Inkbunny

Yes. I am not saying true abuse should happen or be allowed . However the Same could be said for allowing people to be the victim all the time. There are some good neurological studies about the brain and its ability to recover from trauma if left to its own devices. Instead the concept of being the victim is constantly reinforced and people are not allowed to recover gain strength and move on.

The same goes for conflict resolution skills a creeping cancer has been growing in society to never let kids see parents fight. The kids know when something is wrong, and by denying them the opportunity to view it and learn they lose the ability to develop the resolutions skill. There are some very interesting studies on this.

That treaty was very well written btw :P *Presades in honor of your skill*

kiwakiwa

3 years, 7 months ago

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wow... totally expect this to have 0 effect on... anything x3

Soulfire

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ kiwakiwa

yup gotta fight the good fight tho

kiwakiwa

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ Soulfire

oh totally... and it is marvelously written... not complaining... just.. knowing the admins... ehhhhhhhhhhhh...

Soulfire

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ kiwakiwa

agreed! however some may be inspired to stand up and have the debate. Some may read and become impassioned . One can only hope. The silent majority is just that .

kiwakiwa

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ Soulfire

oh.. just to .. clarify.. i do agree with what is written in the above textwall x3

WolfHog96

3 years, 7 months ago

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I wholeheartedly agree with what you have said here, just hope that the IB staff take some notes from it and can thus improve how they operate.

GreenPika

3 years, 7 months ago

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so you're saying the bullies with big mouths usually get their way. What else is new.

journal tagging=YUSH. I wish we had this.

using the blocking system instead of the mods=yes. I am all for this.

the best moderation system is one of self moderation through incentive and good site design. With the right adjustments to the system, MOST of the moderating work would be self accomplished. IB has a great tagging and blocking system. IMO, if the system required better, more detailed tagging before your work or journal was able to be visible, it would save ALOT of problems.

Wolfblade

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ GreenPika

"	SpaceCat wrote:
	the best moderation system is one of self moderation through incentive and good site design. With the right adjustments to the system, MOST of the moderating work would be self accomplished.

That's precisely why it exists as it does. That was the intent, that was the point.

When I insisted on all that to Jery as he was putting the site together, my failure was in thinking this was all self-evident. I should have also insisted that he make the apparently-not-obvious-enough point clearly written staff-side, too.

Users have the tools to be told to handle it for themselves, and left to do so - no mods need to do jack shit unless the problem can't be solved by users simply being adults and using the tools available to them. There's nothing the system or tools can do to stop a moderator who just WANTS to find some excuse to sling their mod-stick around, and takes it upon themselves to start dishing out judgment instead of just telling users "if you're bothered by this person, push the thoughtfully supplied 'remove them from my sight' button," and then the mod be done with it.

Petty tyrants just want to wield power, and will find excuses to do so. They'll also see any criticism of them for such as just being other like-minded tyrants who just want control in their stead. Even if those others rarely even say anything.

GreenPika

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ Wolfblade

though it should be fixed so the mods can't go about abusing their power, I seriously doubt such a fix would be made at this point.

Wolfblade

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ GreenPika

There's not really anything to be done. The people who'd need to recognize the logic here, simply can't.

GreenPika

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ Wolfblade

that's why, sadly, if you don't make a site correctly the first time, it's bound to fall to mod problems after a while. all rules need to be very well thought out, set in stone and very clearly stated. if there's any room for loopholes or interpretation, you will have problems eventually. :/

CodyFox

3 years, 7 months ago

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Your treatise all hinges upon an assumption that moderators are mere mindless tools of the loudest complainer, not intelligent individuals who are able to independently decide if violations have occurred. Without your assumption, the whole thing falls apart. Likewise, under your reasoning, any figure granted the power to enforce social rules and regulations would similarly be considered as a mindless tool.

A society based on your theory wouldn't even have a developed system of justice or a representational structure. Judges, juries and elected representatives would all be considered as mere mindless tools swayed by the whims of the loudest complainer. Instead, citizens would settle all disputes by their own hands and weapons. Anarchy would ensue.

TLDR - as long as moderators are empowered to enforce social norms on the site, you won't be satisfied. You don't believe they are acting upon their independent judgment to protect the site's values. You want a more anarchic site where warring conflict among members becomes more normalized, rather than tamped down, because you see that as a form of freedom. However, that's not the type of freedom that I think Inkbunny was made to promote. We already have the freedom we want.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

Thank you for your comments.

"	CodyFox wrote:
	Your treatise all hinges upon an assumption that moderators are mere mindless tools of the loudest complainer, not intelligent individuals who are able to independently decide if violations have occurred.

Not so. The inherent limits of moderator attention is one of the central points of the whole text. The document assumes moderators acting in good faith and performing their duties well. Being able to direct moderator attention is a tool that can be used to enforce a person's subjective values on others. This is true even in the event that the moderator agrees with the reporting user, because without the report, the interaction being reported may never have been seen by the moderator. I make this point very clearly in the text.

TLDR - as long as moderators are empowered to enforce social norms on the site, you won't be satisfied. You don't believe they are acting upon their independent judgment to protect the site's values. You want a more anarchic site where warring conflict among members becomes more normalized, rather than tamped down, because you see that as a form of freedom. However, that's not the type of freedom that I think Inkbunny was made to promote. We already have the freedom we want.

Please do not claim to know what I do or do not think, believe, or want. You are not a mind reader.

CodyFox

3 years, 7 months ago

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If someone is improperly directing moderator attention, then they are an annoyance and I think the moderators have tools to handle that. If someone is properly directing moderator attention, then they are a valuable asset to the site. There's no use in taking issue with the fact that the second group of people exist or that they have impact on overall moderation. The same could be said for the police. If no one called 911, the police wouldn't become aware of a significant portion of crimes that occur. People would be more free to commit crimes. However, that is not a type of freedom that we value as a society.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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To reiterate from the text, my argument hinges on cases where the rules in question must be given subjective interpretation.

When the case rests on a subjective assessment such that one member may find something objectionable, but another doesn't, then the first member is able to enforce their values on the other. It is not only that the reported member is punished, but all other members who do not share the values of the first member are also punished by having their choice to see the subjectively-offending content forbidden from them. This implicitly empowers one set of members over all other sets in a way contrary to the site's philosophy.

"	The same could be said for the police.

Except that when police enforce laws in an arbitrary way, we consider it an injustice. Laws that are written requiring subjective interpretation are generally considered bad laws because they then become tools tyrants can use to oppress anyone they dislike, by merely adjusting their momentary interpretation to allow them to wield power as they desire. My logic in the treatise would apply equally to such laws and the calling of police.

I was very clear about what rules the treatise is addressing, and that the effects of moderator action are not inherently bad, since when they are the result of objective rules there is little to no slack in interpretation.

CodyFox

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

Every action taken by the police involves a subjective analysis, by an individual officer. They are not automatons. In the U.S., the very act of temporarily detaining someone without arresting them requires a "reasonable suspicion of criminal activity." Formally placing someone under arrest requires "probable cause," which means "a reasonable amount of suspicion, supported by circumstances sufficiently strong to justify a prudent and cautious person's belief that certain facts are probably true." Every time an officer fires a gun, they are acting on their subjective belief of imminent danger. I honestly don't see how you could realistically think they are doing anything objective.

As I said before, beyond that you have judges and juries. All rely on subjectivity. Which witness is telling the truth? Which one is lying? Do a set of facts lead them to believe conclusion A or conclusion B? Is the defense credible or not? How severely should someone be punished? Is someone innocent or guilty? It's all based on subjective analysis.

The concept of objective truth is nearly non-existent when it comes to man-made laws, justice and social norms. Expecting cyborg-like objectivity from moderators is not in any way realistic or workable. There will always be subjectivity in a moderation system. Demanding that all rules enforcement with a subjective element be halted is the same as demanding that there be no enforcement, (i.e. anarchy) as I outlined above.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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"	CodyFox wrote:
	It's all based on subjective analysis.

All human perception is subjective, yes. You can run down that thread all you like, but it will remain a dodge.

When it comes to the Rule of Law, objectivity is the ideal to strive for. The entire reason we have the system we do in, for example, the United States, is because we acknowledge that perception is subjective, and this subjectivity can result in arbitrary punishment without strong checks. The very idea of the Rule of Law is that the law is the highest authority. It aims to be as objective as we can manage. When laws involve inherent subjectivity, we rely on case law to more strongly define the interpretations. The direction is always towards a more objective defined standard.

"	The concept of objective truth is nearly non-existent when it comes to man-made laws, justice and social norms.

Patently false. If a law says "your automobile must show visible proof of inspection when operating on public roads," and a car does not have such proof displayed, this is an objective truth that the law is being violated. I would argue that many, if not most, laws follow this pattern.

"	Demanding that all rules enforcement with a subjective element be halted is the same as demanding that there be no enforcement, (i.e. anarchy) as I outlined above.

I rather explicitly have made zero demands in my treatise. I haven't even made requests. Heck, I don't even make suggestions; the treatise explores possible ideas only. I began working on this when I was asked to explain the failure mode I see by a moderator.

I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that I want "no enforcement." I mean, I'm fairly clear that I don't consider moderator action to be an inherent negative.

CodyFox

3 years, 7 months ago

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"your automobile must show visible proof of inspection when operating on public roads"

Visible where? How far away? How big does it need to be? How does one decide whether to investigate someone's proof of inspection? Is that done by a human being or a mindless drone flying over all the highways and scanning cars?

You tried to cherrypick the most binary non-criminal traffic violation, but even that involves subjective interpretation. You seem to have backtracked by now saying that we should strive toward objectivity, an acknowledgement that pure objectivity is not possible under the circumstances. So now all that's left is to acknowledge that within a system that relies upon subjective interpretation of rules, it's not feasible to regulate the amount of subjectivity used by the enforcers of those rules. In reality, you're just criticizing them by asserting that your subjective analysis is superior to theirs.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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The only thing you're saying is that humans must use discernment to ascertain the very existence of a rules violation, regardless of the objectivity of the rule in question.  This is self-evident to a sophomoric degree, and missing the point by such a wide margin I cannot help but think it is deliberate.

A rule can be objective in its description.

"No shirts having more than a 10% of visible area comprised of a color emitted in the wavelengths between 625 and 740 nanometers are allowed" (aka, "no red shirts allowed") is an objective rule.  You can use tools to measure a shirt to determine if it violates this rule, entirely outside of human subjectivity.  The fact that a human must first notice that there even is a shirt to measure is irrelevant.

"Driving on this stretch of road faster than 55 miles-per-hour is not allowed" is an objective rule.  You can use tools to measure the speed of vehicle, entirely outside of human subjectivity.  The fact that a human must first observe a vehicle and decide to use the tool has no bearing on the objectivity of the rule itself.

A subjective rule would require that the measurement tool be human decision itself.

"Wearing ugly clothes is not allowed" is a subjective rule.  There is no tool you can use to measure ugliness.  A human must use their own internal, subjective judgement, not an external tool, to decide if the rule has been violated.

"Driving too fast is not allowed" is a subjective rule.  Without defining what "too fast" means, there is no tool that can be used to decide a vehicle is violating the rule.  A human must use their own internal, subjective judgement, not an external tool to decide if a vehicle is moving "too fast."

The crux of my treatise is that, specifically when a rule can only be tested with subjective judgement, there are meta-vulnerabilities that exist in any moderation system that relies on user-initiated reporting.  These vulnerabilities exist no matter what the subjective criteria are by which the moderators enforce the rule, how fair they are, or how well they do their job.  The problem is systemic.

When I recently got into a debate with Kadm, I asked where the "naughty words" ban is in the TOS, and I was pointed to the rule about "inflammatory" language, which says nothing about what actually constitutes "inflammatory."  There is no objective way to measure the "inflammatory-ness" of a potential violation.  Because the TOS does not even attempt to provide more objective definitions of its terms in that rule, potential violations can only be measured with subjective assessment.  Because this is true, IB has the meta-vulnerability I describe in the treatise.

CodyFox

3 years, 7 months ago

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Problem here is that you are making a moral argument (subjectivity = bad in rule enforcement), not simply an argument about whether one thing can be categorized as objective or subjective. By making the subjectivity = bad argument, the logical conclusion of your argument is to extend it to all areas of enforcement where subjectivity is used (which, as I've shown, is all of them). We could have a philosophical debate about whether any of the things you listed is truly objective (who decided what nanometer means? who decided the meaning of a mph? these are concepts that have become "fact" merely by the majority of individuals subjectively deciding that they are), but I think the point remains whether we go to that level of philosophy or not.

Subjectivity will always exist in enforcement of rules. A cop could (and routinely does) watch 100 cars pass by traveling over the speed limit, then suddenly pull over the 101st car because they simply felt like it. All of those people technically broke the law, so there is no unfairness in one being pulled over vs the other under such circumstances. This is what you get when you take an absolutist position.

You could really simplify your position to get at the point that I think you really want to make, which is obviously that you are against regulation of hateful language full stop. All of the pseudo intellectualism of the treatise is meant to support that position.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

"	CodyFox wrote:
	Problem here is that you are making a moral argument (subjectivity = bad in rule enforcement), not simply an argument about whether one thing can be categorized as objective or subjective.

False. I am not talking about enforcement. I'm talking one abstraction step above/before enforcement.

"	By making the subjectivity = bad argument, the logical conclusion of your argument is to extend it to all areas of enforcement where subjectivity is used (which, as I've shown, is all of them).

Which I've also shown is not the point.

We could have a philosophical debate about whether any of the things you listed is truly objective (who decided what nanometer means? who decided the meaning of a mph? these are concepts that have become "fact" merely by the majority of individuals subjectively deciding that they are), but I think the point remains whether we go to that level of philosophy or not.

This is pure sophistry. You're just making a post-modernist claim that because human perception is inherently subjective, there is no objective truth. You can continue going down this road, but I'm not going to follow; it proves nothing, solves nothing, provides no actual value in the discussion, and you are simply using it to attempt to gain rhetorical power over me. No thanks, not playing that game.

Subjectivity will always exist in enforcement of rules. A cop could (and routinely does) watch 100 cars pass by traveling over the speed limit, then suddenly pull over the 101st car because they simply felt like it. All of those people technically broke the law, so there is no unfairness in one being pulled over vs the other under such circumstances. This is what you get when you take an absolutist position.

Again, I am not talking about enforcement. If this cop decides to pull someone over, even if they just feel like it, the fact remains that the person either is or is not breaking the law. The cop is just the agent of enforcement, not the law itself.

"	You could really simplify your position to get at the point that I think you really want to make, which is obviously that you are against regulation of hateful language full stop. All of the pseudo intellectualism of the treatise is meant to support that position.

What you're failing to understand, either because of naive foolishness or deliberate antagonism, is that the problem I describe can affect you too. The treatise explicitly does not assume any given position held by any set of members. It could just as easy be a set of people who you disagree with who exploit this vulnerability to silence you. The problem is universal.

I'm not going to continue engaging in this thread. I've made my point, and I suspect you're going to keep going down the "but everything is subjective, nothing is objective" route. I'm going to take your word that you truly believe this, and the logical conclusion is that there is zero point in further engagement. Further, taking your word that you actually believe what you're saying, I can only conclude that you desire this state of affairs, because it gives you power over others. Standard tyrant stuff, feh.

Peace.

CodyFox

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

"	alistair wrote:
	False. I am not talking about enforcement. I'm talking one abstraction step above/before enforcement.

Liar

"	alistair wrote:
	The Problem: When a Type 1 Member is the initiating agent of moderation, the Moderator becomes a tool by which the Type 1 Member coerces all other Members into accepting the Type 1 Member's subjective values. The fact that the Moderator agrees with the Type 1 Member is irrelevant...

alistair wrote:

The Problem: Any set of Members consisting of Type 1 and Type 1a Members, those that are most likely to submit a report and do so as a first resort, are most able to use the Moderator as a tool by which they can coerce other Members into accepting that set's subjective values. Again, due to the Moderator's attention being limited such that the Moderator might never have seen the post anyway, whether the Moderator agrees with the reporting Members is irrelevant...

Notably, you don't care whether the report of a violation is virtuous or not, or whether the moderator has properly agreed with such a good faith report. i.e., you don't care whether the subjective decision is good or bad. All you care about is that the enforcement involves subjectivity at all, which you find problematic. Thus, your moral aversion to subjectivity in enforcement overrides the issue of righteousness of outcome. Every enforcement decision could be 100% righteous, and your stance against it would still be the same. This is an extreme position by any measure.

"	alistair wrote:
	Again, I am not talking about enforcement. If this cop decides to pull someone over, even if they just feel like it, the fact remains that the person either is or is not breaking the law. The cop is just the agent of enforcement, not the law itself.

As I've demonstrated, you are offended by the enforcement whether the cop is acting 100% properly on a good faith tip or not. The question of guilt or innocence is simply another subjective question in a system with human enforcement. If it wasn't, there would be no need for cops or traffic court. A robot would measure your vehicle exceeding the limit and a ticket would soon arrive at your mailbox.

"	alistair wrote:
	What you're failing to understand, either because of naive foolishness or deliberate antagonism, is that the problem I describe can affect you too. The treatise explicitly does not assume any given position held by any set of members. It could just as easy be a set of people who you disagree with who exploit this vulnerability to silence you. The problem is universal.

The alleged problem won't affect me, because I'm not making posts of images, journals and the like that are intentionally being done to inflame, troll or otherwise encourage the site's membership to engage in hateful verbal combat. I fully understand that there are some who get their kicks from that type of thing. They love to find a gathering of people who are generally being pleasant and happy, throw a bunch of hand grenades into that group, and watch them devolve into vile and hateful behavior. Being the catalyst for that kind of malice and to tear apart a community gives them a feeling of power and pleasure. I will never be one of those people, so I am not concerned.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

You have come to my journal, repeatedly maligned my character (defame/vilify), continued to do so once I explicitly expressed the intent to disengage (harassing), dictated to me what my own thoughts are (harmful, defame/vilify, abusive), and rather than point out where my journal is wrong you have instead targeted me (inflammatory).  Further, you have done so while stating specifically that you know you will not receive sanction for this behavior (abusive).

Meanwhile, in this thread I have been nothing but respectful, even cordial, with you, meaning you are engaging in this behavior actively and without provocation (inflammatory).

So, you leave me with a quandary: do I report you?  Per the subjective rules, and per the moderator's own preference, I should.  Are you so certain that you will not be censured for your behavior, are you so certain that the moderators will protect you, only because you believe you're a Good Person?

You are fortunate that I am not a Type 1 or Type 1a Member, and am willing to tolerate your abuse rather than attempt to silence you.

Additionally, since I have seen this sort of behavior from you on others' journals, I can't help but wonder if it isn't your intent to inflame people so that you can then report them and get them punished.  But, I am not a mind reader, so perhaps this is not your intent.

I will say nothing more.

CodyFox

3 years, 7 months ago

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I'm sure if you filed that type of fraudulent report the mods will simply shake their heads and close out your report. They might even send you a message asking you not to file fraudulent reports. I trust their judgment. That is the difference between us.

FrancisJCat

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

Wow. What a waste of time XD
I mean, I'm really sorry, but you think Admins and Mods give a fuck about IB? They don't.

The original vision of IB was set up by the creator of the site, Starling, who has long since left. The admins and mods are nothing but janitors doing the minimum effort to keep the thing from crumbling down.

I've brought this up several times before. Other than small patches here and there, nothing has been done to improve the site in years.

Sure, you may have some good points, but you're yelling in an empty room. Anyone who cares is gone.

Believe me. I was on the ground floor when this site came up. I saw it grow and change.. and now it's stale.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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You care. : )

Thank you for reading.

GreenReaper

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

Our technical focus has been on scaling to accommodate Inkbunny's ever-growing traffic, content and userbase. Inkbunny now has 21 servers and VMs, where back in September 2016 we had 12; of those, only two use the original hardware. All have had regular software upgrades every few months. Our main and secondary servers were both migrated - the main server changed twice - and a dedicated server in Virginia was established. In total we now serve ~65TB/month (almost 200Mbps) - though part of that is inter-cache transfers to ensure files load fast for people far from Europe.

We also made changes to accommodate more recent versions of PHP (we're now on PHP 7.4), upgrade our database from PostgreSQL 9.6 to 12, and address DDoS attacks. None of this bought obvious benefits beyond increased performance (or the ability to use cheaper hardware); but in my view they were all necessary changes, appropriate to prioritise, and I'm happier now they're done.

All this was done while maintaining expenses of ~$10/day - as opposed to splashing six figures on new hardware. If we'd done that and spent the time on features instead of scaling and performance "tweaks", you'd have seen big changes for sure, but I doubt you'd have liked them - doing so would've required significant funding, and most likely, significant compromises on content.

That's not to say there's been no development - just that "features" haven't been a focus. Our site footer states we're on Release 79, not 77. There's been 450+ commits to Inkbunny's code and documentation repository since 77 (~15% increase). To greatly abbreviate, Release 78 (in 2017/8) brought in short URLs for galleries and journals, and Release 79 (earlier this year) introduced content security policy on key pages - an important security improvement, and a painful one in terms of impact (due to the site's original rapid development, a lot of JavaScript was present in pages and had to be modularized), but one which would ideally have resulted in zero user-facing changes.

Another big new feature we've worked on, +fav recommendations, caused performance problems and the original implementation had to be backed out, but we still intend to release it; we now plan to do so using our secondary server for the expensive queries that it performs.

In short, site journals don't reflect the work that's been done on the codebase, let alone all the effort to maintain and upgrade the site's internal infrastructure - stuff like this comes up every other month, you just didn't hear about it. That's on me; journals take a lot of my own time to compile, and I didn't have time to do that and ensure we'd migrated to new servers and code before old contracts expired. Both main server migrations had priority issues to resolve that took me away from catching up; once we had, it seemed a little late to announce the changes (in retrospect, we probably should have).

As such, most news has come via our Twitter account, since it's easier to write 280 characters at a time than 18,000. Reviewing that should show we've been doing more than "keeping the lights on" - and it's in line with staff comments to your journal last year.

FrancisJCat

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

And what has changed since last year?

You just repeated what I just said, just verbose. At the end of the day, the site has not changed since Starling left in any meaningful way.

Simple stuff like HTML5 support for animations. A different CSS sheet for mobiles so you CAN ACTUALLY READ THE FUCKING FONT ON A SMALL SCREEN. Uploading PDF for stories. Things that I've been bringing up from years ago

Or you know. Keep bots from spamming posts.

You're nothing but a software patcher. Thank you for that, but the site's original spirit is dead and you helped killing it.

GreenReaper

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

Let's see; at the risk of repeating myself:
* We selected, configured, and moved to both a new main server (with NVMe storage), and secondary server:
** The main server is less capable CPU/RAM-wise, but has twice the storage, and unlimited, DDoS-protected bandwidth that we won't get overcharged for - so fits our needs better. It's also half the price of the one it replaces.
** The secondary now has twice the RAM and storage and three times the bandwidth - again, a better fit for what it does.
* We raised enough to pay for the Virginia cache for five years despite having to add 50% more transfer to it.
* With money saved on the main server, we added a bunch of image caches, increasing our network by 50%, including many far-flung places.
* We deployed a software release containing big changes to how the site's JavaScript worked, touching a bunch of pages.

These aren't exciting changes, unless you get excited by content delivery. But they mean we can provide Inkbunny to 30,000 users visiting every day, faster and hopefully more reliably than before. Speed is a feature; faster-loading pages encourage people to spend more time on a site and this ultimately means more traffic for your art.

Let's say you're in South America, Singapore, or San Francisco; your experience should be better, thanks to upgrades to the amount of data we serve locally - Singapore in particular got a huge new cache. Japan and Australia, where we already had servers, also benefited from this; in Tokyo, SSD capacity doubled and the local cache (for now, at least) no longer has to serve people in other East Asian countries, thanks to e.g. the Hong Kong cache. Fetching work from Singapore should also be faster than going back to Europe for it.

It's hard to value security improvements; their goal is to avoid loss. But you'd be upset if someone got access to your PMs or was able to wipe galleries out because they found a flaw - and incidentally, implementing content security policy was Starling's own suggested priority. (Much of his time and mine has been spent adding defence in depth against such issues; my security advice was one reason I was brought on staff, and it's probably one of the reasons he entrusted IB to me.)

Similarly, we want to avoid hardware failures causing data loss due to insufficient backups - or servers going down because we'd failed to comply with a host's requirement of hash checking for real-life child abuse. These aren't "features", but necessities - and most require ongoing effort to maintain over upgrades, the introduction of new servers, etc.

That's the bit you don't seem to understand: Inkbunny, as a service, takes significant effort to deliver in its current form. That spam attack? It doesn't magically disappear. Someone had to identify IPs, block, and clean up. The DDoS? I was up late setting up an IPv6 tunnel to route access to the old server via the new one while preparing to migrate everything.

That's why Starling left: he couldn't be that guy and [learn to] make games. At times, it's a full-time job; one I don't get paid for, or the $10/day would be ~$100/day.

Sure, we all like exciting new site features. Some have happened under my watch. And I didn't even mention adding a new site background. 😼

But my priority is keeping the service we have up, and capable of growth, so that when primo furry artists such as yourself want to bank $500 on a whim, people are able to see your past work, and bid for a commission without the site being taken down by a flood of junk traffic from China. That's the first, overriding goal. It's what donors pay for. And for the most part, it's been achieved, despite recent efforts to the contrary.

GreenReaper

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

You added some specifics to your comment after I opened it to reply; here's a response:

* HTML5 animation support: Sure. I'm aware Flash is going away soon. I opened a bug about it in our tracker five years ago, and added to it in 2016 and 2018. And yes, Newgrounds has done something. But games is all they are about, and I don't agree the solution is "simple". As it stands, Inkbunny's designed to deliver one file at a time, without dependencies, on the same page as everything. Various assumptions tie into that. Changing this, and ensuring that the result can't be used to compromise the site, is non-trivial. (We could just embed sites, but then we're embedding, not hosting.)

* CSS for mobile: Due to the site's rapid development, a bunch of what'd normally be in style sheets is embedded style. So what's actually required is similar to what was required with JS for CSP - rip it out and replace with files and class/ID references, one page at a time - or, write a standalone mobile client. We actually had someone work on the latter, but they drifted off, as people often do when busy with life. Thankfully, we hadn't promised to release it as a feature. I can't speak for everyone, but I find Chrome's font boosting works well, and a few years back I tweaked things to make it work in some cases where it wasn't. Still sucks on Firefox Mobile - and hence, Tor Browser for Android - but so do a lot of sites.

* PDF for stories: PDF is dangerous. Write in text. (OK, I'm kidding. I hear you sent some stuff. Another staff member looked at it. But they also have RL work - and volunteers ultimately spend their time on what they think is important. They decided the priority should be tickets, and "more staff" - and related development, like reworking permission to make us feel safer about having more staff. So we're closer to that than to PDFs.)

* Keep bots from spamming posts: Some of the protection we put in vs. DDoS should help with that, as should the increased level on our signup CAPTCHA. We haven't had a repeat episode since those changes, that I'm aware of. But if people really want to do it again, I'm sure they can find a way. There's a cost/benefit call: does it matter vs. other stuff if a spam attack happens once every few years? (It only lasted so long because I was headed to sleep just as it started.)

* "The site's original spirit is dead and you helped killing it": I don't quite know what you mean by that, or how to respond, but I guess I can try. I've been part of Inkbunny's team since before it launched, though some may claim to be closer. I know how it felt launching an exciting new site. But IB's not the upstart it was a decade ago. Some rely on it to make their living. Others have nowhere else to go, as the mood elsewhere hardened against what they like. That sucks. But I'm not responsible for the changes in what's acceptable online, or within the fandom. Nor did I push out the dev you liked. He came to me offering IB's poisoned chalice because he wanted to go off and do something else.

Knowing I had commitments to WikiFur and Flayrah, he asked only that I take care of IB and hand it on to someone else if I felt unable to run it - like he was doing. IB's since taken the lion's share of my time, and roughly tripled in size. Maybe I'm not an ideal replacement, but I feel I've done what I promised. And it wouldn't be fair to blame him either for doing something with his life vs. code full-time for a site which could barely cover its own costs, let alone offer him financial compensation.

Much of this comes down to "not enough dev staff" or "it's not the priority" - two sides of the same coin. With enough people, some may have done more of what you want. We're looking to fix that. But it'd be dishonest to commit to specific features that may never happen within a set timeframe.

Apologies for being verbose again, it's late here. 😼

FrancisJCat

3 years, 7 months ago

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If I had an employee who wrote a 10 page text on excuses why he didn't do the thing I asked him to do, he'd be fired on the spot.

See, you're missing the point altogether. It's not what you think works for the site. It's about serving the community.

Of course, technical upgrades and all that shiz is important and I'm not discounting that. But that's not what I was talking about. It's about providing a good service to the community, letting artists reach their audiences better.

Do you think I asked for PDF or HTML5 animation because I'm a fussy toddler or because I want to make interactive art and illustrated stories?

Stop making excuses, get your ass to work, or find someone that can do the job.

Pathetic.

FrancisJCat

3 years, 7 months ago

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PS: Sorry if I'm bashing you over the head, but you chose to pick this fight, not me.

GreenReaper

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

Yeah, well, I'm not your employee, am I? 😼

Inkbunny is a free service. We're providing what we can for the furry community. We have limited time to do that, and our opinions differ on what's most important. Nobody's saying the things you like wouldn't be great. They're just not the priority.

If you don't like our priorities, you're welcome to commission someone else to make your dream site - or to contribute to this one. Just as some developers do directly, from time to time, when their lives aren't in the way. But your money might be better-spent on that 3D game project of yours, which when it comes down to it could always be hosted on a simple website and just promoted here.

FrancisJCat

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

You don't know when to shut the fuck up, do you?

"	Yeah, well, I'm not your employee, am I?

That's what I said, you fucking moron.

"	Inkbunny is a free service. We're providing what we can for the furry community.

The site runs on donations. It's not free.
And if you're providing for the community, this journal proves you're doing a piss poor job.

"	If you don't like our priorities, you're welcome to commission someone else to make your dream site

The the good old "if you don't like it leave" false choice. Go get fucked.

"	or to contribute to this one

Did you just tell me I don't contribute? What do you think artists do? I'll give you a hint. There would be no Inkbunny without them, you fucking pea-brain sized piece of shit.

"	But your money might be better-spent on that 3D game project of yours

If I knew giving you money would get the features people request implemented I'd pay it gladly. But giving your track record, it would be a waste.

And I'll give you one last piece of advice.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

You managed to piss me off to no end and no answer you can give will satisfy me. Either do a better job or find someone that can.

shaemint

3 years, 7 months ago

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At least it isn't FA lmao

FrancisJCat

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ shaemint

I'll give you that much
It could always be worse X3

IBp

3 years, 7 months ago

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Holy fucking shit Arkaid you have some brass balls.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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Thank you for the insight into the development process. If I may offer a light criticism, requiring users to utilize an off-site service, one which is quite polarized and many such as myself refuse to use on principle, just to keep up with what's happening as regards to this site is not the friendliest move.

Do you use some manner of VCS? It seems like auto-publishing commit logs to the site when pushing to production would be trivial. Doing everything through Twitter seems... sub-optimal.

Birdpup

3 years, 7 months ago

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I don't really know what to think of this. I don't even know if it should be my place to weigh in my opinion but uh, sure, why not?

What I can imply from your conclusion is that moderators are too quick to punish those who are regularly reported again and are quick to look into posts that are reported...whilst I understand this weaponises them in the hands of those reporters, isn't that the point of a self-moderated community? Wasn't that why report systems for members were created in the first place across multiple platforms, not just Inkbunny? Even if you removed the reporting feature and introduced more moderators, you still come up with problems-- whether it's potentially harmful content slipping under the radar or moderators locking heads over whether content should be removed.

I personally don't believe in the philosophy of 'If you don't like what they're saying, ignore them'. Certain users using their profiles as a soapbox to say potentially harmful or offensive content shouldn't be allowed (and extreme outliers are punished) but there's a fine line, and being offended from the offset is a subjective opinion. If mass reporting by a number of users is wrong and weaponising moderators, then how are those users meant to speak out against what they feel is wrong? Arguing with said user in their own journals is inherently in itself a problem: either that user can choose to ignore or even remove their content, thereby policing their own page and forcing their values onto others or the page itself becomes a cesspit of mindless bickering between several parties. By and large, being able to report SHOULD be a feature because what they're saying could potentially be harmful or offensive, even if it skirts the line of Inkbunny's TOS. But you're always going to have problems with trigger-happy reporters throwing moderators left and right. So what's the solution?

I appreciate you writing all your thoughts out but I don't think even moderators know what to do to potentially solve the issues at this point. I mean, could anyone? Any one solution makes more problems.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

@ Birdpup

Thank you for your comments.

"	Birdpup wrote:
	What I can imply from your conclusion is that moderators are too quick to punish those who are regularly reported again and are quick to look into posts that are reported

Well, it's not specifically about moderator action, but rather the meta-vulnerability of the system as a whole. Moderator action is just one of the mechanisms by which it happens.

"	...whilst I understand this weaponises them in the hands of those reporters, isn't that the point of a self-moderated community?

"Self-moderated" should not mean "users utilize moderators." It should mean, and in Inkbunny's case actually does mean, "users have the tools to moderate for themselves."

"	Wasn't that why report systems for members were created in the first place across multiple platforms, not just Inkbunny?

Inkbunny has a distinct lack of a report system for members. Reporting is achieved by piggy-backing on support tickets. Inkbunny's original design was built to minimize direct moderator intervention in user-user interactions, which is strongly reflected in the power of the available user tools and the noted lack of reporting tools.

"	Even if you removed the reporting feature and introduced more moderators, you still come up with problems-- whether it's potentially harmful content slipping under the radar or moderators locking heads over whether content should be removed.

None of the ideas I explore involve removing of reporting (one idea specifically strengthens it), nor the introduction of more moderators. The failure mode will exist no matter how many moderators you add. Facebook, Google, Twitter, et al. try to overcome this with AI, but it's a losing game because the failure mode is inherent.

"	If mass reporting by a number of users is wrong and weaponising moderators, then how are those users meant to speak out against what they feel is wrong?

By speaking out. But I think when you say "speak out against" what you mean is "get someone to silence the offender."
(Edit: I don't say mass reporting is wrong in the treatise. I say it is a mechanism of potential exploit. There is a difference.)

"	By and large, being able to report SHOULD be a feature because what they're saying could potentially be harmful or offensive, even if it skirts the line of Inkbunny's TOS.

They're words, man. What you're advocating for is to give the most sensitive people the most power to silence those they dislike or disagree with. I can't say I approve.

"	I appreciate you writing all your thoughts out but I don't think even moderators know what to do to potentially solve the issues at this point. I mean, could anyone? Any one solution makes more problems.

Only if you a priori assume that policing speech against subjective criteria is necessary. When you begin by axiomatically defining a certain subjective interpretation as the only good interpretation, any action which would allow a different subjective interpretation becomes bad by definition. I reject this premise just as axiomatically, as it prevents even searching for solutions, let alone out-of-the-box solutions. Expand your world-view a little.

Thanks for engaging with me.

Birdpup

3 years, 7 months ago

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I guess like most things I'm just not educated enough. Best of luck in your endeavours.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ Birdpup

You oughtn't belittle yourself. Take care. : )

Soulfire

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

@ Birdpup

The problem very simply in not with illegal content . The problem is very much certain groups shout about anything they don't like. Since when are ideas harmful or hurtful? If i expressed any opinion about transgender, women's issue's, anything to do with race and or certain political ideology, etc ,etc that was not a parrot of what you see in the main stream media i'd be attacked. Not on the basis or merits of my words or views, cause this lot do not read much and do not have much in they way of comprehension. No i'd be attacked merely cause they decided it was evil or hate speech or wrong. I have seen many get upset over written things that were not hateful . For some bringing up any counter point to any issue they hold dearly puts you as wrong.

At the end of the day Hate and Hate speech are subjective. There is no such thing as a concrete good and evil, Sorry religious people. And once again the freedom to express oneself must always be fought for and maintained. Even and especially if someone gets "Offended".

"	Birdpup wrote:
	What I can imply from your conclusion is that moderators are too quick to punish those who are regularly reported again and are quick to look into posts that are reported...whilst I understand this weaponises them in the hands of those reporters, isn't that the point of a self-moderated community?

are we a self moderated community? no i don't think so. what we have is the power in the hands of a few and the majority do not even know what the issues are in most cases. Been here going on 10 years, never once voted on a mod or had a chance to peruse their personal beliefs to see if they represented my own. Time and time again the rest of society is held hostage to a few who cant cope. Simply cause they make noise. Instead of taking a poll on the issue seeing where the majority's feelings lie, changes are made by the unelected few. And how dare anyone object!! As if we were not capable of understanding the issue or voicing a pertinent opinion.

At the end of the day id be willing to bet $100 that the "numerous complaints" directed at any one person or post does not even pass %1 of the total members.

MystBunny

3 years, 7 months ago

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This is incredible. It really puts things into perspective. Excellent work on this, it's simply brilliant.

Though you said that your ideas for solutions are merely brainstorming, I do want to add my thoughts to a couple of them.

"	In the event of Members' interactions becoming heated, should Moderators make the determination that action is needed, a preferred action could be to enforce mutual blocks or bans between the involved members rather than demanding edit or removal of any given post or giving a full site ban.

I have to disagree with this one, and as such, it seems to be the only one I do disagree with here. I have had some heated exchanges myself here on Inkbunny, but in some of those cases, we were eventually able to calm down and come to a mutual understanding, and then re-assess the others' positions in a more productive way. An enforced mutual block would have undermined that resolution and only further exacerbated our anger towards the other completely and permanently.

"	When a large number of reports are submitted regarding a specific Member, the stored report data could be used to collate all such reports for easy analysis instead of having to manually deal with a flood of Support Tickets and PMs.

I think this one is a must. By the very nature of member reporting, as you have so perfectly explained here, the mods are only hearing one side of the story, and most of the time, nobody else has a chance to react until a decision has already been made, but as it exists now, by that point the moderators are likely already burned out and might not want to deal with the issue any further. This certainly creates an unfair imbalance. Although, even this solution would only have one side of the story told before anyone else can react. I'm not sure what a good solution would be to counter that problem specifically...

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ MystBunny

MystBunny wrote:

"	In the event of Members' interactions becoming heated, should Moderators make the determination that action is needed, a preferred action could be to enforce mutual blocks or bans between the involved members rather than demanding edit or removal of any given post or giving a full site ban.

I have to disagree with this one, and as such, it seems to be the only one I do disagree with here. [...] An enforced mutual block would have undermined that resolution and only further exacerbated our anger towards the other completely and permanently.

IB's admins and mods have the right to run the site as they like. This idea would provide moderators the ability to safeguard what they feel is the appropriate tone of interaction while minimizing unintended harm by not forbidding others from seeing content they choose to see.

That said, I do agree with your point.

"	This certainly creates an unfair imbalance. Although, even this solution would only have one side of the story told before anyone else can react. I'm not sure what a good solution would be to counter that problem specifically...

I have in mind a good solution to the entire problem I describe, but it would be such a fundamental adjustment (or rather, clarification), and require such a modification of moderator mindset, that I prefer not to even explain it. I'm trying very hard to avoid telling the site admins and mods how to run their site, here.

MystBunny

3 years, 7 months ago

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Well I mean.. yeah the mods have a right to run their site as they see fit but this site is also truly one-of-a-kind. This makes every decision a hell of a lot more impactful, so I'm definitely going to say what's on my mind. That said, I struggle to think of any site run more fairly than this one, but it could always be better.

CuriousFerret

3 years, 7 months ago

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Edited 3 years, 7 months ago by Owner

I like your suggestions.

In particular ensuring all tools avaible to members to resolve conflict are used before moderation, and the journal tags in particular.

Heavy read, appreciate the effort.

TheDeinonychus

3 years, 7 months ago

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The core problem that your treatise outlines is one that affects all forms of moderation on any site or forum where user generated content is hosted. That being that, aside from strictly defined violation of rules, all moderation is inherently subjective in some way. Even in cases of obvious rules violation, such moderation is subject to interpretation by a moderator. One has only to look at sites such as Facebook and Twitter, where many users are allowed to post obvious violations of rules (sometimes even legally prohibited content) while others are banned for even remotely similar content.

This is especially an issue when moderation staff often changes, as new people are brought in and old staff is replaced over time, the general consensus of what is allowed and what isn't will often change. Even with a set out ethos for the staff to follow, their interpretation of said ethos always changes. Even the event that lead to the creation of Inkbunny was a result of this change. FurAffinity, once dedicated to hosting all forms of furry art, over time allowed their stance on artistic freedoms to be influenced by outside forces, leading to the banning of several forms of artistic expression (cub art being only one of these forms, by the way).

While a strictly defined set of rules and prescriptions on what content is or isn't allowed would go a ways to prevent biases moderation, that is still open to interpretation by moderators as to what should and shouldn't be acted upon. It's always the case that moderators will turn a blind eye on some actions, while scrutinizing others. Furthermore, the old proverb 'The squeaky wheel gets the grease' holds true in these cases. As you outlined, while the majority of users may have no issue with a poster's content (or simply not feel strongly enough about it to complain), all it takes is for one outspoken individual to report it in order to enforce their opinion on the entire user base. We've been seeing just this happening more and more often lately in nearly all walks of life. The phenomena of 'Cancel Culture' is the ultimate expression of this proverb. Where a vocal minority is allowed to force their opinions upon a silent majority for whatever reason they wish, dictating by proxy what people are or are not allowed to view. This has a two-fold affect. Not only do they prevent others from seeing or hearing things they find objectionable, but this also fosters an attitude of self-censorship. A state in which individuals make the choice to avoid expressing opinions or thoughts most would not find objectionable simply to avoid the ire of the vocal minority and the repercussions said minority are able to inflict upon them.

The only way to prevent these issues is a stance of complete self-moderation. That is to say, a stance of no enforced moderation, rather allowing users the full control over what they personally see and interact with. Obviously concessions to this stance will have to be made, due to legal restrictions enforced beyond the forum's control. But users should be allowed, indeed expected, to take the personal responsibility of deciding for themselves, and only for themselves, what content they wish to partake in and view. This would, of course, require a robust set of options and utilities to allow for such things as tag and creator filtering, as well as the ability to block communication from other individuals with said user. Thankfully most of these features are already in place.

(Continued below)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TheDeinonychus

3 years, 7 months ago

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This, of course, does not shield a content creator completely from public opinion. While it is well within a content creator's ability and right to block users from the ability to comment on their posts, or even from commenting directly to the creator, it is also within the user's ability to abstain from consuming said content. A creator who posts content the majority of users finds objectionable is not prevented or discouraged from posting such content, but the engagement the public has with said user and his content is an organic and natural extension of the collective opinion of the public at large. This is akin to the concept of 'market forces', where public demand rather than enforced opinion drives the need for and production of goods. In this case, said 'goods' is content created by other users. Of course, it is entirely up to the content creator's choice if they wish to follow the public opinion, or ignore such and continue following his own opinions. The key point is that this choice is not enforced upon the creator, not by a vocal minority of the public, and not by the opinions of a moderation staff.

Another issue that will need to be addressed is the problem with false reporting. Even with strict guidelines as to what is and isn't prohibited content, there will be those who attempt to abuse the system. Another way to look at this would be as 'malicious reporting'. That is, where a small group of users report content that is neither objectionable to the majority of users nor strictly violates established rules. Often times such reporting is done multiple times, either for the same content or on multiple pieces of content by the same creator. Often the purpose of this is to continually send reports to the moderation staff in the hopes of said reports being noticed by a member of the staff with similar opinions as the ones sending the reports. Again, this comes back to the issue inherit in enforced moderation. Not all moderators will share the same opinions, and even if the majority of moderators agree that something is not objectionable, it only takes one moderator to decide the entire user base should not be allowed to see something for it to become prohibited. The reason actions such as this are allowed and do happen is because there are no repercussions for falsely reporting content. Naturally individuals will have different opinions, and it's not unreasonable to assume that someone who reports content won't be met with a moderator with a far more lax interpretation of the rules, thus allowing content that does violate said rules. But there should be repercussions in place for users who attempt to abuse the system. The counter-argument to this would naturally be that such repercussions would make people less likely to report actual rules violations. This, however, is a strawman argument. If rules on prohibited content were strictly defined and less open to interpretation by moderators, and also freely available to users, there should be no confusion as to what does or doesn't violate the rules. Thus anyone who does report content for a rules violation should be well aware of if their report is false or not. Even if the majority of the user base are not aware of the rules regarding prohibited content, the majority is also likely to simply personally block such content rather than report it. Again, this goes back to fostering an environment of personal responsibility rather than one of enforced censorship.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ TheDeinonychus

Your logic follows my own so tightly it is almost but not quite a rephrasing. I find the cancel-culture analogy to be particularly apropos; I don't think I'd considered that when composing, though the two phenomena are clearly related in hindsight.

I agree that the subjective rules vulnerability also makes malicious reporting much more difficult to ethically punish, because intent becomes so difficult to prove. This adds more weight to my point about power imbalances. Those who report have a lower potential cost, nearing epsilon, compared to the potential cost imposed on those reported. This is an inherent incentive to use reporting as offensive tool.

TheDeinonychus

3 years, 7 months ago

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Exactly. Not to get too political with this, but it's the same issue with reporting false rape allegations. There's no real danger of accusing someone of the crime, yet even if vindicated, the accused is often greatly damaged simply by the accusation. In this case, even if reported content is deemed to be not in violation of the rules, the fact that people are reporting it puts the creator under the scrutiny of the moderators, potentially labeling them as a 'problem user', one that they will be more critical towards when other reports against them are made.

Again, the greatest danger about this is how much of the rules are up to a moderator's judgement. Websites will often make rules ill-defined and broad, leaving room for them to make judgement calls on what is and isn't allowed. On one hand, this lets them 'sanitize' their site if an outside force (such as Paypal or Adsense for instance) starts imposing demands on them to remove content without strictly violating their own rules. But on the other hand, it puts all of a site's content creators at risk of suddenly having their content removed without warning. In InkBunny's case, since they have put forth a statement of their philosophy behind the site, it /should/ prevent such events taking place. The problem is that it doesn't in practice. Not only because the rules are not narrowly defined enough, but because the system of moderation is as you have pointed out too open for abuse by malicious users.

alistair

3 years, 7 months ago

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@ TheDeinonychus

In this case, even if reported content is deemed to be not in violation of the rules, the fact that people are reporting it puts the creator under the scrutiny of the moderators, potentially labeling them as a 'problem user', one that they will be more critical towards when other reports against them are made.

Good addition. This dovetails with Problem Three very well, though I don't think I would have included it, as it impugns the intentions of the moderators; I wanted to stick with points that apply even when moderators are behaving properly.

"	Not only because the rules are not narrowly defined enough, but because the system of moderation is as you have pointed out too open for abuse by malicious users.

The users need not even be malicious, merely intolerant and noisy. Every reporting user could truly believe they are just in their report, and the problems explained in the treatise would still be true.

TheDeinonychus

3 years, 7 months ago

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