"Kindness" plugin

[Morrigan]

4 hours ago, Jordan Invision said:

Not sure how to feel about this but glad it didn't come out last week then. 😆 

I don’t think you have understood a single one of my posts recently.

You seem to misinterpret me constantly. 

Edited February 3, 2021 by Morrigan

[Joel R]

Some thoughts:

1.  Isn't the enforcement of "skin-deep kindness" still better than allowing people from blowing up anytime they want?  There's a concept of law officers stopping 'gateway crimes.'  If you can stop teenagers from doing the small stuff like shoplifting, then they'll learn to not do the big crimes when they're adults.  The same applies to bad actors in a community.  By stopping new users from committing the small crimes, then you can repress some of them from committing more egregious acts.  

2.  Community attitude is built over a thousand small steps AND the few big steps.  You're not going to build a sense of community by only banning one member and ignoring all of the other members, not will you earn the respect of your members by moderating the masses but not taking decisive action on the truly disruptive actors.  It's not one or the other.  You need everything: strong terms of use, moderation team, community monitoring and user reporting, clear escalation procedures, etc.   

3.  Humanity is not born kind.  Or polite.  Or respectful.  It's learned behavior taught by parents, schools, and society.  This breaks down online when users can escape those social constraints.  The question then becomes: how do you remind users to act like they would in public?

4.  Invision doesn't do nearly enough in thinking about the behavioral psychology of users.  

[Moonbeam]

8 minutes ago, Joel R said:

Some thoughts:

1.  Isn't the enforcement of "skin-deep kindness" still better than allowing people from blowing up anytime they want?  

Sure, but nobody said that the choices were "force people to check this box promising that this comment is kind" OR "dystopian hellscape where members flame one another without consequence."

Once the novelty of it wears off, I don't think the "kindness check box" will effect any noticeable positive behavioral change on the part of the users. They will cease to pay attention after a pretty short period of time and will either just ignore it as just one of the steps they have to take to post their comment, or feel irritated that this thing pops up each and every time they comment.

Completely agree with the rest of your comment. My own earlier comment was meant to reflect that imposing measures such as the checkbox idea doesn't get to the core of what makes a membership base ill-behaved, unkind, or disrespectful. There needs to be some deep reflection on the community culture and - most importantly - how the community management is contributing to it, both intentionally and inadvertently.

[Morrigan]

23 minutes ago, Joel R said:

Some thoughts:

1.  Isn't the enforcement of "skin-deep kindness" still better than allowing people from blowing up anytime they want?  There's a concept of law officers stopping 'gateway crimes.'  If you can stop teenagers from doing the small stuff like shoplifting, then they'll learn to not do the big crimes when they're adults.  The same applies to bad actors in a community.  By stopping new users from committing the small crimes, then you can repress some of them from committing more egregious acts.  

2.  Community attitude is built over a thousand small steps AND the few big steps.  You're not going to build a sense of community by only banning one member and ignoring all of the other members, not will you earn the respect of your members by moderating the masses but not taking decisive action on the truly disruptive actors.  It's not one or the other.  You need everything: strong terms of use, moderation team, community monitoring and user reporting, clear escalation procedures, etc.   

3.  Humanity is not born kind.  Or polite.  Or respectful.  It's learned behavior taught by parents, schools, and society.  This breaks down online when users can escape those social constraints.  The question then becomes: how do you remind users to act like they would in public?

4.  Invision doesn't do nearly enough in thinking about the behavioral psychology of users.  

I think of all of us I can say that number one is bullfaeces. Just like there are no “gateway drugs”. When you get into trouble the only way to straighten you out are consequences. And because I can use it, the consequence that scares my daughter the most about what she did was the mental hospital she had to spend time in. Prior to this no matter how much I told her or tried to direct her onto more positive paths including the fact that she would not like a mental hospital didn’t prevent her from doing what she did.

The check mark is an admins version of an “are you sure?” Popup. And guess what? If they are sure! They are sure! 

 

For your next point. Community is built off of staff behavior and actions. Nothing more. If people get away with being toxic garbage bags then other people believe they can also be toxic garbage bags. If you can express yourself in an adult way and have an adult debate then that will be your community. 

 

Your next point is very blah. Sort of goes back to point one of consequences. I’ll bring up a recent example of a person that was stalking and harassing another member of my site. I banned them a while back. They recently reregistered with a new name but all the behaviors were the same, down to the stalkery stuff they said to my other member before. I was still hesitant to do anything until I had legitimate proof it was the same person working around a ban. I banned the new account and moved on with my life.

 

Im going to put this out there but.... none/few of us are therapists or psychiatrists. Whether or not you believe that is IPSs job or not it isn’t your job as an administrator. I can affirm you of that much.

I hate to be harsh but the mental well being of your end user isn’t your responsibility and if you make it your responsibility you become liable in so many really bad ways like teachers.

 

Ill finish off with I hope you can trust me on this. Unless you want to be legally liable for your end users well being (which is super sketchy legally) don’t go down that road.

[CoffeeCake]

Sometimes it's good to take a break and disconnect for a bit, @Morrigan. Thinking of you.

Noting that the suggestion for a preemptive message is a blank canvas upon which each community can define what is directed therein.

Jordan thought of it in terms of kindness, yet it's just like the ability to add an announcement or thread message or warning.

[Morrigan]

1 hour ago, Paul E. said:

Sometimes it's good to take a break and disconnect for a bit, @Morrigan. Thinking of you.

Noting that the suggestion for a preemptive message is a blank canvas upon which each community can define what is directed therein.

Jordan thought of it in terms of kindness, yet it's just like the ability to add an announcement or thread message or warning.

It’s not though. It’s a posting hurdle. It’s intended to “remind” people to be nice. If I’m in a foul mood I’m just going to post with a happy screw you as I did it. 

[CoffeeCake]

1 hour ago, Morrigan said:

It’s a posting hurdle. It’s intended to “remind” people to be nice.

I'm suggesting it be more like a blank box in which words decided by a community's administration could be placed and that they'd see in the context of composing a new post. Maybe it has an I agree button. 

Maybe it has words that say something like: this is a thread for furry characters only. Don't forget to include your fur color when posting.

[bosss]

So many posts, suggestions but for nothing. Admins and moderators are not parents, teachers or doctors. Community have rules, policies, warning system and that is more than enough!

Edited February 3, 2021 by bosss

[Morrigan]

14 minutes ago, bosss said:

So many posts, suggestions but for nothing. Admins and moderators are not parents, teachers or doctors. Community have rules, policies and that is more than enough!

This is what I'm trying to explain but I love how succinct you are.

26 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

I'm suggesting it be more like a blank box in which words decided by a community's administration could be placed and that they'd see in the context of composing a new post. Maybe it has an I agree button. 

Maybe it has words that say something like: this is a thread for furry characters only. Don't forget to include your fur color when posting.

You don't see that as a barrier? I can be a part of kinktok and still be a part of dndtok. Why do I need to tell you I'm sure I want to see furrytok?

Edited February 3, 2021 by Morrigan

[CoffeeCake]

If you don't like a feature, keep it turned off. We can do better than discredit the perceived use cases of others as irrelevant or silly or ignorant when they don't apply to us, can't we?

Would having a thing you don't use and you keep turned off mess up your day that badly?

It's great that people with all sorts of backgrounds and thoughts can commiserate here, yet how about we keep it focused on not crapping on things we don't personally want?

Maybe this isn't the best outlet for that?

[Morrigan]

24 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

If you don't like a feature, keep it turned off. We can do better than discredit the perceived use cases of others as irrelevant or silly or ignorant when they don't apply to us, can't we?

This sounds like a use case of the kindness plugin here. Because you don't like my opinion you shouldn't post right? Or more accurately you should think twice about it? Or... I guess in the opposite factor I should be thinking twice about disagreeing with the fact that you don't like my opinion?

That's what this plugin or change would do. It would force me to click that box to tell you that I disagree with you kindly, which I am doing, so while you think I'm just throwing something in the toilet, what is really happening is I'm providing pointed and proven information as to why this sort of item probably is ineffective and well... pointless. I'm not saying it an unkind way but you want me to "check myself"?

Sorry, but I've not been unkind throughout this entire conversation. I've been truthful and maybe a bit blunt. I'm not the only one that has reservations or finds that this is a screwy way to fix an otherwise toxic community. This feels like an admins bandaid to an artery wound. Its there but it will only hold for a few seconds before the dam bursts.

While some people may feel this is a "good step in the right direction" I don't know of another platform that makes you "check yourself" save for "checking you're actually human". I still, to this point in this thread, do not understand the GOAL of said "check yourself" plugin/addin/whatever.

[CoffeeCake]

@Morrigan, the comments in this thread that I have offered are a modified way of thinking of Jordan's original request. Jordan wanted to tell his members something at the time they were composing their posts. He wanted to inject a message into the flow of adding user-generated content.

Right now, IPS offers a few solutions out of the box where you can set expectations in advance of a person composing a post:

• You can create a page of guidelines, which is accessible via a link
• You can create "forum rules" specific to a particular forum which are viewable by clicking a link
• You can create an announcement. This can show content at the top of the page or link to content
• You can create a thread message. This can show content at the top of a given thread

In all of these solutions, out of the box, the expectations are far removed from the real estate of the post entry box. Most require extra navigation to get there. The onboarding process for a new member isn't fantastic. People come in all sorts of varieties, with linguistic, comprehension, and neurodiversity that can make "reading the room" a challenge.

The solution I'm proposing, taking Jordan's ask a bit further, tries to address the perceived need he has--to deliver a message to a person at the moment they are creating content. I can think of many different reasons why different communities may want to deliver different messages to different members posting in different areas of their community. These messages can be of any topic imaginable. They might include positive messages of encouragement, they might include expectations for engagement ("don't forget to tell us what version of our product you own"), they might remind someone to instill the values of the organization in their thoughts as they share them.

IPS offers a few more solutions for people that struggle with the four options above:

• Moderators can directly communicate with a member using email, private messaging, support requests, etc.
• Moderators can send a warning to a member
• Moderators can pre-approve messages posted by a member
• Moderators can restrict a member from posting

This proposed solution sits in-between. I agree with Jordan on the principal that we should be able to deliver a message to an individual member, members of a usergroup, people posting in a particular content area (i.e. a specific thread, a specific forum) a message or series of messages that we, as administrators, think are important.

What those messages contain or why we'd share those messages, or what level of toxicity doing so might introduce into the communities you involve yourself with are out of scope of the discussion about whether or not I would find value for my community in such a feature set.

I hope that helps clarify the goal.

4 hours ago, Joel R said:

Invision doesn't do nearly enough in thinking about the behavioral psychology of users.  

Agreed.

[Morrigan]

3 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

• You can create a page of guidelines, which is accessible via a link
• You can create "forum rules" specific to a particular forum which are viewable by clicking a link
• You can create an announcement. This can show content at the top of the page or link to content
• You can create a thread message. This can show content at the top of a given thread

I'm sorry. What social network that we are supposedly fighting against provides ANYTHING more than this? They don't even provide this much. They provide a Terms of Service and a Privacy Policy and to them that's good enough. Why are we making more work for ourselves?

5 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

In all of these solutions, out of the box, the expectations are far removed from the real estate of the post entry box. Most require extra navigation to get there. The onboarding process for a new member isn't fantastic. People come in all sorts of varieties, with linguistic, comprehension, and neurodiversity that can make "reading the room" a challenge.

Then ask for fixes for the ACTUAL problems. Not the fake problems that people are creating through their 2020 conspiracy minds. The problem isn't that people need to "check themselves" the problem is the onboarding in your opinion. Forcing people to CHECK AN EXTRA BOX when they find the "are you human" box annoying ISN'T THE ANSWER TO THIS PROBLEM!!!!!!

7 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

The solution I'm proposing, taking Jordan's ask a bit further, tries to address the perceived need he has--to deliver a message to a person at the moment they are creating content. I can think of many different reasons why different communities may want to deliver different messages to different members posting in different areas of their community. These messages can be of any topic imaginable. They might include positive messages of encouragement, they might include expectations for engagement ("don't forget to tell us what version of our product you own"), they might remind someone to instill the values of the organization in their thoughts as they share them.

IPS offers a few more solutions for people that struggle with the four options above:

• Moderators can directly communicate with a member using email, private messaging, support requests, etc.
• Moderators can send a warning to a member
• Moderators can pre-approve messages posted by a member
• Moderators can restrict a member from posting

This proposed solution sits in-between. I agree with Jordan on the principal that we should be able to deliver a message to an individual member, members of a usergroup, people posting in a particular content area (i.e. a specific thread, a specific forum) a message or series of messages that we, as administrators, think are important.

What those messages contain or why we'd share those messages, or what level of toxicity doing so might introduce into the communities you involve yourself with are out of scope of the discussion about whether or not I would find value for my community in such a feature set.

I hope that helps clarify the goal.

NONE OF THIS HAS TO DO WITH THIS THREAD! Make a new thread! Suggest something different!

LITERALLY! (and I don't say that lightly) This thread is to add a check box to a members post that says "I'm being nice in this post". NONE of what you have added or are trying to add are even being considered because it has NOTHING to do with this suggestion.

Adding suggestions to already existing suggestions is the worst. It never works out and in the end you never accomplish anything. If you want your suggestion heard create a new topic. Its the primary way that IPS can keep track of multiple suggestions and issues. At this point you're piling unrelated suggestions into a topic that at this point, is likely not even on the IPS radar anymore.

[CoffeeCake]

On 1/31/2021 at 7:44 PM, Joel R said:

Some thoughts:

1.  I may be in the minority, but this idea is grounded in solid engagement principles that are already being deployed on the largest publisher sites in the world (like Yahoo.com and NYTimes), where certain news articles attract very divisive commentary.  I like this feature because:

• It's at the point-of-action.  Moderator notes can be added to the top of the page or bottom of the page, but it's not where users are trying to type.  
• It's proactive.  You can add moderator review or surveillance, but those are retroactive.  Even worse, they're repressive because you moderate after a user has already expressed his feelings.  

2.  To implement this well, I think this should be setting per topic or per board.  As others have pointed out, adding this to every post or comment would be very tiresome.  But targeting this feature to specific divisive posts and asking users to pause, reflect, and elevate their discourse before posting can be incredibly meaningful.  

3.  I would be mildly impressed if IPS added this feature.  This is the kind of forward thinking that I applaud Jordan for brainstorming. 

Just reviewing how we got to where we are, seeing @Joel R's post, and noting that I agree completely. This concept of engaging with a member at what he terms the point-of-action is the same ask I'm making here. My ask is that in addition to per topic or per forum that it also be available per usergroup and per individual user as well. I'd like to see the ability to have multiple for a given end user, exactly like announcements and thread messages can stack today.

A brand new member may have messaging helpful to someone getting the hang of things, while people in special roles may have messaging related to their function or role within the community, and general messaging for a particular thread or forum level might also be visible by that one user.

[Morrigan]

And I sit here with the off topic:

Especially you and @Joel R @Paul E. what is it with the people with name initial that bring everything off topic?

[CoffeeCake]

8 minutes ago, Morrigan said:

Then ask for fixes for the ACTUAL problems. Not the fake problems that people are creating through their 2020 conspiracy minds.

I can appreciate that the challenges you face as a forum administrator are the not the same as mine. I can appreciate that your philosophies involving community building are different than my own. I can appreciate that we can agree to disagree on what we each find valuable in our roles and from our own perspectives.

I'm hopeful that through the time and energy I've shared here adding my thoughts for how what started out as an ask for a checkbox and solicitation for feedback from the community from someone who's thoughts and insights I respect, have helped developed that story into a more universally beneficial potential feature for other communities that use the IPS platform. At the very least, it helps highlight a deficiency in the out of the box ways we engage as managers of a platform with our members.

I respect the kind and considered feedback that has been shared in this thread by others.

I know that for some people, when they find themselves in situations where things feel very much out of control, we can sometimes look to control the things that remain within our grasp. I sense that this software is very much a part of who you are, and I understand that you are a fierce proponent for your opinions.

I respect that passion you have to share how you feel, and I hope that as we work to identify opportunities and innovations in this shared commercial product we all benefit from, that we can find ways to listen more, to see things from the perspectives of others, and to not feel attacked when someone holds an opinion different than our own.

[Morrigan]

2 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

I can appreciate that the challenges you face as a forum administrator are the not the same as mine. I can appreciate that your philosophies involving community building are different than my own. I can appreciate that we can agree to disagree on what we each find valuable in our roles and from our own perspectives.

I'm hopeful that through the time and energy I've shared here adding my thoughts for how what started out as an ask for a checkbox and solicitation for feedback from the community from someone who's thoughts and insights I respect, have helped developed that story into a more universally beneficial potential feature for other communities that use the IPS platform. At the very least, it helps highlight a deficiency in the out of the box ways we engage as managers of a platform with our members.

I respect the kind and considered feedback that has been shared in this thread by others.

I know that for some people, when they find themselves in situations where things feel very much out of control, we can sometimes look to control the things that remain within our grasp. I sense that this software is very much a part of who you are, and I understand that you are a fierce proponent for your opinions.

I respect that passion you have to share how you feel, and I hope that as we work to identify opportunities and innovations in this shared commercial product we all benefit from, that we can find ways to listen more, to see things from the perspectives of others, and to not feel attacked when someone holds an opinion different than our own.

And I hope that you can appreciate that this is the last post I'm going to read by you that I don't have to manually click on!

Yay you!

You've made it onto my tiny top 5 (aka one of the only 5 people) that I've ignored on this site because you both don't read my posts and you are rude/unkind to me constantly. Where as this mod/plugin/thing would make you think twice about it, you've not thought twice about it throughout any of our interactions and as an adult with my own keys and credit card, I've decided that you're unkind enough to "unfriend" and "ignore". That's me using the unkind feature as its intended. Thanks!!!

[Jordan Miller]

14 hours ago, Joel R said:

Some thoughts:

1.  Isn't the enforcement of "skin-deep kindness" still better than allowing people from blowing up anytime they want?  There's a concept of law officers stopping 'gateway crimes.'  If you can stop teenagers from doing the small stuff like shoplifting, then they'll learn to not do the big crimes when they're adults.  The same applies to bad actors in a community.  By stopping new users from committing the small crimes, then you can repress some of them from committing more egregious acts.  

2.  Community attitude is built over a thousand small steps AND the few big steps.  You're not going to build a sense of community by only banning one member and ignoring all of the other members, not will you earn the respect of your members by moderating the masses but not taking decisive action on the truly disruptive actors.  It's not one or the other.  You need everything: strong terms of use, moderation team, community monitoring and user reporting, clear escalation procedures, etc.   

3.  Humanity is not born kind.  Or polite.  Or respectful.  It's learned behavior taught by parents, schools, and society.  This breaks down online when users can escape those social constraints.  The question then becomes: how do you remind users to act like they would in public?

4.  Invision doesn't do nearly enough in thinking about the behavioral psychology of users.  

Appreciate this insight! I especially love "Community attitude is built over a thousand small steps AND the few big steps." It's important (imo) to visibly illustrate kindness. To me, this doesn't = rainbows and sunshine. Rather, it's a step towards encouraging people to post quality comments that remain respectful, no matter what the opinion is. 🙏 

We were talking about #4 in depth today to try and get a better understanding of how communities function/thrive. 

[Jordan Miller]

14 hours ago, Moonbeam said:

Completely agree with the rest of your comment. My own earlier comment was meant to reflect that imposing measures such as the checkbox idea doesn't get to the core of what makes a membership base ill-behaved, unkind, or disrespectful. There needs to be some deep reflection on the community culture and - most importantly - how the community management is contributing to it, both intentionally and inadvertently.

In the event there is a toxic culture in the community, what does a community leader then do? A banning spree? Write new/more rules? Private message said members? Restrict members' posts? What steps would one do in this event? Not being shady by the way 😇 genuinely asking/curious. 

[Davyc]

40 minutes ago, Jordan Invision said:

In the event there is a toxic culture in the community, what does a community leader then do?

I believe that you will get a flood of different strategies to the above question lol.

Personally, I would PM the offending member/s asking why they are being hostile/toxic/aggravating and politely remind them of the general rules and the terms they agreed to when they joined.  Depending on their answer (or if they do not respond) I would then either sanction them in whatever way seemed appropriate for their transgression, or if they were really hostile, I would warn them.  If that didn't work, I'd put them on Moderation for whatever I deemed an appropriate length of time.  I'd use banning as a last resort. 

I believe everyone can get hot under the collar for many varied reasons, dreadful day at the office, forgot to pay a bill, nagging wife/husband, or just got out of the wrong side of the bed.  Some people are just jerks and like to show it.

Controlling behaviour is not an easy ask of some people as they (admins/moderators) can also be jerks and annoying towards their users.  I try to temper responses with cooling actions and asking 'why' they are behaving badly and going off the rails.  Often, it's either one person (or a small number of people) who like to yank someone else's strings.

I would say, that overall, the vast majority behave as you would expect. This response is a little off-track in terms of the topic, but the question was asked (rhetorical maybe) 🙂

 

[Davyc]

As an aside a 'tooltip' could pop up over the check box when they go to check it saying something like "Measure your response in a respectful way", or something like that.  It may help to make them think 🙂

 

[Moonbeam]

45 minutes ago, Jordan Invision said:

In the event there is a toxic culture in the community, what does a community leader then do? A banning spree? Write new/more rules? Private message said members? Restrict members' posts? What steps would one do in this event? Not being shady by the way 😇 genuinely asking/curious. 

Whew - this is a big question, and the answers are multiple and complex.

But I would also argue that this is the wrong question to ask - at least, it's asking the wrong first question, which really should be: Why is this community toxic? Followed by, Has the community management accidentally contributed to this toxicity in some way?

Because the communities that I've seen that were toxic generally got that way because of inconsistent enforcement of stated community standards, and/or because they tended to turn a blind eye to member dynamics that amounted to bullying. Often, they turned that blind eye because members of the leadership team were among those engaging in the bullying, but most often, it was because they were allowing personal relationships with the bullying parties to color how they viewed the bullies' actions.

So the first step is to decipher the true sources of the toxicity, if possible, and to resolve to make the moderation of the community more impartial and to stop enabling the bullies. This is really hard, because it requires a willingness to admit past errors in leadership and a resolve to correct them. This is why I said, in my initial comment, that striving to make a community more just is actually a better goal than trying to make it kind. It's impossible to sow kindness if people are being marginalized and bullied.

Then, I'd say the next step is to look at your community guidelines and revise them as needed, then require every member to affirm them. Make it clear that these are the new expectations of the standard of behavior. But the key element here is to recognize that the members that have been marginalized aren't going to just suddenly get over their sense of aggrievement overnight. Be careful that in your push to clear up the toxicity, you don't end up further punishing the people who've been the primary victims of the original causes of that toxicity.

[Morrigan]

22 minutes ago, Moonbeam said:

Because the communities that I've seen that were toxic generally got that way because of inconsistent enforcement of stated community standards, and/or because they tended to turn a blind eye to member dynamics that amounted to bullying.

YES! Preach it! That's why I've left communities. There are a few that I despise because of this sort of thing.

[Jordan Miller]

2 hours ago, Moonbeam said:

Because the communities that I've seen that were toxic generally got that way because of inconsistent enforcement of stated community standards, and/or because they tended to turn a blind eye to member dynamics that amounted to bullying.

This part hits home. Overall your response was pretty epic. 👏  I'm going to let your comment digest and I'll circle back if you don't mind. Thank you for sharing your insight 🙏 

[Joel R]

3 hours ago, Moonbeam said:

This is why I said, in my initial comment, that striving to make a community more just is actually a better goal than trying to make it kind

Can you go into this? What do you mean by a just community?