This is the best place, yes. Suggestions and concerns of all kinds.
We want to empower users, especially thread owners, to feel like they can “self-moderate” their threads for situations exactly like this. We don’t want people calling other people trolls, just because as you pointed out, they may be unaware that’s what they’re doing, but from a moderation perspective, we DO like to see when thread owners get involved to reorient their own threads. Because then, if the behavior doesn’t stop, you can reach out to us and we can intervene. Sometimes there’s not much we can do (especially in Chatters) when someone flags a user for something like trolling or derailing because the topic owner themselves hasn’t asked for the conversation to be redirected. We do have the following language in our Code of Conduct for this exact reason:
If a user is derailing your thread, as the thread owner, you have every right to request that the conversation be brought back to the subject you originally wanted to talk about. I agree with bringing in the mods to every conversation, because it does tend to lean into things like censorship or suggestions of “overreaction.” However, if you ask a user to stop derailing the thread and that user continues to ignore your request, THEN you can bring it to our attention and we can immediately take action to back you up. We do see frequent instances of derailing conversation, but especially in places like The Chatters, if we haven’t seen the topic owner request the conversation be brought back to the point at hand, we can’t automatically assume that the OP considers it derailing.
I absolutely agree. And you’re exactly right, sometimes there aren’t black and white solutions (we actually come across these pretty frequently). Some users aren’t outright violating the CoC, but their behavior is still detrimental to the conversation. So please feel empowered, especially on your own threads, to gently redirect the conversation. That request could look something like this:
While I appreciate/understand/sympathize/respect your point/description/opinion, I’m going to ask now that we reorient the conversation back to the original topic. If you want to keep discussing XYZ, please start your own new thread in Chatters.
This is a polite but firm example of setting expectations. This isn’t necessarily a template, but it acknowledges the user’s responses, redirects the conversation back to the original point, and acknowledges the user may want to continue their discussion and gives them a suggestion for how to continue doing so. This is a reply that wouldn’t violate our Code of Conduct and very clearly gives you a path to recourse in the event the user continues their behavior moving forward (meaning you could notify us to reinforce your request if it is ignored).
I am sorry you had this experience in your topic–we do want to empower our users to feel they can self-moderate their own threads. It helps us and you while maintaining the “delicate balance” here (this is a very accurate description lol).