I'll be doing the best I can to anonymize all the questions and interactions I got over the past few days, including the messages leading up to this post. Some will be hard as they address specific users
PM - 1 Mod Behavior
The first sets of PM's are hard to post but these were the takeaways that I got to address. They all revolve around Kyle and the mod team. Some of the information was a bit vague but the gist that I got was:
- Unfair harassment
- Targeting and abuse of mod Power
- Call to action for mod guidelines
I think the first two items are related in the sense that people feel harassed due to how a few situations unfolded. Thread closure and lounge access. Those were the two examples provided to me that I looked into.
Harassment/Mod Abuse/Thread Closure
I do not think it is something we take lightly on an active thread. The example used is the https://namafia.com/t/nadota-sexism/5667 thread. From the mod chat the reason given was:
Then a large back in forth about should threads be closed, what do flags really mean. Sorry for posting this
@moderators but i think everything relevant should be out for discussion.
It was not a pretty event and left a bad taste in everyones mouth. On nadota we always have had very loose if any rules about posting. Anyone could say pretty much anything at any time and thats how we wanted to move forward here. I still like that style of forum, but i think there is a time and a place. If someone is attempting to have a discussion and people are just shitting all over it, not very wholesome. Even now the thread in question has 17 pending flags for review, since yesterday.
In summary I don't want real threads to ever be closed if discussion is going on, If it's extremely toxic I think we could have found a better solution. Perhaps a cooldown period where the thread is temp locked for an hour or so. Thats on me and I am sorry if anyone felt offended.
Kyle and KKat. have repeatedly asked for guidelines and we don't have them, which is something i think the entire forum can agree we should as a community create.
Lounge Access
On nadota "The Lounge" was basically a subforum that only the old members had access too. Shocker it was very rarely ever posted in. I think they tried to have a dota discussion once that i can recall but that was back when ToTs was playing and posting.
Here what function does it serve? Honestly I'm not sure. According to the documentation from ■■■ back in the day
https://notes.namafia.com/Configuration/Users_And_Roles/
It's a private group of users. To what end is it used? Right now I think its main use was to have a goy free section of the site and a place redditors can't see our posts. I think the lounge concept should be removed as a role and let it be governed natively by discourse trust levels at this point.
As an admin I can force trust levels on someone if needed. I think the private section should be anyone the native rules deems is TL2 or higher. I don't think it should be some boys club where we pick and choose members. However I would assume lounge threads would be more wholesome to a degree. I would like it to be a safe space where anyone can say what they want without personnel attacks.
Mod Guidlines
Yea I just agree. we don't have any lets try to create some. I think the first step is that the mod team now lays out our plan/guideline and submit it to the community for review.
PM - 2
- What are the Rules/Guidelines for the overall forum?
- What are the duties of different moderators?
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We have rules here, but FAQ - NADotA MafiA they are old and I don't even think anyone has read them. The rules that I kind have always kind have lived by was, say whatever don't be a giant dick. I would be open to refining rules that we as a community agree on. Historically nadota and here at namafia have had very little rules or enforcement.
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We don't really have roles for moderators. ■■■ and I are admins, I don't do much besides patching and review some flags when they get sent to me. I was hoping that kyle and kkat would take care of any community moderation and I would just do updates and help as needed. I'm not sure where ■■■ wants to fit into the picture, but open to his input on what he wants to do. I know I don't want to be sitting here reviewing PM's and flags constantly its not very fun, but do it when I can.
Sorry if that is not more helpful. I am onboard with defining some rules but we have usually been very lax and I would assume users would want to keep that.
PM - 3
You need to ban ewiz and unmod Kyle and epok
I'm not going to be removing kyle or ■■■. I think we as a mod team struggle sometimes to be on the same team. That is what I want to improve. We can't have one hand doing something while another hand is doing something else.
As for ewiz, he came back like a hurricane and I have not been thrilled personally. I was told he was talked to and see if he calms down.
PM - 4
I think you're doing a great job
I disagree, but thank you for the words.
PM - 5
casual sexism and even hateful speech in the same vein goes unpunished, runs rampant through our site, moderators ignore it unless it gets reported a million times. it's the worst problem on this site, and we have to fix it as a community with the moderator team helping.
Thats not something I like to see, however I'm probably not going to see it unless it gets flagged or someone brings it to my attention. I can speak for the moderator team, that we try to do our best but I often find us not on the same page and something we need to address. I don't think anyone is just okay with sexism or hate speech.
We have historically always just let people spew whatever bullshit comes across their fingers. I want to keep that a bit, but i don't think we need to harass each other. Reading what people are typing in the sexism thread has been quite annoying. All I can say is that I think if we as a community like I referenced above can define what we want as rules I think we will be in a better spot.
PM - 6
- I think people who flag too many posts for little or no reason should be warned. Too many flagged posts burn the mods out until they give up.
- Keep serious threads on topic. Bug Thread for example.
- Blog thread should be free of angry arguments. They should have their own threads. Or maybe a casual blog thread with rules.
I think these are almost all items we can fix with having some more structured guidelines that everyone can agree on.
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As an admin I hate getting a bunch of flags especially dumb ones. We can limit flags per user per day, but it's not something that I want to do. If people are maliciously sending flags, we can perhaps warn that user. However sometimes that is probably the only way they feel that a user can get a mods attention. I think it's a fine line and I hope it's something we can improve with being more open and having community guidelines.
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For serious threads, I would agree. I don't think there is any place for name calling, or memeing in those threads. The idea of a serious thread is to be freed from that. When we establish guidelines, we can talk about next steps. I would assume it would be something like warn, temp removal from serious threads, perm removal from serious threads.
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I think that is a bit hard to say. The blog thread is just a long page of hot mess, I barely look at it. I would be very open to breaking it out to individual topics should the need arise, but I don't think I would make it a forced rule. that seems weird. I don't mind heated arguments as long as people aren't just calling each other derogatory terms. Heated arguments where people are invested can be a fun part of forum. But if it degrades to just a toxic shitshow I would rather see moderator intervention.
PM - 7
The website is only alive today because you modded kyle and kkat and they removed the goys.
If not for that it would be dead. For many months it was dead because the place was toxic & unpleasant and nobody wanted to come here.
If you let people who make the site toxic & unpleasant back on the site, it will die again.
Goys shouldn't be given second/third/fourth/fifth chances. They've had their chances.
Ewiz shouldn't be allowed back onto the site. He's toxic af and it's not a coincidence the site exploded with drama in the last week since he was let back in.
He is constantly putting people down and harassing them when he thinks they're wrong (which is pretty much all the time because he constantly misunderstands situations) and he encourages others to join him in this behavior, causing site-wide drama and harassment.
In the last week I have seen several people leave the site or significantly reduce their activity in order to avoid interacting with him. I've also seen a lot of people hurt on both sides in discussions which could have been reasonable and understanding which were instead inflamed into massive harassment battles and - while it seems unfair to pin it on this one guy - his impact always seems to be to alter the discourse away from mutual understanding and toward harassment, belittling people, and "my way or the highway" thinking.
To those who don't believe me, I will point out:
It's not a coincidence the Sexism thread is suddenly a productive and pleasant (ish?) conversation the day after ewiz is removed.
Couple more points:
■■■ and Kkat are great guys but their instincts are wrong. ■■■'s been wrong on pretty much every major site/community moderation topic for like 2 years
He actually removed slowdive as mod when slowdive banned jones for following nyte around saying horrific shit. What the fuck ■■■
Still like them as people but they need to not be making decisions about the community if those decisions are "Let's give goys another chance" and "Let's bring ewiz back to the site"
And just for good measure in case I haven't angered enough people with the above I will also say Kyle's done a reasonably good job and it would be a mistake to remove him. He does need to learn to deescalate but most of the things ppl were angry with him about were actually pretty reasonable
Thanks for reading my short post
I'll try to digest some of this.
- Goys - Kyle will continue to be the slayer of goys, I don't plan on changing that. I do not want them to return.
- Ewiz - i talked about this issue previously. I have not been thrilled, but was told he got a talking too.
- ■■■ and Kkat - I think we as a mod team can agree we need to be more on the same page. I don't think anyone of us want the goys to return. I hope we can continue to work together. The four of us have different skillsets and ideas that if we can work together I'm sure we can make this a better place with everyones help.
I think we talked about it above, but I think actual community guidelines will help a lot and more importantly Moderator Guidelines. We need to a better process and types of things we as a community want to see from moderators.
PM - 8
I love this website. This is one of the best dota 2 communities and yes we have a lot of different opinions and a lot of arguements and a lot of different situations and oddballs all over the website. But what i love about this is place is it is indeed deeply human, its natural. The disagreements and agreements you really see that everyone here is their own person. And its really beautiful that we have legitimate differences and yet no matter what there is a clear unity, even behind all the insults people like me receive I know we are all united in some strange way. It makes me happy.
The fact that we keep retuning here might be stockholm syndrome or something. However, I kind of agree it's what I liked about nadota. Everyone was just real and said what they were thinking not filtered. However it's weird. NaDotA got worse with each step removed. Each year new posters came and wore the old ones out. The new posters just memed and flamed but didn't have the skill like the prior players to back it up.
I want anyone to come here and say what they want within reason. I do not want people to be just blatantly derogatory towards other posters or harass other members of the community. We can have different opinions, you can call people idiots, or morons. Thats just how it will always be, but you don't need to personally attack anyone.
PM - 9
Do we have any community guidelines? What is the process towards amending those guidelines and enforcing them?
It would be interesting to have some ability to have stickied "official forum" threads or section that get labeled as "serious" where the community can propose and discuss potential changes or amendments. Then after a week or two there is a community vote of some sort on whether to pass or deny something. If a vote passes, maybe it goes to the mods at that point and then they vote on whether or not it's reasonable to incorporate into the charter or community guidelines.
This could be a fun side project, and I'm sure some smart ass would probably find an easy way to game the system- but if could be fun to try and figure out a way to incorporate something along the lines of "wongs", like from nadota. A point system that allows people to earn points through various forum activity, achievements, or just automatic disbursement for being a member in "good standing". People could then use these points to vote with, tip, or trade among each other.
We have only have this currently: FAQ. However after this we will be having a mod action item to create guidelines for the community and mods. It will then be presented for community review and updates. I agree that the rules we create should not be forced on anyone. We should be in agreement and if we as a group don't like something about them we can create a poll and fix it.
BRINGBACKWONGS
I would love to look into having some type of fun currency we could use.
PM - 10
A user felt manipulated by other users on the website (not in mafia). I would say if anyone sees something like this please bring it to our attention. We are all apart of the same group we should not be taking advantage of anyone unless it is in a mafia game.
Summary
I think I got everyone, If I missed one let me know. I have a bit more I could say but I want to get this out for now. I'm going to leave the thread locked with a timer to open this evening so everyone has a chance to read this before it opens.
P.S
thanks for this sick badge NADotA MafiA
