Should Tokyo Revengers remain on the wiki, and in what form?

[Mr. Bambu]

I'm aware of what the freeze will require, and I appreciate your insight, Witchy. I do suspect you're underestimating what must be done for your alternative, though- we need to check all users entering them- it's not adding but one action, it is checking every user who is new to the threads (probably multiple times, if you don't remember them, and even moreso if its the second thread they've spoken on). All in all, it's a great deal of work for a staff force that I believe is unprepared to undertake that for a single problematic verse.

I don't intend to debate too much, the matter has been discussed a great deal and I would rather everyone make their own thoughts known. But I am in full agreement with a yearlong freeze.

 

[Duedate8898]

I'm not really comfortable with doing a freeze for the verse. It's essentially deletion without saying it on the tin, because the verse might as well not exist on the wiki if it isn't to be interacted with. And also blanket stopping people from doing anything with a verse they support discourages anything further being done with the verse once that freeze period ends. Problem users shouldn't be the cause of a verse's deletion or essentially deletion unless we're saying that the supporters are only problem users, which doesn't sound like what's going on here.

The verse isn't the problem, users are. And we have specific means to handle users without throwing the verse under the bus.

 

[Propellus]

I'm not really comfortable with doing a freeze for the verse. It's essentially deletion without saying it on the tin, because the verse might as well not exist on the wiki if it isn't to be interacted with. And also blanket stopping people from doing anything with a verse they support discourages anything further being done with the verse once that freeze period ends. Problem users shouldn't be the cause of a verse's deletion or essentially deletion unless we're saying that the supporters are only problem users, which doesn't sound like what's going on here.

The verse isn't the problem, users are. And we have specific means to handle users without throwing the verse under the bus.

That's literally the point, the supporters aren't really getting stuff together and they're just making the verse even worse that it had to eventually come to this

 

[AbaddonTheDisappointment]

Honestly I think that Witch's solution is the best one. While I don't know exactly how many/who is actually willing to work on the verse, as long as there are people who are willing to work on it and who can actually be trusted, yeah I think just allowing them to work on it and whoever else can be considered trustworthy is better than just leaving the verse in a messed up state with no one being able to touch it for a year.

Though, if very few people are actually willing to work on it then just freezing it would be better in that case in my opinion.

I'm aware of what the freeze will require, and I appreciate your insight, Witchy. I do suspect you're underestimating what must be done for your alternative, though- we need to check all users entering them- it's not adding but one action, it is checking every user who is new to the threads (probably multiple times, if you don't remember them, and even moreso if its the second thread they've spoken on). All in all, it's a great deal of work for a staff force that I believe is unprepared to undertake that for a single problematic verse.

I don't intend to debate too much, the matter has been discussed a great deal and I would rather everyone make their own thoughts known. But I am in full agreement with a yearlong freeze.

I haven't really been paying attention to these TR threads that much since I'm not interested in the verse but if we just make these TR threads staff threads and only trusted members/already approved members are allowed to give their two cents wouldn't that partially solve the issue? The approved users could speak and debate and if someone else wants to give their two cents they'd have to be vetted by staff to begin with so they could just check if they match the criteria for someone allowed into a TR thread.

 

[Deagonx]

The freeze wouldn't be permanent and the profiles remaining on the wiki will serve as a result of the work already done this far. I think it's a good approach to settle down the toxicity around it without committing even greater staff resources to babysitting it.

 

[Psychomaster35]

I know I don't care about this verse the slightest, but I'm pretty sure nuking it off the site if not match-banning it feels to harsh considering how we've had plenty other verses whose fan bases are known to be toxic (Albeit most of them I can think of at the top of my head are big franchises).

I would agree with locking the pages (With them staying locked) considering how controversial it is among its supporters when it comes to revising stuff, but deleting it feels like it's crossing the line. To be fair, though, like I said, I don’t care what happens to it because I don't know this series and I may as well most likely never get into it.

 

[Maverick_Zero_X]

Agree with the 1 year freeze.

 

[noninho]

Hello. Once again, sorry for the unauthorized post earlier...this time i've got Dereck's authorization.

i'd like to know what you think should be done with the 2* threads involving TR that still have movement
and i'm positioning myself as a supporter of finishing them but not authorizing new ones to be made due to they controversy ending up expanded if there are new ones, meaning let them finish and then start the freeze.

the threads i'm mentioning are:
Dazai vs. Seven
Xande vs. Mikey (who's lacking only one vote for reaching grace period's start)

Those two* are the only ones i know for a fact are not spite ones, and have solid argumentation going on.

 

[Lonkitt]

Do whatever you want with it. Just keep it away from me

 

[ImmortalDread]

Now that we've covered the basic concept and explored some theoretical ideas, it's time to delve into the technical details – my favorite part!

If we are going to do a freezing (if everyone agrees with it), we need an appropriate template to the top of each profile and verse page, so outsiders and visitors understand that those pages are intentionally not being updated (the series as far as I know is still ongoing). The reason can be either

• Linked to this thread
• Or written in the verse page

I have a template idea on how to do it as well. Although, not today as I have 4 hours driving school lessons at the night (college as well, so I only have 1 hour break), so I am only capable of doing it tomorrow.

@Antvasima @Dereck03 @IdiosyncraticLawyer

Respecting the OP's wish, this post is authorised by @Dereck03 (the fees are paid)

 

[DarkGrath]

I disagree with removing TR from the wiki, and I also disagree with freezing with the verse. The option suggested by First Witch sounds better, though I would personally contend that 1 year and 1k posts is a bit too harsh - I would think knowing whether a user is a sockpuppet (or otherwise a troublesome user) would occur well before that point. For now, though, I would like to focus on the issues with deleting/freezing the verse.

The proposal here, if my understanding is correct, is that the problems that users have caused in TR threads will be mitigated by removing TR or preventing further TR threads. In essence, removing the platform that members are using to cause trouble will prevent further trouble by those members. This is an intuitive proposal, but the crux of all this is that I believe it's not actually true in the first place.

There's an analogue to be made here with a concept in criminology - namely, 'displacement' policies. In criminology, displacement policies are policies implemented into law to reduce crime rates by uniquely taking away access to areas in which crime rates are high. For example, if policy makers find that a particular string of nightclubs experience very high crime rates past 2am, they could aim to prevent further crime by issuing a mandatory close at 1am. Displacement policies are common, but as you may have picked up from the name that criminology researchers have applied to them, it's been found consistently that they don't actually reduce crime - they just 'displace' it. To elaborate: while taking away a particular area where crime occurs may reduce crime in that area, it proportionally increases crime in all surrounding areas, to the point that the overall crime rate does not decrease.

There are several noteworthy case studies on this concept. The 'Sydney Lockout Laws' in Australia were a famous example. In 2014, after an incident of night-time alcohol-fueled violence resulting in death in the Sydney CBD, a strict curfew was placed on all venues which sold alcohol in the CBD to prevent further incidents of alcohol-fueled violence. Longitudinal research into the lockout laws in the coming years found that violent crime attributed to alcohol use did notably decrease in the CBD - however, it proceeded to notably increase in all regions surrounding the CBD, resulting in the overall level of alcohol-fueled violence in Sydney not substantially decreasing (in the interest of fairness, I should note some studies suggested at least a small reduction in overall crime in this instance - but all noticed the same effect of crime displacement, and that the impact was far lower than what policy makers would have expected). There were also many similar research studies done regarding the COVID lockdowns in many different regions of the world. Reduced access to outside spaces consistently decreased incidents of violent crimes outside of the home in many regions of the world - but violent crimes inside the home increased proportionally, resulting in no substantial reductions in violent crime.

Having an analogue doesn't prove anything on its own, of course - analogies can be made to argue for just about anything without substance. But the reason I bring up this analogy is because I believe it's relevant here. The consensus among researchers regarding displacement policies is that they don't work because it isn't the platform someone is given that causes them to engage in deviant behaviour - it's factors related to the person themselves. The reason why crime rates overall don't tend to decrease when such policies are implemented is because people who would have engaged in deviant behaviour in one area (who have their access to that area taken away) will just proceed to engage in deviant behaviour in a different area. When you sit down and think about it, this is actually quite obvious; it's almost always the person, and factors such as their intentions, their personality, their cognitions, and whatnot, that causes a crime, not the place they happen to be in.

I would assert that this is quite relevant to the problem we have here. There is ultimately nothing special about TR as a verse that should necessarily make it more controversial than any other verse - rather, the problems come down to the fact that a lot of problematic users happen to engage with it. And furthermore, almost none of these users (to my memory) exclusively interacted with or caused problems for TR; the users who have caused problems on TR threads have also caused problems on all the other threads they've engaged with, including those for other verses. When they didn't have TR threads to attend to, they caused problems in threads for other verses. The only reason TR is notable here is because it was a converging point for many of these users. So to this, I have to ask - will getting rid of TR actually prevent further problems from these users? Will these users just stop being recurring problems for the staff and other users once they no longer have access to TR? Or will it just cause them to create more problems spread out elsewhere, problems which we will have to deal with at roughly the same rate? I would argue there is a strong precedent for the latter. The only precedent for the former is a common intuition that has consistently been shown to be false.

In passing, I would like to note there is a case to be made that certain specific problems are exclusive to the TR verse. For example, the excessive number of calcs. Calcs are (often) verse specific, and there have been a lot of feats calced for TR that have caused troubles. Given the verse-specificity of calculations, you could argue that this problem will go away when TR is removed. I have two contentions with this. For one, the reason why we are considering such heavy-handed action against TR in the first place is because of the problems with the users; I would not endorse something as extreme as blocking off access to a verse entirely on the basis of having a lot of calcs. Secondly, freezing the verse won't address verse-specific problems; it will only delay them. If there are a lot of feats to be calced, then those feats will still exist when the freeze is over (and if anything, there might even be more to calculate by the end of it). That's one example, but when you follow through on the line of reasoning on any other problems, you'll find that any verse-specific problems will exist after the freeze is over as much as they exist now. This would be a very heavy-handed approach for comparatively minor problems, and wouldn't even fix the problems in the long-term.

This is why I would be willing to discuss First Witch's suggestion instead. First Witch's suggestion partially accounts for the problems of the other approaches, because it acknowledges the problem as user-centric, not verse-centric. It is not TR that is causing problems - it is the people who are engaging with it that are causing problems, and this suggestion helps to focus on and filter out the more problematic users early. It doesn't fully fix the problem, as it doesn't address how these users might cause problems with other threads, but it does make it easier to keep track of them and to weed them out. Furthermore, it prevents us from needlessly taking away freedoms from reasonable, upstanding users who would legitimately bring improvements to the verse in a time where these improvements would otherwise not be possible. I would think that, with further refinement, this would be a plausible avenue to explore.

In conclusion, I disagree with removing/freezing the TR verse. I believe the main case for it is held up on a common intuition that has been demonstrated to be false, and that the weight of the evidence suggests that no substantial decrease in problems and rule violations will come about as a result of those changes. I also believe that, in the long term, the problems that are unique to TR as a verse will at most be delayed by these changes, and that it would only be a temporary and heavy-handed solution. I would be willing to give more credence to First Witch's suggestion, as it focuses on the regulation of user's conduct on TR threads rather than on the verse itself, and enables the verse to continue being improved in the coming months. However, I have similar concerns over whether it will just result in a displacement effect.

 

[KingTempest]

That's tough

(Iwl this is an interesting perspective)

 

[Armorchompy]

I am definitely in agreement with Grath's thoughts and to back them up, I would like to emphasize that this specific bit:

In passing, I would like to note there is a case to be made that certain specific problems are exclusive to the TR verse. For example, the excessive number of calcs.

Is actually untrue. While Tokyo Revengers is the epicenter of these questionable calculations made with specific kinds of assumptions, and possibly the origin of them, it's definitely not the only verse to get them. There's a lot of low-power martial arts manga/manhua that get a lot of calculations like this- I know because I get asked to evaluate them pretty often. Even a manga that I myself support gets people trying to push for weird stuff like that, occasionally.

So, I actually totally agree with her assessment that if we ban Tokyo Revengers, we'll just get the more toxic debaters to migrate to other verses with a similar setting.

 

[Deagonx]

The consensus among researchers regarding displacement policies is that they don't work because it isn't the platform someone is given that causes them to engage in deviant behaviour - it's factors related to the person themselves.

I respect and appreciate the amount of thought and consideration you put into this, but personally I have to disagree with applying this concept to VS battles. Interest in a fictional universe is not as fungible as real-world crime. If you want to steal/burglarize or buy/deal drugs or hurt other people, there will simply always be a place to do it. As you point out, any efforts to limit the exposure of a single target simply redirects the criminals to other targets.

However, there are many users on our forum who have a near-singular interest in a specific verse, or a small grouping of verses. This isn't to say that these users never post in other CRTs or involve themselves in other discussions, but the amount at which they do so is extremely small. I have personally seen several such users become almost completely inactive when receiving topic bans. I have a reputation for being heavily involved in DC, so I know all of the users who are involved in those discussions. Many of them exclusively discuss DC on this forum, with few to no posts in any other verse. Many of them are completely inactive until a significant DC discussion comes up. If such users received a DC topic ban, it is a guarantee that they would just stop posting until it was over. If we froze DC for a year, they would either leave the wiki or wait it out.

For these users with a hyperfixation on Tokyo Revengers, while they may indeed migrate to an extent to other verses and discussions and be similarly unreasonable/obstinate, they will lack the passion and connection they have with the characters, they won't be as informed about the verse or its state on the wiki. Most importantly, unless they rally up their friends to all focus on the same verse again, they will be on their own.

The issue we have with Tokyo Revengers is that there appears to be almost a cadre of unreasonable users who almost exclusively focus on it, and by their own admissions (though this may simply have been an attempt to deflect sockpuppet accusations) they are literally in a Discord server where they talk about TR, and have recruited new users to the wiki for the explicit purpose of discussing TR. We know these users are wise to our methods of detection, we've seen them use VPNs (MysticCarnage was initially cleared of suspicion of being Vapourrrr due to a VPN, but later forgot to use it and was caught), we've seen them make sockpuppet Discord accounts to accompany their profiles here, we've seen them recruit additional people to pretend to be their sockpuppets on voice calls, et cetera. We will catch them eventually, but for any 3-6 month period they will likely cause headaches unabated until the similarities between them and the original banned user becomes too great to ignore.

 

[DarkGrath]

However, there are many users on our forum who have a near-singular interest in a specific verse, or a small grouping of verses. This isn't to say that these users never post in other CRTs or involve themselves in other discussions, but the amount at which they do so is extremely small. I have personally seen several such users become almost completely inactive when receiving topic bans. I have a reputation for being heavily involved in DC, so I know all of the users who are involved in those discussions. Many of them exclusively discuss DC on this forum, with few to no posts in any other verse. Many of them are completely inactive until a significant DC discussion comes up. If such users received a DC topic ban, it is a guarantee that they would just stop posting until it was over. If we froze DC for a year, they would either leave the wiki or wait it out.

For these users with a hyperfixation on Tokyo Revengers, while they may indeed migrate to an extent to other verses and discussions and be similarly unreasonable/obstinate, they will lack the passion and connection they have with the characters, they won't be as informed about the verse or its state on the wiki. Most importantly, unless they rally up their friends to all focus on the same verse again, they will be on their own.

I would argue these circumstances with DC are not so translatable to Tokyo Revengers. DC is one of the largest, most noteworthy verses on the site, and the label of DC encapsulates so many distinct stories and fictions within itself that two people involved with DC can (hypothetically) never touch any part of DC that another DC user does, let alone expand to other verses. There is always something new with DC, always something worth learning or discussing, and few members are involved in the totality of it. Comparatively, Tokyo Revengers is a relatively small, self-contained verse where all avenues for discussion converge in a tight loop. Members exclusively being on the wiki for their DC interests is plausible, and I'd even say potentially common, but I can't say the same for Tokyo Revengers.

In fact, our discussion already has established that to be true. You've pointed out how many people who discuss DC on the forum have no posts in other verse - this can't be said at all for the recent members involved with TR, who have already consistently engaged with other verses whenever there wasn't something to discuss with TR. I don't believe the anecdotes you've provided regarding DC users holds up to this situation as TR users, not least because the analogy itself suggests they don't engage with the wiki in the same way. Even if you are correct that the particular users you have in mind would stop interacting with the wiki if DC was frozen, my problem is that doesn't mean the TR supporters would do the same, and I believe we've already seen firsthand why they wouldn't.

The issue we have with Tokyo Revengers is that there appears to be almost a cadre of unreasonable users who almost exclusively focus on it, and by their own admissions (though this may simply have been an attempt to deflect sockpuppet accusations) they are literally in a Discord server where they talk about TR, and have recruited new users to the wiki for the explicit purpose of discussing TR. We know these users are wise to our methods of detection, we've seen them use VPNs (MysticCarnage was initially cleared of suspicion of being Vapourrrr due to a VPN, but later forgot to use it and was caught), we've seen them make sockpuppet Discord accounts to accompany their profiles here, we've seen them recruit additional people to pretend to be their sockpuppets on voice calls, et cetera. We will catch them eventually, but for any 3-6 month period they will likely cause headaches unabated until the similarities between them and the original banned user becomes too great to ignore.

This, I think, further strengthens the reason for considering First Witch's approach. All three approaches that have been suggested (deleting, freezing, and gatekeeping, to give them simple terms to reiterate) could hypothetically solve this problem here. Now, I don't know whether this Discord server exists, whether it's really used for 'recruiting' people to make accounts on here, whether they facilitate sockpuppets, or whatever else - all I'll say, and all I think is important and relevant here, is that new people are joining the wiki who want to engage with TR and end up causing problems. All three approaches solve this problem by preventing these people from engaging with TR, and there are two clear benefits I can see to gatekeeping over deleting and freezing.

1: The verse can continue to be indexed and improved upon. While I can't say I have any personal stake in it, the fact of the matter remains that Tokyo Revengers is a fairly noteworthy verse - to not have TR profiles, or to not have good TR profiles, is a poor state for an indexing wiki like ours. Deleting means not having TR profiles, and freezing means not having good TR profiles. Gatekeeping produces the same benefit of preventing new people from joining the site and causing problems in TR threads, while simultaneously allowing the verse to continue being indexed and improved upon. I believe, in the long term, this will produce the best possible state for the verse and its discussions.

2: While this is theoretical, there is a case to be made that gatekeeping would show less of a displacement effect than the alternatives. There is a good chance that many of these users will continue using the wiki even if it is deleted or frozen, and of the ones that do, they have no incentive to address their poor conduct. They can continue to act as they have, potentially get banned for it, make a sockpuppet, and repeat the cycle. But if the verse merely has a gateway requirement, one in which users are granted access to the verse they want to discuss if they can show good conduct over an extended period of time, that creates a positive reinforcement mechanism for good conduct. I won't go full Pavlov and regale this discussion with research into behavioural training techniques, but I will say this - positive reinforcement as a means of behaviour change does work. Long-term positive behaviour change can occur when people know that extended periods of good conduct will be rewarded. And if nothing else, it is a more plausible avenue for better quality discussions (both across the wiki and for TR itself) than the alternatives.

I really don't believe the other options hold up to gatekeeping the verse if we're looking to address the elephant in the room without tarnishing the walls. It's simply a solution that keeps the quality of the wiki and its discussions as high as possible - an uncontroversial end to achieve.

 

[CloverDragon03]

I’d also be fine with the gatekeeping approach for DarkGrath’s reasons, since this allows genuinely helpful supporters to contribute to the verse, though if this is what’s settled on, a question needs to be raised about what the barrier to entry is. 1 year and 1K posts was suggested before. I’m fine with 1K posts. Not too sure about the 1 year timeframe tho (was thinking maybe 6 months)

 

[Damage3245]

A timeframe barrier would probably be better than 1K posts barrier, as the latter may encourage spam comments just to exceed the threshold.

 

[Deagonx]

I really don't believe the other options hold up to gatekeeping the verse if we're looking to address the elephant in the room without tarnishing the walls. It's simply a solution that keeps the quality of the wiki and its discussions as high as possible - an uncontroversial end to achieve.

Very well, I concede the point.

A timeframe barrier would probably be better than 1K posts barrier, as the latter may encourage spam comments just to exceed the threshold.

I think a combination of both will be good. I see your point about spam, but I believe the timeframe barrier may encourage these users to make dummy accounts to sit on for age purposes. A post count requirement also imposes a significant burden of effort on them to pantomime activity to a considerable degree, and if they attempt to circumvent this with low-effort spam, that will be highly apparent if/when they get reported for misconduct of any kind, alerting us to the high likelihood of their intentions.

On an unserious note, I'm salty that people are calling it Witch's suggestion cause I included it in my op:

Deleting it is not the only option, of course. I am open to any suggestions that might help curb the issue. Other ideas that I considered were disallowing participation from users under a certain account age, to help mitigate the influx of sockpuppets and users recruited to the forum by these individuals. One member suggested temporarily freezing the verse, locking all of it's pages until some point in the future. Et cetera. Open to ideas.

Witch is taking everything I worked for

 

[First_Witch]

Witch is taking everything I worked for

Skill Issue

 

[Arceus0x]

A timeframe barrier would probably be better than 1K posts barrier, as the latter may encourage spam comments just to exceed the threshold.

i think both should be in effect to prevent dormant socks from activating. A double-security measure if you will.

 

[CloverDragon03]

Witch is taking everything I worked for

Should’ve put a patent on it smh

I’d prefer having both a time requirement and a post requirement. Having only one can create ways of easily bypassing it

 

[Antvasima]

How about if we try a combined approach of disallowing all versus threads with Tokyo Revengers, initially only allowing the currently trusted supporters of the verse, such as @Arnoldstone18 and @Zefra3011, as well as our staff members, to comment in such threads, and let them start a private discussion thread in this forum together with @Deagonx, @Dalesean027, and @DMUA, in which they decide if any other non-staff TR supporters with accounts here that are older than 1.5 years, and have over 1000 posts, seem trustworthy enough to include? We should probably also initially freeze the verse for 1 to 3 months for them to get sufficient time to make all of their necessary preparations at a non-stressful pace.

 

[Antvasima]

i think both should be in effect to prevent dormant socks from activating. A double-security measure if you will.

I’d prefer having both a time requirement and a post requirement. Having only one can create ways of easily bypassing it

Yes. Agreed. In fact, a minimum of 2000 posts and 1.5 years old accounts seems considerably safer.

 

[Deagonx]

How about if we try a combined approach of disallowing all versus threads with Tokyo Revengers, initially only allowing the currently trusted supporters of the verse, such as @Arnoldstone18 and @Zefra3011, as well as our staff members to comment in such threads, and let them start a private discussion thread in this forum together with @Deagonx, @Dalesean027, and @DMUA, in which they decide if any other non-staff TR supporters with accounts here that are older than 1.5 years, and have over 1000 posts, seem trustworthy enough to include? We should probably also initiall freeze the verse for 1 to 3 months for them to get sufficient time to make all of their necessary preparations.

Given a remarkably low staff interest in the verse (partially due to its toxic reputation), I think this approach is likely a bit impractical. Also, it's not so much that we only want "trusted supporters" to be involved in the verse, just users with standing in the community (rather than new users who may be here just to cause problems). For instance, there are many users who I'd welcome into a TR thread with open arms if they deigned to involve themselves, but who are not currently involved. They should be allowed to enter as well.

I think the account age and post requirement by themselves should suffice for now.

 

[Antvasima]

Well, I think that we should use a minimum requirement of 1.5 years old accounts with over 2000 posts in that case, but make exceptions for members such as Zefra3011, who are deemed to have been well-behaved, knowledgeable, and constructive regarding this verse.

Also, all new content revision threads and calculation blogs for the verse should mention our minimum requirement rules in bold text, and also say that new accounts that post there anyway will be considered to be sockpuppet trolls and quickly banned.

 

[noninho]

I'm not against changing requirements for partaking on the verse's discussions nor freezing and others
I'd ask again what's happening with the current threads that see movement and position myself in favor that they be concluded, since nothing problematic happened to them after I made the report of, imo, the most prominently problematic member in those
Bumping my post to point out which I'm talking about (because I'm on my phone)

Hello. Once again, sorry for the unauthorized post earlier...this time i've got Dereck's authorization.

i'd like to know what you think should be done with the 2* threads involving TR that still have movement
and i'm positioning myself as a supporter of finishing them but not authorizing new ones to be made due to they controversy ending up expanded if there are new ones, meaning let them finish and then start the freeze.

the threads i'm mentioning are:
Dazai vs. Seven
Xande vs. Mikey (who's lacking only one vote for reaching grace period's start)

Those two* are the only ones i know for a fact are not spite ones, and have solid argumentation going on.

 

[Deagonx]

Well, I think that we should use a minimum requirement of 1.5 years old accounts with over 2000 posts in that case, but make exceptions for members such as Zefra3011, who are deemed to have been well-behaved and constructive.

Regarding exceptions: I am amicable to the concept, but wary. I think we should not only be extremely selective as to who we allow as an exception, but also that we prohibit the addition of later exceptions after we implement this. For instance, I do not want another ShadowSythez situation where they attempt to ingratiate themselves to the staff in order to attempt to qualify for an exception. If we place the hard limit that post-facto exceptions can be added, we can avoid this.

Regarding the length/post count: I am fine with anything, I leave it to the consensus.

 

[Serlock_Holmes]

Regarding exceptions: I am amicable to the concept, but wary. I think we should not only be extremely selective as to who we allow as an exception, but also that we prohibit the addition of later exceptions after we implement this. For instance, I do not want another ShadowSythez situation where they attempt to ingratiate themselves to the staff in order to attempt to qualify for an exception. If we place the hard limit that post-facto exceptions can be added, we can avoid this.

Regarding the length/post count: I am fine with anything, I leave it to the consensus.

Specifically for Zefra he is the only one who has really helped with the verse, was the one who got together with the cgm to properly evaluate the verse and is hated by Vapour for that and for "downplaying" the verse. If any attempt at straigheting out the verse is made then he can help and I don't know if anyone else is also good in that. Sorry for replying but had to clear this one up as someone who was in many threads. Dale who also participated can vouch for the people that actually act normally in regards to TR.

 

[Antvasima]

Regarding exceptions: I am amicable to the concept, but wary. I think we should not only be extremely selective as to who we allow as an exception, but also that we prohibit the addition of later exceptions after we implement this. For instance, I do not want another ShadowSythez situation where they attempt to ingratiate themselves to the staff in order to attempt to qualify for an exception. If we place the hard limit that post-facto exceptions can be added, we can avoid this.

Yes, I meant a few initial exceptions.

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

Bump.

 

[Deagonx]

It seems we are taking the approach of restricting participation, the initial estimate was 1yr and 1000 comments, with potentially an exception for Zefra. Is that all fine with everyone?

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

It seems we are taking the approach of restricting participation, the initial estimate was 1yr and 1000 comments, with potentially an exception for Zefra. Is that all fine with everyone?

Fine by me.

 

[DarkGrath]

It seems we are taking the approach of restricting participation, the initial estimate was 1yr and 1000 comments, with potentially an exception for Zefra. Is that all fine with everyone?

Personally, I would prefer a lower bar, and I know others in the thread thus far have expressed similar sentiments.

Ideally, our gatekeeping should be set up to minimise the number of false positives (i.e.: the number of users rejected who would provide productive, valuable input) and false negatives (i.e.: the number of users affirmed who would not provide productive, valuable input) as much as possible. Both false positives and false negatives cause problems for the verse and its discussions, though we understandably care more about preventing false negatives. 1 year and 1000 comments should pretty firmly negate any false negatives, but my concern is that it would produce a lot of false positives - we normally have a clear idea of whether a user causes trouble long before they have a year-old account or produce 1000 comments. By the time someone has, say, 9 months and 750 posts on the forum, they almost certainly either are not a problem or we are aware they are a problem and can handle their case independently.

I'm fine with putting a much higher priority on avoiding false negatives, but false positives cause their own troubles. A lack of involvement in discussions stifles the quality of a verse and its indexing, and furthermore, it needlessly prevents perfectly reasonable users from engaging with a hobby that our whole website exists to facilitate. Perhaps more importantly, I don't believe a reasonable lower bar would necessarily produce any more false negatives if we continue with our duties as we always have - we can have the best of both worlds if we're smart about it.

I would suggest something in the range of 6 months and 500 posts. By the time someone has an account that old and with that much activity, we have usually seen first-hand whether they tend to cause troubles on threads they engage with. By that token, if they have caused trouble, we have usually also either warned them and had them address their behaviour, or we will have banned them for failing to address their behaviour. For the few that don't fit this criteria, we can address their circumstances independently, as we always have in cases of particular problematic users. I would think that this threshold should, to the best of our abilities, facilitate TR discussions among productive members while filtering out unproductive members.

 

[Deagonx]

I would suggest something in the range of 6 months and 500 posts. By the time someone has an account that old and with that much activity, we have usually seen first-hand whether they tend to cause troubles on threads they engage with.

I generally agree, however, I think the limitations play a significant role in deterring sockpuppets, and I think from the perspective of the user(s) recurrently making socks for the purpose of discussing these verses, or their alleged associates being brought to the forum by them, it's about creating a significant obstacle to their ability to pantomime sincere participation here long enough to get access to what they want to have access to. In that sense, I think 6 months and 500 posts is too low in my opinion. As short as the attention span of trolls is, I think we should set the bar higher to discourage them from even trying.

As to the sincere users that this will keep out who don't deserve it, I agree that in a perfect world they should be able to do so, but in absence of a more effective way to filter out bad faith actors, and given the abysmal state of the verse, I think that the initial estimate is preferable.

 

[Dalesean027]

Yeah I'm still in favor of the original 1 year and 1000 post proposal

 

[DarkGrath]

I generally agree, however, I think the limitations play a significant role in deterring sockpuppets, and I think from the perspective of the user(s) recurrently making socks for the purpose of discussing these verses, or their alleged associates being brought to the forum by them, it's about creating a significant obstacle to their ability to pantomime sincere participation here long enough to get access to what they want to have access to. In that sense, I think 6 months and 500 posts is too low in my opinion. As short as the attention span of trolls is, I think we should set the bar higher to discourage them from even trying.

As to the sincere users that this will keep out who don't deserve it, I agree that in a perfect world they should be able to do so, but in absence of a more effective way to filter out bad faith actors, and given the abysmal state of the verse, I think that the initial estimate is preferable.

I can't say I agree. I think 6 months and 500 posts is quite a strong deterrent already. That's a lot of activity to go through just to be able to access a single verse, especially considering that a sockpuppet can be caught out at any point before then. I don't think there is any sockpuppet who would be willing to go through 6 months and 500 posts just to access one verse who wouldn't also be willing to go through 1 year and 1000 posts - I highly doubt this increase would contribute to deterring any more sockpuppets than we would otherwise.

 

[KingTempest]

I've seen socks who've built entire alternate personalities in 500 comments tbh

 

[Dalesean027]

I've seen socks who've built entire alternate personalities in 500 comments tbh

This fr, Vapour literally had almost 1000 post himself (I say almost but he had 800 post) and was a sock of MysticCarnage self admittedly at that

 

[Serlock_Holmes]

This fr, Vapour literally had almost 1000 post himself (I say almost but he had 800 post) and was a sock of MysticCarnage self admittedly at that

Wasn't Mystic the sock? I think Vapour was the original together with Yagami or sth? I didn't post when Yagami was on, so I only had the pleasure of learning Vapour. Also among all his alts this person had like 3k posts easily. So speaking my mind without being a staff, but having encountered threads with Vapour and probably all his socks I would say the harder approach is more righteous in this case. Also the spillover effect is really small, because those guys barely support other similar verses and won't waste that much time on them and those other verses have their own supporters. The biggest festering wound by far is the TR situation.

 

[Dalesean027]

Wasn't Mystic the sock? I think Vapour was the original together with Yagami or sth? I didn't post when Yagami was on, so I only had the pleasure of learning Vapour. Also among all his alts this person had like 3k posts easily.

I could be misremembering the order of the accounts but yeah like you said all his alts reached well over the 500 post limit and were around for quite a while at a time too before we really started noticing the patterns which still is fairly recent