Discussion on answer by fredsbend: Toward a philosophy of Chat

3:22 PM

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I know this is old, but I don't see anything having been changed, so I'm replying. I love SE chat. I like how easy it is to use, link "oneboxing" and image URL auto-embedding, etc. It's so damn usable, I put it up as the standard for internet chat engines. I like that it's permanent. It allows ...

Catija

And what would happen in cases where there isn't a moderator for that site who uses chat?

user212646

@Catija I'm sorry, I don't understand. Are you saying there are rooms for which there is no moderator assigned, or could be assigned?

Catija

Rooms have room owners and that is required but room owners being the only ones who ever see chat flags for their room... I hope you can imagine how that may be problematic (and if not, I'm happy to help explain). Flags that go to the diamond moderators on our network go to all of them because small sites may have a chat presence for their users but not have moderators who use chat at all and there's no indication of chat flags on the main sites, potentially leaving the flags unanswered.

user212646

@Catija I see what you mean, and I agree that owners being the only moderators is akin to a free-for-all (and I wouldn't suggest that it be that way). In instances where rooms have no logical moderator (which I presume are actually few), I think the solution is simple. Assign moderators to chat. If you moderate a site, you moderate its rooms. That's part of the job. You don't have to participate in chat, but you are expected to moderate it. This certainly would be better than having five or six unknown names descend on a room ready to mod every time moderation might be needed.

Kevin B

i mean... that's precisely what we have. Moderators of SO are also moderators of SO chat. And they do "descend on a room ready to mod every time moderation might be needed". Rarely does that actually cause a problem, but when it does, it tends to be quite public.

Catija

3:22 PM

Being "assigned" to chat as part of a moderation job ... kinda ignores that our mods are volunteers. They're selected as site moderators and nothing about our moderation expectations includes chat... and, to be frank... if a moderator doesn't like chat and have no interest in it, that puts us in the unfavorable position of possibly having to kick out otherwise excellent mods because they won't moderate a feature they don't use... a secondary (or even tertiary) one. And, really... if they're only in chat to respond to flags, are they any better off than offsite mods?

@KevinB that's how SO is, sure... and it's worth pointing out that most rooms on SO don't have an SO moderator regular who necessarily knows the culture of that specific room so that's a great example of why limiting flags by site wouldn't make much sense. The entire point of this post is that we would like our rooms to not have "culture" pockets that make it so unfamiliar moderators or users can't respond to flags in that room effectively. In most cases, even now, being a site-mod isn't really necessary to address flags in a room.

user212646

@Catija Then what do you want chat to be? Why does it even exist if you want to actively discourage room cultures (literally, a human trait)? I've always gotten the feeling it started as a side project so that main site comments wouldn't be the default place for conversations. You're talking about it like it's a second class thing, but I think you neglect the reality that it serves a great purpose. It keeps noise out of the comments. And so, would you want it to always be about main site things? If so, then you shouldn't have made it so much more than that.

user212646

@KevinB SO is definitely the big guy here, but there's a hundred other SE sites that deserve consideration at least in aggregate, rather than under the shadow of the outlier that is SO. I mean chat moderators from anywhere in the network, coming down on a room they have no clue about, and often not even the site to which they belong.

Catija

Sorry, I should have been more clear... harmful room cultures. A room where it's OK to make disparaging comments about people of any class isn't a culture we want to support. Telling someone who comes into the room to discourage that behavior that it's the "room's culture" and "everyone's ok with it so get out" ... it's not going to fly. I love chat. I'm one of the highest-volume chat users on the network, even before I was hired (and the most pinged human over the course of a year). I've been involved in that exact situation I mentioned and ROs were removed because of it.

user212646

@Catija SE's "be nice policy" applies everywhere on SE properties. That's not what this is about.

Catija

Maybe if you give an example of a time you think this was a problem? In my experience, this is almost always because users in chat are breaking the CoC and someone sees it and raises a flag.

Shog9

3:22 PM

Always be wary of solutions that seem both simple and obvious. Ask, "what new problems will this cause?" and "what will we need to do to mitigate those new problem?" Only then is the true cost of the solution revealed.

user212646

@Catija Sure. Years ago, I was flagged for discussing theology that might be called "anti-gay" by offended parties. Four or five people who've never visited the room or the main Christianity site came in to moderate something they have zero understanding of. Site moderators (who were already present in the room) noted this to these other users, and most understood after explanation. It exacerbated the problem.

user212646

Recently, I was flagged for urging a user (I'll concede aggressively) to fix his answer, which had received tons of HNQ votes. Again, two or three people who have no participation on the site or that room came in and deleted tons of messages, chat suspended me for 30 minutes, and completely torpedoed any effort I and the other user made toward resolution. Again, a site moderator came in a few hours later, saw the mess and shook his head, saying "none of this raised my eyebrows".

user212646

Contrast these with one of my first chat conversations. Many years ago, I was flagged (perhaps deservedly), and only site moderators bothered coming in. Problem was resolved in minutes, not exacerbated and frustrated further. It's quite clear, bringing in multiple mods from anywhere in the network adds to the problems.

user212646

@Shog9 I don't think there's any cost to reducing an obvious bloat in moderation. 1) a flagged message doesn't require multiple mods to handle it, but that is what chat often gets. 2) A flagged message almost never needs immediate attention, but that is what chat often gets. 3) A flagged message in a unique room meant for a unique topic is probably not best handled by an outsider, but that is what chat often gets. -- Sometimes doing less fixes problems.

Catija

None of those problems are solved by only limiting the moderation response to per-site mods. Context doesn't really help there, it's comfort with moderation style... and that's something that's learned and you have to work at. Those same mods may have done the same thing in their per site rooms... so having local mods on one site having a different moderation style doesn't inherently make all moderation by off-site mods wrong or bad. If there's a problem in moderation style, that's something we need to fix by helping our mods do better at moderating chat - something we do rather poorly.

user212646

3:22 PM

@Catija I don't think you can normalize moderation across all chat rooms. If you did, you'd fail to have unique chat rooms. You'd have duplicate chat rooms.

user212646

@Catija The impression I get when unknown names come down on a room is "guns blazing". Delete with extreme prejudice, issue 30 minute suspensions, move on and forget about it. This "take no prisoners" approach is hardly a moderation style. Seriously, a bot can do better.

Shog9

There are sites where literally no one moderates chat, @fredsbend. Ever.

user212646

@Shog9 okay ... And the ones who have mods in them all the time, even as owners, should deal with overflow effects of the solutions for those instances? Was it asked, "what new problems will this cause?" and "what will we need to do to mitigate those new problems" before this 'all mods on deck' solution was made? We're asking it now, because the true cost of that solution is revealed. It doesn't work.

Catija

A 30 minute suspension is always a response to a chat message being flagged and being validated. Moderators can not specifically hand out 30 minute suspensions in chat. This doesn't require a moderator at all. Many such chat suspensions are handed out by regular 10k users when six of them mark a flag as valid. The inverse of what I stated earlier one local moderator feeling that the actions were unwarranted also doesn't mean that they're absolutely right. I would have deleted that content myself... 9 messages, by the way. There was no attempt to resolve, only dragging it out over hours.

Shog9

You're not asking it though. You're proposing a solution to a problem without considering the problems solved by the existing solution you seek to dispense with. Were we to implement it, we'd be right back here with the original problem. ODD: ouroboros-driven-development. The original problem was that most sites don't have enough moderators or users to moderate chat; that problem still exists. We could split off the ones that do, or... Do something else.

user212646

3:22 PM

@Catija Then it's already half a bot! Just go the whole mile and bot the whole thing. Results would be the same. Just like the SO mod who botted out his comment deletions. No one even noticed.

Catija

Not quite sure how 10k users validating flags makes it a bot. To be clear, I'm not particularly a fan of the 10k user flagging system. It was created at a time when there were far fewer mods. I'd like to review that functionality but limiting flag handling to on site mods only is too far.

user212646

@Shog9 If chat doesn't require any immediacy in moderation, and we recognize that it will be and should be allowed to be looser than comments on main, then we open up several solution options. Examine some reddit comments. Yahoo comments. Those can be downright nasty. Even respectable places like NYT, ARStechnica, etc. I've never seen behavior here that I've seen there. Chat is over-moderated because people with no context and no motivation to care are called in immediately upon flagging for the task.

user212646

@Catija Because they all are the same. Never visited the room or the site, never bother to check on context. Never ask what's going on and why there's a flag. A bot run 5 times is still a bot. Should we expect different output if we don't change the inputs?

user212646

I'm one of these 10K chat mods. And it's dumb. I click the blue thing, it takes me to a room I've never seen before, with people I don't know, and asks me to decide if a particular message is "rude" or whatever. I'm surprised anybody takes it seriously in the first place, but I guess people like the power they feel from it or something. Maybe that it's strange compulsion to clear notifications.

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Discussion on answer by fredsbend: To…