Moderator Action Sticky 2016

Submitted by Seth on
New season means new sticky, since these get cumbrously long.

READ THIS FIRST:
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/mgoboard-faq

 
What happened to your thread.
 
What this thread is for: It's an ad-hoc way of tracking what threads and comments get removed. Mods that remove a thread should post the title here with a brief reason as to why the thread is gone.
 
Don't comment in this thread unless you have to: if you leave an irrelevant comment in this thread it will be deleted (see: "cumbrously long").
 
Before you look for your thread or argue read this:
 
Things we will moderate harder this year:
  1. Politics. It's an election year; don't even bother.
  2. Useless content from other sites. There are a lot of sites feeding a lot of Michigan content out there, and a lot of that is good stuff. But more than ever these days a lot of it is just stuff which tries to tickle your fancy or make you mad about something. 247, WTKA always get the benefit of the doubt. Sharp, Valenti or Chatsports will lose you your posting priveleges without exception.
  3. Bewbs and general misogyny/objectifying of women. We're sick of it, our female readership is even sicker of it, and any value you might place on the comfort of cutting loose with the guys is worth less to us than the damage it does with tens of thousands of our readers.
You know what? Go read this again:
 
Hall of Stickies Past:
The first, the second, the third. the fourth. The fifth.
 
Great Moments in Moderation:
This is a very good read:
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/mgoboard-faq
 
THIS IS WHY YOUR THREAD WAS DELETED:

Lionsfan

August 10th, 2016 at 2:20 PM ^

Bewbs and general misogyny/objectifying of women. We're sick of it, our female readership is even sicker of it, and any value you might place on the comfort of cutting loose with the guys is worth less to us than the damage it does with tens of thousands of our readers.

Obviously random bewb threads have never been kosher, but does this mean you're going to delete random comments with bewb gifs/pictures?

LSAClassOf2000

August 10th, 2016 at 2:33 PM ^

My own take on this, and Ace or anyone else can correct me is basically like this:

Thread-level: it is coming down, and the OP may as well. Indeed, it is likely that the OP will.

Comment-level: these may need to be dealt with individually, but as a rule, better err on the side of caution when posting. Definitely don't make pictures as described above a go-to in your blog arsenal, at the very minimum. Repeat offenders will go to La Paz. Try your best to respect the whole of MGoBlog's audience as misogyny - if discovered - will result in you being a former MGoBlogger most likely. 

Avatars: Too much to police, but anything that is deemed inappropriate or the subject of complaint (and there are a few avatars in the past that have been changed) is at least at a marginal risk. You are, of course, free to change your own avatar if you feel yours might be one of those that could be questioned. 

That's how I was going to start enforcing it, but again, Seth or Ace can provide more guidance here if they would like. As always, if you see something questionable, do mention it here. 

LSAClassOf2000

August 10th, 2016 at 4:02 PM ^

In that event, it may very well come down to  this - how much hassle / how many beers will it take to clean up the thread and delete the comments which "don't help". If it isn't too bad, theose comments will go and the thread - what's left of it - can stay. If it is destroyed, then the whole thing will probably come down. Where the OP clearly didn't mean that to happen and it is the fault of others, yeah, the OP is fine in that case. 

skurnie

August 10th, 2016 at 3:15 PM ^

Occasionally I will destroy SPAM posts when I see them (like yesterday's "I got laid off at Apple but now make $9000 a month working from home derp derp").

Should I put them in here, too?

justingoblue

August 10th, 2016 at 11:40 PM ^

If so, welcome and please shoot me an email whenever you get a second. LSA and I have untold riches that need nothing more than an email to unlock after all.

I don't know how uniform it is, but ideally I delete all of the spammers posts, ban and block the account and delete the avatar. The last bit is probably overkill, but it's an easy box to click on that particular screen and it's usually something especially stupid.

Also Seth is 100% right that spam blocks don't need justifying (not that he needs me to back him up).

Dylan

August 10th, 2016 at 3:27 PM ^

Regarding rule 2: I know we have many examples for trusting And not trusting certain sources, but flat-out censorship seems the wrong route to go.




Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad

Seth

August 10th, 2016 at 5:13 PM ^

Censorship is about controlling ideas--moderating is about controlling noise. The point is to have a board that doesn't annoy and turn off readers. If you're coming to MGoBlog every day and finding:

a) Drew Sharp claiming Harbaugh is washed up

b) Chatsports claiming Tom Brady did copious amounts of heroin at Michigan, and 

c) A Bleacher Report clickbait slideshow of the 10 Guys We Could Think Of

...then you will shortly be a) pissed off, b) malinformed, and c) annoyed.

Then say you found a substantive article on Rivals and want to post it because they got a quote from a Michigan coach that totally refutes something I wrote in the last Neck Sharpies, and don't notice that it was posted 4 hours ago already because it's been shoved off the radar by all that crap.

Our value proposition to readers is you should come here expecting to find high-minded Michigan content that takes a lot of effort to produce. A lot of other sites' value proposition is they can use psychology to trick readers into giving them clicks for minimal effort.

I doubt you'll find a site more open to our conclusions being challenged. Most cries of "censorship" around here come from someone who gets a negative reaction from saying something incredibly dumb. Por ejemplo this actual exchange:

  1. Reader argues with the conclusion of a Jimmystats article. I argue back until the reader's case is thoroughly trashed.
  2. Reader posts a diary trying to refute the Jimmystats article, ignoring the argument in the comments. I argue with him again, even more thoroughly trashing his argument. He never addresses the points I give in refutation, but his replies do get more aggressive.
  3. Reader posts a board thread accusing the MGostaff of (in meaner words) being non-receptive to disagreement. That thread is taken down.
  4. Reader comes to Moderator Sticky and complains that his first amendment rights were violated and that he has a "right" to "believe" something other than the "official gospel" of MGoBlog, gets sent to Bolivia (points reduced so he can't create threads anymore, but can still participate on the blog).

Note that nothing of his was deleted until he went into "I DON'T NEED A POINT I HAVE A RIGHT TO MAKE SHIT UP!" mode. When the only good thing we can all agree on about your opinion is that you have the right to have one, you lose the right to annoy everyone with it here. We'll put up with, and even try to reason with, just about everything up to that point.

hopkinsdrums

August 10th, 2016 at 11:38 PM ^

I guess I may be confused about what crosses the line" to some extent, just using today's B/R video preview as an example, given than it seemed that at least a large minority found it to be well-constructed, informative, and on-topic. Obviously understand the need for certain things to be deleted, but just confused about how much of the theoretical readership needs to be annoyed and turned off before a decision is made. Thanks for your help.

Optimism Attache

August 11th, 2016 at 7:22 AM ^

I tend to agree with you on this particular action. On the one hand, B/R's coverage of the upcoming season doesn't hold a candle to MGoBlog's from a quality perspective. On the other hand, it was a sincere attempt to provide info and insight by an outlet that covers all the major teams. I also don't see how it really violates any of the specific guidelines, especially given some of the dumber and OT threads we've seen recently.

Mr. Elbel

August 11th, 2016 at 2:53 PM ^

It doesn't, but I think keeping a hard rule against B/R on here is a good idea. When they are known for not putting in much effort, making an exception for the times that they do still doesn't bode well for having a site with their reputation linked from mgoblog. Just like posting an actually decent article from the Freep will still get a bunch of commenters who don't read the article and just say "eff the Freep"... would rather avoid the whole thing all together.

We don't need a typically bad source's one good source to fill out our coverage of Michigan's season this year. We're good.

Seth

August 11th, 2016 at 9:48 PM ^

The link in question was a video that I watched 5 minutes of and didn't sense any effort. Nothing about making it a video made the content any more useful; it just had guys talking so the audience is more captive. If there was good info in there that I missed from someone qualified to generate it, I suggested the OP summarize and repost.

The B/R rule came about because Bleacher Report was blatantly ripping our stuff, and because they're the industry leaders in SEO and #content over content. Every once in awhile I check back in to see if they've decided to use all that capital to add something valuable, and have yet to find it. But the door stays open.

UMProud

August 10th, 2016 at 5:32 PM ^

I thought Kate Upton or Scarlett Johansson were tolerated...if those two are also banned from MGoBlog this site will soon start smelling like sweaty socks!

kb

August 10th, 2016 at 6:21 PM ^

Thread crackdown happen? I know we are in the submarine for a while, but I think a lot of posters are tired of the "where should I go to eat in San Francisco?" and "What computer should I buy?" threads.

Sopwith

August 10th, 2016 at 8:43 PM ^

taking a page (semi-literally) from various legal state bars and highlighting "disciplinary action" against members every month somewhere on the site. (Example: State Bar Journal publishes a short blurb about "attorney X, who mixed personal and client accounts and further failed to meet a deadline for brief, causing harm to the client. X was suspended 1 year but not disbarred." Hence transgression and punishment are summarized, not so much as a public shaming but as a cautionary tale for the membership)

So in MGoBlog terms you'd go to a link up in the banner menu (maybe under useful stuff) titled "Bolivia and Beyond" with instances of users being docked points or more severely being banned from the site altogether, and further a short blurb re: what they did to deserve it.

You could strip the username out if that is deemed too shamey. But the cautionary tale aspect survives regardless and I think it would quickly become a favorite click for many users, because the bad behavior of others is sweet edu-tainment.

Ace

August 11th, 2016 at 3:34 PM ^

Pulled this thread. Hudson isn't starting (it's still Hill and Thomas), but the OP got confused because another site misinterpreted one of Chris Partridge's media day quotes. Trust me, if Hudson is a starter, this site will be all over it.

LSAClassOf2000

August 11th, 2016 at 6:26 PM ^

OT: Bigger Douchecanoe: Mike Valenti or Paul Finebaum?

No Mike Valenti, no Mike Valenti compare and contrast, or any douchecanoes made from Valenti-like substances. The IOC and NCAA will go after Troy for that, after all, because that's how they roll. 

 

LSAClassOf2000

August 11th, 2016 at 10:46 PM ^

When will our next national championship be?

I will admit that I never understood threads with this as the question, not really because they never go well, but more because they simply seem to invite snark. Some it is deserved snark, if you ask me, but you didn't....so, well....yeah, we'll just take it down now at 13 downvotes to no upvotes.

LSAClassOf2000

August 12th, 2016 at 11:31 AM ^

OT: mustard or ketchup?

I let it go for a while because this is one of those questions that elicit unusually impassioned replies as well as some good snark from people, but it is time now. We're going to start ramping down OT ahead of its actual closure, I think, so if you see a thread like this disappear after several hours left alone, that's likely why. 

LSAClassOf2000

August 13th, 2016 at 9:49 AM ^

OT: Harbaugh is not a lifer at U-M

Yeah, I think the OP gets it now. I hope they do. Sometimes, it's worth the wait to see how many downvotes can accumulate on these.

Your thread was bad and you should feel bad.

LSAClassOf2000

August 13th, 2016 at 2:40 PM ^

Clean up needed on Isle 4 Mods

A valiant effort, but we don't need to hammer on Connor Cook for everything. If they let him be Connor Cook, the comedy will come eventually.

LSAClassOf2000

August 14th, 2016 at 8:52 PM ^

possibly the most Sparty thing I've ever seen

I think we got all we're going to get out of this one. With any luck, both people who read the book get a signed copy. 

Ace

August 15th, 2016 at 12:33 PM ^

Dennis Dodd tells us how harbaugh won't last at UM

If you're posting an opinion from a columnist/talking head and note at the end of the post that there are multiple posts on this site about how said person's opinion isn't worth listening to, it's almost certainly not worth starting that thread. That goes double when the opinion is something that's been discussed ad nauseam ever since Harbaugh got here.

LSAClassOf2000

August 15th, 2016 at 9:20 PM ^

CBS Fuels the Disrespect Flames

I think this one has run its course. It seems like some people are trying to find issues where none exist sometimes. Our Big Ten brethren in East Lansing have issues as it is - we don't need to give them more.

LSAClassOf2000

August 17th, 2016 at 1:14 PM ^

MSU FOOTBALL: Born in 2008.

This thread: taken down in 2016.

I repeat something I've said numerous times - we really don't need to point and laugh at every dumb Spartan thing that the Spartans do. The comedy must write itself sometimes without intervention from us, so then the joke is natural....arguably funnier too. 

LSAClassOf2000

August 18th, 2016 at 9:42 AM ^

Harbaugh Life Insurance Policy

If it involves Harbaugh, you can bet we're already on it. Again, remember to check the publish date on the article - if it has been more than 10-15 minutes, perhaps an hour on the outside, chances are it is here already, but do check the first few pages of threads first as well.