response, I have to express an admiration for one Kossacks social moderation skills. I quote (in it's entirety,) "JEWS!". It got a tip from me, anyway.
The next bunch look like one long troll, near but not in I/P territory:
Incident: 'kidding'
Incident notes: trivial (0/55/10, 0/10/5, 0/3/5)
Diary notes: individual, response to obamaphobia
User notes: non-TU, Obamaphobe
HR notes: awful (note the lack of thread count stats)
Disposition: 55? Status: Really? 0/55?, and open?
Apparently there are some diaries on Daily Kos that you can't get away with saying President Obama is "an inexperienced, two faced liar". The same user said back in April that President Obama was lacking in charisma. And still I get complaints when I say "Obamaphobe."
In that same diary, we get a visit from an open subject, namely Red State Ambassador, the only Kossack who gets their name printed in The Hiddens without special permission (from me). I figure with a username like that, it would be kind of stupid to pretend I'm talking about someone else, right?
Incident: 'second hate'
Incident notes: I/P (anti-P) (0/9/7(10))
Diary notes: individual, response to obamaphobia
User notes: Red State Ambassador
HR notes: "would someone explain why I only have 1 more mojo bar than this troll?"
Disposition: RSA Status: troll, open
To the TU in the notes, "Tell me about it." I only lost TU for like an hour and a half, maybe, and four of my detractors still had time to try to gloat. By the way, this incident was a "hop on". (ROTFLMAO)
Here's a quick "don't blink you'll miss it" incident, that looks like it ended in an Admin ban.
Incident: 'See what happens? (or: Randal Terry)'
Incident notes: trivial (primary) tip jar+ (0/26/8(228), 0/1/5, 0/2/5)
Diary notes: troll diary, tip jar and sprinkles
User notes: Crusader For Justice (seriously)
HR notes: other user comments in diary had donuts without current uprates but still hidden, one comment had (2/5/12)
Disposition: bony mojo Status: sock puppet?
User's stay on DK was brief. Professional troll, possibly hard core, probably zombie.
