Call for moderators (new and old)

Questions and comments
Felix
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by Felix »

How about we all just agree that it was bad judgement that secretwealth deleted the post and leave it at that? He's been called out on it publicly, the original situation has been resolved.

To go with the analogy, I don't think the chances are high that he will start killing all other moderators and take over the forum as a totalitarian dictator.

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

@Jacob: That is a reassuring figure both from the standpoint of laissez-faire moderation and the amount of work it would require of you.
Felix wrote:How about we all just agree that it was bad judgement that secretwealth deleted the post and leave it at that? He's been called out on it publicly, the original situation has been resolved.
Agreed. In light of the revised "spam-only" moderation policy, I for one am content to call the situation resolved.

Riggerjack
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by Riggerjack »

My wife is a mod on a different board. Their solution is for "deletions " to go to a separate mod only section. They can then discuss it there, and a second mod approves deletion.

No need for more rules, and more opportunities for moderating mod behaviour.

Just a thought...

jacob
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by jacob »

@bigato - Can you set it up like that easily? (if so do, otherwise I'll try to figure out how)

KevinW
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by KevinW »

jennypenny wrote:I prefer to leave all of the posts alone and hash things out in public. Sometimes posts can be worded poorly or insultingly but the underlying thought was worth noting. Sometimes hashing it out can clear the air or help people understand each other better.
+1

I don't think law enforcement and lethal force are quite the right analogy since Jacob hosts this forum voluntarily and we all participate voluntarily. Rather it resembles something like a cocktail party in Jacob's cyber-home. He has the nuclear option of shutting it down or kicking people out, and everyone else has the nuclear option of all leaving. But no one wants that to happen so there is an emergent behavior where people bahave themselves in a way that doesn't offend the host, and when someone is getting close to that line other people tell them to knock it off. If things devolve to the point that the host is explicitly threatening to stop the party, then it's really already died at that point.

So, I think it's appropriate to have moderators with the power to lock threads and delete posts, but ideally that power is only implied and never needs to be used. IMO it should only be used as a last resort after public negotiation has been attempted and failed.

Public negotiation has the positive side effect of communicating, to everyone who's watching, what the community standards are, which can help prevent future misunderstandings. Deleting posts does not do that and has the negative side effect of a chilling effect on posting. What's the point in writing a post if it might get deleted?

I don't want to go down the path of codifying a "2 strikes" rule or something like that, because then we need to spell out the rules for what precisely counts as a "strike," and create some kind of appeals process for aggrieved moderators, etc., and then we're down the rabbit hole of creating the kind of ossified bureacracy that so many of us want to escape.

So far in my tenure as moderator I haven't felt any need to use my moderator privileges. There has been some spam but other moderators have beat me to it. There have been some problematic posts, and I asked people to get back on topic or calm down, and that worked adequately. (Not perfectly, but well enough to keep the party going.)

***

It's unfortunate that deleted posts become invisible, since there is no transparency regarding deletions, which I think is contributing to a "witch hunt" mentality about who did what. @bigato, is it possible to configure the forum software to show when a post has been deleted and by who?

***
secretwealth wrote:
jacob wrote:Introducing politics ALMOST ALWAYS degenerates the discussion!
I fully agree--which is why it'd be nice to have some option when this happens, since there are a few forum members who will shift a large number of topics towards their political bugbear.
I agree completely, but since we're airing grievances, I have to say that in my recent experience secretwealth is a member of the set of users that frequently makes inflammatory political remarks that derail threads. Could you please tone that down?

KevinW
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by KevinW »

I was able to edit, and then delete, a post.

KevinW
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by KevinW »

@bigato
I created a small test post on this thread, and then was able to edit it, and finally delete it. Which is why there is no trace of it now.

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jennypenny
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by jennypenny »

Hey bigato--
I know you gave us back the edit button, but it disappears faster than a summer snowfall. Is it possible to allow everyone to edit their posts for 12-24 hours?

Ego also suggested a name change for the button...
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=4125&p=58673#p58673

fips
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by fips »

I'm lost - what's the current policy on editing your own posts for regular users?

I noticed I cannot edit mine as well, however I did not count the seconds before the Cosmic Schmuckiness button vanished.

The forum help currently reads:
"» How do I edit or delete a post?
Unless you are a board administrator or moderator, you can only edit or delete your own posts. You can edit a post by clicking the edit button for the relevant post, sometimes for only a limited time after the post was made. If someone has already replied to the post, you will find a small piece of text output below the post when you return to the topic which lists the number of times you edited it along with the date and time. This will only appear if someone has made a reply; it will not appear if a moderator or administrator edited the post, though they may leave a note as to why they’ve edited the post at their own discretion. Please note that normal users cannot delete a post once someone has replied."

What does "sometimes only for a limited time" in the first sentence mean, especially "sometimes"? Sounds random ;-)

I think it would be most fair to be able to edit at all times but have an unlimited and unchangable history of your original replies below your newly edited post (maybe just as a link), although I have never seen a forum doing this and I admit this could hinder the "flow of communication" when you need to study the histories in a heated discussion. Well, come to think of it, that's how wikipedia does it ...

fips
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by fips »

bigato,
no offense, I also like the idea of transparency through new posts and the think-before-you-write attitude.
Some of us were just unsure how it's currently handled - so thanks for shedding some light on this!

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jennypenny
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by jennypenny »

bigato wrote:People, when writing here keep in mind that the moment you push the submit button your content instantly appears in hundreds or thousands of feed readers. Five or ten minutes after, it will be there for almost every subscriber. Also not too long after, a good percentage of people who don't subscribe to the RSS will have read it too. All these thousands of people won't check back after that to see if you changed your post. So, please think before you post because there is no going back. That's why you have both a preview button and also the capability to save drafts.

You don't go back in time editing what you said in real life and this is more like a discussion. You are not writing a book. If you changed your mind, write another post correcting yourself if necessary. This way readers will see it and we will keep some coherence in the topics. This is a forum, not a wiki.
I can't disagree with what you said. It's just that feeds aren't forever. Most posts wash out of people's feeds within a week. The forum posts are kinda permanent so it concerns me more that those posts say exactly what we meant to say. There have been several threads resurrected recently that were a year or two old. If someone misspoke a year or two ago, it might come back up in an old thread and make for uncomfortable feelings and/or discussions because the original conversation would be out of context.

Not trying to make a big deal out of it. Whatever you decide is fine :)

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Ego
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by Ego »

We had a long history with the old system where we could edit for days (was it days?) and now have a few weeks of experience with the new limited-edit one. I may be wrong but I don't remember any problems with out-of-context issues under the old system. As I don't use a reader I cannot comment on the RSS issue. Since the change we have had a few misunderstanding that may have been avoided with a simple prudent edit.

fips
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Re: Call for moderators (new and old)

Post by fips »

The more we discuss the better we could edit the category of this thread from "ERE Book/Blog/Forum" to "Politics, and other eternal disagreements". ;)

Both ways have advantages and disadvantages and probably it's partly a "problem" of what you are used to. Either way, editing vs. new post are just different ways of presentation. Maybe we could just have a poll of what most users think is more convenient?

However, if jacob and/or bigato have their reasons why it was changed (or as bigato already pointed out some very good reasons), so be it. I am just a fan of transparency and harmony.

Maybe a different solution would be to have an option to edit for 48h (if something like that is possible). That way, one can correct typos and clarify if the first two or three replies show simple confusion of the other forum users. On the other hand, it would ensure that one can't completely change his mind or take back some viewpoint after a few weeks.

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