Escalation in race and team threads

[nzjrs]

That just forces people to go down another route in order to enjoy F1 races. And it won't stop the post-race stupidity. Indeed, during the race itself the thread is usually OK. It's afterwards that the silliness starts.

Agree with this, during the races the threads are OK, even good sometimes.

It's afterwards that they go off the rails.

I think it's the repetitive nature of the arguing that wears people down, not the arguing per se.

[codetower]

That just forces people to go down another route in order to enjoy F1 races. And it won't stop the post-race stupidity. Indeed, during the race itself the thread is usually OK. It's afterwards that the silliness starts.

Agree with this, during the races the threads are OK, even good sometimes.

It's afterwards that they go off the rails.

I think it's the repetitive nature of the arguing that wears people down, not the arguing per se.

Even after the race some threads are OK. It’s when someones feels like their team or driver was "wronged". They won't look at anything objectively and just throw a tantrum. But personally, I think it IS just the arguing that they feed off of. Right or Wrong, they won't see reason, they just want to continue the argument. Maybe I’m wrong, who knows... I don't understand it. I just try really hard to not even engage.

And @Steven, don’t get me started on the whole than/then, there/they’re… it drives me insane! I live in the states and it’s an epidemic here. But as far as locking the threads, I do think the in-race comments aren’t too bad. But I think a day or two after the race, or if it starts escalating quickly, them maybe. How about a new thread, call it something like Landfill or Junkyard… or The Octagon. Move them all there and let them have at it!

[wesley123]

To be honest im dutch but not living there for awhile , but i have seen this behaviour happening more and more there on dutch fora which are not even about motorsports and I have seen dutch outside of their country becoming very rude
I dont know if its education or such but i have seen my country people becoming pretty arrogant over the years "we are the best" kind of attitude.
Living abroad i have noticed this more and more

Really ? That seems complete nonsense to me. As if every Dutchman is the same! Every Englishman is not the same either.
Some people, no matter where they were born, just always think they know better. What they say is the truth.
These people are found all over the world.

To be honest, I agree with maxxer on this one. This behavior does seem to be occurring more and more as of late, not even mentioning covid. As a Dutchman myself I do love my country, but as of late I'm really feeling ashamed to being Dutch at anything involving the country on an international scale.

The Dutch have always been 'successfans', but this seems to be an more increasing occurance these days.

[elmo putney]

I am a long time lurker here, over the years it has been an insightful place to be - particularly pre-season. Latley the race threads and to some extents the team threads are just a --- storm. Even prior to that I didn't feel the urge to post, I just can't be arsed to waste energy on internet warriors so I never bothered. Its ironic that now as an observer of the forum I feel compelled to post, cos its coming close to not even being bothered to be an observer anymore. Toxic!

[Just_a_fan]

I've always liked the Dutch. I remember an overnight camping trip stop near Frankfurt. My friend and me, two German lads and two Dutch lads all pitched tents next to each other. My German is limited to saying hello, goodbye, ordering beer and getting a room for the night. My Dutch is nonexistent. The German lads didn't speak English or Dutch. But we spent a great evening eating, drinking beer and kicking a ball around, all the time with the Dutch guys acting as interpreters.

And any country that invents the stroopwafel is OK in my book.

[dave kumar]

I've been hanging around here for a while, so I've seen a lot of valued members of the forum come and go. I've also seen a few periods in the past where a polarising opinion has split the forum and some of those valued members have left as a result. As other people have pointed out in this thread, this isn't just a problem for F1Technical, it's a problem for the internet/society/whatever. So we're not going to solve it easily but what's really struck me recently is how the same arguments are getting repeated again and again, across lots of different threads, usually by just a few posters. You're not going to change someone's mind if they've decided that you're wrong. One persons facts are another's opinion. So how can we moderate these pointless arguments without putting an unsustainable workload on the mods?

This is a F1Technical so I'm going to suggest a mechanism for dealing with this. My background is swarm / collective behaviour and I'm interested in harnessing collective intelligence, the wisdom of the crowd in this case. Can we do something to make the culture of the forum visible and in turn help those posting steer clear of getting sucked in to unconstructive arguments.

I'm proposing a ying-yang status as a way of flagging when a thread has entered an unhealthy state. The flag is a collective way of saying, 'we're bored of this, can we all agree to disagree and move on now'. The aim is to help highlight situations where a few people get sucked in to an argument that the rest of us have little interest in. My personal strategy is to stop checking that thread for a few days or so and hope it has moved on to some other topic. But could we use some form of group-moderation to help?

Rather than flag a post as ying-yang (as it's never one post that is responsible), members would be able to flag a thread as having entered a ying-yang state. If enough members flag a thread in a given time period, we cross a threshold or reach a quorum. Crossing the threshold may simply result in a change in the icon of the thread / background colour when viewing the thread, to warn potential readers and posters that we are entering ying-yang territory. Entering ying-yang state could also be used to bring the thread to the attention of the moderators who may wish to take further action.

It would be an interesting experiment to see if, when we make the ying-yang rating of a thread visible, whether seeing that rating increase is sufficient to make members refrain from prolonging an argument in that thread. Most of us probably would refrain if we knew that a majority of members were actively unhappy about the direction the thread had gone in. That's kind of how society works. You're aware of the opinions of those around you and try and conform, at least a little bit.

This is essentially a way to make the views of many members who are reading a thread, visible to the few that are posting most of the content. It is a way of making F1Tech's collective mind more tangible, instead of me just sitting here shaking my head as i read another inflammatory post.

[e30ernest]

I think that without heavy-handed moderation, the format of forums like this is very conducive to escalation.

An old technical forum I used to go to had their forum in a threaded view. Sure there are some heated non-technical debates, but because of the threaded layout, those comments all get shelved into a thread and doesn't really contaminate the main technical discussions.

The listed view in forums like this distributes these comments to the point that it feels like the entire thread is talking about nothing but that controversial topic. The actual meaningful content can be buried by a few more vocal posters.

I'm not saying we switched to a threaded format. This is more of just an observation on my part.

[flynfrog]

Just a reminder you guys all have an ignore feature. You can make the handful of problem people just disappear.

[dans79]

Just a reminder you guys all have an ignore feature. You can make the handful of problem people just disappear.

In my opinion, That comes with its own set of issues.

This is supposed to be a technical forum, but over the last few years the number of people who will ignore indisputable facts, mathematics, and physics because it doesn't suit their agenda has drastically increased.

If those of us that know better just ignore them because of their personalities, that incorrect information is gonna get propagated By those that don't know any better.

I can't point to an exact race thread, but I can remember at least a few instances where someone has said something that's incorrect in a race thread and then one or more people has reiterated it in a technical thread.

If we aren't gonna uphold any minimum standard when it comes to technical information, then in my opinion the forum should change its name.

[SiLo]

I think that without heavy-handed moderation, the format of forums like this is very conducive to escalation.

An old technical forum I used to go to had their forum in a threaded view. Sure there are some heated non-technical debates, but because of the threaded layout, those comments all get shelved into a thread and doesn't really contaminate the main technical discussions.

The listed view in forums like this distributes these comments to the point that it feels like the entire thread is talking about nothing but that controversial topic. The actual meaningful content can be buried by a few more vocal posters.

I'm not saying we switched to a threaded format. This is more of just an observation on my part.

One of the things I do actually like about Reddit. I can just click or tap and an entire chain of dumb comments disappears!

[e30ernest]

I think that without heavy-handed moderation, the format of forums like this is very conducive to escalation.

An old technical forum I used to go to had their forum in a threaded view. Sure there are some heated non-technical debates, but because of the threaded layout, those comments all get shelved into a thread and doesn't really contaminate the main technical discussions.

The listed view in forums like this distributes these comments to the point that it feels like the entire thread is talking about nothing but that controversial topic. The actual meaningful content can be buried by a few more vocal posters.

I'm not saying we switched to a threaded format. This is more of just an observation on my part.

One of the things I do actually like about Reddit. I can just click or tap and an entire chain of dumb comments disappears!

Yup pretty much. And when you go to the better moderated subs there (usually technical in nature as well) the discussions are still pretty good.

Reddit gets a bad name from a few subs IMO.

[Just_a_fan]

Just a reminder you guys all have an ignore feature. You can make the handful of problem people just disappear.

If one ignores and annoying poster it doesn't make them go away. Their posts are still visible if they are quoted by someone else, for example. They also still affect the thread, they affect other's attitudes and responses, they affect the tone and how pleasant a thread is - others may respond to the sniping comments and we still end up with ruined threads.

I would respond to your point by saying: "Just remember that you mods can ban people. You can make the handful of problem people just disappear".

[Just_a_fan]

Just a reminder you guys all have an ignore feature. You can make the handful of problem people just disappear.

In my opinion, That comes with its own set of issues.

This is supposed to be a technical forum, but over the last few years the number of people who will ignore indisputable facts, mathematics, and physics because it doesn't suit their agenda has drastically increased.

If those of us that know better just ignore them because of their personalities, that incorrect information is gonna get propagated By those that don't know any better.

I can't point to an exact race thread, but I can remember at least a few instances where someone has said something that's incorrect in a race thread and then one or more people has reiterated it in a technical thread.

If we aren't gonna uphold any minimum standard when it comes to technical information, then in my opinion the forum should change its name.

A good point about incorrect information. We live in a time where a lot of discussions are about the spreading of misinformation a.k.a. lies, whether it be about a person, a religion, a people, science / medicine. If we just ignore those people that spread this stuff, we allow that stuff to become the new truth even though they are actually lies.

Yes, this is just a forum about motorsport and it doesn't matter in the great scheme of things, but that principle of calling out misinformation is central to our society's future. Ignore it and we will enter a new dark ages. Allow small stuff today and you can forget about stopping the big stuff tomorrow.

[nzjrs]

A good point about incorrect information. We live in a time where a lot of discussions are about the spreading of misinformation a.k.a. lies, whether it be about a person, a religion, a people, science / medicine. If we just ignore those people that spread this stuff, we allow that stuff to become the new truth even though they are actually lies.

I think the lesson of the last few years is not that lies are the problem, but pseudo-plausible interpretations are the problem.

We've had a few years of social media conditioning and training users how to walk the line between lie and misinformation, so I would never conflate the two. In my opinion this is the intellectual and epistemological shift that has changed the dialog online.

[Just_a_fan]

A good point about incorrect information. We live in a time where a lot of discussions are about the spreading of misinformation a.k.a. lies, whether it be about a person, a religion, a people, science / medicine. If we just ignore those people that spread this stuff, we allow that stuff to become the new truth even though they are actually lies.

I think the lesson of the last few years is not that lies are the problem, but pseudo-plausible interpretations are the problem.

We've had a few years of social media conditioning and training users how to walk the line between lie and misinformation, so I would never conflate the two. In my opinion this is the intellectual and epistemological shift that has changed the dialog online.

I think it's a semantic distinction. The "pseudo-plausible interpretation" is misinformation. It's telling someone something in a way that sounds true when it isn't. That's basically a lie.

I guess the difference in the social media world is that the lies are being told to people that want to believe them. There are people that want to believe that the Government is out to get them in some way or other.

Luckily, the Government isn't involved in F1Technical. Or is it? Steven?