The point johan neeskens, I, and others are making is not that racism, sexism, etc don't exist nor are we interested in the use of bigsoccer mods/admins to police thoughts people hold on their own and in private. But posting here is different than thinking thoughts at home. Bigsoccer is a business--not a gov't democracy. The official policy of bigsoccer that they "will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum" and posts can be deleted for any reason (terms of service). Posters agree to refrain from posting objectionable messages. We know posters post objectionable messages and that is why mods exist. It is in fact the job of mods to police posts for attitudes & language that the bigsoccer business owners have decided are unacceptable either to their bottom line or to the minimum standards of the boards they host. Mods and bigsoccer higher ups generally (but not always) take a very strong line against racism without people of various races having to always be the ones to report racist posts. Antisemitism can be more of a challenge to police in some ways but generally gets removed/strongly dealt w/. As johan neeskens says, sexism is a general trend across bigsoccer -- allowed and/or ignored. If bigsoccer the business (and its mods) are going to be consistent with their own terms of service & general rules, then I'd hope there would be closer attention paid to sexist posts. Then again, given the demographics here, maybe sexism doesn't hurt the bottom line at all (and possibly helps it) and so TPTB aren't as interested in eliminating it as they are with racist posts.
My point is that there are thousands of posts on BS every day from all over the world. Mods don't pre-vet every one, and we certainly don't read them all after they're posted. Ultimately, moderating is post-facto and we're not only reliant on what we read ourselves, but what posters report and draw our attention to. As a mod I will crack down hard on every instance of sexism that I see. But I can't guarantee that a reader of my forum will not see sexist messages from time to time. Nor can I guarantee that those messages will be dealt with if nobody reports them. I guess some mods may ignore inappropriate posts, but I can only say from personal experience that a lot of the time a mod is accused of ignoring racism/sexism it's actually just a matter of the post in question slipping under the radar because nobody reported it and the mod never saw it.
I didn't miss your point. I did not comment on your entire post. There is a difference. I sincerely thanked you for your stated commitment to "crack down hard on every instance of sexism" that you see in posts. Mods doing just that sort of policing is exactly what johan neeskens, I, and others have asked happen since it has not been happening. That is why I said thank you and I meant it. I felt like we'd reached common ground and that was a good place leave things. Your pithy reply to my genuine thank you indicates to me that you want further debate club point scoring exchanges rather than finding places of agreement and moving forward to improve the overall environment. I'm not here for point scoring. I'm interested in finding ways to improve the general posting atmosphere at bigsoccer for women. That's why I'm posting on this thread despite being convinced that there will be backlash of some sort for my speaking out.
I wasn't trying to be ungrateful. I just am not aiming to be thanked for doing my job. I was endeavouring to help posters understand the constraints on what we do. The important part of my post was pointing out that we need as much help from posters as possible in terms of reporting posts, to ensure that bad posts get seen and dealt with. A lot of posters don't endorse sexism, but they don't report it either.
Caesar has worked very hard to make BS better, and is often involved in discussion about improvement. Yet many of the posters seem expect that all we mods do is read BS posts. We do not, and we also do not always read a post for what it is - we are people. His point was that he does do what he said, but to be better about this, it needs to be reported so that a stronger stance can be taken. This was how the racism issue got in check. I think was kool aid was saying that many mods don't care much about sexist posts on BS, unlike you or I. It was simply a thank you for doing what was not expected to be done.
Well that´s just the thing isn´t it, about modding. There´s got to be a way to further automate the process.
Aside from the auto-sensor, what else would you suggest? How do you set up code to factor in things like context or taking the piss......This is why reporting posts is the best way to virtually guarantee a post gets seen. As Nutter pointed out, this is how racism got put in check as well homophobic and religious garbage got reigned in. It's not a perfect system but what is?
Look, racism/homophobic/uberreligious posts got put in check in part because there was a word censor and in part because posters got reported and then carded, as Moishe said. Beyond that, there is not much we can do, nor should do.
As SN and Moishe note, there's only so much you can automate. But there is one aspect of automation that already exists but is really underused - i.e. the 'Report Post' function. Sometimes I think that's because posters often don't appreciate how it works. Sure, it sends an email to the mod to alert them. But that's just the start. It creates a thread on a hidden moderation board with the text of the post and the reason that someone is reporting it. If more posters report it, then it adds their comments to the same thread. This thread remains as an audit trail even after a moderator has reacted to it by editing/infracting. Those threads are periodically reviewed by supermods, admins and other moderators who either provide input as to how the post should be dealt with, or review the action taken afterwards to ensure that moderators are doing the right thing. For that reason it's often useful to report a post even if you think a moderator will see it soon anyway, or someone else has already reported it. Through user reports, the whole moderating team is made much more aware of what is happening and how stuff should be responded to. It also makes it much more likely that if I, as the responsible moderator, don't deal with that post correctly then a Super or Admin will see it and hold me accountable.
That is, of course, if the moderator, deems it worthy of infraction. As we've seen recently, some mods don't feel all slurs are equal.
No, that's a different function. There's an infraction board and a reported post board. As soon as a poster reports a post, a discussion thread is automatically created on the reports board - the mod doesn't have to do anything. If that post is later issued a warning/infraction, a second thread will be created on the infractions board.
Que? I'm just describing the mechanics of the system. If you have a problem with BS policy that's another matter, and nothing to do with me.
I propose that we move this thread to the world rivalries forum where a properly enlightened discussion of this topic can take place.