Red Diamond Threads

So if we were to allow two threads on the same news item; one RD and one non-RD, how would that pan out in terms of activity? History seems to suggest that people are generally attracted to a fire. Troll threads often get very high activity. Does this mean that the worse of the two threads will be preferred, because it gives people more of an opportunity to troll, or to observe trolls, or to watch others squirm? What happens when a moderator action is posted in the RD thread to improve the quality? Wouldn't it just be easier for the poster in question to take it to the non-RD thread, rather than actually being bothered to think about what they're posting? Doesn't this create an echo chamber? And wouldn't this drag with them those that they are arguing against (because there is someone WRONG in the other thread)? Is that an accurate representation of what people prefer? I'd be tempted to follow a conversation to the non-RD thread if it meant there was someone to actually argue against, but in reality I'd most likely prefer to be arguing against them in a situation in which they had to abide by the RD standard. But because I would've jumped ship to the non-RD thread, it gets my activity instead, and the RD thread dies. I think a lot of the time unless you've got two sides who are willing to engage in a civil and productive discussion it's a race to the bottom in terms of posting quality. If one side of the argument doesn't want to play ball and discuss an issue, then they'll move the conversation to being of a lower quality. RD threads largely work on the basis of 'if you want to discuss this issue, please abide by these standards/conventions', but if on any given topic you can instead go and not abide by those standards/conventions, can they actually be upheld?

Perhaps that's a rather pessimistic view of what would happen. How do you think two simultaneously running threads on the same news item would pan out if one were RD and one non-RD?
To me this sounds like you're not trying to improve threads with RD, but try to educate the people posting here to be more respectable and lift their game. Noble intentions, but doomed to fail as we both know. If the non-RD thread gets more traction because people are allowed to bicker, I too think that's unfortunate but it is "what the people want".

But the one thing I find odd is ... are we allowing trolls to troll in non-RD threads all of a sudden? I heard about the less strict moderation, but I was arguing under the assumption that forum rules with regard to flaming and trolling also apply to non-RD threads.

Second, while you have been urging us to wait and see how things pan out with RD threads, you are pretty quick to predict and condemn what will happen with parallel RD and non-RD threads. When we had the two homophobia threads, I'd be very happy with an RD thread where we could seriously discuss this, and yes, maybe mosey over to the non-RD thread as well.

So, like some wise man once said, why don't you give it a try and see how it works out?

You know.

Kind of like you asked of us. :)
 
So if I'm arguing with someone in an RD thread, and they get told to lift their game, but instead take the easy way out and vacate to the non-RD thread, with me following to continue the argument, does that mean that I deep down or subconsciously want a more trollish thread rather than an RD thread?
Yes. If poster A and poster B are arguing, but poster B's posts are trollish enough to fall below the requirements for an RD thread, poster A can choose for himself whether he wants to pursue the trolly comments in the non-RD thread, or have a more mature discussion in the RD thread. If poster A chooses the non-RD route, then that's his choice - he wants to engage in knowingly trollish comments. If a troll leaves an RD thread for a non-RD thread because he keeps getting hit by infractions then the RD thread has worked. RD chases trolls away - that's a good thing...

And with the RD/non-RD distinction, it becomes much easier to detect and avoid trolling. Why? Because moderators won't allow it in RD threads. So as long as the moderators are doing their jobs, there is no good reason why an individual with his own free will should choose to respond to trolls unless that individual wants to respond to trolls. Nobody's putting a gun to your head and forcing you to respond to trolls in a non-RD thread.

You make a choice whether you want to pursue the troll. A CHOICE. It's not that difficult a concept.
 
To me this sounds like you're not trying to improve threads with RD, but try to educate the people posting here to be more respectable and lift their game. Noble intentions, but doomed to fail as we both know. If the non-RD thread gets more traction because people are allowed to bicker, I too think that's unfortunate but it is "what the people want".
It's not even about "what the people want". Why should I care that the non-RD thread has 1000 posts whereas the RD thread has 100? If the 100 posts are of higher quality than the 1000 trolly/spammy/flamey/baity posts in the non-RD thread, then that's great for someone who wants quality over quantity -- who doesn't want to wade through piles and piles of crap to get to a nugget of insight. Why should I care that there are more people posting in that other thread than in this thread?

RD is supposed to be about the quality of posts, so why all this focus on quantity of a sudden?
 
Good point.

And besides all that, this is such a specific case I don't believe it'll occur often enough to warrant this kind of resistance to the concept. For this to occur, the non-RD thread would have to have deteriorated to the extend discussion becomes near impossible. Most of us are experienced enough to filter out the drive-by noise when having a serious discussion. We've been doing it for years. A thread has to be pretty effed up before I'd consider I can't see the discussion from all the trolls. Next, the OP has to object to making his/her thread an RD one. Next, many times arguments within a thread differ slightly from the main trust of the thread so the new RD thread often will not be a mirror image from the thread it spawned from. It'll be an aside, or focus on one specific element.
 
Quality is more important than quantity, but quantity has to be more than 0. RD threads (and threads in general) don't work as an echo chamber.

To me this sounds like you're not trying to improve threads with RD, but try to educate the people posting here to be more respectable and lift their game. Noble intentions, but doomed to fail as we both know. If the non-RD thread gets more traction because people are allowed to bicker, I too think that's unfortunate but it is "what the people want".

The first sentence here confuses me a little, because we're trying to do both. That is, we're trying to do the latter to achieve the former. With 'educate' being used in the least patronising way (strongly encourage would be better). Hopefully encouraging people to be more respectful and to lift their game will achieve an improvement in RD threads. I'm hopeful that that isn't doomed to failure (and there is another policy that will be very soon put in place (alluded to earlier in this thread) that will hopefully, for one, increase the chances of RD being inevitably successful). I'm pretty happy with it so far, at least!

Another interesting point is 'what the people want'. How far does that principle extend? Obviously we are very keenly interested in what people want (and this is why we made a change in the first place; even if you don't like the specifics of the change, it's largely borne out of the fact that a lot of people have been clamouring for something), but that doesn't mean we have a rule of the majority (or a rule of the vocal majority, as the case may be). Quite a few people have expressed a desire to be able to flame others, for example. That's not going to happen, no matter how many people want it. I'm sure quite a few people would like to post nude pictures in the babe thread. Not going to happen either. So where do we place the type of posts that RD threads are meant to deal with? Are they something that we don't allow, regardless of some people wanting them or not? Or is that type of behaviour okay with the onus being on those bothered by it to avoid it? Is there agreement on the principle that we shouldn't have rule by the majority (if a majority of people wanted to post nude pictures in the babe thread, should we then allow it)?

So, like some wise man once said, why don't you give it a try and see how it works out?

Well, that's what we are doing. Same with the whole not-forcing-RD-designation thing. At this stage we're just arguing to flesh out the issue a bit (so for those of you expressing massive concern, no need to lock your windows tonight, the moderators aren't coming to steal away your children). :p

Discussion goes alongside practice, and hopefully others well help your predictions come true.
 
As I already said, it's not about making a one-size-fits-all solution. It's about giving people a CHOICE between two different solutions. I don't know why you're harping on about "majority rule" -- what we're suggesting is the exact opposite of majority rule. People who want tighter standards post in the RD thread; people who want looser standards post in the non-RD thread. Everybody wins. Where's the problem?

This has the potential to solve a lot of problems. It's just a shame that the moderators like to invent new problems instead.
 
Majority rule in the sense of the majority wanting to be able to do x, even if x is disruptive. We don't just allow x because it's 'what the people want' as Ziggy was saying (that is, he was saying that if the majority of people want to post in a non-RD thread, so be it), even though it obviously is a large factor. To take 'everybody wins' to the extreme, it would be a problem if 'winning' for some people meant flaming others.
 
Okay, so you're saying, "if we have a RD and non-RD thread, what should be allowed in the non-RD thread?"

Let's take this in two stages. Lets assume for now that non-RD threads are moderated as they are at present, so that the current line-skaters will continue to do so, and non-RD threads continue to take the general tone (for better or worse) that they currently do. Can we first get an agreement that non-RD threads will be allowed alongside RD threads on this basis?

Then we can move to stage two: What will be allowed in non-RD threads? In stage 2, we can discuss whether we want looser-than-present moderation in non-RD threads, e.g. greater latitude to post more spammy one-liners, picture-only posts, more banter, more partisan politicking, more "fun", etc in non-RD politics/economics threads.

But first we need to agree that non-RD threads and RD threads on the same subject can peacefully coexist. Can we agree to that please?
 
Cami, you misunderstood. I'm not saying allow x-type of behaviour when the majority wants it. I was referring the preference people have with regard to the choice of people posting in an RD or non-RD thread.
 
@Mise- Yeah, this is assuming the coexistence of non-RD threads and RD threads on the same topic (note: for the sake of argument, not because we've actually made a permanent decision (although I think it'd be fine for now and for the sake of experimentation if you were to start a thread on an existing topic with a different designation)). And that is the essential question. The idea as posted in the OP was assuming that all serious discussions would migrate to this standard, so we're figuring out what is acceptable if we are allowing non-RD threads (as we are at the moment). The idea originally assumed that non-RD behaviour would be gone from all serious discussions, because all serious discussions would be RD. So in still allowing non-RD threads, do we still allow the behaviour that we had identified as a problem worth eradication? The baseline we've gone from is that a certain type of behaviour causes problems in threads on serious topics. The first objection was (IIRC) that not all threads on 'serious' topics were serious themselves (you may want a light-hearted politics thread, for instance), not that that behaviour that we'd identified wasn't a problem. That splits threads on 'serious' topics up into RD threads and lighter threads. What we're talking about here is yet another type of thread. It isn't light in the sense of one-liners and puns, because it's quite heavy argument, just with laxer standards and more bickering. RD threads can be moderated as planned, and those lighter threads on 'serious' topics aren't too tricky either, because we can just take them as before but ease off a bit. But what of this other category? The problem originally identified still exists.

@Ziggy- my point is more that if we have identified the difference in behaviour between RD standard and non-RD standard as a 'problem', then letting people vote with their feet and participate in a non-RD thread is letting them engage in that 'problem' behaviour.
 
It was only a problem for a certain subset of the forum. That subset now has a solution: RD threads. I see no reason why the existing rules and moderation standards for politics/economics threads can't continue in non-RD threads. The status quo was a problem for some users; those users now have a solution. Those who like the status quo will see no change. So we're all happy!

The status quo, don't forget, means still infracting trolling, still infracting flaming, and still enforcing the current set of rules. Trolls and flames are not allowed in threads at present; in Stage 1, they still wouldn't be allowed in any threads. Line-skaters would continue to skate the line in non-RD threads, that's true - but those who have a problem with line-skaters can eliminate them from discussions by creating threads with an RD on it.

Once we agree to that, we can move on to Stage 2 and decide whether there should be greater latitude given to the kind of partisan bickering that both Roman and American Senators engage in on a daily basis. But you should discuss that with Mark1031, JollyRoger, etc as they are better placed to argue for that.
 
I'll just chip in here to agree with Ziggy and Mise: virtually identical threads - one RD and one non-RD - has no downside, to my thinking. If someone is posting in RD and can't maintain the necessary standards and takes their argument to the non-RD thread, then yay. On the flip side, if the non-RD thread gets too crap-heavy, people will migrate to the RD thread. It is essentially self-balancing. The joy is that the usual trollish posters will not be able to essentially derail all OT discussion of a topic via strawmanning a single thread any more.
 
Cami, I still don't get what you mean by that last remark: "if we have identified the difference in behaviour between RD standard and non-RD standard as a 'problem'".

I'm not sure what kind of behaviour you're referring to. I don't see light-hearted discussion, discussions using every argument trick in the book, along with joke-posts and other kinds of less serious posting as problematic. If you're talking about the trolling, the flaming and the appreciation of Friends episodes, I feel that still falls under the usual forum rules of respectively: infraction, infraction and ban for life.
 
So it seems that if a non-RD thread becomes too non-RD, then there is the threat to move it to RD. Is the opposite true? If a RD thread gets too RD and boring, can it be moved to non-RD to liven it up a bit?
 
So it seems that if a non-RD thread becomes too non-RD, then there is the threat to move it to RD. Is the opposite true? If a RD thread gets too RD and boring, can it be moved to non-RD to liven it up a bit?

That's... actually brilliant.

Let's do this. It'll be a game. Who knows where the thread's going! Are we facing a crackdown or about to party it up?? YOU DECIDE
 
Choose your own adventure!
 
It was only a problem for a certain subset of the forum. That subset now has a solution: RD threads. I see no reason why the existing rules and moderation standards for politics/economics threads can't continue in non-RD threads. The status quo was a problem for some users; those users now have a solution. Those who like the status quo will see no change. So we're all happy!

The status quo, don't forget, means still infracting trolling, still infracting flaming, and still enforcing the current set of rules. Trolls and flames are not allowed in threads at present; in Stage 1, they still wouldn't be allowed in any threads. Line-skaters would continue to skate the line in non-RD threads, that's true - but those who have a problem with line-skaters can eliminate them from discussions by creating threads with an RD on it.

Once we agree to that, we can move on to Stage 2 and decide whether there should be greater latitude given to the kind of partisan bickering that both Roman and American Senators engage in on a daily basis. But you should discuss that with Mark1031, JollyRoger, etc as they are better placed to argue for that.
I am deliberately keeping the pace of change pretty slow and trying not to make final decisions now. So far I haven't seen any downsides to having an RD designation. they are not so abundant that they cannot be moderated, and I think that posters are taking the idea seriously.

I hope that there has been a lighter land in other threads. I am willing to withhold judgment on duplicate threads until we have lived with them a bit to see how it all unfolds. There is no urgency to decide at this moment.

I do see value in discussions about this as we go along, and i am grateful that Cami is so active here. We tend to see things from different perspectives and his is valuable to any thorough discussion.

ATM normal rules apply to the non RD discussions and we can certainly assess them as we adjust to these changes.

I'll just chip in here to agree with Ziggy and Mise: virtually identical threads - one RD and one non-RD - has no downside, to my thinking. If someone is posting in RD and can't maintain the necessary standards and takes their argument to the non-RD thread, then yay. On the flip side, if the non-RD thread gets too crap-heavy, people will migrate to the RD thread. It is essentially self-balancing. The joy is that the usual trollish posters will not be able to essentially derail all OT discussion of a topic via strawmanning a single thread any more.
So far dupe threads seem ok to allow and if they become havens for trolls and bickering that gets too uncivil, we will certainly deal with that. Time should take us to some
"new normal".

Thank you all for your contributions.
 
What is the point of RD? It appears that RD standards are being applied to non-RD threads.

Well...they aren't. If you are contributing to a train wreck in a non-RD thread (for example), you're still going to get infracted. If you troll in a non-RD thread (for example), you're still going to get infracted. That's not really to do with RD standards, because it's not acceptable either way.

I think it's pretty noticeable that the type of moderator warnings that have been placed in many RD threads have not been replicated in non-RD threads.
 
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