A Policy Announcement, A New Forum & Spring Cleaning

Submitted by ziq admin in meta (edited )

Announcement

f/mediation has been created as suggested by Leftous. Disputes between users will be settled there from now on instead of in f/meta. Users can refer others to that forum when we see they're in conflict.

f/meta ban proposals that don't involve clear ToS violations will be deleted or locked and the users will be referred to f/mediation instead.

Requests for mediation between users can be made by anyone in f/mediation. Put their usernames in the thread title and/or pm them so they see it. If you wish to remain anonymous, pm one of the f/mediation mods and ask them to intervene for you.

Anyone with experience in solving disputes, psychology, counselling, etc please reply and I'll mod you there.

I'll add the policy change to the wiki.

Spring Cleaning

I went through the forums list and deleted about 20 forums that were created months ago but still had no posts. I'm also going to remove any mods that haven't logged in for at least 3 months.

When so many of the forums are completely bare, it reflects poorly on the quality of the site. Please don't make forums if you have no intention of submitting content to them.

EDITED

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Comments

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

Something about this isn't sitting well with me, and I think it's how much power this gives to the admins, as well as how much work it gives to the admins.

I think instead of this relatively big and cumbersome process mediated by admins where there is a complaint in f/meta and then a motion to move to f/mediation, then the submission in f/meta gets locked until (if ever) things work out in f/mediation, rather we should have complaints about people go straight to f/mediation, and there's just one place where it all happens?

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

I never intended admins to be part of the mediation process. We'd just send a pm request to the people if they're for some reason refusing to answer calls by other users to go to f/mediation (and a proposal is made to get us to intervene)

I'll reword it.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

My thought is that under this system, unless admins are locking the original f/meta complaint, there are just going to be two places where arguments are happening instead of one, which I think would defeat the point. But if we're locking the thread then we are too involved in it, because we decide when it's locked and when it's unlocked and will probably have to manage that decision.

And all of this is actually only going to make sense if the invisible forums thing goes through, which emma hasn't said anything about yet.

Will have a look at your changed wording when it's up :)

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

Locking/unlocking wouldn't work because locked threads would have fallen to like page 10 by the time the mediation process is over. It would have been a new proposal after mediation failed.

But you're right, makes more sense just to have all users with interpersonal conflicts go straight to f/mediation and leave f/meta just for real ToS violations and policy changes.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

There will probably still be some moving things over either way, since there will be arguments about what is or isn't a clear ToS violation. For example, the recent post by u/Chomskyist could have been framed as a ToS violation because of the perceived ableism.

I suppose we can figure that out when it happens.

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ziq OP wrote

Would we have referred the /u/whatsthepoint ban thread to mediation?

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

Well presumably the u/whatsthepoint thing would have gone to mediation some time before anybody wanted to ban them - it was quite a while of buildup before any ban action took place where loads of people were having trouble with them.

If they then unveiled themselves as an unsalvageable asshole the ban proposal would get made and go from there.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

So that we're on the same page, how would you change what I put in the sidebar?

Disputes between users or groups that don't involve clear ToS violations should be solved in f/mediation before admins are asked to intervene. If you think mediation is necessary but the users in question don't seem open to it, you can ask that the users be referred to f/mediation by admins by creating a proposal here.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

hm.
I'm not sure I'd change much. Maybe just italicise/embolden the word "clear".

That said, having f/mediation be a place where people argue things messily seems fine to me. I don't want there to be no place for people on raddle to be at each other's throats - I think that it's bound to happen and that we shouldn't try to enforce healing and reconciliation.

I'd imagined it more like a place where u/chomskyist would have made their post, that allows for the shitshow that follows to exist, while less partial actors working to reconcile the people involved.

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ziq OP wrote

Yeah so that would mean ban proposals could still happen in f/mediation. Unless we ask people to say 'can we talk about this person?' instead of 'ban this person'..?

About the sidebar text, if other users ask warring people to go to f/mediation and they refuse, admins asking them to go isn't likely to make a difference either. I think I'll remove that part.

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

Ban proposals in f/mediation for established users seems about right to me.

But also perhaps making explicit that it's ok to have a flame war in f/mediation, that f/mediation has the dual purpose of allowing people to have their arguments and have their say, and also providing a space for healing and reconciliation.

Since I'm a bit worried the place will become policey.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

Ok, I reworded and changed it so that the mediation requests don't go through f/meta. But now my concern is - what if the users refuse to go to f/mediation to resolve their issue? Can a ban proposal be made in f/meta then?

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

I was thinking we could do ban proposals in f/mediation as we did in f/meta.

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ziq OP wrote (edited )

I don't know about that. A lot of ban proposals are against trolls, reactionaries and spammers, they wouldn't be eligible for mediation. Shouldn't f/mediation be just for established users or at least users posting in good faith?

EDIT: Unless you mean only ban proposals against users that failed mediation?

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An_Old_Big_Tree wrote

Right, I'd forgotten about the distinction between established users or not. For now leaving f/mediation as the default for established users or ones who appear to be working in good faith, and f/meta bans for clear cases seems ok.

Otherwise, I couldn't say - we might have to go with a case-by-case basis until we have more experience with this approach.

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