Wild Wild West - Part 2

The program I have been hinting at lately is ready to be implemented once I iron out some final details. To give you a heads up on what this is all about, here's a post I made recently in the system mods section to give them a heads up on this:

OK guys, I've been dropping hints here and there about the new wrinkle I was thinking about implementing here, so I'll let you all in on what I have up my sleeve.

Here's a copy of an email that I sent to my programmer a while back showing what I am thinking and the specs I sent him:

Hopefully this pretty much explains it. There will likely be some fine tuning done as feedback from the way people abuse, er use, this system become apparent to me.

But my thinking is that people are complaining about a number of things that maybe if the power is in their own hands, then they will get a taste of what we go through in trying to meet the nearly impossible demands they think should be easy for us to implement. And in a way, my earlier demands for a more credible and more tightly controlled environment was doomed to failure because it was too heavy handed for most people to stomach. With this system, however, it is pretty much a peer pressure (or hanging posse, I guess) sort of situation whereby if a reasonable level of members feel your posts are way out of line here, then they have the POWER to kick you out. It is not my decision and my decision alone, making me the bad guy simply because I am trying to enforce the rules. Quite simply, a reasonable number of qualified (paying members in this context) feel that your actions are unwelcome on this site, and it is THEY acting as a jury who will pass sentence.

Yeah, there can be some drawbacks to this. Top of the head is that it may inhibit people from posting for fear of the warning points. And this may certainly happen at the beginning. Obviously there is a problem in that nonpaying members can be completely at the mercy of the paying members here. So there is some doubt about that outcome. Will the non paying members just leave (as in "stop posting")? Will they become much more careful in how they post? Or will some become paying members to have some self defense at their disposal?

Obviously there will be abuse. And this is an issue I need to think about before this is actually implemented. Which, by the way, is REAL close. My programmer has finished the coding, and I sent him back a list of some refinements to the specs that weren't clear initially. So I need to think of a suitable method to try to limit abuse without causing me more work and grief than before. Possibly the retaliation possibility will be incentive enough to NOT abuse the system. Obviously this will be linked to POSTS only, so such things as PM abuse or even Warning System abuse, will be difficult to apply in such a way that it will be easy to figure out what is abuse, and what is retaliation for a wrong being done. Off hand, I would tend to think that benign neglect until the situation becomes WAY out of line will be best. Let them beat up each other, as our getting in the middle will just turn them upon ourselves anyway.

I'm thinking I need to set the FINE & SUSPENSION level up WAY high enough so that it will be difficult for even a small group of members to gang up on any one individual to get them tossed out. Since I have already put specs in much like the karma system to limit the number of times a person can apply warning points, this coupled with a high threshhold may work, at least somewhat. I think I may want to raise the FINE to something more like $50 as well. If someone gets the 200 or 1000 warning points it takes to get them booted, then $10 just seems way to cheap for a ticket back in. Maybe the sting needs to be a little bit more hurtful.

Anyway, that's it in a nutshell. Certainly I haven't seen all angles, and this may turn out to be just another real bad idea. But I want to try this. Basically I am telling people that if you want this site cleaned up, here's your guns. Now go do it yourselves.....

Now, bear in mind that not all of my specs were implemented exactly as I had requested. The actual limitations and such will be posted when I have everything as best I can get it. At this time, I am working on the list of warning points and values I want to be enforced on this site. I want the list to be short, reasonable, and as little subject to misinterpretation as possible.

So what I am looking for HERE is some feedback on the warning points and NOT on this system in general. This is going to be done.

Now on to the warning points:

Racist/Prejudicial remarks 4
Actual or implied threats 4
Excessive antagonism towards another member 2
Warning system abuse 2
Antagonism towards moderator 2
Spamming 1
Failure to post FULL NAME on BOI [BOI] 1
Inappropriate advertising 1
Shotgun style advertising 1
Posting off topic message 1
Unnecessary roughness 1
Failure to provide SUBJECT NAME in topic line [BOI] 1
Anonymous third party quotation [BOI] 1
Posting BOI topics in other forums 1
Private message abuse 1
Karma abuse 1
Trader rating abuse 1
Profanity 1

Pretty short and sweet, I think. Bear in mind that I am not trying to inhibit the expression of someone's personality that I think will be instructive for people to see in their postings. But sometimes such things can get a bit carried away, and that is then for YOU to decide when that point has been reached. Of course, not everyone will agree with YOUR assessment, just as I have had that problem with MY decisions.

So have I overlooked something that should be a "warnable" offense?

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Excessive antagonism towards another member 2

It can get pretty down and dirty in the BOI as scammers are called on to account for their misdeeds. I think sometimes that sort of antagonism is appropriate if someone has grievously wronged another.

Hopefully, those who take time to avenge such misdeeds will be seen as ferreting out crime and not frivously antagonistic.

To answer your question about further possible infractions, what do you think of assessing a warning point for those who, like Shrillomn, deliberately hide their true identity?

A grandfather clause of some kind might be appropriate as well. This sounds like a return to a rule set that was put aside, to varying degrees for varying periods of time. The rules and interpretations of six months ago aren't the same as a year ago or three years ago. Implimentation needs to have clean breaks.

Also... I'm not sure this is going to make *fewer* headaches for you, since you'll now have nasty emails being generated arguing every point assigned by a member to a member. I also believe you're being a little overly optimistic in judging the ability of most members to keep things clean, impersonal and non-retaliatory. "Please don't" isn't about to keep *some* of those itching fingers away from what amounts to an "Oh yeah?! I'll show you!" button.

'course I've got the ability to just sit back, pay nothing and walk away from this website again if it takes a direction I don't agree with. It might come down to how it ends up being used- but a pessimist like myself doesn't see any kind of good coming out of this. Inmates, asylums, keys... That kinda thing.

Originally Posted by Seamus Haley

A grandfather clause of some kind might be appropriate as well. This sounds like a return to a rule set that was put aside, to varying degrees for varying periods of time. The rules and interpretations of six months ago aren't the same as a year ago or three years ago. Implimentation needs to have clean breaks.

Also... I'm not sure this is going to make *fewer* headaches for you, since you'll now have nasty emails being generated arguing every point assigned by a member to a member. I also believe you're being a little overly optimistic in judging the ability of most members to keep things clean, impersonal and non-retaliatory. "Please don't" isn't about to keep *some* of those itching fingers away from what amounts to an "Oh yeah?! I'll show you!" button.

'course I've got the ability to just sit back, pay nothing and walk away from this website again if it takes a direction I don't agree with. It might come down to how it ends up being used- but a pessimist like myself doesn't see any kind of good coming out of this. Inmates, asylums, keys... That kinda thing.

Actually I don't have a problem at all just ignoring people who come to me with those issues with another member. It certainly can't be any worse than it is now since I get those sorts of emails anyway.

What this is designed to do is to take the responsibility off of my shoulders and put it onto the members here. If you don't like what someone is doing here, then show them. If enough people feel the same way, then YOU have the power to remove them. It is your responsibility to determine what you want out of this site and now will be your authority to help make that change. If most people like and appreciate the bashing and crap, then they don't really have to do a thing about it. If the majority do NOT appreciate it, then they can do what is necessary to change it.

If someone doesn't like how someone treats them in ANY fashion, then they will also have the tools available to make it known.

My job is to simply try to insure that the LEVEL whereby someone will get fined and suspended is such that it cannot be easily abused, yet will be accessible so that a majority can actually make a difference as to the makeup and manner of the people here.

That USED to be what I tried to do. So if members here WANT that, THEY have to do it themselves.

And certainly some will not like this, which would just be another datum in the long list of things people have complained about here.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Now on to the warning points:

Racist/Prejudicial remarks 4
Actual or implied threads 4
Excessive antagonism towards another member 2
Warning system abuse 2
Antagonism towards moderator 2
Spamming 1
Failure to post FULL NAME on BOI [BOI] 1
Inappropriate advertising 1
Shotgun style advertising 1
Posting off topic message 1
Unnecessary roughness 1
Failure to provide SUBJECT NAME in topic line [BOI] 1
Anonymous third party quotation [BOI] 1
Posting BOI topics in other forums 1
Private message abuse 1
Karma abuse 1
Trader rating abuse 1
Profanity 1

I think the upper range should be 5 points instead of 4, to allow for certain offenses to carry a more dramatic punishment.

For example, Antagonism towards moderator should carry a harsher punishment then the same behavior towards another member.

Also, some of the very basic infractions, such as:

Failure to post FULL NAME on BOI [BOI]
Failure to provide SUBJECT NAME in topic line [BOI]
Anonymous third party quotation [BOI]

can easily be done by mistake and are not always an intentional act.
These are also common mistakes made by new members.
While assessing 1 point for these is reasonable, intentional acts that are meant to disrupt, should carry a larger point value.

There might also be a category for "Obvious Trolling" unless you incorporate it within one of the other categories.

Regardless of the effectiveness of this, it should prove very interesting to watch.

Wow, what a wonderful idea!! I know you took away the Paid Partcipant membership, but do we have any say at all in the warning point feature as well? or will i have to bump up my account to the next level in order to do this? ive no problems doing this, but it would be sweet to not have to. Maybe something you can take into consideration?

Seriously Rich, this is a GREAT idea.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

I think it may be interesting. Maybe even
fun.

Well come on then, let's RODEO

Considering the warning point system that is in place, or will be, I would assume someone capable of applying warning points could only do so when the above mentioned infractions occur, and not just because it is fun for them to do so (as with the karma system). Would the system require the points given to also note the post in which the violation occurred? In other words, would the person have to quote the post for which the points were given (as it does now)? Also, say the points were given for profanity, and a paid member issued the warning points for the offense, can other paid members still apply points for the same offense?

From what I can see, if the person giving the warning is required to identify the post in question, others can not give additional warnings for an offense that has already been identified and had points already issued, and the violations for which points can be issued are clearly identified and not open to whatever anyone wants to make up, then I do not see a lot of room for abuse.

Let the fun begin!

Bart

Originally Posted by lucille

It can get pretty down and dirty in the BOI as scammers are called on to account for their misdeeds. I think sometimes that sort of antagonism is appropriate if someone has grievously wronged another.

Hopefully, those who take time to avenge such misdeeds will be seen as ferreting out crime and not frivously antagonistic.

To answer your question about further possible infractions, what do you think of assessing a warning point for those who, like Shrillomn, deliberately hide their true identity?

Well, there would, of course, need to be a rule against someone creating a false name, and I believe this was addressed in another thread somewhere. The problem would be enforceability of such a rule. Not everyone is going to admit to such a thing, and certainly the effort to try to determine such a thing (or to rebut someone claiming it is or is not true) would prove to be a wasteful use of time and effort. Realistically, there is just no way to "beyond a shadow of a doubt" prove identity.

Suppose, for instance, that someone were to claim that Seamus Haley was in fact a false registration and in fact HE is I. Likely only he and I would know for certain that this claim is false. How could we prove it indisputably?

So what happens if a dozen people believe, perhaps erroneously, that someone is using a false ID and start throwing warning points at them because of it? This person, in turn, starts firing off warning points claiming THEY are abusing the warning point system with false accusations. Obviously this sort of retaliation sort of thing can happen with any warning points volley, but in many cases, the evidence of correctness should be much more easily determined by an unbiased observer.

Also, will there be a system of review for misuse? For example, will mods be able to remove warning points when points are issued and the violation is vague (i.e., I am issued points for profanity because I say "crap")?

Just something to consider.

Bart