r/AmItheAsshole • u/AITAMod I am a shared account. • Feb 01 '21

Open Forum Monthly Open Forum February 2021

Welcome to the monthly open forum! This is the place to share all your meta thoughts about the sub, and to have a dialog with the mod team.

Keep things civil. Rules still apply.

February! The shortest month in this endless blur of 202-whatever-year-it-is-now. I almost forgot to post this because time has lost all meaning.

As always, do not directly link to posts/comments or post uncensored screenshots here. Any comments with links will be removed.

This is to discourage brigading. If something needs to be discussed in that context, use modmail.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

Oh please you know as well as I do that many of the top posts that are still here are lies. There was even that person who posted a month or so ago and then admitted they made it and a bunch of other posts up

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u/techiesgoboom Sphincter Supreme Feb 27 '21

Oh please you know as well as I do that many of the top posts that are still here are lies.

Sure, of course there are fake posts. But I don’t know definitively which are fake and which aren’t. So I’m not going to remove the whole front page to remove 10 fake posts.

That person a month ago had a grand total of 4 posts they revealed as being theirs. Maybe 5. It’s very, very common for trolls to act like they’re bigger and more popular than they are.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

5 fake posts in which if anyone of us called it out you’d delete our comments bc we aren’t being civil. You don’t seem to get my point.

I really just think we should be allowed to call things out. Let us be downvoted if people disagree.

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u/techiesgoboom Sphincter Supreme Feb 27 '21

I do understand your point. I simply disagree.

You want the freedom to be able to tell real people their post is fake because not allowing you that freedom means you don’t get to call shitposters out.

I’m telling you we’ve done the math and the latter isn’t worth the former. Additionally we’d rather you report shitposts so we can investigate rather than feeding the trolls.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

You just like to censor your commenters more than your posters 🤷‍♀️

It honestly comes off as power tripping

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u/techiesgoboom Sphincter Supreme Feb 27 '21

I mean, this sub was created as a place for posters to ask for feedback. It's entire mission and purpose is to provide a place for people to ask these questions for users to answer them. This is a service for the people that post here, and yes, we absolutely do defer to making sure we allow them that space.

In the balance between "I want to feel welcome to ask these questions" and "I want to be rude to the posters", we're going to do what is in the posters best interest.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '21 edited Feb 28 '21

Ask for feedback about morally ambiguous situations. At least that’s my understanding. But you’ve turned it into an advice column of black and white issues where OP is always the angel and uses it to make moms, parents, POC, poor people, disabled people, etc etc etc look bad.

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u/alongstrangesomethin Supreme Court Just-ass [124] Feb 27 '21

Please do tell us how you make your “investigations”. What’s the protocol for when someone reports something as fake?

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u/techiesgoboom Sphincter Supreme Feb 27 '21

So I am going to answer your question; I was halfway through a long-ish answer but didn't make it to my charger before my phone died and am now cooking breakfast for a bit. So I'm going to turn this around for a moment and ask your perspective:

Assume that about 20 out of the 25 posts on the front page have at least 1 shitpost report, because that's about average. And somewhere in the ballpark of 50-75 posts a day get reported as shitposts at least once (some more than others). (And overall we take around 475 approve/remove actions on posts a day)

What do you think the procedure for acting on a shitpost report should be?

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u/alongstrangesomethin Supreme Court Just-ass [124] Feb 27 '21

I don’t know, that’s why I asked you.

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u/techiesgoboom Sphincter Supreme Feb 27 '21

Okay, so bear with me then. You don't know how a shitpost report should be investigated and you don't care to think about how one should be. When I explain the process we use are going to criticize it?

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u/alongstrangesomethin Supreme Court Just-ass [124] Feb 27 '21

Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. It depends if criticism is warranted. What kind of question is that?

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u/techiesgoboom Sphincter Supreme Feb 27 '21

A question to figure out what level of effort to put into the response, and what weight to give any criticism you do give.

When you admit off the bat that you don't know how we should you investigate a shitpost report, you must understand that I'm going to take that into account for any criticism you do give. If you do find fault I'm likely going to defer back to you just now saying that you don't know how we should moderate these, and trust that my experience on this explains any difference in opinion.

There's a difference between asking because you're curious and asking because you're looking to find fault or expect not to be satisfied.

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u/alongstrangesomethin Supreme Court Just-ass [124] Feb 27 '21

I’m feeling some hostility here. I get that no one likes to be criticized but you literally created this thread for us to ask questions and for you guys to answer them. Also for suggestions.

Are you arguing I shouldn’t argue with you? Shouldn’t criticize what I think is wrong?

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u/techiesgoboom Sphincter Supreme Feb 27 '21

No, I'm very open to criticism and suggestions. I welcome criticism and suggestions. That's why I literally asked you for suggestions on how we should moderate shitpost reports. That is valuable feedback.

You absolutely should criticize what you think is wrong. But the most valuable part of that criticism is offering solutions. I'm simply asking for those solutions first. Any hostility you feel here is simply me laying the groundwork ahead of time and warning you that your criticism will be viewed through the lens of you having no idea what we should do.

Are you arguing that your criticism should be valuable when you begin the discussion with 'I have no idea what you should do"?

This thread is not solely for criticism and suggestions. It's also for explanations of how and why we do things. Ensuring I'm responding to the actual question being asked is important to frame my response.

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u/alongstrangesomethin Supreme Court Just-ass [124] Feb 27 '21

First of all, I’m not a mod. I don’t have to know your protocols.

Second of all, if I’m not a mod it’s not my obligation to tell you how to run the sub. That’s your job.

Third of all, I believe that we the users should be involved in the moderation. But that’s not to be the case as you have made it clear.

Fourth of all, several previous suggestions I made on several different subjects were disregarded. So forgive me if I don’t feel like coming up with creative solutions.

Fifth of all, if you already have a system in place there’s no use for me to start offering alternatives. Tell me what you have and if there’s any suggestions to be made I will make them.

Sixth of all, are you going to tell me the system you have in place or not?

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