About this system on the moderator side of things. How much of what they do should be publicized. Like, should everything they do link back to them, like "ChrisMuhaily has issued a warning for X post" or "You have been issued a warning for X post". Basically to what extent should it show a moderators actions?

I think it's a bit of a jump from her original statement to your implications. I read her statement to imply that respect is a thing rarely given, and rarer still to find an individual who is respected by a majority, much less all. Someone not respected by all opens the way for more whining. It is also unlikely to find individuals who are unbiased. These two rare combinations occuring simultaneously is even more unlikely, especially considering that an entire group of individuals with these qualities is sought after. Naturally I agree with all of the above, and probably just read what I wanted into it (see also: bias), but I still think your assessment is a bit of a leap.

I think this idea is a good one, but if everyone were going to get along, there'd be no need for moderators, and everyone isn't going to get along suddenly just because there are moderators, transparency, or anything else.

Nobody will be respected by everybody and nobody will be completely, absolutely unbiased. I don't think we need to worry too much about those aspects of the human condition, and instead try our best to do what we can. There's not much point in saying that we won't find completely perfect people: that's basically a truism.

Now, if you also think that we won't even find adequate people, then I point you to (a), (b) and © above. :smile:

I have to agree oh DH on this. We have a few members that will do the job well, that is what we should focus on.

Well since part of the issue people have is the lack of transparency even for warnings, I'd say issue those in public as well. Issue the warning (Nexus strikes) and reference the post that caused it.

I nominate Icculus

Rofl @ Tyche

Can we just let Tyche write some mod bots and be done with it?

So are we to assume that since things are drifting off focus that the issue has been as discussed as people would like?

It should be entirely transparent. Any time an action is taken by a moderator, be it a strike, or issuing a suspension, there should be a post in the Moderator section visible to all stating the name, the reason the stirke or what have you was issued, and a link to the offense if applicable. In addition to the public post, a PM should be sent to the individual being given the strike or what have you that explains what went on, and why the punishment was issued. It should also detail the appeal procedure.

On the topic of discussion of punishments, this probably should be done on a board only visible to Mods and Admins. Because the two should appear as a united front. And if one mod disagrees with a situation, and it's plainly visible, the naysayers, and anti-punishment folks will climb all over it like white on rice. So Moderator discussion should be private, but the punishments themselves should be public. I.. Hmm.. maybe that doesn't make sense. Oh well, cold medicine will do that.



Drift is inevitable, the real task is in keeping the discussion going, despite drift.

Drift is bad. It means that someone's eye is starting to twitch. (As well as the old faithful thread-lock trigger-finger.)

Could be that, might be people have lost focus, or perhaps they've simply said all they wanted to say. Likely we'll know which after a couple more days or so.

Ok I would like to propose an anonymous moderation system similar to slashdot.

For those not familiar with the slashdot model, here's a simplified list of things might happen in a mudbytes version:

* choice of moderator is done at random, from a list of most likely mods.
* If you post a lot, you are more likely to be asked to moderate a list of new posts.
* Moderation is done in secret, no one knows who moderated not even the admins.
* Mods will receive a list of posts to moderate, and do not have to moderate them all
* Posts to be moderated have links to the posts context, so if the mod is unsure if it is a joke or not, they can check the thread.
* You cannot moderate in a discussion that you have participated in.
* Rather than moderating the post up or down in interest like slashdot, a mod would just be flagging them if they were offensive or trolls.
* Trolls can be flagged as trolls as warnings to others to avoid responding
* If a post is flagged offensive, the admins are informed, with a comment from the mod and the post in question linked. The admins can then make an informed decision based on mod comments and the post in context. Formal proceedings against the poster(s) can ensue from this point, in whatever form is deemed best*

I don't think this would be too hard to implement, either.

Any thoughts?

[EDIT - I think I actually agree with Kayle on these mechanisms. Reasons why should be reported. Basically, WHY explains a lot to newbies, and can be used as guidelines for admins and mods when making decisions.]

Flumpy, I'm sorry. But a slashdot system won't work here. We don't have millions of people posting. We don't need an anonymous person selected to Moderate things.

That aside, I'll tackle the points you posted.


No, Just No. Why would you even consider playing russian roulette with moderators? Suppose a mod is having a bad day, and gets selected to Mod. Well, That doesn't beg for level-headedness, that begs for prejudice.


Post count should absolutely NOT determine whether a person is a moderator or not. This should be based upon their level-headedness and ability to separate work from play. If they can't leave personal grudges on the side and moderate fairly, they don't need to be a Mod. And just because they have 4K+ posts doesn't mean they're necessarily suited to be a Mod. That just means they like to post and help people/debate things. (Sorry, DH, didn't mean to single you out, you just have a very recognizable post count. :P)


No. Moderation is not done in secret. Moderation is done in public, and discussed in private. Between Mods and Admins. This begs for a dictatorship. Dictatorship is what the proposal was brought up to avoid.


Moderating a post out of context is stupid. That would be like taking one post out of the infamous tazer thread, and moderating based on that single post, instead of the entire thread. Moderation isn't something that should be determined by some system in the code. It's something that should be handled by a group of level-headed individuals with the site's best interests in mind.


Why not? If you're involved, you actually have an understanding of the conversation going on. You'll *know* when something doesn't fit. And You'll be able to respond accordingly. Or you should, if you're capable of acting like an adult and are capable of keeping work and play separate. I believe the term is compartmentalized.


Pointless. An individual post is not the issue. The context is the issue. Looking at individual posts gets you know where. Yes, it may look like trolling if you have no context, but then what if the context shines the light in a different way? Hmm?


Or they can be given a strike, and documented in the public executions board. Or, if that's three strikes: Executed. (Yeah, I like that phrase.)


I was under the assumption that moderation was a way to handle situations without requiring administrative assistance. If I'm wrong, I'm open to correction.

I'm sorry to have to make this quite so viciously personal, but it seems to me that most of the moderation problems we have on this site are actually not procedural in nature, but to do with the personality of the moderator. Being a successful moderator requires a quite rare combination of attributes: you have to be patient, tolerant, altruistic, lacking in ego, consistent, logical, reasonable, and eager to broker satisfactory compromises. The reason we have a problem on here is that Samson, in particular, falls down on all 8 of those requirements. Whenever he starts getting heavy with thread-locking, I can't get the image of Eric Cartman out of my head. ("Respect mah authoritah!" - whack!) His attitude simply reeks of "you will do what I say because I am telling you to - that's all the reason you need", and he seems to lock threads not because there is anything objectionable about their content, but simply because he feels his authority (or his ego) is being challenged.

It's conceivable that Samson is actually a really pleasant, reasonable person; but, if so, he has enough of a PR problem (enough of a problem getting that across) that this, in itself makes him unsuitable for moderation duties and reflects badly on the site. So, in principle I don't particularly care whether moderation is done by moderators or admins; but in practice, any change which means Samson isn't a moderator any more has to be a majorimprovement.

As far as making moderation/disciplinary situations public, yes, I'm all in favour of that, if only because it will stop Cratylus from creating more threads on TMC complaining about the lack of transparency. On top of that, there is actually a useful principle at stake, which is: if there's nothing to hide, why are you trying to hide it? People are always going to be happier if they can see that the rules are being applied consistently and reasonably. Secrecy makes it look as if there is something sinister going on even when there isn't.

Guess we'll just have to disagree on that. You don't need lots of people to moderate a forum in a similar way.

What I suggest isn't perfect but I think there could be a basis there for a reasonable solution, even if its not quite in the form I suggested. Dismissing it out of hand because "there's not enough ppl" is not a great reason IMHO.

All of your other points are reasonable counters to my why for, *but* I don't agree with any of them and don't have time to address each of them. However the main things I want to point out are:

* The main reason I suggested anonimity is to remove the target for ridicule so that no one can be blamed
* The flagging is only a flagging, nothing more, it would be down to the admins to decide if it were truly offensive or how to deal with it.
* No one said the moderation flagging would not be public, just the moderator would be anonymous
* You don't moderate out of context, but with a link to context.
* Moderating in a discussion you are part of means you are biased in that discussion

In this way, moderation acts as a filter for the admins, not a be all and end all. I don't think it is too much to ask the community to police their own site.

Guess so.


What you suggest is making the moderators a buffer. The goal here was to make it so that the Admins could have more time to make the site better, and not have to police the forums. Your system leaves them still policing the forums, but only after the moderators had looked at things.



Anonymity does not breed transparency. Ridiculing a moderator for doing their job would be.. Trolling.


Again, adding a buffer still doesn't solve the problem of the Admins still having to police the forums, and not having time to do the rest of the stuff they could be doing for the site.


Everyone is biased about something. It's part of being human.

I chose to ignore the blatant attacks that laced the first part of your post. Aside from the attacks though, I agree with you completely. The transparency to the moderation will be a great addition and will certainly stem the tide of complaints about ninja edits and what not.

It's not a buffer, it's a filter.

If the goal is to give them more time, how can not having to trawl through 100's of posts fail to save them time? They don't have to go through the threads that they know have been moderated as being OK…



Why not? You can't just make a statement like that without justification, and your following sentence:



.. does not really justify it. Apart from that, I actually agree, but thats not the point of the anonimity.

IMHO, anonimity and transparency are two entirely separate things, and as long as you can see WHAT goes on in a process (especially what happened in the run up to the decision) it may as well replace the WHY it happened. At least up until the final judgement, where all the whyfors and whohows are explained.



If an mod is biased or unbiased, then so be it. But there is no recourse for the accused to say "he only said that because he is biased", which is just a way of wiggling out of things. In this system it would be up to the admin to decide if the flagged post was truly a problem, not the moderator, so it would be the admin who brings the charges.

I envisage only one or two posts flagged up per WEEK, if not MONTH, which means that admins don't even have to read the site if they dont want to. This leaves LOTS of free golfing and mudding time :D

No one said what I proposed was perfect. But it's just a filter, and I thought that's what was required, not a new group of overlords to deal with.

The goal isn't to give us more time. It's to provide transparency. Giving us more time to do things is a bonus. Besides, I doubt very much anyone here needs to spend time trawling through 100s of posts when the trouble spots aren't that hard to find. And even if mods or admins don't see the issue, we could always add the one missing component I didn't mention before - the ability for users to flag a post to raise the attention of the moderators to it. Nexus has that mainly because they're dealing with a scale far larger than we are. We don't even have 1,000 members so it's not impossible to see things that need dealing with. Over there, it can get buried easily. I doubt we'd need that extra component, but it's a thought.




Anonymity isn't the issue. Transparency is. That said, I don't think anonymity and transparency are compatible.



Being humans, we as admins are indeed biased. There is no such thing as an unbiased person.

Perhaps more clarification is in order. The system we're proposing does not merely put moderators in to flag posts for admin review. The system will give them discretion to take the necessary actions themselves. It would only come under admin review if someone files a dispute via PM. The only other reason an admin would be involved at this level is if nobody else is around at the time to deal with it. The system does not entirely remove us from being able to perform moderation.



Though it may not seem like it, or maybe people are willfully ignoring this, we aren't locking threads at the rate of even one a month. In fact, I'd have to go back through our logs to see when the last one before these last few days even took place. Things are in fact usually quite peaceful around here. But as has been seen, blow-ups happen. When they do, they need to be dealt with, and we need to be able to do so without having to spend the next month justifying that to the world and their dog.

It's become clear that the old ways aren't working. So we need something new. The proposal in my opening post is likely to be the best fit.

Slashdot's system is quite frankly a joke. People being subject to the random whims of blind luck as to who gets the big stick that day doesn't really seem like a very sound system. If they seriously spent that much time developing that detailed of a Russian Roulette game, I commend them. They're coding geniuses. But that's a lousy way to run a community of humans. Especially since the place has skeletal articles that link to the actual meat, followed by thousands of people trying to one-up each other with their anti-Microsoft rhetoric and how cool their linux is. Last few times I wound up there (usually by accident, I don't visit on purpose) there was absolutely no substantive discussion of the topics at hand. Just a whole lot of loud noise.