Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

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I’ve just had a rather unhappy experience as a WordPress forum member and thought that the best way to make something constructive of it would be to come up with suggestions to improve moderation practices.

Before getting into the subject, I want to make clear that in general the forum is a tremendously helpful vehicle for WordPress users in answering their technical questions and resolving problems they’re having with their installation. I’ve been posting intensively to the forum since I started with WordPress in May and 90% of my interactions have been positive, constructive and helpful. The support volunteers go out of their way usually to extend a hand to those of us who don’t understand technical issues or who need advice about plugins to help us customize our installations.

I want to be clear that I make these suggestions not with a sense of arrogance or animosity. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m implying that I have perfect knowledge of how the forum should work or that I’m being overly critical. My ideas are meant constructively and I hope they’ll be taken that way.

But it’s the 5-10% of interactions I want to deal with here. I’ve noticed that there is a tendency among a few support volunteers to provide “edgy” responses to users. A few seem to have rules either written or unwritten about how they prefer users to post and when someone doesn’t follow those rules there’s usually an “edge” to the volunteer’s posts in that particular thread.

Scott Merrill, in an e mail message, asked me to understand the stresses and frustrations that support volunteers face that might contribute to such reactions. And I do. There might be 1,000 reasons why a particular support volunteer might become frustrated in the boards. But in my experience some volunteers allow that frustration from previous board interactions to leak into threads in which they participate.

Take as an example the member who posts a question asked and answered too many times before by others. I understand how frustrating such a question may be. But if you allow your frustration to seep into the thread does it help either you or the member? Besides the member is likely a newbie and doesn’t know their way around the forum well and doesn’t know how to answer their own question. I have read threads in which volunteers and members have told people that if they only bothered to do a search they wouldn’t have had to post their question in the first place. This statement may be true and I certainly understand why you’d be thinking this thought. But is expressing it in this way helpful? Consider the intimidating effect it might have on someone new to the forum who doesn’t know their way around. And consider that the poster may have done a search and not found what you did. After all, you probably have a better sense of what you’re looking for than they do.

Among some volunteers there is also a tendency not to realize that their level of technical expertise exceeds that of the poster they’re trying to help. Plugin directions or hacks for example often come with little more than php script or code and lack intructions such as where to install, etc. I sometimes wish a volunteer might take a step back and think about how they would explain something to someone with only a basic knowledge of WordPress.

When a member opens a thread by asking a question, I’d strongly urge the volunteer who plans to answer it to do so directly. If you respond to such a question by making a critical reference to the member’s previous posts, then chances are you’re getting off-track AND you’re not answering the actual question. I’d say if your reply isn’t going to directly answer the question then perhaps you shouldn’t be posting to the thread. Perhaps you’re about to let your personal feelings about the member or the question asked get in the way of a constructive interchange.

I’m not saying that there’s never a reason to say something negative in a post. But if you do, I think you should consider the impact it may have not only on the member whose question you’re answering, but on the quality of the thread and on other members who might join the thread after you. Sometimes, a negative post from a volunteer looses the tongues of other members who then add their own negative perspectives on whatever the subject might be. In that case, even though the volunteer has only expressed their own opinion they’ve indirectly set a tone for the rest of the thread. So I’d suggest that in cases like this a volunteer examine other posts which have followed his or hers in the same thread. If they’re also negative, you should reconsider continuing the conversation in the same vein you used in your original reply.

I’d also suggest that a volunteer who feels that perhaps they’re letting their personal feelings about a member get in the way of good moderation should either back off the thread they’re posting to or else (if they feel the thread requires further volunteer participation) ask a fellow volunteer to take over for you. Sometimes the best thing one can do in situations like this is to get some distance from the situation.

Another sign that you may not be using good moderation practices is if you get into a tit for tat argument with a member. If you find that you are looking through a member’s back posts to find ammunition for your point of view in the argument, then you’re probably not being the most constructive moderator you could be. If you use terms like “whine” or “moan” to characterize the poster, then you’ve stopped being a moderator and become an adversary.

I’d also suggest that a volunteer not state in a thread that he doesn’t intend to post again in the thread. First, it comes across as peevish. Second, if you DO post again, then you’re not doing what you said you’d do.

No matter how much you disagree with a poster’s point of view, I don’t think a volunteer should ever be in the business of showing other members how wrong that point of view is. In addition, the WordPress philosophy should be “let a thousand flowers bloom.” A member may wish to customize their intallation in a way you as a support volunteer find totally useless. I’d urge the latter to either not reply in the forum to such a member or else to reply but not expect that it’s your job to point out the utter futility of what they’re trying to do. It should be the volunteer’s job to help and suggest, but not to point out that what a member’s trying to do is foolish.

I also feel that in a forum thread in which there is some level of contention, it’s important to not ratchet up the argument with incendiary or contentious terms. For example, when I posted to the forum asking for methods to curb comments from abusive visitors to my site a volunteer accused me of “censorship.” He’s entitled to his opinion. But how is expressing it within the thread useful or constructive?

I do not feel that negative comments about the CONTENT of a member’s blog have any place in a forum thread. In my case, other posters argued that the content of my blog invited comment abuse. This should be totally irrelevant both to this thread and the forum in general. When you post asking for a technical solution to a problem you should get a technical answer and not one relating to content. I note that one support volunteer participating in this thread did not rule this comment out of order while Scott did in his own later post to the thread. I believe that the first volunteer was too wrapped up in his negative feelings to note that other members were overstepping the bounds of what’s appropriate.

If there are volunteers who moderate in ways I’ve described above, then perhaps threads they participate in should be monitored by other volunteers for a time to make sure the person is “on the right track.”

Finally, I think volunteers should try to remember that one of the main purposes of the forum should be to give everyone a good feeling about WordPress and their experience using it. Moderation that accomplishes that goal is terrific. Moderation that makes a member feel criticized really turns the member and perhaps others reading the thread away from WordPress and that isn’t good for anyone.

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Those following my blog posts over an extended period will know that one of their subthemes is blog security. By this I mean, allowing the blogger to have the greatest control possible over the discourse in their blog that still permits reasonably free exchange of ideas. If you blog about quilting or run a commercial blog this issue may not bother you much. But if you blog about free speech, human rights, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, religion, etc. you’re bound to find some people who don’t like what you say. In fact, you’ll find people who detest you, what you say and your blog. And they’ll let you know it in no uncertain terms; or I should say in the foulest terms.

So the question is: what approach to such comments should such a blogger have? There seems to be a strong strain running through the blog world saying that there must be absolute freedom both in blogging and in one’s approach to one’s comment section. In other words, if you say something someone finds offensive an abusive comment is the price you pay for your own free expression. Those who believe this, find it offensive that a blogger might set rules in their comments section and delete those which break those rules. They call it “censorship.”

I find this argument absolutely unconvincing. Who says that your blog is a free speech zone? My blog IS a free speech zone as long as a visitor can maintain civil discourse. That means you can’t insult my religion, my person, my family. It means you can’t call me pejorative names. It means you can’t wish for the destruction of my fellow Jews. It means you can’t accuse me of “sexually mutilating” my son because a mohel performed a Jewish ritual circumcision on him. Someone please give me one good reason why it is important to include every comment that’s ever been posted here including the types I mention above (these are the ones displayed in my blog–you can imagine what the deleted ones were like!)?

Again, in my approach there IS room for disagreement. Many have disagreed with my views on any number of posts I’ve published here. You can read their disagreements here in the plain light of day. They’re not hidden, not censored.

Those who adhere to the unfettered speech approach say that I wish to give the appearance of free speech but it is really a sham (“You would be practising censorship, but hidden”).

One of the reasons I moved to WordPress last May was the rich set of plugins that allow a blogger to customize and optimize their blog environment. I felt that Typepad (my previous provider) provided a limited set of defenses against comment abuse and the WP plugins promised a greater level of control. So at various times, I’ve posted to the WordPress forum asking if there are various means to combat comment abuse. It appears that a few members are getting tired of my posts finding them “whiny,” repetitive and annoying.

For example, here’s I began my lastest forum thread:

For those writing anti spam plugins (or any enterprising plugin author), I’d love to see one that will pick up the domain that refers a visitor to my site & blacklist the referral domain.

The reason for this is that every so often I get a flurry of abusive comments referred to my site from various online forums. Since I can’t know in advance the domain of the visitor who posts an abusive comment, banning the visitor’s domain will only work after the fact. But once one person from a referred domain posts an abusive comment I can determine which online forum is referring. If I could ban the referral domain then I could stop all the copycat abusive comments that would follow the first one (& I get plenty in this manner).

Here are some of the responses:

1. “Got a blog ? Get used to junk like this. It’s the way it is.”

2. “You have chosen to write about what many consider a controversial topic and invites just the type of behavior you dislike.

GET USED TO IT, and quit posting the same problem over and over and over.”

3. “You seem to want to have your cake and eat it to: you want to be able to have a forum for your [very controversial] blog content, you want it public [being an exhibitionist apparently], but you don’t want to deal with the fallout – you want someone to cover your ass for you by not allowing others’ opposing [sometimes VIOLENTLY opposing] views to be posted.”

I’ve got to stop here and comment on that last one. You’ll note that this person, who lives in “southern Utah” and is no doubt a Mormon considers my blog “very controversial” and “exhibitionist.” That’s almost funny. I’ve been called lots of things here, but never an exhibitionist. I think this comment reflects much more on the closed world view of this person than it does on the content of my blog. No doubt what she considers “very controversial” is my embrace of gay marriage, my aversion to aggressive evangelical Christianity, my support for compromise between Israelis and Palestinians for the sake of peace, and my opposition to the war in Iraq. I’ve got news for her, there are millions of us here in the blog world who find these views mainstream and I predict in 2o years she will too.

The same person continued:

…You have less need for comments than you do for setting out your own personal agenda through your posts, the one possibly viable suggestion I have for you is that you keep your blog publicly readable [since you seem to have that need to express your agenda], but allow no comments at all from the public.

Oooh, I have a “personal agenda.” That sounds really nefarious doesn’t it?

All this represents another misapprehension of the purpose of my blog. Comments are intrinsic to most blogs and mine as well. They are what creates a dialogue between blogger and the external world. I wouldn’t dream of turning off comments. In fact, others have suggested that I force registration on anyone who wishes to comment. I don’t even wish to choose this method as it is another draconian solution which I believe will seriously depress the dialogue.

Others have suggested that I use WordPress’ comment moderation settings to give me the control I seek. In truth, those people are right. WP’s comment settings are terrific. My problem is that I judge spam to be a worse problem than comment abuse; and SpamKarma2 is one of the best anti-spam plugins I know. One of SK2′s unfortunate side effects is that it disables WP’s comment settings. Westi has kindly offered to create an SK2 plugin modification which would allow all comments to go through WP comment settings BEFORE going through SK2′s anti-spam settings. When Westi is done, then I’ll have the best of both worlds. Until then, I have to ask for fixes as problems arise.

Returning to my original plugin request above, while I found mostly negativity in the WP forum (excluding this comment), I also posted to the HostDime.com forum. There a terrifically helpful member, Dawzz, did some research on my behalf and replied:

Hi Richard,
I ran across Referrer Karma and it seems that it is what you need. You can look at refferers at anytime and decide if you want to block them or not take a look and if it isn’t what you need let me know or if you need any help, I am pretty decent with’hacking’ together php scripts. I sitll intend to do a test install and figure out what is going on with the code I had posted but I thought you might want to take a look at this.

Just found Referrer Bouncer looks even easier to use no configuration needed or so it says.

Most commenters in the WP forum thread had something negative to say about my post. But Dawzz took my request seriously, did research and found not one plugin solution but two. If only someone replying in the WP forum thread could have been as responsive. Then it might’ve been a constructive and helpful thread.

Some WP forum members inexplicably take offense at ‘my “attitude”:

You have been given so much for free and you’re message is “it’s not enough.” That sense of entitlement is going to offend a lot of people, including me. You seem to want to live in some kind of protected bubble, where others are required to provide the protection, at their own cost. You want to say things that are considered offensive to others but not have anybody say anything you might consider offensive back. I think you need to try and imagine how that comes across to the “other side.”

Quite frankly, I’m not surprised you’re getting so much hostility when you consider all the logical implications of what you are asking for and how you’re asking for it, which really come across more as demanding.

This was my reply to him:

The message in my forum posts is NOT “it’s not enough.” My message is (& I think this is what most WP users feel) can I find the optimal WP environment to address all (or at least most) of my needs? If the current environment isn’t optimal, what’s wrong with seeking something more that would make it so? And if I offended you, I think you need to keep in mind that I’m not criticizing WP at all. I’m only seeking to find the optimal installation. Isn’t that considered innovation or entrepreneurship in other settings? Why should it be considered an attitude of “entitlement” or whining in this setting?

I don’t at all understand why you say I want to live in a ‘protected bubble.’ Why is wanting maximum control over your blog environment considered a bad thing? And I don’t at all understand what you mean by “where others are required to provide the protection, at their cost.” What do you mean? Who are the ‘others’ & what is the cost they pay?

Again, I don’t think you read my posts carefully in this thread. I have plenty of negative, disagreeing comments in my blog but they are respectful comments w/o insult or histrionics (I have even left some deeply offensive comments displayed so that my readers can see what real hate looks like). There is a way to engage in debate over issues that is respectful & there is a way that is not. Surely you understand that?

Please point out to me anything that I’ve said that is “demanding” in my forum threads. In the thread you’re commenting on all I did was ask if a plugin author would consider writing a plugin to a address a need I perceived. How is that “demanding?”

By the way, the solution of Dawzz I chose to solve my problem was Angsuman’s Referrer Bouncer plugin. Works like a dream.

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Remember that old line from Julius Caesar: “I come here not to bury Caesar but to praise him.” Well, I come here to bury certain unwanted blog visitors and to praise Angsuman’s remarkable Referrer Bouncer plugin

Angsuman’s original goal in writing this plugin was to defend against spammers’ referring domains by blacklisting them in a simple, easy way. You don’t have to deal with arcane mod_rewrites of .htaccess files. But I think I’ve found an additional use perhaps he didn’t anticipate.

Here’s the problem I sometimes face. At various times, online forums or websites have linked to my posts sending my way anti-Semites or those opposed to Jewish ritual circumcision (those are just a few). Along with all that site traffic comes the inevitable nasty, insulting and abusive comments. Whenever this happened (until now), I had to sit and monitor my comments section and delete offensive ones as they were published. It required lots of tedious activity on my part.

[Many may be wondering why I don't make better use of my WP comment moderation settings. All I can say is that I use SpamKarma2, a great anti-spam plugin. But one of its less desirable attributes is that it ignores most WP comment settings including some that would give me greater protection in these instances.]

I longed for an automated way to stop such commenters. There certainly are many ways to approach this: mod_rewrite rules, php scripts, etc. But for various reasons, nothing that I tried really worked. I posted in various forums and got suggestions (along with some heavy dissing) but none were precisely what I wanted. Until, that is, I posted at the HostDime.com forum where Dawzz took pity on me. First, he wrote a script for me. But it didn’t seem to work right (perhaps my fault in installing it). Then after doing more research he suggested Angsuman’s Referrer Bouncer plugin.

I installed it and configured it creating the referers.txt file it asks. I added the names of two domains in the past whose visitors have left trash comments. Then I went to those sites, found the links to my blog and clicked on them. I was immediately bounced right back to the original site and never got to mine.

A WordPress forum member has essentially dismissed this tool’s usefulness by saying that it is only too easy to work around for a dedicated troublemaker. But he misses the point that while you sometimes have energetic blog stalkers or trolls who know technical ways to defeat such defenses, just as often you have somebody who wants to do things the easy way. If he (or she) has to work a little harder to make mischief that’s just fine by me.

One note on installing this plugin: be sure your wp-content folder is set to at least 755, if not 777. If it isn’t, you may get some strange hang behavior when you try to access your blog’s internal or external interface.