Topic: Moderation

@Octane yeah I use the first 'slur' word you used to describe a particular kind of pliers. Not sure if it is spelled the same though. And this being primarily a UK site, it seems obvious why the "f" word there wouldn't be automatically censored.

Some interesting things to consider though.

@Octane You could say the same about s-hit. But it's still censored.

@antdickens My issue is: what is the logic?

I don't think anyone has ever cried from seeing the word s-hit online, but these other words can do a lot of damage when hurled at someone. Even if you only see them right before they get removed, they can do a lot of hurt. Just censor a word like 'sissy' or 'tranny', or the other way around: stop censoring words like s-hit.

@Kidfried context, those words can be used when having a constructive discussion... much like this one and therefore can be allowed. Where-as swearing is never needed for any discussion, we get alerts when people use slurs and are mainly removed and people banned depending on the context. Where-as we don't get alerts when profanity is auto-censored as its rarely required any further action. There's a difference between profanity and slurs in this context which is the main difference. Maybe we'll add more terms to the auto censor in due course.

@Octane Dick Van Dyke is a great actor.

@Kidfried We're kinda forced to use faeces in that case. I'd like to think that it makes us look more sophisticated.

@antdickens I assume you use the filters to help the sites (NL, PS and PXB) to be available to broader audiences in the search engines? Correct me if I am wrong as I would like to know if this helps a site

@Octane What is wrong with the good old "turd"?

@Zuljaras yeah, there is a small SEO benefit but ultimately anyone using excessive language on a site about video games probably isn't the kind of user we want as part of the community.

@antdickens Yeah I get that kind of policy. Almost all sites have the exact same one but following it on 100% is kind of impossible

@antdickens @get2sammyb and anybody else involved (apologies if I've missed you).

We all know moderation is a thankless task (no matter what decision you make, you're always gonna upset somebody, somewhere) but I wanna change that right now, so here's a sincere thank you for the swift, fair and comprehensive moderation of the Pride story's comment section yesterday. It made it a conversation I actually wanted to be a part of, rather than a toxic dumping ground that I actively avoided, and meant that nice, meaningful discussions could take place without members of the community having to get overly argumentative with trolls and bigots.

I realise strict ban-hammering was something this site always wanted to avoid, and I respect that, but the recent increase in enforcing reasonable conduct rules beneath "controversial" stories (quote marks added because some of them really shouldn't be controversial in the slightest) has been noticed and appreciated. If people don't get the hint after enough warnings, that's on them.

Anyway, that's enough gushing; just wanted to give credit where it's due. Hope it didn't cause you too much of a headache, and thanks again!

@RogerRoger thanks for the kind words, it's appreciated. We've been working on making our rules clearer and more robust of late and making enforcement of them more visible; it was always happening before but wasn't as visible.

As you say, it's never going to please everyone but we're aiming for the majority. Cheers

@antdickens Well, given how comparatively healthy that comment section turned out, I'd say whatever you're doing is working, and working well... and now that you've mentioned it, I think the visibility of it makes a big difference, absolutely. Good stuff; here's hoping such extensive moderation becomes less and less necessary as time goes by (he said naïvely)!

@antdickens Making the moderation more transparent is probably a good thing - it's a nice warning sign to whoever wants to say something unnecessary rude, and it's also more clear when people when people have replied to it.

By the way, thanks to the team for all you did this year.

I think content has been great recently and moderation has been good too.

@Kidfried thanks for the continued support and thanks for reading!

One thing I’ve been wondering - why is it that if you censor a sweary word in a comment, it’ll still get removed yet several articles now have contained swear words censored the exact same way? As long as it isn’t directed at anybody else in a threatening way, where’s the harm if it’s been censored with a*terisks?

@nessisonett most common sweary words are automatically censored by replacing the whole word with a string of *'s. It's extremely rare that we'll use a sweary word in a headline and almost always is a direct quote of someone which is important to the story. The latest PornHub article is probably the exception to the rule though. Naturally we can control the editorial quite easily, but controlling the comments is far more difficult. Google looks down on comment sections full of swearing (even partly censored) therefore we try to keep it as clean as possible, otherwise Google thinks its unmoderated and therefore 'unsafe'.

@antdickens Ahh, I didn’t realise Google had that sort of policy! Thanks for clearing it up.