Acceptable Commenting
We've had discussions here at TPMCafe of what we should or shouldn't consider acceptable behavior in commenting. We're about to post an official set of guidelines.
But I wanted to post it here as well to get comments from readers, thoughts, etc. It's not written in stone. We can and probably will make changes over time.
TPMCafe and the TPM Media network follow a simple set of rules for acceptable commenting. 1. All political viewpoints are welcome. However, hate speech of any kind, libelous statements or threats to fellow users or others will be deleted and may be grounds for suspending or terminating a users account. 2. Four letter words are not banned, but we ask that they be used sparingly as overuse coarsens and undermines the debate. 3. TPMCafe is a venue for lively and passionate debate. But insults, personal attacks and the like make that sort of enlivening exchange impossible. If you just want to scream and taunt, please go somewhere else. If you have any question about what is and what's not acceptable, follow this rule: If you wouldn't use a certain word or talk to someone a certain way in a real-life political discussion at a Coffee House, don't do it here either.
Share your thoughts in the comments section.
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Geez, dad.
April 22, 2008 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
too paternalistic? ;-)
April 22, 2008 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you DO look pretty dad-like in your picture.
April 22, 2008 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, not that there's anything wrong with that.
April 23, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Again I appauld.
April 22, 2008 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. just jerking your chain. We can all do with a little kick in the pants every once in a while.
April 22, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Works for me. At least as long as you are serious about banning people.
April 22, 2008 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
We are, though we'll also need readers help reporting what they believe are violations. In the not too distant future we're going to add a report/alert button for people to flag violators. To be clear, this won't be for stuff people disagree with or stuff that's stupid, but for bright line violators, stuff that readers will probably see before we do and which we need to get on.
April 22, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure Rep. Geoff Davis would agree with me that a red button is a bad idea. We can't trust all these kids with that kind of responsibility.
April 22, 2008 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure Rep. Geoff Davis would agree with me that a red button is a bad idea. We can't trust all these kids with that kind of responsibility.
April 22, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to report this poster for spamming. Where's my red button!
April 22, 2008 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean you don't have one?
;D
April 22, 2008 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, no red button yet. We need it. I also want to report him for using the same avatar as me.
April 22, 2008 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is calling MJ a Hamas supporter an insult or personal attack even though MJ has never advocated for Hamas? Where will that line be drawn?
April 22, 2008 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice. They're rules written by somebody who didn't want to write rules and those tend to be the best rules.
April 22, 2008 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
These agreements go towards EC and MR, as well? Assuming so, but you only mentioned the Cafe in #3.
April 22, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, this applies across the network. See intro to the rules.
April 22, 2008 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Under Rule #3: Can you exempt Greg Sargent so both sides can continue to taunt him mercilessly when he doesn't "report" our preferred biases?
April 22, 2008 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Regrets,G.,
I am heading to Hillary's Indiana bar and have a beer and a shot (or several) with the guys there and toast Obama.
Cheers.
April 22, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
You might want to look at this:
http://www.cspan.org/community/etiquette.asp
It covers a few things you don't, but which you may want to consider.
I like that it's concise and friendly, though.
April 22, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I mean your remarks are concise and friendly. It wouldn't do to get too wordy.
April 22, 2008 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most of the serious junk will end with the Primary season. Though with a report/complain button your going to need someone full time to sort out the details.
April 22, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
if it ends up that way, it won't have worked because what we're talking about is when someone posts a racist rant or says something that appears libelous. if it devolves into stuff people just don't like, that won't work.
April 22, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just imagining something like the Simpsons episode when they were going in for family counciling and given the ability shock each other. LOL.....There will be a lot of button hitting in this group.......
April 22, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
that's definitely possible. and because of that it may not be workable. what we need is a way for readers to notify when something has been posted that needs to be taken down immediately, etc., but without getting pinged every time there's something they really disagree with. in practice that may be hard to do for the reasons you say.
April 22, 2008 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
A recent post by M.J. Rosenberg was virtually shut down by an abusive, threatening repeat commenter. Unfortunately, withdrawal of abusers' commenting and reader-blogging privileges is essential to keep the TPM site vital and welcoming. Go for it.
I'd even back publication of an occasional List of Shame, detailing specifically why people had their accounts axed. Object lesson to others!
While we're talking about internal operations, there was a very well written reader blog yesterday called "Something Rotten in Denmark" by Deanie Mills.
I recommended it, and came back today to see whether it had made the Recommended Posts list. It hadn't, and had fallen off Recent Posts as well. After a search, I found it.
This post had been recommended more than 100 times, Josh. Is there some reason such a well-recommended post wouldn't make the cut?
If it's because of some technical glitch, I trust you will make some serious effort to correct it.
April 22, 2008 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Recommended Reader Posts are only available for 24 hours after publication date. After that, they drop from the list. Keeps the list evolving.
April 22, 2008 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think that explanation is quite sufficient. The post I cited is barely over 24 hours old even now, and in the comment thread the writer herself reports having difficulty finding it this morning.
It reached 100 recommendations a little after 3 p.m. today, but I never saw it on the recommended list at all.
Surely software can be tweaked so highly recommended posts get a respectable shelf life. "Freshness" shouldn't trump quality.
April 22, 2008 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was on the recommended list this morning.
April 22, 2008 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, either I'm the first one banned, or we're having problems posting comments.
April 22, 2008 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
so it showed up with a lot of recommends on the psot itself but never made it onto the most recommended list?
April 22, 2008 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Precisely. See immediately above you.
April 22, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was in the #1 slot of the recommended list until about... 1:30 PM, PDT.
It disappeared about 20 minutes or so before my recommended post disappeared.
April 22, 2008 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Deanie's post made the list. There is a non-intuitive feel to the list, since even a large-number recommended post has to wait for a turn. The clock overrules the relative recommendation values, as far as I can tell. And so instead of shooting up and displacing other posts with modest tallies, it may not show until after people have left their computers, gone to bed, etc.
April 22, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was actually at the top of the list all day today.
April 22, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'd even back publication of an occasional List of Shame, detailing specifically why people had their accounts axed"
I second that emotion.
Back in the day when dKos first implemented the ability for the collective readership to hide comments there were torrents of complaints about 'censorship'. At the time only 'Trusted Users' were able to visit what I called 'Hidden Comment Land' and as one I made it a point to go see what was getting hidden and why and if necessary use my TU powers to unhide the comment. Well I only found one instance where I actually did unhide a comment and on later review of that comment thread came to understand why it was hidden. In short even in the heat of the argument (and there was a lot of heat at dKos) the power to actually censor content was simply not being abused.
So a modest suggestion. Instead of banning comments and commentators I suggest walling them off but providing a door and a key. Let regular readers visit HateLand and report back on what they see. You can learn just as much about editorial judgement by what they edit out as what they allow in. You might call this the DVD model, the default mode is to watch the final cut but the outtakes and deleted scenes are still available for anyone freely chosing to view them.
There is a certain kind of commenter that relishes being banned and takes it as a measure of validation along the lines of "You can't stand the truth!" whereas when the actual comment is capable of being exposed to light and air simply shrivels up.
Though instead of calling it the 'Hall of Shame' I instead suggest 'The Stupid! It Burns!!'
April 23, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
There was a Hidden Comments list and Trusted Users vetting the list for abuse in the first incarnation of TPMCafe, with the Scoop software. That is a feature invented by Scoop and I think one that really works for self-policing. Here that was replaced with Drupal software (now itself replaced by Movable Type) which had comment ratings and "karma" but no Hidden Comments section, and mho, that is when abuse of ratings and arguing about ratings became a much bigger problem.
I thought the former worked pretty well for the early TPMCafe to help keep a high signal-to-noise ratio and a high level of civility that many newbies commented on, almost as if surprised. A crucial part of Scoop's success with the Hidden Comments system is that when you reached Trusted User status, you received a message explaining what you were supposed to do, what Trusted User responsiblities were. And also that it was clear when you went out of Trusted User status, it showed up as the link to Hidden Comments disppearing, it was amazing how that tempered people's behavior.
I tend to think it worked better here than at Kos because the earliest community at the TPMCafe was one of refugees from the "noise" at other sites, looking for a higher level of forum. They became Trusted Users quickly and used that power to regulate the site. That power was much lessened with the removal of the Hidden Comments section in the switch to Drupal, and you then had a slow downhill spiral of better members (as to both behavior and quality of content) leaving.
I think a lot of people don't realize that the "Tip Jar" tradition at Kos is there because of what some see as a flaw in Scoop's otherwise fine Trusted User invention. People become Trusted Users by commenting well, by getting approval of their comments. There was no similar reward for good Blog posts. So people thought of putting a "Tip Jar" as a comment for people to get plus ratings for their blog entry.
April 23, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. To clarify the above, I mentioned the composition of membership of the early TPMCafe, drawn by Josh's promotion of trying to create a new, alternative, less moisy kind of forum, for a reason: because most people would not describe DKos as particularly noise-free and highly civil even though it uses the same system! I think you have to be starting with a user group that shares your aims for it to work. They "elect" the first group of Trusted Users, and with occasional input from management, the general tone wanted by the site's creators can be maintained. But you can't easily impose it on a group that already has different ideas about behavior. (And without Trusted Users vetting Hidden Comments, ratings abuse allows small groups or individuals to upend the system, cause a lot of childish animosity and ratings wars.)
April 23, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Josh. Personally, I try to ignore or avoid those who don't have the self-confidence to post any personal information in their Profile. There have been some commentators whom I've thought are assholes, then I see from their Profile that they are real people with real lives and actual things that they care about, so I take their heated rhetoric with a bit more understanding. Anonymous speech is almost always corrosive to intelligent conversation. I'm Terry Carroll, and I recommend against anonymity. (However, my kitten avatar would rather avoid conflict altogether.)
April 22, 2008 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can understand how you might feel that way (about anonymity). OTOH, I've known of several instances at other sites where it turned out that the posters most loudly creating suspicions of those who prefer to post anonymously turned out to be posting anonymously themselves.
We really have no way of knowing if, for instance, John Smith is who he says he is, or if "John Smith" is nothing more than an intricately-developed alias created by some weird person who spent too much time as a child playing Dungeons and Dragons.
April 23, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
There need to be some real concrete guidelines (including examples) of what types of behavior will result in banning.
Public warnings of unacceptable behavior in a form similiar to "strike one", etc should be issued to offending posters with the calling of the "third strike" resulting in "you're out". If banning is in the form of a defined "time out" or permanent, that info should also be a part of the public record.
I can't stress enough that this system needs to be transparent and public as TPM has a bad track record of "disappearing" posters. In addition, public