Having problems registering on Coin Return? Please email support@coin-return.org, and include your PA username and PIN.
Governance - KD01 Proposal - Community Input
minor incident
publicly subsidized!privately profitable!Registered User, Transition Team regular
publicly subsidized!privately profitable!Registered User, Transition Team regular
Hello everyone!
We are seeking community input on a Key Decision impacting the governance of Coin Return. Please take a read through the problem statement as we see it, and then read through the options presented.
The voting for this Key Decision will be open until 10 pm US Eastern Time on the 9th of February.
PLEASE DO NOT FEEL THAT YOU NEED TO VOTE EARLY.
There will most likely be lengthy conversation on each one of these. Please, take your time to engage with the conversation and do not feel that you need to rush your vote.
Voting options are as follows. There will be a section in the poll to write your feedback. We will be reading and considering all feedback, so please don’t hold back with your comments. As with previous polls, if you decide to change your vote before the poll closes, simply submit another response. Your last submitted response will be accepted and all others deleted.
Problem Statement
There must be a process in place that sets the level of collaboration and shared decision making required to make decisions for the community. The greater the impact of a
decision, the greater the amount of collaboration needed to make that decision. Any good process for decision making will consider:
Collaborative decision making will need set procedures for the following scenarios involving moderator actions:
Collaborative decision making will need set procedures for the following scenarios involving the structures and governance system for Coin Return:
THIS PROPOSAL CONTINUES IN THIS GOOGLE DOCUMENT, DUE TO NECESSARY FORMATTING AND LENGTH: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JcouIYzM67bkCyEuAfFDPnorgJTIic45eF30hRWAMNc/edit?usp=sharing
AFTER READING THE PROPOSAL IN FULL, YOU CAN VOTE HERE: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfMui8_mw2_qCRGLe9iGo2UlZZI-s51QotBX3r4MW9YKE99zA/viewform?usp=sharing
Please also note that the authors of this proposal are @Tef @Feral @zagdrob and @Speed Racer -- If you have very specific questions or need clarification on items in the proposal, please look for a response from one of them to ensure you're getting the most accurate information.
Lastly, because of how critically important it is that this thread is open for discussion during the polling, moderation will be tighter than normal to ensure this does not go off the rails. Despite some tough conversations that happened in the Structure voting thread, you all managed to mostly stay on track and avoid too much infighting. I expect that everyone can hold themselves to at least that same standard of discourse here. Thank you in advance!
We are seeking community input on a Key Decision impacting the governance of Coin Return. Please take a read through the problem statement as we see it, and then read through the options presented.
The voting for this Key Decision will be open until 10 pm US Eastern Time on the 9th of February.
PLEASE DO NOT FEEL THAT YOU NEED TO VOTE EARLY.
There will most likely be lengthy conversation on each one of these. Please, take your time to engage with the conversation and do not feel that you need to rush your vote.
Voting options are as follows. There will be a section in the poll to write your feedback. We will be reading and considering all feedback, so please don’t hold back with your comments. As with previous polls, if you decide to change your vote before the poll closes, simply submit another response. Your last submitted response will be accepted and all others deleted.
- I fully support this
- I support this, ideally with some minor amendments I will provide
- I cannot support this without major amendments I will provide
KD01 Decision Making Process
Problem Statement
There must be a process in place that sets the level of collaboration and shared decision making required to make decisions for the community. The greater the impact of a
decision, the greater the amount of collaboration needed to make that decision. Any good process for decision making will consider:
- decision making that reflects our community values of Connectedness, Safety, Self-Expression, Equity, Accountability, and Empathy
- how much admin work rests on decision makers to comply with process requirements, and that the level of work is in line with the potential impact of the decision
- the visibility of decision results, the reasoning behind the decision, and the decision’s impact on felt fairness and accountability
Collaborative decision making will need set procedures for the following scenarios involving moderator actions:
- Moderator 'chill out' posts to buy time for review to take place
- A moderator 'on-notice' or warning as a post in a thread
- A 0-point warning
- A 24-hour thread kick
- A weeklong thread kick
- A permanent thread kick
- A togglable temporary thread lock for mods to review reports
- A 24 hour thread lock
- A permanent thread lock
- A 1-point minor penalty
- A 2-point major penalty
- A temporary ban
- A permanent ban
- Immediate Moderation decisions not covered in previous scenarios.
- Moderation decisions based on Values and / or Code of Conduct that may not be direct Rules violations.
Collaborative decision making will need set procedures for the following scenarios involving the structures and governance system for Coin Return:
- Amendments to Key Decisions
- Alterations to Values and the Code of Conduct
- Changes or additions to forum rules
- Creation, deletion, renaming, or relocation of subforums
- Selection of moderators
THIS PROPOSAL CONTINUES IN THIS GOOGLE DOCUMENT, DUE TO NECESSARY FORMATTING AND LENGTH: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JcouIYzM67bkCyEuAfFDPnorgJTIic45eF30hRWAMNc/edit?usp=sharing
AFTER READING THE PROPOSAL IN FULL, YOU CAN VOTE HERE: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfMui8_mw2_qCRGLe9iGo2UlZZI-s51QotBX3r4MW9YKE99zA/viewform?usp=sharing
Please also note that the authors of this proposal are @Tef @Feral @zagdrob and @Speed Racer -- If you have very specific questions or need clarification on items in the proposal, please look for a response from one of them to ensure you're getting the most accurate information.
Lastly, because of how critically important it is that this thread is open for discussion during the polling, moderation will be tighter than normal to ensure this does not go off the rails. Despite some tough conversations that happened in the Structure voting thread, you all managed to mostly stay on track and avoid too much infighting. I expect that everyone can hold themselves to at least that same standard of discourse here. Thank you in advance!
Hell, New Jersey, it said on the letter. Delivered without comment. So be it!
minor incident on
+8
Posts
The Governance Committee may choose to address feedback received directly in thread where necessary, but again, they will not know who provided which piece of feedback unless you say so in this thread.
The Moderation Actions table as given in KD01 is not an escalation process, it is a menu of moderation options.
Moderators aren't under any obligation to proceed through each of the steps before action can be taken, the appropriate action can be taken (assuming the Threshold for action is met) immediately. Escalation processes and point accrual / automatic actions will be addressed in later KDs.
And is the voting similar to the voting described here (unequivocal yes, yes with caveats, no) or is it just straight yes or no?
PSN: jrrl_absent
As the Governance Committee has discussed so far (edit - with one another), other than the Single Transferable Vote discussed for moderator votes, it's expected that final Community Votes would be binary In Support of / Against for proposals.
Abstentions (either explicit abstentions or implicit abstentions via non-participation) would neither count as for or against votes as defined by the Community Majority and Community Supermajority 'Forum Governance Decisions' thresholds.
Depending on the circumstances, the proposal may have already gone through a revision / feedback process with additional fully support / support with revisions / don't support process like we're doing here with KD01 prior to a final In Support of / Against vote. We also plan to present a community-raised petition process that is still to be determined that may incorporate multiple degrees of support throughout the process.
What about soliciting shock images for the purpose of my own amusement
This is something that we discussed and were careful in our wording for the KD.
Without the 'purpose of disruption' clarification, a photo like the photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc (Napalm Girl) or other photos that would largely agreed to be shocking but also topical and important to the ongoing discussion may fall under those guidelines. In the presented KD, a decision was made to make immediate and unilateral response outside the requirements of the moderation actions table only for shock images that were intended to be disruptive.
That does not mean that shock images would not be subject to moderation action under the standard Moderation Actions and those corresponding thresholds; this was mostly to make it clear mods should be able to immediately act if someone decides say they are going to post a bunch of Goatse type photos in various threads.
"Replacement" is extraneous, "unable" is opinionated compared to "does not meet", "should" is wishy-washy.
This entire section is overly wordy, "The board will make appointments based on the following criteria" is perfectly clear. Over legalesed to death.
This language is a touch unclear. Is the reading, "72 hours have passed AND 2/3 of moderators have voted AND 2/3 of moderators have voted in favor" or "2/3 of moderators have voted AND 2/3 of moderators have voted within 72 hours of opening the vote"?
I think the former but it parses at first like the latter.
Substantive feedback
I disagree with 24 hour thread kicks requiring more than one mod.
I disagree with 24 hour thread locks requiring more than one mod.
These are both low-stakes events and moderators should feel empowered to do either, seeing as this is a volunteer position.
I'm not a huge fan of the board appearing to restrain itself with regards to values to things that get a Community supermajority; I think the board should take more leadership there and just set the tone of the place. I'm not sure exactly what I think the process ought to be; I think at the end of the day voting is something to allow and consider but that the values should be by the legal owners of the place to ensure continuity or whatever. Ya'll run the place.
I know why you'd want to make as little as possible by fiat, and I know moderator selection by fiat is the only way possible, I just don't see why the values section isn't the same bag as the moderator slate.
Noted.
Noted.
So yeah this one is a touch unclear, agreed.
The idea we discussed is in a scenario where there are 12 moderators for the forum:
9 vote in favor in an hour, we've hit our 2/3 threshold of 'all moderators' and it passes.
7 vote in favor, 3 vote against but after 72 hours two haven't voted. Since 7/10 who voted in 72 hours have voted in favor, we hit our 2/3 threshold of 'all voting moderators' and it passes.
The goal of this is to prevent moderation deadlock if some moderators are unavailable or unable to vote for or against a specific action while still allowing plenty of opportunity for mods who disagree with the proposed action to provide feedback / vote.
Non-punitive 24 hour thread kicks and thread locks are unilateral mod decisions to allow time to investigate if additional Moderator Actions are warranted. Punitive thread kicks / thread locks are the situations that would be peer reviewed (basically a post in the mod forum 'hey is this ok?' with a 'yeah go for it' response) and seem like a fairly low bar for those situations.
The rest of your points are noted, but to be clear - the Governance Committee doesn't run the place. We're just drafting the structure the Coin Return Community will decide on that will define how the place is run.
My take on this is that if a mod is getting frustrated with a thread or needs time, the first ask should be to the other mods to see if someone wants to take over for a bit, and THEN closing a thread temporarily would be on the table.
If we are truly upping our moderation numbers, the current method of "shut it down until points can be assigned" seems less useful and more harmful overall on CR.
(I'm still reading the rest)
At the moment that's roughly how those two work I'd say about half the time - Mod A will say something like "dropped a warning, let's give soandso a time out from the thread if he keeps it up," with the boot being applied (assuming no objections) by whoever's available if soandso in fact continues to keep it up.
Earning unilateral threadkicks usually takes some effort - say, someone flying off the handle in post after post after post in short succession, or in an obvious crisis moment, or otherwise doing something that has to be immediately addressed. That kind of thing coming up at a time where there isn't at least one other mod to say "yeah, apply the boot" is pretty rare.
Thread locks were roughly similar when they were happening more often, though there were exceptions when something caught fire (e.g., "oh, hey, there's 47 new reports in the queue") and locking a thread was necessary to just clear the report queue without twice as many coming in.
It would suck to remove someone from a topical thread for several months or even years if they got a little heated or acted like an idiot. There are some threads that persist for years and still get posts every few weeks or months.
(i.e. UserX has received two thread kicks and 10 points in the last three months in political threads, so they are given a six month ban on participating in threads with [politics] as a tag, rather than say a two week temp ban)
I dunno if that would be better or worse than ongoing moderation actions, it's just a thought. I'm not even sure if this is the place for that question, but since we're getting into the Kitchen Drawer stuff...
Non-punitive 24 hour thread kicks and thread locks are unilateral mod decisions to allow time to investigate if additional Moderator Actions are warranted. Basically what Zibblsnrt said above - a oh shit that's a lot of reports and more coming in, what's going on?
Punitive thread kicks / thread locks are the ones in the Moderator Action table that would be peer reviewed (basically a post in the mod forum 'hey is this ok?' with a 'yeah go for it' response) and seem like a fairly low bar for those situations. Those would be the 'you need a time-out from this thread'.
To respond to some questions asked elsewhere - the number of points issued for Moderator Actions haven't yet been determined (future KD) but the posts or series of posts that would warrant a temporary or permanent thread kick would almost certainly have warranted some number of points and be addressed that way. More of that discussion will be happening.
not a bad idea
Yeah I like that idea.
It's not something Governance has discussed but my opinion would be that extending thread kicks to a series of tagged / topical threads rather than just the one specific thread, especially when threads are moving quickly or a poster has been a problem across a variety of inter-related threads would be completely sensible.
I think that suggestion would fit into an upcoming KD. I'll add that to the governance 'Car Park' for ideas we haven't quite fit into our existing KDs.
Edit - also, part of this is a technical question but I would be surprised if it wasn't something that could be implemented.
So what you're saying is that there should be a "No-amateurhours" tag....
(It says no amateurhours, one should be ok)
The distinction between the Board and the Governance Committee is lost on me at this point. Id rather not hash that out here, just a comment on perception.
And yeah I think the punitive/nonpunitive distinction wasnt clear.
My reading on that is that it isn't a thread/user action. It's literally just when a mod like, posts in bold
"Hey, things are getting a little heated on topic X. Let's all take a deep breath and be excellent to each other."
I don't think that temp locking a thread is only useful for allowing a mod to catch their breath. It also sends a message to the posters that the thread has gotten too heated and everybody needs to take time to cool their heads. This can be an effective way to deescalate a conflict. It also ensures that more posts won't be made without seeing the mod decree.
My read on that, and maybe I need to reread it, wasn’t for the moderator to chill, but that the thread has hit “clusterfuck” mode so it gets temp locked while staff then pour over it to figure out just how it turned itself into a Gordon knot of acrimony and fuckery
I.e., the thread and posters are chilling out, not the mods
EDIT: like even with increased mod staff, a situation like that isn’t necessarily one that “more staff” solves when a thread becomes roiling, and a temp lock effectively serves as a “back to your corners” moment that allows the tension to cool in the moment, as people are forced to step away, refocus their minds, etc.
Yes. I believe the intent was, for example, a thread has gone completely off the rails with people screaming and insulting each other in the span of an hour while mods might not have been available. Upon getting back to the office, a mod sees this and has to just lock it down for 30 minutes while they catch up, read through 15 reports it generated, and start working on warnings/kicks/etc before re-opening it.
Exactly this. That's the point of 'chill out' posts, as well as the unilateral non-punitive temporary thread lock or poster temporary kick.
It's to give the mods tools that let them steer threads and put a speed bump in front a fast moving or contentious thread before it blows up into a real tire fire that's going to cause serious penalties or punishment. Edit - or contain an already burning tire fire of a thread as well.
As noted, even having more staff / better staff availability isn't always going to be the fix for some of the brawls we've seen and more levers that let the mods prevent before things to escalate to infractions is a good thing.
One thing worth mentioning is that these sorts of 'chill out' warnings aren't (in our discussion) intended to be replacements for more serious moderator actions if more serious moderator actions are warranted, but rather to keep things from getting there in the first place.
An issue with this has, in the past, been from users who would intentionally stoke the fires of a contentious conversation in such a manner as to lead to a thread lock.
Now, one can argue that those users should have received points for their actions to reduce their ability to continue this action, but it didn't happen (or it usually didn't happen enough to entirely nullify the strategy).
To be clear, I'm not claiming that any particular forumers (past or present) rubbed their hands together in glee at deciding to be just barely enough of an asshole to get X or Y thread shut down (and maybe avoid consequences too!), but it happened enough times over the years that it's hard to believe it's entirely a coincidence either.
This was flagrantly transparent during the period where it was something like a user getting infracted or a post deleted straight up broke a thread, and some folks took it upon themselves to be extra 'fun' in a few places that they'd been known to incite or contribute to extremely heated discussions in the past, or alts appeared to do exactly that.
I do think there is value in locking a thread down for a bit to force folks to cool off, at least in an ideal world. The converse of that is the opportunity to weaponize that option, and the fact that it means the bad/extreme behaviour of one person (or a few) can shut down an important topic that most others were able to participate in without being needlessly hostile. A collective punishment, 'everyone does laps because so and fell short' doesn't sit right, especially when one can 'fall short' at will.
And yes, I recognize that this is being stated in contrast with historical circumstances, which often included a dearth of moderators and lacking mod leadership or guidance to allow for (ideally) nipping these situations in the bud.
But the volunteer mod pool, whomever they are, will be made up of people, just like the current and past ones have been, and people can fall short.
I get that we cannot policy our way into a perfect utopia where nobody ever lashes out or feels passionate about something, but I think that since we're having this discussion, it's worth recognizing the prior 'live fire exercises' and their outcomes.
It has been an issue in the past, I can have faith in the TT and CoRe moderation team and still consider it something worth at least tabling in advance.
Can we get a bit of an idea of what these look like? When the thread's being watched by a Mod, is it a giant picture of Gort with the eye lit up, or a regular post but in bold? And how does the slow mode work mechanically?
Curiosity on how they work is all.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
How will the votes be tallied? As I don't see ranked choice (and it wouldn't make sense here), will it be majority rules? Or will votes from (1) and (2) be combined as yes votes?
The values of Connectedness, Safety, Self-Expression, Equity, Accountability, and Empathy aren't defined in our Guiding Principles. We also have 8 principles, but only 6 values listed here. The values seem to map as follows to the principles, repeated below:
Connectedness (2, 3, 8)
Safety (2, 4)
Equity (1, 7, 8)
Self-Expression (2, 3, 5)
Accountability (6, 7, 8)
Empathy (2, 3)
I would suggest either referencing the 8 points in the GP or updating the GP to list these values as being the drivers to our Guiding Principles. Also, there's a lot of user interpretation to the mapping, my main focus was to demonstrate to myself that no GP were being missed (and possibly save others from doing the same effort). I also would like to suggest we standardize our language, so we have the same terms used across different documents. E.g. all "Values" or all "Guiding Principles". Also, this would help us control some of the random capitalization by letting us know which terms should be capitalized. For example, Immediate Moderation under the punishments list.
On the punishments/enforcement, I don't like they they are called "moderator actions" as they certainly take other actions. Do we need to list all specific punishments that the moderators might mete out? We could greatly reduce the length of this section and give the mods some additional freedom if we just revised it to be "Moderator enforcement tools ranging from non-targeted in-thread warnings to permanent bans". A lot of the entries are the same thing, but just more or less severe (0/1/2 points, set length versus permanent, etc).
Under the 2nd bullet list, do we also need a "Selection of administrators" list? E.g. technical administrator, any other committee leaders needed by the governing council, etc.
Should "KD01 Option for community consultation" have KD01 in front of it?
Under "Moderation Decisions" and everywhere else, I suggest replacing "will" with "shall". "Will" tends to represent a desire, where "shall" represents an obligation.
Under "Moderation Decisions" you mention coaching / retraining, but when this is triggered, how it works, etc is not addressed or mentioned elsewhere. Will this be in KD04 as well?
For Moderator elections, can users be provided any criteria that would be an automatic disqualification? E.g. no temp bans in the last year? I feel like this could save us some drama (although lord knows, it could cause it also).
For Moderation Decision Thresholds, do we round up or round down the fractions? For example, if we end up with 5 mods, will a majority vote also always be a supermajority vote? What happens if we end up with tie votes?
Under Moderator Actions, "24-hour thread kick", "weeklong thread kick", and "permanent thread kick" have the same threshold for action and reversal. Can we combine?
If you want to leave the separate, I would change the Threshold for Reversal on "24-Hour Thread Kick" to "NA" as the majority vote would often take as long to occur as the penalty will to run out.
No mention of points here despite being in the previous list. Warning/minor/major are here. No explanation of points or what they do (I expect in KD02).
Under the voting timeframes, can we set maximums as well?
The former's the standard speaking in mod mode posts we have in the forums currently.
A moderator decree in-context (additional style changes are likely to make this even more visible)
Optionally, decrees can be pinned above everyone's reply box
Slow-mode is entirely theoretical at this moment, but I imagine it would limit each poster to one reply every 10 minutes (or however long we decide is appropriate) in the specified thread.
Edit: also, if any posts, including mod decrees, are made while you're composing, there is a live-update banner that can be clicked to load them in place, so saying you started writing before you saw a mod decree is not a good excuse anymore.
There is only one amateurhour, and he does not share power!
*leaps off of Isengard onto an eagle*
MHWilds ID: JF9LL8L3
Just to clarify on this part -- this is not a binding vote. This is purely for community input, which will be used by the Governance Committee to revise the proposal to (hopefully) better meet the overall community desires.
From my time on other XF forums, bolting mod decrees onto the reply box is one of my favorite features mods on that platform have, especially for fast-moving threads or ones that need repeated reminders of something.
Thank you! This is great info, I appreciate you getting back to me!
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Oh so this isn't a vote to ratify the proposal, just a general temp check? I though we were already voting on it while obtaining feedback.
PSN: jrrl_absent
My Homestead thread on CR in the current beta is a wealth of knowledge I'll have you know.
As noted the 'on notice' post is basically what we would have now with a mod 'bold post' telling people to knock it off. With much better / more visible ways of doing it on Xenforo than we've got now. Having an 'On Notice' thread having a picture of Gort with a simulated scanning of your post when you click 'Post Reply' and either green or red light it isn't a TERRIBLE idea but since I'm not doing the technical side of things is kinda out of my scope.
The 'Slow Mode' thread idea is one I'm not a huge fan of. I'm not convinced that only letting people post every minute / five minutes / ten minutes does anything but keep people from fighting with each other more slowly, but I do support giving mods as many tools as possible to help keep threads from turning into shitshows. If that ends up being utilized and helping / not helping I'd rather it be included as an option at least for now.
Yes what Minor Incident said is accurate. This is a non-binding vote that is going to inform the final KD proposal we will present to the community for a (Supermajority) ratification vote.
I strongly disagree.
Could you elaborate on why? I think slow mode is probably more appropriate for Twitch or Discord, but I can see it being useful in some cases.