User blog comment:Jkl9817/Let's make some frigging decisions!/@comment-1874924-20130925055324

The "N-word", used properly,  has a widely accepted and relatively innocuous meaning. If people have altered the meaning and are now using it as a slur, then we'll just have to start treating it as a slur. That means handing out automatic bans for using it as a slur, just as we would ban people for calling another user a "nigger", a "fag", etc. A slur is a slur is a slur, and using one carries (or should carry) the presumption of malicious intent.

I'm going to take the proposals out of order for the sake of better narrative flow.

#6 : That's not quite what I said. I didn't make a formal proposal to disable chat. I said only that I sometimes--more and more often of late--think that it might be for the best. That doesn't mean I actually want to see Chat disabled. Yet. Likewise, just because I sometimes think--more and more often of late--that maybe I should just give up, leave the wiki, take my stories with me and let the wiki drown in its own Chat-based poisons doesn't mean that I currently have any plans to do so. It's just that frustration is building to levels that, if left unchecked, may eventually make these viable options.

#2 : If these RP-based fights are originating outside the wiki, we already have a longstanding rule that we do not tolerate imported drama. Importing drama has always been grounds for a ban--not just from Chat, but from the wiki as a whole if it's done on a blog post or somesuch. So why aren't the offenders being banned?


 * 1) 1&3 : Adding more chatmods may help, but it doesn't address the core problems. The real problems are that (1) Chatmods, and to a lesser extent admins, who impose a chat ban more often then not come under heavy peer pressure to lift it prematurely; and (2) Admins and chatmods second guess each other by lifting bans that they did not impose.  The first problem is bad, but the second is intolerable because it allows the troublemakers to "shop" for the most lenient or easily intimidated chatmod/admin. It's one thing if someone can prove that a ban was abusive (e.g. by screencapping chats), but we simply must make the presumption that whoever imposed the ban was acting reasonably. If we don't, then any other attempt at meaningful reform is doomed to fail. For similar reasons, trying to intimidate a chatmod/admin into prematurely lifting a ban needs to be grounds for a ban in its own right.

#5 : Sounds good in theory, but in practice the usual result will probably be a "he said/she said" dead end, requiring the admin/chatmod to either take one party's word over another's or to simply do nothing.

#4 : Again, good ideas in theory, but in practice it's easier said than done. The users here seem to be a very independent lot, because trying to get any kind of large-scale cooperation around here is like herding cats. Previous incarnations of the Newsletter died from contributor unreliability, i.e. too many people committed to providing content for the Newsletter and then simply didn't deliver. That's why Rhonda is smart (and courageous) to handle the core parts of the revived Newsletter herself. As for another Wiki Awards, Webly has said that he doesn't have time to do it again and basically threw the coordinator role up for grabs. I'd like to see another Wiki Awards, but I must admit that I'm not terribly optimistic about the prospects of getting enough voter turnout to yield meaningful results. A lot of the the people who voted last time have left, and the newer users as a class don't seem to be very interested in voting on things.