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Log Posting Standards
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@GF I actually hadn’t read the whole thing, because it takes me a long time to read anything in logs that isn’t dialogue.
So my question remains: how are we to weigh evidence we aren’t allowed to examine?
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@Pavel said in Log Posting Standards:
On the topic of logs in general, and perhaps this log in particular, I would want moderation regarding them to be without concern for the contents of the log.
If we are to have serious discussions about abusive, manipulative, or predatory people and their impacts – and to judge their validity – then we need access to evidence and counter-evidence if it is offered, even if the contents of the log are potentially horrifying.I would therefore establish three standards:
- Logs posted must have some context as to their posting if the context is unclear from the thread. It need not be true, noble, or other ideals but must be present.
- Logs containing anything that a television show or a movie would require a rating higher than PG to show must be behind a spoiler tag with trauma/content warnings visible.
- The poster must anonymise the logs as much as is practical without removing context-relevant information. Replacing character names with player monikers, and so forth.
I don’t believe that these standards are arduous, nor subjective, enough to cause problems.
I agree with points one and two, but personally, don’t agree with three. If you are posting a log about a bad actor, you should be able to name-and-shame that actor. Doing so might be relevant to who is posing in the log (or paging).
If we had half a log where one person is anonymized and the other isn’t, like in this example, and then the person did actually come back with a log that showed the anonymized person harassed the other player in the first half of the log, they should be able to post that person’s name.
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@KarmaBum said in Log Posting Standards:
@GF I actually hadn’t read the whole thing, because it takes me a long time to read anything in logs that isn’t dialogue.
So my question remains: how are we to weigh evidence we aren’t allowed to examine?
We trust the administrators to do their jobs, or we don’t.
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@GF said in Log Posting Standards:
@KarmaBum said in Log Posting Standards:
@GF I actually hadn’t read the whole thing, because it takes me a long time to read anything in logs that isn’t dialogue.
So my question remains: how are we to weigh evidence we aren’t allowed to examine?
We trust the administrators to do their jobs, or we don’t.
I mean, this is a forum founded because another forum’s admin went a little wild and started banning everyone. And that forum was based, at least partially, that admins on games can’t always be trusted to do their job and we needed to collectively call things out.
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@GF said in Log Posting Standards:
@KarmaBum said in Log Posting Standards:
@GF I actually hadn’t read the whole thing, because it takes me a long time to read anything in logs that isn’t dialogue.
So my question remains: how are we to weigh evidence we aren’t allowed to examine?
We trust the administrators to do their jobs, or we don’t.
And yet it seems to me that a vocal minority that pushed against the log being kept up was the large factor in it being taken down And when it was taken down, the majority of the forum seemed to really press against that decision…
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@GF said in Log Posting Standards:
Then presumably we would look at the evidence to support such a conclusion, and act based on an analysis of that evidence.
@GF said in Log Posting Standards:
We trust the administrators to do their jobs, or we don’t.
You need to change the first one, then. To say “we let the forum mods look at the evidence.”
You’re abdicating responsibility entirely to them. Which is fine.
It’s not what I’M here for, as @Meg said, 'cause while I trust the mods right now… I also trusted Ganymede and she hired Derp.
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@GF said in Log Posting Standards:
@hellfrog said in Log Posting Standards:
In the absence of stated intentions or feelings, we are just ascribing them.
Yes. People who intend to harass others very rarely preface their forum posts by stating, “FYI, my intention in writing this is to harass one or more people.” We’re kind of stuck inferring intent from method and outcome.
Is it better to infantalize someone and imply they have no agency than to attempt to humiliate them? What’s the standard for assumptions?
So, people have to meet some standard of noble intention to be able to post logs?
I’d personally settle for not outing someone whose identity was protected in the previously posted, nearly identical version of the log already available. Don’t really care about nobility.
This was corrected, and it wasn’t enough for you. The goalpost kept moving.
We decide what is humiliating or not for other people?
There are quotes on this board of people saying they found it traumatic to read.
None of those people are in the log in question. One of the people who said they found it traumatic also posted the log.
What if a gamerunner is posting a log but some of us feel the intention is to humiliate someone?
Then presumably we would look at the evidence to support such a conclusion, and act based on an analysis of that evidence.
Is it ok to post a humiliating log as long as it’s of someone who is a ‘bad actor’ or accused as such?
What if the person we think it intends to humiliate is the accused bad actor, is it ok then?
Ideally no, but this forum does kind of thrive on naming individuals as the enemy du jour.
Yes, I’m glad you realize what a main purpose of this subsection of the community is and has always been about. You’ve certainly participated in it.
Does my opinion on this get weighted more if I say I am ‘very, very upset’?
Why wouldn’t it? Why wouldn’t its effect on you matter?
Because this is about a roleplaying scene on an internet game. As long as the thing I’m participating in is taking reasonable steps (IE content warnings and protecting personal information), it is up to me and no one but me to regulate my emotional state. If reading something is going to upset me terribly, I should probably not read it.
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It’s a bit skeevy that this was a log of a private, intimate scene between two people and it was posted as the sole focus of a thread that neither party verifiably is participating in.
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I think the way it was posted was gross. I can’t ascribe any positive intent behind it, yet there are plenty of indicators that suggest it was done to stoke the fires.
- Posted by a new account without identifying themself
- Posted without explanation or context
- Posted with a wheedling title
- Posted without the victim’s name removed
- No followup response explaining why it was posted.
Taking these indicators into account, and considering the grave nature of the log, I believe it was posted with malicious intent, or at the very least, trolly intent. That’s why I don’t think it’s okay to keep the log up. I don’t believe we should be condoning this behavior by keeping it live.
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Let’s call a spade a spade here, if the concern is solely about the other person being identified in the 2nd log… welp, hate to say this but it was incredibly easy to figure out who it was from the log posted by Cobalt, too.
Regardless, I don’t think we should be taking logs down on the basis of context vs no context. Remove logs that are about underage beastiality TS tho because that violates a whole other rule imo.
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@Meg said in Log Posting Standards:
@Pavel said in Log Posting Standards:
On the topic of logs in general, and perhaps this log in particular, I would want moderation regarding them to be without concern for the contents of the log.
If we are to have serious discussions about abusive, manipulative, or predatory people and their impacts – and to judge their validity – then we need access to evidence and counter-evidence if it is offered, even if the contents of the log are potentially horrifying.I would therefore establish three standards:
- Logs posted must have some context as to their posting if the context is unclear from the thread. It need not be true, noble, or other ideals but must be present.
- Logs containing anything that a television show or a movie would require a rating higher than PG to show must be behind a spoiler tag with trauma/content warnings visible.
- The poster must anonymise the logs as much as is practical without removing context-relevant information. Replacing character names with player monikers, and so forth.
I don’t believe that these standards are arduous, nor subjective, enough to cause problems.
I agree with points one and two, but personally, don’t agree with three. If you are posting a log about a bad actor, you should be able to name-and-shame that actor. Doing so might be relevant to who is posing in the log (or paging).
If we had half a log where one person is anonymized and the other isn’t, like in this example, and then the person did actually come back with a log that showed the anonymized person harassed the other player in the first half of the log, they should be able to post that person’s name.
Mmm, that’s a good point I hadn’t considered. That could count as context-relevant information… but I do want to try and mitigate people having their name dragged around in association with a bad actor.
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@Pax said in Log Posting Standards:
This is what abusers do. They humiliate you by showing everyone that you were OK with what was happening up until a point.
This log wasn’t posted to convince us of anything. It wasn’t posted to make Macha look better. It was posted to humiliate someone she felt humiliated by, because she was rejected and reported.
This is my concern.
The other party may not even be on this site to ask for it to come down.
the entity previously known as Sunny
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@IoleRae said in Log Posting Standards:
@Pax said in Log Posting Standards:
This is what abusers do. They humiliate you by showing everyone that you were OK with what was happening up until a point.
This log wasn’t posted to convince us of anything. It wasn’t posted to make Macha look better. It was posted to humiliate someone she felt humiliated by, because she was rejected and reported.
This is my concern.
The other party may not even be on this site to ask for it to come down.
Again, THIS LOG IS STILL OUT THERE ON THE FORUM and we don’t even know if they had consented to having their log posted in the first place??? Like, if we’re going to take down the log on that one post, take down the log on the other one too.
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@bear_necessities no, that one is ok! She said so.
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It is my opinion that there is a significant difference between the log that Cobalt posted and the log that the other person posted, yes.
the entity previously known as Sunny
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@IoleRae Please explain the significant difference WHEN IT IS THE SAME LOG.
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@bear_necessities I think I come down on this side of it, too. If we are removing a log because it might read as harassment, I don’t think we should have that log on the forums at all. I don’t see how it fundamentally changes the potential for discomfort and hurt just because Cobalt posted the log rather than a new forum user. In fact, maybe logs just shouldn’t be posted by forum users at all because of the potential for harassment.
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At this point, I can’t tell if people are being sarcastic.
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At the risk of just reiterating what others have said, I have to say I very much disagree with removing the log. Trusting individual actors on the board to make their own decisions regarding something by seeing the evidence for themselves is better than just having someone say ‘just trust us, you didn’t want to see it’.
Which wasn’t actually the case here, but the precedent can easily lead to such excuses in the future. The removal of the log might not be a slippery slope, but it sure as hell is a well waxed one.
@Pavel said in Log Posting Standards:
@hellfrog said in Log Posting Standards:
What difference does it make? I’m asking sincerely.
The main benefit that I can see, and it’s a slim one, is to potentially remove the need for anyone to have to assume intent, context, who it’s from, etc.
It’s not perfect, but it’s better than having this same conversation again and again.
But won’t you just be having the same conversation all over again anyway, only now it will be about if the reason the log was posted stated was sufficient for the log to stay up?
While I definitely think providing some kind of reasoning as to why an actor is posting a log is helpful and should be encouraged, I don’t think requiring it helps in any way. It’s just an extra bit one has to tack on. Perhaps not onerous, but it’s just one thing that pointlessly bureaucratizes something that should be easy.
I’m also not sure if requiring anonymizing the log is useful, either. As stated by others, the actors involved in the scene were easily discernible by the scene context and MU* involved. Someone without that context or knowledge of the particular MU* wouldn’t know who these characters are anyway, and those that do would be able to figure it out pretty easily. Again, I don’t know what you get by requiring this other than more pointless bureaucracy.
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Now that I’m more free to express my opinion, I want to add a more personal note.
Being told that I’m condoning harassment and contributing to the victimisation of someone because I didn’t immediately see things from someone else’s point of view? Utterly disgraceful and condescending, and I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice.
“Admin should be able to make judgements on things” well we did, and you wailed at us because our judgement was different to yours.
I’m not saying you have to agree with every decision being made, but if you demand people see things from your point of view then you need to try your damnedest to see it from theirs.
The whole point of that admin team is that you didn’t really need to trust us. We had really simple rules, and it was really obvious when they were broken. It was basically automatic, that was the whole point.
You don’t get to act agog and aghast when that automation goes against something you want. It’s a despicable double standard.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT
