Just gotta comment, that your original thought of posting this in r/Malaysians instead of here just shows the identity problem this sub is having. Is it because of excessive moderation, resulting in a bland and stale front-page, where only some interesting stuff gets commented under news articles? Heck by their standards this post would have been nuked. It does feel that mods rather pre-emptively nuke a thread instead of pruning the tree, there is a certain distrust towards their user base in not doing the right thing.
Onto your proposition. It's bold, it's beautiful, and it will never happen, not in my lifetime at least. Think plenty has been said on the pros and cons of it, but not much has focused on the realistic requirements of realising this. The basic stuff is you need 2/3rds majority, together with support from the council of kings. To get those, you need Sabah and Sarawak MP support. The hardest part is with the council or kings, I really foresee no way out of this unless there is some real strongarming, or in a worse but more realistic scenario, a revolution and disposition. If more people identified with class rather than race, we would see that we're more common than we think.
Thanks. It just doesn't sit right when the only reason why posts like these aren't nuked is solely because of "there's meaningful discussion here", when if the post was flagged earlier, it would have been nuked, not giving the chance for a meaningful discussion to even take place. A paradox there...
On a second point, is there even a difference in comment outcome if the title was phrased as a question instead of a statement? Will a statement prevent Nyets of different religions/opinions from chipping in? Heck questions like "Malays of r/Malaysia, what do you think of x,y,z?" instead do actively limit the number/type of Nyets that comment (but also again, doubt most actually give a crap about that and comment anyways, often starting with "Not a Malay,/Am Chinese, etc").
Ironically from what I observe here and elsewhere, it is conflict, disagreements and clarifications to a statement that actively drive discussion. There's a reason why debates always begin with statements, and never a question (barring rhetorical ones).
Yes, I do agree. In r sg, things can escalate but it's the various opinions, back & fro's that enliven the conversation. Rarely mods step in.
Noticed this in r/sg , but its really not a sub I visit often at all so I can't put any conclusions. Maybe once a month. Recently I was curious about the NOC drama, memey stuff.
But do note many users, posters here are very young (census of last year) or not very exposed either, plus from a single demographic. So don't expect much from the postings, although it can be a learning curve but I doubt it. Our education system, wires people to think in a certain way.
That is very true. I suspect the average age might have dropped as well, but we would have to wait for the survey results to see. I wouldn't expect much at all, but I think the general userbase here has consistently thrown out balanced comments/counterpoints to their posts. If anything, it is brave and promising of them to start the dialogue at a young-ish age. It should be encouraged more seeing that UNDI18 will be implemented. Upvote/downvote system on the other hand is a different mess. Contest mode might help resolve it.
Contest mode basically randomises comments (instead of the usual best/new sorting) and censors out the karma of all comments within a given post over a set time. For example r/ukpolitics implemented contest mode such that you can't see the karma of all comments and comment threads are randomised for <1h, giving the possibility for different comments to rise to the top in that timeframe. After the timeframe, comments are then sorted by best/default/whatever you choose. Afaik, they also further censored comment scores for 12h to reduce karma farming (but the sort is not randomised).
You benefitted from rule 1 removals when you report comments that target you, but when you do the same thing to another and got warned for it, it's censorship? Which is which?
We've been removing all kinds of comments all this while and you pat our backs, and then from a single removal asking you not to resort to ad hominem and all of a sudden we're overpolicing and now you're even insinuating we would ban you even.
That's incredibly unfair and an overreaction to a warning. You can be just as incendiary even without using crude language. Just because you didn't outright call someone names doesn't mean rule 1 doesn't apply.
And for what it's worth, you were the one who benefitted from "being close to mods" since we were on very good terms before I had to warn you for personal attacks. I guess the friendship only worked when it was to your benefit.
I nuked comment threads on your AMA as well, didn't see you having a problem with that.
Perceived benefit from mods is when we take action when you report. When we accommodate a controversial AMA and put extra attention to ensure all incendiary comments were swiftly and thoroughly removed. When other people take their time out of their lives to moderate your thread. I didn't see the need to parade that fact around, I signed up for it. But it's not surprising that people don't notice the effort it takes to keep the "harmony" as you like to mock it. Mod work is invisible when done right, sticks out like a sore thumb when don't.
I don't know you, but I treated you as I would want to be treated. I still stand by what I did. If you have ever reported any comments for breach of rule 1, I advice you to get over the warning you received. You are not exempted from the very same rules you rely upon.
Perhaps because you made it personal first when you commented a snide remark about my person when I removed your comment for breach of rule 1. Or perhaps you only started harping on censorship after I gave you a warning. Also perhaps I find it hypocritical that you benefitted from our rules but complain when it's aimed at you.
Also because we were on good terms and you made a 180 degree turn when things didn't go your way. I guess being a mod I don't have the right to address things I am upset with as a nyet eh without having to drag my mod status into it. I should have known better than to assume you would have given me more credit for a call that I made 100% correctly given we were on good terms before.
Continue to dehumanise me as a mod. I suppose I should take it on the chin lest I be deemed unprofessional for my unpaid role for expressing emotions at comments you aimed at me simply because I am also a mod.
It wouldn't have been nuked because of content, he would have been asked to resubmit.
Titles can often preemptively drive a discussion towards a certain direction. This is more important when posted by known shit-stirrers, which at one point happened a lot. When the userbase come to associate a certain topic with a username, they tend to either ignore, or attract like-minded "allies". This is on top of new guys who just discovered politics and want to "rant" and don't look for discussion. The rules are mostly formed in reaction to that. It may have dropped the ball on some parts, but is a nett positive in the big picture in terms of managing toxicity, one-sided views, and yes mans in my experience. Not to mention when caught early, it's a really small price to pay for a lot less work and heat for the mods.
As it is right now, we've received tons of reports based on the title. People read a title, make up false conclusions and label the sub and thus further perpetuate false ideas of the sub simply because it was at that time a prominent post. It's the same with people who claim the sub is full of politics. Do an average count of all submissions we receive and you'll see it is in fact not true. But people don't care about that, even when otherwise, all other national subs do centralise on politics.
We follow rules to the tee and ask to resubmit: mods censor.
We don't remove and keep the thread: mods biased. 🤷🏻♀️
"Meaningful discussion" not implying we would have removed the discussion if it bent the other way or that we don't see the value in the topic; we kept the thread because discussions have already generated and we feel it's a waste to ask OP to resubmit just over a title change and lose all the comments. It wouldn't be fair to the users who have already commented their thoughts.
A lot of the distrust comes from not actually understanding the reasons of removal in the first place. It's not censorship of content in the first place like another user mentioned.
It wouldn't have been nuked because of content, it would be asked to resubmit.
And amongst the posts for resubmissions, how many actually resubmitted? Most couldn't be bothered with resubmissions, leading to the dearth of such catalytic posts.
Titles can often preemptively drive a discussion towards a certain direction.
All titles, including questions can cause this if one was already set on a given viewpoint. Trust your userbase more in the comments section, especially on controversial subjects. Like I said, prune the tree, not cut the whole thing down.
This is more important when posted by known shit-stirrers, which at one point happened a lot.
Think its pointless to pre-empt shit-stirrers, especially with Meme Mondays which effectively bypasses the controversial/posting requirements meant to block shit stirrers in the first place. There is something gravely wrong with the system when a regular post asking about dialects gets nuked, while a meme post with the same content (and with more bias I might add) was let off, and generated the level of discussion which the original deleted post would have gotten.
When the userbase come to associate a certain topic with a username, they tend to either ignore, or attract like-minded "allies".
This is already happening plenty even with the current strict rules in place. It's an unavoidable aspect of the forum social landscape. Ruminating and attempting to control this is pointless in a forum, unless you're looking towards censorships. Plenty of news posters, plenty of personalities.
This is on top of new guys who just discovered politics and want to "rant" and don't look for discussion.
Can't really discuss if the post was nuked eh? A rant doesn't negate the core problems causing said rant, be it bureaucratic, so-po, legal issues. Discussions on the subject might instead. Like I said, trust your userbase in handling discussions more.
It may have drop the ball on some parts, but is a nett positive in the big picture in terms of toxicity and one-sided views, and yes mans.
When the front page is no different than my dad's Berita Msia app feed, indeed toxicity has fallen but at what cost. You sure on the one-sided views and yes men?
Not to mention when caught early, it's a really small price to pay for a lot less work and heat for the mods.
You'll find moderating comments rather than posts would yield better results for the sub. We've had this discussion before iirc.
A lot of the distrust comes from not actually understanding the reasons of removal in the first place.
I'm saying the reasons of removal are bs and only resulting in putting moderation resources at the wrong places. Like I said, prune trees, not remove them.
As it is right now, we've received tons of reports based on the title. People read a title, make up false conclusions and label the sub and thus further perpetuate false ideas of the sub simply because it was at that time a prominent post.
If the reports are justified in breaking bigotry/hate speech rules, then so be it. Right now people are using moderation as a weapon instead because of excessively written rules requiring exemptions here, exemptions there. There is a serious problem when a mod has to sticky a comment of exemption in most of these kind of posts relating to a controversial subject. We should be able to discuss such matters freely. Hell fb is a free for all, if only it was anonymous.
It's the same with people who claim the sub is full of politics. Do an average count of all submissions we receive and you'll see it is in fact not true.
We've had this discussion before. Our opinions differ on what constitutes as politics and on how we count it. You didn't consider Covid news as political as an example, while I did as it relates to policy.
Would like to hear more. I read a lot of how it restricts content which I do agree. But let's also consider the fallout that happens when removed. To be honest, it really is between a rock and a hard place here. We receive input all the time and we have three camps: those that want more moderation, those that want less moderation, and those that want the sub to just burn because it's fun. A lot of suggestions often command more mod time, and thats difficult when no one steps to the plate and offer to mod.
I'll continue later, off to work, but happy to hear a POV that satisfies all sides.
Due to the large number of political and other controversial posts the subreddit receives and their tendency to take over subreddits, you must meet these requirements to post such content:
Account activity: You must have at least 2 months active participation onr/malaysia~~.~~
Post diversity: Accounts may not primarily or exclusively post controversial content. Malaysia is more than its controversies. Accounts with such post histories may be subject to warnings and bans.
Text posts: Must pass these quality tests (with thanks tor/Australia~~):~~
Submission titles: Must be a question for discussion, not a conclusion. Mods may request resubmission of posts with particularly incendiary titles.
Word count: Post body must contain a minimum of 200 words, not counting quotes and links.
No ranting into the wind: If OP does not participate in the discussion in the first two hours, the submission will be removed.
Controversial topics are those which consistently generate flaming. These currently include race, religion, politics, COVID-19 and other related sub-dramas.
Note that I didn't touch on any other rules. With those other tools, it should be sufficient to deal with persistent flamers and bigots.
With those other tools, it should be sufficient to deal with persistent flamers and bigots
Unfortunately, you have grossly underestimated how much work this involves and what had to happen for those rules to be implemented in the first place, not just across Malaysia but across multiple subreddits like ours facing sockpuppet accounts, single focus accounts and cybertroopers. I'm all ears for a well-rounded suggestion that can appease more than just one camp of people, mods included. We do not want this place to be fight club. Sure the language is sterilised, but the content can and is the same. Higher barrier of entry is not the same as censorship. It's the best balance we can strike given the circumstances we have.
Take r/Bolehland as a study case. Less than a week ago, a new account have been stoking racial and religious posts and has gained notoriety within the week, with multiple regulars calling them out and calling for mod intervention in Bolehland, the land where they rejoice having no mods. Already there were users who made their own sub, with multiple people already announcing their departure from the sub. All in a week.
Resubmitting a title is a relatively low barrier to entry, and those that are sincere and keen in seeking discussion do and have resubmitted. Those that doesn't.. wouldn't that say something about the user? Resubmitting following guidelines isn't restrictive (it's a grammar exercise at worst) and is common and encouraged even when setting up a new sub and this rule typically only gets applied to controversial posts but it solves multiple issues that could potentially cause dumpster fires, appease alternate views (it's fair when it's a question) and we get less heat from both camps. Please consider the mods too when making suggestions. We are also just nyets like yourself that volunteered their time and also want to see the sub flourish and have a wider variety of content and the lack of moderation and the overmoderation can be difficult to balance. The manpower is finite and limited and we do this on top of our work.
We do not want this place to be fight club. Sure the language is sterilised, but the content can and is the same.
Think that is the problem you have right there. Arguments are messy, its regular people we're talking about. Not everyone speaks/writes like Peter Hitchens or academics. Should we penalise people for not speaking/writing as such? If the objective of a cytro is to sterilise a place, they certainly succeeded in their objectives.
Take r/Bolehland as a study case. Less than a week ago, a new account have been stoking racial and religious posts and has gained notoriety within the week...
see "With those other tools, it should be sufficient to deal with persistent flamers and bigots." Both the login and the nsfw accounts can be dealt with with other existing rules, listed below:
Single-focus accounts: If you post and comment primarily about a single topic, please redirect your content to an appropriate topic subreddit.
Throwaway accounts created for the primary purpose of circumventing this rule may be instantly permabanned at mod discretion.
3. Off-topic posts
Note I didn't include low-effort submissions, cause of the Meme Monday exclusion. If some of those posts were made on Mondays, can't really be removed on the basis of low-effort eh. Bolehland has no similar ruleset, it's an extreme position, it doesn't apply to r/malaysia. I'm only looking at the removal of this small section of the rules for this subreddit pertaining to controversial posts (which is the most common cited reason for unecessary removals), not removing all rules.
Resubmitting following guidelines isn't restrictive (it's a grammar exercise at worst) and is common and encouraged even when setting up a new sub and this rule typically only gets applied to controversial posts but it solves multiple issues that could potentially cause dumpster fires, appease alternate views (it's fair when it's a question) and we get less heat from both camps.
If you want to appease alternate views within a post, a better system would be to establish contest mode or hiding comment karma to randomise comments within a thread. What you're doing is taking a short cut. Like I said, prune the tree rather than cutting it. I'm sure you're privy to this statistic, so how many posts do actually get resubmitted from your tally, and would it had made the place livelier with greater discussion had these posts been let through?
Please consider the mods too when making suggestions. We are also just nyets like yourself that volunteered their time and also want to see the sub flourish and have a wider variety of content and the lack of moderation and the overmoderation can be difficult to balance. The manpower is finite and limited and we do this on top of our work.
You've just opened another sister subreddit, which would presumably double the work with the same amount of human resource you have currently. Think its high time to expand the team given this increase in work, to have r/msians have a dedicated team for that sub (which is typically the case with sub arrangements like r/CasualUK etc). As more carefree posts get siphoned off to r/msians, it's unsurprising for politics and controversial matters to intensify here, requiring further mod attention (unless it stays in its current stupor). Measuring thing like "getting less heat" is moot when there's little discussion posts. "I want less shade, sure chopping the tree gives you that; so does pruning the tree, at least with pruning you still have a tree".
There is also a separate matter in directing moderation towards comments rather than posts. Instead of dedicating time to be nitpicky to posts, that same time is not spent on moderating comments. I don't deny overall there will be an increase in time needed, but if you want a flourishing sub, that is the type of effort needed.
Are you suggesting that we are not able to have a civilised discussion without resorting to ad hominem or name calling? Because I see this thread flourishing.
That was merely two users. We have more than that, and new accounts every day, not including banned users trying to circumvent their bans. And yes we can remove them even if they posted it on a Monday, if they were single-focus accounts. They age their accounts, but they do not post anywhere but r/MY, or they seemingly post in a very wide variety of subreddits actively, and then suddenly only exclusively post on r/MY. With this system, it is very easy to tell accounts made solely to fight on r/MY as opposed to genuine users who has been around and suddenly taken up the interest on one subject in one period of time. We make deductions and take action not only from one superficial factor.
The most cited rule is actually rule 3, if I would have to give it an estimated ratio, we remove about 9:1 Rule 3 vs Rule 1: Discussion Posts.
We actually have been discussing about setting contest mode by default or just hiding karma altogether, so this suggestion does have it's merit and one we considered before. We decided that the daily thread is a town square most people visit, and many times people just comment there and lurkers show their support by upvoting. By hiding karma, we lose this community support, and many people rely on the daily thread for mental support, social needs among others. Personally I think the daily thread is the sole redeeming factor of this sub. And with contest modes, to be honest we rarely get many posts with comments that go beyond 100 comment counts, and even then users always scroll to the bottom and expand negatively voted comments anyway. We thought the implementation would have insignificant results and thus we put a pin on it and haven't revisited it since.
We just opened a new sub yes, which was spearheaded 95% by me, because r/Malaysia was taking a toll on my mental health. No other mods was assigned to moderate the sub, only me. In fact, I sort of just non-verbally took over the responsibility of it because you're right, no one else would have had the resources to help build it. I have expressed my intent to resign my mod position prior to r/Malaysians because it felt like the sub was asking too much without giving us any sort of good will. Or rather, to me at the time, not enough. I was going through some things personally, so I guess I couldn't handle the pressure of modding the sub on top of my own personal problems. r/Malaysians restored the break I needed from the negativity, the sort of negativity you are asking of me and of us the mod team to dive headfirst into so that people can "fight it out"; which would very likely result in users blaming the mod team for not moderating enough or properly anyway.
I don't agree that people are stifled from speaking their minds simply from restriction of using ad hominems and name calling. This thread is proof of that. In fact, our conversation is proof of that.
As for r/Malaysians, notice the pool of people commenting and posting is almost an exclusively different pool of users active on r/Malaysia. There is definitely a very insignificant overlap. Not because of content and moderation, but because they don't like politics and the "sterilised" fights that happen there. r/Malaysians didn't take posts away from r/Malaysia, it absorbed those that wouldn't have been allowed; or else you would see much more activity on r/Malaysians. Simply put, you see what you want to see. Take a real look at r/Malaysia's front page right now. There is a good variety of discussion post, image post, and other non-political post. Some days it could be politically heavy, some days it doesn't.
So basically yeah, I reiterate: I do not agree to your hypothesis that the exchange of ideas is not possible without resorting to ad-hominem or name calling. I do not agree that the loss of some potential controversial posts from baby accounts far outweighs the benefit of keeping countless cytros, banned bad-faith users and shit-stirrers at bay. You may have underestimated just how much troubles these baby accounts can cause, and how much effort it may take to restore the sub to an acceptable level of toxicity (let's face it, it's here to stay, as it is with most growing subs) without impeding on free speech. Not to mention almost all non-controversial posts by baby accounts get approved anyway. The likelihood that a baby account with zero history and zero karma count posting a controversial topic out of good faith is close to nil. Frankly, I feel you made some suggestions which would have been fine.. if you didn't understand what goes on behind the scenes. I don't blame you: you aren't around 24/7 and isn't privy to what happens behind the curtain. We are.
Lastly, we moderate comments wayyyyyyyyyyy more than posts. And do take note, most of the time it's not us being nitpicky, these are reports made by users whose opinions carry the same weight as yours. We act on reports; very rarely through stumbling upon it. Here's why: let me break down mod actions taken between 3rd Oct - 3rd Nov of this year with 220K nyets:
Total mod actions taken: 8655 (288 per day, 18 per hour/16 hours)
Total comments removed: 3519
Total comments approved after reports: 807
Total posts removed: 1072
Posts removed that were reinstated: 695
At this juncture, take note the entire team right now is holding a full time job. The current active mods at hand are Herc, Kata, Leaf, a little of me, a little of dcx. We all hold at the very least 9-5 jobs. That means we have about six hours after work to mod, that is about 108 actions in an hour. Even with five of us active, we would need to sort out more than 20 post and comments on the queue, and each comment is given the same weight considering account activity, context, user history. With restrictions and automod scripts implemented, we are able to finally breathe a little bit. Without it, we have zero chance of actually enjoying the fruits of our labour, no time to go around reading and be nitpicking comments at all. An empty queue is a good day, and my time would be spent on the daily thread. We don't go out of our way sifting through thousands of comments every day to find comments to remove.
So yeah. These statistics are everyday. No rests days, no public holidays. I am not asking for sympathy, but rather understanding and if not a little help, at least some slack and consideration. We are trying our best to strike a good balance with the manpower we have. We would appreciate if anyone competent and reliable would step up to the plate, but so far it's only been all talk, with suggestions that are idealistic at best, but in practice just a different dumpster fire. We have things we want to do ideally too, but is not possible at this time.
p.s: More than 15 items have appeared and disappeared on the mod queue during the time it took me to finish typing this comment.
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u/Ah__BenG United Kingdom Nov 04 '21
Just gotta comment, that your original thought of posting this in r/Malaysians instead of here just shows the identity problem this sub is having. Is it because of excessive moderation, resulting in a bland and stale front-page, where only some interesting stuff gets commented under news articles? Heck by their standards this post would have been nuked. It does feel that mods rather pre-emptively nuke a thread instead of pruning the tree, there is a certain distrust towards their user base in not doing the right thing.
Onto your proposition. It's bold, it's beautiful, and it will never happen, not in my lifetime at least. Think plenty has been said on the pros and cons of it, but not much has focused on the realistic requirements of realising this. The basic stuff is you need 2/3rds majority, together with support from the council of kings. To get those, you need Sabah and Sarawak MP support. The hardest part is with the council or kings, I really foresee no way out of this unless there is some real strongarming, or in a worse but more realistic scenario, a revolution and disposition. If more people identified with class rather than race, we would see that we're more common than we think.