Good morning. Welcome to The Hiddens, an experimental series of diaries where we (unofficially) report on and discuss moderation activity on Daily Kos. My name is T. Max Devlin, and I will be your facilitator.
I'm going to be trying a slightly more structured and (hopefully) much less verbose method today. Please let me know in comments what you think of it, and any suggestions you have for improvement. This is a developmental process, the goal of which is to improve the quality of Community Moderation (CM) and, through that, the quality of the debate.
Everybody loves to try to "get" trolls. But what's the difference between stomping trolls and getting trolled? I've been harping on something I've noticed about CM and the alternative (some say related) activity of social moderation, which is what I call using snide ridicule and dismissive insults to try (almost always counter-productively) to 'drive off' a troll. Here on DK, we have software which enables the Trusted Users to hide comments in order to prevent them from causing disruption. But if the hiding causes even more disruption, what really is the point?
Yesterday evening Red State Ambassador, who looks to be a sort of "test case troll", a purposeful challenge to the sites "immune system", trolled a diary reporting on the growing practice of doctors who are turning away obese patients. A troll of such a type is of questionable value, but that's lots more than most types, so that situation is developing.
But that same diary spawned another incident, as a TU decided to take up the charge against overeating. This prompted the TU to publish a troll diary resulting in having more of their comments in that diary (including the tip jar) on the hidden comments list. This Kossack currently has eight (8!) [update 1: now 9] [update 1.1: 14; records below will not be updated] on the list. They also decided to flout the "can't HR in your own diary" rule, one of the more absolute guidelines most TUs use. So some of those hiddens were retribution on that point, a dubious but apparently utilitarian practice. But if it is on top of, rather than in place of, the suspension a user gets if violating the 'own diary' rule is reported to Admin, then it might be considered counter-productively vindictive to leave a bunch of otherwise non-HRable comments hidden.
Woo; quite a night. Now let's see if I can figure out how to document any of this. More than a dozen comments have already dropped into the hiddens since I left off last night (impressive), so let's take a look:
NOTE: all numbers, categories, and codes used in these reports are subjective assessments and up for discussion. There are no objective or definitive properties being presented. Development of appropriate metrics for supporting the judgment of TUs in moderation decisions is the intent of the exercise, but no claims are made that this documentation constitutes such results. There are few if any hidden comment incidents that are not complex and nuanced, these descriptions are intended as reference for discussion, not declarations of fact.[Note on NOTE: if someone can let me know the html code for making this 'fine print', I'd appreciate it.]
Here's a brief explanation of my new format:
Incident: Identifier/snarky label
Incident notes: description (rec/hide/reply)
Diary notes: category or description
User notes: history or focus
HR notes: general
Disposition: pseudo-category Status: best guess
Now, for what happened:
Incident: 'Fat Bottom Girls'
Incident notes: multiple comments (1/36*/10, 1/10*/6, 1/4/4, 0/3/1)
Diary notes: discrimination by health care providers, individual republished
User notes: TU, prone to outbursts
HR notes: *yours truly included
Disposition: melt-down Status: subject troll
Incident: 'Fat Bottom Girls 2 (Obese? Stop eating)'
Incident notes: multiple comments (including tip jar - (2/22/5, 0/3/2, 0/4/5, 0/3/3, 0/4/1)
Diary notes: troll (unrepublished so far)
User notes: TU, see 'Fat Bottom Girls', HR abuse, accusations of HR abuse (unfounded)
HR notes: self-immolation
Disposition: subject troll Status: conversation, discussion
Incident: 'Dog bites man (or: I/P revisited)'
Incident notes: I/P (Godwin) (0/4/2)
Diary notes: I/P (I)
User notes: I/P (P)
HR notes: initial comment unhidden (2/2), in-discussion
Disposition: 4.0 Status: CM
Incident: 'Meds'
Incident notes: Frist Rule, soft (0/3/3)
Diary notes: 'Obese? Stop eating' (see above)
User notes: TU, unimpeachable
HR notes: no other content
Disposition: 4.0 Status: CM
Incident: 'The Trollenator II'
Incident notes: misogyny (0/5/1, 0/3/1)
Diary notes: open thread
User notes: TU
HR notes: personal assessment of physical attractiveness, HRing TUs nominally engaged
Disposition: almost a drive-by Status: CM
Incident: 'Spam Spam Spam'
Incident notes: commercial spam tipjars (0/7/1, 0/10/0, 0/14/0)
Diary notes: travel spam
User notes: apparently a replacement for 'travelchacha' which now has bony mojo
HR notes: none
Disposition: won't be missed Status: request admin account ban
Can you believe we're caught up already? I realize this format provides way less of interest for those of you who can't go check the hiddens yourself. I am not trying to engage in pointless polemic, though, and would prefer more discussion from you and less postulating from me. More later, as more happens. If you see something, say something.