How do you use Tildes' labels?
One of the unique feature of Tildes when it comes to content moderation is the usage of "labels". While there are guidelines, there are no hard and fast rules as to when to use one label or the other (nor should there be!). I am curious what criteria you all use when deciding whether or not to apply a label to a comment, and also how frequently you find yourself labeling things. For reference, the current labels are:
- Exemplary
- Offtopic
- Joke
- Noise
- Malice
Are there labels you find yourself using more than others? Are there some you think are unclear? I feel like this is an often overlooked and underused feature, but that may just be because I personally do not use them that frequently. For example, I have only given a few Exemplary tags, a few noise, and I don't think any of the others.
I suppose I should have mentioned that. There are of course guidelines, but everyone's individual discretion is probably different when it comes to applying those guidelines. I'm more interested in how these guidelines tend to be followed in practice, hence this post :)
I simply haven't seen enough ignorant or malign activity to justify using the negative labels... yet.
I'm glad the labels exist and will use them if appropriate, e.g. when jokes, noise, off-topic and malicious entries threaten to make the environment worse for people who want to participate in sensible discussion. I believe they'll be essential when more strangers start commenting - they're a quick way to keep threads from dying of toxic behavior before everyone knows more about the culture they're in.
There was one particular thread where I mentioned I might label something malicious and asked for explanation. Things got explained for the benefit of non-combatants and I backed down. Generally, this is effective for people acting in good faith, but my attitude is that we should all be responsible for taking out the trash; if people repeatedly and aggressively act in bad faith, apply priority/moderation labels early and often.
As to exemplary labels, I give them to people who've posted thoughtful, insightful, interesting, informative, or heavily and carefully researched responses. It's a means, beyond just voting, that tells the writer a little about what you appreciated.
"Exemplary" is particularly useful when you don't have more to say than "I loved that" or "I totally agree, you saved me from writing a response myself". Affirmations like that in a thread can easily be characterized as noise, so the label is useful to help high-quality posters understand that people are actually grateful for their efforts.
Edit: changed "tag" to "label" where applicable - sorry for the sloppy entry.
I don't agree with this. I think saying "thank you" is fine, and it should usually get Noise-labeled as intended, which is also fine (Noise isn't a punishment). Maybe it'd even be better to have an aside/whisper function for it rather than relying on comments. (pretty sure that's in the feature requests already)
I think Exemplary should be used for something you're not just personally grateful for but you think is so well done other users should be notified of it when scrolling through the comments.
If you look at the mechanics of how "exemplary" works, there are a couple of features that mitigate pure popularity amplification, if that's what you're concerned about.
Rate-limiting use of the "exemplary" label to once every eight hours ought to prevent indiscriminate promotion of a "loved" comment that doesn't enhance knowledge and discussion.
It's useful to minimize in-thread noisy activity because it distorts relative thread activity and creates longer threads that become unwieldy, especially for mobile device users.
Maybe a commentor develops a fan base, which could be distorting in terms of what gets ranked higher in conversation threads sorted for votes, which is specifically impacted by exemplary labels as follows:
But people have choices to sort by relevance and time posted (my preference), as well as by votes. If misapplication of "exemplary" is a concern, it's easily mitigated according to your preferences.
I do have some concerns about the enduring effects of different users seeing conversations weighted differently. However, at this stage in Tildes' lifecycle, I think it sends a better message if there are easy ways for people to publicly reward what they want to see. There's little evidence the label is being used trivially - as /u/TheFanFicGuy mentioned, he's hesitant to use it at all.
I have seen a few instances where low-vote comments with little to no substance got exemplaried, seemingly because they were kind of lashing out against another commenter (I think one of them was just straight up being rude, but I don't want to dig up old drama) so I am a little bit concerned we're gonna see something similar to people using Reddit gold to vindicate bad comments.
That said, I agree the cooldown would probably help with that, as would restricting some ability (or maybe even vote weighing) of users to use Examplary based on their standing.
I use Exemplary when I find a really well constructed explanation of a concept, or a in depth personal experience relevant to the article, or when the poster explicitly requests their post to be marked as Joke, Offtopic, or Noise.
I don't really use the others though, since JON could be lumped together as "downvote for irrelevant or improper tone," and I'm honestly not a downvoting sort of person. Malice is similar to report, so if I run into something super nasty, I would use that, but I haven't so I didn't.
I've said since labels were introduced that the 'Joke' and 'Offtopic' labels are redundant: jokes and off-topic comments are both sub-types of noisy comments. All joke-only comments are noise. All off-topic comments are noise. So, whenever I apply either a 'Joke' or 'Offtopic' label, I usually find myself applying a 'Noise' label as well. Of course, there are noisy comments that are neither jokes nor off-topic; the most common type of noise I see is comments which consist solely of chunks of text quoted from the posted article. That's noise: it clutters up the thread.
I'm always looking for opportunities to use the 'Exemplary' label, but I sometimes wonder if I've set the bar too high: I don't label as many comments 'Exemplary' as I would like. But if I see someone has put in a lot of effort, I'll give them an 'Exemplary' label. Sometimes, while reading Tildes, I'll spot two comments in different threads which both deserve to be marked as 'Exemplary' but, because of the 8-hour delay, I can't label both. I often bookmark or remember the second one and come back to it later.
And 'Malice' is for personal attacks on other people on Tildes. It's not for general comments expressing an opinion I dislike. It's only for personal attacks.
Malice seems to be split between "the report function" and "somebody is starting to bicker." It would be nice if we had a yellow card/red card system for those situations, but since Joke, Noise, and Off Topic are often confabulated and make each other redundant, it may not be a good thing after all.
One thing I've always kind of felt was labels were designed this way as a response to the shortcomings of Reddit. Mainly, the fact that votes, intended to assist in curation, were so open-ended and non-specific they fulfilled every purpose except the originally intended ones. Or that moderation was a rather archaic and opaque hierarchical system with next to no tools, including actions for regular users to alleviate moderator workload. Labels are therefore not meant to be vague and open-ended but a way to help all user contribute to the overall health of the discourse, based on the still theoretical notion of "trust".
That said, I general vibe I'm getting from some responses is that many of us view labeling as a kind of personal interaction with another user. Something that's not necessarily meant to be taken out of that personal context or contribute to the larger discourse. Which I feel is kind of the opposite of how they are intended.
My interpretation of the Tildes principles (charity, etc.) is that a label is not a substitute for personal interaction. Labels shouldn't be applied unless that application is abundantly clear in context, and best done with a warning or explanation.
But as you suggested in reference to Reddit, they're designed for a user base scale that doesn't exist yet. A bunch of people just clicking a label is more beneficial for discussion thread health than many commenting individually about an irritating or noxious entry.
I never use Exemplary, no matter how much I think it means. Not because I don't want to: the barrier is coming up with a decent message. Whenever I tried to give one to a comment, I backed out because I couldn't make this permanent, fixed, ineditable thing good enough.
Simply make a brief statement of what you appreciated, or why you thought the post was important enough to merit promotion in a thread. Give the people whose thoughts you enjoy some feedback to let them know they did something you value.
As a community, it's the best merit badge we have, and "Exemplary" labels avoid the long-term values problems that arise from cumulative account karma or longevity.
Just type a single character, even if it's a full stop ("."). You don't need to write anything if you don't want to.
I'll keep that in mind.
One wants to make it truthful and memorable, you know?
Tee Bee Aych, I don't think I've used the labels much at all! I feel a vote+comment is more impactful, as you're putting it in the public record. Also, I'm not too keen on diminishing voices, with regards to the "noise" label. I dunno, I'm just open to hearing bullshit that I think is destructive, though I'm aware that the timbre of the day is that that level of expression ought to be removed from The ConversationⓇ.
I don't really get this? None of these labels remove the comments in question? And how are you going to vote or reply to a comment like "tips" to somebody mentioning the Fedora operating system, or a simple "thanks, I'll check this out"? What's to say to these kinds of comments such that making you scroll down to them is an issue? Why can't these comments just be lower in the reading order even if they get voted?
I don't even know what I was trying to say, I was ramblin' while watching stuff. Pay me no heed, I'm an idiot! Possibly we need a tag for "dumbass"...
I think commenting and voting works fine for that tbh :) nothing wrong with being wrong on occasion as long as you're not a dick about it.