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Regarding the moderation of threads, especially ones with religious content.

Discussion in 'Off-topic Discussion' started by sparkywantsnoPMO, Jul 8, 2020.

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  1. sparkywantsnoPMO

    sparkywantsnoPMO NoFap Moderator & Yeoman

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    There have been a series of users recently who have been upset that their posts have been moved, edited, or deleted. What these posts have in common is their inclusion of religious discussion.


    Let us begin with the most important point: The purpose of NoFap is to foster a community that helps each other reboot from Pornography use. That’s it. It’s not here to debate political opinions, proselytize for a religion, or attack people’s faith. A person suffering from an addiction is in a weakened state. They need help and support where they are. A faith or secular system they currently possess can and should be a tool they use to aid in recovery. This is not the time to convince them their beliefs are wrong. Anyone recovering must learn for themselves to find their path.


    This is the reasoning behind our rule:

    The NoFap Moderation Team as a whole isn’t Christian, or Athiest, or any other specific faith. We are a diverse team with a mix of beliefs. NoFap’s goal on the main forum sections is to provide information any user from any faith can use. When it comes to religious content, we do require them to exist in the religious sections. This both separates the information for those not interested, and makes it easier for those who are interested to find it. It should also be pointed out that the moderation team organizing content is not limited to religious content; dozens of threads are moved weekly for all types of reasons. A common criticism is that a user would rather have their post where they wanted instead of where the forum guidelines dictate, usually because of perceived visibility. Let us repeat: The purpose of NoFap is to foster a community that helps each other reboot from Pornography use. It is not to give your post maximum visibility. Placing it in the wrong section makes it harder to find content.

    Users who have posts moved, edited, or deleted sometimes complain that they believe a moderator is singling them out or is biased against them. The NoFap moderation team wants to assure you our internal process defends against this. First, please note we are a global and volunteer team. Each of us contributes as our life allows. The forum software is setup for one moderator to closeout a report. When a user receives a warning from a single moderator, that does not mean they were the only moderator involved, only that they are the one with time to complete the action. On each report, the entire team has the opportunity to provide input and discuss. This is not to say every report ends in unanimous agreement, but we do take our responsibilities seriously, we always strive to act in accordance with the forum rules, and we take action based on a majority opinion, similar to the way a panel of court judges may function. When a user requests an appeal, we discuss it again, and determine if we missed anything. If we did, we reverse it. On a final note, if a moderator believes they cannot be objective on a report, whether it is because of personal interactions with one of the users, personal belief conflicts, or some other reason, they recuse themselves from the decision. All of this happens before moderation occurs.

    Users may complain that they feel their freedom of speech is prohibited. First note that freedom of speech provisions are in place to restrain governments from restricting speech. They do not restrain private organizations from determining what content they want on their websites. The forum rules are discussed and revised annually, yet they will always support the site’s mission: The purpose of NoFap is to foster a community that helps each other reboot from Pornography use. Users that choose to act contrary to the rules, and therefore contrary to NoFap’s purpose, are warned, and if they refuse to change their behavior, may be banned from the site. Second, moving a thread to a specific section of the site is not removing someone’s speech. It is properly categorizing it, the same way a librarian categorizes books by content.

    On a final, more personal note, the moderators that I have worked alongside these past years are both good people, and humans like the rest of us. There are days we may disagree emphatically, but we all hear each other out, we value each other’s experiences and backgrounds that we bring to the table, and we are able to bring reasoned moderation decisions consistently. We don’t expect everyone to agree with every decision we make. And every decision has to be balanced with the amount of context available, that is what is occurring in reported post, the posts that were replied to, that page, that thread, and that user. Every moderation decision is a judgment call on how deep we should research to get a decision, compared with how much time life will spare us. This is why some decisions take longer than you may like, and why others may not turn out the way the you expect. But I can personally promise you that the moderators involved did take time to review, consider, and comment before it resolved.

    It is my hope this post provides some background and insight to all of you. Thank you for your time.

    Very Respectfully,
    SparkywantsnoPMO
    NoFap Moderation Team
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2020
  2. Source: https://nofap.com/about/

    I agree that religion is an acceptable way to approach rebooting on this website, and I have no problems with users describing their religious views. Prescribing those views for other people does not belong on the main forums, as has been adequately expressed in this post.

    To play devil's advocate (no pun intended), I think the reason that many people complain about threads being moved is because finding the subforums which allow these kinds of religious/political discussions is not intuitive, and it takes far too many clicks to access them. Maybe some quality of life improvements to the website's layout would be effective in reducing these grievances.

    And of course I never post anywhere on this site without nitpicking, so here:
    Just to be clear, this phrasing makes it seem like you are categorizing atheism as a faith, which is isn't.
     
  3. It would be a win-win if they made new titles in the main section to make them visible, so if you had a problem with or just weren't into politics or religion you wouldn't have to click them. Or if not in the main area then if possible make subsections in the Off-Topic area.

    [​IMG]

    I hate politics but if there was something worth commenting on I probably would, except I can't find it anywhere and nor is it easy to get to. Regardless, it would stop people from complaining as there would be a place for those things as opposed to now.
     
  4. Thanks for taking the time to give us such a thorough clarification, Sparky.
     
    sparkywantsnoPMO and !mkj! like this.
  5. PerseveranceToday

    PerseveranceToday Fapstronaut

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    If I remember rightly, politics used to be a subforum here. It got moved to it's own group later on. All that really led to was political chatter bleeding into the main off-topic board, because few people knew where to find the new politics group buried in a sea of menus. Not the best idea in my opinion
     
    Sarah-Walker likes this.
  6. It seems that people including guys who definitely know about the ban ignore it and continue to spam OT with politics/religion garbage. Maybe it's time to start handing out some punishments?
     
  7. @sparkywantsnoPMO Is anyone moderating threads right now? I have seen some pretty horrendous rule violations in the past few days and I haven't seen any actions from the mod team.
     
  8. Have you been reporting them? They get to it faster if you report it with an explanation on what the problem is.
     
  9. Yeah, and that's why I'm a little worried. I wish there were more people to help clean the site up. Hell I'd do it for free.
     
  10. I catch a lot of things on here and if I had more time I would certainly sign up and help out around here, but the requirements are pretty steep though understandable.
     
    !mkj!, vxlccm and Deleted Account like this.
  11. I too feel bad when I got to know about @Beamer that he was leaving this site... on a personal note, it was just one of the worst thing I see on the website the way he and his duty was being judged... I can't claim for every moderator but yeah for all the moderator I have come across on this website they are just polite and kind and they address every issue...
    I still remember one incident when one of the moderators on this website uses a single word that I don't find appropriate and when I raise the issue yeah he accepts that selection of words was to be more good on his side and he apologizes for that word unconditionally...
    We should respect each other faith but also we should respect the duty of people... this website has still not full fledge artificial intelligence for monitoring so yeah every post needs to be manually monitored by moderators so we should accept that if we make mistake so maybe at some point moderators also make... there is no need to go so harsh on them.. they are here to help us only instead of judging them we should appreciate their work...
    at the last of day, before judging other's work we should judge ourselves that are we doing the right thing by putting our post in the wrong section so to just make it reach maximum people...
     
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  14. Aye, from what I was told they can only tag posts and communicate through an app about problems. I don't think they can even lock posts, though that kinda makes sense, you don't want some random person going on a troll spree. :emoji_disappointed_relieved:
     
  15. sparkywantsnoPMO

    sparkywantsnoPMO NoFap Moderator & Yeoman

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    There are moderators available. Reports are being handled as time permits. Thank you for the concern, however.
     
  16. Barnabas77

    Barnabas77 Fapstronaut

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    I figure for context I will mention that I am a pastor in the Christian faith, I am also a recovering addict. Because I am anonymous here I have no problem saying that I attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and I have absolutely no problem keeping religion neutral in recovery circles for a myriad of reasons. The first goes to a bolded point, NoFap is here to help people heal from pornography addiction, so its not a place to proselytize or stigmatize anyone's religious understandings. In my reboot journal I bring up God a lot because its my journal and I firmly believe in God, but I also don't go around on the forum boards trying to get other people to believe in God because its counter productive to the mission of NoFap. It has been my experience that recovery circles work better when they are kept faith neutral. If you want to learn about God or faith systems there are plenty of ways to find deeper understandings that are as simple as sending someone a personal message. So before I start rambling I think that it is wise for the moderators to monitor and keep forums on topic. I also just came back yesterday after a 7 month break so Im not sure my opinion holds a lot of weight but here it is.
     
  17. !mkj!

    !mkj! Fapstronaut

    Brother FellatiousD, stop and think. If Atheism is not based on faith, where is the empirical evidence that God does not exist. If none can be presented then those who believe there is no God are choosing to believe it with no proof. Perhaps it might not be classified anywhere as a faith, but it is a faith that God does not exist.
     
  18. sparkywantsnoPMO

    sparkywantsnoPMO NoFap Moderator & Yeoman

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    All,

    If you wish to have a conversation on Theism, please continue it in the Interreligious group.

    Very Respectfully,
    SparkywantsnoPMO
    NoFap Moderation Team
     
  19. !mkj!

    !mkj! Fapstronaut

    Thank you for the reminder, Sparky.
     
    DudeAlex and sparkywantsnoPMO like this.
  20. People who have encountered faith very recently are religiously very immature. You want to hold every one and let them know how wrong their faith is, while you have not practised your faith properly for even one whole year straight ( that is why you are here ! Isn't it?) . How can you be the ambassador of things you don't practise yourselves. No hard feelings. I'm just trying to make you realise something.
     
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