discuss We Must and Can Fix This

[Bob Hawkes]

I hope that this can be a thread around the issue of professional behaviour on NamePros, including but not limited to, bullying. I would ask that this is a thread about principles and ideas and suggestions related to the issue, and is not the place to rehash what anyone did or did not do.

So, I would like to start off with these points that I hope we can discuss:

1. I think unintentionally most of us are bullying sometimes on NPs.
2. I think our community would be better and stronger if we could eliminate bullying.
3. I think we can eliminate it.
4. Eliminating it is not as hard as we might think.
5. Rather than hamper meaningful discussion, removing bullying will make the discussion more valuable.

I know some will immediately disagree with calling it bullying, but please read my next post with an open mind. Others will say, yes there is some bullying but only by a tiny minority. It is not something I am part of the problem in. I am not so sure. Note that I said unintentionally.

The really exciting part is I am totally convinced we can do this! I was not even sure 24 hrs ago. I had a sleepless night and day to think more and interacted with various people. But we can together do this!

Some may be saying, but will this help me sell domain names? Surprisingly, at least long term, I think the answer is yes!

I welcome all NPs members, yes all one million of you, to work with us in doing this. It will be faster, easier and more positive than you probably think. This is not an us and them situation. I absolutely hope everyone will get on board.

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I agree with what this wise person said. Really. I am not being sarcastic, I totally agree.

Can't we all just get along?

One of my favourite quotations from Max Ehrmann Desiderata:

• "As far as possible without surrender
  be on good terms with all persons.
  Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
  and listen to others"

-Bob

 

[hookbox]

The problem with spoken words compared to written words is you can't hear the tone of someone's voice and the inflections in their speech. This many times leads to an escalation of a conversation that may not be warranted. The tone of your words doesn't come through when written. I may write something one way but you may take offense to those words when no offense was meant since you can't actually hear how I said it.

i have seen this happen so many times here that I lost count. Members then going back and forth trying to re-write what they actually meant. This literally happens in every thread that has any controversy to it.

 

[Paul]

So maybe up vote/down vote is the way to go after you have time to research the coding time and potential security problems.

Coding and security aren’t huge issues; the biggest problem delaying this is logistical: how do we ensure everyone who downvotes means the same thing, and how do we mitigate revenge downvoting?

Dislike and Disagree are two totally different things depending on what context they are used. If I said I liked blue cars you can't Disagree with me because that's MY true opinion but you can Dislike that I don't like blue cars.

This is key. At the moment, the Dislike button is used more like “disagree” or “I call BS”. The meaning can vary even more depending on the context, and everyone has a different opinion about what it means.

One solution we’ve come up with is to offer at least two distinct options: “I disagree” vs. “This should be hidden”. “This should be hidden” largely overlaps with “Report”, a button that we already have, so we’ve discussed the possibility of tallying reports and comparing that to like/thanks count.

I think it is ridiculous that people can't handle a little confrontation. Having the conversation is fine but wanting to change it without really giving yourself time to think it through is ridiculous. Watch this subject for a month. Analyze the data. Don't just switch it right away. This is not how you implement correct change.

The problem isn’t confrontation or debate; the problem is that these confrontations have a tendency to escalate. As our community grows, it happens more and more often. Eventually, moderators have to step in—and when that happens, the frustration gets redirected toward our moderators, which isn’t fair to them. We go from Alice and Bob being mad at each other to Alice and Bob both being mad at NamePros. That’s somewhat expected, but it isn’t constructive; we need a way to resolve these situations in a less controversial manner: a way to de-escalate these arguments and get threads back on track without all the drama.

This is, ultimately, a professional community; we should be capable of self-moderating. It would be ideal if our moderators could focus on preventing fraud and less time mediating debates. Drama is incredibly time consuming to deal with, and there’s never a winner—everyone gets mad at everyone. It distracts from more important moderating activities.

Part of the issue is that NamePros has grown so big that traditional moderating just isn’t scaling anymore. We need a better way to handle these situations—a way that continues to scale as we grow. In devising a solution, we’re taking a lot of inspiration from other large professional communities. But, as @hookbox said, this needs to be done carefully and slowly: we can’t just throw a solution out there and hope it works.

 

[equity78]

Coding and security aren’t huge issues; the biggest problem delaying this is logistical: how do we ensure everyone who downvotes means the same thing, and how do we mitigate revenge downvoting?

I guess you do what you can do, millions of sites use the simple up vote and down vote. I also posted that link to all the emoticons that xenforo offers

@Support Team

equity78 said: ↑
https://xenforo.com/community/resources/post-ratings-taking-likes-to-the-next-level.410/
The best solution is probably to offer more options like you've suggested, but it will take longer to do because we have to make sure that code is stable, capable of handling high usage, does not compromise the security of user data (intentionally or accidentally through programming mistakes), etc.

Thanks for the link.​

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

Hello,

In short:

1. We'd like to add more ways for members to interact with a post, such as the suggestion by @equity78.
2. We'd like to empower the community with more tools to self-moderate problematic posts.

These two may overlap if we decide to use the data from #1 to help with #2, but #2 will most likely be heavily weighted toward reports instead.

#2 is easier to implement than #1 if we base it on the existing system (likes, dislikes, thanks, and/or reports).

We're considering all options.