I suspect the flags are super useful to newbies who have insufficient other basis to judge posts on complex/advanced topics themselves.
I for one do not know everything, but I am eternally interested in learning more. There will always be some topics where I find it helpful to see whether some intriguing statement is generally agreed upon, more controversial, or a fringe opinion.
The reason “like” was removed was because Typedrawers isn’t a popularity contest. There are enough places on the internet where people can “like” things.
In many ways, this vertical-market type-design forum is incompetently run, such incompetence being buttressed by severely nasty yet endlessly indulged members like Stewf, who himself didn’t do a better job when he was running the place.
And yes, after 26 years online, I do know better. This forum is predicated on the expertise of its members, and some of us have expertise in more than one field.
So again, kids: Which crime is greater – continuously permitting incorrect and intrusive (also lazy) Web-authoring practices or complaining about it and being right? Please make your selection now.
Personally I don’t mind the flags, but I wonder if, for the sake of simplicity, professionalism, and to encourage actual dialog instead of just reactions, all the flags except for Abuse and Quote should just be done away with? I’m part of other forums that do this and it works great from what I can tell.
Editing can actually completely reverse the meaning of a post, leaving people who did an Agree unduly maligned (although this case was not nearly so extreme).
I can't think of an elegant and robust way of making sure people's flags don't become contradictory when a post is edited. But it should at least be mentioned somewhere prominent that we shouldn't assume a flag is in fact what the flagger feels, due to possible post-editing. Which however makes the purpose of flags a bit weak... Ideally, some sort of time-stamping should be easily visible and/or moderators should have an easy way of resetting the flags.
Just wait until I am finished editing and/or the post is more than 4 hours old... is it that hard? I like to refine my posts to value everybodies time, it's just how I do it. I don't use a text editor for it, it's not the National Archive.
I also do a lot of editing, although mostly for style. It feels unkosher to change a post substantially after people might have read it.
I think you've hit on something potentially promising: no flags until the 4-hour editing window closes. It's quite elegant, and additionally can help people cool off.
I think you've hit on something potentially promising: no flags until the 4-hour editing window closes. It's quite elegant, and additionally can help people cool off.
We can [dis]agree on whether it was off-topic, but the Abuse flag is for "serious purposes". Just because the Off-Topic flag was removed does not mean we should trivialize victims of real abuse. Words matter.
@Frode Bo Helland (inactive) I guess I don't see exactly how off topic Hrant's comment really is. Isn't it tangential?
I do not like flags. I see they are necessary for serious situations, but I do not think they should be used when someone comments with something which might be interesting if only tangentially.
Hrant’s comment concerns his ideas for drawing an italic face – the conversation concerns a technical font file setting controlling the position of the blue background you get when selecting text. Constant off-topic comments may not be strictly abusive, but they certainly hinder any conversation anyone else is trying to have.
Perhaps what we need is just an off-topic flag instead of using the abuse flag? Is it so difficult to just ignore comments that are not on topic? (An innocent question, not flaming you.) There was someone on Typophile that, in the end, became super annoying to me. So I simply ignored all of their comments. If we spend our lives expending energy on people that annoy us we will have no energy for the people who are important to us.
In fact my post was tangential at worst. And some people value tangents as enriching; we should not be fascist about how people choose to experience public discourse.
But to me that is off-topic here, because the point is:
Perhaps what we need is just an off-topic flag instead of using the abuse flag?
Off-Topic and Abuse flags can both be useful. But no matter what flags are [not] available, it's very important –if "subvisible"– for moderators to rein in people who abuse flags, lest those they choose to constantly target* become too tempted to stoop to their level and retaliate (FYI, I never would) creating a toxic environment.
* Seven of the nine abuse flags I've received come from two people (the other two are from a deleted account).
Flag should be reserved for spam, abusive or offensive comments. By abusive and offensive, I mean sexism, homophobia, racism, personal insults, religion, politics and general bigotry. If someone's type ideas are offensive, that shouldn't be flagged. That's flag button abuse which should be punished by some kind of flag flag*. A new kind of flag designed to flag flaggers who flag wrong.
I think flag should be used to draw attention to posts which you think the moderators should delete or hide. If you hate someone's idea or think they're annoying, there's a disagree flag.
Goodness, I never expected this forum to get so childish... I thought it was all grownups. The discussion about ignoring specific users surprised me in the first place – why? Do the super busy pros mind over-abundant boring rookie questions cluttering their thread feed? Or would some like to save their nerves and breath by not seeing and not commenting on controversial opinions?
And when I noticed that Disagree is now anonymous, phewww.
I suppose we need the ability to Flag a Flag and Flag a Disagree now. Welcome to the PC 21st century. Or maybe a simpler system of thumbs up/down, all anonymously summing up would work better, like on most platforms prone to trolling like Reddit or YouTube. (Flags would be only visible to mods, likewise.) But I suppose we would need Chocolate Chips or Strawberry Flurry instead of Vanilla for that?
One problem with losing the "Off-Topic" reaction particularly is that if you now want to indicate something is off topic you'd have to post an actual message which only brings the thread further off-topic.
Comments
I for one do not know everything, but I am eternally interested in learning more. There will always be some topics where I find it helpful to see whether some intriguing statement is generally agreed upon, more controversial, or a fringe opinion.
In many ways, this vertical-market type-design forum is incompetently run, such incompetence being buttressed by severely nasty yet endlessly indulged members like Stewf, who himself didn’t do a better job when he was running the place.
And yes, after 26 years online, I do know better. This forum is predicated on the expertise of its members, and some of us have expertise in more than one field.
So again, kids: Which crime is greater – continuously permitting incorrect and intrusive (also lazy) Web-authoring practices or complaining about it and being right? Please make your selection now.
Mike
http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/40773/#Comment_40773
Editing can actually completely reverse the meaning of a post, leaving people who did an Agree unduly maligned (although this case was not nearly so extreme).
I can't think of an elegant and robust way of making sure people's flags don't become contradictory when a post is edited. But it should at least be mentioned somewhere prominent that we shouldn't assume a flag is in fact what the flagger feels, due to possible post-editing. Which however makes the purpose of flags a bit weak... Ideally, some sort of time-stamping should be easily visible and/or moderators should have an easy way of resetting the flags.
I think you've hit on something potentially promising: no flags until the 4-hour editing window closes. It's quite elegant, and additionally can help people cool off.
http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/41226/#Comment_41226
Presumed personal dislike should not be allowed to foster a toxic environment.
I hope the moderators are serious about implementing consequences for abusive flagging.
#4: http://typedrawers.com/discussion/751/read-this-first-the-typedrawers-rules
We can [dis]agree on whether it was off-topic, but the Abuse flag is for "serious purposes". Just because the Off-Topic flag was removed does not mean we should trivialize victims of real abuse. Words matter.
Please don't flag Claudio for abuse, whether you like him or not:
http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/41242/#Comment_41242
But to me that is off-topic here, because the point is:
Off-Topic and Abuse flags can both be useful. But no matter what flags are [not] available, it's very important –if "subvisible"– for moderators to rein in people who abuse flags, lest those they choose to constantly target* become too tempted to stoop to their level and retaliate (FYI, I never would) creating a toxic environment.
* Seven of the nine abuse flags I've received come from two people (the other two are from a deleted account).
T
I think flag should be used to draw attention to posts which you think the moderators should delete or hide. If you hate someone's idea or think they're annoying, there's a disagree flag.
* not really
If we do need moderators, we need them to mind that too.
http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/40815/#Comment_40815
http://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/42342/#Comment_42342
It looks like now that Disagree is anonymous, a masked vigilante or two are on the prowl... (Hopefully the moderators care.)