Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby linguoboy » 2018-02-25, 18:51

vijayjohn wrote:
Luís wrote:It is...if you don't mind, I'm going to take some time out from this discussion.

I absolutely don't mind. As I said, if it's going to succeed, this process is going to take sustained time and effort. Taking breaks is essential. I'm surprised I haven't needed on yet but it's still early days.

Yep, I need to do this, too. This is part of the reason why I haven't been saying anything about it in almost a week.

I'm needing to take longer breaks myself. The tooth-pulling required to have any sort of discussion at all is just getting exhausting.
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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby dEhiN » 2018-02-25, 19:34

linguoboy wrote:(I also still haven't received an adequate answer to why you refuse to make your behind-the-scenes discussions of forum policy public as a goodwill gesture, but I always figured that was a lost cause.)

Adequate is subjective; whenever anyone says "I still haven't received an adequate answer", that basically means "you've given me your reasons as answers but I consider them insufficient and so am looking for something else". That's not the fault of the person/people trying to provide answers; that's on the person not willing to accept those answers as sufficient.

linguoboy wrote:
Car wrote:
(I also still haven't received an adequate answer to why you refuse to make your behind-the-scenes discussions of forum policy public as a goodwill gesture, but I always figured that was a lost cause.)

Some admins don't feel comfortable with it considering that the posts were made under the assumption that they would remain private.

THANK YOU! Was that so hard? That was the answer I expected. Why it take almost a week for someone to come up with it?

I don't understand how you and Vijay respond with one thing one minute and then something completely different the next. You specifically said to Johanna that a response of "for privacy sake" wasn't sufficient. Car just said the same thing and you finally accept it as an answer? And if you don't remember saying this, or you want to clarify what you said earlier, here is the exact quote for you to please clarify:
linguoboy wrote:Following quote excerpted from this post in the Forum policy review 2018 thread.
linguoboy wrote:You want to know a concrete step the moderators can take to rebuild trust?
Johanna wrote:This discussion has spurred a bunch of them among us forum admins and global mods, especially about transparency vs privacy and how we have handled and are handling those issues.

Show us those discussions. This is at the root of our complaints with Unilang: that too much is decided behind closed doors out of view of members and without their input. So make those conversations public and let's see how you all talk about us when you think we're not listening.

I would like to see a response to this. If the answer is "no" (as I suspect it will be), I would like that made explicit and some justification given. Unless y'all use your real names in the mod forum or something (and even in that case, the names could simply be redacted), a blanket appeal to "privacy" is insufficient.

Now how exactly is "a blanket appeal to "privacy" is insufficient" not the exact opposite of what you just said above to Car? Because I clearly fail to see your two responses as not being a 180 degree change.

linguoboy wrote:Follow-up questions: How do the admins in question think they would have expressed themselves differently if they knew that what they said would eventually be made public and why?

Second Follow-up question: Why are the moderators more worthy of this kind of consideration than other board members, who have had things we told them privately posted here publicly without our consent?

I can't answer question number two, but for me, with question one, I wouldn't have expressed myself differently. Now, let me ask you a point-blank question:

Do you think that all discussions made by anyone ever on this forum (with the exception of PMs) should be made public? Do you think there should be no hidden (sub)forums that are accessible only to language forum mods or global mods or forum admins? If so, do you think then that everyone should be able to respond to every discussion made on this forum?

Yes, Unilang isn't any other forum. Yes, it's not a real-life social club. Yes, it's its own thing. And sure, "precedent is only the easier way to go wrong" in some cases. But not in all cases. Sometimes precedent is a good thing because then we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We can start with precedent and then modify as need be for the specific situation. You've referenced your organization and its attempts to change and become more open. Have those agreed-upon changes involved management and supervisory teams never having any closed-door discussions ever again? You also mentioned that one of the changes is to make the minutes of meetings publicly available? Are those minutes going to be similar to a court transcript, with a play-by-play of every single word that every single person at that meeting said? In my experience, whenever meeting minutes have been made public, they are a summary of what went on. Yes, sometimes that summary can contain a fair amount of details. But it's never a court transcript.

linguoboy wrote:If you don't know why you're continuing to do something, then how do you know that it's the right thing to do? Unilang is not any other forum. It is not a company. It is not a real-life social group. It is it's own thing and we can decide how we want to do things here without any reference to other social spaces. Tell me why you want to keep things this way. What do you see as the benefits and what would you miss if the practices were changed?

I don't understand why you keep thinking that we want to keep things the same way. If we really wanted that, we would've said "forget the fact that these guys have grievances and want to discuss things; screw them; we're the mod team, if they don't like it, they can leave". But we didn't; we made these threads, and we're here responding to the comments and suggestions. It's just that in this specific area, where it seems that you (and perhaps Vijay as well?) are asking for there to only ever been open discussions, that we, the moderators don't agree that should be the case. With other policies we have been open to change and even suggested change. So please don't confuse or conflate things. Currently, the discussion on this thread has come down to this one point about open vs closed discussions. That is only one part of the culture of UniLang. That is also only part of the moderation style that has been called draconian.

One more thing: whether you believe me or not, how I feel about the fact that supervisory-style teams should be allowed to have closed-door discussions is something I believe in, in general. I just don't agree that having completely open-door discussions is necessary or helpful even with respect to the team being able to do the task(s) they are responsible for. I think that's the reason why, in my experience from IRL groups, as well as it looks like from the experience of others here in both online forums and IRL groups, that is not done. Even if I wasn't on the mod team and we were having this discussion, I would've had the same opinion - the mod team shouldn't have to divulge their discussions openly for everyone.
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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby dEhiN » 2018-02-25, 19:42

vijayjohn wrote:Now y'all are repeatedly insisting that I won't be punished for discussing it now even though this whole discussion is public and I am far more cynical about the moderation of this forum than I was back then. How do any of us (including you!) know that you won't change your minds about whether to punish discussion all over again or not in another two years, again without informing us beforehand, given that you never once clarified up front whether this would be punished or not before the discussion already started?

But we did clarify! From the "Forum Policy Review 2018" thread:
vijayjohn wrote:
linguoboy wrote:From what I recall reading in the discussion on the Random thread, you (and Vijay) expressed a fair amount of distrust in the moderation team in regard to the interaction between those on the team and everyone else. Even when Luís, Car, and Johanna all expressly said that there would be no repercussions for anyone complaining, their words were met with disbelief from Vijay

They said this when I tried to appeal my ban, too, and like I said, there were repercussions nevertheless.

I understand that because of the lack of sticking to our word in the past, you don't want to or can't believe us now. But you can't say we "never once clarified up front whether this would be punished or not before the discussion already started".
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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby Car » 2018-02-25, 20:58

linguoboy wrote:
Car wrote:That staying away has no consequences for the individual member, but it does for the individual mod?

Does it? Given the low level of activity on the board, how long would a mod have to stay away before their absence was even noticed, let alone before they were disciplined in some way?


Soon enough, at least if there are cases that require action from us. (And yes, I know "soon enough" is vague.)

Car wrote:That one member staying away has less an effect on the forum overall (although that depends on their activity here)?

I strongly contest this. Many of the most active participants here have been non-mods (or at most language forum mods) and you would definitely notice if they stopped posting. People have, in fact; that's the entire reason we're having this discussion now.


Do we know why people left, though? Some former members left because of our inaction in certain situations, too (according to their statements elsewhere).

Car wrote:
(I also still haven't received an adequate answer to why you refuse to make your behind-the-scenes discussions of forum policy public as a goodwill gesture, but I always figured that was a lost cause.)

Some admins don't feel comfortable with it considering that the posts were made under the assumption that they would remain private.

THANK YOU! Was that so hard? That was the answer I expected. Why it take almost a week for someone to come up with it?


Because only some of us commented on that topic? At least I hesitated to answer the question because I wasn't sure if that was our consensus or not.

Follow-up questions: How do the admins in question think they would have expressed themselves differently if they knew that what they said would eventually be made public and why?


That's a different question and not necessary a conclusion based on my post. Maybe they would have worded it the same, but generally don't like the idea, maybe they feel it might have been perceived differently than it was meant?

Second Follow-up question: Why are the moderators more worthy of this kind of consideration than other board members, who have had things we told them privately posted here publicly without our consent?


We aren't.

We have a saying in my profession: "Precedent is only the easier way to go wrong." If you don't know why you're continuing to do something, then how do you know that it's the right thing to do? Unilang is not any other forum. It is not a company. It is not a real-life social group. It is it's own thing and we can decide how we want to do things here without any reference to other social spaces. Tell me why you want to keep things this way. What do you see as the benefits and what would you miss if the practices were changed?


We can be certain that we're the only ones who can discuss these things in that specific thread and that especially important because opening it up for everyone, including the members we're talking about, would not only be able to see those things, but comment on them, too (unless we can somehow make those parts read-only, but that would make it hard to prevent discussions elsewhere) which would very much change the nature of the discussions we're having and make it harder to come to any sort of conclusions. Traditionally, we've often taken quite some time, if not too much (that also was criticised regularly in the past) to come to a conclusion, so it really wouldn't help. Just look at the way this discussion is going, do you think that is satisfactory for any of us?
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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-02-25, 21:15

No, but at least now we have an opportunity to make our voices heard. That didn't happen before; there was a huge disconnect between you admins and global mods on the one hand and the rest of us on the other.
dEhiN wrote:Adequate is subjective; whenever anyone says "I still haven't received an adequate answer", that basically means "you've given me your reasons as answers but I consider them insufficient and so am looking for something else". That's not the fault of the person/people trying to provide answers; that's on the person not willing to accept those answers as sufficient.

The only explanation that you (any of you) offered until then was that you've never done it any other way. That doesn't explain why you still insist on not doing it any other way. If "we've always done it this way!" were an adequate explanation for why social/cultural changes don't take place, then no social/cultural changes would ever take place.
linguoboy wrote:
Car wrote:
(I also still haven't received an adequate answer to why you refuse to make your behind-the-scenes discussions of forum policy public as a goodwill gesture, but I always figured that was a lost cause.)

Some admins don't feel comfortable with it considering that the posts were made under the assumption that they would remain private.

THANK YOU! Was that so hard? That was the answer I expected. Why it take almost a week for someone to come up with it?

I don't understand how you and Vijay respond with one thing one minute and then something completely different the next. You specifically said to Johanna that a response of "for privacy sake" wasn't sufficient. Car just said the same thing and you finally accept it as an answer?

I think the key words here are "some admins don't feel comfortable with it." No one actually admitted this until Car said that just then. That's different from just saying "because privacy!"
Do you think that all discussions made by anyone ever on this forum (with the exception of PMs) should be made public?

No, because not everyone has the authority to ban us.
Do you think there should be no hidden (sub)forums that are accessible only to language forum mods or global mods or forum admins? If so, do you think then that everyone should be able to respond to every discussion made on this forum?

Yes and yes.
In my experience, whenever meeting minutes have been made public, they are a summary of what went on. Yes, sometimes that summary can contain a fair amount of details. But it's never a court transcript.

Okay, but currently, we have almost nothing.
I don't understand why you keep thinking that we want to keep things the same way.

...Because y'all keep insisting on keeping things the same way?
If we really wanted that, we would've said "forget the fact that these guys have grievances and want to discuss things; screw them; we're the mod team, if they don't like it, they can leave".

...no, that's what you'd say if you didn't want discussion on whether to keep things the same way.
It's just that in this specific area, where it seems that you (and perhaps Vijay as well?) are asking for there to only ever been open discussions, that we, the moderators don't agree that should be the case. With other policies we have been open to change and even suggested change. So please don't confuse or conflate things. Currently, the discussion on this thread has come down to this one point about open vs closed discussions. That is only one part of the culture of UniLang. That is also only part of the moderation style that has been called draconian.

Most of this is false. There's a lot more that I've called draconian than just talking about things privately. And no, the mods definitely haven't been open to change as a whole.
One more thing: whether you believe me or not, how I feel about the fact that supervisory-style teams should be allowed to have closed-door discussions is something I believe in, in general. I just don't agree that having completely open-door discussions is necessary or helpful even with respect to the team being able to do the task(s) they are responsible for. I think that's the reason why, in my experience from IRL groups, as well as it looks like from the experience of others here in both online forums and IRL groups, that is not done. Even if I wasn't on the mod team and we were having this discussion, I would've had the same opinion - the mod team shouldn't have to divulge their discussions openly for everyone.

But why not? You've never given a reason for why that should be the case except "well, I've never seen it being done that way!"
vijayjohn wrote:Now y'all are repeatedly insisting that I won't be punished for discussing it now even though this whole discussion is public and I am far more cynical about the moderation of this forum than I was back then. How do any of us (including you!) know that you won't change your minds about whether to punish discussion all over again or not in another two years, again without informing us beforehand, given that you never once clarified up front whether this would be punished or not before the discussion already started?

But we did clarify! From the "Forum Policy Review 2018" thread [...] But you can't say we "never once clarified up front whether this would be punished or not before the discussion already started".

I said you never clarified it up front before the discussion already started. Everything you're talking about happened after this discussion started.

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby kevin » 2018-02-25, 23:26

vijayjohn wrote:No, but at least now we have an opportunity to make our voices heard. That didn't happen before; there was a huge disconnect between you admins and global mods on the one hand and the rest of us on the other.

Vijay, while I can understand and support you with some of the issues you're taking with the moderation style, I'd prefer if noone on this thread spoke on my behalf ("rest of us").

Do you think there should be no hidden (sub)forums that are accessible only to language forum mods or global mods or forum admins? If so, do you think then that everyone should be able to respond to every discussion made on this forum?

Yes and yes.

The internal boards I see as a language forum mod are mostly there so that threads or messages moved there are depublished. If you made them public, they would immediately lose their whole purpose. You don't seriously want that we leave spam messages (with all the links they're advertising) publicly accessible, do you? That would be supporting the spammers' business and I certainly don't want Unilang to do that. If we made these forums public, the only reasonable option left would be to delete spam messages without a trace instead of moving them into an archive where they can be looked at if anyone doesn't agree with the depublication.

And then there are very few posts for coordination between mods. For example, I recently asked for advice how to handle the messages of a certain person in order to make sure that we're treating them consistently. While I don't think I said anything bad about that person or treated them unfairly in that message, that's just not the kind of communication I'd want them to read (just like some of you didn't want your PMs with admins or reports to become public even though you think they were completely correct).

Also, I will communicate privately with whoever I want, no matter whether you give me a hidden forum for it or not. If you don't, I'll use other channels that will be even less transparent. And I'll support everyone who wants to have private communication with whoever they want, which includes admins and global mods.

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby linguoboy » 2018-02-26, 19:37

I don't have the time or energy for a full response at the moment, but this part of kevin's post stood out to me:
kevin wrote:For example, I recently asked for advice how to handle the messages of a certain person in order to make sure that we're treating them consistently. While I don't think I said anything bad about that person or treated them unfairly in that message, that's just not the kind of communication I'd want them to read (just like some of you didn't want your PMs with admins or reports to become public even though you think they were completely correct).

While I recognise the parallel you're making, I want to remind everyone of the power differential at work here:

If an ordinary member decides to retaliate against a moderator for something they said about them, the moderator can ban them.

If any ordinary member decides to retaliate against another member for something they said about them, that member's only recourse is to bring the behaviour to the attention of the moderators and hope they do something.

This is a point I feel I keep having to make to the mods over and over again: The potential consequences of me making a mistake are not the same as the consequences of you all making a mistake. Because when it comes to judging what is and isn't a "mistake", you all--not me--are the final arbiters.

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby kevin » 2018-02-26, 22:08

I'm having a hard time replying to this without risking to be offensive, overly sarcastic or saying things that won't go down well on this forum...

In the end, I just believe that admins are users, too. If every user has the right to communicate in private, that includes admins. Just because they are volunteering to do the dirty work that is necessary to keep this forum running, I don't think they should lose all their rights (or is that privileges, too? I'm not an expert on American law and don't think I need to be one).

And while there might be a power differential between you and me because my name is purple and yours isn't, there is also a power differential between me and the admin team because mine isn't green or blue. And I still think they should have the right to communicate in private. Even if they are discussing what to do with me.

I also think that if they are taking action against me eventually, they should do so publicly and with a proper justification, but their right to communicate in private just weighs more than my curiosity how they came to the conclusion and who said what during the discussion.

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby dEhiN » 2018-03-25, 14:50

linguoboy wrote:I want to remind everyone of the power differential at work here:

If an ordinary member decides to retaliate against a moderator for something they said about them, the moderator can ban them.

If any ordinary member decides to retaliate against another member for something they said about them, that member's only recourse is to bring the behaviour to the attention of the moderators and hope they do something.

This is a point I feel I keep having to make to the mods over and over again: The potential consequences of me making a mistake are not the same as the consequences of you all making a mistake. Because when it comes to judging what is and isn't a "mistake", you all--not me--are the final arbiters.

I'm not sure if there's a desire or point to revive this conversation, but I just came across the replies from you and kevin. I understand what you're saying about the power differential. I think that the differential is an implicit factor of there being a moderating team (and specifically a two-tier moderating team). I don't think that a 100% level playing field is possible without a major style change to the way the forum is moderated. For example, instead of a team, having some other setup. At the moment, I can't think of another approach that would make sense. However, I do think that accountability and transparency are two needed and valuable things that can keep a power differential in check, which we've discussed a lot about.

One thing that did kind of bother me though is that toward the end of last month's discussion, there was a scenario which the admin team put forward in an attempt to be more transparent and to get ordinary member input. And from what I recall, or at least from the way I read the responses, there was barely any input. I believe even you only asked some questions regarding what our purpose is and stuff, but gave no actual suggestions of recourses you think would be appropriate. Perhaps when you asked for more transparency, you were thinking along the lines of so you could ask pertinent questions, as opposed to making suggestions or sharing what you think should be done? But personally, I felt like an effort was made by the admin team to respond and follow-through on what the community was asking for, and the community couldn't be bothered to engage with that effort.
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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-25, 15:03

dEhiN wrote:I'm not sure if there's a desire or point to revive this conversation

There certainly is from me but only under the understanding that this inevitably continues to be a very long, slow, and difficult conversation.
One thing that did kind of bother me though is that toward the end of last month's discussion, there was a scenario which the admin team put forward in an attempt to be more transparent and to get ordinary member input.

What scenario are you thinking of? (There have been a lot of things going on over the past few months!).

EDIT: Is this what you mean? I'm not really sure what to say about it at this point. I don't think I can think of any problems with it that haven't already been pointed out, except that I think it could be a problem for us non-admins if anything we share with an admin - regarding a ban or forum policy, for example - will be shared with all the other admins.

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby dEhiN » 2018-03-25, 16:51

vijayjohn wrote:
dEhiN wrote:I'm not sure if there's a desire or point to revive this conversation

There certainly is from me but only under the understanding that this inevitably continues to be a very long, slow, and difficult conversation.

Understandable, and I knew we had all kind of taken a break from this discussion, although there were other discussions going on of a similar nature such as the language forum renaming discussion. This is why I wrote what I wrote; I don't want nor think it good if the break turns into a petering out of the issues and concerns regarding moderation, administration and forum policy.

vijayjohn wrote:What scenario are you thinking of? (There have been a lot of things going on over the past few months!).

I was thinking of this

vijayjohn wrote:EDIT: Is this what you mean? I'm not really sure what to say about it at this point. I don't think I can think of any problems with it that haven't already been pointed out, except that I think it could be a problem for us non-admins if anything we share with an admin - regarding a ban or forum policy, for example - will be shared with all the other admins.

I see what you mean. I also think there can be times where an admin might need to share something sent in private with the other admins to, for example, clarify something or ask for the admin team consensus before making a decision. So I suppose it could be a problem but it could also be a necessity.
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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-25, 19:49

dEhiN wrote:I don't want nor think it good if the break turns into a petering out of the issues and concerns regarding moderation, administration and forum policy.

Agreed.
vijayjohn wrote:What scenario are you thinking of? (There have been a lot of things going on over the past few months!).

I was thinking of this

I'm not sure how much more discussion of that scenario you want to see. The rest of that page and part of the next one were about that scenario, and then the discussion went on to other broader topics. Linguoboy gave a very detailed answer to that question and even offered further help at the end of his post. I don't know what more there is to say about it, really.

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby linguoboy » 2018-03-26, 15:25

dEhiN wrote:One thing that did kind of bother me though is that toward the end of last month's discussion, there was a scenario which the admin team put forward in an attempt to be more transparent and to get ordinary member input. And from what I recall, or at least from the way I read the responses, there was barely any input. I believe even you only asked some questions regarding what our purpose is and stuff, but gave no actual suggestions of recourses you think would be appropriate. Perhaps when you asked for more transparency, you were thinking along the lines of so you could ask pertinent questions, as opposed to making suggestions or sharing what you think should be done? But personally, I felt like an effort was made by the admin team to respond and follow-through on what the community was asking for, and the community couldn't be bothered to engage with that effort.

This is absolutely infuriating.

You want my expertise but without ceding me any authority. (I've been told to my face that no one has ever considering making me a moderator here despite my years of experience successfully moderating other boards and groups.) That is, frankly speaking, bullshit of the highest order. Consultants get paid thousands of dollars to do the kind of facilitation work that I've been willing to do here for free. I shared a lengthy post on organisational change and got hardly any engagement from the moderator team. Did I bitch about that? No. It was my choice to share that labour and knowledge free of charge in the hopes of improving the environment here. Who knows, maybe it did more good than was immediately apparent.

But now I'm being taken to task for not donating enough free labour and expertise? I have a lot things to say to that and none of them are polite so I think I'll just end this post here.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Johanna
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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby Johanna » 2018-03-26, 17:48

From what I can remember, you were very adamant that you didn't even want the job years ago. Specifically because of some of the grievances being brought up here.

Now you're saying that you really should have been paid or recognized for something you gave up on?
Swedish (sv) native; English (en) good; Norwegian (no) read fluently, understand well, speak badly; Danish (dk) read fluently, understand badly, can't speak; Faroese (fo) read some, understand a bit, speak a few sentences; German (de) French (fr) Spanish (es) forgetting; heritage language.

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby linguoboy » 2018-03-26, 18:04

Johanna wrote:From what I can remember, you were very adamant that you didn't even want the job years ago. Specifically because of some of the grievances being brought up here.

I don't know what time you're thinking of here. I'm thinking of the time when we needed a new language moderator for the Celtic languages.

Moreover, I'm not sure what your point is in even mentioning this.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-26, 18:09

Johanna wrote:Now you're saying that you really should have been paid or recognized for something you gave up on?

Wtf are you even talking about? That's not what happened. He offered to help and no one took him up on it.

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby linguoboy » 2018-03-26, 18:18

O HAI STEALTH EDIT!!1!
Johanna wrote:Now you're saying that you really should have been paid or recognized for something you gave up on?

Maybe it's because I was brought up with Usenet netiquette, but I was always taught that if you're going to add something to your post after someone has responded to it, you tag it (I prefer "ETA", an abbreviation for "Edited To Add") so that you don't make it look like they ignored something you had originally said. It would be awful nice if some version of this netiquette were observed here--particularly by those allowed to edit posts without generating an automatic message indicating that the post has, in fact, been edited ex post facto.

It's a willful misrepresentation of my comments to say that I said I really should have been paid. As I said, I contributed the labour freely. Moreover, I haven't abandoned it, as evidenced by the fact that I'm still here.

Again, I find myself moved to ask: What's your purpose here? I personally think dEhiN capable of defending his own comments himself if he so chooses.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby Luís » 2018-03-26, 18:40

linguoboy wrote:(I've been told to my face that no one has ever considering making me a moderator here despite my years of experience successfully moderating other boards and groups.)


I don't really want to get into the rest of the discussion but I just want to mention this isn't true. I don't know if it was accurate at the time or not, though.
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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby linguoboy » 2018-03-26, 19:37

Luís wrote:I don't really want to get into the rest of the discussion

You mean the actual substantive part regarding the aid which I did or did not render unto you when asked? That's fair.

Luís wrote:I just want to mention this isn't true. I don't know if it was accurate at the time or not, though.

Because of the (frankly ridiculous) limit on the size of our inboxes here, I can't substantiate my version of events because I've had to delete most exchanges I've had with the moderators over the years in order to be able to read my new messages[*]. If you, Johanna, and whoever else have saved those exchanges, I invite you (and waive my not-yet-ratified claim to confidentiality) to post them here. If you haven't saved them or aren't willing to post them, then I suggest we all move on. There's a reason why that remark was literally parenthetical (namely that it was completely tangential to my main point). Knowing what a lightning rod it could be to posters who otherwise seem perfectly comfortable to ignore these discussions, I probably should have left it out completely, but it's there and I'm not going to go back and edit it out.

Now, once again, just to be absolutely clear: I am not asking anyone for compensation for my free labour here, not any more than any of you all are. I am simply making the point that if you all are not willing to compensate me for free labour (either monetarily or by granting me privileges, including increased authority) then you do not get to complain about the level of or frequency with which I provide it. There's a word for demanding labour from people without being willing to compensate them fairly for it: that word is exploitation.

You wanted advice on moderation? I gave you advice. You want me to do the actual work of moderating? Make me a moderator. It's that damn simple. Not that many posts ago, I tried to float the idea that it was not just moderators who had responsibilities here but also ordinary members. That idea was shot down by a moderator. So be it. I don't feel the least bit of responsibility to do any moderator's work for them. That's not what "transparency" means, dEhiN.

[*] If someone can show me an easy method of archiving PMs offsite, I'd be chuffed.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Historic grievances/specific cases [split]

Postby vijayjohn » 2018-03-26, 19:54

linguoboy wrote:[*] If someone can show me an easy method of archiving PMs offsite, I'd be chuffed.

Honestly, I pretty much end up copying them into a word processor and saving them on my hard drive, then immediately deleting the original copies from my inbox before it fills up to 100% capacity. (I have most of these PMs organized on my hard drive by the person I was having the exchange with).

It's also possible to make different folders, just in case you didn't already know. The way you do this is to go to your inbox, click on the tab that says "Rules, folders & settings" (on the left, below "Sent messages" but above "Message colors"), and then add a new folder where it says "add folder" (I believe you can only add one at a time). However, we're only allowed to make four extra folders each (besides our inbox, outbox, and sent messages folders). Each folder again has a limit of only 200 messages. I personally have organized it so I have three folders (including the inbox) for messages I received and three more (including "sent messages") for messages I sent, depending on who the sender/recipient was.

You can also make rules there, such as "if sender is [user name], place into folder: [folder name]." However, to my knowledge, you cannot make rules regarding what happens if you sent a message to a specific user.


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