Does the Cave ban too many posters or too few?

[Mr. Morden]

Too many, but I also think that most of the site is unreadable on account of low-quality posting.

It would be helpful if there were  better features to follow the best posters and mute the negative marginal utility cases.

You mean the Cave's acting quickly to mute these "marginal utility cases", or having an improved "ignore" function, without showing quoted posts?

I read it as suggesting something like a newsfeed, so you can find threads where your favorite posters are posting.  I mean, you can individually scroll through posters' recent posting history, but if there was one place to find all of the most recent posts from posters that you're "following", that would be an interesting feature.  I doubt the forum software can handle it though.

EDIT: Wait, maybe I misread what he was suggesting.  But I do think the newsfeed idea would be a good one.  It'll never happen though...

[SNJ1985]

Certain posters here are never going to be satisfied until the moderators have banned every right-wing poster. I'm not sure why they can't just go to Democratic Underground (or RevLeft if they're of that ideological persuasion).

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Certain posters here are never going to be satisfied until the moderators have banned every right-wing poster. I'm not sure why they can't just go to Democratic Underground (or RevLeft if they're of that ideological persuasion).

Fortunately, we are not taking our marching orders from BRTD. You're safe as if you were in your mom's nest.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I love how my haters are all sunbaked Arizonans. Arizonans who probably wear Ed Hardey shirts.

[°Leprechaun]

I have no opinion right now about the poll question, but I have always wondered what is the procedure (or is that a secret?) to ban someone. In other words, does it take a majority of moderators?.. or is it more complicated than that?

[Cactus Jack]

Certain posters here are never going to be satisfied until the moderators have banned every right-wing poster. I'm not sure why they can't just go to Democratic Underground (or RevLeft if they're of that ideological persuasion).

I, for one, very much enjoy the presence of posters like RFayette, Yankee, and Lechasseur. No, we'd just like there to be fewer insufferable right-wing neckbeards like you.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Certain posters here are never going to be satisfied until the moderators have banned every right-wing poster. I'm not sure why they can't just go to Democratic Underground (or RevLeft if they're of that ideological persuasion).

I, for one, very much enjoy the presence of posters like RFayette, Yankee, and Lechasseur. No, we'd just like there to be fewer insufferable right-wing neckbeards like you.

In other words, you want to cherry pick who gets to post on Atlas. Gotcha.

Also: lol noob.

[Torie]

I have no opinion right now about the poll question, but I have always wondered what is the procedure (or is that a secret?) to ban someone. In other words, does it take a majority of moderators?.. or is it more complicated than that?

It is in general more complicated in closer cases. Somebody in the Cave puts a poster up on the board for discussion, and sometimes it is generally ignored, or sometimes it gets comment. It is rare that a poster is banned by an Admin mod without a substantial consensus of those mods who choose to involve themselves in a case. And there is a step by step procedure for posters that are relatively close cases. It just doesn't go straight to perma-ban. And usually a formal warning is given before any ban at all, even a temporary one. The idea is to try to induce behavior change, rather than jettison posters. And that can make for a relatively slow process, often slower than many posters would prefer, and which sometimes suggests to them that the Cave is inattentive about poor behavior when that really isn't the case.

I might add that among the mods who are active in these matters, in general there is a very congenial relationship, and rarely if ever, is anything caustic said. We try and I think do, work well together as a team, and defer to each other where we can.

In cases that are not relatively close, not much of the above applies.

[Mr. Morden]

I have no opinion right now about the poll question, but I have always wondered what is the procedure (or is that a secret?) to ban someone. In other words, does it take a majority of moderators?.. or is it more complicated than that?

It is in general more complicated in closer cases. Somebody in the Cave puts a poster up on the board for discussion, and sometimes it is generally ignored, or sometimes it gets comment. It is rare that a poster is banned by an Admin mod without a substantial consensus of those mods who choose to involve themselves in a case.

I would say it is not actually that rare in the case of obvious troll/spam accounts who've only been around a few hours or days.  A mod puts them on mod review, and says "This guy is a spammer who needs to be banned" or something, and if Nym agrees, then that may be all the discussion there is.  Sure, someone else *could* object before Nym has a chance to act, but he isn't going to wait around for more input in the same way he would if it was a poster who'd been here for years.

Or at least, that was my experience as a mod, but it's always possible that things are different now.

[Torie]

I have no opinion right now about the poll question, but I have always wondered what is the procedure (or is that a secret?) to ban someone. In other words, does it take a majority of moderators?.. or is it more complicated than that?

It is in general more complicated in closer cases. Somebody in the Cave puts a poster up on the board for discussion, and sometimes it is generally ignored, or sometimes it gets comment. It is rare that a poster is banned by an Admin mod without a substantial consensus of those mods who choose to involve themselves in a case.

I would say it is not actually that rare in the case of obvious troll/spam accounts who've only been around a few hours or days.  A mod puts them on mod review, and says "This guy is a spammer who needs to be banned" or something, and if Nym agrees, then that may be all the discussion there is.  Sure, someone else *could* object before Nym has a chance to act, but he isn't going to wait around for more input in the same way he would if it was a poster who'd been here for years.

Or at least, that was my experience as a mod, but it's always possible that things are different now.

That is still the case of course. That is why I posted, "In cases that are not relatively close, not much of the above applies."

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

It's funny, by the way, that Torie, despite getting a huge amount of crap from many in the community as a "bad mod" is actually one of these who constantly advocates a patient policy when it comes to punishing problematic posters. I'm not always agreeing with him, but it's worth pointing out.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I have no opinion right now about the poll question, but I have always wondered what is the procedure (or is that a secret?) to ban someone. In other words, does it take a majority of moderators?.. or is it more complicated than that?

It is in general more complicated in closer cases. Somebody in the Cave puts a poster up on the board for discussion, and sometimes it is generally ignored, or sometimes it gets comment. It is rare that a poster is banned by an Admin mod without a substantial consensus of those mods who choose to involve themselves in a case.

I would say it is not actually that rare in the case of obvious troll/spam accounts who've only been around a few hours or days.  A mod puts them on mod review, and says "This guy is a spammer who needs to be banned" or something, and if Nym agrees, then that may be all the discussion there is.  Sure, someone else *could* object before Nym has a chance to act, but he isn't going to wait around for more input in the same way he would if it was a poster who'd been here for years.

Or at least, that was my experience as a mod, but it's always possible that things are different now.

Is there a certain amount of "moderated posts" that automatically puts you on mod review, or is it completely manual?

[The Dowager Mod]

I have no opinion right now about the poll question, but I have always wondered what is the procedure (or is that a secret?) to ban someone. In other words, does it take a majority of moderators?.. or is it more complicated than that?

It is in general more complicated in closer cases. Somebody in the Cave puts a poster up on the board for discussion, and sometimes it is generally ignored, or sometimes it gets comment. It is rare that a poster is banned by an Admin mod without a substantial consensus of those mods who choose to involve themselves in a case.

I would say it is not actually that rare in the case of obvious troll/spam accounts who've only been around a few hours or days.  A mod puts them on mod review, and says "This guy is a spammer who needs to be banned" or something, and if Nym agrees, then that may be all the discussion there is.  Sure, someone else *could* object before Nym has a chance to act, but he isn't going to wait around for more input in the same way he would if it was a poster who'd been here for years.

Or at least, that was my experience as a mod, but it's always possible that things are different now.

Is there a certain amount of "moderated posts" that automatically puts you on mod review, or is it completely manual?

Both, getting to a certain number of moderated posts automatically triggers mod review, But we can manually do it like I did with AHugecat.

[Mr. Morden]

I have no opinion right now about the poll question, but I have always wondered what is the procedure (or is that a secret?) to ban someone. In other words, does it take a majority of moderators?.. or is it more complicated than that?

It is in general more complicated in closer cases. Somebody in the Cave puts a poster up on the board for discussion, and sometimes it is generally ignored, or sometimes it gets comment. It is rare that a poster is banned by an Admin mod without a substantial consensus of those mods who choose to involve themselves in a case.

I would say it is not actually that rare in the case of obvious troll/spam accounts who've only been around a few hours or days.  A mod puts them on mod review, and says "This guy is a spammer who needs to be banned" or something, and if Nym agrees, then that may be all the discussion there is.  Sure, someone else *could* object before Nym has a chance to act, but he isn't going to wait around for more input in the same way he would if it was a poster who'd been here for years.

Or at least, that was my experience as a mod, but it's always possible that things are different now.

Is there a certain amount of "moderated posts" that automatically puts you on mod review, or is it completely manual?

Both, getting to a certain number of moderated posts automatically triggers mod review, But we can manually do it like I did with AHugecat.

Yeah, but ever since Dave revamped the points system, I think it's now close to impossible to reach mod review automatically unless you're trying hard.  The points roll off after (I think) 6 months, so you would need to have 50 moderated posts within a span of 6 months in order to reach automatic mod review.  Has anyone ever actually done that?  That seems like quite a feat.  Very few posters even have 50 moderated posts in their entire posting history.

[Torie]

I have no opinion right now about the poll question, but I have always wondered what is the procedure (or is that a secret?) to ban someone. In other words, does it take a majority of moderators?.. or is it more complicated than that?

It is in general more complicated in closer cases. Somebody in the Cave puts a poster up on the board for discussion, and sometimes it is generally ignored, or sometimes it gets comment. It is rare that a poster is banned by an Admin mod without a substantial consensus of those mods who choose to involve themselves in a case.

I would say it is not actually that rare in the case of obvious troll/spam accounts who've only been around a few hours or days.  A mod puts them on mod review, and says "This guy is a spammer who needs to be banned" or something, and if Nym agrees, then that may be all the discussion there is.  Sure, someone else *could* object before Nym has a chance to act, but he isn't going to wait around for more input in the same way he would if it was a poster who'd been here for years.

Or at least, that was my experience as a mod, but it's always possible that things are different now.

Is there a certain amount of "moderated posts" that automatically puts you on mod review, or is it completely manual?

Both, getting to a certain number of moderated posts automatically triggers mod review, But we can manually do it like I did with AHugecat.

Yeah, but ever since Dave revamped the points system, I think it's now close to impossible to reach mod review automatically unless you're trying hard.  The points roll off after (I think) 6 months, so you would need to have 50 moderated posts within a span of 6 months in order to reach automatic mod review.  Has anyone ever actually done that?  That seems like quite a feat.  Very few posters even have 50 moderated posts in their entire posting history.

In most cases the punishment system would have begun prior to hitting 50 if a poster were racking up moderated posts at that rate which were justified (and most posts that are infracted deserve to be).

[Virginiá]

I think we've had a few situations where users on mod review come off of it after x days, then get an infracted post and get put right back on it because they got 50 points recently. At least that seems like what was the case when a couple users seemed to always be on mod review despite no one issuing it.

[Mr. Morden]

I think we've had a few situations where users on mod review come off of it after x days, then get an infracted post and get put right back on it because they got 50 points recently. At least that seems like what was the case when a couple users seemed to always be on mod review despite no one issuing it.

Yeah, that happened even more often with the old point system.  Derek's sock barfbag was posting at an obscenely high rate, so even though not that high a %age of his posts were infractable, enough of them were for him to constantly be going on and off mod review (until he was finally outed as a sock of Derek and then banned).

[Badger]

Too few.

X 10.

At least start dishing out notable temp bans for a month or so.

Then if they come back and continue acting like an ass the mods will of course promptly act on it and....


Oh, wait.

[DavidB.]

It's about right, unlike on AAD.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I have no opinion right now about the poll question, but I have always wondered what is the procedure (or is that a secret?) to ban someone. In other words, does it take a majority of moderators?.. or is it more complicated than that?

It is in general more complicated in closer cases. Somebody in the Cave puts a poster up on the board for discussion, and sometimes it is generally ignored, or sometimes it gets comment. It is rare that a poster is banned by an Admin mod without a substantial consensus of those mods who choose to involve themselves in a case.

I would say it is not actually that rare in the case of obvious troll/spam accounts who've only been around a few hours or days.  A mod puts them on mod review, and says "This guy is a spammer who needs to be banned" or something, and if Nym agrees, then that may be all the discussion there is.  Sure, someone else *could* object before Nym has a chance to act, but he isn't going to wait around for more input in the same way he would if it was a poster who'd been here for years.

Or at least, that was my experience as a mod, but it's always possible that things are different now.

Is there a certain amount of "moderated posts" that automatically puts you on mod review, or is it completely manual?

Both, getting to a certain number of moderated posts automatically triggers mod review, But we can manually do it like I did with AHugecat.

Yeah, but ever since Dave revamped the points system, I think it's now close to impossible to reach mod review automatically unless you're trying hard.  The points roll off after (I think) 6 months, so you would need to have 50 moderated posts within a span of 6 months in order to reach automatic mod review.  Has anyone ever actually done that?  That seems like quite a feat.  Very few posters even have 50 moderated posts in their entire posting history.

In most cases the punishment system would have begun prior to hitting 50 if a poster were racking up moderated posts at that rate which were justified (and most posts that are infracted deserve to be).

     Yeah, it would be quite difficult to get posts modded at that prodigious rate without leading us to taking action first. Some people have managed to get on that pace for a while, but that inevitably draws attention in the ModCave.