Also, if she could get her neighbors to all plant gardens in their front yards, even temporarily, the prosecution's argument would implode in his face. Community action, boyo.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I thought it was a pretty good movie. I especially liked the segment on the squatter's rights group in Florida using community action to prevent evictions. More of that kind of action is needed.

You know, a law that is incomprehensible cannot be enforced (the tax code). However, in this instance, those who are claiming that the 'government' has no right to run their lives do not understand who they are in relationship to that 'government', and they do not understand who that 'government' is in relationship to them. In short, if you are acting as a type of federal agent, then the 'government' does very much so have authority to tell you exactly what to do.

It all boils down to each individual being fundamentally lazy and ignorant and loving it that way. Salvation does not lie in corporate or communal action. Salvation lies within, through repentance and acceptance of the Law.

Do not believe me. Find the source: www.TeamLaw.org

There are a number of different aspects to this, so bear with me if you can.

The most obvious question is - why were Siftquisitions institutionalized? I have never liked the idea of them, formal or informal. Mob justice is a Bad Idea&trade. That said, the desire of Dag and Lucky to automate and shift some of the responsibility for punishment to the community is understandable. With an informal siftquisition, it was easy to make an argument that an admin allowed their own bias to affect their interpretation of consensus on punishment. I can't think of any cases where that happened, though, so it seems like a non-issue. The informal system worked just fine compared to the current formalized one. (That is not to be taken as an endorsement from me of either system.)

Dag, Lucky - you two need to understand that the complaints of arbitrary admin justice (e.g., banning Berticus) were not because of the actions themselves, but because the actions were carried out arbitrarily while you were promoting the idea of communal justice. It was hypocritical. Personally, I think you should apply justice yourselves, and accept the responsibility that comes with it. Don't freak out if someone disagrees with you (however vehemently). It doesn't mean they hate you as a person, just that they thought your words or actions were wrong.

A number of people have pointed out the problems with siftquisitions in general, whether they are formalized or not. Mob justice, popularity, personal squabbles etc., are all real issues. The underlying fact is that the population here is simply not big enough to ever have a truly objective "jury of one's peers". I once suggested the idea of a judges panel, and I'm glad to see it revived by others. It occurs to me, though, that the very users most qualified to sit on that panel are the ones least likely to want anything to do with it. Election of judges is a horrible idea. It would only make the popularity issue more acute. Besides, I can't afford enough power points to run an effective campaign.

It does seem pretty clear that most bannable offenses can be handled with swift arbitrary justice that doesn't require communal action. When the community as a whole does need to get involved, there is just no way around the fact that friendships and personal bias will come into it. Formalizing Siftquisitions does exactly zero in alleviating that problem.


All that said, I'm going to abstain, because this has got to be one of the least important features of the site. Collapse the Personal Queues into one Unsifted section!

I thought dag's post was not only justified but also ethically acceptable. Not because I was the specific target, but because the target became the site in general. The abuser's use of proxy servers and scripts constituted a DOS attack on the site as a whole. I was the one who originally identified him, and pointed dag to his youtube account. From there, it was nothing to find the bebo profile and other info. At that point, I recommended having the matter turned over to the FBI - they take this kind of stuff very seriously, and generally very professionally. Morning sickness should thank his maker dag did not follow my recommendation, as his life would have become far more inconvenient than having his name and face posted and ridiculed.

As to your specific points Mycroft, I agree that the sister should have been left out of it, but that was an inevitable consequence of community reaction (more on that below). As for the punk's sexuality being questioned and ridiculed, well, he opened the door on that one. Kicked it right down, in fact. Anyone so obviously and obnoxiously homophobic should be ridiculed and on that basis. As far as the public nature of the ridicule, well, like I wrote above, other options could have been far far worse for him.

One thing made clear from the comments on dag's post (and on several others), however, is the nature of mob mentality. It is the single biggest thing that worries me about how this site is run. Blankfist, it's ironic that you worry about a sift king. I have been harassing dag to be more authoritarian with how his site is run. Community input is a great thing, and usually beneficial, but it was that same community action that led to some of the excesses on the morning sickness post and allowed other recent fiascos to occur.

How should such abuses of the site be handled in the future? Abuses of the voting system, comment system, registration, etc. can all be handled without resorting to communal abuse. It can still be just as public. All that is needed is the ability for the owner/operators to submit blog posts which do not allow public comments, except as the submitter sees fit.

TBH - I'm fairly loaded on this late sunday night (I love self-employment!), so I'm probably not expressing my conclusions as well as I could. But the general gist is that this is dag's site. We all agree to abide by certain rules and guidelines and behavioral norms, and if we go outside of those, it is absurd to think that we wouldn't be open to any abuse he cares to lay down. My problem, dag, is when you open that abuse up to the rest of the crowd. Who are we to say what is acceptable on your site? We contribute in many ways, but it's your deal, and you need to keep it that way. Otherwise, as this site grows, you will find yourself being torn between those who would tell you to be a dictator and those who would tell you to let the community decide.

I agree, actually, but if a gold star member goes to comedy central, they can just embed from there, however much it is disallowed for the lesser stars. Hell, I suspect a lot of gold stars don't even know we disallowed comedy central.

I don't even know how hard it would be to place restrictions on gold star embedding, or if it should be done with community action. This is the recent submission that pushed me over the edge, but it's not the only one by far: http://www.videosift.com/video/Jon-Stewart-brilliantly-disects-the-State-of-the-Union

Probably. I still don't like the idea of banning him. I don't watch his vids much. He only affects me when I see his comments.


In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Dissent is giving gm way too much credit.

In reply to this comment by oxdottir:
I will chime in.

I don't like quantummushroom, don't like his sifts, in general, hate his comments, and would probably enjoy my sift experience more if he were gone. Do I want him banned? No. I recognize that if Dag and Lucky, and whoever else is in charge here don't like his company, they can do so, and they are welcome to: it's their sandbox. But I don't like to ban dissenting voices.

And honestly, if this siftquisition didn't get myfifteenminutes some extra votes, I will be surprised. (But then, I vote for a lot of his videos, anyway.)

I would rather leave this to community action. Would any of you be more or less likely to vote for a QM vid now? Would any of you be more or less likely to vote for a 15min vid now? I suspect a few of you would: probably enough to make a difference. And yes, I would still say this even if QM went wild on my queue.

I approve STRONGLY of dag running the siftquisition, and of things like voting an entire catalogue down being made public.

Edit: one more thing, I wish I could see easily who is downvoting my videos. Sometimes I am sifting about, notice my number has gone down, and spend way too much time trying to find the downvote. Not that I mind the downvote--just I am madly curious to see what it was and if there was a reason. Oh, and I recently got a nice note from a sifter in response to my downvoting his vid. Honestly. That's class.

I will chime in.

I don't like quantummushroom, don't like his sifts, in general, hate his comments, and would probably enjoy my sift experience more if he were gone. Do I want him banned? No. I recognize that if Dag and Lucky, and whoever else is in charge here don't like his company, they can do so, and they are welcome to: it's their sandbox. But I don't like to ban dissenting voices.

And honestly, if this siftquisition didn't get myfifteenminutes some extra votes, I will be surprised. (But then, I vote for a lot of his videos, anyway.)

I would rather leave this to community action. Would any of you be more or less likely to vote for a QM vid now? Would any of you be more or less likely to vote for a 15min vid now? I suspect a few of you would: probably enough to make a difference. And yes, I would still say this even if QM went wild on my queue.

I approve STRONGLY of dag running the siftquisition, and of things like voting an entire catalogue down being made public.

Edit: one more thing, I wish I could see easily who is downvoting my videos. Sometimes I am sifting about, notice my number has gone down, and spend way too much time trying to find the downvote. Not that I mind the downvote--just I am madly curious to see what it was and if there was a reason. Oh, and I recently got a nice note from a sifter in response to my downvoting his vid. Honestly. That's class.