Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

The big fat BMG meta-poll!

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Ok, I’ve been threatening this … With all the discussion about ratings and civlity, etc., I thought I’d get all y’all’s opinion on what the editors of the site should actually do to encourage robust, civilized debate and raillery.

Under the best of circumstances, we have to walk a fine line between giving everyone an opportunity to speak his/her mind, and yet keeping an atmosphere free of bullying and mindless flame wars.

I’m hoping this gives everyone an idea of the choices available to us.

So do take the poll, on the flip — it’s a multiple-vote poll, so you’re free to choose more than one option. And I realize that I will not have phrased the questions to everyone’s satisfaction, so give your input in the comments.

Take the poll!

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Comments

    • I was for Keep ratings, Consistent enforcement, and Stricter anti-troll (example – I think a person should either post a diary or have a blog – preferably both – to demonstrate their ideas in a proactive, as well as a reactive, way).

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      Or are we not supposed to tell?

      • I made one selection, clicked vote, and then wanted to vote again for another.  I didn’t realize you were supposed to select all your choices at once.

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        Since you showed me yours, I voted for stricter anti-troll rules and wanted to pick consistent enforcement as well.

  2. I was just gonna make a meta-post but now I don’t have to, which is great, because I generally hate meta.

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    I’m all for having an open discussion of views and ideas; I believe that opponents make my arguments much stronger. But that’s just not what’s emerging in Blue Mass Group. It seems that people here are increasingly the same as people who post at Red Mass Group. They often derail threads (which I admit that I often fall prey to). Moreover, they get us fighting amongst ourselves when we should be spending time talking about the issues that face our state and nation.

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    Obviously, not everybody I linked to is a troll, and Republican does not equal troll. But I’m increasingly agreeing with Cos’s earlier plea not to feed the trolls.

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    I believe that BMG has turned into a great tool to get the best ideas from all across the Commonwealth, and it’s great to also see progressive leaders in the state find a new medium to talk to their constituents. I believe in open-systems as the best way to bring new ideas into fruition.

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    But I also believe this community has a problem, as evidenced by the recent 175+ comment post the other day about the tone of BMG.

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    MyDD recently put out a little post about what MyDD is and what MyDD is not. I’d like to see something similar come out of BMG from the editors. I think number five is particularly relevant:

    MyDD is not Crossfire. MyDD is not a place for “balance.” It is not for Republicans. We have no intention of presenting the opposing partisan side of an argument. If you don’t like that, tough. We are a place for Democrats and progressives. We do not make that a secret. This is not a place to forge national unity. We are trying to help build the progressive movement. Sports teams don’t allow their opponents to participate in their practices. Companies do not allow competitors to participate in board meetings. Political campaigns do not allow their opponents to participate in staff meetings. Conservative talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh don’t have progressive co-anchors. The only people who are allowed to participate in MyDD are people who are willing and capable of doing so in a way that helps forward our goals.

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    Now, obviously, MyDD is not the same as BMG, nor should it be. But there is a place for Republicans who want to talk about MA politics–Red Mass Group. It’s not like they’ll be disenfranchised or unable to get their message out if they don’t post constructive comments here. And I hope that BMG & RMG will frequently link to one another and bounce ideas off one another. But frankly, if Republicans are able to get their ideas recommended and out there on this website just as much as Democrats, how is this “Blue” Mass Group any longer? It’s just “Mass Group.” If that’s what the Editors want, great. But let’s not mince words here — the goal of this website ought to be about advancing the progressive agenda, not just about having a commentary on the news, and this isn’t just another message board.

    • comment, and as an intermittent visitor I’m hopeful that BMG will evolve into something better.

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      I’ve noticed that a number of folks that I used to enjoy reading here are now MIA, and despite the varied viewpoints and provocative ideas,  IMHO the signal-to-noise ratio on BMG sometimes drops, to the point where I find myself looking for alternative sites.

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      Any recommendations, either from the MA lefty Blog Roll or something else that I might be overlooking?

  3. Any way will piss people off.

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    Personally, I like the Kossack way best, but I think this system intact can work too – letting the community deal with comments is certainly one valid way of doing it. People aren’t giving out tons of zeros, so truly only the deplorable one’s are really getting them.

  4. I’m a fan of letting everyone post and letting evidence-supported logic or good rhetoric carry the day. And I think trolls or trouble makers should be ignored or called out as such.

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    BUT, BMG is not a publicly traded company, regulated by rules, nor is it a public agency. It’s a private blog “owned” and run by three guys. Whatever rules they want to set, they can set. Maybe it makes the site better for some, worse for others.

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    If they do set rules, though, where does the line get drawn? Self-outed conservatives or republicans are easy exclusions. But what about independents? What about centrist-leaning democrats?

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    What about someone like me? I’m a democrat all the way and consider myself pretty liberal. But I don’t agree with everything that’s posted here. Esepcially the views on the media. And I’m sure more than one person here has read a post of mine and thought I was too far right.

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    So does the line get drawn at party labels or something that stiffles any disagreement?

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    I’ve already gone too long, so I won’t get into what the site does with someone that tends to be more liberal on one issue, but a little more conservative on another.

    • But lines of productive vs. nonproductive. Or troll vs. actual legitimate disagreement.

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      Or personal attack vs. attacking on the issues.

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      I’ve noticed that on my blog, when we have someone invading (or more than one someone) in comments who is obviously there just to get attention and whine a lot, who attacks people personally all the time and who just plain outright doesn’t want to engage in real conversation, just school-yard bullying, it poisons the place for everyone else. Which, honestly, is probably their intention.

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      So I ban them. I think I’ve technically banned maybe 3 or 4 people total in almost two years. And after I do, immediately, you can feel the relief on the blog. It goes back to a place you want to visit. So I consider my harshest tactics effective, but something I don’t want to make a habit of. If that makes sense.

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      In between, general admonishments help, and a good dose of logic, and sometimes, ignoring the occasional libertarian who decides to make every thread into a libertarian screed helps.

  5. …I received a warning today from one of the proprietors of the site via email, based on a misreading of one of my comments.  I emailed the proprietory back, and I believe that the issue has been resolved.

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    I will not rate a post.  As far as I can tell, there are three problems with ratings.  One, the number of ratings is usually so small as to be inconsequential.  Two, ratings can turn into little more than popularity contests.  Three, deleting a post if it has enough low ratings is contrary to free discussion.

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    The proprietors of the site own the site.  They should determine whether a comment stays or goes, IMHO.

    • With the traffic in comments this site recieves, it’s too difficult to moderate every little infraction. I don’t blame them if they do want to keep the ratings system, though I kinda like the “superuser” idea if you’re going to do that. Ie, high-rated writers/commenters get some extra privledges, like their troll-raiting counts for more (and therefore it takes less votes to disappear a comment). I don’t think Soapblox allows for that sort of thing.

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      I’m not against disappearing a comment in the first place, as I think it was done democratically and that person cannot complain they were singled out by one dude with a grudge. I’d rather see a comment disappear because the community voted it down rather than a top-down decision by any blog moderator (and that includes myself on my own blog).

      • …If the proprietors of the site don’t have the wherewithall* to police the comment threads, if the people reading the comment threads have particular objections to particular comments, they can email the proprietors and notify them of a potential infraction. 

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        After the notification, the proprietors could monitor the commenter’s other comments, issue warnings and even ban the infringer.  It’s not perfect, but it could be better than using ratings.

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        *Given the number of ratings on the various comments (the highest number I’ve seen is 3) the number of ratings seems to be so inconsequential as to be almost worthless.  And, given the number of ratings, I wonder just what the traffic is here.  I haven’t seen a sitemeter, but I haven’t looked for one, either.

        • can be found here.  Also, its true that the editors “own” this blog, but its clear they are also trying to create a community here.  They want to empower us to take ownership of the site.  I, too, think they need to take a more active role, but I think the community can be useful as well.

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          A comment about a SJC justice was deleted last week.  I think it now takes 7 zeros to delete the comment.  I think that number should maybe drop to 5, as I agree the ratings feature isn’t utilized as much as it could be (myself included).

          • …A comment about a SJC justice was deleted last week. 

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            I know, because I wrote the comment.  As far as I can tell, it was deleted because it was unpopular.

            • and thats why I brought it up.  It wasn’t deleted because it was unpopular, it was deleted because it was offensive to at least 7 people, myself included.  I’ve said more than my fair share of unpopular things on this blog, but none have ever been deleted.

              • you may be right, or maybe not, about why that or any comment earned zeros.  based on previous discussions about the many ways we all use (or don’t) the rating system, it is clear that the meaning of getting a particular rating cannot be discerned from the rating number alone.  only an accompanying comment can do that.  the only thing we can say about zero is that it makes the zeroed comment more likely to be hidden.  but the reason the rater had for giving it that zero – no one but the rater can say.

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                btw, I’m not criticizing you Kai.  Just you raised an interesting interpretive point that i decided to take a tangent on.

              • It wasn’t deleted because it was unpopular, it was deleted because it was offensive to at least 7 people, myself included.

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                The comment policy on the “rules of the road” page specifically states

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                Insults, personal  attacks, rudeness, and blanket unsupported statements reduce the level of discourse, interfere with our basic objective, and are not permitted.

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                Being offensive is not included in the criteria. 

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                It was not an insult to other commenters (which is how I would interpret “insult”).

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                It was not a personal attack.

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                It was not rude.  Some might have believed it to be crude, and it was certainly intended to be cruel, as I so stated.

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                It was not an unsupported statement–it was a statement of my opinion, so it could hardly be unsupported.

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                It was deleted because it was unpopular, as you pretty much admitted with your comment here.  Ratings are a popularity contest, pure and simple.

                • …the Constitution (i.e., Rules of the Road) as established by the proprietors of the site?

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                  If you do, then you might have a point.

        • First, the traffic stats are linked on every single page on the left sidebar, where it says “BMG TRAFFIC REPORT”.

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          Now, I agree with you that comment ratings are underutilized here, but that’s largely because there’s no reason to use them.  You don’t get a cookie for collecting 6’s and you pay no penalty for collecting 3’s.  The only consequence is the 0, and that has been neutered.

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          That said, as someone who writes a blog and has moderated Internet communities before, I will tell you that in no way do I want to be encouraging people to email me every time they see something they find offensive.  I get enough email as it is.  The second half of that is that a policy where the site owners personally go through all the comments and delete ones they don’t approve of implies that they do approve of any comments that aren’t deleted.  I’m sure none of them want to be confronted with a “Well, you didn’t delete it, so you must think it’s appropriate” argument somewhere down the line.

          • …First, the traffic stats are linked on every single page on the left sidebar, where it says “BMG TRAFFIC REPORT”.

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            On other web sites that I’ve looked, they actually post the sitemeter number on the page.  If I had to click onto every link on the right (most of which from their names appear to be uninteresting) just to find out what they’re for, I’d get about 2 minutes of sleep a night.

        • that sounds like an aweful lot of work for David, Bob and Charley. On a website where 10 people commented regularly, it may work… but there’s a helluva lot more people commenting on this site.

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          For the sake of actually having a life, I think that any solution would have to be done by the community at large. Then again, maybe the three editors here are just that sadistic to themselves that they enjoy putting 10 hours on an off day into Blue Mass Group. lol

      • if the editors want to turn that feature on.  The way they work, however, is that to become a superuser you need to have received so many high ratings within a set time period.  As the rate comments feature is generally underutilized, I think it might be tough to get a high enough ranking.  Otherwise, the bar would have to be set pretty low.

        • Is the rate comments feature underutilized because you don’t get anything out of having a high ranking or because people don’t like to rate comments?

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          If rating comments meant something, would people do it more?  I think they would.

          • And I think The Editors should consider using it…it will encourage the usage of the ratings system, and reward those who others deem worthy (for instance, I doubt I’d become a superuser ever, LOL), while allowing for a tiered system to alleviate the amount of moderating from Bob, Charley, and David, who don’t really get paid for doing this blog in the first place.

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            If that were an option on the poll, I’d vote for it!

            • the “trusted user” feature doesn’t work very well — software bugs haven’t been worked out.  We tried it a while ago, and it was a disaster, so we’ll have to muddle through without it.

                • is that only “trusted users” would have the ability to give zero-ratings, and perhaps also could give super-duper extra-high ratings, thereby boosting other valued contributors into “trusted” status.  But, as I said, it doesn’t work.

              • I sometimes blog over at Hub Politics and all of the comments there need to be screened before being posted.  It seriously slows down the debate.  It sometimes takes days to get replies on comments you post.  By that time you like, “who cares about Deval’s caddy, didn’t you hear about the Citigroup phone call?!”  😉

    • individual and have much to contribute. Thank you for accepting the criticism graciously and moving ahead.

  6. I tend to stay away from this stuff, but since Charlie is asking I will weigh in.

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    I think that trolling, in the original sense of trolling for trouble and attention, is probably the biggest group-dynamics problem facing BMG these days. (Yes, online communities have group dynamics.)

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    These are exchanges characterized by provocation and lack of good faith. In some ways the best solutions to this entail self discipline by the good-faith posters–not to be baited or sucked in.

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    Probably the most important thing the editors can do is set  the tone.

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    They could also actively moderate posts, deleting or banning or whatever. But I think it will be hard for them to actively moderate consistently and I also wonder if that wouldn’t in some ways undercut the self-discipline dynamic.

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    If you can figure out how to do it, give it a shot.

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    The ideal of self-discipline raises the bar for participation here in a kind of specialized way. It also is learned behavior and BMG, one hopes, adds new voices all the time.

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    So the problem is perhaps not very tractable beyond a certain point. We might just have to live with some of it. I expect we can.

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  7. It seems that the “owners” of this thread (the ones with “delete poster power” ( read Censor) authority  have some choices to make:

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    -Yield to the posters who are here virtually day and night (the “clique” … 15 …25 posters if that?)that want isolationism and total intolerance to ANY opposing views to their own, hence their vote to maintain the “rating system” which is  nothing more than a high school “popularity contest”  Why not just replace this totally subjective “rating” charade with 1 (strongly disagree) to 5( totally agree).It would definitely have more meaning.

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    or

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    _Encourage and support discussion and the presentation of opposing views and /or ( sometimes unccomfortable facts) that are presented in a civil manner without personal attacks .I think that the Blue Mass Group is at its finest when thoughtful and “reality” based exchanges take place when BOTH sides of the aisle are allowed to present and debate with facts and logic.This provides a reader with the information to make intelligent and informed decisions

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    I read some of the “Red” side stuff which is predictably conservative and without doubt, obnoxious to left leaning ears. What I do notice “over there” is a freedom of speech and an openess to differing opinions ( without the nastiness and personal attacks and closed mindedness  )which is all too prevalent here on a so called “liberal” site.  I haven’t posted there but I saw “visitors” from here do so and be treated with total respect and civility. It would be nice to see that here too

    • and now you’re laying out an either or choice for the editors  as to how they should run their blog?

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      Not only that, but you’ve somehow managed to figure out how the “clique of 25” regular posters, just voted to maintain the rating system, and that this same “clique” is “intolerant” and wants “isolationism”?

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      You seem to have amazing super powers.

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      Let me guess. You’re a moderate Democrat, thinking about voting Independent, here to help foster discourse, and are offended that anyone would interpret your remarks as being anything less than polite. Oh yeah, and you read Peggy Noonan.

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    • Really? that’s new to me.

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      If anything, I RARELY agree with regular commenters. I can only think of one person who I I’ve yet to have an online tussle with at some point or another (Lynne) and she doesn’t comment a whole ton anyay. Most other frequent commenters on this website, including all of the editors, have faced rigorous opposition from me at one point or another.

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      There’s a societal need to label things cliques, etc. and in some situations, that’s very accurate. For example, I’ve never been a part of a Theatre Company that wasn’t very cliquey… and I always avoid those cliques. But, on an internet site like this, I don’t see how it’s necessarily predestined to become a clique. Everyone has their own voice, is independent and rarely personally knows one another. Consequently, the most frequent posters, such as myself, often butt heads with other frequent posters.

      • Consequently, the most frequent posters, such as myself, often butt heads with other frequent posters.

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        DO NOT!

  8. I find myself reading BMG a lot less than a year ago and feeling less inclined to contribute.  There’s a lot more background noise and it takes more time to dig for the real substance.

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    It’s the longer, thoughtful posts and comments that got me interested in the first place.  With all the short, smart-ass comments it’s starting to feel more like IM than “reality based commentary.”

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    I’m all for free expression of ideas and opinions but that doesn’t mean I have any interest in reading ALL of them.

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    I have great respect for the editors and my vote is for a much higher standard to make it on the front page.

  9. One of the things I like about this liberal website is that we have a few conservatives who rationally join the debate.

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    Shouting matches don’t help anyone, but calming pointing out flaws in proposals is useful to everyone.

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    Labels not withstanding, presumable we’re trying to make Massachusetts a better place. 

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    So let’s judge people on the quality of the ideas, and not on the color of their label.

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