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Underground > Policy & Help >

How many votes for each moderation action?

21:34 / 22.09.03

Ok - I've upped the number of votes required for several of the more simple moderation actions in order to make them slightly harder to be accomplished. This will mean slightly more work for moderators but should also result in slightly more checks and balances in place. I've got another idea I'm going to test out in the next few days if I can persuade cal to do it. This is how they currently look in the code - if anyone has any better ideas for how the votes should be weighted, feel free to post them below:

add_action("POST_DELETE",2,"Delete Post");
add_action("POST_MODIFY",2,"Modify Post");
add_action("TOPIC_DELETE",3,"Delete Topic");
add_action("TOPIC_MOVE",1,"Move Topic");
add_action("TOPIC_MODIFY_TITLE",2,"Modify Topic Title");
add_action("TOPIC_MODIFY_ABSTRACT",2,"Modify Topic Abstract");
add_action("TOPIC_LOCK",2,"Lock Topic");
add_action("TOPIC_UNLOCK",2,"Unlock Topic");

21:45 / 22.09.03

This is probably just creating huge headaches, but as I kind of alluded to in this moderation system suggestion, maybe it should be expressed better as a percentage of total moderators?

21:47 / 22.09.03

As it stands, I'd add a vote each to deletions (posts and topics) and lockings.

Maybe. It really does depend on how many actual moderators there are to do the voting.

22:20 / 22.09.03

I would knock down modify topic abstract to one, possibly the same for topic title, since people still tend to forget abstracts, or if the thread evolves out of its original abstract pretty quickly.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:32 / 22.09.03

Seems odd to have as money votes to lock a topic as to moderate a post - I would suggest leaving moderate post at 1 agreement, as mostly that is fixing HTML or somebody asking to have typos removed, and maybe moving topic to 2, as that is a fairly major action although not admittedly one that alters text. Otherwise, I suggest we see how this goes...

22:38 / 22.09.03

As they're presented here, do these values include the original proposal?

23:01 / 22.09.03

I think they do, I just proposed an abstract mod and it said it would require the agreement of two other moderators.

23:17 / 22.09.03

I haven't checked recently, but I'd work on the principle that the initial proposal happens first - these are the subsequent votes to make something happen afterwards.

01:04 / 24.09.03

I think Delete Post should have a rating scale for why the post is up for deletion.

A duplicate or a request by the poster to delete should be an easy task for 1 mod, while a post that is held to be offensive or malicious should require at least 4 mods.

01:07 / 24.09.03

(rot)
BTW, I'm starting to get involved with this stuff because 1) I don't want to see the board get closed down or shut off, and 2) because lately I've seen a number of mods jumping in and trying to move posts into other forums on very shaky grounds.

Just leave it be, folks. If the majority of a thread agrees to move it, then go ahead. But don't jump in after two posts and suggest that it belongs elsewhere.

(end rot)

10:55 / 24.09.03

Moving a thread is a minor issue I think -- no content has been changed.

Looks good to me. I would support the second vote for modification -- as I understand it, the point of this review is to strengthen the checks and balances both in effect and in perception -- while most modifying is trivial, it is possible in theory to abuse this privilege sorely.

11:31 / 24.09.03

I think we could safely drop one vote from 'Modify post'. It's only ever used when the original poster wants to fix typos or add something they forgot first time around, or by moderators to sort out any HTML that's wonky. As it stands many of these fixes take some time to go through the system, which leads to other posters either posting the correct links underneath the original post or pointing out inconsistencies in the argument of the OP which may be addressed in the edit. The quicker the edit goes through, the less likely it is to knock the thread out of whack. Knocking the required votes back by one on simple edits would still mean that there has to be a vote of agreement.

pointless and uncalled for

14:57 / 28.09.03

I think that moderation, from what I have been able to glean of the whole process from speaking to mods about what they do could well be improved by the following suggestion:

Moderation requests could be classified further than the current options of Modify or Delete when clicking on the moderate post link. Such options could be i) alter grammar, spelling, html, ii) revise content of post, iii) delete due to duplication and iv) delete due to content.

For things like i and ii then there should be only one moderator approval to perform the task and as we have dutifully placed our trust in a certain group of people, and rightfully so, to act as moderators this form of classification would then place a certain onus of moderation on the actual poster. Suitable options, such as moderators cannot moderate their own posts should, in theory prevent a certain level of potential abuse of the system.

Should a moderator propose a simple moderation on another suits post then it would need to b ratified by another mod. On the more complex levels then more votes need to be added and also if there is content revision or post deletion then I think it would benefit the board for a moderator comment to be required. This leads to a better style of transparent moderating and if someone feels particularly hard done by they can choose to approach another mod or Tom to review the situation.

The only people that I think that this would not satisfy would be trolls and my opinion on satisfying trolls is slender and rather to the point.

I can't say how technologically possible this is and it may require a heirarchical structure of moderators but I think it might provide some answers.

16:14 / 28.09.03

The problem, of course, is that the board has no way to tell if a post is just being deleted because it's a double or because the moderator doesn't agree with its content. Nor does it know if a change (even a small change) is a type or a complete reversal of position - for example "I think George Bush is moral" vs. "I think George Bush is amoral". That's why we've arranged it so that the CLASS of change is taken into account. Bear in mind that we put in a 'preview' button precisely so that we could avoid having a million moderation actions based around spelling (and also that automatically, changes suggested by a board member to their own post require one less moderator to be involved). I wouldn't say that a moderator should feel comfortable disagreeing to people's trivial changes (at least not at the moment when the moderation requests aren't really that strenuous to deal with), but it would certainly behoove us to encourage people to use the preview button instead...

Matthew Fluxington

16:30 / 28.09.03

Has there ever been a case that anyone can think of where a moderator was trying to remove something they personally didn't agree with? I only moderate the comics and music forums, so I certainly can't think of any occasions like that. My interest has always been focused on keeping links , pics, titles, and abstracts tidy - the only semi-questionable thing I think I've ever done was in a post where I was creating an html link, I also fixed the spelling of my own screenname, which the poster had messed up. (Fulx --> Flux).

I don't really care too much about how many votes it takes to get something through - if you think it's more checks & balances, then fine. But my moderation activity tends to be primarily cosmetic changes, so yeah, I guess I'd rather have errors corrected sooner, but it doesn't bother me much to wait a little longer.

pointless and uncalled for

17:23 / 28.09.03

Sorry, should have made this a little clearer.

The classification of change should be determined by the one requesting moderation. If the moderator feels that the change is actually greater than the one implied, contextual rather than cosmetic, then they could either refuse the action or change the classification but could only make that change upwards rather than downwards.

This is where the poster becomes more responsible and involved in moderation requests.

11:44 / 08.10.03

I agree that modify post should only require one moderator.

I always feel guilty about changing a simple grammatical error, because I'm aware that two people are going to have to look it over and waste their time just because I can't remember that sentences start with a capital letter. But I can't stop myself from requesting the change owing to a tendency towards anal retention. I think I ask for a post to be moderated about once a day due to spelling or grammar mistakes and if other people do too that's a lot of bothering two people all the time, for fairly silly reasons.

And yes I know I should check it in preview, but sometimes you misread what you've written even then.

Tryphena Absent

12:07 / 08.10.03

Olulabelle, reading mistakes on the board and not being able to do anything is the most irritating thing ever so let it be known that I'll moderate you anytime!