You Were Obvious Before You Even Began to Type

[ZoeTick]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

What was less forgivable -- inexcusable, in fact -- was Pep's decision to repost the picture on subsequent occasions, deliberately, because he 

knew

how upset it made some people.

---

Nonsense. Pep promised to repost it as a response to LOLcats which upset him to the core, and did so after others deliberately provoked him; Pep simply stuck to his word, as would any gentleman of honour.

I don't think that his posting a huge picture of a spider was very nice though, given that a couple of forum participants had admitted to severe arachnophobia - although surely that is a fear of spiders, not a fear of pictures of spiders.

[ZoeTick]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

PS. I'm actually rather proud of myself for 

not

having ranted -- in this particular exchange anyway -- about the implicit misogyny of the term. Can I take your comment to represent permission to do so? ;-)

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Pep always made it perfectly clear that his reference to the LWL related to fussy and malicious old women of both sexes.

Hell, the Gyppo, the Hipster, and (worst of all, since he suckered you more selfishly than Pep ever did) the gNat were just one rank below the MadBagLady.

[ZoeTick]

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Celestiall Nightfire wrote:

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

The multitasking we do is at the subconscious level, which really isn't what multitasking discussions are generally about.

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Exactly.   I didn't refer to any autonomic responses.

 

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So the pair of you are reframing the question of who is more effective at getting multiple things done by refusing to admit the relevance and importance of men doing things automatically that women have to make a big song and dance think about.

Or more accurately, have to expedite discussions, obtain consensus, canvass the opinion of focus groups, conduct paired rest room negotiations, and other female equivalents of the prevarication which gets in the way of action in the real world.

Next thing you know some enlightened researchers will conduct a study justifying the number of shoes in my wife's wardrobe by explaining it as a mechanism for reducing analysis time in making purchase decisions. They'll title the paper "I'll just take them in size six in all the colours you have".

[irihapeti]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

It's not really a study about trolls at all, but about moderation. And that makes its conclusions about algorithmic protections against trolling all the more suspect; the proposed software would merely replicate the tendencies, and mistakes, of human moderators -- without the human element.

---

 depends on how is deployed

the business use case for this kind of algorithm is to algotag posters for further attention/scrutiny by human moderators. This way a smaller team of paid mod staff needs to be employed than would otherwise be the case, bc they dont need to read every post made. Just those of the posters who have been algotagged

for posters who can avoid algotagging bc clever writers then is no biggie for the business. The mods just manual add the tag, as they come across them or in response to reader/user AR. Same like they do now without any algorithmic screening/tagging

 

+

eta how

 

[Vulpinus]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

It's a lot more fun and flattering to picture oneself in combat with dragons, but the truth is more often that we are really just shooing away annoying rodents.

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I have no idea what historical events you are all talking about, but that quote is worthy of a signature line!

[ZoeTick]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

 

. It's a lot more fun and flattering to picture oneself in combat with dragons

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The English (or maybe the Turks or Lebanese) may think it is heroic to fight dragons, but to the Welsh they are faithful pets.

[Laurin Sorbet]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

---

The thing that struck me immediately was how very different the forum culture was on RA. The use of ResMods is one reason for that, I guess: it was certainly much more of a "Wild West," in some ways -- but there was also more confidence, I think, in the ability of the mods to shut down really nasty flame wars. Or perhaps we just had thicker skins?

(Disclosure: I'm pretty sure I recognize "Blyss" by her posting style. Or maybe not. But the whole incident is ringing bells like mad, even though I don't think I was yet on the forums at that point.)

---

The Wild West it was, especially on Fridays.  After they switched to Jive and the RIC'ing was in full swing, that was the best way to get around the jumped up wanna be mods:  post your outrageous thread at 5PM Friday  PST and it could run wild until 9 AM Monday PST when it would promptly be deleted.

I agree, there were thicker skins back then (as well as thicker thighs, of the linebacker variety).  I know one reason some people left, beyond the predictably unpredictable moderation was the fear of not only being suspended from the forum, but being slapped with a concurrent inword suspension, or gasp, ban.

I know that was the reason a well known forum poster (with whom Lasky and I, along with Ms Chippewa have a scandalous familial connection) bailed.

 

 

 

[ZoeTick]

Hi Laurin, I wondered if linking to the "Malicious" thread might encourage more participants there to reappear here...

It would make my week if Jig were to visit teh forums!

[Laurin Sorbet]

Hahahahahaaa!  If Jig returned to the forums, they would need to implement a punishment algorithm.  No human could moderate her without a head exploding!

 

[heraldprophet]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

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Celestiall Nightfire wrote:

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

. And I have seen at least one person who posts here identified, over and over again, as a sort of

Moriarty figure

who has quietly masterminded a plot that involves manipulating posters as though they were pawns on a chess board, all in the pursuit of . . . well, I'm not quite sure what.

---

More like Dr. Frankenstein, who in a fit of social engineering, created a monster.

 

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

Drama and cliquishness are grotty and fairly pathetic, not embued with magical power. Let's demystify, and c

all a spade a spade, as they say.

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Uh, did you not understand about the ARs?    Can't say directly, as EVERY goddamn thing that got close to calling them out for what, and who, got reported.  Cloaking the language was the only way. 

 

Besides, the code name gives you something to rail about...  ; ) 

 

 

 

 

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I take your point about not naming names, but that's not quite what I meant by calling a spade a spade; really, what I was getting at is that the LWL seems to have been elevated to the status of something terrifically powerful and frightening, when what we're really talking about is, at best, a small clique of individuals. It's a lot more fun and flattering to picture oneself in combat with dragons, but the truth is more often that we are really just shooing away annoying rodents.

But, as I said, I really have very little idea of what actually happened, and I think I know only one or two of those involved well, so I'm not qualified to comment on what happened. I do think that "Frankenstein" is likely to be a better characterization of the aforesaid Evil Genius, based on what I know of her (and I do know her somewhat well). But she doesn't require me to defend her: she'd be more than capable of doing so herself if she thought it worth her while.

If ARs were being tossed about gratuitously and malicious, then I am certainly sorry to hear it

. They are (and this applies to RICs on the forum too) to my mind a last resort, not to be used lightly, if at all.

 

PS. I'm actually rather proud of myself for 

not

having ranted -- in this particular exchange anyway -- about the implicit misogyny of the term. Can I take your comment to represent permission to do so? ;-)

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Hark!!

What do you mean "If..."

Do you believe that valiant Derek's post of the Answer's pic was pulled for "Flaming!" solely on the initative of the mod concerned? Or for any of the preceding warnings/pulled posts he recieved for that matter?

The Answers pic had been posted to numerous threads without incident. I should also like to point out that the three posts where Derek is called a "nazi", "fascist" and a "jerk" still remain in the original threads making it certain that context was never checked and only the RIC and reason stated for it was used to determine the course of action taken.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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LaskyaClaren wrote:

A key criticism I have of this study is that it seems to endorse the notion that "community standards" are the ultimate test of what constitutes a "troll." Trolling, in this context, can potentially mean little more than posting differently from others, and not "fitting in." I'm not interested in communities populated entirely by like-minded individuals: I want to hear different perspectives, and I'm refreshed by different posting styles, uses of language, etc. And I certainly don't want to be part of a community that actively suppresses difference.

If you don't endorse the notion that communities (or businesses) should set their own standards, who should? Or am I misunderstanding your statement? I am a member of communities that will ban people for discussing religion, politics, anything else off topic, or being intolerant of ESLers. I don't think those standards are unreasonable, and they were presented to me before I joined. I do not feel constrained by them.

If you are not interested in communities populated by like minded individuals, don't join them. I can't count the number of communities I'm not interested in joining, like Quilter's Haven or the Jew's Harp Guild Discussion Group. My Jew's harp is packed away with the Day-Into-Night quilt Mom and I made before the advent of social networks sucked up all my boing-boing time.

And I wonder if you might actually want to be part of a community that actively suppresses difference. You simply need to figure out which differences you'd support suppressing, which is why I imagine you pay some attention to the doings of the

RCMP

.

;-).

---

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

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irihapeti wrote:

---

LaskyaClaren wrote:

It's not really a study about trolls at all, but about moderation. And that makes its conclusions about algorithmic protections against trolling all the more suspect; the proposed software would merely replicate the tendencies, and mistakes, of human moderators -- without the human element.

---

 depends on how is deployed

the business use case for this kind of algorithm is to algotag posters for further attention/scrutiny by human moderators. This way a smaller team of paid mod staff needs to be employed than would otherwise be the case, bc they dont need to read every post made. Just those of the posters who have been algotagged

for posters who can avoid algotagging bc clever writers then is no biggie for the business. The mods just manual add the tag, as they come across them or in response to reader/user AR. Same like they do now without any algorithmic screening/tagging

---

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo recently admitted that "We suck at dealing with abuse."

Doh!

They've hired 28 people to work on the issue (0.7% of their 3900+ employees), and I bet some of those 28 will be thinking about using algorithms to help. Even if only a very tiny percentage of Twitter's 9000 tweets per second warrant attention, 28 people might either miss most of the problems or make a great many mistakes, unless they leverage algorithms. And those algorithms will probably be more sophisticated than the one cited in the OP.

Social networks already graph user connections. Some of those graphs are pretty enough to hang on a wall. Here's one from Facebook...

 

Those same networks can graph sentiment on top of the connections. Here's a graph from Twitter (red = anger?)...

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/519306/most-influential-emotions-on-social-networks-revealed/

It's not hard to imagine that you could slice the network data to locate individuals exhibiting potentially unwanted behavior. (RIght NSA?) If the users don't like how Twitter handles abuse, it'll show on their radar, just as not handling the abuse has. Of course innocent people will be affected by what Twitter does. They're already being affected by what Twitter doesn't.

I agree with you that these algorithms will (at least at first) be used to triage issues to be handled by humans. But I see no reason that the algorithms won't one day be set loose to clean the rugs on their own.

I'm not advocating blind trust in social networks to safeguard self expression, but I am expecting it.

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

dewisilures wrote:

Why?

The authors determined that the only gender difference between males and females they found,

where the females were better, ie spatial ability,

was mitigated by the menstrual cycle, therefore making them worse drivers, in their own right, within the context of multi-tasking. The fact that the difference in performance between males and females was negated was immaterial to my comment.

And was included only to add a little humour to the thread and not meant as a serious comment.

---

I see nothing in the abstract to support your highlighted claim. But if I accept it, then females are better than males outside of menstruation and equal during. So your proscription against allowing women to drive while menstruating should disallow men from driving at any time of the month.

 

[ZoeTick]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

I see nothing in the abstract

 

---

Never trust an abstract.

Especially when it is written in English by an ESLer.

Take Genesis, for example . . .

 

[irihapeti]

---

ZoeTick wrote:

---

Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

I see nothing in the abstract

 

---

Never trust an abstract.

Especially when it is written in English by an ESLer.

Take Genesis, for example . . .

 

---

if Genesis then more a HSLer I think

or a GSLer maybe even accurate

Godspeak as a Second Language

[irihapeti]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

It's not hard to imagine that you could slice the network data to locate individuals exhibiting potentially unwanted behavior. (RIght NSA?) If the users don't like how Twitter handles abuse, it'll show on their radar, just as not handling the abuse has. Of course innocent people will be affected by what Twitter does. They're already being affected by what Twitter doesn't.

I agree with you that these algorithms will (at least at first) be used to triage issues to be handled by humans. But I see no reason that the algorithms won't one day be set loose to clean the rugs on their own.

I'm not advocating blind trust in social networks to safeguard self expression, but I am expecting it.

---

i cant remember now where I first read about "smart" as a pre-cursor to AI. Smart in the sense that is not intelligence in a comparably human sense of the meaning

smart algos (similar to this) are already deployed to some degree in the battle against spambots. bot-on-bot war

so like you say is no reason why smart algos/bots cant be deployed against blatantisms without human oversight. And probably already are on some forums/SNs now today

 

+

example of blatantism

a forum ToS says No Swearing

person swears: Automagic warning

person swears again: Goneburger

 

[ZoeTick]

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irihapeti wrote:

is no reason why smart algos/bots cant be deployed against blatantisms without human oversight. And probably already are on some forums/SNs now today

 

+

example of blatantism

a forum ToS says No Swearing

person swears: Automagic warning

person swears again: Goneburger

 

---

Someone says "Balls"

Automagic moderation.

Except someone asked what you played snooker with.

Someone says "Mist".

Automagic moderation assumes they are referring to an atmospheric phenomenon.

Germanic person is expressing an exclamation relating to ordure.

So it's much the same as idiot ESLer moderation.

No reason?

[irihapeti]

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ZoeTick wrote:

---

irihapeti wrote:

is no reason why smart algos/bots cant be deployed against blatantisms without human oversight. And probably already are on some forums/SNs now today

 

+

example of blatantism

a forum ToS says No Swearing

person swears: Automagic warning

person swears again: Goneburger

 

---

Someone says "Balls"

Automagic moderation.

Except someone asked what you played snooker with.

Someone says "Mist".

Automagic moderation assumes they are referring to an atmospheric phenomenon.

Germanic person is expressing an exclamation relating to ordure.

So it's much the same as idiot ESLer moderation.

No reason?

---

person: hi peeps I made a vid of me and friend at her house pulling silly faces. What do you think?

troll: balls!!

algo: cut it out troll ok

troll: coloured balls!!

algo: [delete troll]

troll complaint: I was actually referring to snooker you idiot!!!!

algo: [yawn]

[Dillon Levenque]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

---

Social networks already graph user connections. Some of those graphs are pretty enough to hang on a wall. Here's one from Facebook...

 

 

Those mysterious little here-and-there clumps of purple connections are tempting you to try Facebook, aren't they? Admit it.

[ZoeTick]

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irihapeti wrote:

person: hi peeps I made a vid of me and friend at her house pulling silly faces. What do you think?

troll: balls!!

algo: cut it out troll ok

troll: coloured balls!!

algo: [delete troll]

troll complaint: I was actually referring to snooker you idiot!!!!

algo: [yawn]

---

A perfect example of the current state of these forums, involving an LWL posting  a vain request for an unjustified compliment, a respondent who has expressed an honest opinion - as invited to, and a moderator who isn't interested in context and doesn't understand the concept of a discussion forum.

[irihapeti]

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ZoeTick wrote:

---

 a vain request for an unjustified compliment, a respondent who has expressed an honest opinion - as invited to, and a moderator who isn't interested in context and doesn't understand the concept of a discussion forum.

---

and a person who has been banhammered/cornholed/donked off every SL-related forum there ever was

and nobody much cares that they have been

[ZoeTick]

---

irihapeti wrote:

and a person who has been banhammered/cornholed/donked off every SL-related forum there ever was

---

Not true. I have never had a problem in SLU, and the best SL related forum I know delights in having me as a member - but then, it's private, populated by people with a considerable degree of literacy, and self-moderated.

[Laurin Sorbet]

I was also wondering about the word choice of 'cornholed' as opposed to 'cornfield'.  

 

Bahaha!

[Snugs McMasters]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

Those mysterious little here-and-there clumps of purple connections are tempting you to try Facebook, aren't they? Admit it.

---

She's already plotting, Dillon. I pilfered this from her "Secret Plans" file...

I've carefully studied the two steps of her plan (she has difficulty with anything requiring three or more). It appears she first plans to infiltrate Facebook with a small group of minions. I think she intends for them to infect the entire population of Facebook with her seditious idealogy, after which she'll change her mind and abandon the network. I can see the entire process repeating ad infinitum, she's fickle.

Very careful inspection of Step 2 reveals she anticipates several isolated pockets of resistance...

There is hope.

[irihapeti]

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ZoeTick wrote:

---

the best SL related forum I know delights in having me as a member - but then, it's private, populated by people with a considerable degree of literacy, and self-moderated.

---

a bit like the Cambridge Union Debating Society then