[Avi]

Im going to post what I posted in the Discord because it fits well here:
I just want to put it out there that there has always been a precedent that members were allowed to give an opinion on staff applications by messaging an admin privately for them to take their vote into consideration.
Now directly having the admin post on the thread is a newer concept, but if someone can make a comment and prove to the admin that they are honest in their opinion of said applicant, then there should be no issue in anonymous voting.
An admin shouldn't post it if they have reason to believe that there is biased opinion or it's blatantly a lie, so if people think that anonymous claims are outlandish or exaggerated, talk to the admin that posted it, don't throw shade in your own votes. There's a couple of instances of that now and I'd like people to consider why those people feel worried about what they want to say that they are inclined to go to an admin in the first place.

[Frosty (2)]

Intention is everything. If the purpose is to be useful or constructive, it isn’t an issue. If it’s to hide behind a security blanket, that’s cringe.


I have used this before because I felt more comfortable giving criticism through being anonymous because I had fears that because “I said it,” it would lose all merit due to negative opinions people have of me (which are warranted).

I will echo what Dong said: it is ENTIRELY up to the admin who was contacted how that is dealt with. They can ignore it or choose to post it. They’re not legally obligated to make the post for them and have enough intelligence to determine whether something is maliciously said to incite behind a security blanket or if they are giving harsh criticism that they think would be better coming from an admin posting rather than themselves.

That being said, it has to be something truly constructive to be used properly.

[reinaberg]

I'd like people to consider why those people feel worried about what they want to say that they are inclined to go to an admin in the first place.

would you be willing to explain what this means to you? i think that would allow for a more productive discussion. as far as i know, the person who wrote the posts does not have a documented or alleged history of harassment by damien or his friends, so i don’t think that was the main reason why they asked an admin to post for them. out of respect for their wish to maintain anonymity, i won’t say what i believe the reason to be, but my belief based on what i know is that harassment is not likely to be the cause.

[Avi]

I'd like people to consider why those people feel worried about what they want to say that they are inclined to go to an admin in the first place.

would you be willing to explain what this means to you? i think that would allow for a more productive discussion. as far as i know, the person who wrote the posts does not have a documented or alleged history of harassment by damien or his friends, so i don’t think that was the main reason why they asked an admin to post for them. out of respect for their wish to maintain anonymity, i won’t say what i believe the reason to be, but my belief based on what i know is that harassment is not likely to be the cause.

Now that I have a moment to type out my thoughts...

That specific statement I made was made as a generalization, one that describes both anonymous posting on apps/appeals/etc. as well as anonymous reporting. 

In the specific situation with Damien's application, I do think that there were a couple of reasonable points made in that statement, some that I've seen to be true. While I'm not worried about any backlash or issues with certain people, it seems quite a few others are worried that they can't feel free to post without tension and argument.  I do think on his app, it's ok for people to disagree with others, but to flat out deny or belittle someone for their opinion even anonymously is part of why these people don't speak out. It goes along with anonymous reporting. I can anonymously report staff to the admins at any given time. It follows the same process as these anonymous posts being made. I have an issue, I can back up my issue with examples, and it's up to the admins to decide how they want to approach it.  As a matter of fact, I approached an admin with concerns about Damien's behaviour, as stated in my comments on his app, and sent video/screenshot proof. While people agreed that there was an issue, I'm not even sure if the admins addressed it as I received no response after sending things over. But that's on the admins. In both of these situations where things are anonymous, the admin can choose to act on a report or post an anonymous post if they feel there are proper grounds to do so. So if anyone is upset at it, then they should address it with an admin, not belittle people for anonymously wanting to post.

[BillyBob]

this thread is silly

[Icey]

baseless claims with no evidence should be completely ignored

[Ckg]

*snip*

I do not think that when making these anonymous submissions that rep comes into the thought process 99% of time.  Like everyone has said it is to avoid unwarranted harassment or targeting, because not everyone is ok with getting ganged up on when going against the grain.  This entire thread is more than enough evidence that there needs to be a way to anonymously submit feedback. I mean just look at the sheer effort that has gone into attempting to expose/degrade a person who has wanted to stay anonymous.  Y'all have all but outright asked who the person is.

Whether or not the feedback is warranted is up to the admin to decide, because none of us have the entire context of this discussion or even who sent that Brian.  Fear of being instantly dismissed as unfounded without the chance to provide evidence could easily have been the exact reason why this person submitted this anonymously.  But none of us can say for sure, however, I believe that since Bryan has infinitely more context than us and chose to include it shows that there is merit behind it.

edit: Even by just declaring it a "toxic closed-ended response" you have already passed judgement on the character of the person who posted it. Hopefully you can see how when you speak in absolutes that denigrate the character of a person attempting to give their personal experience/feedback, you are most likely creating the exact situation that person wanted to avoid when they posted anonymously.

[reinaberg]

I mean just look at the sheer effort that has gone into attempting to expose/degrade a person who has wanted to stay anonymous.  Y'all have all but outright asked who the person is.

i'm sorry, but i am genuinely confused by this part. nobody has tried to guess who it was or insulted them, and i omitted information from one of my responses to protect their privacy. this thread is meant to be used to discuss whether or not the anonymous response on damien's application is something that should be allowed, or if context/evidence should be required in order to request an anonymous post.

---

Even by just declaring it a "toxic closed-ended response" you have already passed judgement on the character of the person who posted it.  Hopefully you can see how when you speak in absolutes that denigrate the character of a person attempting to give their personal experience/feedback, you are most likely creating the exact situation that person wanted to avoid when they posted anonymously.

this also confuses me a great deal. i found the response toxic and believe it doesn't leave room for discussion, regardless of who wrote it.

[Gabe]

*snip*

This entire thread is more than enough evidence that there needs to be a way to anonymously submit feedback. I mean just look at the sheer effort that has gone into attempting to expose/degrade a person who has wanted to stay anonymous.  Y'all have all but outright asked who the person is.

I strongly disagree with this notion, no one has tried to expose or degrade the person or ask who this person is. We're having a general discussion about anonymous feedback when it comes to its merits, how it comes across(i.e. hostility or accusatory), its context, and it being meaningful. No one here is arguing that anonymous feedback shouldn't be a thing. Everyone thus far has agreed that anonymous feedback is acceptable. It's a debate not on anonymous feedback itself, just how it should be presented, discussed, and how they should be grounded in reality and be fairly discussed and defended. This is a good discussion to have, no one is trying to expose, degrade, or ask who the person is. 

As for a way to submit anonymous feedback, the "unwritten" system we've had for years to dm an Admin is frankly ok in my mind. I may differ from others, but I don't think all anonymous feedback needs to be posted on the thread itself, especially if it comes across as accusatory with nothing to back it up or hostile that won't lead to anything productive. I'll refer back to what I said in my initial response: I used to get ***a lot** of anonymous feedback when I was TTT Admin and the way I handled those was I would post them in the admin channel to allow the people who vote on apps(Admins) to discuss it internally, because, ultimately, Admins are the ones that decide and should determine if the feedback has any foundation to it. If it was clearly biased or lacked substance I'd ask them privately to send me context or evidence for that before I consider posting it internally to see if anyone else has heard of it before or get a better idea of what they're talking about. I saw no need to post it on the app itself most of the time unless it was something that could formulate a productive discussion on the substance of the anonymous feedback or something the community should know about. AKA something that could actually be discussed to a meaningful extent. Again, there are ways to protect anonymity in public setting too. I already addressed harassment/backlash in my initial response a few pages back, so won't repost it

*snip*

1. Whether or not the feedback is warranted is up to the admin to decide, because none of us have the entire context of this discussion or even who sent that Brian.  Fear of being instantly dismissed as unfounded without the chance to provide evidence could easily have been the exact reason why this person submitted this anonymously.  But none of us can say for sure, however, I believe that since Bryan has infinitely more context than us and chose to include it shows that there is merit behind it.

2. edit: Even by just declaring it a "toxic closed-ended response" you have already passed judgement on the character of the person who posted it.  Hopefully you can see how when you speak in absolutes that denigrate the character of a person attempting to give their personal experience/feedback, you are most likely creating the exact situation that person wanted to avoid when they posted anonymously.

1. Yes, it is up to the Admin to decide if the feedback is warranted, I'll refer back to what I said above for how I don't think all feedback especially those that lack specific examples or context should be posted if it can't lead to a meaningful discussion or defense for the person who applied. Like I said, that kind of feedback can be kept internally among the Admins to discuss and consider, because they are the ultimate decision-makers.

2. I don't really agree with how you are characterizing Reina’s response there either. I think that type of anonymous feedback is difficult to have an open-ended discussion about in a public form setting, that type of feedback is more fitting for a private setting/internal among the Admins before being posted publicly with no real way to discuss it if neccessary. 

As I said in my first response a few pages back, the keyword is "feedback" not just saying this person does x, y, and z things or would most likely to do something based on x, y, and z. That's just accusing someone with no evidence or context attached to it. Which may not be the intent, but that's the way it presents itself. It's not "passing judgement on the character of the person who posted it" it's simply just pointing, in my mind, that it's being presented in a poorly structured way. Nothing about the person themselves. That creates an unfair discourse and no fair way to have a meaningful discussion about it or allow the applicant to properly defend themselves. Sure, they can ask an admin in private to elaborate, but the problem is that the feedback is still in public and unfairly paints that picture where it could've just been handled in private from the beginning. 

So I think the type of feedback posted publicly imo should have context or evidence along with it so everyone has a better understanding of where it's coming from, why it's being said, and not be seen as just a closed-minded type of feedback that doesn't provide a way to discuss it. It should be open-ended, not closed-ended. That means it should be discussable, allowing the person it's being directed to defend themselves, and allow a medium for people to assess that feedback or constructive critiques based off of that to add onto your +1 or -1.

mmm salad

1. I mostly agree with your points overall, but it's less about -rep and more about being treated poorly on the server and in the community in general, which isn't really something that can be reported or meaningfully acted upon by staff most of the time outside of extreme cases. 

I do agree that anonymous posts should be filtered to be constructive and made in good faith (really this should be all feedback posts, but 1984), but I don't see any legitimate reason why posts that pass that bar should face any further scrutiny or ridicule as far as anonymity goes, and restricting them would only serve to silence voices that might otherwise bring to light problematic behavior in the community*. I don't think the matter of anonymous posts in particular has been a huge issue recently or anything, but it's still just a bad precedent to set for the future.

*Speaking hypothetically, based on Reina's post before she had clarified further.

1. If people are being treated poorly on the server itself or in the community that is something we can handle. it's just a matter of it being reported to us if we can't observe it clearly. If it's reported to an Admin or appropriate staff privately we can handle that. As in for outside the community itself that's more tricky to deal with but if someone feels targeted or harassed by that person in general, it's still something worth reporting. I believe, or at least personally speaking I'd do my best to handle it or entertain the report.  I already said my piece about rep, so I'll skip that and agree that's a whole other discussion(cropped that part out in your response). 

2. Agreed, should be filtered, be in good faith, and be constructive. I think the issue is determining what that "bar" is. I already touched on that above in Ckg's part. No one is trying to ridicule or scrutinize the person themselves, just how the feedback is presented (circle back to what I said above regarding that so I don't repeat myself more since it's pretty much related haha)

[Ckg]

*snip*

I guess that I should clarify what I meant when relying to both Reina and Gave. You both bring up very fair points.  I should state that I am generally against posting anonymously on apps since it is where public debate takes place.  However, I think that whether an anonymous post is allowed in the public, it has been so for a reason.

Also to address the "passing judgement" statement, that's more a semantical argument.  I personally believe that it would be better to fault the post for it's arguments and engage with them in a productive and meaningful way as opposed to just labeling it "toxic" and moving on.  That statement didn't, in my mind, address any of the points the argument raised and was just another way of saying "this argument is dumb" which is a point that the initial comment brought up: "disregards others opinions as troll behavior".  You also characterized it as "hiding behind other community members without a valid reason to avoid taking responsibility for one's words", passing judgement on them and projecting your own feelings on top of theirs, implying that their feelings are invalid and they are only doing this to stir trouble, which is doing the exact same thing you have faulted them for: making an unfair argument lacking evidence that someone can't respond to.
That's why I said it was more of an attack on the character of the poster, since you just dismissed their concerns as invalid and heavily implied they only did this to stir the pot.

I do agree with you that context is important, and I believe that if there was evidence it should be posted redacted (as in the case of harassment bans evidence).  I would say however that Gabe laid out my beliefs pretty well in his response when it comes to anonymous posts in general.  I just took issue with the idea that everyone who posts criticism anonymously should not be allowed to do and should be forced to put themselves out in public, thereby just removing that opinion from the discussion.