I cannot get behind the sentiment of “online communication is awful so we shouldn’t even attempt to do anything about it.” Yeah at some point you have to learn to shake it off to protect yourself, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make any effort to moderate online spaces as well. Don’t give assholes quarter in your game if you want to retain your community.
You can’t remove the suck from people, but you can remove the people from your community.
I didn’t say no attempts should be made to improve things. In fact in one of my comments I explicitly said the opposite. I’m saying people need to be both realistic in their expectations of what any moderation policy can achieve and proactive in the pursuit of their own online safety. Moderators will never be able to fully eliminate this problem because it is an inherent part of the behavior of a subset of humanity and humans are involved in the activities where this harassment takes place.
If you expect every person you meet, online or in person, to respect the rules you are going to be disappointed. By all means, make suggestions for improvement. But understand any solution will be imperfect and accept your role in dealing with those imperfections. To put the sentiment in a more succint form, get thicker skin.
Moderators will never be able to fully eliminate this problem because it is an inherent part of the behavior of a subset of humanity and humans are involved in the activities where this harassment takes place
I’m not suggesting they can, I don’t think anyone is.
If you expect every person you meet, online or in person, to respect the rules you are going to be disappointed
I don’t, but I expect if someone starts yelling rape threats at a restaurant that they’ll be kicked out, rather than the waiter saying “well why didn’t you just move to another table?” The rules are there for a reason, there should be consequences if they are broken.
I understand the comparison but you can’t exactly mute people with minimal effort in real life. Additionally, the threat of rape in person is significantly different than anonymously online from a legal perspective because the person making the threat knows who and where the target is at the moment the threat is made.
At a high level I don’t disagree with most of what you’re saying. The point I’m making is that there’s a pretty large gap between “something should be done about online harassment” and “this is our plan for stopping online harassment”. Most calls for action appeal to the first without much concern for the second, and the solution is the difficult part, not identifying the problem.
It does talk about some steps they’re taking right at the beginning. I missed those initially because on mobile it looks like an ad before the actual article starts so I skimmed over it.
I cannot get behind the sentiment of “online communication is awful so we shouldn’t even attempt to do anything about it.” Yeah at some point you have to learn to shake it off to protect yourself, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make any effort to moderate online spaces as well. Don’t give assholes quarter in your game if you want to retain your community.
You can’t remove the suck from people, but you can remove the people from your community.
I didn’t say no attempts should be made to improve things. In fact in one of my comments I explicitly said the opposite. I’m saying people need to be both realistic in their expectations of what any moderation policy can achieve and proactive in the pursuit of their own online safety. Moderators will never be able to fully eliminate this problem because it is an inherent part of the behavior of a subset of humanity and humans are involved in the activities where this harassment takes place.
If you expect every person you meet, online or in person, to respect the rules you are going to be disappointed. By all means, make suggestions for improvement. But understand any solution will be imperfect and accept your role in dealing with those imperfections. To put the sentiment in a more succint form, get thicker skin.
I’m not suggesting they can, I don’t think anyone is.
I don’t, but I expect if someone starts yelling rape threats at a restaurant that they’ll be kicked out, rather than the waiter saying “well why didn’t you just move to another table?” The rules are there for a reason, there should be consequences if they are broken.
I think both of you are in more agreement than opposition.
I understand the comparison but you can’t exactly mute people with minimal effort in real life. Additionally, the threat of rape in person is significantly different than anonymously online from a legal perspective because the person making the threat knows who and where the target is at the moment the threat is made.
At a high level I don’t disagree with most of what you’re saying. The point I’m making is that there’s a pretty large gap between “something should be done about online harassment” and “this is our plan for stopping online harassment”. Most calls for action appeal to the first without much concern for the second, and the solution is the difficult part, not identifying the problem.
I’m confused, isn’t the article talking about the solution?
It does talk about some steps they’re taking right at the beginning. I missed those initially because on mobile it looks like an ad before the actual article starts so I skimmed over it.