The Rules of the Road: Swear by them or swear at them, they're what we've got. Part I: HISTORY

siab for A Guide to Community Moderation

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Tuesday March 30, 2021 · 6:00 PM PDT

2021/03/30 · 18:00

Open Thread for Community Moderation colorful bkgd — Looking for something to read in your spare time? ;)

Just so you can see the contrast, here’s the current link:

The Rules of the Road

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General History:

All referenced diaries can be found in the Blog History for A Guide to Community Moderation (index list on oldest to newest)

It’s hard to realize that we’ve only had a fully documented set of rules for community moderation since August of 2016. Before that,rules were more or less defined in a number of different diaries, and sometimes in the DKosopedia, and keeping track of all the various postings about specifics meant being able to pull up half a dozen different sources, some of which superseded others, some of which stood almost opposite others. Most of them were originally made after something went wrong and was dealt with, and only later codified.

It’s my personal theory that Staff finally ganged up on kos at some point, wrote things up, and put their collective foot down. I will never be able to prove any of it, but it’s a strong opinion. There have been several changes since them, but the general document is substantially the same.

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Before that, though — If anyone ever says to you “We never used to have so many problems” refer them to what follows.

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The earliest diary I’m comfortable referring to in this progression was Hunter’s diary, The Tao of Troll Rating, in May of 2006, while he was still a not-so-lowly member of the Daily Kos community.

Compared to what we’re seeing today, it, and the comments following (all 1,157 of them) describe something very much reminiscent of Tombstone, AZ in 1881.

This was followed up in February of 2007 by Warnings, Bannings, and Community Moderation, also by Hunter (only 707 comments to go through), and again in January of 2008 by A Change to the “Troll” Button (another 702 comments). (Note: there are links to Dkosopedia articles which are no longer valid, so don’t bother clicking on them.)

I’d like to recommend that anyone who’s interested read all three, including at least skimming the comments. It may give you a very different perspective on community moderation as practiced today.

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In 2009, Meteor Blades was given authority to oversee community moderation. I’m not sure whether this was originally recognized as a perfect recipe for burnout beforehand, but it should have been.

From his tenure:

Provided at your Request from June of 2009
Listening Post #1 also from June
Stepped-up Enforcement of Two Old Rules from September of 2009

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And with burn-out came the interregnum:

From Bubbanomics, in September of 2011: Moderate Your Φ∪⊂κing Blog, Kos!

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And, four days later, from kos: New Daily Kos design update tonight, and meet your new admin moderator

Followed very shortly by On the Help Desk; On my new moderation duties; “No ratings”; Purge update; Participating in someone else’s diary; Recap, new community behavior guidelines — all within about two weeks. If you’re interested in what happens when kos is forced to play moderator, they may be worth your time.

Then, by March of 2012, things had started to go south again: The latest meta bullshit, and your single warning (some of the comments are pretty good...)

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And another election season went by…

In January of 2013, Puddytat gave an impassioned plea: Can We Haz Some Moderation? Please? Pretty Please?

and eight hours later, kos came back with: Moderation? Be careful what you ask for

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And finally, in August of 2013, we got the first helpful and useful moderation tools; elfling’s new programs for Warnings and TimeOuts: I, for One, Welcome our New and Improved Robot Overlord

It also opened the floodgates for spammer signups, since it took down the week’s wait to post a diary, but you can’t have everything.

At the same time, the first drafts of community rules were being put together. The first Final Draft happened on August 23, 2013. That it took another three years before the Rules of the Road was available and publicly linked to on every new page, well, such is life, and death, and crabgrass.

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Comments are open. For agreement and argument and everything in between — and sideways, too. Enjoy.

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Next time: Ambiguities and Arguments; The RotR, Part II.

Tentatively, these diaries are set for Tuesday and Friday evenings at 9:00 pm Eastern time/8:00 pm Central/7:00 pm Mountain/6:00pm West Coast. If you have a topic you’d like to see discussed in one of them, leave a comment or kosmail me about it.

Anyone who wants to discuss community moderation topics is welcome. Of course, if you wish to tell us that community moderation is a failure and it’s all just an excuse for some people to set themselves up to judge others, please remember that Conspiracy Theories are not acceptable topics for discussion.

Previous diaries in this series, and a compilation of historical diaries showing the growth of Community Moderation on Daily Kos, can be found at A Guide to Community Moderation.

A caveat:

I do not speak for the Help Desk. This group does not speak for the Help Desk. In the unlikely event that any member of the Help Desk joins the group it still will not speak for the Help Desk. Kos and the rest of the Daily Kos staff, usually speaking through the Help Desk, are the ultimate authority in any and all disputes. Moving on...

Decisions about what to moderate, what to say, and how to say it, have always been individual ones. At most, it’s my hope that this group will offer advice which will make at least some parts of moderation more comfortable for more users.

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

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