Markos wrote a diary about DK using flags to replace donuts and applied with different standards.
Sounds like a simple system: The donut is replaced with a flag. The big change is that our community will not be able to see who HR'd (flagged) the comment.
Reading Kos diary and some of the comments, the new flagging system appears to be the "answer" to address long-standing problems with cliques or packs that fight with each other, and send out emails or FB postings to coordinate getting others to donut "enemy" cliques and to address the "pissing war" between individual community members engaged in "dueling" each other nonstop.
DK management view is that "showing who has flagged a comment invites animosity or rivalry, and would make the flagging feature more of an indication of who didn’t like the comment than a moderation tool."
Sounds interesting, but I still have a few objections and so I offer a proposal, underneath the DK orange cruller!
My proposal is simple: Dk admin must know who are members of the cliques or dueling posters who cause the problems. Tell them to work out their own "peace accords" or face timeouts, warnings and banning if don't stop. Or, if the parties can't reach a settlement, then they can't interact with each other on the boards: no comments, no recs, no donuts or flags. Kinda like a DK "restraining order" to prohibit the cliques or duelers from interacting with each other. Put the burden of the remedy on the people creating the mess, which might be small part of our community, and do not impose the burden on our entire community or on DK staff.
I offer this proposal because I strongly believe that the "remedy" should be imposed on the troublemakers, not our community. This flag proposal indirectly burdens our community by removing benefits flowing from knowing who are the HR'ers.
Knowing who HR'd is part of the educational process and part of developing community standards and also part of making our community stronger. For example, if someone posts a comment that is racist or sexist, but it is not obvious that the comment is racist or sexist because it is subtle sexism or racism that people might be uninformed about, knowing who HR'd the comment and the reason for the HR provides that information, and lets both the upraters and the lurkers know that they might need to ask questions of the HR'ers or google to learn more about the specific ism issue.
Also knowing who did the HRs lets us know when donuts posted by a cross section of DK community, telling the readers this is not a pissing war but substantive issue. Seeing that cross-section of community come together for moderation, this helps build community, a few building blocks that can be added to other blocks can make a difference.
And if a respected member of our community HRs a comment/diary, then I am more likely to take the time to figure out what is going on because work limits how much time I can spend at DK. In the past, this then led to informing me about community moderation rules I had forgotten, or did not fully understand, but now there was an example that made it clear.
Seeing a large number of donuts on a comment or diary alone sends a clear message of what is totally unacceptable to the community. That's moderation. It sounds as if under the flag system, we won't know whether a comment gets 5 or 50 flags.
Having this information about people who HR'd/flagged the comment can then be interconnected to who uprated the comment/diary. As Meteor Blades has recognized: "Uprating a comment containing insults is... worse than making the insult in the first place because it encourages others to make insults knowing that some users will reward them. Stop rewarding them." Particularly when it comes to ism issues, the upraters may learn from who are the HR'ers that this is a serious issue for which they need to listen to the voices of the HRers, become educated about the issues, and remove their uprates. The upshot is a more informed, more united community.
I offer this proposal because one key democratic principle is transparency. We blast the GOP when they want to use secrecy over openness with information.
But the DK flagging system would not tell us who HR/flagged the comment. At least not on the flagged box, but the information will be known to the troublemakers because they will be emailing and Facebooking their cliques to toss the HR/flag the comment/diary. So, the information is essentially only not disclosed to our community.
However, our community is likely to obtain that information, but only with some time and effort, and in a manner that would impair the educational and other benefits from knowing just upfront who HR'd/flagged a comment.
The custom and practice of DK is when we HR a comment, post a comment stating why or recommend a comment that provides the grounds for the HR. I expect this to continue with flags, which means people can take the time to figure out by looking at recommends and comments who HR'd. Not direct transparency, but some of the information will be there.
Finally, the name of flags or flagging is at odds with our purposes of donuts for community moderation. "Flagging" is tied to sports metaphors, as in throw a "flag on the play." Teams are competitors fighting each other to win a game, but our community is about being a community, a family, and DK is the only one online.
I'm tired of the negativity created by the cliques and individual "dueling" fights.
But, I think the solution presented to us will impair bringing community together and moderation. And I think the burden of any solution in terms of effort and time and work should be on the troublemakers. Impose the penalty on the violators, not our community. Let the cliques and duelers clean up their own mess.