[2016-06-11] Crackdown on rudeness

[sb56637]

Update: The Rude! button is now superseded by the Report button. Please read this post for more details:

[2018-11-30] Report post button

Hi everyone, It’s been a few years since the Rude! button and “Rudeness Meter” were implemented to crackdown on rude and conflictive posts and users. I admit that it was a rather controversial measure, and some users absolutely hated it. But I also suspect that most of the haters would admit that they disliked it because they frequently racked up points by getting into arguments or being… rude. Which is exactly what the Rude! button was supposed to make people aware of. In addition to al…

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Hi everyone,

BLF is known as a friendly and welcoming forum, and my intention is for it to stay that way. Fortunately, the vast majority of our users try their best to cooperate with BLF Rule #1 :

@http://budgetlightforum.com/forum/misc/siterules

1. Please don’t be rude. Rude people will have their accounts deleted.

However, lately it seems that a small number of BLF users are flagrantly breaking this all-important rule, causing hurt feelings, fights, major headaches for me, and a generally unpleasant atmosphere for everyone.

I’m willing to give these users the benefit of the doubt by assuming that they are behaving in such a rude manner without understanding how their words are perceived by others.

However, I would like to be very clear that BLF Rule #1 always has been and will continue to be enforced.

To help users get a general feeling of how their posting style is perceived by others, I have made a new Rude! button available on all posts. This button should only be used on posts that are rude, lewd or conflictive . (The spam button continues to function normally, and should only be used for clear cases of spam.) The Rude! button does two things:

## Adds to a “My Rudeness Level” counter for the user that created the post. (The counter goes up immediately, but slowly ticks down every day, provided that the user doesn’t get any more clicks against him/her.) You can see your personal “My Rudeness Level” in a meter below your “User Menu” on the left-hand side. Users can not see other users’ “My Rudeness Level”, but I can, and I will be frequently checking the scores.

## A given post that many different users flag as Rude! will be automatically removed.

Please keep in mind that there are always a certain number of false hits by accident or by somebody that simply doesn’t like you, so there is no need to contact me if your “My Rudeness Level” counter goes up slightly and you’re pretty sure you’ve been acting politely. It will automatically go back down within 24 hours. However, if your counter keeps going up, you probably need to take to make immediate changes to your posting style to avoid me taking appropriate manual action on a case-by-case basis.

If your “Rudness Level” meter goes up, you can see which posts were flagged and how many times:
http://budgetlightforum.com/my-problem-posts

Please also remember that one of the valid reasons to use the Rude! button is when a user is being conflictive. This includes starting, engaging in, or otherwise responding to arguments. The best way to stop an argument or make somebody stop trolling is by completely ignoring the post(s) and using the Rude! button when warranted. Also, please do not quote other users’ rude posts, since doing so only gives additional publicity to their rudeness.

Also, please remember that BLF is not Reddit or Slashshot, and I don’t want it to turn into that either. So please do not use the Rude! button just because you don’t like or don’t agree with the post or the poster. It is intended exclusively for use on rude, lewd, or conflictive posts.

I sincerely hope that this new measure will raise awareness in the BLF community about the seriousness of rude behavior. Thanks to everyone that uses the new button appropriately, and thanks even more to the vast majority of BLF users that do their best to be polite and follow BLF Rule #9 :

@http://budgetlightforum.com/forum/misc/siterules

9. Have fun.

[sb56637]

Reserved

[Yourrid]

Fantastic idea SB! :+1:

[Joshk]

Cool feature, I wish more sites had that.

[EyeballFryer]

You should put a space or two between the Rude button and the cancel link.

[FmC]

@sb56637

Please try marking this post as Rude!

You rude Admin, you!

[EyeballFryer]

Wait, what happened to the test comment that asked us to mark it as rude?

Edit: Never mind. I missed this line in the 1st post:

A given post that many different users flag as Rude! will be automatically removed.

Too bad, I was going to mark and unmark it as rude multiple times to make sure it doesn’t cause a crash.

[CRX]

You can even “rude” yourself, just tried on one of my own posts, so ignore that one sb :laughing:

[jf_smm]

@EyeballFryer

You should put a space or two between the Rude button and the cancel link.

+1

old eyes, wrong glasses etc.

[sb56637]

@CRX

You can even “rude” yourself, just tried on one of my own posts, so ignore that one sb :laughing:

Did you try to un-rude yourself to make sure the counter goes back down?

[sb56637]

@jf_smm

@EyeballFryer

You should put a space or two between the Rude button and the cancel link.

+1

old eyes, wrong glasses etc.

Are you saying on the confirmation screen below where it says “Are you sure you want to mark this post as rude? Please ONLY use this for rude, lewd, or conflictive posts.” ?

[EyeballFryer]

@sb56637

Are you saying on the confirmation screen below where it says “Are you sure you want to mark this post as rude? Please ONLY use this for rude, lewd, or conflictive posts.” ?

Yes, to space out the choices to avoid accidentally clicking the wrong choice, and for general readability. The same goes for the confirmation screen when unmarking a rude post.

The confirmation screen is a good idea. It prevents someone from abusing the rude feature by rapidly clicking all of the Rude! links on the same comments page. But what stops someone who has a grudge from marking the multiple comments of the same person to quickly push up their rude meter?

[ToyKeeper]

Cool, I hope this new feature will help. It seems like a much better idea than the css-based blacklist thing I made for personal use.

Anyway, I’m going to ‘rude’ this comment so I can see what the meter looks like when it’s non-zero. I styled the button, but don’t know what the meter is going to look like.

[sb56637]

@EyeballFryer

@sb56637

Are you saying on the confirmation screen below where it says “Are you sure you want to mark this post as rude? Please ONLY use this for rude, lewd, or conflictive posts.” ?

Yes, to space out the choices to avoid accidentally clicking the wrong choice, and for general readability. The same goes for the confirmation screen when unmarking a rude post.

The confirmation screen is a good idea. It prevents someone from abusing the rude feature by rapidly clicking all of the Rude! links on the same comments page. But what stops someone who has a grudge from marking the multiple comments of the same person to quickly push up their rude meter?

Thanks for the feedback EyeballFryer.

Regarding the spacing between the two buttons, unfortunately that part isn’t easy to tweak… Sorry about that!

About the possibility of somebody with a grudge, yes, I thought about that too. I could add some checks against that, but I really don’t think it’s necessary, because (1) the hits aren’t permanent, and (2) at least you’ll know that somebody has a grudge against you. :smiling_imp: And I guess (3) would be that expressing a grudge via the Rudeness Level meter is less bad than expressing it in writing on the public forum.

[EyeballFryer]

OK, I’m at 11/10 rudeness level. What happens to me now? Do I get my flashlights taken away? Do I go stand in a corner?

[sb56637]

@ToyKeeper

Cool, I hope this new feature will help. It seems like a much better idea than the css-based blacklist thing I made for personal use.

Anyway, I’m going to ‘rude’ this comment so I can see what the meter looks like when it’s non-zero. I styled the button, but don’t know what the meter is going to look like.

Thanks ToyKeeper! You’ll probably have 2 points now, since I also gave you one for testing purposes.

[EyeballFryer]

@sb56637

Thanks for the feedback EyeballFryer.

Regarding the spacing between the two buttons, unfortunately that part isn’t easy to tweak… Sorry about that!

About the possibility of somebody with a grudge, yes, I thought about that too. I could add some checks against that, but I really don’t think it’s necessary, because (1) the hits aren’t permanent, and (2) at least you’ll know that somebody has a grudge against you. :smiling_imp: And I guess (3) would be that expressing a grudge via the Rudeness Level meter is less bad than expressing it in writing on the public forum.

Another suggestion: The confirmation screen should show the comment that the user wanted marked or unmarked as rude.

[sb56637]

@EyeballFryer

OK, I’m at 11/10 rudeness level. What happens to me now? Do I get my flashlights taken away? Do I go stand in a corner?

Yes, the level can go overboard. Basically, that meter is normally for a different purpose, but it was the closest thing I could find to the functionality I needed. In the context of this system, consider anything over 1 or 2 to be a problem, and 10 is absolutely shameful. Anything over 10… well, a psychiatrist be in order!

By the way, how did you pull off the 11/10 rudeness level already? Marking your own posts I assume?

[atbglenn]

t would be nice to have an ignore user button if that’s possible. Not that I’d ignore any of the wonderful members we have here. But it would solve a lot of problems I would think.

[dilligan]

Thanks for doing this. :) I have noticed this increase in rudeness, and it has made me not want to comment as much on things.