I'm not looking for a flame war here either. Among my many areas of expertise, at my last year at Colorado State I took two graduate seminars in the political science department where we studied how various actors in various milieux acquire or lose power. So I have some creds.

So I have a political science hypothesis about how the balance of power has shifted in bautforum.com say from 2006 to 2009: I might be wrong about this, but in those bygone days, there was less emphasis on users reporting on each other, and there was more what I call patroling by moderators. That is, the mods back then had more time to just float around bautforum.com and actually do some reading and some participating. Now, however, mods spend 80%-90% of their moderation time reacting to reports produced by users, rather than mods going out and finding their own busts. It's no wonder the mods are grumpy these days.

(And don't get me wrong. I appreciate what the mods do and what a crappy job it really must be. I would never want to do it. But without the thin blue line provided by the mods, this place would rapidly devolve to a _____-tard creativity contest.)

So we have a situation where the mods have basically stopped being cops and are now judges instead. That is, their job now is merely to pass sentence on people who have been turned in by other users, rather than going out and uncovering wrong-doing as it happens.

And it wouldn't be a big deal if the serial tattletales weren't human. But they are. So we have a situation where a self-appointed cadre of informers are basically doing the official moderators' job for them. Unlike the official mods, the cadre have never taken an oath to be impartial, for example. They are under no obligation to be impartial. They don't have to report on their friends, for example, whereas real cops are in theory supposed to. They are free to stalk other users they don't like. They are free to use the little yellow button as a mode of discussion by other means.

So who are the people that compose this unofficial cadre of psuedomoderators? We can venture some hypotheses. First of all, they are probably relatively few in number compared to the total number of registered users. According to the ordinary Pareto Principle--the 80-20 "rule"--20% of the registered users should account for 80% of the "alerts". Now, I may be wrong, but I don't think that there are 10,000 people who routinely report on their fellow users. In fact, I would bet dollars to donuts that there are no more than 50 users (0.1%) that account for 80%-90% of the total number of alerts.

Second of all, they probably share similar demographic characteristics. Their ages probably vary widely, but they share a common vision on what they think bautforum.com ought to be like. They mostly tend to be within The Clique. Most of them sincerely feel that they are doing a service for bautforum.com. Probably a few of them take actual sadistic pleasure in shooting down their fellow users; for this subspecies, the little yellow triangle is the trigger of their virtual sniper rifle; they make a game of patiently seeking out just the right post of their selected target; these are the guys who go poking around other people's profiles and like to use the "See all posts by So_and_So" function. These guys are few and far between. They probably compose less than 0.01% of the total population of registered users.

But even if the actual number is 100 users that account for 90% of the alerts, think about what that entails! Nobody appointed them to their role as informer. Nor were they elected to their position. Yet when they say "jump!", the official moderators jump!

What a power grab! It would be kind of beautiful, really, if we were talking about insects in a jungle ecosystem. And the thing is, no one designed the system, i.e., bautforum.com, to behave that way. Yet it happened. On the other hand, that's normal. People do their best to create a system that they think will behave one way, and then it takes on a life of its own. It's the law of unintended consequences.

Which leads me to a 4th practical suggestion: make all posts to the little yellow triangle public.

OMG!!!

But just take a minute and think about it from a consequentialist viewpoint rather than worrying about idiological qualms regarding the virtues of anonymity. Think about it:

What's the harm? And what are they afraid of anyway? That someone they narc off on an internet discussion forum is going to track them down and burn down their house or something? Give me a break. Most people will still be anonymous, since they choose to use anonymous "handles".

On the other hand, I realize that for many people these days, their online persona is more real than their physical persona, and so they have a reputation to protect, and so I can see why they might not want their online persona to be known as the neighborhood snitch.

Yeah, well then, if you don't want to be known as the neighborhood snitch, then don't be the neighborhood snitch!

If something is so beyond the pale that action is necessary, then people should have the hair to step up to the plate and say it out loud where everyone can hear the accusation. And if the "violation" is not so beyond the pale, then maybe people will think twice before they go imposing on the moderators time. Because an open little-yellow-triangle forum would allow the game theoretical evolutionary strategy known as tit-for-tat.

Somebody's been picking on me. They have made it their special purpose in life to "get" me. I have an idea who at least some of them are. However, my sense of ethics prevents me from watching their every post for the slightest rules violation. Thus, if I knew for sure who was ratting me out for crap that even is not a violation of the rules, then I could turn the tables on them, and rat them out the next time they mention the name of a biblical character in vain.

In any case, the little yellow triangle isn't anonymous anyway: you have to be logged on to use it. So here's a 6th suggestion: make it so that you don't have to be logged on at all to hit the little yellow triangle.

Honestly, why is it that the little yellow triangle is only for people who are logged on? If the goal is the preservation of anonymity, then the little yellow triangle should be totally anonymous. In real life, the police have anonymous tip lines where people don't have to identify themselves to the real police. So why do the virtual police at bautforum.com insist on knowing who's pressing the little yellow triangle?

Well, it's retribution actually. The mods make a big deal about how they occasionally bust someone down for "abusing" the little yellow triangle function. (I have yet to see a member of The Clique who has been busted down little yellow triangle abuse.) But they can't bust someone down for abusing the little yellow triangle button if they don't know who's pressing it. So they get you coming and they get you going. Speaking for myself frankly, I'm afraid to press that little yellow triangle. I'm afraid that the mods will turn the tables on me and use it against me.

So the little yellow triangle should be either totally open or totally anonymous-if being fair is a desirable value, that is. The former option would save the mods a lot of time and thus allow them to be actual participants in bautforum.com once again; the latter would no doubt result in even more "alerts" because there would be no retribution for those reporting who aren't members of The Clique.

Anyway, that's how I see it. It's just a theory. It may be false. But it must might be useful if you paid attention. Thanks all.