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Is something wrong with Barbelith?

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Tryphena Absent

12:08 / 12.09.06

But it still looks to me like the original heart of hir argument was "talking about -isms so much ruins all our fun, and Is The Problem With Barbelith." That's certainly how it came across to me.

That's because Auntie is a contrary bastard who just wants to piss people off and continuously fails to do so. The best way to avoid getting riled up by him is to hear absolutely everything he says in the voice of Alan Bennett. It's also somewhat closer to his flippant bastarding truth. Bastard Aunt.

pointless & uncalled for

12:10 / 12.09.06

{rottage= I prefer the dulcet tones of Trigger from Only Fools and Horses}

12:23 / 12.09.06

Or perhaps xk is right, and it's all part of a sort of chaff-burning process. Maybe we should have a cleansing ritual?

I believe this dialogue and the surrounding metathreads are reforming the board's culture in a productive manner. While conclusions and their products may still be in the future the process is well underway and folks should be seeing that as a sign of progress. The stress is a motivator and what Mordant so well calls the Argh serves to shake things up a bit and put a fire under some asses.

On a detail oriented note, do the current mods feel they need more shoulders to help with the work load? There is the possibilty that nothing needs to change in the structure of the board but rather the human resource department just needs to schedule more vacation time and staff accordingly.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:28 / 12.09.06

I think it's probably worth having another look at how many mods are currently active. This may be tricky, though- I've noticed at least one (very good) mod who always seems to be around for mod duties but has hardly posted in about a year.

pointless & uncalled for

12:34 / 12.09.06

Taking a look at the active numbers vs. moderators it doesn't look like it would cause a problem to recruit a few more names.

It has already been expressed by a few mods in recent threads that the amount of work is significantly detracting from their desire to interact with the board. Therefore it might be time for a call to alms. Any other mods concur?

13:39 / 12.09.06

A call to arms for sure. The more mods the better I say, and it's about time we had Barbelith:TNG reprazented, I nominate xk for the Natasha Yar position.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:55 / 12.09.06

I don't think it's the workload as such that is onerous, in terms of agreeing, disagreeing or skipping moderation requests. It's the amount of work involved with trying to deal with low-value posters, petty arguments, the non-existence of any way to deal with bad behaviour short of starting an enervating and unwieldy banning process, and timewasting complaints about t3h facist moderators. The actual yes/no/maybe process doesn't take up much time at all, whhich is really the only part that having more moderators would make much of a difference to, since the new moderators would probably largely be drawn from the ranks of people who get involved in those discussions anyway.

pointless & uncalled for

13:59 / 12.09.06

Would it make a difference if that involvement were made whilst wearing a funky mod hat and in concert with other mods?

14:04 / 12.09.06

Yes... I seem to have fewer jobs to do (as far as moderation tasks) whenever I'm on here, which is most workdays. However, I have more jobs to do in the rest of my life -- I was offline for the end of ShadowSax's run this April, and when Dead Megatron's birthday got all spiky over Labor Day weekend.

So, more firefighters for when the fires break out would probably be a good thing.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:15 / 12.09.06

I don't know, ignominious. People seem to take the mod hat as read if you're vocal and take an active stand on the board (X-ref all those who assumed Gypsy was a mod when there was that fracas a bit back).

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:32 / 12.09.06

Not really, I don't think - there's nothing much that moderators can do that non-moderators can't on matters disciplinary, except delete posts, which is of dubious utility - more firefighters, if firefighters means moderators, would potentially have caused further damage in the Dead Megatron issue, and Shadowsax never had posts deleted - he was just banned.

Which I think is good - in the sense that moderators and non-moderators should really have an approximately equal voice in these discussions, so that, for example, Ganesh's opinion remained valued when he was no longer a moderator because he was a sensible and involved voice. It does, however, have some concomitant problems, because nobody, moderator or otherwise, has a capacity to do anything to people whose behaviour is unacceptable except talk to them.

So, we could by all means have a moderator audit - who no longer regularly uses Barbelith who is a moderator. We could see, then, which fora were apparently over- or under-moderated. We could address who should be a moderator who currently is not, and indeed who should not be a moderator who currently is, although I can predict how well that's going to go over, and would probably need some TOM SUPPORT. xk sounds to me like a very sensible addition to Temple moderation, for example, especially since Illmatic has just committed barbeseppuku. We might need a new thread, though, or a bump of the last mod addition/removal thread, and maybe someone to point Tom at it.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:36 / 12.09.06

And, to prove Mordant's point, I assumed Illmatic was a moderator in the Temple. Hah.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:06 / 12.09.06

He was, dude. He'd just changed his name prior to jumping ship.

17:35 / 12.09.06

I nominate xk for the Natasha Yar position
No getting eaten by pit goo beasts and no 'fully functional' jokes either.

Possibly there could be a rotation of which mods have board wide etiquette patrol?
While everyone is invested perhaps we need to view intervention as a form of combat/crisis duty and after X amount of kind cool collected's the mods get to sit out the next round? Like a special team of mediation mods trained in a remote mountain top retreat by Ganesh and alas? Perhaps moderation should be a rotational job anyway so people don't get burnt out and others do become more invested?

oh crap I'm obviously being possessed by some sort of Le Guin/Heinlein love child civic duty vibe... Grrrrr.

paranoidwriter waves hello

17:47 / 12.09.06

I think it sounds like a great idea, xk. The rotation idea. Maybe, of course, some more well seasoned members could have longer seasons within or without the "standard moderator season" -- after all, many people's screen presense is hardly felt, whereas the mods are usually those whose names appear more frequently than "normal" members. Which suggests other conversations and initiatives as well...

Count me out though!

I'm an anarchist at heart.

x

18:26 / 12.09.06

Well I'm not sure what population slice is interested in being a mod which of course impacts how rotation-happy we can get.

However I do think perhaps the process map for disputes could be described as follows:

1. The forum mods respond to an issue in their section and try to resolve basic miscommunication/misunderstandings. These mods are known to the posters, understand the context of the forum, and any unique problems related to the topic.

2. If it needs to be escalated to Policy the Policy Mods operate as facilitators between parties (forum mods, poster(s) in question, and other interested posters). IMO the Policy Mods need to be the coolest heads, skilled in wrangling, and active. If mental health issues need to be addressed it happens here.

Again I'm not sure how much of this is realistic but I do think if a mod is going off board for any great length of time a replacement should be installed. I'd like to see the lines between mods and regular posters to be fluid enough that folks don't assume the A-listers are mods and vice versa.

The problem with this is most likely that it would put more of a work load on Tom to approve/remove mods. Ganesh joked somewhere about getting Tom a sub but perhaps we may need to open the purse strings so he can.

miss wonderstarr

19:07 / 12.09.06

I said before that I was willing (I'd say "keen" but I don't know precisely what it involves) to help moderate Film & TV forum. Tom was ready to implement this when I decided to take some time away from the board, a few months ago. Now I'm back I am happy to offer again.

pointless & uncalled for

09:39 / 13.09.06

Not sure that rotation would work so well. I could leave mods feeling definitively commited to presence which isn't necessarily going to be conduicive to them.

Also, the heirarchal mods strategy could fall over a bit easy. A particularly outraged suit could jump on the speak to your manager routine which effectively disempowers the forums mods because said suit can manipulate the process to easily. It should fall to the collective mods of a forum to call for back up if they need it.

That said, some format of mediation system between mods and the the rest of us being available does have a lot of merits. It introduces a sense of fair hearing that is a little lacking as anyone up for censure of their posts or facing any form of discipline lacks any defined advocacy. However, I'm not really sure how any judicial method could reasonably be introduced to the board in an easily implementable, accessible or necessarily transparent fashion.

09:55 / 13.09.06

Le Guin/Heinlein love child *shudders*

12:22 / 13.09.06

Also, the heirarchal mods strategy could fall over a bit easy. A particularly outraged suit could jump on the speak to your manager routine which effectively disempowers the forums mods because said suit can manipulate the process to easily. It should fall to the collective mods of a forum to call for back up if they need it.

Er..I thought anyone could 'take it to Policy' already?
I'm contemplating the proccess of what to do with it when it gets to Policy and what has already been done with before it gets there.
As for the speak to your manager...I've witnessed a few times when a mod was a part of a forum based dispute and their mod status was an issue held up as an unfair power dynamic. The resulting screaming sounded a lot like speak to your manager.

The factors I'm rolling around are improved mediation through the use of the Policy and Help forum and control the burn out rate of invested posters who appear to be on the most part mods. However the condition seems to be more related to having your energy sucked out via Sick of Teh Dumb and Painful Argue-mints than specificly wrangling TDPA. Invested emotionally and then drained (not solely through job description) is what is grinding people down methinks.

Maybe instead of an imposed timelimit on being a mod there should just be a clear cultural idea of Taking a Holiday?

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:25 / 13.09.06

Er..I thought anyone could 'take it to Policy' already?

Oh, GOD yes.

pointless & uncalled for

12:47 / 13.09.06

Er..I thought anyone could 'take it to Policy' already?

Sorry, I thought you were suggesting removing this measure.

19:04 / 13.09.06

I'm inclined not to go with anything that brings extra levels of complexity to the moderation process and the policing of the board, unless of course we're talking board functionality, but, well, we're never talking board functionality are we?

I can't help but think xk's suggestion would allow for more conflict, more confusion, and less clarity as people struggled to understand the bounds of their new roles and responsibilities.

Also, I assume the policy mod role would be more than a little taxing - aren't we trying to eliminate that kind of thing.

19:32 / 13.09.06

Hrm..that's no good then. I'm still not convinced the problem is any greater than battle fatigue.
Okay well without changing anything structural what social engineering can we do?

Do we need to get the Dance Card into full swing and send each other presents and have Barbelith Toasts Tom nights?

pointless & uncalled for

07:47 / 14.09.06

Okay well without changing anything structural what social engineering can we do?

I would imagine that, in more tense situations, where an incident of offensive posts/poster cannot be swiftly resolved, it might be well to have mods approach the baying dogs as well as the infractor. I appreciate that in some of the more severe cases a higher number of suits will feel insult or injury, but if everyone with tuppence to add gets a look in then this I think that only exascerbates the situation unduly.

I'd even go so far as to suggest that, in the open arena scenario, all communication aimed at the (potentially) offending individual be directed through one mod. Not sure if this is genuinely workable though. However, from an observers perspective, the ongoing pw affair in the racism thread isn't going as smooth as maybe it could. Part of this appears to be because a number of people, including a handful of mods (esp. policy mods) have gotten involved with a fair amount of repetition.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:17 / 14.09.06

The repetition, certainly, is kind of tiresome, isn't it?

In terms of social engineering - well, I think I already said:

By example, by persuasion, by moderation, by banning. There's a middle stage somewhere in there - by invective - which is tricky because, while it appears to be frowned upon, it is also clearly seen as a part of the process, at least for posters we have decided are of no value but who we don't think are likely to be banned, or have not been banned yet - Morpheus, for example.

So, we probably want to focus on the persuasion stage. Problem being that persuasion requires some willingness to perhaps not compromise, but at the very least calm down from both parties. That would be stage 1.

Question: if a moderator sees a situation blowing up in a thread, should they be encouraged a) to enter the thread and ask the parties to calm down or b) PM the participants and ask them to calm down? Should this calming down be codified in some way - like taking an hour away from the discussion? Should there be any way to enforce that? If we're going that way, we might have to start selecting moderators, or at least Policy moderators, for negotiating skills or moral authority...

We would also probably have to have some sort of stick to go with that carrot - which, realistically, probably means working out what to do about people who can't be calmed. A separate arbitration thread in Policy, possibly. It also means possibly lowering the bar on moderation and maybe even on banning, in certain cases - developing the embryonic "good-of-the-board/no-blame" motivation that arose during the discussions around Shadowsax and 33 - although that only works, really, while we have access controls.

Hmmm. I think it probably is battle-weariness, to a great extent. OTOH, we do need to find some way to stop the ongoing struggle, as it seems that as one member puts down the baton, another picks it up, and for preference also a way to get the moderators a little more sympatici...

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:23 / 14.09.06

There's another question, which I really never did think I'd ask - do we have to start telling people that they can't post in the Policy, or that they have to limit the number of posts they make in the policy to n per day (although how you'd police that I don't know)?

pointless & uncalled for

08:36 / 14.09.06

Question: if a moderator sees a situation blowing up in a thread, should they be encouraged a) to enter the thread and ask the parties to calm down or b) PM the participants and ask them to calm down?

Both? a) to stem the rising tide and b) to quell anyone appearing to take deep umbrage at the apparent offence and reassure them that the mod finger is in the pie.

Should this calming down be codified in some way - like taking an hour away from the discussion? Should there be any way to enforce that?

Hard to decide how necessary that would actually be. Hopefully never but in reality a temporary lock might not go to far awry.

If we're going that way, we might have to start selecting moderators, or at least Policy moderators, for negotiating skills or moral authority...

I rather thought that this was already the criteria for the Policy mods. To the best of my knowledge they all meet that criteria.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:39 / 14.09.06

Hopefully never but in reality a temporary lock might not go to far awry.

We'd need to change the board setup for that - possibly make it possible for mods to lock and unlock threads without voting to back it up - or with a much smaller number of votes... at the moment a long time can pass between a move to lock and a locking...

More generally, though, I do quite like the idea of the calm-down lock. It does at least mean that it will be pretty clear who wants to carry on the fight if they immediately open a new thread. However, it also penalises the rest of the people on the thread - for example, the threads where Shadowsax popped in to share his views were often pretty vibrant and dynamic discussions for and aft, despite the damage amidships. In those terms, temporarily locking suits might be mroe useful - but I doubt one would be able to sell that.

pointless & uncalled for

09:28 / 14.09.06

We can never advocate for a moderator to act unilaterally. Smaller voting numbers shouldn't be a problem.

I guess this is another question for Tom.

Tryphena Absent

18:09 / 14.09.06

However, it also penalises the rest of the people on the thread - for example, the threads where Shadowsax popped in to share his views were often pretty vibrant and dynamic discussions for and aft, despite the damage amidships

I think that if someone has something to say on a topic, rather than to a person they tend to spend more time on it anyway and are unlikely to be dissuaded by a thread falling down a forum. This type of thing doesn't really penalise people, it preserves their views because they are more likely to be heard when the space is created with a mind to that.

We would all have to be tighter about moderation though, we would effectively have to be moderators first and members of the community second.

18:21 / 14.09.06

Don't you feel like that sometimes anyway though?

Lately I've been spending most of my time reading the policy because I feel a responsibility to the board to do that first, before I go on to other forums. It's also at the top and most people work top down.

I do like the policy, like Stoatie I find it fascinating but I have heaps of things I want to do more, like re-read one particular trans thread in the headshop for example, and also find the one someone mentioned from a while ago about wearing the hijab, but quite often by the time I've finished reading all the stuff in the policy I don't have time.

pointless & uncalled for

19:50 / 14.09.06

We would all have to be tighter about moderation though, we would effectively have to be moderators first and members of the community second.

Does this feed back into the numbers game though?

19:57 / 14.09.06

Well, in theory at least, more moderators would mean that the current ones wouldn't feel like they have to be "on-duty" all of the time wouldn't it?

I have to say that, whilst I do try to get involved with problematic posters if I feel I might be able to add anything of worth, I have been lessening my input recently. If someone is already dealing with the problem then, beyond adding another disapproving voice, I've been leaving people to it.

Look, if the members (mod and non) who normally feel obligated to deal with problematic posters/situations are feeling like doing that is becoming more trouble than it's worth then why not ask for some help? I suspect there are more than a few people out there who are willing to try and deal with a problem. But it's possible that, like myself, they're deferring to the "tried-and-tested" gunslingers (to flog the Deadwood comparisson beyond breaking point).

If you need a hand, or you don't want the hassle of dealing with it all then why not let some of the rest of us pick up the slack a little? Okay, some people's word-fu may not be up to the same quality as whoever is included in the Seven Soldiers of Barbelith (jokingly?) suggested by Alex's Grandma, but does it really need to be? Go and have a play in the threads where people aren't arguing meta all of the time. Worst comes to the worst we can sound an alarm if things get too crazy.

20:28 / 14.09.06

That's a really good idea if people felt they could stick to it, but as Haus says somewhere talking about coming back from his break, he felt compelled to 'try and put out some of the fires.' (I'd find the reference for this but God knows which thread it's in.) I remember it because I thought it was pertinent.

I just follow things but I don't really post a great deal other than to add a voice so it wouldn't apply to me, but for the others it might be helpful. If they felt sure other people were taking on the various tasks.

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