Hey everyone, welcome! It's time for the second Meta Stack Exchange Town Hall. This is the second in a three-part experiment to see if these chat events make a good way for Community Managers to keep in contact with you all. Last month's event was great, but pretty chaotic, so this time we're going to be throwing some tweaks into the mix to see if we can improve the signal to noise ratio. @Abby is kind enough to moderating for us again today; Abby, want to tell us how things will work?
This room was placed in timeout for 5 minutes; the topic of this room is "MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS! Wheel of blame link bolted on for your ease of use: jsfiddle.net/Ldvwp8uv/12/embedded/result/"; - conversation should be limited to that topic.
Thanks @Ana. We're tweaking the format a little bit from last time to try and bring a little bit more order out of the chaos. There'll be a little more structure and a few more (and longer) room timeouts—not because we don't want to hear from you, that's why we're all here in the first place, but because the pace was simply too quick to follow effectively last time around.
We'll start with a structured conversation in the first half of the hour, and follow it up with more free-flowing chat time in the second half. Please keep the meta-chat to a minimum; we'll welcome feedback on the format and such on MSE after the show. We're going to do our level best to maintain a reasonable signal-to-noise ratio here, so if you're going to type words and hit enter, please keep them on topic.
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Ok!
As you all know from Meta, we're going to be talking about chat moderation today. We'll start by digging into some of the themes that popped up throughout that discussion, and look at the cultural and historical issues chat (and moderating chat) presents.
Most of the discussion on Meta centered around a couple of basic ideas, including "standards of offensiveness" (what are they? should there be any?) and how moderation can peacefully coexist with what's known as "room culture". We're excited to dig into this stuff. But:
Please note that we are steering clear of talking about software solutions here. A thorough discussion of the softer "people problems" with chat (group dynamics, the purpose and history of chat, etc) is what's called for. Once we've built a shared understanding of those issues, we'll be able to have smarter and better-informed discussions about potential implementation ideas on MSE later.
(My wall of text is almost over, promise.)
The first issue we want to dig into was raised by Monica: "Chat is real-time, and that by itself makes moderating it hard. Why? Because of the real-time nature -- it's probably in a room I don't know, on a subject I don't know, with people I don't know, and by the time I can figure out enough context to act, the damage has been done already."
And I think it's time to hear from someone other than me. @Shog9 and @bluefeet are CMs and veteran chat mods... what's your opinion on the above? How should someone balance their responsibility to moderate chat with the sheer scale and diversity of different rooms and topics?
I think Abby demonstrates one of the most effective (and underused) techniques here: stopping conversation to give folks a chance to reflect.
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Something I've seen too many times to count is the old, "beaten up for trying to break up a fight" problem: you step in the middle of a heated argument and both sides turn on you for interrupting.
I definitely agree that the real-time nature of chat makes it difficult to moderate from the rest of the site. Things move quickly in chat making those on the fly/seat of their pants decisions that moderators make more difficult and sometimes more disruptive to a room.
But that's also what makes our system great, none of these decisions are set in stone and can be undone.
@NathanOliver If you can, if the situation allows, quietly read until you have at least a basic understanding of the situation. Reading from the transcript is even better. But if you want to play mediator, you gotta avoid arguing with everyone in the room, and then arguing about why you're arguing, and then... when you finally realize it's not working, putting the room into timeout pejoratively.
All forms of moderation are in essence reactive. The trick is to figure out how to reduce the tension and the animosity without causing ill will. That can only be done with trust in the people who are moderating.
If people don't trust the moderation, any action will always be the wrong one.
@hairboat There are no objective guidelines like we have on main, so I never feel like I have solid ground to stand on.
The 'room culture' thing doesn't help either
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user248725
@bluefeet Keep in mind, though, that no matter what election system you choose, you'll always have some portion (ideally a minority) which didn't vote for that mod.
Chat flags tend to cause more drama than main-site flags. Partly because all 10k+ users can see them, so information about chat flags isn't subject to the moderator agreement; partly because it's all real-time, so people can see when a message disappears or a user is suspended and say "HEY WHY THAT HAPPEN", in contrast to the often silent handling of main-site flags.
@bluefeet Though, mods from any site can burst into a room in response to a flag, yes? There are a lot of SE2 mods that mayormaynot be trusted/liked/known by the room in question
@randal'thor this varies by site considerably. I can think of one or two sites where comments and comment-flags frequently stir up considerable amounts of drama...
I hate that as a RO I can't step up moderation beyond a kick. How hard I try to establish a positive culture when things spin out of control I have to rely on moderators
This room was placed in timeout for 5 minutes; the topic of this room is "MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS! Wheel of blame link bolted on for your ease of use: jsfiddle.net/Ldvwp8uv/12/embedded/result/"; - conversation should be limited to that topic.
OK, let's bring it on back... way back. Chat is old. In internet years, it's like... a thousand years old. Is it still fulfilling the needs it was originally built for? What were those needs? Do we still have them? I have questions. I hope @Shog9 has answers.
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear...
Specifically, 2010, when chat didn't exist
Folks on SO hung out on meta, in IRC, and occasionally in extremely long comment threads on SO itself
So Jeff & Co. looked at this & realized there was... A need that wasn't being met by the system, which the community was trying to fill in various ways
When people ask me what mistakes we made in building Stack Overflow, near the top of the list is not acknowledging the need for a meta-discussion site earlier. That is, a place for people to discuss Stack Overflow itself.
The idea of a "third place", an area for socialization within the community, didn't originate here... But chat was designed and built with that need in mind.
So instead of a meta site that was filled with memes and in-jokes to the exclusion of serious discussion, instead of unmoderated IRC rooms hostile to those not "in the know"...
...we could have a place where the folks who were building these sites, who were sharing their knowledge with each other every day... Could get to know each other a bit. Could fulfill that very human need for socialization without turning the site itself into yet another social network.
Ultimately moderators cannot deter badly behaved clients. Their powers must stem from their example presented. They should be exemplars of the behaviors rooms should hope to exhibit. Then more experienced participants should have a baseline from which to determine how such behavior should be promoted or spurned as needed. Chat serves a useful purpose and should not be done away with.
> Let's be clear: chat has become something it was never intended to be. It was intended, as far as I can tell, as a venue for less structured site discussions, with some socialising alongside.
What it's become is more like socialising, with occasional site discussion.
That's not a bad thing, but it's important to recognise that we can't moderate it for what it was intended to be; we have to moderate it as it is. It's a problem child, but in the same sort of way that dumping your child on the street if you don't like it is considered bad, we can't just give it up as a lost cause.
The problem with chat flags is that many chats went unattended for so long that they formed vast subcommunities and people are naturally hostile to anyone (mods or users) coming in and assuming authority over (even just for moderation) their community. We've largely gone back to the IRC days.
Yes, it's important that people have a place to get to know each other as more than a usercard, and chat is also super important for real-time interaction. It seems we have three kinds of rooms: small problem-solving rooms (where long comment threads go), site topic rooms, and socializing rooms (where people are joking around and generally having a good time). Those last two tend to fuse together in the absence of constant moderation
@Magisch Groups of people who are comfortable with each other are disinclined to shake things up and invite potential discomfort in the form of new, unknown people. It's a very natural human reaction.
@WadCheber Yes... but it required a user base willing to change... many of the arguments I've seen essentially boil down to "this is how I do it and I'm never going to change that, so deal with it and get out of my/our space".
@QPaysTaxes I think Shog might do a better job, but in brief, "Don't try to set up limits, just be open about when you're not comfortable, and accept it when people say such". Also, "Pick ROs everyone trusts and respects".
Its just a thing to consider. Wether or not SE likes it, for better or worse, the status quo is that chat.SE has turned into some form of IRC with more SE integration
This is a shared space and a shared environment. If a person cannot abide by those rules their power to participate should be limited or eliminated entirely.
@QPaysTaxes IMO, the most important factor is that people respect each other's limits and sensibilities. That way, instead of flagging, someone can just say "please can we not talk about X?" and the conversation will move on to a different topic.
bit of trivia: SO Team - specifically, Geoff Dalgas - stepped in for a time to moderate the #stackoverflow channel on freenet years ago. Which demonstrated pretty effectively that, 1) moderating IRC is hard 2) relying on one person to moderate a chatroom is futile
@Magisch The only thought about that is if these communities get shut down and move "underground" (slack, irc, other chat site, etc) they will be harder to moderate. If the continue to conspire to break SE rules (or at least their behavior has an impact on main or meta), how should that be handled. Warnings on the main sites while the communities still exist in one way or another? I guess at that point it's no longer SE's problem, unless they are disruptive on the main sites...
Large part of the problem is also that chat flags are such a nuke or no action thing right now. Maybe we need a more effective way of dealing with inappropiate but not quite really bad posts
Residents of a room being possessive and protective of it seems to be a source of conflict. There's either a cultural drive to make a room “ours”, or an implicit signal in the way chat is set up that says to people “this place is YOURS and yours alone.” Then that smacks face-first into moderation and global behaviour standards.
@JAL It would be basically impossible to moderate people off-site, as you'd have to talk them into granting you mod powers so you could... shut them down. All you can realistically do is, when they become a problem in the place you control, shut them down there.
the idea that every chat room has to be right for every user is a bad idea. if people don't like the 'mood' of a chat room they should be encouraged to look for somewhere else they are comfortable.
@ThaddeusHowze And then you get people complaining that "you're killing our chat space because you're scaring off all of the people I like to talk to". I'm not defending this... I think it's horrid... but it's part of the problem. If you can't have a civil chat space, are you "allowed" to have one?
@wizzwizz4 It helps - it really helps - to have people moderating chat who are respected by the people in that space. Sure, we can all talk about "if people don't respect moderators, that's a problem with those people", but the fact is that a lot of people are going to get annoyed if some blue they've never met comes in and starts telling them what to do. Local ROs are a real boon.
@Catija I dislike people who lodge that complaint. Trying to accommodate people who don't fit will mostly just result in a different group of people leaving.
My teen-aged daughter used to slam her door when she didn't like the way discussions went in our house. My wife and I asked her not to do that. I warned her if she didn't there would be consequences. One day after a major disagreement and slamming of doors, I replaced her door with a beaded curtain.
@Magisch Our main RO is Slytherincess, and she is seen as the room mother. That helps. Everyone knows, likes, and respects her. People started changing their behavior in our room initially out of a desire to not disappoint her.
> How do we deal with new people coming into a developed chatroom with a culture?...(problems include) * Confusion between what is acceptable * New users posting messages that don't "fit" the culture * Familiar users posting messages based on the culture of the room, confusing the newer users * Familiar users getting frustrated on the new users' inability to comprehend the new culture So how exactly do we treat and deal with new users that join a developed chatroom with a culture they're unfamiliar with?
@WadCheber At RPG we have BESW, who is very chill and respected. Having a single person who everyone respects makes a big difference. It's also a single point of failure (or never achieved in the first place.)
I believe this technology is a RESPONSIBILITY, not just a privilege. We have an obligation to use it responsibly in a way which improves our relationships to each other, not creates another environment for us to behave badly in.
@hairboat This is a situation where I kinda think the room has to want this. Some rooms are pretty open about wanting folks to join, others want to be a bit more insular...
@hairboat The confusion about room culture could probably be cleared up by actually informative room topics, kind of like how on IRC they sometimes put a link to rules there
@hairboat I managed it by trying really hard to fit in, browsing through the starboard etc. Enough effort on the new-user's part, and they become a "regular".
@wizzwizz4 This is a good point. The room has to make a deliberate effort to be open to new folks and willing to root out poison, but a newcomer to any social situation has to be likewise willing to get the lay of the land and figure out what the social mores are before jumping in with all four feet.
@SevenSidedDie Yes, this is particularly a problem when you're the main / only room for a site or topic. If your rooms says, "Movies!" or "C++" and your members say "hey, we're just here to talk about cabbages"... You're gonna have a bad time when new folks join.
@SevenSidedDie Yes. The "main room" of a site is not the place to be insular. It's the main room... people should feel welcome there at all times to ask questions about the site and to get help figuring out if something is on topic or how to improve a question...
@Shog9 IMO, at least the main chatroom for a site should always be welcoming. If you allow main chatrooms to be too insular, the natural next step is to allow the site itself to be too insular. Making new users feel unwelcome isn't something anyone should be doing.
@Magisch there's room for both, at least to a point. It's fine to create a room where you say, "I just want to talk to Magisch about flags, nothing else" and if someone comes in and starts talking about how much they love Freebird you kick 'em out.
The argument against giving RO's more effective powers is that they are chosen at random in rooms and very very normal and meh users shouldn't wield dangerous powers.
@WadCheber something I've noticed is that if folks are more willing to break off into separate rooms, that tends to relieve a lot of the strain on a community of chatters
@QPaysTaxes IMO, the most important factor is that people respect each other's limits and sensibilities. That way, instead of flagging, someone can just say "please can we not talk about X?" and the conversation will move on to a different topic.
@randal'thor Should crude joking and vulgar words (i.e. stuff that is totally unacceptable on main yet currently OK on chat) be dealt with? That is, are we OK with having such things be associated with SE?
It might help to have a way to show the type of room a room is, like we have [discussion] [feature-request] etc. required categories on meta. Software nudge to the social dynamic, and also makes it clear(er) what needs moderating?
Since Mos Eisley is the SF&F main room, it should remain open and supportive to new participants and be marked as such. Shadow rooms, where people talk exclusively about comics are designated such and have rotating room leaders and conversations which are strictly about comics. Such a thing has alleviated some stress for SF&F.
One of the things that we all tend to overlook in these discussions is simply that groups cannot grow indefinitely without completely changing what they are. A group of 5 is a completely different dynamic from a group of 20.
@WadCheber I'd say much of it already is. You and a number of regulars are already here contributing to a conversation about how to make things work better.
@Shog9 I think insular rooms are a bit of a problem. I don't mind insular rooms existing, even if they are "room culture" rooms, but I think the primary "site chat" for any site should welcome new people and uphold the tone of the site they're attached to. After all, we push newcomers to that site towards the site chat as soon as they get any rep. A bad impression in the site's main room reflects poorly on the site itself.
There is no punishment for flagging, so I can go and flag everything I want in a random room and get people suspended over something picked out of the context. That's not good.
@DavidPostill What went wrong was basically people not having enough respect for each other, and not knowing when to stop in debates on hot topics (politics, gun control, abortion, etc.).
The other downside to having too many rooms or pulling content out of the main chat rooms... is that the main chat rooms can become empty. There are only so many users who participate in chat and they only have interest in "monitoring" a certain number of rooms. If we allow more open "culture" away from the main chat of a site, there's potential for the chat to become disused and ignored.
I'd be happy to write up a blog post about what our chat was like and how we fixed it. I'd like to get some help from @randal'thor and Slytherincess, but I'd write the bulk of it.
Flags have to remain a means by which a Human who has the power of discernment must be willing to go through and determine what, if anything, should be the consequence of said flagging. People who flag indiscriminately should also be held to task since flagging is both important and necessary to the proper development and maintenance of this ecosystem.
@DanHulme Agreed. When a room gets toxic in that way, we know now that it can turn around (as Mos Eisley was able to do). But people have to be willing to let that happen, and to understand why a general room needs to be welcoming and friendly. And if there's a person or two who can't get on board... we have to be willing to show them the door if they won't shape up.
@Catija So ... for a small site like A&C or M&TV, have one main chatroom where nearly everyone congregates, but for a larger site like SFF, encourage branching out into more rooms if there are enough people who want to do so.
@Catija To my mind the problem is the opposite. Since I don't need a chat window open per room, if I'm in an inactive room, it costs me nothing. OTOH, a room full of off-topic chat, where I have to keep clicking it to see if the new posts are relevant or not, drives me away.
@rene Exactly! We're all still humans (except some of us are bots) - we still behave the same way here, react the same way here, as we do in a room together, or in a bar, or stuck on a plane. We can't ignore that when discussing this stuff.
@randal'thor Actually, we have semi-developed this in the chemistry chat that any two-sided conversation should go to a separate room if a chatter expresses lack of interest in the topic.
@ThaddeusHowze Folks see a lot of flags coming from a room, or a lot of people getting into arguments or whatever, and say, "chat is broken"... But when you look, you realize that the room went from 10 regulars to 30 in the span of two months and folks haven't adjusted to it yet.
@randal'thor At RPG we have two main rooms: the RPG Main Chat and Not a Bar (name is odd and has no explanation). They work in parallel: things that are OK but end up taking over/disrupting the main chat are asked to move to Not a Bar, and helped by moving the messages that exploded.
@randal'thor That's not really the point I'm trying to make. If people want to be free to talk more... "guardedly"... and they can do that in a non-main chat room... but those are the only users who access chat for a site... then who uses the main chat space at all?
One big, big problem that I've seen come out in the whole non english discussion is that sometimes, when single people come a room and start flagging things, depending on who handles them. Then people feel treated unfairly
@Magisch let's think of it this way: Q&A is based on enlightened self-interest. You got folks who want something, and you give 'em a way to do that. We're selective about what needs we satisfy, but we don't actually go completely against human nature here.
Chat: is it necessary? Has it outlived its usefulness? Does it bring value to the the Stack as a whole or should it be retired, considered an interesting but overall failed experiment in Human interaction here?
@TIPS We try to encourage that as well. If the conversation is getting in the way of the room purpose then we ask that it gets moved. Off topic conversations are okay while they are not disruptive though.
@Magisch Non-English rooms on c.SO are at the bottom of my list as far as concern about user experience goes. They're going to have to either use English or have their room deleted anyway.
@Catija People who are new to a site or need real-time help with something would probably pop in. Site regulars would be in the main room to discuss interesting current events related to the site's general topic
For the record: Chat is not about changing Human nature. It is about learning to get along in a virtual environment the same way we would like to in the real world, treating each other with dignity and respect.
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user287266
@WadCheber Chat is the only reason I'm able to stay tied to Science Fiction & Fantasy these days, and the lack of active chat is what pulls me away from other stacks.
From the CMs' perspective, I think chat is very valuable. The informal discussion is the closest thing to "face time" with the communities as we can get while maintaining a reasonable amount of privacy. Without it, we'd only have meta to have discussions and stay informed with what you guys are working on and thinking about.
@ThaddeusHowze it might not be needed for most rooms but for the one I'm a RO in I need transparency. I don't think SOCVR should be on IRC or Slack. I leave it to others to decide if a chatroom that assists in moderatrion on main should exist in the first place
What is needed is a realistic way to make behavior in chat resemble the kind of exchange we want to see here, where people can engage in meaningful conversation that maintains a level of behavior we would want our mothers to be able to sit and listen to without being ashamed of us.
@WadCheber I'd disagree. On c.SO, we can just tell them to either use English or have their room deleted. Fairly simple and clear. On c.SE, it's not that hard to find a moderator who speaks that language... and if there isn't one, we can't moderate it so they will have to stop.
@ThaddeusHowze Personal opinion: if a message's text would be instantly flagged and deleted as offensive as a comment on main, it probably shouldn't be posted in chat
@Andy This has been hard, especially on SO. I'm torn if the room is not doing anything wrong to just leave it, or if we should step up and ban all non-english chatrooms.
It is true that the last crackdown on it targeted (intentional or not) some specific languages from specific parts of the world more then others (a lot more). I think that shines a bad light on SE
@ThaddeusHowze Very similar to my perspective. I've always taken the stance of "would you discuss it at a water cooler at work where colleagues could hear?"
Let's leave off the non-English chat problem for now. Quite honestly, we didn't prepare that topic, and there are a few other CMs we'd want to have in the room if we're really going to dig into that.
I see what you are saying though, that is the nature of the problem we are hoping to combat. A means of people using their own personal filters to modify their behavior themselves rather than making a mod do it for them.
Beyond Abby's answer (which I'm not arguing with, just adding to) I do still believe in the philosophy of the "third place"; when a community reaches a certain size, it's important if not necessary for the most involved people to have a place to interact with each other outside of the "main business."
> Chat flags are a representation, a stand in, for something else entirely; The opportunity for anyone who has gained the right to take part in a space to send a signal to leadership when they think something might be amiss. Why bother with this? When a group is constantly tweaking and reconsidering their social mores -- the way they comport themselves as a whole -- that's a sign of a healthy community. In order for communities to work, individuals need to be able to influence the whole.
I can say that off-site mods who aren't familiar to users in a room where a problem occurs will often raise hackles. That isn't a great thing, but it is good for the off-site mod to tread very lightly.
@SevenSidedDie But they very much specifically think it does not apply in chat... and then you get ridiculous arguments when a message gets deleted and people point out that SE has a "be nice" policy.
@hairboat A couple of active chatters just did it when they thought not everyone would like to see their two-sided conversation with others, then it just became an implicit rule.
@ThaddeusHowze Yes, 30 minutes shouldn't be considered nuclear. The same kinds of messages would get a day off on main at least; to my observations, chat is too lenient with its suspensions.
@hichris123 Straying towards systematic discussions again, but there's some credence to the theory that 10kers don't actually (have time to) read the message, and certainly the context, before validating a flag.
If you click on the flag, it should say "This will delete the message and suspend the user. Are you sure you want to flag, or could this be resolved through discussion?"
@SevenSidedDie It's not the policy that's the problem... it's the entitled reaction of users because "they do it all the time"... this is part of what I see as the problem... the "culture" of the room ignores stuff that is flaggable and it's only when an "outsider" comes in and sees the content does it become obvious that there's something that needs attention... but if the ROs and the regular users don't see or put a stop to it, the be nice policy gets ignored.
And then people get angry "what does this outsider come into our room and unfairly ban our users?!" I feel like thats where a whole lot of the general animosity is coming from
@Catija I've very rarely seen ROs take any sort of moderation action that they have access to, outside of changing the room topic. We give the ROs power and responsibility, but it goes unused.
Case in point: Flag on bigoted comment in a main chat room. I see it and suggest that an off-site mod remind the room to Be Nice. He does, and the RO and a mod call everyone trolls and make accusations, while defending the problematic comment as "room culture".
Chat is an offshoot of the main site, and using it is a privilege users earn early on during their time here. Chat is our place:
for real-time collaboration
to meet fellow members of the community
for less structured, casual (but still roughly on-topic) conversation
Our chat syst...
@BenN Also, this actually makes some sense. Right now ROs have some limited authority and almost zero responsibility. Force them to take responsibility for their room. (yes, SOCVR is an odd case where this actually works. SOCVR is always odd)
@hichris123 true. Shog didn't specify whether he was referring to a room timeout or a user timeout. I'm guessing he was implying a scenario with one problem user
@TIPS I agree that RO's are pretty underpowered, but (a) mods need all that power sometimes, and (b) I can't see immediately what we can do to increase that power for RO's.
@TylerH You could say the same about site mods. ROs, like mods, should present a united face if possible. Having a private Chat Moderation chatroom helps with that.
Chat is an offshoot of the main site, and using it is a privilege users earn early on during their time here. Chat is our place:
for real-time collaboration
to meet fellow members of the community
for less structured, casual (but still roughly on-topic) conversation
Our chat syst...
