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What defines a toxic user
Posting this here because I'm also wondering about how this will affect moderation policy on Tildes going forward
As a former Reddit Moderator this has been something I've pondered for a long time: how does one define what a toxic user is in such a way that it can be easily understood as a community standard? I'll post the definition I defaulted to below. But I'd be most interested in knowing how other people think about this.
Personally I settled on defining toxic users as people whose posting actively degraded the civility of a conversation. Not necessarily because they would insult people or use slurs, but because they way in which they 'talked' to others seemed to, purposefully or not, infuriate people or make it about judging them personally rather then the ideas they brought forward.
I very much agree with definition. A perfect example of toxic behaviour that's not civil would be that guy that got banned for posting in queer thread yesterday. His comments would have been acceptable in a thread with a different tone for example if the OP was soliciting opinions about trans people. In this case it was unsolicited opinion that was off topic and only served to derail the topic.
I like this, but I think it's still unfortunately vague enough to cause complaints. That's just part of moderation though, if you draw a line in the sand you'll constantly have arguing that they didn't actually cross it, if you leave things up to moderator discretion you get people complaining about how subjective everything is. I do really like the wording you used though, I'm probably going to steal this going forward.
Vagueness vs absoluteness is a very difficult balance to strike, like you said. In the case of Reddit it often helped when the subreddit had a very specific purpose other then general discussion of a thing. Askhistorians, for example, had very absolute rules and could enforce them effectively because they were made in pursuit of a clear goal.
On this topic, I think it could be valuable for individual communities to be able to commit to a certain standard and rules, where the user has the option to effectively appeal if they believe the moderators abuse their power or made the wrong judgment.
The "appeals court" for the forums would likely have to be widely trusted moderators with experience, and an understanding of the culture of communities outside their own niche.
Perhaps there should be a label like 'reduces civility.' Doesn't really roll off the tongue, but something straight to a specific point might help avoid vagueness. Especially if other users can disagree with that label somehow, crowdsourcing what's going on. That may present the issue of people ganging up on someone, but maybe that's where the reputation system comes in. Low reputation account using this label could be weighted differently or marked as such.
The problem with changing the label because it's "not specific enough" is that as soon as you choose another label, people will complain about that one not being specific enough and the cycle will repeat itself until a concrete definition is in place, which then puts us in a position where someone chooses to toe the line and obey the letter of the rules, but not the intent. It gives people free reign to use plausible deniability and "it's not against the rules!" for their defense.
The word "toxic" itself is just concrete enough to describe a certain class of behaviors while providing enough discretion to address them without getting into pointless arguments over the wording of rules. It's not nearly as vague as people make it out to be, as it's commonly understood to address behaviors that don't contribute to healthy discussions and relationships.
tl;dr - "toxic" isn't a vague term, it's a broad term that applies to a certain class of negative behaviors, and we need a broad term to make it easier to deal with trolls, people who get a bit too heated, and general shitstains alike.
Do I understand correctly, the criteria are one of either:
or
?
I've dealt with some toxic people in the past who really infuriated me despite not breaking any rules. I've also had people get upset at me for expressing the wrong ideas - I wouldn't call them toxic but they certainly didn't help foster a productive environment for discussion, yet by the first criteria I'd be considered the toxic one if they were (or acted) upset enough.
Not a direct answer to your question, but I'm not a fan of the recent popularity of the term "toxic" to describe various types of people who are behaving badly. I know it's probably here to stay at this point, but it seems overly dramatic to me to equate someone who is being rude or obnoxious with something that's physically harmful like rat poison.
It's reminiscent of how "SJW" gets abused.
SJW, Libtard, Cuck, Triggered, Salty, Tumblrina, Snowflake ... I probably could go on.. all overused and always used incorrectly. Sometimes I'll be called these merely for disagreeing with someone. That is only one way a user could be considered toxic.
Ha. Every clichéd label listed there, and more, has been applied to me at some point or another.
Isn't it fun? It doesn't make me upset really but after so many times it just gets annoying.
It just means I don't have to waste my time dignifying that person with a response, even I give them the impression they "won".
Just for a different perspective, there's also nazi, bigot, racist, troll, russian bot, etc.
I'm not sure what the solution to all this name-calling and mind-reading is.
Just to balance out the politics: stuff like Trumptard and the desensitizing of racist/sexist/homophobic are also overused insults.
I don't think there's any "balancing out" needed since we're supposed to be a site that doesn't have to pander to the stormfront/"Mens rights"-crowd. People are calling out racism/sexism/homophobia more nowadays and that's a good thing IMO.
I was balancing the insults. Besides, being a far-left Voat is still being Voat.
There's no right-left dichotomy here, just the Code of Conduct
And I don't think being against racism/sexism/homophobia makes one far-left. I think it's just the starting point of not being an asshole.
the point is not that these labels are being used appropriately, but that they're being used inappropriately as insults that do not fit the person they're being applied to.
It honestly does feel like "toxic" is a very correct term. It doesn't equate to immediate death but in respects to a discussion, it make it less helpful. In much the same way as a relationship can be toxic, a conversation can cause the same problems. That is not to say it is not being overused, but the connotation is nevertheless correctly applied.
If we simply call someones reponse hurtful or offensive, we fail to acknowledge that it not only helpful for the conversation but "poisons" it.
I definitely do think it shouldn't be used for people who simply disagree with you but in a lot of cases it goes beyond that.
I also think it's a helpful term because it's designating something systematic, that resides within a whole pattern of behavior, rather than any one specific thing.
Modern toxicity on the internet can be sophisticated and include subtle things that hover on the borderline of plausible deniability, like intensely pursuing academic points that seem innocuous but serve the practical purpose of sheltering abusive behavior of other commenters, because they know the underlying politics and policies will impact types of behavior they want to defend.
Also it's too vague which means it's easily abused to designate anyone you don't like.
I think the equation works because it's not just about designating specific actors, but rather specific patterns of behavior which, in repetition, 'poison the well'. It'd be easier to call everyone who displays that behavior an asshole, but then you might end up missing the forest for the trees.
I've moderated a few subreddits with what I have described, and will continue to describe, as toxic cultures. It's nasty to post there, and even nastier to moderate. I felt like I was continually shovelling shit uphill, only to have it slide down again. The culture was poisonous to civil discussion. Everywhere you looked, people were attacking and insulting each other, and that merely encouraged other people to do the same.
I may not describe an individual user as toxic, but I think the label is quite applicable to some communities' cultures.
You don't like metaphors?
Keep in mind that literally anything can be toxic if you injest enough of it, even water.
I'd use the Urban Dictionary of what a Troll is:
In addition, a person who is mudslinging names or personal insults (in regards to something you said online) (unless it is justified, like Roseanne's racist ass )is definitely a toxic user. Someone trying to intentionally start "drama" is a toxic user.
The challenge is in ascertaining the user's intentions. Most people are not telepathic, so we have to rely on our observations and fill in the gaps using our imagination... which is often irrationally biased. Sometimes it may be apparent, but I think often there are false positives.
I'm seeing "toxic" in quotation marks more and more and we might be close to losing that term to trolls/assholes who deliberately complicate and dilute its meaning. Remember when "fake news", for a very short time was a clearly defined term for coordinated efforts by fake users on social media to post fake articles about fake issues on fake websites for fake newspapers with clear intention to create propaganda? Then Trump called the New York Times "fake news" and now everything that can hurt your political agenda can be called "fake news".
IMO "asshole" is a better term than "toxic user" since it highlights the disruptive, emotional aspect of it. It's not about political correctness or even "not being nice", it's about being an asshole and not caring how that affects the people around you.
I would agree, but also I think it might be too narrow. I think the missing pieces might be intent and context.
If it's clear the intent of the commenter is to degrade the civility of a conversation and the context of the conversation's civility is not setup to be degraded (hey, weird yes, I think it could be possible - people are complex.. maybe that could be a fun thing), then I'd say that's a toxic user.
Intent is a very difficult thing to measure and judge, so I think the people doing this have to be careful and very mindful of their choices.
I'm skeptical on the notion of judging by intent only because at some point you're no longer trying to fix a problem, you're trying to fix individuals. The latter is far more difficult and context-dependent, a person who does not want to be fixed won't be, and you run the risk of having the larger issue spiral out of control.
In all cases, the extreme tool is banning a user or not...so I don't think you'll ever fix a user, nor should you ever try. Definitely not about that. I think of it more as just reading the room (in conjunction with what the user is doing)..
I'm no moderator either.. so I'm not basing my thoughts on experience.
Perhaps those comments could be removed with a message to the user explaining why. I read an article the other day describing how researchers are working with A.I. to spots arguments online before they happen. With regards to users, many people simply do not know the best practices for a constructive discussion, such as:
I think our trusted users will be capable of shaping their communities in part by educating members on constructive dialogue. Similar to the Wikipedia talk pages. And who knows, once the tech is more reliable maybe automoderator will be able to handle the task or flag comments for review.
Either way, I think it's more conducive to creating the atmosphere we want to give users gentle reminders on how they can improve. People deserve a chance to change their behavior.
I agree with the idea of reminders before other actions. It's a practice I used as well way back when, or at least tried as much as possible. Also those links are fascinating and I'll be perusing them later, thanks for sharing.
I have to agree with go1dfish here. I'd like to see a definition that focuses on specific observable actions.
Repeatedly acting on an unrelenting desire to derail a conversation, testing everyone else's tipping points and enjoying the outcomes of crossing the lines for the sheer fun of it. I guess.
I would also like to caution you guys against trying to define "objective" standards for toxicity. The unfortunate reality is, sometimes the most toxic users are the best at following the letter of the law (but not, of course, the spirit.) You need to give moderators some room to make judgement calls on who or what should be allowed so that your community doesn't end up full of trolls who know how to read rules.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't have guidelines for what is/isn't allowed though. It helps users/moderators to have some standards of posting, even if they are somewhat subjective.
It really depends on the community. Like, you can say that a user who degrades discussion quality is toxic, but... not every community is or should be about quality discussion! You could also say a user who posts controversial, insulting, or offensive things is toxic, but some people enjoy having a forum where they can call people names or post their most deplorable beliefs. I think you have to define what kind of content and what sort of users you want in your community, and then you can define a toxic member as someone who drives off desired users or prevents desired content from being seen (by bumping good content down by posting bad content, drawing users away from good content by posting controversial content, or whatever.)