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Feedback needed for new rules
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Agree with some of the other commenters:
Per rule 1: "Trolling" is in the eye of the beholder, but I like that you're trying to address bad faith argumentation. I'd rephrase the rule like this:
[Be civil. Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only.]
Then link to a document that details "good faith argumentation", with examples. You'll need them.
Per rule 2: A list of approved sources is better than a removal of biased sources. At least that way you can get individualized feedback on the list, rather than constantly having to address bias within each individual submission. Whitelist good/credible sources and blacklist others, and post occasional notices for feedback on each list. That way you can filter by domain and avoid most confusion.
Per rule 4: Remember that sites change headlines occasionally, so you'll likely get some reports on those.
Per rule 5: I would rephrase it like this: [Posts must be news from the most recent __ days. No opinion/editorials.]
You can specify the timeframe, but 60 or 90 days is generally pretty good.
Add a catch-all rule 6 that goes without saying but gives you clear protection if something just doesn't sit right with you: "Mods reserve the right to remove disruptive posts and comments on a case-by-case basis."
I will indeed rephrase the first rule, good suggestion!
If you have a whitelist, you don't need a blacklist, so I don't fully understand what you mean with that. The problem with having a whitelist is that I think it's to much work to curate each news source, and could be seen as restricting if not enough are whitelisted. That's why we'll probably go for a blacklist.
Yea, the bot already has some problems with that. But we'll first ask questions, then delete, so no worries there.
Good suggestion, I'll discuss it with the other moderators.
That catch all rule is already included in the instance rules, so that's not really needed.
Thank you for the suggestions (:
Good point. Either way you'll have a lot of work to sort out sources up front. After a few months of work the system should sort itself out and you'll have to do much less maintenance. But you're right that a blacklist-only approach is probably simpler. I guess it just depends on whether you choose to take a "source is forbidden until we allow it" approach or "source is allowed until we forbit it" approach. Both have merit, but the optimal choice depends entirely on how much traffic you're generating.
I think regardless of whether we have a white list, black-list or both there will be sources that fall in the grey. Here's an example. Imagine a school shooting in XYZ Community. Perhaps the local community newspaper provides a very detailed and credible article - the site is small enough it is unlikely to be on either a white list or a black list but it could still be a good contribution to the site. I providing examples of sources that are broadly accepted or not accepted is useful, but at the end of the day I think much of it falls to moderator discretion.
Absolutely true. A list either way is just meant to be a fast-track for approved sources and a stop light for disapproved ones. You'll still have your work cut out for you. The value of a list, however, is that eventually submitters learn what's kosher and what's not. If you don't have a blacklist, for example, then you'll have to manually remove National Enquirer-type submissions every time they pop up. A blacklist allows you to set up an automated filter that everyone knows and understands. Coming from someone who modded on Reddit for over a decade, you want rules that are helpful enough to ALLOW you discretion, while at the same time being specific enough to cut down on repetitive bullshit. Clarity and consistency is key, and you don't want rules that rely SOLELY on moderator discretion, otherwise your work just gets harder and harder as traffic increases. If you're likely to remove Daily Stormer submissions every time they show up anyway, then go ahead and put it on a blacklist so folks know ahead of time that it won't fly.
I think a blocklist of common sources of biased and sensationalized / misinformation sources would be the best option. It would definitely be a ton of work to whitelist every good source, and you especially want to encourage smaller trusted industry-specific sources (think like pv magazine), there are a lot of those small high quality sources that are geared towards industry professionals. With a short blocklist you could probably cover a significant portion of the loudest biased sources of misinformation.