Red Diamond Threads

[classical_hero]

Well, I was going to just post my views on how the first 90 days of the RD thread trial had been going and I find three pages of folks complaining because they feel the right to publicly hate dead people has been violated. And all because a mod preempted the expected hateful posts by changing the status to RD.

The point of an RD is about serious discussion, not the stopping of hurtful posts. If someone does that, then it does not matter if it is in a RD thread or not. I think a better option would have been a warning to say that this thread is to pay respects for the dead, and ask people if they want to make some other comment, then start a new thread for those discussions. The spirit of a RD thread is about discussion, not the rightness or wrongness of the discussion, which is Why I don't think the the Steve Job's thread deserves to be a RD thread. That does not mean the intention of the Moderator was wrong, just that it blurs the line of the purpose of RD threads. Is it just a means to get people serious about discussion, or just a tool to make moderation more strict in such threads?

I couldn't decide between 97% and 98% so I decided to allow for both options.

So you come from the Fox News statistics school of learning.

 

[Mise]

Like I've been saying, we shouldn't have cast the RD icon as an indicator of serious discussion in the first place. It should simply have been an indicator that the thread is going to have stricter moderation. If you had done that, then there wouldn't have been so much confusion or fuss. As CH said, discussing the negative aspects of Steve Jobs's actions and personality is (or can be) perfectly serious discussion, but was not allowed in the RD-designated Jobs thread. Indeed, it's very difficult to have a "serious discussion" about somebody's death: one naturally defaults to saying things like "RIP, Steve - you will be missed", and other bland statements of condolence that clearly don't lend themselves to serious discussion. What's more, the serious discussions that did develop over the course of the thread were actually split off into non-RD threads. The usage of the RD icon has been completely incongruous with the idea of "serious discussion". We should just tear up the whole idea that RD is supposed to mean "serious discussion"; the OP should be changed to remove from the idea that RD threads are an indicator of "serious discussion", and remove the explicit desire that all "serious discussion" should have the RD designation.

The RD designation is clearly not being used synonymously with "serious discussion", so why continue to pretend that that is what it is for? At any rate it is, as I've been saying, much more powerful as a tool to ward off possibly offensive posts from highly charged, contentious threads, as the Jobs thread aptly demonstrates.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

But I can't think of any active mod who would have a problem with admitting a mistake if it's been made.

I can.

 

[choxorn]

Like I've been saying, we shouldn't have cast the RD icon as an indicator of serious discussion in the first place. It should simply have been an indicator that the thread is going to have stricter moderation. If you had done that, then there wouldn't have been so much confusion or fuss. As CH said, discussing the negative aspects of Steve Jobs's actions and personality is (or can be) perfectly serious discussion, but was not allowed in the RD-designated Jobs thread. Indeed, it's very difficult to have a "serious discussion" about somebody's death: one naturally defaults to saying things like "RIP, Steve - you will be missed", and other bland statements of condolence that clearly don't lend themselves to serious discussion. What's more, the serious discussions that did develop over the course of the thread were actually split off into non-RD threads. The usage of the RD icon has been completely incongruous with the idea of "serious discussion". We should just tear up the whole idea that RD is supposed to mean "serious discussion"; the OP should be changed to remove from the idea that RD threads are an indicator of "serious discussion", and remove the explicit desire that all "serious discussion" should have the RD designation.

The RD designation is clearly not being used synonymously with "serious discussion", so why continue to pretend that that is what it is for? At any rate it is, as I've been saying, much more powerful as a tool to ward off possibly offensive posts from highly charged, contentious threads, as the Jobs thread aptly demonstrates.

I agree with 100% of this post.

 

[Defiant47]

Like I've been saying, we shouldn't have cast the RD icon as an indicator of serious discussion in the first place. It should simply have been an indicator that the thread is going to have stricter moderation. If you had done that, then there wouldn't have been so much confusion or fuss. As CH said, discussing the negative aspects of Steve Jobs's actions and personality is (or can be) perfectly serious discussion, but was not allowed in the RD-designated Jobs thread. Indeed, it's very difficult to have a "serious discussion" about somebody's death: one naturally defaults to saying things like "RIP, Steve - you will be missed", and other bland statements of condolence that clearly don't lend themselves to serious discussion. What's more, the serious discussions that did develop over the course of the thread were actually split off into non-RD threads. The usage of the RD icon has been completely incongruous with the idea of "serious discussion". We should just tear up the whole idea that RD is supposed to mean "serious discussion"; the OP should be changed to remove from the idea that RD threads are an indicator of "serious discussion", and remove the explicit desire that all "serious discussion" should have the RD designation.

The RD designation is clearly not being used synonymously with "serious discussion", so why continue to pretend that that is what it is for? At any rate it is, as I've been saying, much more powerful as a tool to ward off possibly offensive posts from highly charged, contentious threads, as the Jobs thread aptly demonstrates.

This, I believe, is the main source of confusion and discontent in terms of the Red Diamond Initiative. It is nigh-impossible to designate "serious discussion" without inherent moderation variability - these threads should instead be treated as "stricter moderation" which can usually lead to serious discussion.

But the way we have it now, we have users who are complaining that the mods are stricter while the role of "serious discussion" isn't achieved to their levels and standards. And mods trying to apply "serious discussion" in as impartial a way as possible, which isn't going to be that impartial due to the differences in mods, naturally - and then getting called on it by users because it wasn't impartial enough or it wasn't serious discussion enough (or too much).

Just call it the "Red Diamond Tool" which brings on stricter moderation. And leave it at that.

 

[Mise]

I've been saying this since July and nothing's changed, so I don't expect it to change any time soon.

 

[Akka]

Just call it the "Red Diamond Tool" which brings on stricter moderation. And leave it at that.

But then, what's the point of having threads with stricter moderation ?

 

[Defiant47]

But then, what's the point of having threads with stricter moderation ?

To encourage and foster more serious discussion.

 

[Boundless]

But then, what's the point of having threads with stricter moderation ?

To discourage and orphan more entertaining discussion.

 

[EnglishCrusader]

But then, what's the point of having threads with stricter moderation ?

To unindisencourage and give birth to more trolling discussions.

 

[Kozmos]

But then, what's the point of having threads with stricter moderation ?

Making CFC even more SRS BZNS.

 

[choxorn]

But then, what's the point of having threads with stricter moderation ?

Making threads that are SRZ BZNS have more stricter moderation to unindisenunindiscourage trolling.

 

[illram]

Moderator Action: Remember this is an RD thread everyone.

 

[JollyRoger]

RIP unstifled discussion.

 

[Kozmos]

RIP unstifled discussion.

Moderator Action: Remember this is an RD thread everyone.

And the point proves itself.

Just bring it back the way it used to be. You know...where people could have serious discussions and other people could chime in small comments and jokes. The serious discussion people would be in no way impacted by the joke/small commenty people (scrolling for extra two seconds is not a hassle) and could converse their serious business unimpeded. As for the people who were not being serious business correctly, there is an IGNORE function on this website.

 

[Defiant47]

And the point proves itself.

Just bring it back the way it used to be. You know...where people could have serious discussions and other people could chime in small comments and jokes. The serious discussion people would be in no way impacted by the joke/small commenty people (scrolling for extra two seconds is not a hassle) and could converse their serious business unimpeded. As for the people who were not being serious business correctly, there is an IGNORE function on this website.

This is still possible.

It's the "abstain from creating a red diamond thread" way.

 

[GamezRule]

Wasn't this mainly to stop trolling in Ask a Red? Why not just keep a bigger eye out for trolling?

 

[Mise]

This is still possible.

It's the "abstain from creating a red diamond thread" way.

Yeah exactly. If you don't want to use the RD option, you don't have to. If you want to start a non-RD thread on the same topic as an RD thread, you can. If you never go into an RD thread because you don't want stricter moderation, then at worst nothing will have changed for you, and ideally you will notice that there is actually looser moderation in the threads you do go into (as per the OP).

BTW, BirdJag, is the two-speed policy going to be permanent? I.e. will we always be allowed to have non-RD and RD threads side-by-side on the same topic? If so, please for the love of god change the OP so that you can explain clearly and accurately how RD threads are actually supposed to be used. The way it's described now is frankly terrible; it doesn't reflect how RD actually works in practice, it has a whole bunch of scary future intentions that alienate most of the users and have turned a lot of people against it, and in any case the way it's described in the OP is nowhere near the best way to make use out of RD. So please change it...

 

[Dreadnought]

This is still possible.

It's the "abstain from creating a red diamond thread" way.

That is to say, as long as a mod doesn't make it into a RD thread anyways.

 

[Akka]

To encourage and foster more serious discussion.

Let me show it under another light : why moderation should have different standards ?