Jan 7, 17 / Aqu 07, 01 23:07 UTC

Forum should be FREE of BANNED members  

This forum is not same as other forums over world. If someone is banned then this is equal as censorship. If someone is banned it is same as it stop exist as (future) citizen of Asgardia.

This Forum is our street, our only official public place where only (future) citizens can write and noone else. Do policemen arrest you since you do not speak polite way and judge you at same moment? Does policemen take you freedom to speak forever after once you did do wrong way?

I think we need talk more about this topic and find solutions that will work now, and on future public online places we will have.


  1. We need New Topic marked with blue line free of any restrictions. Every banned member (if exist, and should not exist) should be able to present problem there. Public need to be informed why we lost one member opinion to hear.

  2. Every deleted post / topic as well every edited post / topic should be seen at original version on profile of author of that post (with information what is edited / deleted).

Jan 7, 17 / Aqu 07, 01 23:14 UTC

Hi Valwary,

Thanks for sharing. We are gathering a list of suggestions and ideas from this forum in order to see what options our users would like to see. This is just a basic forum in order to get things running for now. I have forwarded your suggestion.

Jan 8, 17 / Aqu 08, 01 01:40 UTC

Thank you for this copy / paste of mine post. I did not save it and after relocation I just could see that one mine post is not there.

I see this as problem we all need solved it right now. If we do not create solutions now we could have much bigger problems in the future.

Again, I do not know what happened with you, and at this moment is not important. More important is that there should not be banned members since here we are the future citizens and noone should be able to prevent us to share our opinion on public place.

After we write law we will for sure find way how to deal with inappropriate context and what that exactly include. Polite speech vs. impolite should never be issue! Rather as inappropriate context should be speech of hate and discrimination as well as other context that brake one or more rights and freedoms protected by the constitution.

Yes, inappropriate context should be edited. But punish should be left to official court once we have it. This could lead to much more work for admins, but I rather would see a lot of edited or deleted posts then one banned member of Asgardia. In mine opinion, at author profile page everyone who is interested should be able to see original post with highlighting of what is changed.

Jan 8, 17 / Aqu 08, 01 12:12 UTC

No the ability to ban members is definitely something that should remain. Or you will have a much bigger problem in the future.

Banning them from posting in the forum is nothing like stopping existence. It could be potentially used as a tool of censorship, but one must hope they've selected mods that can detach their personal preferences from their official activities, and be able to perform their duties free of bias. Ways and means should be set into place in order to lodge complaints about specifc handlings in order to account for those who feel they have been mis-handled. More important is for the user to fail in giving them cause to become involved.

No, the forum isn't our street. It's a place of association, maybe, but outside of a few random-topic sections it should be reasonably focused. It's more like an office block than a street. Even if it was a street, then that's still not an excuse to allow anything to happen. There's conduct rules applied to the street, too. There's clearly defined previously posted terms of service - and if you don't like them, don't use the service. The freedom to express yourself must be finely balanced with the need to prevent public displays of undesirable behaviours.

Yes, being able to review previous edits and having a "dead thread" section to store the "deleted" materials is a good idea to archive knowledge and prevent the same topic being constantly re-adressed every two months or so. But I'm not so sure about the "rule free zone", and I personally dislike external restrictions of any form, instead favoring self-moderation. The de-restricted area sounds like a problem waiting to happen.

Jan 9, 17 / Aqu 09, 01 00:19 UTC

It should be clear that banning people is not good form, but equally there needs to be some mechanism by which problem posters can be regulated.

I suggest that you have different sections of the forum: people who cause problems can be constrained to specific areas. Thus they are free to post so the issue of censorship is minimised, but ordinary members would not be subject to their rantings unless they choose to be.

Jan 9, 17 / Aqu 09, 01 23:19 UTC

Unfortunately, deletion and edits are commonly tools of censorship. This I feel was the primary concern of the original poster. IMHO Delete isn't something that should happen with computers, unless it's a redundant copy. Data and it's integrity is sacred. That's knowledge - should rack that up. Need more space? clip in another HD. Move it somewhere where it's not problematic by all means, but it's critical it remains in existence and accessible to those who would choose to seek it. In case of abusive posters, it provides for long term evidence that any individual party can review, at any time, and confirm the "correct" deciscion was reached - Such transparencies will help with faith in the moderators themselves, as commonly these are fallible, being entirely composed of the human element of the system. A large archive of decisions that most people will agree with should not do them a dis-service. With the level of fail achieved with regards to some descisions made in getting this far, it's understandable how some would want both a clearly defined level of accountability and further require review of the long term behavoural trends of those utilising elevated privliges. If someone was sane enough to of deployed a ticketing system for handling of "customer services" then this could be leveraged to additionally archive the actual procedings - Who, where, when. what, why -=- An incident log - Mod/admin opens ticket, evidences unto the abusive post, neutralises post from public view if required. Similar behaviour for ban etc. Such would make it incredibly easy to reference specific incidents, or reference groups of incidents. It'd could also at the same time open a channel of communication should the afflicted party feel it was unwarrented wherin they may argue the merits of their case.

Edits are worse. This gives rise to many potential issues. All I've seen so far clearly suggest they have been edited by the mod/admin - But it's actually trivial with that level of auth to edit the content in such a way as to not give an indication. Also, lacking any particular authentication method, there's no particular way to prove it was the claimed user that actually made the problematic post - Currently simply requiring access to hardware once used to login to the service to achieve access, which considering the practices of most users is alarming. The "best" solution I can come up with regarding such is using a system (additional to requiring authentication of the user) like PGP/GPG to sign the post. It'd be "better" in the new/edit post interface presented to the user, but it could be implimented externally/independantly and text with signiture pasted in. Citizens can make available their public keys and if they've kept the private key secure then only they can sign the post so it matches - The public nature of the public key allowing for independant confirm of authenticity. Anything changes, it'll no longer match the key - tampering undeniably evidenced.

When edits are required, by the user themselves or by those with elevated privliges, the unedited post should be still made accessible in unedited form for those who choose to seek it. Such transparencies will elevate trustability of both the moderators and the users alike as well as provide for accurate transcript/ledger.

Another issue I feel was a concern of the original poster is the apparent "finality" of the ban, with no formal appeal or approval process. I understand and respect that within the tending of duty the moderators will be required to act, sometimes with the banhammer, and to remain effective this would require to take place without a formal comittee etc. However, one person's opinion alone should not be enough to impact anothers long term use. Formal procedure should exist for cases where the afflicted are able to address the way the moderator handled the post(IMHO, they shouldn't be stepping in unless there's no other choice, and when forced to be doing so, acting with the minimal power they require to achieves - kind of like the laws of least privliges that cover sane computer use, but applied to moderation. Laws of least privliges suggest a seperate account should be used for moderation purpose, as their personal use doesn't require these privliges - also removing of the requirement to specify if the account is acting in regards to personal or positional capacity - or like the sudo system temporary privliges become granted only for the timeframe in which they are required, and autonomously drop) and as default, any ban action should instigate an investigation into the matter. This should be investigated independantly to the current mod/admin staff to prevent conflicts of interest and personal opinions from generating bias. On finding a ban was appropriate, a timeframe should be determined and where appropriate, scheduled for later review.

Inability to adhere to rules and guidelines isn't an overly desirable trait, I'm sure. However, the founding ethics would dictate that people be afforded the ability to demonstrate they have the capacity to change. If the greater number have problems with following rules, that may suggest a problem with the rules. When it's a few sparsely distributed individuals, then it possibly indicates a problem with the individual. Problems can generally be solved, commonly with logic. Efforts should be made to solve that problem, more than the symptoms it exhibits.

Ability to "work well in groups" is advantagous, but isn't essential. There's plenty of deployment senario where small groups or lone individuals are a more senible option than entire teams. People of that sort of nature can be utilised in these roles. Space is big, thusly when we (eventually) get there, there's more than enough room for everyone.

I personally would fit the model you described precisely. I have absolutely no respect for persons in authority - respect is something earned on an individual nature, not attributed by random third parties on your behalf, and just 'cause someone has standards low enough for you to pass them doesn't mean you immediately supercede my personal model. Which is based on exhibited behaviours commonly - amongst other things. I can work in groups, if I choose. But wherever possible choose not to in order to avoid inevitable interference with the task in hand when someone decides their own personality defects are a higher priority. I've been "in trouble wtih the law" - This doesn't make me an intrinsically "bad person", and honestly in a large number of cases it was some form of petty abuse of the powers granted. Sure, I've done "wrong" things - who hasn't, but nothing warrenting a prison sentence thus far and certainly nothing to cause anyone long term concern or consider ostracisation. I would have my reasons for exhibiting such behaviours, and whilst this does not excuse them it can at least provide for understanding. As for teachers... their lack of education combined with a reduced capacity to think did leave a few at significant disadvantage, and being immature this was regularly exploited for my amusement, in a few cases at the cost of their long term sanity. Just in the name of pedanticism you appear to have an errant apostrophe, btw.

Does any of that mean that I would "not make a good Asgardian" however? I'm willing to wager that everything before the previous paragraph - although you might not of agreed with every word - would of left you with the impression I'm perfectly reasonable, well balanced and demonstrate a capacity to consider and thusly provide potential for productive input.

Jan 21, 17 / Aqu 21, 01 02:57 UTC

  1. The Main point is: censorship should not be tolerated nor allowed within our society.

  2. The Law need to be followed so speech of hate, discrimination (and other that take one or more freedoms and rights away) is punished. Only by law we should control harmful words.

  3. If someone spam then deleted post will be done by admin (since are same or not relevant to topic, but that post should stay on profile of that person, seen to public). Is it right that evidence about one decision is gone?

  4. We do not have information who is banned and for what reason. So theoretically we can know that someone is not here by accident (we did witness exact moment when ban is happened) but more probably we will not even know that there is issue with one or more our members. Is that right path? Should we have no feedback information within our society about offcial actions? By this we start to suppoer that if the Power chooses than it can remove from our reality one Asgardian and that public even does not know that this happened?

  5. Is it right that we do not have the list of banned people? Is it right that we do not know the reasons why they are banned? Is it right that we do not know when ban will be removed or if not then why not?

  6. Also we should know what are our legal opportunities to go against any call made by admin (to whom we can say “I disagree” and provide facts that will support this).


Censorship should not be tolerated nor allowed within our society! We should talk to each other by arguments and know that only argument is relevant rather than power of the position (in this example the "power" to be admin). The law needs deal with harmful actions, including the harmful speech.

Only the law should have power to say who is wanted or not within our society (and probably even the law will not have power to take citizenship away and by that even the law will not have the power to say "he/she is not wanted within Asgardia") .... ... So in mine opinion, any discussion that bring "we want him/her" vs "we do not want him/her" is based on discrimination and subjective opinion and by that it is wrong!!!

  Last edited by:  Tomislava Lovakovic (Asgardian)  on Jan 21, 17 / Aqu 21, 01 09:12 UTC, Total number of edits: 4 times

Jan 23, 17 / Aqu 23, 01 10:05 UTC

Regarding post edits: I disagree with the above suggestion that all edits should be available to everyone. If Mods want to read through edit history, then I have no problems with that. I will frequently edit my posts without any qualms. Perhaps I have mild dyslexia. More important than my countless grammatical errors is the fact that I nearly always try to improve my discourse. Everyone should do this IMHO. When you come back and read what you wrote in 6 months time, you might not understand it you don't edit out the junk. If you can write a perfect word wall, then you are probably a robot.

Jan 23, 17 / Aqu 23, 01 10:08 UTC

My post above contains a (typo) copy/paste type error.

  Last edited by:  Nicholas Wilkinson (Asgardian)  on Jan 23, 17 / Aqu 23, 01 10:09 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time

Jan 23, 17 / Aqu 23, 01 22:06 UTC

Please remain certain that the few banned members are banned for good reasons and have been warned multiple times about their actions.

Moderators are not banning people like that, each banned person, whether here or on facebook, is banned for a good reasons. Screenshots are taken, and send to officials. We keep a track of what happened and we warn other mods as well. It's usually not a decision taken by one alone, and it is peer-reviewed.

Also, banned people are banned from ONE support. You can get banned on the forum but you will still have access to Facebook, until you get banned there as well, if you don't follow the rules.

I agree I would also prefer more transparence regarding this process, so that any Asgardian could see from his very own eyes why X member has been banned and by whom and have an history of previous warnings. But that's not currently technically possible. This forum is a very basic forum, and is still under development.

  Last edited by:  Ambroise Dhenain (Translator, Asgardian)  on Jan 23, 17 / Aqu 23, 01 22:07 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time

Jan 24, 17 / Aqu 24, 01 09:42 UTC

But, as you say, there's no transparency.

 Screenshots are taken, and send to officials. We keep a track of what happened and we warn other mods as well. It's usually not a decision taken by one alone, and it is peer-reviewed.

It unfortunately also contains no form of appeal process, however. Various 'tard "features" - like me powering up this laptop and not having to sign in to post on the forums - result in a state where it's impossible to assure the user is actually authorised, or is in fact the authorised account operator. It assumes I can actually keep my laptop secure. I can, as it happens, but assuming this is most unwise, especially of common users. Most of them use winhoes. And there's dozens of examples like that. Ways in which an account could be used for abuse, not by the account holder. I don't think the people "responsible" here quite understand security. Or a lot of things, actually.

This entire process should also be publicaly accessible, for independant review - I'd like to think it'd generate more cases of agreement with response than disagreement, and thusly provide a measure of trustability to the users, as they can see countless cases being handled appropriately. And that is technically possible, right now. To take the easiest possible option presented, make a new section for, and when act - post. Post can contain links to screenshots evidencing behaviour, as well as the posts themselves. It can contain what the mod/admin did about the instance, and why. It can also feature the "peer review" process. And that's just with the displayed technology, if one could actually be bothered then it's trivial to embed, say collobora or etherpad-light(which could be done in less than 30 mins - assuming you had no clue what you are doing when you start), into a post or page and then there's a whole host of fun to have...

FB isn't a technology that should be promoted - I still have access to FB, true, but being a company with proven hostile intent for data raped from the simpletons that would use it, why would I possibly even visit it let alone allow my browser to execute the 40+ scripts required even to login. Some of us actually understand what we're doing, or not doing in this case, and why. To assume this action wasn't a massive security/privacy risk, then it'd still be unwise to push "internal" affairs through random third parties. There should exist facilities to process grievances, hosted by Asgardia. Again, a ticketing system works well here...

As to the full transparency of previous edits - Leave the "junk" be. Not visible, maybe, but knowing it was once there might be critical in some response to it further in the thread. It also prevents people pulling complete 180° and editing all the previous posts to support the new found point of view. Being able to review the iterations and see only minor typographical corrections increases trustability of the user themselves. It doesn't suggest anything other than someone has spotted a mistake they have made and have attempted to improve themselves. Having such edits visible could potentially assist in others learning from your mistakes also - as making mistakes is one of the most rapid ways to learn, but you still have to know it was a mistake to actually get the learning. I can write a perfect word wall, and some have accused me of being a robot - this is actually quite rare, and most of my editing takes place before I hit post. I'm still gonna have the highest typo correction edit ratio, I'd wager. If you don't understand it in 6 months time, you've gotta question why it was there in the first place...

Jan 24, 17 / Aqu 24, 01 23:22 UTC

Having transparent ban reasons opens it up to witchhunting and mob mentality. Mods would feel pressured to take less action as it was too much hassle, and numbers of those that spam or threaten would increase.

Few people want to moderate the speech of joe public, it is a thankless task. Better to give a couple of people a bit more power than rely on trial-by-committee of random users.

Jan 25, 17 / Aqu 25, 01 07:52 UTC

No, not at all - In what way does having transparency open up for "mob mentality and witchhunting"?

Mods should feel pressured to take less action - they shouldn't be acting unless it's required -=- They should be operating like that anyway, if doing it "right" and attempting to mitigate personal bias from their actions.

I'm not suggesting the general public replace the mods, more that they are able to see the cause and effect. It may be a thankless task, but there's far too many eager to engage in such. It's better to give no power to anyone, than sit it into the hands of a few who would abuse it. Transparency provides the long term evidence of abuse - or lack of.

Jan 26, 17 / Aqu 26, 01 13:07 UTC

There has been mention here about the rules, proper procedure, etc.

Where actually are the rules? What is the procedure? Is there a right to an appeal? Why not?

Jan 27, 17 / Aqu 27, 01 11:51 UTC

https://asgardia.space/en/forum/forum/forum-announcements-10/topic/asgardiaspace-posting-rules-82/

Possibly?

Procedure doesn't appear to be formally defined, or at least made (easily) publicly acessible. There's a few things littered on screwgle docs(lol, professional) I've seen no offical appeal process deployed, beyond "lets be a 'tard and take this to FB".