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Underground > Policy & Help >

Results of the Moderation cleaning thread 2005

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00:17 / 21.07.05

Yes, but that's why we had the other thread, isn't it? To see which moderators visit often and which don't.

Dupre if you hate it that much than why on this strange, solid ground are you doing it?

And again with the misreading my posts. I said, in my first post, that the occasional stupid spats in P&H can drain me of energy. I like being down as somebody to go to if you've got a question about the board - that sort of responsibility is nice to have. It's the area one that gets me most angry and fed up with some of the pettiness that can manifest itself on Barbelith, though, which is why, as I said in my last post, I've been considering chucking it in. I'm trying to figure out if the massive downer from the odd bit of idiocy is outweighed by the small pleasures in the majority of threads.

I wouldn't want to mod certain other areas of the board, because they can be even worse for the "massive downer" species of thread, and being forced to have the responsibility for sorting them out would *definitely* kill the board for me.

As far as moderating in general goes, I do it primarily because I want to give something back, to say cheers to Tom for keeping this place going and to help ensure that areas of it run as smoothly as they possibly can, whilst also being of the best quality they can.

Also, I'm enjoying getting G&G established - I've wanted to be able to post some more in-depth stuff on games for years now, and while I could do it there without being a moderator, I wouldn't be able to help steer it in the direction I believe it should go to the same extent if I wasn't one. I want to be proud of that forum, and that means having some small level of control over how it develops. FTV&T I enjoy posting to and reading more than I do most others, bar G&G. The only time that forum's let me down was with the bullshit surrounding the Dr Who threads.

But if I was to have to deal with some of the stuff that gets posted to Temple, Comics, Switchboard and Conversation, I'd probably log off for good. I can probably put up with P&H's infrequent collapses into name-calling. Throw others in on top of that, though, and no. No thanks.

00:25 / 21.07.05

I would be willing to take on another forum or two, if a) it's agreed that I could be of use and b) it's not comics, temple, or games, because I never check into those fora.

it's up to the more active members, however, and how comfortable they are with me taking on additional responsibilities, or even with taking away my gathering mod. I'm not that active a poster...I'm more of a social lurker. I can say, however, that I promise to pop into policy more often than I have been, either way.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

05:37 / 21.07.05

I agree with Nina, on those grounds I could moderate everywhere but the Temple.

Sorry to Dupre, but I didn't think I was misrepresenting the impression he gave earlier in the thread.

I suppose my viewpoint is based on Conversation modding, where all I'm asked for is spelling and HTML fixes and doublepost deletion. Do other mods get lots of regular requests for other types of moderation that I just don't hear about?

06:11 / 21.07.05

I think we're missing the point by saying that, by and large, all mods do is fix HTML and spelling.

Whilst that may often be what the workload is, their powers are far, far greater than that. The "big tasks" often require the agreement of up to three moderators, sure, but with more moderators, who moderate the whole board, you really are far more likely to find two who'll agree with you.

And so it's not just about a distribution of interest, but a distribution of power. And as I said earlier: mods are people, and people have bad days. Just because you only shoot rabbits with a shotgun doesn't mean that that's the most damage it can do; similarly, just because "all we do is fix HTML" doesn't mean it's all you can do.

And it's the power mods have - not the job the often end up doing - which makes board-wide modding a little unsound. I frequent a few other boards with multiple forums, and which have board-wide mods - quite a few, in addition to forum-specific mods - and believe me, whilst it means that spelling gets fixed lickety-split, it also means topics can be locked or posts deleted before anyone's noticed they're there. And that is actually not always a good thing.

There's a reason we share the power.

06:23 / 21.07.05

As people have said, the obvious problem that some fora are suffering at the moment from a lack of moderators is not quite the same as whether, on average, each moderator should look after a huge number of fora. I absolutely agree that we need to reorganise the moderators a bit so that we get new ones in and clean up some of the other people who no longer do very much because of work commitments or changing priorities or whatever. Hopefully we can speed up that whole process enormously. And in the meantime, there is a reason why the moderators are mentioned on the front of every forum and that's so people can send them a private message if they think something needs to be done urgently.

What I propose is that once this current round of moderation checks has been done, we do a clean up of the moderators around the board and see how many we have left around the place. Then we can do another recruitment call and if anyone wants to moderate more fora, then I'm all for that. I would like to set some kind of rough arbitrary limit on the number that people could look after at something like five or six though, and really the fewer the better.

10:25 / 21.07.05

More moderators is the fix to getting through actions rapidly but honestly, not the same number of mods with greater responsibilities. Tom

Am I right in thinking that it is fairly straightforward to give a mod another forum? If so then why not give responsibility for a couple more fora to those who want them. I *want* to mod the Temple, and G&G, and I'd happily mod another if it would cut down someone else's workload- it seems there are other mods who want to do more, why not let them while new ones are being recruited?

The mod learning curve as 'twere. Currently I only do headshop and that's about one request a week to fix a typo (possibly due to conscientious Hauskeeping), I am underworked and I don't think I'm the only one.

Goodness Gracious Meme

11:25 / 21.07.05

More moderators is the fix to getting through actions rapidly but honestly, not the same number of mods with greater responsibilities

Yep, exactly my thoughts. This is covered by Tom clearly enough. Figure out who wants to stay on, see how much coverage that offers, then put out a call for more moderators.

Though I can see Q's point as a way of getting that 3rd part moving.

Would a thread where existing mods volunteers for extra fora, noting how many fora they currently cover, be a good notion? This could then evolve into a recruitment thread.

Dupre on G&G I want to be proud of that forum.

Snap, which is why I'd like to be involved at moderation level. I think I've already demonstrated commitment to promoting/focussing/participating.

I think in any case (and this needn't be me, of course) if G&G is going to get more mods it could do with a couple who slanted towards the sports side of things(who can still intelligently mod other general thread) as it can be very difficult to do the 'more than caretaking' stuff on subjects about which you have no knowledge/sympathy...

12:10 / 21.07.05

Would a thread where existing mods volunteers for extra fora, noting how many fora they currently cover, be a good notion? This could then evolve into a recruitment thread

I second that motion.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:30 / 21.07.05

So moderator x, previously trusted to moderate just the Conversation, moderates all the fora and suddenly turns into Dark Phoenix? I really don't see how this works. Either Tom trusts the moderators or he doesn't, regardless of what other board members may feel about them.

Tom is not omniscient. As has been established, he reads Barbelith quite infrequently compared to some of us. Therefore, a newbie moderator moderating one forum is a good way of seeing how they use those powers. Modzero was made a moderator, in my opinion mistakenly, and was reasonably shortly thereafter removed from the lists of moderators. Duncan Falconer adopted a policy of vetoing delete requests on posts by Knodge in the Conversation which I would have been profoundly unwilling to see extended across the board. So, no, not Dark Phoenix, and I don't know if the hyperbole is terribly useful; just that a mistake in making somebody a moderator is multiplied by the numebr of forums that person can affect and the time it may take Tom to respond.

Incidentally, Administrators had two functions, I think, that moderators didn't, "Warn User" and "Ban User", but neither of them actually did anything. I think they were like the "close door" buttons on elevators.

14:31 / 21.07.05

Oh yeah, I forgot about those!

I tried to Warn Ganesh once, but nothing happened.

(All of a sudden, that reads like something on a Magic card.)

Anyway, yes yes -- thirding or whatever any motion that leads to recruiting *more* forum-specific mods.

Now, which fora do people think need more moderators first? I'd love to be switched from Head Shop to Switchboard -- I don't read HS as much as I should, and I get that OCD itch over Sb more than anywhere else -- so I think Sb might be high on the "need mods" list.

06:40 / 22.07.05

Sorry Nina, I wasn't suggesting that people can mod if they only look in once a week - I'm probably online and on barbelith for a minimum of three hours a day. I think if we can have more people doing that, then we'll cover all the bases. I was just saying I don't think we need to be (as I used to be) reading Barbelith for up to 10 hours a day.
I'm happy to mod in other forums - the conversation, or the games, perhaps.

16:22 / 22.07.05

Given it some more thought and decided I would like to hand over my position in Radio & Music to somebody more involved with that forum.

Regrettable Juvenilia

17:25 / 22.07.05

I could take that on, I suppose.

03:40 / 24.07.05

Bring a couple of people in on Switchboard. Some poor bastard's been trying to get a double post deleted and I approved it about 14 hours ago. It's a pretty easy place, any volunteers?

paranoidwriter waves hello

05:41 / 24.07.05

Sorry to poke my little fat one in, but do you need new moderators?

If so, in a few years time (or however long the approval period is), when I've more experience on the board I'd love to give it a go for a trial period at least; if only for purely selfish reasons. What I mean by that is I'd love to see the Barbeworld through moderator eyes: to see what it looks like back-stage (the actual graphics / technology involved behind the scenes), and also to see how many and what type of requests y'all get on a daily basis. For example, I often get worried about asking moderators to allow (say) for the correction of a couple of minor spelling mistakes in a post, and though I often spot mistakes I don't ask for moderation because of the same reason. But these kind of requests, as I once typed here, are very important to me and (fto me) leaving them uncorrected is almost like waiting for a problem to bubble away and eventually explode.

Also, to have a glimpse at and therefore appreciate more what you guys and gals go through might be worthwhile for ALL active members, non? Maybe we could have a lottery every month where a non-moderator member wins the honour/burden of becoming a moderator for a week? Kin-of like Jury Service? (I know: "That's a stupid idea", but still...)

Erm...cheers... As you were.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

08:53 / 24.07.05

Paranoidwriter, it's really not exciting. When you are a moderator you can edit a post that anyone has written and you can also do the same to a thread title and summary, and move it to another forum (pending receiving the necessary votes).

That said, I'm happy to help in Switchboard if more mods are needed.

paranoidwriter waves hello

11:49 / 24.07.05

Oh yeah? I hear there's fairies and magic monkeys and every gets a magic bag like Sports Billy. You can't fool me!

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:50 / 24.07.05

I would like to see some more mods (or at least, more active mods) in the Temple. Requests seem to take rather a while to go through.

12:54 / 24.07.05

I'm also happy to help mod the switchboard if that helps.

13:40 / 24.07.05

Mostly, I'm agreeing with Dupre (except for the bit about wanting to step down as a Music mod. I would never want to step down as a Music mod, for obvious reasons). I just wanted to say, though, in response to this exchange between Tom & Nina:

Tom: I don't want someone voting on decisions in a forum they've never posted in or read.

Nina: So you don't want me to sort out a broken link in Comic Books? You don't want me to agree to editing a poster's spelling mistake? I think you can broaden this out.

Me personally, I think there's a problem with the idea of people being, sort of, half-mods in a forum - that is, people leaving the difficult moderation requests in a particular forum to the mods who know that forum better, and only dealing with the technical problems (broken html, typos, summaries). I can see there's an argument in favour of getting technical problems sorted out quickly, but... for example, I sometimes wonder about asking to be made a Convo mod, because I often spot easily-fixable mistakes in Convo threads and they make my fingers twitch. But in the end I never do, because the Conversation is a place where a lot of personal feuds and a lot of trolling happen, and I suck at that kind of thing. I don't trust my impartiality or my interpersonal skills nearly enough to want to get involved with the very detailed and laborious clean-ups that occasionally have to happen in the Conversation. And I sort of think I shouldn't be allowed to have those tech-police-powers unless I'm willing to be more profoundly invested in a forum.

Hmm. That made more sense in my head, I think. I'll see if I can clarify it later.

15:42 / 24.07.05

pw - It's worth saying that in a very meaningful sense you already are a moderator, insofar as you can moderate your own posts and take on a role as exemplar for any forum you like.

In a way that's why I struggle to agree with Deva's point. People adopt stronger or weaker moderator stances all the time. Everyone requests small, uncontroversial edits to their own posts; forum Mods will fix links or resize images in other people's posts; some will intervene in feuds, others will hold-back if they think they're not best placed; you might agree or disagree an action, or you might abstain from voting.
I just don't think I see what the danger is in allowing mods take on a 'weak' mod role in other forums. A park ranger off hir own turf probably wouldn't want to start giving directions, but it doesn't stop hir picking up litter.

16:17 / 24.07.05

I just don't think I see what the danger is in allowing mods take on a 'weak' mod role in other forums.

I don't want to overstate it, and on the whole I think you're right about the continuum-of-moderation*, but I think there's a possibility that a forum with too high a proportion of 'weak' mods will suffer from the assumption that any non-technical request is Someone Else's Problem. In other words, I think if every mod on a forum thinks every moderation request is their personal responsibility, the quality of moderation will be higher than if a proportion of mods think they don't have to respond to difficult requests. (I could be wrong - it's also possible that the quality of moderation will in fact be higher if the more-invested mods aren't spending all their time fixing typos. But I find that if I've been being a bit slack in one of my fora, a typo-fixing request will draw me into a thread I might have neglected and in general remind me that I am a mod and I have responsibilities, so I would rather only mod in fora I want to be actively involved with. I think I'd slightly rather only have actively-invested mods in the fora I mod, but it's not a strong enough preference for me to want to stop anyone becoming an extra, 'weak' moderator...)

16:20 / 24.07.05

(Sorry, forgot footnote)

*paranoidwriter, I think on the whole most mods would rather respond to moderation requests than have 'messy' threads with second or third posts apologizing for typos - I don't think any of the mods are ever annoyed at "trivial" requests (unless you put in too many multiple requests for the same post, fixing one typo at a time, I guess).

15:05 / 25.07.05

I'd agree on the typos - it really doesn't take a lot of effort to fix them, paranoidwriter, so don't feel bad about asking for things to be fixed if they're bothering you.

18:15 / 25.07.05

I have to admit, I'm one of the more timid moderators - I'm very reluctant to make or agree to make changes to someone's post beyond repairing typos and the like. but that's in gathering; I'd probably be a little tougher in a more structured forum.

20:07 / 25.07.05

switchboard is the forum i check as religiously as conversation, so i'm game.
i'd even try to start more threads if folks want.

toksik for mod!
you know it mocks sense!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

02:41 / 26.07.05

We could do with some more in Switchboard, I reckon- as Jack says, requests are taking quite a while.

ONLY NICE THINGS

06:42 / 26.07.05

I'd suggest taking a look at your responses in this recent thread, toksik.

10:34 / 26.07.05

i have.
i'm not sure what i'm meant to get from that, dude.
are you suggesting i would be unfit or fit?
perhaps some direction as to what i am meant to get from the reread would help.
although we disagreed, i dont think i said anything to worry about. your suggestion seems to be that i did.
am i right?
could you outline what you are trying to say?

11:16 / 26.07.05

I personally think that people who contribute a huge amount to a forum (as Toksik does to Switchboard) should very definitely be considered for moderators.

The content of the thread Haus has cited in no way suggests to me that Toksik is "unsuitable," and merely shows that he disagrees with Haus.

Differing opinions on a messageboard are a good thing.

11:32 / 26.07.05

ah.
so you think i was picking fights.
thanks for your vote of confidence.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:39 / 26.07.05

Point: that a moderator should be prepared to read threads, and to try to keep them on topic and not actively to damage them. Bit more leeway in the convo, obviously, but toksik in that thread is now averaging one ontopic post to every four or five which instead address another poster to the thread directly, usually either based on a careless reading of their words or some action that he feels they have taken for which they should be upbraided. If toksik is to be a moderator, then well and good, but it would behove him to start paying more attention to the content of threads so they do not get hung up by him demanding that people explain things they have already said, or make it clear that he doesn't actually care what they said anyway, as it turns out, or any of the other time-wasting nonsenses that any thread in which he becomes entangled tend to fall prey to.

This is hardly a matter of agreement or disagreement, Olulabelle - if you read the thread with a less jaundiced eye you might notice that when Toksik actually gets ontopic he and I largely agree. I would ask you to think a little more before pitching into a topic, as I had to in that thread and as I would like Toksik to before happpily endorsing his adoption as moderator. I didn't realise that the suggestion that people look at their behaviour and think about it was such an apalling slur.

12:04 / 26.07.05

its not a slur, dude, of course not.
you migt have said the same thing in response to me feeling stupid to show me i was much smarter than i was giving myself credit for.
the thing is, it was a suggestion that i reread to highlight what you feel are my failings, failings i disagree with you about.

If toksik is to be a moderator, then well and good, but it would behove him to start paying more attention to the content of threads so they do not get hung up by him demanding that people explain things they have already said, or make it clear that he doesn't actually care what they said anyway, as it turns out, or any of the other time-wasting nonsenses that any thread in which he becomes entangled tend to fall prey to.

i feel that asking people to explain things i have misunderstood is only fair.
if it is my stupidity, laziness or dyslexia that have contributed to that misunderstanding that will soon become clear, and i may not be the only one unable to grasp what has been said.
you can think of me like that character in movies who always asks the hero to explain what is going on for the halfwits in the audience, if it helps.
as for not caring, i was trying to get across that i didnt feel the tangent merited the amount of discussion we had given it, a position we seem to agree on.
i didnt say i didnt care about deva or hir opinions, nor did intend to suggest such.

as for the phrase
time-wasting nonsenses
i dont feel that is a fair assesment of my contribution.
yo are welcome to your opinion, of course.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:51 / 26.07.05

i was trying to get across that i didnt feel the tangent merited the amount of discussion we had given it, a position we seem to agree on.

Well, then, might I suggest that, particularly in persona moderatentis, it might be a good idea to say things like that? Only what you actually said was:

that said, i'm not sure i really care all that much.

See the difference? For that matter, you already impugned Deva's integrity, not once but twice"

i just wondered why deva felt the need to point that out, when it was quite clear PW was freestylin 'a really offensive thing' to fit 'a reaction to a really offensive thing'.

having now looked and had it clarified, i realise i got it, and that i still dont understand why there was a need to leap on the hyperbole when it wasnt the main point.

And then you said that you didn't care. As it happens, I'm pretty sure you didn't get it - you instead decided that Deva was seeking some underhand advantage by unfairly mentioning Paranoidwriter's "hyperbolic" comparison, which it oddly wasn't unfair for PW to make, which is part of the problem here, and Deva, if you look at the thread, tried to explain it to you again shortly thereafter. You're saying "I understood it first time round, and I didn't think it was worth the effort I ultimately put into clarifying what I understood to start with". So, a) I don't believe that to be the case and b) that was not what you said. As such, if you're pitching to be a moderator based on the idea that you're going to misunderstand things, decide that you were right about the interpretation that makes the best sense to your idea of who is cheating and then declare that you aren't bothered either way... well, I'm not loving that. Personal opinion, obviously, but I don't think it's a great selling point that it's taken two threads and a series of PMs even to get you to express what you actually meant, in order to see how it varied from what you wrote...

So, yeah. I think that spending a lot of time in a forum is definitely the entry-level for moderator powers. By that criterion, Toksik should definitely moderate the Switchboard.

Tryphena Absent

14:43 / 26.07.05

Despite my intense desire to delete the rot that has crowded this thread over the last few posts I am not going to because I'm nice like that. However should anyone else attempt to join this discussion or contribute to it further in an off-topic way that gives me the rage, their post shall be deleted lightning fast as if by the power of my mind.

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