The Moderation Will Not Be Criticized

Hurrah! We can all now have absolute faith in the moderation at CiF because Matt Seaton says that it looks like its broken - but it will not be mended. So there.

Here is Seaton's comment, which shows to the full the capabilities of his keen analytical mind:

mattseaton

18 Mar 2010, 7:07PM


@ MozP:

Sorry for delay; thanks for your patience. I'm not going to give immediate gratification here, because you referred me to this post:

JayReilly
13 Mar 2010, 12:50PM
As for moderation on fem threads, well, i've had more deletions than hot dinners, most of them overtly partisan. In one post (notable only because they actually explained the deletion to me) i spoke of how elements of feminism care little for "equality" but rather special pleading and rights grabbing for women, to elevate women to superiority without any regard to equality at all. I made the effort to make clear it was elements of feminism i was speaking about, not the whole movement, i cant remember the thread but in the context of the debate it was very measured.
So shocked was I by the deletion of my effort that i emailed for explanation, and got a rare response.
"The comment was removed as the implication that feminists are predominantly concerned with women's superiority over men was considered offensive." (quoted from their email)
Thats political censorship, no ifs and buts. There was no abuse in the comment, nothing off topic, nothing ad-hom, nothing but a view on a political (and very diverse) movement. And they deleted it. Not only is this political, partisan censorship (not "moderation", its censorship) but they actually admitted as much.
Imagine being deleted for implying conservatism was for the rich, or Labour for the rich, or secularism being concerned with X, or liberalism being concerned with Y. Thats political censorship.
There is no other political ideology/movement that is deemed so sacrosanct that non abusive criticism is "offensive".
I have also spent two spells in premod for discussing moderation. Question our censorship and we'll put you in premod. Nice.

The way JayReilly presents it, and makes his counter-argument against the mod's explanation, any impartial reader taking his account at face value would have to agree that the deletion decision looks dubious at best.

But, not that I don't trust JayReilly, but he is the polemicist's polemicist, as we all well know, so I'd need the full picture before pronouncing on the case and finding for or against. I'd need a link to the deletion referred to; to look at the precise content of that deleted comment; to examine the thread context; to discover whether, as the mod who corresponded with JR implies, there were independent abuse reports that led to a modding decision to delete; to see the full explanation from the mod, if JR is quoting only part of it.

Also, JR says his tone was beyond reproach, but he may not be the best judge of that: a reasonable argument can be interpreted as offensive if its language and tone are hostile and angry. Further, threads where the debate is about feminism/equality often have an edge of male anger against perceived feminist bossiness and self-righteousness that many female users find off-putting and borderline misogynist. I'm not suggesting that JR was guilty of that or a perpetrator in that regard; but it is part of the context in which mods have to judge what is offensive or abusive.

I am aware that this may just look like just so much obfuscation and flannelling on my part. But I'm not trying to duck the issue or be defensive. If you or JR will send me the link I need so I can locate that specific thread and deletion, I will follow through. And I don't rule out the possibility that our modding was trigger-happy on this occasion. I would never say it never happens, so if I'm directed to a specific instance where we got it wrong, then I'll hold up my hand and admit it.

But please understand that one such admission would not amount to a concession that the entire system is biased, arbitrary and effectively broken. That's not where we're headed with this, so please don't imagine otherwise.

Even on a thread which is conveniently derelict and dead, someone's keen sense of smell sniffs a stink.

Triffid100

19 Mar 2010, 11:12AM

Matt Seaton said:

But please understand that one such admission would not amount to a concession that the entire system is biased, arbitrary and effectively broken. That's not where we're headed with this, so please don't imagine otherwise

I'm a bit confused by this.

if we look at what has happened it's all started as many, many posters say they are unhappy with the moderation policy.
Matt S believes fundamentally that everything is in order. He agrees to review one case.
Superficially looking at the case it appears to be censorship by the moderators due to their own political beliefs.
Matt acknowledges it looks bad but says he needs more details - fair enough.

However, he then says even if it's proven to be censorship it's just a one-off because everything is wonderful. QED

Matt - seriously. How do you want posters to say to you that the moderation policy is being affected by political censorship? You refuse to investigate in case you find you have an issue. Considering the importance of this - it's to the core of free speech - I think the majority of people have been polite and calm.

So, what exactly would you like posters to do ?

It would seem that the problem might be that CiF is so used to deleting things which it just doesn't like and censoring opinions which do not match the ideology of the site that it never crossed the collective mind, throbbing in CiF Towers, that once this can of worms was spilled over the pages for all to see, it could not just be made to disappear as if by magic.

Still, no doubt the line of defence trotted out by Seaton will be accepted by everyone in the end:

You have proved that moderation on The Guardian's flagship internet site, CiF may be arbitrary, malicious, ideologically and politically motivated, completely disconnected from the stated community guidelines and possibly employed by moderators to pursue their own personal agendas - but we can promise that we are not going to do anything about it whatsoever.

Three cheers for Seaton for once again showing the brainlessness which seems to be a condition of employment by CiF and the monumental disregard and contempt CiF has for all those BTL who provide daily deluges of free content, without which Guardian Media Group would be losing even more money.

Hurr...

Matt Seaton: Moderators Cannot Be Wrong

Matt Seaton declares that there can be nothing wrong with the moderation on CiF, for the simple reason that the moderators are exemplary in everything and not to be questioned. 

"...I'm not willing to debate alleged political bias on the part of moderators, because their political impartiality is simply a given." 

We can all sleep soundly now we know that there is nothing wrong with moderation - because the people who do it are perfect.

Ahh, bless!

The Seaton comment:

@ MozP:

OK, how about unaccountable, politically motivated and inconsistent with anything in the Community Guidelines.

Why won't you debate this topic? Why won't you discuss individual complaints. Why is the moderators@ email address pretty much ignored? Why are you so scared to address the issue? Both you and Georgina run away as soon as the issue is mentioned. Stop it. Do your sodding job properly.

Hi MozP. Can I ask you something: would you speak to someone face to face in that fashion if you want them to do something?

Putting that aside, the general point is that I'm not willing to debate alleged political bias on the part of moderators, because their political impartiality is simply a given. It would be a disciplinary matter if a moderator was acting on a partisan ideological basis. And that would be incredibly stupid, too, because it would be rankly obvious within the first 15 minutes.

As for individual complaints, I assume you mean over deleted posts. This is where we all have to be realistic: this site generates thousands of comments every day. Moderators are having to make hundreds of judgments about deletions every shift. They are under considerable pressure. Is their judgment flawless in every case? It can't be. But neither will it be grossly wrong; and looked at in aggregate, over time, it will be fair and reasonable. We invite appeals by email, and guarantee that all are read, but the sheer scale of the enterprise means that there cannot be a judicial process for every deleted comment as of right for users. My general advice is if you get a comment deleted, you probably have a good idea why, so move on.

But you know what? Since I'm here adddressing this now, why don't you give me a specific instance and I'll look into it? That's a one-off offer for this day only. Tomorrow, I'm going to run away again and hide behind the moderators.

Steve Hill Sees CiF's Future

SteveHill has this to say about the moderation policy on CiF, which seems to be getting more infamous by the moment.

stevehill

16 Mar 2010, 6:02PM

Georgina

stevehill: of course it doesn't say that in the community standards, and of course LS wouldn't have been moderated for disagreeing with the writer - every day, on hundreds of threads, people are disagreeing with AT writers on Cif. It's how you say it.

Georgina: I've queried three moderation decisions in the last few weeks where I know I have breached no community standards, and my only crime has been to take a contrarian view to somebody else. And maybe that someone has been more "politically correct".

None of my emails ever received anything but an automated "we're all very busy we'll get round to you" response, but look them up if you wish (I assume you can).

I am forced to the conclusion that the faceless moderators are superimposing personal agendas onto their work and are not acting impartially but are effectively taking sides in arguments.

If you think what is happening is wholly in accordance with community standards, then the standards themselves are an ass.

CiF is treating not just Lord S, but the entire community, with contempt. The respect for "free" speech is just risible: the very name CiF is considered by many to be wholly satirical.

And there's only one way your organisation is headed once you become widely known for treating your own forum members contemptuously.

Monsieur le Jongleur Banned

I had resigned from CiF but noticed that both MontanaWildhack and 13thDukeofWybourne had popped back to make a parting shot after the WADDYA thread had descended into a type of striptease tableau in which the editors and moderators finally stood around in the nakedness of their own idiocy.

I was going to post what follows, but found that I have now been banned. So I couldn't.

Since both 13thDukeofWybourne and MontanaWildhack have come back to make comments about the circus which CiF has become, I will allow myself the same privilege.

The point is that it is now clear for everyone to see that the moderation exercised in practice has no relationship to the stated policy.

It is also clear that there is an ideological stance which is maintained by deleting and censoring anyone who does not toe the line.

There may be enough people who will keep commenting on CiF who are not bothered about principles - or as flexible about how one principle can be subverted to accommodate another - as the editorial and moderation teams.

Perhaps, though, this episode will make some of the people who thought that others who made an issue of moderation were simply grizzling because they had been deleted (fairly, of course, in their eyes) wonder whether a site which would proclaim the value of freedom of speech in one breath while gagging those who seek to exercise it in another is really something of which to be a part.

I do not want to be soiled by being associated with a site like this or with people who cannot see the squalor of the moral quagmire into which they jump when they give it tacit approval by fostering it and aiding and abetting its filthy intentions.

If there is a full, open and honest debate which allows the people below the line who contribute free content to discuss how moderation and ideology should operate, I will reconsider this matter.

Otherwise, I want no part of a site which can so proudly and idiotically parade its moral slovenliness and contempt for its users.

13th Duke of Wybourne Smoking Gun

Another page in the CiF catalogue of failure. This on The Untrusted from 13thDukeofWybourne:

I just received an email from cif moderation saying the reason my comment was modded from the QT thread last week was because (quote):

"It seems likely that the comment was removed as it was considered offensive in the context of the thread."

Two things stand out here:

1. The word "likely"- which means that there is no communication between mods and those emailing posters that have a modding complaint. The left hand mod does not know what the right hand mod is doing. Clearly there is no proper modding procedure.


2. Political- if my comment was removed as is "likely" as it was "deemed offensive", it is quite clear here that we have censorious, political modding on certain threads which again is against the modding guidelines.

If anyone saw my original comment, no-one could be offended by it, except for the most fundamentalist radfem. Which makes me suspicious that certain threads have specialist mods.

If the person emailing me doesn't know why I was modded the whole modding procedure is a sham.

And if LordS has been banned- complete shambles.
16 March, 2010 09:30

Lord Summerisle Banned from CiF

This posted on The Untrusted, but no doubt there will be more in due course.

Lord Summerisle said...

Hi all. I can't hang around long as I'm at work and this site can be problematic. I just wanted to tell you that the mods, in their infinite and most glorious wisdom, have banned me. That's all I have to say for now.

16 March, 2010 09:04

This is shaping up to be a glorious 4th birthday for CiF.

JayReilly and the Smoking CiF Censorship Gun

JayReilly posts this over on The Guardian's Comment is Free Waddya thread. It pretty much confirms what we have all known for a very long time: The Guardian employs censorship to control the message it broadcasts from its supposedly free and open blogs and comment sections.

Interesting debate. Smellthecofee - when was it exactly the UT lynch mob came for you? I dont recall it, not doubting your heroics would just be interested to read the details. I dont think i've ever been rude to you before at all. Which misogynists are you referring to? The UT is i think actually mostly female posters, 100% of whom are feminists.

Very sad news, the Duke's passing. He is also leaving the country soon, and has just written an excellent piece at the UT on Adam Smith. Since he is leaving CiF and the country and is a very widely liked poster here maybe the Graun could publish his article here (its better than most of the stuff published here anyway).

As for moderation on fem threads, well, i've had more deletions than hot dinners, most of them overtly partisan. In one post (notable only because they actually explained the deletion to me) i spoke of how elements of feminism care little for "equality" but rather special pleading and rights grabbing for women, to elevate women to superiority without any regard to equality at all. I made the effort to make clear it was elements of feminism i was speaking about, not the whole movement, i cant remember the thread but in the context of the debate it was very measured.

So shocked was I by the deletion of my effort that i emailed for explanation, and got a rare response.

"The comment was removed as the implication that feminists are predominantly concerned with women's superiority over men was considered offensive." (quoted from their email)

Thats political censorship, no ifs and buts. There was no abuse in the comment, nothing off topic, nothing ad-hom, nothing but a view on a political (and very diverse) movement. And they deleted it. Not only is this political, partisan censorship (not "moderation", its censorship) but they actually admitted as much.

Imagine being deleted for implying conservatism was for the rich, or Labour for the rich, or secularism being concerned with X, or liberalism being concerned with Y. Thats political censorship.

There is no other political ideology/movement that is deemed so sacrosanct that non abusive criticism is "offensive".

I have also spent two spells in premod for discussing moderation. Question our censorship and we'll put you in premod. Nice.

Atomboy's Resignation Letter

It seems that various people are abandoning the good sinking CiF ship.

I had certainly not intended to come back here to comment and am doing so now simply to add my name to the list, along with 13thDukeofWybourne (noted by chekhov) and MontanaWildhack.

There may be others but I think chekhov is right about Wybourne - although it is his choice entirely and we may both be wrong - and Montana has made her own declaration.

When we had the great moderation debate around the banning of JayReilly and many others, I felt that we were allowed to speak and then told what we were going to get.

We have had a number of people recently questioning the vast discrepancy between the stated moderation policy and the way it is actually seen to operate. There are many people who seem to think this is just sour grapes or sporadic fits of pique and not a matter of principle which is central to how a site like this operates. That is their choice or their lack of perception and they are welcome to whatever positions they occupy.

Georgina recently wrote a piece celebrating CiF's forth birthday. Perhaps those of us who brought up the moderation question were simply regarded as churlish and bad-mannered spoilsports to ruin the party, but the question was raised and again left unanswered.

As long as the moderation remains inconsistent, apparently malicious, apparently operating to an agenda outside the stated community guidelines, apparently motivated by each moderator's own prejudices and feuds and as long as this apparently officially sanctioned hidden set of rules operate as a form of censorship and crowd-control, why would anyone want to be part of CiF?

During the moderation debate mentioned above, many people, including MrPikeBishop said that they regarded CiF as a community. MrPikeBishop said that he regarded many of his fellow posters as friends. The official line tended to seem to want to play that down.

A community is more able to be flexible and accommodating to foibles and mishaps and allowing its members to stray from the accepted line. If CiF is not that, it is simply some kind of moderately open forum for debate and it will only have credibility if it can be seen to be operating to guidelines which are both acceptable and consistent. It is failing to do that.

Whether or not you like the editorial style or the people chosen to write or the apparent use of the site as a propaganda machine or sounding-board by politicians are all separate issues.

At the moment, CiF seems to be like an incompetent parent. It wants to be firm and consistent, but by the time it has been on the bottle for half the day and is becoming frazzled, bedraggled and at its paranoid wits' end, it simply lashes out and keeps forever proving itself unable to master the task.

Anyone who chooses to walk away from CiF knows very well that they will not leave a ripple and will not really be missed.

You simply get to the stage where you also know that you will really not miss CiF.

So, given the context of the other farewell letters and news above, this is me signing off and walking away, in all my various and mutating instars and avatars.

Atomboy

The Power of One

A comment on Georgina Henry's announcement that the world should celebrate the unadulterated wonderfulness of CiF.

GeorginaHenry

"So the least worst option is to keep comments open but remove those that breach the talk policy."

This would be all well and good were it true.

The fact is that we all see comments being deleted which we know have contravened nothing and would not upset the composure of an elderly maiden aunt.

What we seem to see is moderators operating without control to their own agenda and personal prejudices.

If you think that enhances the user experience and engenders loyalty and increases the credibility of The Guardian, all well and good.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with being in a minority of one.

Celebrate CiF's Fourth Birthday

Georgina Henry, the Executive Comment Editor (apparently) at The Guardian asked us all to join in the celebrations for CiF achieving the grand old age of four.

"Comment is free celebrates its fourth birthday next week, which in internet years is practically geriatric", she said.

Amongst all the non-existent party food and fizzy drinks, there was a sour note, however.

Speedkermit had this to say, first quoting Henry's lopsided view:

Bit by bit, this is helping us build a community that spends less time discussing our commissioning flaws and moderation practices and more time contributing positively.

That's very dismissive of genuine grievances. It also betrays the sad-assed truth that what counts as 'contributing positively' on CiF is whatever the moderators say it is on any given day. The most damaging aspect of this policy is that when you invite commentators such as Alistair Campbell, Peter Mandelson or David Cameron to write disingenuous electioneering pieces - with the inevitable result that they are met with a barrage of vitriolic abuse - that you feel obliged to censor the bile according to your own subjective preferences and give the appearance of being insufferably partisan. It doesn't do you any favours at all. At the risk of being moderated, the moderation policy on this site is a farce. Sorry I can't be more 'positive'.

---------

It seems that some people just cannot help spoiling a party, even when the whole point of the party is to pretend to the world that there is nothing wrong.

Sian Anderson

The Comment is Free (CiF) moderators are at it again.

Someone called Sian Anderson has published an article which basically says that young people are too thick, too lazy and too uninterested to read anything longer than about five words in connection with politics, so how can politicians (whose fault it is for making politics so boring and uncool and woevah) blame young people for not voting.

Within minutes, various Guardian staff are called in to provide backup and take the flak.

Moments later, the moderators arrive, culling anything which highlights the idiocy of the writer and the piece.

I wrote a comment which asked about Galileo and the need for free speech and its connection with political oppression.

It was deleted before the page had fully loaded after posting it.

Now that is super efficient.

Have written to:

alan.rusbridger@guardian.co.uk
matt.seaton@gurdian.co.uk
cif.moderation@guardian.co.uk

The Guardian and CiF are looking increasingly pathetic by the day.

If you have to rely upon aggressive censorship to maintain order, you have lost control.

The Dark Lord Ashcroft

It used to be that Peter Mandelson, after he had been draped with ermine, was called The Dark Lord, after Voldemort from the Harry Potter books.

Now, it seems, Michael Ashcroft - Lord Ashcroft of Tax Avoidance - cannot be mentioned on CiF.

Perhaps the fear is that some of his magic will rub off and he will become too poor to pay for marginal seats at the election.

This was deleted from CiF on Prem Sikka's thread about Ashcroft:

Lord Ashcroft casts a long shadow on the next general election. According to the information released by the Electoral Commission, he has donated over £5m to the Conservative party and its associations. A large proportion of this money is targeted at marginal seats in order to swing the election for the Conservatives.

Yes, which makes it somewhat baffling that the moderators on CiF were so assiduous over the weekend in deleting and disappearing any posts which even mentioned his name.

It was not as if the question of his tax status was not being explored by other publications nor has it been the case that The Guardian has broken any news on this.

Just as dodgy as billionaire non-doms bankrolling the Tory party and buying seats is the question of why CiF stifles debate.

Or are the moderators a law unto themselves and see a familiarity with Ashcroft, who clearly feels that he has no need to comply with the ethical standards David Cameron was so keen to espouse only the other day?

What is the right thing to do? Our problem today is that too often, too many people just don't ask that simple question. Instead they ask: "What do I feel like doing?" At the heart of the breakdown of trust in society is a breakdown of personal responsibility.

Clearly, if you are rich, it is just a question of:

Nah, I don't feel like paying tax, so bugger the ethics, I'll keep me money in me pocket, innit.

Nice people to vote for, obviously.

Or not.

................

After that post was deleted, I thought it would be worth simply quoting from The Guardian itself, to test whether the mention of Ashcroft and the Tories buying marginal seats was the issue.

How about trying to simply repeat the words of Justice Secretary Jack Straw, quoted by The Guardian and prefaced with a note that the moderators would have no need to delete something which they had already cleared for take-off and publication.

Jack Straw, the justice secretary, said today: "He was only granted his peerage on the basis he would return to live in the UK, become fully resident, and pay tax in the UK on his wider income.

"Lord Ashcroft has been forced to admit that he has not complied with this promise and that for the last 10 years the Conservatives have been concealing the truth. Instead of paying tax in the UK on all his earned income, he has been channelling millions into the Conservative party to help them buy this election."

So, what is terrorising the might Guardian in that comment?

Perhaps it is simply that we are no longer allowed to question the wisdom of the moderators.

CiF Moderation Watch

For those who think that the moderation at The Guardian's Comment is Free has a tendency to lurch and veer from its stated policies and guidelines and enter into the byzantine territory of arbitrary, malicious, politically motivated, mindless, haphazard and personal, this is the place for you.

Don't just sit there and take it.

Copy threads which you think are going to end up looking like a bombed-out wasteland after the moderators have wielded their deletion button and put them up here when you see that CiF moderation is nothing like it pretends to be.