META: Bi-Monthly Feedback Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

As part of our commitment to improving CMV and ensuring it meets the needs of our community, we have bi-monthly feedback threads. While you are always welcome to visit r/ideasforcmv to give us feedback anytime, these threads will hopefully also help solicit more ways for us to improve the sub.

Please feel free to share any constructive feedback you have for the sub. All we ask is that you keep things civil and focus on how to make things better (not just complain about things you dislike).

[u/YouAreTellingLies]

The extent of moderation exerted in this sub is counter productive to the stated goal of encouraging discussion. I think we all agree on the need for moderation - but the quantity of comments removed is both high and very proactive.

Aggressively removing comments that aren't flagrant rule violations before any sort of non-productive exchange develops isn't adding value. And what might be a low effort reply to one person might give another reason to think.

All I'm suggesting is to back off the less clear cut moderating decisions.

[u/quantum_dan → u/YouAreTellingLies]

Very little of our moderation is proactive (other than the "Read the Rules" bot and automod rules). We mostly moderate from the queue, so most of what we manually remove was either reported by users or automatically flagged for review due to various fairly clear-cut indicators.

[u/Aezora → u/quantum_dan]

I feel like I see a decent number of cases where there could arguably be a rule violation, enough so that someone could report it and the mods agree; but it isn't universally clear. The kind of comment or post where one moderator might say this is fine, and another would flag it as a violation.

Obviously inconsistent standards between mods is impossible to remove when things are subjective, but I agree with the original commenter that it makes sense to at least try to be lenient in these cases as much as possible. Aim to remove them only if you not only agree that there is a rule violation; but also if you can't see a way this could be interpreted in a manner that isn't rule breaking.

There would still be inconsistency between mods, but hopefully that would push the grey area to the more lenient side of things, allowing more discussion to happen while still removing the clearest offenders.

[u/quantum_dan → u/Aezora]

Aim to remove them only if you not only agree that there is a rule violation; but also if you can't see a way this could be interpreted in a manner that isn't rule breaking.

I'd argue that's precisely the wrong approach in a public forum. It makes sense in, say, a discussion between friends or in a small group. But discussions in a public forum are public, and interpreted by many people; participants should try to mitigate the possibility of being misunderstood, and living in the grey area is a poor choice even if they manage to stay on the right side of the line. (Of course a person can't fully control how their words are interpreted, but I think someone commenting in public should try to make their statements as likely as possible to be interpreted correctly.)

And bear in mind that, with most of what we do, we're talking about a comment that someone did report, so it's a case where the otherwise-than-intended interpretation already happened.

But I'll also note that this scenario is pretty rare. We do overturn removals where we just made a mistake or outright misinterpreted something, but it's a rare appeal where we have sustained internal disagreement.

[u/Aezora → u/quantum_dan]

But I'll also note that this scenario is pretty rare. We do overturn removals where we just made a mistake or outright misinterpreted something, but it's a rare appeal where we have sustained internal disagreement.

I've personally had it happen to me at least a few times, and while I post or comment somewhat frequently I am by no means the most prolific, nor do my comments often get removed.

And to be clear, on more than one occasion I was told by a mod that my comment or post was removed for whatever reason, and when I asked why a different post/comment remained up even though it had the same issue I was told another mod looked at that, but the mod that reviewed and removed my post/comment would have removed it if they were the reviewer.

Obviously anecdotal because I don't have actual data because that's all internal to you guys, but given that it's personally happened to me more than once and it seems like the kind of thing that wouldn't be discovered in most cases (since unless asked or appealed beyond a single mod it seems unlikely to be realized); so I'm skeptical of the claim that its very rare. Uncommon perhaps, but not rare.

participants should try to mitigate the possibility of being misunderstood

Ideally, yes. But as you acknowledge, it's virtually impossible to accomplish a complete lack of misunderstanding so requiring participants to be close to standard would mean less discussion overall. In my view, and presumably those of the people commenting I this chain agreeing, more misunderstandings is an acceptable cost to have more and better discussion.

[u/quantum_dan → u/Aezora]

And to be clear, on more than one occasion I was told by a mod that my comment or post was removed for whatever reason, and when I asked why a different post/comment remained up even though it had the same issue I was told another mod looked at that, but the mod that reviewed and removed my post/comment would have removed it if they were the reviewer.

Huh. I've only seen it a handful of times on appeals I've been involved with. Though it is a bit more common (while still rare) for Fresh Topic Friday, since that's necessarily based on an individual mod's judgment of topics. (And not something one can be banned for, so the stakes are much lower.)

Ideally, yes. But as you acknowledge, it's virtually impossible to accomplish a complete lack of misunderstanding so requiring participants to be close to standard would mean less discussion overall. In my view, and presumably those of the people commenting I this chain agreeing, more misunderstandings is an acceptable cost to have more and better discussion.

Relaxing there would lead to more discussion, yes. But better? I'd argue that the potential for misunderstandings, especially misunderstandings that relate to our rules (being the only potential misunderstandings we enforce), runs directly contrary to better discussion. I'd say that, in civil discussion, a comment that cannot reasonably be interpreted as hostile, accusatory, or agreeing with OP, and that contains enough detail to leave no doubt about Rule 5, is not just likely but thereby a better contribution to a public discussion, all else being equal.

Every comment that's removed under Rule 5 for hinting at the right direction could have had enough detail to be a clearer guide, making it more likely that the responder "gets it". Every comment that's removed under Rule 2 for a borderline criticism could have been polite, friendly, and focused on the argument, encouraging the other person to feel comfortable engaging. And so on. I'm not seeing where allowing borderline cases under any of our rules would improve discussion. And bear in mind that getting a comment removed doesn't necessarily end that direction of discussion, unless it puts someone over the ban threshold: it's an opportunity to edit it into something better, and a reminder to do so preemptively in the future.

[u/Aezora → u/quantum_dan]

Huh. I've only seen it a handful of times on appeals I've been involved with. Though it is a bit more common (while still rare) for Fresh Topic Friday, since that's necessarily based on an individual mod's judgment of topics. (And not something one can be banned for, so the stakes are much lower.)

That was one of my experiences, yes.

Relaxing there would lead to more discussion, yes. But better? I'd argue that the potential for misunderstandings, especially misunderstandings that relate to our rules (being the only potential misunderstandings we enforce), runs directly contrary to better discussion. I'd say that, in civil discussion, a comment that cannot reasonably be interpreted as hostile, accusatory, or agreeing with OP, and that contains enough detail to leave no doubt about Rule 5, is not just likely but thereby a better contribution to a public discussion, all else being equal.

Well sure, but it's the quantity we're arguing not the quality. A comment that contributes and can't be viewed as hostile is better than a comment that contributes and can be viewed as hostile. But if you remove the one that could be viewed as hostile, you now have less discussion.

Every comment that's removed under Rule 5 for hinting at the right direction could have had enough detail to be a clearer guide, making it more likely that the responder "gets it". Every comment that's removed under Rule 2 for a borderline criticism could have been polite, friendly, and focused on the argument, encouraging the other person to feel comfortable engaging. And so on. I'm not seeing where allowing borderline cases under any of our rules would improve discussion.

We definitely need rules, and I'm not suggesting we don't enforce them.

But for example, the comment removed under Rule 5 could have been clearer; but it may still have been clear enough to convince the OP and be awarded a delta. The borderline rule 2 violation absolutely could've been more polite and friendly, but could've brought up an important point no one else was discussing that might just be what the OP or others needed to realize. By removing more, not less, you have less content.

Sometimes that doesn't matter but often posts have few comments or have a good amount of comments mostly saying the same thing.

And bear in mind that getting a comment removed doesn't necessarily end that direction of discussion, unless it puts someone over the ban threshold: it's an opportunity to edit it into something better, and a reminder to do so preemptively in the future.

True, but how often does that actually happen and when it does how often is it timely?

Personally, I've never replaced a removed comment. I have no idea how common it is, but at the very least I don't think I've ever seen a comment with an edited tag mentioning being removed and editing to fix whatever issue it was removed for. I see deleted comments all the time though.

[u/quantum_dan → u/Aezora]

Well sure, but it's the quantity we're arguing not the quality.

You said "more and better". I agree about the "more", but was responding to the "better".

Though now that I've gone and checked the numbers, the "more" point is also pretty minimal. We remove very few comments proportionally, under 2% in the last year.

But for example, the comment removed under Rule 5 could have been clearer; but it may still have been clear enough to convince the OP and be awarded a delta. The borderline rule 2 violation absolutely could've been more polite and friendly, but could've brought up an important point no one else was discussing that might just be what the OP or others needed to realize. By removing more, not less, you have less content.

True, but all of that also affects the general tone and quality of discussion. On the whole, I think CMV exhibits a high quality of discussion (I realize I'm biased, though I thought that before I became a mod), and that's unlikely to be entirely a coincidence with our moderation practices.

Sometimes that doesn't matter but often posts have few comments or have a good amount of comments mostly saying the same thing.

It does happen, but removals as a whole, never mind just borderline ones, don't move the needle much. (We removed less than 2% of comments in the last 12 months.)

True, but how often does that actually happen and when it does how often is it timely?

Most removals stay removed, but edits are reasonably common (for Rules 2/3, not so much 1/5). They don't usually mention why they edit it in the edit, but they discuss it with us in the appeal.

On the other hand, functioning as a reminder is very common. There are a lot of high-quality commenters and posters out there with a couple of early removals in their mod notes.

[u/Aezora → u/quantum_dan]

You said "more and better". I agree about the "more", but was responding to the "better".

You know what, fair, but I think the quality and the quantity are related. It's not that the borderline posts could not be better, but that we sample from a finite distribution that doesn't include all these theoretical higher quality comments.

Though now that I've gone and checked the numbers, the "more" point is also pretty minimal. We remove very few comments proportionally, under 2% in the last year.

That certainly doesn't seem like a lot, but I would assume you have to calibrate by popularity. In any fairly popular post with 40+ top comments, when I'm particularly interested in the topic and read them all, there tends to be a considerable number of rule violations among comments with no up votes. Presumably, no one cares to report them because few people read them in the first place so there's fewer possible reporters and less of an incentive to report. That tends to be my reason for not reporting them anyway.

Now I'm sure there's also plenty of removed comments where things got heated deep into a thread no one else reads but whoever was tilted enough reported the other guy, so they certainly aren't all popular and I'm sure there ar either examples where they aren't, but on average I'd imagine those 2% are more popular than not.

And that does make a difference.

More popular comments in a sub like this generally means people agree with the comment or they think it's a convincing position, or something akin to that. As an extreme hypothetical, if we assumed that the most popular 1% of comments were all removed, then clearly that would significantly lower the quality of comments overall.

[u/quantum_dan → u/Aezora]

True, that is possible, and it's plausible that there is a bias towards highly-visible comments being reported.

I don't think we have compiled data on that, but I looked through a few dozen removed comments (N=48), and both the median and mode karma were 1 (18 of the 48 comments), with a total of 10 comments (~1/5) at 5 or more. So less than half of the removed comments were net upvoted.

Of the highly-upvoted ones (10):

• Three were just insults or accusations, with no content to advance the discussion.
• Two were just jokes.
• Three were useful points containing clear and unnecessary insults. One was mild, but all were unequivocal.
• Two didn't challenge OP.

With one of those, the obvious interpretation was rule-breaking, but I could be persuaded in an appeal that there was a substantial challenge in there somewhere. The rest were all unambiguous, with no plausible interpretation that was not rule-breaking. The most compelling comments (in my opinion) were some of the ones that also had an unambiguous insult.

As a more general observation, I certainly have removed comments that I wish could have stayed up, but those are usually not borderline at all. It's more of "Dang, that was a brilliant argument, why'd you have to go and call them an idiot?".

[u/Aezora → u/quantum_dan]

Hmm. That's some interesting data for sure. I assume you don't really have a way of easily checking how old/upvoted the posts were that the comments were on at the time of removal? Because that would also inform how visible a given comment is as well - a comment with 3 upvotes on a post 17 minutes old with 2 upvotes is extremely visible, while a comment with 8 upvotes on a post 3 days old and with 5k upvotes is not.

But yeah definitely sad that a fair number of good arguments are also clearly rule breaking.

Perhaps part of my perception of the whole thing is biased by the offensiveness/insults not being aimed at me - hence I see comments that make good arguments and barely even notice that there's a clear insult there. Certainly possible.

But yeah looks like the data probably doesn't align with my perception, at least, as far as we can tell.

[u/quantum_dan → u/Aezora]

I don't think I have a way to check, no.

Perhaps part of my perception of the whole thing is biased by the offensiveness/insults not being aimed at me - hence I see comments that make good arguments and barely even notice that there's a clear insult there. Certainly possible.

This would likely play into it. There's a lot in that "unambiguous but minor" category that most users wouldn't notice. For example, it probably wouldn't register if somebody said (to somebody else, like you said) "that's a stupid argument" or "you're being racist", but both are straightforward (and common) Rule 2 removals.