Study on Online Community Moderation finds results

It's the first study of its kind that I've personally seen and I hope that it spawns many more.

https://shagunjhaver.com/files/research/jhaver-2019-transparency.pdf

The money quote:

"

Our findings show that provision of removal explanations is associated with a reduction in future removals, suggesting that taking an educational, rather than a punitive, approach to content moderation can improve community outcomes.

Note that they are talking about public explanations here. They study both comment and flair explanations on Reddit, both of which are public as opposed to direct/private messages.

I'd love to see them expand the study to other communities to see if this is even remotely universal. As always, beware relying too much on a single study, but I'm sure we can all just pretend ITT that it's unequivocal and perfectly accurate anyway.

inb4 put on probation for [removed by support] :)

.

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zecoratul wrote:

inb4 put on probation for [removed by support] :)

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DarthSki44 wrote:

On Probation

fuckin' lol

I didn't think GGG Support would be that tone-deaf, in this thread. This is rather on the nose and a bit of an example... what did DarthSki say? I would like to educate myself because I don't want to run afoul of the rules, but now I can't know until I step on that landmine myself.

---

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elesham4ever wrote:

Studies like these are neat but I don't think they'll have an impact on anything. The internet was once described as the super-platform for the "marketplace of ideas" concept. But its not that, not anymore. This thing that was supposed to be for everyone has been gobbled up piece by piece by companies that have used antiquated physical ownership laws in order to claim ownership of the single most important compendium of human knowledge ever conceived.

Not all studies have to have impact, but I certainly hope that many studies in the same field lead us toward better decision making in the end. This seems like the first of many, to me.

For the rest, I don't think there's anything wrong with the property laws. The servers are owned by someone even though the speech that transits them is not. At any rate, I find it much harder to blame the concept of ownership for censorship when censorship can and does occur in a commons, e.g. by a democratic vote.

What has changed, and in my opinion for the much worse, is attitudes toward censorship. It used to be a four letter word, a last resort, and now it's the default reaction. You hear crap like "deplatforming works!" and it just makes you shake your head.

There should be room for people to make good choices while preserving the option of shooting themselves in the foot, reserved for emergencies. I don't particularly want to live in a world of "Everything not forbidden is compulsory".

Enough said.

Peace,

-Boem-

edit : pneuma feel free to send me a pm if you want a rough draft of my deleted post. That should still be allowed right?

Similar principles are pretty well established in education. Approaches like PBIS/PBL are based on evidence showing that okay, sure, you can put consequences in place for unwanted behaviour, but that's vastly more effective when supported by you actively and explicitly teaching the desired behaviour.

Of course, forums are not schools, and companies are under no obligation to prioritise educating their users. Reducing removals of offending users' posts is one strategy to improve a community, but it's not the only one (banning arseholes, for instance, is another).

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pneuma wrote:

educational

lol, WHO THE F ARE THEY TO Fcckn LECTURE ME ABOUT HOW TO BEHAVE?

I prefer a more honest and direct approach, like "we delete your messages because you're an asshole and we don't like you," I would respect that and have nothing against it. But trying with an ""educational approach""" to teach me how to behave properly based on their personal moral beliefs is FCK OFF YOU'RE NOT MY MOTHER, OKAY?

Mind your own business and watch your fkcin forum and don't try to """""'educate""""""" other people, okay?

Peace,

-Boem-

"

IzaroPetMTX wrote:

"

pneuma wrote:

educational

lol, WHO THE F ARE THEY TO Fcckn LECTURE ME ABOUT HOW TO BEHAVE?

I prefer a more honest and direct approach, like "we delete your messages because you're an asshole and we don't like you," I would respect that and have nothing against it. But trying with an ""educational approach""" to teach me how to behave properly based on their personal moral beliefs is FCK OFF YOU'RE NOT MY MOTHER, OKAY?

Mind your own business and watch your fkcin forum and don't try to """""'educate""""""" other people, okay?

Peace,

-Boem-

While true, that's not quite the meaning of educational here. It means telling people what will get them deleted/punished in the future such that they know. It doesn't have to be moralistic, nor does it have to follow your posting off the forum.

That is, if the goal is to reduce the need for deletions and other punishments. Otherwise just hire more staff I guess.

There are two ways to abstract communication, a trust model and a fear model.

GGG went from a trust model to a fear model and that's all that we are seeing play out. Obviously leaving people entirely confused that were active within the trust model they had in the past.

Which is entirely normal, since people that generally believe and adopt the trust model tend to reflect on themselves when they get a response they didn't expect.

You only have to think about Bex for example and even though you never met her in real life, i think most people think back fondly of her and she is very "humanized" in our memory's.
It should baffle the current moderators why people like me have so much tension with them while i and others enjoyed Bex and her style and gave her all the credit and back up she deserved when something went wrong.

Peace,

-Boem-