13 votes

Comment tags: suggestions

Posted by SaucedButLeaking (edited )
Tags: suggestions, moderation, community

I just showed up yesterday to this great experiment, and find myself with some fresh-minted drama over politics and bans to ingest. While I wouldn't presume to propose a solution to the issues raised in and by those threads, I found myself looking to the comment tagging system and finding some space to improve conversation.

My intent (as I believe is the intent of this community) is to help foster constructive discussion without outright banning inflammatory topics. I believe that simply ignoring controversial issues because of the problems they raise is at best stifling potentially useful discourse and at worst intellectually dishonest.
Tags I'd like to see:

  • "Citation Requested" As a tag, it would be a more constructive way of saying "I don't believe you"
  • "Disreputable Source" / "Source Disputed" is a civil way of pointing out issues
  • "Reported" would be a tricky implementation, but useful as a way of flagging comments for removal. Should ideally only be applied to eg. doxxing or incitement

There should also be a moderation feature for removing tags that are no longer relevant or incorrectly applied. Alternatively, the display of comment tags could be reliant upon a critical mass of "reputation points" which would allow for, say, 100 people with 1 "troll-tagging rep" to get a comment flagged, or 2 people with 50 troll-tagging rep to do so. This of course is dependent upon the reputation system being fleshed out and has the very real danger of creating power users

EDIT:

@jgb pointed out that this is a lively discussion see these

Tags I missed that came up in other discussions:

  • "Insightful" as a positive, almost a super-upvote
  • "Solved" for a comment that resolves an issue

And, according to @cfabbro, @deimos is working on a public activity audit that can then be built upon to improve moderation

13 comments

  1. [6]
    jgb
    Link
    Good post, but everything you've covered is at this point well trodden ground. From what we've seen and heard, I think we can rest assured that the admins are taking all these things into...

    Good post, but everything you've covered is at this point well trodden ground.

    From what we've seen and heard, I think we can rest assured that the admins are taking all these things into consideration and more as they work towards a more permanant solution to the tagging/reporting/downvoting problem.

    9 votes
    1. [2]
      cahaseler
      Link Parent
      Agreed, but I think we should welcome conversation and discussion from all the new people enthusiastic about the potential of a better system. Someone might come up with a genuinely good, new idea.

      Good post, but everything you've covered is at this point well trodden ground.

      Agreed, but I think we should welcome conversation and discussion from all the new people enthusiastic about the potential of a better system. Someone might come up with a genuinely good, new idea.

      8 votes
      1. jgb
        Link Parent
        Absolutely. I didn't mean this as a criticism of @SaucedButLeaking - rather as a reassurance that we're on an upwards trajectory here!

        Absolutely. I didn't mean this as a criticism of @SaucedButLeaking - rather as a reassurance that we're on an upwards trajectory here!

        4 votes
    2. [3]
      SaucedButLeaking
      Link Parent
      Fair point. I hope I'm not beating a dead horse; I just didn't see a meta thread about the issue where the community can come at the issue without the weight of the threads that spawned this one.

      Fair point. I hope I'm not beating a dead horse; I just didn't see a meta thread about the issue where the community can come at the issue without the weight of the threads that spawned this one.

      3 votes
      1. ruspaceni
        Link Parent
        The discussion is always healthy and this just confirms that we're actually talking about the same problem. Instead of just interpreting everything in our own wildly different ways.

        The discussion is always healthy and this just confirms that we're actually talking about the same problem. Instead of just interpreting everything in our own wildly different ways.

        2 votes
      2. jgb
        Link Parent
        You're not beating a dead horse at all - I think that it's a good thing to have this sort of post as a way to build consensus. You may find this related thread interesting, by the way.

        You're not beating a dead horse at all - I think that it's a good thing to have this sort of post as a way to build consensus.

        You may find this related thread interesting, by the way.

  2. [7]
    SaucedButLeaking
    Link
    Also: I haven't found the "tag" button on comments. Is this feature currently unavailable, or am I just missing something

    Also: I haven't found the "tag" button on comments. Is this feature currently unavailable, or am I just missing something

    2 votes
    1. [7]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. [6]
        glass_table_girl
        Link Parent
        I've spent the past few hours wondering about that and trying to figure out what I was doing wrong! This is helpful context. Any reason why it's disabled or ideas of when it would return?

        I've spent the past few hours wondering about that and trying to figure out what I was doing wrong! This is helpful context. Any reason why it's disabled or ideas of when it would return?

        1 vote
        1. [2]
          Comment deleted by author
          Link Parent
          1. glass_table_girl
            Link Parent
            Gotcha. Thanks for the answer! And yeah, I see that a search system is in the works as a ticket, so I'm looking forward to when that comes along.

            Gotcha. Thanks for the answer! And yeah, I see that a search system is in the works as a ticket, so I'm looking forward to when that comes along.

        2. [3]
          Comment deleted by author
          Link Parent
          1. [2]
            glass_table_girl
            Link Parent
            Makes sense. And I'm not too concerned about it being here/coming back. Just sort of... trying to get caught up to speed.

            Makes sense. And I'm not too concerned about it being here/coming back. Just sort of... trying to get caught up to speed.

            1. [2]
              Comment deleted by author
              Link Parent
              1. glass_table_girl
                Link Parent
                Oh no, not at all. Your response was very informative!

                Oh no, not at all. Your response was very informative!

                1 vote
        3. [2]
          Deimos
          Link Parent
          Sorry about that, I know that things are scattered and confusing for now. This is probably the most relevant topic to read (and some others are linked from there):...

          Sorry about that, I know that things are scattered and confusing for now. This is probably the most relevant topic to read (and some others are linked from there): https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/11n/daily_tildes_discussion_what_do_we_need_to_change_to_make_comment_tags_reasonable_to_re_enable

          I'm thinking about making some minor tweaks and trying them out again a bit this week, but I'm not sure yet.

          1 vote
          1. glass_table_girl
            Link Parent
            Thanks for the reply! It's interesting to see the early stages as people try to sort through what will be best for the community and what won't be. And no worries or need for apologies. I was just...

            Thanks for the reply! It's interesting to see the early stages as people try to sort through what will be best for the community and what won't be. And no worries or need for apologies. I was just very convinced that I was doing something wrong if I couldn't find the feature.

            1 vote