Apr 21
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Apr 21
4h ago

post by seize 7 hours ago

seize Helper
7h

Roughly five weeks ago the topic titled “Forum Moderation” was closed. With Jonah saying:

This is really hindering our ability to take in this feedback and discuss it amongst ourselves … going forward we are going to try to take this feedback into account, and hopefully have more to share soon, and in the meantime I hope you all can give us some time to do this without restarting this topic

Emphasis mine.

Since then there has been no communication from the Privacy Guides team, or forum moderators around what came out of this topic in regards to the Privacy Guides team and forum moderators “tak[ing] in this feedback and discuss[ing] it amongst [themselves]”.

I’m still holding out hope that the major issues raised in the original “Forum Moderation” topic don’t go ignored, however I am concerned that no public statement, or update has been provided to the community regarding how the feedback from the original “Forum Moderation” topic has been taken into consideration, or how it has potentially changed how the Privacy Guides team interacts with forum moderation actions.

So the question is has anything changed behind the scenes, and is there anything that the Privacy Guides team would be willing to share regarding the situation around the original “Forum Moderation” thread.

It is also important to note that I was not a major contributor to the original “Forum Moderation” topic, so I may not be able to speak directly to what the community saw/still sees as major issues regarding forum moderation, but I do hope that those members who did have concerns can respectfully elaborate them in a reply to this topic if it is appropriate to do so, and the moderators here have not already warned against doing so.

Note that my intention here is not to stir up unnecessary drama, accuse any individuals of wrong doing, or creating a duplicate topic which could be seen as “hindering [PG team/Moderation] ability to take in this feedback”. Further, I have not linked directly to the original “Forum Moderation” thread which I mentioned in this post, as while that thread is not unlisted, it is locked and I do not want to add any additional potential reasons for this post to be deleted. Anyone interested in viewing that original thread can still search for it on this forum. This post is a request for transparency in Privacy Guide’s team and forum operations above all else, and I hope that this topic can be resolved in a respectful and civil manner.

I enjoy spending time in this community and I would hate to see infighting and grudge holding tear it apart.

post by Nostromo 7 hours ago

Nostromo Beginner
7h

PG has also “ignored” (by this point, ignored) many other controversial topics and there appears to be a lack of decision making on things one way or the other. This coupled with other inconsistencies in moderation has made several folks leave whom I used to follow before I became confident to make an account here and participate. Though I can’t say with certainty that this was the reason but the timing was suspect and hence my attribution of member behavior coupled with their comments and PG’s inaction makes this a reasonably deduced derivation.

I have no horse in this race but these are just facts learned from the powers of observation. PG can certainly do better. Not sure what’s else is going on internally either because they also had to let go of one their staff (Em) recently which was due to lack of funding.

Hope PG keeps up with member sentiment better. Deliberating and making decisions is a good thing. But when this much time passes, it amounts to apathy which is demoralizing.

post by win11.shading291 6 hours ago

win11.shading291 Respected
6h

This is the topic in question.

It’s one of the few topic that hasn’t been unlisted or straight up deleted and I don’t see how there would be any rules preventing linking to it.

It took PG 3 months to answer here: Remove ProtonVPN - #143 by anonymous549

So maybe it takes a loooong time to deliberate privately on their part.

There’s also a trend where lots of veteran users are not posting much anymore.

Also, kissu has been banned for what it seems like the usage of the popcorn emoji which resulted in this weird change: Allow to remove or replace old reactions - #17 by jonah

All around, it seems the PG team is not so keen into constructive criticism and prefer silencing dissent.

I hope I can be proven wrong with a clear message to the community on what has changed or what will change. But for now another topic of mine was silently deleted 1 month after creation. So, I’m not holding my breath.

post by anonymous549 5 hours ago

anonymous549
5h

This is pretty typical as @win11.shading291 noted it takes a while… and as @jonah has said he will not put any sort of SLA on answering matters, so don’t expect an improvement on this.

It would be nice if @jonah could circle back and give some updates about the subsequent posts such as…

This seems closest one to being completed with it being approved but I do not think the additional warning has actually been added.

This one they are “still discussing”.

This one has no solution so I guess that is still being discussed as well.

I don’t really know what should be expected of this topic. I had assumed any sort of resolution would be internal anyway. I doubt they are going to be explicit about this just because users love to lawyer about any moderator action, where its made it a bit of a “boy cried wolf” situation when there is a complaint.

This has been the worst thing to happen to the forums. There has been a massive brain drain of qualified users and, the ones that remain have drastically reduced their participation. Not sure I would go so far as to equate that with anything Staff or the Moderators have done. I tend to think people move on.

I think the ban expired at the start of the month. Probably just decided he did not want to participate anymore.

post by seize 4 hours ago

seize Helper
anonymous549
4h

Yes, @kissu was suspended instead of fully banned, and the suspension expired on April first.

With regard to what I’m expecting as for a “resolution” to the original “forum moderation” topic, and to some extent this topic is not so much a detailed justification for moderation action, and more so just to understand if any of the discussion mentioned by Jonah had happened.

Quite frankly I would have been fine with Jonah, or another Privacy Guides team member coming back to that original “forum moderation” topic just to say that nothing will change, but leaving the solution so ambiguous as to leave the community members involved in the thread confused as to whether or not any kind of internal discussion or change of process would occur as a result of the discussion.

I don’t want to “act like a lawyer”, and I don’t think an SLA on forum moderation matters is reasonable either. I simple am hoping for a civil, reasonable, and responsible clarification surrounding the original “forum moderation” topic.

post by notwithstanding 4 hours ago

notwithstanding Beginner
4h

I am going to hazard a guess and say that it’s potentially difficult and very time consuming to moderate the forum, on top of the team’s other responsibilities. I don’t foresee this team being intentionally malicious when it comes to moderating.

post by ThePrivacyDad 4 hours ago

post by seize 4 hours ago


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