State of #ubuntu-offtopic

[Melissa Draper]

John Vivirito wrote:
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>> Jan Vancura wrote:
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>>>>>>>>>> Myself, I am very wary of taking actions in #ubuntu-offtopic, because I am 
>>>>>>>>>> almost scared by the user reactions that the too often provoke. We have had 
>>>>>>>>>> an example just a few hours ago.
>>>>>>>>>>                     
>>>> One elegant way of solving this in hard to manage channels is to set
>>>> them +m, and devoice misbehaving individuals. This is anonymous
>>>> (Chanserv just removes voice, and noone will know which op did it).
>>>>         
>> On one hand its good its anonymous ( people cant target an op for doing 
>> their job ). However, i do think that we cant expect people to appeal to 
>> the op who gave a ban/mute/telling off/warning if they don't know who it 
>> was.
>>
>>     
>>>> This system could be easily enhanced by setting ubotu or Ubugtu to voice
>>>> anyone on join (perhaps except those that have been devoiced by an op
>>>> before).
>>>>
>>>> Removing voice also looks a lot less harsh than a mute (which looks like
>>>> a ban), and is a lot quieter (one line instead of 3).
>>>>         
>> but you do get an extra 'person voiced' line for /each person who joins/.
>>
>> kk
>>
>>     
>>>> Just a suggestion. Have a look at #freenode-social (but don't have a
>>>> look at the voicing mechanism, there.
>>>>         
>> -- Karl Goetz User of gNewSense: Free as in Freedom - http://www.gnewsense.org Australian Ubuntu users team - http://wiki.ubuntu.com/AustralianTeam Debian, The Universal Operating System - http://www.debian.org
>> -- Ubuntu-irc mailing list Ubuntu-irc at lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-irc 
>>     
>
> I dont think an autovoice is best idea in an Ubuntu channel. its
> different and will cause alot of un-needed questions and complaints
> about it example "why is -offtopic the only channel that is autovoiced"/
> our answer would be? um because one or 2 users are bad apples or are
> known trolls? wouldnt that be a little overboard for a couple of
> users?.Than if someone on the blacklist join you will have alot of
> people asking "hey why isnt joe voiced than people start thinking that
> we are discrimanating against certain users (we are not) but it will
> look like that to users. I dont see why mutes and bans wont work. Its
> less spam in the channel and it makes a point (misbehave you will be
> muted/banned).
> - --
> GnomeFreak
Personally, I don't think the process itself is the probelm. Our
attitudes are. We don't need to change the process from that of kick/ban
to a voice-devoice, as both do the same, are equally visible and will
still cause arguments.

Let's face it, it is our job to monitor the channel for misbehavior and
deal with it as it comes. Currently, I believe, the problem is that
we're not doing this. We've gotten scared of causing a reaction or
become indifferent to the behavior itself (and sometimes participated in
it). We've become ineffective.

The issues:

* We're too scared to ban someone, we're willing to let misbehavior
pass, and hope another Op will deal with it, just so we don't have to
argue with someone who comes into #ubuntu-ops to troll. Many people who
come into #ubuntu-ops *know* why they've been banned. It's merely a game
to them and the new object of the game becomes 'getting unbanned' as
opposed to seeing how far they can go before getting banned.

* Because we're now scared, we've gone soft. We're far too likely to
unban a misbehaving user, just to make them shut the hell up. Arguments
with trolling ban recipients can go on for hours with some people, and
because we're now not supposed to remove people from #ubuntu-ops, and
are supposed to leave dealing with banned individuals to other ops who
were not the banning party, it's become a cumbersome process that we
subconsciously avoid at all cost.

* We've become indifferent to the trolling behavior of certain
individuals. There are several long-time trolls in #ubuntu-offtopic, and
we all know who at least some of them are. They seem innocent, naive and
seem to get our sympathy. We let them get away with far too much, to the
point where we snap at a petty point and the above two issues take hold.
We need to be as firm with these people as we would be with someone who
has just joined the channel for the first time 5 minutes ago -- but
we're not doing this.

Changing how we deal with trolling and misbehaving users isn't going to
change how they react. De-voicing will *still* bring them into
#ubuntu-ops, they'll still PM their comrades to shout to their defense,
and they'll still be pains in the posterior.

We need to deal with the real issues. Us.

-- 
Sincerely
Melissa Draper

http://www.meldraweb.com

Phone: 0404 595 395
(intl): +61 404 595 395

P.O Box 1412
Lavington, NSW 2641