A poll on ESOC off topic controversial content

[Goodspeed]

Hi all,

Controversial opinions and the way moderators deal with them have been omnipresent subjects of discussion both among staff and off topic posters. After recent developments, pressure is once again mounting for policy changes. I thought it best to poll the community itself before making any decisions.

Please fill this out seriously and honestly.
Remember, this poll is only for off topic. It's not about the AoE3 forums.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... Q/viewform

Results: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1oERvsU ... wanalytics

UPDATE:
With a sample size of 31, I think we can start drawing some conclusions. Assuming nothing changes significantly from here, based on the response so far I can't quite settle on a policy/rule set yet. I will post a second poll this weekend in order to flesh it out more, but we can conclude some things:

First, the community is overwhelmingly against turning off topic into a strict no-controversy place, as is the case with many other gaming forums. Only 7% thinks potentially controversial topics should be banned.
An additional 17%, for a total of 25%, thinks controversial opinions should be removed. We can rule that out as well.

We are left with a 75% majority who thinks people should be able to express controversial viewpoints in off topic. Two thirds of that thinks we shouldn't allow the use of offensive language. One question I will want to get more detail on in the next poll is: What constitutes offensive language?

Another thing that sticks out is that almost 40% of the community thinks we are too lenient with controversial post(er)s, and 20% thinks we are far too lenient. In the next poll, I will ask some questions about how we should deal with controversial content. One thing I will say immediately is that posters shouldn't forget that they can make a difference themselves. If controversial content is consistently and unequivocally dismissed by a majority of posters, it sends a message both to new members and to the people posting them. Censorship is not the only way to deal with it.

A good suggestion I read was to use the [serious] tag for topics where the OP wants to prevent spam and/or derailment. This is in line with my intent to extend significant "power" to thread starters. I will flesh that policy out more and put it into words, so that thread starters know what kind of influence they have and how they can use it. Relevant to the current question about controversial content is that I intend to extend influence to thread starters not only in order to prevent spam, but also to prevent their thread from going into a direction that might offend them.

[Goodspeed]

Added a link to results

[princeofcarthage]

I personally think, while poll itself is detailed, general psyche of people tends to not fill such out detail posts. Multiple choice or yes/no type of posts are often preferred. People replying I believe are the determined ones who want to shape off-topic in their own view, which will likely skew results in one favour. A simple forum poll would have been better. Also why you need to know identities of people who vote. It shows the intent that you will value one opinion over other, ignore the opinion of you deem unworthy thereby ignoring the general consensus of whatever the result be.

[91]

The biggest issue is that you can vote in someone else's name if you feel like it and I just voted twice with the same name. It's not possible to use these results for anything unfortunately

[edeholland]

The biggest issue is that you can vote in someone else's name if you feel like it and I just voted twice with the same name. It's not possible to use these results for anything unfortunately

I don't see how voting twice with the same name is an issue. Goodspeed (and we all) can see that and just ignore those entries (or use the latest one). We had forums polls in the past where people made smurfs to skew the votes, I think that's a much bigger risk.

[Goodspeed]

I personally think, while poll itself is detailed, general psyche of people tends to not fill such out detail posts. Multiple choice or yes/no type of posts are often preferred.

What about these questions is complicated?
How would you have turned these into yes/no questions without losing meaning?

People replying I believe are the determined ones who want to shape off-topic in their own view, which will likely skew results in one favour. A simple forum poll would have been better.

A forum poll can only have 1 question. No single question would have communicated the collective community's opinion on this matter to the same extent as this form will. Besides, it's good that people are required to put in some effort to answer it. I don't want half the answers to be from people who don't care about off topic. They're not the target audience.

Also why you need to know identities of people who vote.

To prevent spam.

It shows the intent that you will value one opinion over other, ignore the opinion of you deem unworthy thereby ignoring the general consensus of whatever the result be.

Quite an assumption. This is not the intent.

[91]

The biggest issue is that you can vote in someone else's name if you feel like it and I just voted twice with the same name. It's not possible to use these results for anything unfortunately

I don't see how voting twice with the same name is an issue. Goodspeed (and we all) can see that and just ignore those entries (or use the latest one). We had forums polls in the past where people made smurfs to skew the votes, I think that's a much bigger risk.

Because if you can vote twice with the same name you can also vote multiple times with other names, and it skews the result view of percentages

[Goodspeed]

There's a balance to be found between making it easy to respond to the poll, and making it hard to cheat. I think this is a good enough compromise.

I could force people to login to their Google account but that seems excessive. I think we would lose responses because people can't be bothered, and this would be more detrimental to the results than the occasional cheater. Also, you can have multiple Google accounts.

[princeofcarthage]

I personally think, while poll itself is detailed, general psyche of people tends to not fill such out detail posts. Multiple choice or yes/no type of posts are often preferred.

What about these questions is complicated?
How would you have turned these into yes/no questions without losing meaning?

It isn't a question of complication. Its a question of work, its a question of typing 10 lines with no assurance of change. The process itself is demotivating for some.

People replying I believe are the determined ones who want to shape off-topic in their own view, which will likely skew results in one favour. A simple forum poll would have been better.

A forum poll can only have 1 question. No single question would have communicated the collective community's opinion on this matter to the same extent as this form will. Besides, it's good that people are required to put in some effort to answer it. I don't want half the answers to be from people who don't care about off topic. They're not the target audience.

A lot of people care about off-topic, but lose interest because of nonsensical stuff and arguments. Such people despite care are less likely to be vocal opinion. The only people standing to lose anything are people who enjoy off-topic BS, and the people who are causes of it. As such they are the ones with most interest to vote.

The same options could have been part of a forum poll with multiple answers. Each topic categorized.

Also why you need to know identities of people who vote.

To prevent spam.

A forum poll just does that. How does this prevent spam, the name isn't auto-fetched but rather requires a person to enter it. I can put eagle's name in my stead and vote as him?

It shows the intent that you will value one opinion over other, ignore the opinion of you deem unworthy thereby ignoring the general consensus of whatever the result be.

Quite an assumption. This is not the intent.

[Goodspeed]

It isn't a question of complication. Its a question of work, its a question of typing 10 lines with no assurance of change. The process itself is demotivating for some.

You're not required to answer the open-ended questions.

A lot of people care about off-topic, but lose interest because of nonsensical stuff and arguments. Such people despite care are less likely to be vocal opinion. The only people standing to lose anything are people who enjoy off-topic BS, and the people who are causes of it. As such they are the ones with most interest to vote.

The people who care about off topic but think it's not good right now will see this as an opportunity to improve it. Whether or not they want to take 1 minute to improve the chances of it becoming something they enjoy is up to them.

The same options could have been part of a forum poll with multiple answers. Each topic categorized.

What a mess that would be. Google forms' more user-friendly UI, support for multiple questions and possibility to remove troll entries are easily worth requiring users one extra click.

A forum poll just does that. How does this prevent spam, the name isn't auto-fetched but rather requires a person to enter it. I can put eagle's name in my stead and vote as him?

Neither is fail proof at preventing spam, but this way I can at least remove spam entries (which I have done multiple times already). It's easy to cheat in forum polls as well, and impossible for me to prevent or combat.

I don't know what your beef is with Google forms, but this all seems a bit silly.

[iNcog]

-- deleted post --

[fightinfrenchman]

No matter how calmly you talk about them, spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories will never be "civil."

[iNcog]

-- deleted post --

[Cometk]

No matter how calmly you talk about them, spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories will never be "civil."

Probably more of an issue with you than them.

?

[fightinfrenchman]

This, basically

[iNcog]

-- deleted post --

[HeadKilla]

The question about overall content being racist seems a little weak. I do not think that the overall content of the off-topic forum is racist so I voted 3. If the question was do I think the off-topic sections contains racist posts it would be full agreement.

[RefluxSemantic]

No matter how calmly you talk about them, spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories will never be "civil."

Neither is playing thought police.

[iNcog]

-- deleted post --

[Cometk]

No matter how calmly you talk about them, spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories will never be "civil."

Neither is playing thought police.

I’d rather the forums didn’t have any anti-semitic content

[fightinfrenchman]

@RefluxSemantic Well, I disagree there. People can think what they like and they have plenty of platforms to post that kind of stuff, I just think ESOC shouldn't be one of them. And if you believe that discussion shouldn't be limited in any way here, then I'm going to continue arguing for my own position even if it annoys people or they say I'm trolling.

[RefluxSemantic]

No matter how calmly you talk about them, spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories will never be "civil."

Neither is playing thought police.

I’d rather the forums didn’t have any anti-semitic content

I tend to agree. But sometimes I wonder why we have freedom of speech, except when we don't agree with what people are saying. That seems somewhat uncivilized too, doesn't it?

[fightinfrenchman]

Just post those things somewhere else. ESOC isn't a world government, banning things from here doesn't make them go away.

[chris1089]

Still to find anyone showing or citing where racist etc. post have been allowed by moderation team in any of these recent threads. Until someone does, isn't this hysteria over nothing?
Maybe we could have a discussion about what to do we this kind of content, when someone demonstrates that it is being tolerated?

[RefluxSemantic]

Just post those things somewhere else. ESOC isn't a world government, banning things from here doesn't make them go away.

Which is definitely a valid point of view. But do we want to be an echo chamber, where only off topic posts that are accepted by American PC culture are accepted? Or should we limit playing Thought police as much as possible?