Rule #2 Discussion

[gaunt cliff]

a

@cold oriole

[cold oriole]

Cool.

Ok. So just to be clear about it. I love not being spammed by gifs. Also, I understand that sometimes allowing gif and some other times not is difficult to moderate. My point is that a gif or a meme can convey a message or a feeling 100x better than text. That's exactly why they are used by ρbot and the other bots on the server right? As long as gif or a meme has a good reason to be sent (in the context of the discussion) then I am ok with it.

Also I let's look at the rule again: No meme drops, reaction gifs, spam, or other low-effort posts. (What if everyone did this? Common sense applies)

No meme drops and reactions gifs I already talked about. Spam is clear and probably the only part that I agree should stay as it is. Low-effort posts is way too generic. What even is the definition of a low-effort post? I think this part of the rule has to be removed.

Proposal: Can we change the rule #2 to "Think a lot before you post a meme or a gif and restrict it only in the context of the current discussion. Also no spam" or something similar?

[urban flume]

It's a catch-all and no definition will ever have the same meaning to everyone. It's mostly aimed at the results of one person posting something, so someone else posts something similar, and pretty soon they're all pointing at each other saying "they caused the spam, not me!"

[late granite]

I think the idea is "no memes. we may let it slide if it's a one"
The rephrasing essentially allows some memeing, which will be difficult to moderate.

the way it works now, memes are still not allowed and may be removed without discussions about rules

[vapid stirrup]

The issue is that it's very hard to have everyone in a moderation team independently agree on what a meme even is

So even if I leave something up someone else may still come in and remove it anyway

[plain solstice]

ez have an artist create sanctioned memes XD

bonus points if its a factorio community member really feeds into the community feel

[cold oriole]

That's fine. Then the person that got the meme or gif removed can open and ticket and discuss it with them.

[vapid stirrup]

Then nothing needs to be changed

[urban flume]

I wonder how much of the contention over the rule is due to differing parsing. @cold oriole Do you distinguish between "meme" and "meme drop" ? If so, how?

[cold oriole]

It does. Because if the rule does not change the mod can just point to the rule. If it changes to "only ones" then the mod has to explain why the post was not .

[late granite]

That's exactly what the rule aims to avoid: Discussions about the art value of memes (i.e. more work for mods)

[plain solstice]

meme drop feels like just just dumping a ton of memes tbh

[cold oriole]

I don't see the difference no. Is there a difference?

[vapid stirrup]

Here to chat vs touch and go

[urban flume]

adding something to discussion vs. fishing for reactions

[cold oriole]

Ok then I don't like the fishing for reactions.

[urban flume]

exactly

[cold oriole]

I am just saying that I think they have a point in discussions if done correctly but the current rule does not allow that.

[urban flume]

the rule is very carefully written so that if people get that distinction, it's not actually a ban

if they don't understand it then they can and should treat it as a ban

[cold oriole]

Ok so you are saying that the rule does not allow "fishing for reactions" but allows a meme?

Because that's what I am trying to say.

Also, the "low-effort part"...

[late granite]

I wouldn't say quality memes are allowed.

[cold oriole]

it should be removed. It just adds to the confusion.

[late granite]

more like, tolerated

[cold oriole]

tolerated is fine.

[vapid stirrup]

The rule used to be worded a lot more leniently, pretty much saying "use common sense, no spam" - with memes being dropped into a channel with no intent for discussion being classified as spam. It lead to a lot of "it's not spam, I'm just dumping a single meme here" discussions. So a decision was made to reword the rule to explicitly exclude memes in the wording of the rule without much of a change to moderation approach

[cold oriole]

That pivots me to issues I have with #1 but I will talk about that in a different thread later.

[late granite]

This thread feels a bit like talking in circles to me. What's your motivation for this? Do you want to reword the rule, allow some/more memes?

[cold oriole]

Ok I was not aware of those changes to the rule. Do you think we can find a middle ground. Like a specific enough rule that does not allow meme dropping but tolerates good enough memes.

[cold oriole]

Yes.

I want more memes but don't allow meme dropping.

[gaunt cliff]

Motivation: Yes

[cold oriole]

Motivation has already being expressed above Lemon.

[gaunt cliff]

I think the general rule I've observed is: it must be within context

[vapid stirrup]

If you actually have quality memes that are related to currently ongoing discussion, and post them sparingly, that should be fine under our current moderation guidelines. We chose for the strict wording on the rule to avoid the inevitable rules lawyering when new people come in and decide they want to post memes here unrelated to any ongoing discussion. The hope is that regulars will see that nuance after some time and can have some freedom, but I also realize that, as I said before, coordinating what stays up between everyone in a moderation team is hard...

[gaunt cliff]

I enjoy seeing the occasional good meme every once in a while. I'm also holding out this one meme until the right context because I don't want it to be nuked

[cunning charm]

How about this, just let people use memes regardless and not allow spams of images and gifs overall?

I feel like we're overcomplicating the issue and the only problem being spam.

[gaunt cliff]

well this isn't a meme server

[vapid stirrup]

How do you define spam?

[gaunt cliff]

along with this I feel as if people really want to post a meme they will steer conversation towards said meme so it's "relevant"

[cunning charm]

A repeat of images, gifs and media used in quick succession be it in the same channel or multiple channels.

[gaunt cliff]

I'm gonna be fr I don't want to see memes often in any chat

if anything I would rather have #memes actually not be a troll

[vapid stirrup]

So if 10 people send 10 random gifs into #vanilla-chat, it's not spam?

[urban flume]

unsolicited (usually commercial) messages (such as emails, text messages, or Internet postings) sent to a large number of recipients or posted in a large number of places.

even a single message in a channel can have thousands of recipents

[vapid stirrup]

Before the aformentioned rule change, this was brought out somewhat regularly

[urban flume]

indeed

[cold oriole]

Ok as long as there is some freedom that would allow a few accurate memes or gifs I am ok with it.

Can you define the low-effort post?

Because I really think that part of the rule does not make sense.

[cunning charm]

True, a lot of moving parts in the definition really.

[urban flume]

hold up, I think you're glossing over something: If your meme post inspires a follow-up from someone else, the two together can become spam and they annihilate each other

[gaunt cliff]

I think looking at my some of my messages is a good example

[cold oriole]

That can happen with messages too right?

[urban flume]

not as easily but yes

[cold oriole]

Exactly my point . Not for your messages but that the rule is way too open.

[vapid stirrup]

It's a bit of a catch-all that honestly is rarely used. I'd say the most common example would be people pressing enter after every 3 words

[gaunt cliff]

an example:

[cold oriole]

That would be spam though.

[urban flume]

that was more rule 5 than 2

[cold oriole]

It is something already in the rules.

[gaunt cliff]

I think rule 5 is a rule 2 with a trench coat tbh

[plain solstice]

raccoons or badgers?

[urban flume]

they're similar yeah

[cold oriole]

I prefer not having catch-all because then the rule can be abused. We don't want spam for a reason, we don't want memes or gifs for another reason, having a catch-all like (low-effort) does not have a reason. It's just there.

[urban flume]

can or can't?

[vapid stirrup]

Sure, we could just condense the rules down to "be reasonable", but we'll need some elaboration and examples to get everybody in one line

[cold oriole]

"can" by people that consider something "low-effort".

[urban flume]

they all fit into the same umbrella of attempting to define "spam" really--it's just that people would respond to that saying what they were doing didn't fit their narrow definition and so it caused rules lawyering

if someone

typed like this

all the time

and you just

couldn't stop them from

[vapid stirrup]

[plain solstice]

what

like

this

iron

🙂

[cold oriole]

ok so this is low-effort?

[vapid stirrup]

Please I have pings on in this channel

[urban flume]

err, to be clear it is only hitting you due to the thread rather than being the whole moderation desk right? D:

[vapid stirrup]

Yes

[late granite]

did you set that up, or does the mod-ping apply to threads as well?

[urban flume]

threads people join notify them if they're in them with inherited settings from the channel I presume

[vapid stirrup]

It copies the setting from the parent channel if you join a thread

[plain solstice]

^^

[cold oriole]

Is this low effort?

[plain solstice]

well i was writing out what speck said but holy fuck the tism was takin its time

[urban flume]

anyway, do things make more historical contextual sense now Gak? 😅

[cold oriole]

The meme gif thing yes.

The low-effort I am still convinced that has to be removed.

But I don't want to waste more of your time.

[urban flume]

If it were removed, rule 1 would be doing some heavy lifting

[cold oriole]

I will have another discussion for rule #1 another time.

[vapid stirrup]

We should probably add a section on moderating memes to our world domination guide though, it apparently isn't in there yet.

[cold oriole]

that's a rule I think needs more work that #2.

[cold oriole]

Sorry what is "world domination guide"?

[cold oriole]

If it was a joke I didn't get it🥲

[vapid stirrup]

moderation guidelines lol

[cold oriole]

oh. That would be great actually.

[urban flume]

users when the seemingly humorless moderators do have a sense of humor: surprised-pikachu.png

[cold oriole]

Now you would like to be allowed to post a meme right?

[plain solstice]

i like moderators that arnt totalitarian and actually joke back n forth with ya

[urban flume]

no need; the text is plenty :)

[late granite]

we all know the surprised pikachu meme

[gaunt cliff]

I feel called out...

[vapid stirrup]

Plenty of easter egs in the hidden channels

[urban flume]

does the "eventual consistency" description yet live?

[gaunt cliff]

hmm

[vapid stirrup]

Yup

[gaunt cliff]

oh god the royal court one

[vapid stirrup]

lol

[cold oriole]

Anyway, to end this discussion, if you don't think the "low-effort" part should be removed I don't have anything else to add. Thanks to listening 🫂

[vapid stirrup]

(We're aware channel names and descriptions are semi-public)

[gaunt cliff]

good

[mellow frigate]

I suspect, regarding this discussion there is no pleasing everyone.

As Speckled mentioned, if a meme is left up or not is at the discretion of the moderator and no amount of rule writing to the team will change the fact that a judgement call is always opinionated/biased. Personally I feel bad leaving one image up and not another so I tend to remove a majority of images.

First thing to get out of the way is someone asked for the #memes channel to be 'real'. That's never happening unfortunately, we did it once recently for April Fools to see what would happen and as excepted it quickly got abused. I don't want a channel which is basically a honeypot for being moderated and most importantly I don't think any moderators actually want to moderate a memes channel.

Rule 2 regarding memes/images is there because often they're things superfluous to discussion that take up a lot of space, drive actual discussions off screen and while excellent at conveying a feeling, add very little of substance into a discussion.

We're also in a position where inevitably if we publicly defined some criteria that allows memes to meet some "legendary" status that allows them to be posted, I'm sure someone would attempt to create a memes folder with memes in that are considered "acceptable" in the server. Then I imagine eventually those would get 'banned'.

For me personally (not speaking on behalf of the team) I'd possibly be fine if by some miracle meme/reaction images were restricted to the size of stickers. Since it's harder to derail conversations with them. Even then, many people using sticker sized images would still derail conversations and end up needing moderation.

Sometimes I do wonder if we should just blanket remove any image that is a reaction image/meme since while that'll upset some people at least it would be considered fair. Or perhaps a "casual-factorio-chat" but again that would need someone to moderate it and I have a suspicion people would use that as an excuse to post images that violate other rules and I don't want to make a honeypot channel.

Anyway... A todo has been created for thinking over the moderation guidelines for memes/reaction images, but I figured I'd give moy own trhoughts here too.