From the time I first visited the D newsgroups in 2003 until now, it has always been an open forum. Heated discussions have always popped up from time to time, but rarely has there been the need to ban anyone. Since I joined the moderation team, I've been following the loose policy that Walter has always espoused, which is something along the lines of "maintain professional decorum".

Granted, certain posts can really stretch the boundaries of "professional decorum", but I think that's perfectly fine. We're all adults here and should be able to handle verbal barbs now and again. Where the moderators draw the line is when the verbal jousting turns nasty. We have deleted posts in such cases, but again, that's quite rare.

In my own opinion, what we should not start doing is banning people simply for expressing displeasure with the language or disagreement with its leadership. Yes, I understand that there are a handful of people who seem to do nothing but spread negativity and be contrarian. I disagree with almost everything those guys post. But that *is not* a bannable offense, nor should it be.

I also don't want to be deleting negative posts just because they're negative. Then we get into the business of deleting replies that quote them, and maybe even losing some actual useful signal in all the noise.

If such posts bother you, then simply ignore them. Don't reply. Even better, don't read any posts by that person at all. D is not a religion and there's no need to get upset or take it personally when someone comes here and says negative things about it. Just keep on doing what you do and forget about it. We as a community are not going to suffer from negative forum posts unless we allow ourselves to suffer. And no, it's not going to hurt us in the world at large. We've suffered worse on reddit.

If you do feel the need to reply to specific criticisms, make sure you are in a proper state of mind before putting fingers to keyboard so that you can keep it focused on the criticisms and not take it personal.

That said, it would be nice to have a means to lock a thread that has become unproductive (I would have locked the feedback thread by now). But we don't have that and we aren't going to as long as we are backed by a newsgroup.

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:

> I also don't want to be deleting negative posts just because they're negative. Then we get into the business of deleting replies that quote them, and maybe even losing some actual useful signal in all the noise.
>

For the record, I just deleted three posts, from three different users, near the end of the feedback thread that were nothing but mudslinging. I'm not going to crawl back through the rest of the thread to delete more. But henceforth, since I can't lock the thread, any posts that are simply about throwing insults will get the ax.

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> From the time I first visited the D newsgroups in 2003 until now, it has always been an open forum. Heated discussions have always popped up from time to time, but rarely has there been the need to ban anyone. Since I joined the moderation team, I've been following the loose policy that Walter has always espoused, which is something along the lines of "maintain professional decorum".
>
> [...]

Thanks for this statement. Seriously, this is a sound and liberal point of view and I appreciate it.

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> From the time I first visited the D newsgroups in 2003 until now, it has always been an open forum. Heated discussions have always popped up from time to time, but rarely has there been the need to ban anyone. Since I joined the moderation team, I've been following the loose policy that Walter has always espoused, which is something along the lines of "maintain professional decorum".
>
> Granted, certain posts can really stretch the boundaries of "professional decorum", but I think that's perfectly fine. We're all adults here and should be able to handle verbal barbs now and again. Where the moderators draw the line is when the verbal jousting turns nasty. We have deleted posts in such cases, but again, that's quite rare.
>
> In my own opinion, what we should not start doing is banning people simply for expressing displeasure with the language or disagreement with its leadership. Yes, I understand that there are a handful of people who seem to do nothing but spread negativity and be contrarian. I disagree with almost everything those guys post. But that *is not* a bannable offense, nor should it be.
>
> I also don't want to be deleting negative posts just because they're negative. Then we get into the business of deleting replies that quote them, and maybe even losing some actual useful signal in all the noise.
>
> If such posts bother you, then simply ignore them. Don't reply. Even better, don't read any posts by that person at all. D is not a religion and there's no need to get upset or take it personally when someone comes here and says negative things about it. Just keep on doing what you do and forget about it. We as a community are not going to suffer from negative forum posts unless we allow ourselves to suffer. And no, it's not going to hurt us in the world at large. We've suffered worse on reddit.
>
> If you do feel the need to reply to specific criticisms, make sure you are in a proper state of mind before putting fingers to keyboard so that you can keep it focused on the criticisms and not take it personal.
>
> That said, it would be nice to have a means to lock a thread that has become unproductive (I would have locked the feedback thread by now). But we don't have that and we aren't going to as long as we are backed by a newsgroup.

A relevant blogpost from a different forum: Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism.

https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-gardens-die-by-pacifism

> Some­where in the vast­ness of the In­ter­net, it is hap­pen­ing even now. It was once a well-kept gar­den of in­tel­li­gent dis­cus­sion, where knowl­edge­able and in­ter­ested folk came, at­tracted by the high qual­ity of speech they saw on­go­ing. But into this gar­den comes a fool, and the level of dis­cus­sion drops a lit­tle—or more than a lit­tle, if the fool is very pro­lific in their post­ing. (It is worse if the fool is just ar­tic­u­late enough that the former in­hab­itants of the gar­den feel obliged to re­spond, and cor­rect mis­ap­pre­hen­sions—for then the fool dom­i­nates con­ver­sa­tions.)

> So the gar­den is tainted now, and it is less fun to play in; the old in­hab­itants, already in­vested there, will stay, but they are that much less likely to at­tract new blood. Or if there are new mem­bers, their qual­ity also has gone down.

> Then an­other fool joins...

And yes, better moderation tools would probably help a lot. I think mods here should in general be more willing to shut down threads or avenues or discussion that are going nowhere. It doesn't have to be an outright ban, often interrupting the vicious circle of posts and responses would already solve the issue.

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> From the time I first visited the D newsgroups in 2003 until now, it has always been an open forum. Heated discussions have always popped up from time to time, but rarely has there been the need to ban anyone. Since I joined the moderation team, I've been following the loose policy that Walter has always espoused, which is something along the lines of "maintain professional decorum".
>
> Granted, certain posts can really stretch the boundaries of "professional decorum", but I think that's perfectly fine. We're all adults here and should be able to handle verbal barbs now and again. Where the moderators draw the line is when the verbal jousting turns nasty. We have deleted posts in such cases, but again, that's quite rare.
>
> In my own opinion, what we should not start doing is banning people simply for expressing displeasure with the language or disagreement with its leadership. Yes, I understand that there are a handful of people who seem to do nothing but spread negativity and be contrarian. I disagree with almost everything those guys post. But that *is not* a bannable offense, nor should it be.
>
> I also don't want to be deleting negative posts just because they're negative. Then we get into the business of deleting replies that quote them, and maybe even losing some actual useful signal in all the noise.
>
> If such posts bother you, then simply ignore them. Don't reply. Even better, don't read any posts by that person at all. D is not a religion and there's no need to get upset or take it personally when someone comes here and says negative things about it. Just keep on doing what you do and forget about it. We as a community are not going to suffer from negative forum posts unless we allow ourselves to suffer. And no, it's not going to hurt us in the world at large. We've suffered worse on reddit.
>
> If you do feel the need to reply to specific criticisms, make sure you are in a proper state of mind before putting fingers to keyboard so that you can keep it focused on the criticisms and not take it personal.
>
> That said, it would be nice to have a means to lock a thread that has become unproductive (I would have locked the feedback thread by now). But we don't have that and we aren't going to as long as we are backed by a newsgroup.

The best forums on the net seems to moderate the topic not the conduct so much unless it is outright illegal. However, in order to keep thread topics on topic I think there must be moderation of the topic so that the threads don't derail. I think that the D forum should try a similar approach. Moderators should also have the "break out thread" option, creating a new thread for someone who went OT but still has a interesting post.

If someone want to express the general hate for D for some reason, then they must create a thread for this and not infest an existing thread about some other technical issue. Some people have opinions about leadership and which direction D should take, they should be allowed to express their opinion but in a thread dedicated for that topic in particular.

I don't want a "sterile" forum, I can take a punch. People who can objectively argument in the subject are the winners and the ones who behave badly just degrade themselves anyway.

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 14:49:21 UTC, FeepingCreature wrote:
> On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
>> [...]
>
> A relevant blogpost from a different forum: Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism.
>
> https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-gardens-die-by-pacifism
>
>> [...]
>
>> [...]
>
>> [...]
>
> And yes, better moderation tools would probably help a lot. I think mods here should in general be more willing to shut down threads or avenues or discussion that are going nowhere. It doesn't have to be an outright ban, often interrupting the vicious circle of posts and responses would already solve the issue.

Hasn’t modern forum software largely solver problems like this with voting, karma, etc? What kind of tools are available for mailing lists other than banning users? (Even deleting messages can’t be done once they’re in me inbox)

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> From the time I first visited the D newsgroups in 2003 until now, it has always been an open forum. Heated discussions have always popped up from time to time, but rarely has there been the need to ban anyone. Since I joined the moderation team, I've been following the loose policy that Walter has always espoused, which is something along the lines of "maintain professional decorum".
>
> [...]

We can't lock it for the mailing list or nttp access but we can implement some small functionality to lock it from the web access and that should already solve the problem.

But I am convinced we need not only a modern forum software but a community software if we want to build a big, great and healthy community.

Kind regards
Andre

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 14:49:21 UTC, FeepingCreature wrote:
>
> A relevant blogpost from a different forum: Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism.
>
> https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-gardens-die-by-pacifism

This article describes accurately the situation we are in, and how better things could be if using some kind of classical solution. I wish the problem was taken seriously: this is a scaling problem.

I have seen one phpBB forum killed by my own refusal to ban one abusive user - it was a friend - experienced people were telling me to ban him. That user would jump at every newcomer in the most odd way, and very quickly this friendly online community dwindled.

We have a thriving D Discord because the moderation team won't tolerate abusive behaviour. The ToS is to follow... the Discord ToS. And people do not hesitate before interacting there, as it's safe.

I think we have a lot to win there.

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 15:28:46 UTC, Aliak wrote:

> Hasn’t modern forum software largely solver problems like this with voting, karma, etc? What kind of tools are available for mailing lists other than banning users? (Even deleting messages can’t be done once they’re in me inbox)

I don't think the voting system is good for moderation. I started on reddit voting up and down every front page post because I wanted it to know my interests. I was not intending to dictate the quality, disagreement, or even agreement. There is a report button for addressing actual problematic posts.

There is however a difference between organized discussions and censorship.

I actually find the post constantly diving into meta discussions about form moderation, lack there of, or the arguments about being talked to rudely or not: to be the most distracting. It is not that the discussion is happening, but because it is happening in lou of making an actual rebuttal.

Someone apologized to me for their "potty mouth" as they thought I might take issue, my response was "only if it gets in the way of communication."

On Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 12:59:40 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> ...

We shouldn't have a rule in this Sub-Group like most of content should be technical and on the subject?

Or at least have different groups for Technical and other things (Like Off-Topic).

Personally I hate drama in technical forums because it's just a waste of time.

Matheus.