5x / 6x / 8x SATA M.2 PCIe Cards

[Davvo]

I have never seen a censorship environment in this community, but appropriate moderation to unrespectful users that come from nowere and start communicating with passive-aggressive posts that want to impose their own opinion (usually without providing sufficient evidence).

The moderation policy has been the same since quite a few years, and the moderators have always been consistent with their actions. And I am comfortable with how they operate.

For the records, I am officially part of this comunity since Jul 12, 2022: not much compared to others.

[ericloewe]

@Protopia

There were many ways of handling this as a moderator - Eric could, for example, have edited the posts he objected to or felt were against the rules and made it clear that they were inaccurate or from sock-puppets etc. - he did NOT need to delete them.

To some extent. To be honest, the sockpuppet post(s) was deleted summarily once it became clear what it was, even if something might have been slavageable. At least one post was entirely without merit.
One additional complication is that editing people’s posts is also iffy on a few levels.

@Protopia

If Eric disagreed with William’s views, he could articulate his own views and if the community agreed with Eric rather than William then Eric would have got all the support he needed to get across what the consensus opinion is and that William’s views were in a minority or wrong or whatever. (I have no doubt that Eric has a lot of TrueNAS experience and knowledge and that he could articulate this if he wanted.)

Please don’t misunderstand - nobody on the mod team is trying to censor anything or impose this or that dogma. We do need to steer discussions back to a reasonable track if they’re threatening to go off the rails.

@Davvo

I have never seen a censorship environment in this community, but appropriate moderation to unrespectful users that come from nowere and start communicating with passive-aggressive posts that want to impose their own opinion (usually without providing sufficient evidence).

This is a good point, respect goes both ways and parachuting in saying “you’re all wrong” and making a big fuss out of what was a sane discussion is in very poor taste. And it’s not an easy thing to moderate, how much of it is poor phrasing? Is it really just a troll? Is there something to this?

In this situation, I felt that what was most needed was some substance to back the discussion, hence the notice about citations. It’s a case of bold claims requiring substantial evidence.

[Protopia]

5x / 6x / 8x SATA M.2 PCIe Cards

It is the forums’ longstanding policy that inappropriate writings that are hidden from public view are not again made public to satisfy curiosity or other interest. You’ll have to take my word and that of the rest of the mod team for it. This is not at all what happened. At least one sockpuppet account was created, so it was necessary to ban the IP address to prevent additional such accounts from being created. This was immediately after the suspension was issued and before anything could be …

@EricLoewe

I accept what you say here - and I definitely am in full agreement that sock-puppet accounts are not to be tolerated, and perhaps even that sock-puppet comments (which are effectively a fraudulent attempt to create supporting opinions) should be deleted. I also agree that once someone has demonstrated that they have a propensity for sock-puppet creation, then if possible the creation of further sock-puppet accounts by the same person should be prevented. However:

1. Banning creation of new accounts from an IP address is different from banning the IP address from access; and
2. In any case, as William has demonstrated, banning an IP address does not prevent access (or creation of sock-puppet accounts for that matter) via a VPN.

In this respect VPNs are always going to be a bit of a problem. It is probably impossible to detect that a new account (being created from a new VPN IP address) is being created by an existing user who has not previously appeared on that same VPN address. Perhaps you could prevent account creation from any VPN IP addresses, but that might have other consequences for genuine users who are in countries where this is necessary.

All I can say is that transparency is the most appropriate way to ensure that justice is not only done but is seen to be done - and I think that a lot of the confusion and polarisation here could have been avoided by being transparent about the actions you were taking and the reasons for them (rather than by deleting evidence and not explaining your actions in detail).

Indeed, now that you have given more detail for your actions, I think you have taken the wind somewhat out of William’s sails - which I think is clear evidence that transparency is beneficial.

[dan]

@ericloewe

One additional complication is that editing people’s posts is also iffy on a few levels.

I remember making a bit of a stink about that on the old forum some years back–though I thought at the time, and still think, there’s a significant difference between editing my post because I’ve been a jerk, and editing my post because you’re just playing copy editor.

[Davvo]

@dan

and editing my post because you’re just playing copy editor.

Hey, that’s me!

A “moderator edit” warning would be a nice feature, kinda surprised discourse does not have it.

P.S.: yeah, I really dislike traversing long topics on discourse.

[ericloewe]

@Protopia

with banning creation of new accounts from an IP address being different from banning the IP address from access (and in any case as William has demonstrated, banning an IP address does not prevent access (or creation of sock-puppet accounts for that matter) via a VPN.

Of course. We’re discussing the details of the tools offered by Discourse, at that point, and between our inexperience (it’s been a month!) and genuine gaps in the available tools, the results are as we see them.

@Protopia

All I can say is that transparency is the most appropriate way to ensure that justice is not only done but is seen to be done - and I think that a lot of the confusion and polarisation here could have been avoided by being transparent about the actions you were taking and the reasons for them (rather than by deleting evidence and not explaining your actions in detail).

I get what you’re saying. It’s not how I’ve ever seen forum moderation work, to some extent because the stuff that was inappropriate is best left not highlighted. A sort of illusion of peace and tranquility.
Normally, users take something like a deleted post or even a temporary ban (or suspension is what Discourse calls it) as an opportunity to take a deep breath and think.

Something to keep in mind as to why the “hide the evidence” (to borrow your expression, though it is not particularly flattering I don’t have a better one) approach is preferred: The forums are, to a large extent, a source that users will reference long into the future. See for instance the old XenForo forums.

[dan]

@Davvo

A “moderator edit” warning would be a nice feature, kinda surprised discourse does not have it.

OTOH, on Discourse you can see the edit history–what was changed and by whom–which comes in handy from time to time.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with edits to category, tags, or (within reason) topic title–I’ll freely make those edits on other people’s posts when I have the ability, and I don’t generally mind that being done on my posts. I have more of a problem when it’s an edit to the text, and especially when it’s a matter of perceived style–the thread on the old forum was where I’d used “drive(s)”, and the moderator in question didn’t like the (s) construction. Sorry, no, you aren’t my copy editor.

[Davvo]

@dan

OTOH, on Discourse you can see the edit history–what was changed and by whom–which comes in handy from time to time.

Yup, but since everyone can make those edits having a clear “this was an act of moderation” would be nice… especially since without entering the edit history it might not be evident, especially for less discourse-savvy users.

[Protopia]

@dan

I remember making a bit of a stink about that on the old forum some years back–though I thought at the time, and still think, there’s a significant difference between editing my post because I’ve been a jerk, and editing my post because you’re just playing copy editor.

I apologise for not being more explicit - I am not suggesting that the existing post is changed, but rather that it is annotated (and locked from editing by the originator) with details of why it was inappropriate. Their original text could even be wrapped in in a Details or Spoiler tags as an alternative to deletion.

@William_Steele

I have to wholheartedly disagree with you. The tone coming from @ericloewe was agressive and rude from the beginning.

@William_Steele IMO this is not something you are innocent of yourself - your own posts have been aggressive and rude as well - so IMO you should stop throwing stones at others.

Eric has now provided detailed reasons for his actions, but you have not. I also note that you have not (at last as far as I am aware) denied that you created sock-puppet accounts/comments.

Whilst Eric’s actions may have previously been opaque and perhaps still appear a little heavy handed, I do now believe that he was acting in what he considered to be the best interests of the community. I am far less sanguine that this is the case for your own actions.

The real answer is that no one who has been involved in this argument about moderation, either directly (i.e. Eric and yourself) or indirectly (e.g. me) has contributed to the peaceful debate on this forum. We would IMO all now be best to shut-up about this, learn something from it and move on. (I would personally now be supportive of a further ban if you continue to post defensive / accusatory comments here. Act like an adult, admit that you may have been wrong, draw a line and move on.)

[kris]

Hey folks. Just catching up to this, and what a wild ride it has been. It has clearly veered way off topic. If anybody wants to have a general discussion about forum rules, decorum and the like, please start a new thread in the General Discussion channel. This has veered so wildly off from the original discussion about SATA M.2 cards that I’m going to lock this topic. If anybody wants to get back to talking about hardware, please also open a new topic and lets keep it on track this time.