Additionally, it struck me that a solid chunk of the replies managed to reprise the quote, either fully, or as SOB. People waiting for an excuse to be able to use the phrase without being sanctioned?
I have a question in to the Help Desk asking for a list of words that internet filters generally have a problem with, so that when I request that someone change their headline I’m not making an uneducated mistake. There probably isn’t one, or there are 200 different ones, and it’s simply a “best practice” to avoid potential filter problems. If anyone has solid feedback, I’d like to hear it. It seems we may need to reconsider headline moderation — perhaps cutting it down to George Carlin’s list?
And just for the hell of it, a translation of the phrase that’s been bouncing around inside my head since I started writing this: “You know, the problem with you is that your mother was a woman.” I’m very much afraid that the next time I hear the phrase, I’m going to giggle helplessly for the next couple of minutes.
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Getting back to the announced content…
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#9: Do Not Post spam. If the despaminate bots don’t get you, the community will.
This is not your parents’ Spam. There are actually four types of Spam that we get hit with on a regular basis, two in comments and two in diaries, and it’s worthwhile to distinguish among them.
- Comment Spam
- The first, simplest, and least common, looks very much like the original Spam from the early days of the personal computer — ads for jobs that pay $65/hour, personal testimonials for psychic healers, and herbalists, and herbal remedies that are sovereign for whatever diseases may be out there in the world; your standard low budget con artists. These are mostly taken care of by a pair of spambots named Scoop and despaminate3000 who roam the comment sections blithely flagging, hiding, and banning as they go. They’re backed up by Staff who review everything they catch, and their recent record is damn near perfect. Occasionally they miss, and then we have the happy opportunity to flag the spammers into oblivion.
- The second type is Troll Spam, for want of a better phrase. These are cut-and-paste comments that a user drops multiple times in one or more diaries for the simple purpose of flooding the comments section with their opinions on (usually) one topic. Generally, they are either all caps or majority caps, badly written, and have little or no relationship to either the diary they’re posted in or any Democratic point of view. Daily Kos will catch duplicates that are posted over a short period of time, but these do sneak through. Flag and notify the Help Desk, because multiple instances of this type are most easily taken care of from there.
- Diary Spam, usually known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Marketing. The key to this type is that it contains one or more links to commercial internet sites, and its purpose is to raise the number of times that bots from the major search engines see the URLs of those sites as they roam the web. The more instances they find, the higher the Search ratings of those sites will be, and the more prominently they will be displayed when people search the web.
- The major part of this, which if you are lucky you will never see, is handled before it ever posts, and only shows up if there are server problems. When it does show up, it tends to quickly populate the entire Recent List, and the only recourse is to notify the Help Desk. The good part is that it’s only happened a couple of times in the last few years, and it’s been handled swiftly.
- The stray survivors of all elfling’s Spam detection programs show up, usually in the mornings, and have in common only that there are one or more links within the diaries to commercial entities. Some are up-front advertising, some are articles with a few innocuous(!) links in the text, some are pretty good political writing, though usually copied from another website with a few extra links than they originally had, and some are perfectly innocuous, though not particularly a good fit for DK, and will have links added later, once they’ve passed off the Recent list. These last are specialty items for connoisseurs of Spam. If you find one, of any type, add a Spam tag to the diary tags. This will bring it to the attention of the Help Desk, who can then remove it and BOJO the author if that has not been done already. If you are sure of your identification, you can flag the Tip Jar; otherwise, simply add the tag. If you’re wrong, no harm will come to any legitimate posting.
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#10: do not Insult the character, intelligence, or background of people with whom you are arguing. You want to win an argument? Then don’t engage in ad-hominem attacks.
A comment which critiques the content of the writing, rather than insulting the writer, their style, their beliefs, or their motives, is the sine qua non of negative responses. Especially if you are making the case for flagging for an ad hominem, try to stay on the “critique” side of the page, rather than the “insult” side. It can sometimes be hard to distinguish between an insult to the author, and an insult to their work, even if you’re technically avoiding an ad hominem of your own.
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#11: do not “Call out” other users by name in the headline of your story, unless you are writing about how wonderful that person is.
This rule does not, as far as I can tell, cover headlines about kos, or Staff members, but a still older rule in that situation is “Don’t start a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” Community moderation has no role in that kind of fight, fortunately.
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#12: do not Use profanity in the title of a story, which makes the site run afoul of Internet filters.
Adult language is otherwise acceptable, provided it does not abuse other users or break site rules against hate speech.
My own preference would be to interpret this rule to include obvious asterisking of common profanity, but my preference doesn’t cut it for this, as long as the filters are set up to pass that modification. See the first item in the diary for more discussion.
A lot of users trip over the first part of this rule once, but generally not twice. It’s the second part that tends to cause an occasional problem. If you run into a problem with someone flagging or disputing a comment purely on the basis that it uses adult language, either vulgarity or profanity, don’t try to argue. Simply quote the rule, multiple times if necessary, and suggest that they argue with the Help Desk, or with kos.
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#13: do not Publicly accuse other users of being paid campaign shills, sockpuppets, zombies, or imposters.
Such accusations should be brought up in a private ticket at the Help Desk, with proper evidence.
The general accusation here is posting in bad faith. It covers a multitude of sins, including accusations of being a Russian (or any other kind of) Troll. It should be noted that a call-out for trolling is for a specific type of behavior, rather than an implication of intentions. That the two often go together is an entirely separate matter.
This means that any public reply to such a user needs to be factual, and specific with regard to exactly what has been said, rather than a call out of some presumed motive. The temptation to do it the other way around can be strong, so fight it, or you’ll run into Rule #10.
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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: The last of the Do Nots; notes on flagging; ?? If you think I’m going into too much detail, you could be right. After all, nobody needs to know this much about the Rules of the Road, right? Right? Hah.
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These diaries are set for Tuesday and Friday evenings at 9:00 pm Eastern time/8:00 pm Central/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.
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