Sgt. Pepper
All you need is love.
That's exactly what I'm proposing @Sgt. Pepper, and thank you for your support.
You're welcome, Quagmire.
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Personal/Private Journals
- Thread starter Quagmire
- Start date
You're welcome, Quagmire.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
I didn't say rule-free.
... attracts non-members to the website who are only interested in trolling and being provocative.
Any person ( not a current member ) could join the website go to the journal forum and troll all they want ( until they get kicked out ).
Which part did I get wrong?
Not sure how you think a private journal for members only is going to attract non-members who wouldn't be able to join it anyway.
How is that different from the way things are now?
Pretty much all of it as far as I can see.
You keep raising the same objections even though I've answered them several times now.
I'm not going to respond to any more of your posts unless you bring up something I haven't already addressed.
At this point it seems to me that you're arguing just for the sake of arguing.
Not sure why you would come into a thread like this and do that. You have the rest of the forums for that.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
Before I respond to anything else, please:
Are you restricting new members from joining the website?
When a new member joins are they prevented from creating a journal?
In that journal area can they post anything ( until they get kicked out ), even if it is a false narrative claiming that they were abused by a pastor, or escaped from a muslim child prostitution ring, or they were abused by their jewish ultra-orthodox spouse and the community covered it up?
This is what I said:
"Any person ( not a current member ) could join the website go to the journal forum and troll all they want ( until they get kicked out )"
Hopefully you see that this matches the questions I'm asking since you said "pretty much all of it is wrong."
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dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
The problem, as I see it, is that you are not understanding what I'm saying, even though I'm being clear and calmly explaining myself.
If you don't want to respond, I understand. But that's not because you have already addressed what I am bringing up.
No, why are you even asking that?
No, but they wouldn't have the option of creating an anonymous forum, which is what this thread is about.
None of this has anything to do with what we're talking about in this thread.
Uh huh, but they wouldn't be able to start an anonymous journal along the lines of what we've been talking about here, so I'm not sure how you think your question is relevant.
Sure. But you seem to be talking about the journals forum that we already have. I don't see what any of it has to do with the topic of this thread.
I understand what you're saying, I just don't understand what you think any of it has to do with this thread.
Which points haven't I addressed yet? And could you confine your response to the points that actually have something to do with the topic?
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
Why write a public journal in a forum if you don't want other users to comment on it?
Even if it were simply to separate that journal from your regular posting account, what would be the point if the staff knows who you are? All it takes is for a staff member to have one too many drinks on a private Discord chatgroup and your anonymity is blown entirely.
It would be more anonymous if you allowed the creation of sockpuppet accounts under the rule that you immediately contact a mod to verify it as an anonymous journal account, but then you could theoretically have one user create several anonymous journals. You could enforce against that the same way you do with normal sockpuppet accounts, but simply allow one journal account to exist without being banned so long as it stays within these more rigid rules.
If you don't trust other users to know that you're the one posting it, shouldn't you trust the staff even less because they have more power to do something in response to your posts? Not to mention that this actively gives the staff more power over you. What's to prevent a staff member from threatening to publicly out who is behind a particular journal? The other mods can only restrict that mod account on the forum, not necessarily catch them making a new one or spreading the information over other channels.
It just seems like a great recipe for an abuse of power to me.
Even if it were simply to separate that journal from your regular posting account, what would be the point if the staff knows who you are? All it takes is for a staff member to have one too many drinks on a private Discord chatgroup and your anonymity is blown entirely.
It would be more anonymous if you allowed the creation of sockpuppet accounts under the rule that you immediately contact a mod to verify it as an anonymous journal account, but then you could theoretically have one user create several anonymous journals. You could enforce against that the same way you do with normal sockpuppet accounts, but simply allow one journal account to exist without being banned so long as it stays within these more rigid rules.
If you don't trust other users to know that you're the one posting it, shouldn't you trust the staff even less because they have more power to do something in response to your posts? Not to mention that this actively gives the staff more power over you. What's to prevent a staff member from threatening to publicly out who is behind a particular journal? The other mods can only restrict that mod account on the forum, not necessarily catch them making a new one or spreading the information over other channels.
It just seems like a great recipe for an abuse of power to me.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
You said: "Sorry, not sure what you're saying here."
I replied: "Any person ( not a current member ) could join, no one knows who they are, go to the journal area, and troll all they want ( until they get kicked out ). It's basically the same thing as having an anom-journal. No one knows who they are.
So, what I'm saying is: On the one hand, maybe this will attract people who are trolls. But on the other hand, it's not that much different, a troll could still join and go to the journal area and do their worst."
You quoted me, but, and cropped out everything else except the following, and replied "No they couldn't"
When I read this to myself, I realized that "joined" was unqualified. I thought it was clear, but, apparently it wasn't. So, I qualified what I was talking about.
I said: "Any person ( not a current member ) could join the website go to the journal forum and troll all they want ( until they get kicked out )." Which part did I get wrong?
The important qualification is "website", join the website.
Your reply was: "Pretty much all of it."
That's why I'm asking the question. It seemed to be the best way to indicate what I was talking about, without arguing, and asking you to re-read my post, which, I thought, would have been rude.
You said: "Sorry, not sure what you're saying here", I was responding.
"Any person ( not a current member ) could join, no one knows who they are, go to the journal area, and troll all they want ( until they get kicked out ). It's basically the same thing as having an anom-journal. No one knows who they are.
So, what I'm saying is: On the one hand, maybe this will attract people who are trolls. But on the other hand, it's not that much different, a troll could still join and go to the journal area and do their worst."
The notion of a non-member joining the website as a conventional user, then going to the conventional journal area and trolling from there, was intended to mitigate the concern about trolls being attracted to the idea of the anom-journal area when they browse the website as a guest. That's why I said "On the one hand .... on the other hand."
I have been trying to respond to your statement: "Sorry, not sure what you're saying here"
You said: "Not sure how you think a private journal for members only is going to attract non-members who wouldn't be able to join it anyway."
The point about the anom-journal being attractive to non-member trolls has not been addressed. Unless "not sure how you think..." is addressing it.
For me, a simple acknowledgement that it was understood would have been fine. But it seems like the point has not been understood.
Yes, of course.
Do you see how a private journal for members only could be attractive to non-members who desire to troll the website, if they see it while browsing as a guest?
That's not what we're talking about. Other people would be able to comment on it.
You would just have control over who.
And the only reason this is going to be public is because we don't have the means to create private forums for everybody. That would actually be ideal.
There are people in here who for various reasons wouldn't want people in real life to be able to see some of what they're posting here.
Aside from that it would be a safe place where people wouldn't have to worry about unwelcome input.
Not sure why that would be a problem. Staff isn't going to troll anybody's thread, or take a thread where somebodys spilling their guts and try to turn it into a debate.
Staff isn't going to pass on sensitive personal information unless there's some sort of dire emergency. If someone on staff did that they wouldn't be on staff anymore.
Even putting aside helping extremely unlikely that that is? It would be possible to set it up so that whoever wants one of these accounts could pick out one staff member who they trust and be anonymous to everyone else on staff.
See that's the problem: we don't want people making several accounts. These accounts are for a specific purpose and there's no need for anybody to have more than one.
Which is exactly what I'm proposing.
Wow, I don't know what to say to all that.. if you really distrust the staff that much just don't ask for one of these accounts. It's not like it's going to be mandatory.
Sure, and what if the owners start sniffing glue, track us all down through our IPs, drug us, tie us up, and sell us to Japanese businessman?
What can I say we live in a dangerous world.
Sorry, but that makes no sense at all to me. People could share what they feel comfortable sharing, knowing that some people on staff can see what they're posting and take that into account.
Oh for **** sake.
Non-members wouldn't have the option of creating an anonymous account in the first place. How many times do I have to tell you that?
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
I didn't say they would. Why are you saying that?
They would be tempted to join the website for the purpose of trolling because it has an anom-journal area that they see while they are browsing as a guest.
So, they see this and are tempted to join so that after they are a member they can have two personas and troll more effectively.
As the public persona they make friends, learn about them, and use that info and their anom-journal to troll them. Or simply the person likes the idea of having two personas where they can be on the website as a regular user, but make up fake stories about the evils of their religious experience.
Either way, the troll is not a current member, joins the website, then requests the anom-journal, and trolls from there.
What I'm describing is after the new-member joins the website.
Basically this permits a user having 2 personas. It's just that one of the personas is limited to a specific thread.
What are you worried about?
Note: that's a rhetorical question. At this point I really don't even want to know because none of you objections make any sense to me, and so far begging for clarification hasn't helped.
So what?
I think you're overestimating the patience and attention span of your average troll. I really doubt anybody is going to join this place, behave themselves for 3 or 6 months just so that they qualify for one of the anonymous accounts, and then just suddenly pull out the stops and start trolling.
I don't think this is a concern that should wiegh too heavily on our decision here.
So what? Would you rather have them do that **** out in the open forums?
In the unlikely event that somebody is actually going to start a private journal just so they can talk **** about religion (and if they're going to do that why wouldn't they do it in the open forums anyway?) at least it would be easier to ignore if they posted it someplace that you're not supposed to be reading in the first place.
. . 3 to 6 months later . . .
As in 3 to 6 months after.
Like I said, I don't think that's a particularly likely scenario.
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
And that trust in the staff can be misplaced and violated.
Placing the power in a single staff member is potentially worse, because it also consolidates power in that single staff member.
It pretty straightforwardly benefits any Machiavellian personalities that wind up on staff, which is more or less an inevitability with any group that's put in a position of power.
That's all I really have to say on the matter, though. There's my honest opinion, feel free to take it or leave it. I hope other users will at least consider my concerns, even if they ultimately accept the risk or view it as too small to worry about.
So what are you saying, people shouldn't be allowed to make up their own minds about that?
Like I said if you decide not to take that IMO ridiculous negligible risk, nobody is going to force you.
But I think it's a little unfair of you to suggest that people shouldn't be allowed to choose for themselves.
Yes and just think: what if that staff member turned out to be a werewolf or an evil wizard? Or a Republican!? Or an evil Republican werewolf wizard?
I agree, these are all things we need to take into consideration and proceed cautiously.
Far as I know I'm the only soulless Machiavellian on staff, although we're always accepting applications.
Noted.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
If so, the new feature will attract more trolls to the website to join as members and then use the anom-area ( or even the common area ) for trolling. More trolls than already join as members. More trolls would be something I think would be an important consideration: benefit of the anom-journal vs. liability of more trolls joining than already do now.
That's "so what?" But you said later in the reply that you think it's unlikely. OK. I'm just answering, "So what?"
Good. I'm glad I mentioned the restrictions and that it was already part of the plan.
Wait. They're posting in a place I'm not supposed to be reading?
I'm saying if somebody creates a private journal and you aren't invited to post there, courtesy would dictate that you probably shouldn't be reading it either, although there's no way to stop someone from doing that.
What I'm saying is; if you're reading something that you have no business reading, and you see something there that you don't like, that's kind of on you.
I thought it was common knowledge that I'm a werewolf.
Well, it is now.
Ella S.
Well-Known Member
I think it's a little unfair of you to suggest that the staff be given the opportunity to have greater control over the lives of their users.
Anyone who voluntarily takes a position of power over others has earned their mistrust, in my opinion. It's not that they're a werewolf or an evil wizard. It's that they're a moderator with special privileges on a site that I use.
It's unrealistic for you to think that everyone is going to support expanding the power of those in positions of authority over them. I don't think that's me being unfair. I think it's that abusive hierarchies have already been culturally normalized, so most people don't think twice about these power shifts when they happen. I do and I dislike it.
It's nothing personal, but I stand by my principles.