After Feb 20 I will be mostly seen in threads where people aren’t yelling at each other. I hope I’ll be seeing you there.
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I wasn’t threatening to go, it was just a thought that flashed briefly for a moment when I was angry and a bit hurt to be called something so bad by someone. I can’t imagine ever leaving permanently, but short breaks keep you sane.
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I’ve been re-reading this and other threads. I feel there is a bit of a contradiction.
Most of this forum believes that Democrats pay too much respect to ideas such as decorum and norms, yet at the same many ITT believe that posters need to pay more respect to ideas such as decorum and norms in this forum.
One could say this is not a contradiction and say that Republicans are bad actors who don’t deserve respect, so the situations are different. One could also say that certain posters believe that other posters are bad actors who don’t deserve respect, just like Republicans, so they will treat those posters the same way they think Republicans should be treated. And they want those posters they think are bad actors to be moderated in the same way we have applied moderation to posters clearly on the conservative end of the spectrum, like Ins0 and triceratops.
Maybe the choice is being softening how we would treat any trollish conservative might show up and, by extension, bad actors in forum feuds or explicitly saying that mods need to make calls on who is a bad actor and act more as judges in disputes and picking a “right” side.
Maybe message boards are fundamentally different from political institutions.
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Actually, I think decorums (decora?) and norms are valuable and important when both sides follow them.
Some of us are even friends here.
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What I am finding infuriating about this whole episode is anyone who disagrees with anything about this whole thing is labelled as part of a group that believes you are desperate to use the c-word at any opportunity , want wookie instantly demodded and that all the mods are evil, and any criticism you may have is purely trolling. Then you are called anti#reality for believing these things.
Actually it is more depressing than infuriating. I have lost a lot of respect for a lot of posters
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I’m posting a lot less lately because it seems all anyone cares about is drama on the forum which is all pointless schoolyard crap. When I click on the unstuckpolitics link the top threads are all moderation-related. I guess I should change the link to just the politics forum, but clearly there are way more posts about the non-politics stuff these days.
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I am one of the most active readers of this forum but even I am not guaranteed to read a poll thread in About Unstuck within 48h of its creation. If you try to do this with short deadlines then all the rules will be decided by two dozen posters. This will only lead to problems further down the line.
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I disagree. It’s a thankless job that few want to do and even fewer are good at. I hope you agree it’s beneficial to keep good mods on indefinitely. I also assume that you would like a way to get rid of bad mods. Non-renewable term limits to me seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
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Hell no! The bar for becoming a mod should be more than just being able to create an account.
I wish it wouldn’t come to that though.
Things like “Your Favorite Posters” and “Help Desk” and “Best of Unstuck” are actually good threads.
If there was a subgroup for “Idiotic Forum Drama and Petty Personal Grievances”, I would mute that in a heartbeat.
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Think reasonable people can disagree on these issues.
Don’t agree for example that we’ll run into a problem finding volunteers for the job. When a mod started the “being a mod and admin is intolerable, and this community is at risk of dying” thread, there were volunteers to take the gig almost immediately. I also think that if the job has a fixed term on it then even more are likely to volunteer. And as others have argued through much of the noise, the mod job should be presented as something that all regs should participate in as a duty to keep this place going, not a role bestowed upon the chosen few. No shortage of very good players in this case either.
Also I don’t agree that only a few would be good at the job. I can’t think of a truly terrible mod we’ve had actually. They’ve all been pretty great from my perspective. Certainly no one who would get voted out if it was put up to a referendum. But that doesn’t mean their mod actions are perfect. Or even good. There will always be questionable decisions and someone unhappy. And even if these unhappy people are a small minority of the forum, they are also typically regular posters in good standing who are not trolls and are not arguing in bad faith. I don’t think they should be ignored.
I think the greater risk to the community comes from having fights over moderation that go on forever. Rotating mods on the regular seems like a reasonable way to mitigate this.
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The best mods probably do not want to be a mod.
And perhaps the worst want to be a mod. But again, everyone’s going to be substandard to someone.
Which is why I think term limits are also good. I’ve read every post of all these threads, and it seems like term limits have very broad support, we just can’t agree on details. I think clovis hit the nail on the head when he said we shouldnt let perfect be the enemy of good.
Particularly the issue of renewable/not renewable term limits seems like the remaining debate. I think if someone actually wants to be a mod for longer than 6 months AND they have the community support, that’s probably a decent mod and I’d want them to continue for as long as they’re voted in.
I do think though term limits may rehash these old feuds and arguments every time a moderator is up for renewal though - that’s what gives me pause. Others have already mentioned that.
There’s really nothing left to be said on these subjects that hasn’t been said and I’m glad these threads kind of mellowed out.
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I’m not exactly popular around here, but I would be happy to be put on a list with other regulars to cycle in and out of that job. I like to think I’d be good at it but who knows. But I would volunteer because it is one way for me to give back and support a community that has given me something. And ofc bc it’s temporary.
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awesome, thanks
Clovis banned himself in the interest of fairness