Complaint: Disappointment with moderators in forums

@clousems said in #1:

a user has taken it upon himself to accuse me* of various things
@anonmod said in #11:
. I do not know what happened or is happening in this specific case
What happened in this case is that the said user is a well-known psychotic troll who keeps coming back with various usernames (recent ones included @LegendaryQueen, @Maldeo and @PacificRed) and then get obsessed with certain users and keeps insulting them.

I reported the new username as soon as I determined it was the same person, with no visible effect.

@anonmod said in #11:

Our policy is to allow a lot more negative comments about a moderator or moderators as a group, than about any other individual or group.
LOL.

I must conclude that it would be ok, among other things, to say about the moderators that they pss me right off, that they know fck all, to invite them to STFU, and to stick their comments where the sun doesn't shine?

All things taken from a post that I reported long time ago (with the difference that said post didn't use *'s to blur out inappropriate words), with no visible effect.

To be completely honest, as of late, I have been wondering whether the moderation team has been infiltrated by 4chan-level internet trolls, considering the leniency they show to blatant trolls, especially compared to milder posts that they deem necessary to remove.

@anonmod said in #11:

I am personally disappointed with forum moderation as well. I do not know what happened or is happening in this specific case, but I will say that there are internal issues with how we operate, on a technical level, that may lead to reports of forum posts going unnoticed. But even without that, in my opinion we do not have enough rules to sufficiently moderate a forum, as opposed to tournament chats.
We are working on that, and have so for a long time. Our decision making processes for changing rules do not lend themselves to quick decisions at the best of times though, and the fact that very few team members have any interest in the forums at all slows this down even more. It is quite frankly very frustrating, and I am still not certain that the result of this process will not be the complete removal of the forums.

let me tell you that I find this statement quite worrying, which almost sounds like an admission of weakness.

There are many solutions and some are simple. moreover, I have had very intelligent discussions in the past with clousems as well as with the "incriminated" user, and what saddens me is that I had extremely constructive discussions with them on threads of philosophy and literature or art. and this conflict could have been avoided in a simple way: the etiquette need to prohibit the creation of threads on political, religious and sensitive subjects. because people's political opinions are quite unpredictable, can sometimes enthuse or disappoint and above all create endless and unnecessary conflicts.

and France, I point out to you, is a state where, in the name of freedom of expression, no allegiance, influence or political propaganda is tolerated in schools, middle and high schools. Lichess being a site recognized for its educational values, I think that preventing the creation of this kind of thread would have been respectful of the republican values of Lichess's country of origin.

it is also enough to improve forum etiquette in this way, to improve the presence of mods on the forum, via relays, or regular monitoring of topics and threads in addition to reports. And restricting certain topics for the sake of site activity.

Lichess must remain a friendly place for all, where everyone is equal. it should not become a potpourri of current geopolitical or religious ideas, but on the contrary an entertaining place where the qualities of writing and the kindness of users should be highlighted.

Please think about it.

for our good.

greeting

@CSKA_Moscou said in #33:

Or it can be based on data. And some topics are not good for the cohesion of the chess community. But that can be stretch to mean anything, as a rule. I would not mind Lichess imposing upon evidence that we can't manage ourselves on certain topics, and not to take a side, but to have certain topics banned.

As you say, there is wide scope topics that are not necessarily about chess directly, but appeal to the full humanity (remaning :) of Lichess users. And not all potilical things are divisise and seem not to be accessible to reason and comprehension of others point of view (without having to adopt, the enemy's rotten view of the worl is not contagious, even if one considers it for a second, unless one has not had experience with such things, but here it might be too late, this is not real human communication, it is internet communcaint).

Flame wars, is not a thing anymore. I thnk it has gone endemic mechanism of cultural evolution trhought the internets. Not a thing, it is now internalized. But it was clear from the begginning that chat and human social behavrio with such a tiny streak of stringy meaning exhange pathways, was not really full communication. And our high horses, and anonymity lowers inhivition, coudl wreak havoc.

I also think the education mission of Lichess should help guide certain Lichess wide decisions. So. thinking about what you said.

All rules around language will be subjective and fail to cover everything. No matter what we do all of you will disagree with decisions some of the time and some of you will most of the time. But Anonmods and your concerns are being taken to heart. We are discussing a number of changes we hope might help. The concerns about forum moderation are high on our list of issues to address.

@CSKA_Moscou I don’t think the banning of political topics would have changed anything. The user’s beef with me predated the current situation, and it manifested itself in non-political threads.

My only meaningful political post of late was one in a thread about Gaza, which didn’t have a strong stance (there has been some opposition to it, as a few people have seen it as support for Israel) but it didn’t explicitly support or condemn either side— it was about moderation (the other kind) in rhetoric. Even if you disagree with a stance, that’s hardly a subject that generates such responses.

I was going to be subjected to abusive behavior no matter what. It was a happy coincidence that I presented the opportunity.

@cormacobear said in #35:

All rules around language will be subjective and fail to cover everything. No matter what we do all of you will disagree with decisions some of the time and some of you will most of the time. But Anonmods and your concerns are being taken to heart. We are discussing a number of changes we hope might help. The concerns about forum moderation are high on our list of issues to address.

I have been told numerous times that reports were taken to heart, and now it's more or less confirmed that reports were dismissed.

You don't even need a big change of rules, because all of this is already in the rules:

Inappropriate communications - These include any private or public chat which makes another person feel distressed or attacked. Some non-exhaustive examples are abuse, harassment, spam, public shaming, cheating accusations, extremism, trolling, racism, sexism, or bigotry.

You all the more need a change of mindset, or (a bit more bluntly put) a dose of common sense.
You have failed in the past, so I have to accept that you won't implement chatbans for incidents over a year ago.

Really, you must take care when someone is being an ass and attacks common sense, and personally attacks people defending this sense.
Examples: bullshitting on Carlsen and chesscom for their actions to Niemann, e.g. ridiculous exaggerations from this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLvN3aL_gdE or this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Kz7bo5tKE) (totally not looking at you, Nomoreusernames)

or ridiculing people's fair logic, and then shouting at them, and pestering and hounding them on repeated occasions (odoaker2015, the latter also applying to Nomoreusernames)

or constantly appearing to spread and support bullshit on overall cheating frequency, or defaming the mod team (e.g. C-Bear)

So, the best way you can convince me is by starting to actually TAKE CARE of such trolls, and let your words be followed by actions

But how do you handle people who are deluded in their opinions (for example about cheating on the site) but nonetheless honestly hold those opinions? I have to say, @Cedur216 , that you do a brilliant job of correcting them here. The fact that you take on that function so readily here is something I admire. I don't think moderators should step in with any sanctions against honestly held opinions. Good moderating can involve stepping in occasionally with some information, though that needs to be done sparingly. We do see moderators doing that sometimes.

If it goes over to personal attacks, then yes, moderation sanctions are in order. But the point when a disagreement becomes a personal attack is highly subjective. I think reports are always considered (that has been said many times). If nothing is done, it just means it was not judged by the moderation team to have crossed the line. We may well disagree with the moderators and think it did cross the line, but there it is. It's all a matter of judgment.

@cormacobear said in #35:

All rules around language will be subjective and fail to cover everything. No matter what we do all of you will disagree with decisions some of the time and some of you will most of the time.

if the forum becomes a safe and friendly enough place, where people don't feel threatened, then no, there won't be the same amount of criticism.

But Anonmods and your concerns are being taken to heart. We are discussing a number of changes we hope might help. The concerns about forum moderation are high on our list of issues to address.

Another suggestion would be to create a safe content authentication label for deserving forumers, a bit like LM, but differently, in a way that would highlight quality, Lichess-friendly content. firstly, it would allow novice or less regular users of the forums to find benchmarks and have reliable answers, without constantly needing mods to respond (this would save time). exceptions for the feedback section and technical questions.

• secondly, the creation of sub-threads, which would allow for more targeted content, allowing users to be less lost and interesting threads to survive longer. moreover, in the case of the off-topic, it would be enough not to add any political or religious sub-threads and it would be calmer.

• improvement of the design of the report interface for the forum, with highlights, as well as the etiquette, which is not highlighted enough.

@Brian-E ftr, iirc my reports mostly went beyond just saying "terrible person" and were explicitly referring to harassment or bigotry as stated in the ToS