On Forum Moderation

[Claude]

> Providing actionable feedback is certainly better, but do you 
> think moderators should remove non-actionable criticism?  If I 
> just said, "I don't like dub", should that be removed?

Trolling is always context dependent. We cannot be picky like 
that.

Making strict rules does not necessarily mean that you must apply 
them strictly.

But they are a sort of boundary, a sort of frame.

In fact, when a newcomer comes into the forum, just by reading 
some posts, he should FEEL by himself how people generally 
behave. He does not even have to specifically read the rules. He 
should know, and then he's implicitly incited to behave.

But if he sees that everyone is throwing names at each other, and 
random guys can come in and puke on the language without 
suffering any consequences, then why would he make any efforts?

Of course, people will "play" with rules, cross them etc, and 
it's fine, we're humans. It's at the appreciation and wisdom of 
the moderators.

> It also sounds hard to say whether or not something is 
> "actionable".  Technically, saying "D is no good" is 
> actionable.  Making D "better" could be a reaction, though it's 
> very vague.  So to me it sounds like your saying, vague and 
> general criticism should be removed?

We should not go in that sort picky details. Again, it will be 
left at the appreciation of the moderators.

In all the internet forums I've seen, the only one by far were 
the ambiance was friendly was a latina dance forum (yeah, I know) 
where we were talking A LOT about politics and religions and the 
most polemical subjects we could even find (and "R-value ref" was 
not one of them :) ). And the forum worked and everybody was 
happy because:
- The moderator team was strong and fair.
- The rules were clear: no "ad hominem" etc.
- If someone was crossing the line too many times, he would be 
warned by private messages.
- There were only a few unhappy members that claimed the forum 
was not a democracy and that the Big Chief Moderator was a 
dictator. But everybody liked him and nobody took those guys 
seriously.