In marketing, one of the central problems facing the marketer are the often conflicting and/or contradictory wants and desires of consumers. It is well known in the literature that customers will regularly state that they desire one thing while actively pursuing the exact opposite. One of the classic examples of this is the contradiction in consumers preferences over advertising. Customers state that they want focused, relevant, and personalized ads. In other words, they don't want to shown things that they are not interested in, but at the same time, consumers detest sharing the type of information that would allow these highly targeted ads to be possible. So the marketer is caught in an impossible situation - consumers want relevant ads but they don't want to give the means to provide them. This is a great frustration over which marketers have spilt much ink.
As mods here, I believe we are caught in very a similar situation. I have heard from many of you that you are tired of low effort posts, spamming, and what is perceived to be the degradation of forum culture. And as a fellow user I can empathize. Previous bastions of interesting and unorthodox thought such as /r9k/ and /pol/ were ruined due to the unending wave of digital feces (BBC and tranny spam among them) that overran their respective boards. Personally, I don't think anyone wants to see that process unfold here. So originally, my thought process was that there must be some fundamental misunderstanding between how moderation perceives or intends for the website to be used and how the userbase uses it. And that if we could simply better understand this service gap we could help facilitate a better user experience for everyone. So to test this theory out, a couple of weeks ago I published a thread entitled "What is the Purpose of Inceldom Discussion vs Lounge vs Sewers?' asking the userbase how they use the various boards on the website and how they think they should be used. Surprising to me again, many of you essentially restated the descriptions provided on the front page. Incel discussion is for serious posts about inceldom, lounge is for lifestyle, and sewers is where all the misc stuff goes.
But after seeing hundreds of threads posted, this is not how the website is used at all. ID is used to post everything, Lounge is sewers lite, and sewers is a like a spam bot that's gone haywire but has nothing to advertise. It's clear that there is a gap between what people's idealization of the forum is and how they actually use it. So in order to for us to create the idealized forum culture that you all desire, but don't act out, is to stringently enforce rules that conform to that idealized culture. The problem is no one likes rules. And I mean almost no one. As we've cracked down on low effort posts, resurrected the rules on race baiting, and gone after spam, many of the people who were once like voices in the wilderness crying for reform become shrill after the rules were enforced on them. Because surely, cleaning up the forum did not mean removing THEIR posts! And even historically, rule enforcement has been very unpopular. Despite the rose tinted glasses of some, users bitterly complained about mods like Knajjd that would capriciously and arbitrarily ban and discipline users. You can use the search function to look this up yourself or even go offsite.
And all of this is not even mentioning the various factions that have opposing ideals for what the website should look like or function and want moderation to act like a club against their opposition.
So as someone who cares about this community and wants to see it thrive, I want to have an open conversation with you. As a mod, what is the right balance between maintaining the culture that you desire but also not being overly stringent and causing a Littleboy situation? How can we better align how users desire the site to be used and how they actually use it? I really want to hear from all of you on how these service gaps can be bridged in a way where we can all be happy.
And lastly I would like to add that these are my views. I'm speaking fully as an individual here.
As mods here, I believe we are caught in very a similar situation. I have heard from many of you that you are tired of low effort posts, spamming, and what is perceived to be the degradation of forum culture. And as a fellow user I can empathize. Previous bastions of interesting and unorthodox thought such as /r9k/ and /pol/ were ruined due to the unending wave of digital feces (BBC and tranny spam among them) that overran their respective boards. Personally, I don't think anyone wants to see that process unfold here. So originally, my thought process was that there must be some fundamental misunderstanding between how moderation perceives or intends for the website to be used and how the userbase uses it. And that if we could simply better understand this service gap we could help facilitate a better user experience for everyone. So to test this theory out, a couple of weeks ago I published a thread entitled "What is the Purpose of Inceldom Discussion vs Lounge vs Sewers?' asking the userbase how they use the various boards on the website and how they think they should be used. Surprising to me again, many of you essentially restated the descriptions provided on the front page. Incel discussion is for serious posts about inceldom, lounge is for lifestyle, and sewers is where all the misc stuff goes.
But after seeing hundreds of threads posted, this is not how the website is used at all. ID is used to post everything, Lounge is sewers lite, and sewers is a like a spam bot that's gone haywire but has nothing to advertise. It's clear that there is a gap between what people's idealization of the forum is and how they actually use it. So in order to for us to create the idealized forum culture that you all desire, but don't act out, is to stringently enforce rules that conform to that idealized culture. The problem is no one likes rules. And I mean almost no one. As we've cracked down on low effort posts, resurrected the rules on race baiting, and gone after spam, many of the people who were once like voices in the wilderness crying for reform become shrill after the rules were enforced on them. Because surely, cleaning up the forum did not mean removing THEIR posts! And even historically, rule enforcement has been very unpopular. Despite the rose tinted glasses of some, users bitterly complained about mods like Knajjd that would capriciously and arbitrarily ban and discipline users. You can use the search function to look this up yourself or even go offsite.
And all of this is not even mentioning the various factions that have opposing ideals for what the website should look like or function and want moderation to act like a club against their opposition.
So as someone who cares about this community and wants to see it thrive, I want to have an open conversation with you. As a mod, what is the right balance between maintaining the culture that you desire but also not being overly stringent and causing a Littleboy situation? How can we better align how users desire the site to be used and how they actually use it? I really want to hear from all of you on how these service gaps can be bridged in a way where we can all be happy.
And lastly I would like to add that these are my views. I'm speaking fully as an individual here.
