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Log Posting Standards
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@Meg said in Log Posting Standards:
I come here and post the log of the scene in the entirety, that person accusing me (or their friends) can say I am harassing them by posting the log and get it taken down?
^
It comes across as “and don’t message me back!!!” if you can’t even defend yourself in public when you got called out in public.
If your defense turns out to be more damning than exculpatory… well, that just sorta makes the point for us: you don’t know how to read the room.
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So I understand where the dissent is coming from and I agree that if there was anything other than the log it should’ve been taken down. Like, if the title of the post called out the other person in the log, or if there was anything else added below the log (inflammatory conversation,etc). But the log itself? Eh.
Right now, we are running on very little information. We do not even know who sent the log to Cobalt to begin with? So idk, I hope that if the other player felt victimized that they are not continuing to feel victimized but I also am trying to put myself in this player’s shoes and I’d just be laughing at the idiocy of someone reposting the log here in a vague attempt to prove something.
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@Tez said in Log Posting Standards:
@Meg said in Log Posting Standards:
I think there’s a fine balance here and I don’t like the direction that we would take if we removed this log. If I am accused of being a bad actor to someone in a scene, and I come here and post the log of the scene in the entirety, that person accusing me (or their friends) can say I am harassing them by posting the log and get it taken down?
Idk, that worries me. People who have logs should be able to post logs.
IoleRae and GF (I avoided tagging you because you might not WANT to be involved, but you are the ones I would particularly like to hear from) how do you feel about Meg’s example?
AGAIN, SINCERE VOICE. I’m sorry the internet isn’t great at tone, but I really do want to hear.
I am also speaking as sincerely and as literally as possible, with no shade intended to anyone but with my deep sense of upset possibly causing my tone to convey offense when I do not intend it.
I do not consider Meg’s example to be analogous to this situation. NaderElShammy posted these logs fourteen hours ago, after joining this site fourteen hours ago. NaderElShammy said nothing in defense of themself, Macha, and/or the redacted individual, but did name the redacted individual when the original log did not. That is the most obvious, material effect these logs had, in addition to more than whiffing of an attempt to provoke the age-old argument that people who have been sexually harassed deserved it.
I do not know Meg very well personally, but nothing I have ever seen from her leads me to believe that if she were accused of being a bad actor, she would respond by creating a new account that outs her victim and posting something that not only doesn’t explicitly claim to be a defense of herself (we’re all just assuming the logs are meant as a defense of Macha, because the posted logs contain no such statement of intent) but also makes her look worse in the process. I would be extremely surprised if this is how she would respond to such accusations instead of providing context and making her own intent clear as well as having the courage to allow us to identify her as Meg when she did it.
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@GF I appreciate your sentiment. And I do understand more where you are coming from, in that the lack of context and actual defense makes it worse than the log just being posted out of context, feeling more like harassment? I am clarifying my reading, because I do agree with that.
If the person had said ‘I am a friend of Macha’s and this was absolutely not how it is presented. The person wanted the scene and seemed to elicit wanting the scene to go this way. Here is the full log:’, you wouldn’t be calling for the log to be removed?
The one thing is that I would be wary of equating the time of an account (brand new vs my account, for example) with a ‘rightness’ of account, though I don’t think you are doing that. Just posting a little note on that.
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@GF said in Log Posting Standards:
I do not know Meg very well personally, but nothing I have ever seen from her leads me to believe that if she were accused of being a bad actor, she would respond by creating a new account that outs her victim and posting something that not only doesn’t explicitly claim to be a defense of herself (we’re all just assuming the logs are meant as a defense of Macha, because the posted logs contain no such statement of intent) but also makes her look worse in the process. I would be extremely surprised if this is how she would respond to such accusations instead of providing context and making her own intent clear as well as having the courage to allow us to identify her as Meg when she did it.
I get your point, and thank you for responding, but I also want people to be able to come and defend themselves.
If someone who is a longstanding member of this community does something shitty, that doesn’t make them immune. Someone who has been here for a day has as much right to post a log of theirs as someone who has been here from the start.
I don’t want to privilege people who are already here. This is why I tend to support letting the text speak for itself.
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My feeling is that this is a very sticky place to be, as a balance between not shutting down legitimate ways to use the forum, vs. not letting people spam things like logs in a way that doesn’t contribute to the forum.
My leaning is that I would like to see logs be required to have some stated purpose to them from the poster. “I am posting this log to show X.” X might not be truthful in the end - we’ve all seen cases where someone posts a log thinking it absolves them and instead it’s pretty quickly realized that it proves them to be an absolute asshat.
But just spamming a log into a thread with no context or explanation seems like it doesn’t really contribute anything to the discourse of the forum, and instead sets things up for just this kind of confusion and distress from posters.
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@IoleRae I definitely hear your point about that being part of the responsibility of moderators. This is very much still an open subject and I appreciate your point.
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@Pyrephox said in Log Posting Standards:
My leaning is that I would like to see logs be required to have some stated purpose to them from the poster. “I am posting this log to show X.” X might not be truthful in the end - we’ve all seen cases where someone posts a log thinking it absolves them and instead it’s pretty quickly realized that it proves them to be an absolute asshat.
But just spamming a log into a thread with no context or explanation seems like it doesn’t really contribute anything to the discourse of the forum, and instead sets things up for just this kind of confusion and distress from posters.
This is where I am leaning too.
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@Tez said in Log Posting Standards:
@Pyrephox said in Log Posting Standards:
My leaning is that I would like to see logs be required to have some stated purpose to them from the poster. “I am posting this log to show X.” X might not be truthful in the end - we’ve all seen cases where someone posts a log thinking it absolves them and instead it’s pretty quickly realized that it proves them to be an absolute asshat.
But just spamming a log into a thread with no context or explanation seems like it doesn’t really contribute anything to the discourse of the forum, and instead sets things up for just this kind of confusion and distress from posters.
This is where I am leaning too.
Well now we’re UNANIMOUS.
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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.
If y’all wanna leave it up, that’s above my paygrade. I’m here to sit in the peanut gallery, I do not want your job and I’m grateful that you do it. Howeeeeeeeever:
There’s nothing wrong with walking back a previous decision and saying “sorry guys, we were wrong, turns out that this was in fact a genuine effort to provide clarity and context”. No one’s gonna burn you at the stake for that. That’s the kind of transparency and accountability I think everyone wants, but not at the cost of letting the paraphernalia of abuse hang out in the lobby.
I get how tempting it is to try to create standards that will encompass every situation. That speaks to the tech product egghead in me. But part of moderation is going with your gut, there’s always a human element.
Tough situation, I trust you guys to make the right call. All this sucks. Just sucks. I feel so bad for whoever NAMEREMOVED is. I just feel like protecting them is more important than protecting an anonymous rando who won’t answer any questions.
I wish you would.
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@Meg said in Log Posting Standards:
I am clarifying my reading, because I do agree with that.
We seem to be on the same page about that, yeah.
If the person had said ‘I am a friend of Macha’s and this was absolutely not how it is presented. The person wanted the scene and seemed to elicit wanting the scene to go this way. Here is the full log:’, you wouldn’t be calling for the log to be removed?
If that was the only change but the log still outed the victim, I would still want it removed. I would be more willing to grant an assumption of good faith if they put their name on it, though. I make dumbass mistakes all the time, but I try to keep my name on them so I can be held accountable for them.
@Tez said in Log Posting Standards:
I don’t want to privilege people who are already here. This is why I tend to support letting the text speak for itself.
I feel there is a difference between privilege and context. I don’t trust Meg because I have longer personal experience of her than of NaderElShammy; I just happen to have a greater body of evidence to point to that says Meg isn’t likely to defend herself in a way that attempts to punish people who speak against her. I have no such evidence of NaderElShammy, but I do have evidence that suggests they would do such a thing: every single post they’ve made on this board to date. That is the result of NaderElShammy’s choices, not the result of Meg having some kind of privilege.
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@Pax said in Log Posting Standards:
I get how tempting it is to try to create standards that will encompass every situation. That speaks to the tech product egghead in me. But part of moderation is going with your gut.
It’s less about creating standards to fit and more about wanting to absolutely remove bias and personal opinion from the equation as much as possible. Since bias and personal opinion resulted in the events which caused this board to be formed in the process.
I agree that part of moderation is going with one’s gut; therefore, I think the admin team needs to feel that they’re trusted to make such decisions where the problem is unclear. It’s very easy to ban someone for being a dick when it’s very obvious that they’re being a dick.
The log wasn’t removed because we felt, or at least I felt, that the community didn’t allow me to remove it on my own recognizance. Especially when there was a limited expression of outrage at it.
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@Pax said in Log Posting Standards:
There’s nothing wrong with walking back a previous decision and saying “sorry guys, we were wrong, turns out that this was in fact a genuine effort to provide clarity and context”.
You’re right. We are going to remove it for now.
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Referenced by
Tez -
Referenced by Tez
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we have 10,000 threads
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I hate it.
In the absence of stated intentions or feelings, we are just ascribing them. So, people have to meet some standard of noble intention to be able to post logs? What standard? What if someone said “I am posting this to show that x was not solely to blame”? That wouldn’t be noble enough if we don’t agree? They have to be willing to engage and actively defend themselves? We decide what is humiliating or not for other people? Only ‘victims’ or gamerunners can post logs? Which is it? What if a gamerunner is posting a log but some of us feel the intention is to humiliate someone? What if the person we think it intends to humiliate is the accused bad actor, is it ok then? Does my opinion on this get weighted more if I say I am ‘very, very upset’?
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ngl it feels weird to have a log taken down when most of it is still up elsewhere and if we are removing it to “protect the victim “ or whatever how are we accomplishing this goal with most of the log still up?
Hard disagree in removing logs based on ascribed intentions of the poster.
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How do you guys feel about asking people to provide context for posted logs?
she/they
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As has already been stated in the other thread, I feel like it was a mistake to take the log down. I don’t like the idea of speaking for someone that didn’t even ask for log to be taken down in the first place. It’s an assumption on a third party’s part that we assume we know what or how they’re feeling about the situation. Personally, I don’t like the idea of speaking in someone’s place unless they’ve given an allowance to do so.
In this case, this didn’t happen. So to me, it seems like anyone can create a reason for a log to be taken down. At the same time I’m not unsympathetic, I get that this is weird situation, but I also think about future situations where something like this could happen again. And thinking about that doesn’t sit well with me.
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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.
He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
BE AN ADULT -
@Tez said in Log Posting Standards:
How do you guys feel about asking people to provide context for posted logs?
What difference does it make? I’m asking sincerely. Because I think if it were Macha who posted that log (I don’t think it was), and she said “I’m posting this to give context so that people can see my side of things”, that reasoning would be disbelieved and people would still assume her intention.
fr fr
(she/her)
