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No. 1904
Hellweek is now over.
Hellweek lasted from Monday, December 21 to Monday, December 28. Dozens of bans were issued.
You can also continue to discuss what you thought of it in this thread.
Things we plan on improving in the future, if we do this again:
- Making it clear which boards will receive increased moderation, as there was some ambiguity and miscommunication regarding /b/.
- Responding to reports more quickly. (Though all of them should have been responded to within at most 24 hours.)
- Possibly providing some kind of public ban board so people can get an idea of what's being moderated.
Reports were very helpful to us. I also created a new mod panel that allowed us to quickly review and dismiss every single post made during hellweek, though this did get a bit backlogged.
The original announcement can be found below.
As discussed in Wednesday's townhall:
From Monday, December 21 to Monday, December 28, lolcow staff will begin an experimental "heavy moderation week". The purpose of this will be to gauge community reaction to moderation actions, and help determine if permanent policy changes should be made. The secondary purpose will be to hopefully encourage people to improve their quality of posts in the long term, without moderators having to step in.
Only posts made during this week will receive extra scrutiny. Posts made before or after hellweek are not eligible to be moderated more harshly than usual.
Since this is just an experiment, all bans issued during hellweek for rules that are not currently listed at https://lolcow.farm/rules will last no longer than 4 days. Most will likely be a lot shorter than 4 days, but that is the maximum.
Heavy moderation will primarily be enforced in /pt/, /snow/, and /g/. /b/ is mostly not receiving any additional scrutiny.
Moderation will be extremely subjective, and in some cases, may even appear arbitrary. I can't really provide a list of specific things we will be targeting, but here are some general ideas for what will likely be focused on:
- Immaturity
- Vendettas
- Giving clear signs that you are new to the Internet, imageboards, or lolcow.farm
- Blatantly injecting your own agenda into a discussion, especially when apropos of nothing
- Self-focused or very off-topic derailing
- Talking about yourself excessively
- Use or overuse of specific words, phrases, or emotes
- Unwarranted/emotional overreactions
Of course, this is pretty vague and not helpful, but that's pretty much the best I can do. You all will probably get the idea within the first few days.
Importantly, rules will change a little around samefagging during hellweek. Samefagging may be called out in specific instances. If you suspect it, feel free to report it.
But rules around identity will still exist as they currently are. If you aren't breaking a global rule, staff will never publicly out you or identify you in any way. If you're samefagging in a thread about someone you know, you may be banned and/or called out for samefagging or having a vendetta, but nothing about your identity will be revealed. So, vendettas won't be called out in cases where they would blatantly identify the person with the vendetta; that would be a non-public ban instead. It is impossible to call out many kinds of self-posts without outing someone's identity (like a cow complimenting themselves in their own /pt/ thread, for example), so those cases will always be handled privately, without public outing or ban messages. General self-posting will still be called out if it wouldn't reveal details about someone's identity.
People are encouraged to report many more posts than usual during hellweek. However, too many frivolous reports may result in yourself being banned and/or your report being called out, in extreme cases. I'd say for most people, it's fine to report as much as you want without fear of being banned: just don't report someone for arguing with you or insulting you, or something like that. Basically, just don't do this: https://lolcow.farm/pt/res/187661.html#196112
If you have any questions, you can post them in this thread. I may not answer all questions.
No. 1908
>>1907Only posts made during this week will qualify.
I've updated the OP with clarification.
No. 1913
>>1910Mod biases will certainly become apparent, yes. We'll just see if those biases conform to how most of the community feels.
We don't really know if this will end up as a good idea or not, which is why it's just for one week. If the experiment doesn't produce good results or feedback, we won't do it again.
>>1911Yeah, I'll do a poll and feedback thread.
No. 1919
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No. 1928
>>1923>>1926These.
I'm all for strict moderation week. This site feels like it's becoming the new teeny bopper club with all the vendettas, XD, and terrible threads.
No. 1930
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As long as you leave /b/ alone
No. 1932
>>1931There is no "correct" standard for saging.
You sage your post when you don't intend nor desire to bump a thread. That's it. That's all.
No. 1936
>>1935K so at first I was like "pffft k' watever" but I immediately went and tested it and you're right.
I have been using 4chan since 2006.
How in the hell have I managed to miss this.
How.
That's almost a decade of posting.
HOW.
No. 1939
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>>1936H..holy fuck, same here. Been using 4chan/boards for years and years and I never realized.
My phone autocaps 'sage' in a new field, so every time I've sage posted on mobile I've bumped the thread? Sweet fuck. This is kind of funny in retrospect, though.
Also
>all of those sweet, sweet bans for shit posters>seeing more get banned for bawwing Based as fuck. I hope hellweek becomes permanent, the shit people are getting banned for is the kind of crap that makes me stop reading threads. This is great. X-mas came early at lolcow.
No. 1941
It doesn't actually feel like hellweek is taking place tbh.
I am still seeing multiple retarded posts which I have tried reporting to no avail, specifically in the attractive white women thread
>>>/b/38923 where I'm currently experiencing some ana-chan aping at me for posting a woman they deem obese.
No. 1946
>>1941We're not paying much attention to /b/. I don't care about that thread.
Everyone should continue aggressively reporting non-/b/ posts.
No. 1951
>>1949Sorry, maybe the wording was ambiguous.
Continue to aggressively report posts in /pt/, /snow/, and /g/ is what I meant.
No. 1952
Hello Admin and farmhands! And Merry Christmas. (Or Happy Holidays.)
There's something about Hellweek that's been bothering me. I feel like it's not a good representation of what strict moderation would actually be like, because I think everyone is on their best behavior so to speak, and not doing their normal autistic shitposting. Not to say there isn't any autism going on– but I have noticed, especially compared to how it's been in previous weeks/months, that the anachans in particular have quieted down.
My question is, what happens after Hellweek? Will the shit posters be allowed to roam free once more, dragging down threads and throwing out fatty insults?
I just wonder if the threat of being banned has kept people from doing things they would normally do. Which makes it seem like the heavy moderation is working! But what happens after this?
Also, what if, in a bizarre /cgl/ish scenario, the moderation becomes so severe that it's inherently damaging and biased? Will we be able to question bans, or will it just be 4chan 2.0?
Anyway, sorry for the drawn out rambling, I have never been a consice person. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good day!!
No. 1963
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>>1946
>we're not paying much attention to /b/>get banned for insulting some baiting fuckOnce again punishing people that respond to aggressors whilst ignoring the aggressors.
Either you're paying attention /b/ or you're not. You're too busy attacking legitimate users to sort out threads are frequently plagued by shitposters apparently.
Getting really tired of this style of moderation, or lack of.
No. 1967
>>1966How is it skeevy? Besides, it's been stated:
>Giving clear signs that you are new to the Internet, imageboards, or lolcow.farmResponding to obvious bait falls into that category.
Perhaps the people who are getting repeatedly banned should take a hint.
No. 1969
>>1967If you need an explanation as to why shadowbans are skeevy as fuck then perhaps you're the one that's new to the internet.
Did all that bollocks that went down with Reddit teach you nothing.
No. 1971
>>1969I'm not sure I understand why people feel we should announce every time we ban someone. That is not something that happens on imageboards, and it has never really been a thing here except in situations where someone is blatantly breaking rules. If you would rather I publicly announce every time I ban you, I will be sure to do that for you.
In the situation here
>>1963 both of you and the person posting bait were banned. While we are not heavily moderating /b/, the person posting bait was breaking a rule (spamming blatantly unattractive people in the thread), but you were banned for taking the clear bait.
Consider bans given during this week more like warnings. No one ever promised that "regular posters" would not be caught up in the mix here. That said, you should consider why you are getting multiple bans and correct your behavior.
No. 1972
>>1963We probably should not have banned for this, since it was /b/, but since it was 30 minutes long you should consider it a warning.
Our inconsistent moderation of /b/ was a result of my miscommunication in this thread and in our staff channel.
>>1966There are no shadowbans. What are you talking about?
No. 1975
>>1970I'm not from reddit you idiot.
Have you ever been living under a rock so long you missed that massive drama that went down with the exposure of their moderation tactics, specifically the shadowbanning?
>>1972Typically when a person is banned a ban message is left on the offending post stipulating their offense.
You're telling me that people are being banned for shiposting and baiting and the like, but how is anybody supposed to even know this and modify their behaviour accordingly when they don't know who's being banned and what they're being banned for.
Like the only reason I'm whining here is because as a user to me appears that I'm the only person being banned for attempting to fight back against the blatant shiposting, whereas the shitposter goes unpunished.
I was under the illusion a shadowban specifically was the act of banning a person without the rest of the community being afforded that knowledge. Maybe I have that terminology wrong.
No. 1976
>>1975That's definitely not what shadowbanning is. A shadowban is a special ban where no one, not even the ban victim, knows they were banned at all. To them, their posts all still show up when they make them, but no one else ever sees the posts. It's a much more insidious kind of ban, kind of like a solipsistic ban where no one else knows they even exist. That's what Reddit admins got flak for.
A ban without a public ban message is just a private/silent ban. A ban message should still be visible for the banned person when they try to make a new post. Though I think there may be a bug where the message sometimes doesn't show up if the ban has already expired.
Bans without public ban messages are used on pretty much every website, and are perfectly valid.
>Like the only reason I'm whining here is because as a user to me appears that I'm the only person being banned for attempting to fight back against the blatant shitposting, whereas the shitposter goes unpunished. I personally find people who overreact to a shitpost sometimes more annoying than shitposters themselves, depending on context. The "serious" nature of your response in
>>>/b/54559 to blatantly obvious trolling is certainly "hellweek ban-worthy", in my opinion, but the ban is also completely inconsistent with what I said earlier about us ignoring /b/ and that thread in particular, so I apologize for it.
If we ever do something like this again, I will give much clearer rules about what boards will receive increased moderation.
No. 1978
>>1976Thanks Admin and sorry for being a little bitch.
I keep forgetting it's hellweek actually.
No. 1988
>>1987– I do want to tack on that it might not be a bad idea to have all bans/warnings public during hell weeks (if we are gifted more). It would better display what 'isn't allowed' to lurkers, and allow the general user base to discuss what's going on.
For example, I saw a few posts of 'but this girl is cute xD o.o" which, in my opinion, should receive a warning (unless blatant sarcasm is in play). It's possible that those posts DID receive a warning, but because it wasn't public, I and others are under the impression it's permissible behavior (leading to more of it by lurking newfags).
I think that's more or less already been touched on in this thread, I just wanted to voice my vote on implementating public bans/warnings.
No. 1992
>>1987She's been permabanned like 4 times. There are ways to do more complex bans, but it takes a lot of work.
>>1988All of these resulted in temporary bans.
There have been 63 survey responses so far. I'd say the majority have a positive opinion of hellweek, though some have very negative opinions. Some people's biggest dislike was my posts outside of /meta/, while some listed that as their biggest like. Many, but not all, of the negative opinions appear to center around my posts in the Berry thread.
The sample size is still fairly low, though. I'll provide a more complete analysis in a week or two.
No. 1994
There were some reports for posts like these:
>>>/snow/75771This would be bannable during hellweek, but there is currently no rule against dumb posts like those, so please don't report them anymore.
However, there is an existing rule against self-posting and weight derailment, especially weight-related self-posting (see
>>1359 and below rules), so please continue to report posts like
>>>/snow/75883 and
>>>/snow/76010.
No. 1996
>>1992Sindy must be one if those chavs who keep buying new sim cards to top up. She can barely type so how in hell does she figure a way around the bans?
Meh, just keep kicking her off when she appears.
I did the survey. I was neutral about most of it, but I'd like hellweek again when more anons are active. Might be wrong, but it seemed quieter here probably because it's Christmas holidays?