I want more modding, do you?

Well, when the world opens back up u name the time and the place, unless u stop by Myrtle Beach

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I had the Steelers yesterday and we lost 3 cbbs by a hook. I didn’t even log on to see who we bet today. Sweating CBB is torture.

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Were there any 22 mods that went crazy with power or snapped one day and banned like a ton of people at once?

Sounds like a standard day for 27.

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Mat Sklansky.

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Hi all, I have time now to focus on this thread, so here I am again.

I had thought to go through the whole thread and write up a recap/summary which would list the concerns that were raised, along with the other ideas and tangential issues that were brought up, but the thread has grown too long and covered too many different things for me to handle that now. Sorry!

Before I go on I would like to thank every participant in this thread for managing to discuss a very contentious topic with (mostly) very little acrimony. It gives me hope that we can continue to be successful as a community. Thanks all! :+1:

Next is a brief report on the results of the thread as I see them.

Here is the text of the proposal as voted on:

At this time, the vote totals are:

Votes Percentage Poll option
34 58 Yes, that’s what I want (or substantially what I want) too.
23 40 No, I like things the way they are.
1 2 No, I’m also dismayed at the situation but don’t think this approach is good.
0 0 I want something like that, but different in some important way.
58 100 total

The vote count has stayed steady for all of today, as far as I can see, so I propose to close the poll to keep it as a record of the community sentiment about this at this time. Let me know if you have objections to that.

Based on this process and the results of the voting, I would consider this proposal approved by the community. However, since we as a community don’t actually have any kind of agreed-upon process for approving things like this, it may be that others would see it differently. If that’s a perspective you hold, please make your case at this time.

My personal take is that @moderators should read the OP, read the thread, and take it onboard as they think about how to participate and moderate in our community.

Something I’d like to acknowledge is that one recurring theme among the “no” voters is a concern about moderators abusing their power, and also concern about moderators being biased or unfair. I’m not going to attempt to litigate that in this post. But I would encourage a couple additions to the process that was voted on that should, I think, help allay fears along those lines.

  1. If a mod takes any action that is not publicly visible, including post hiding, post editing, post deletion, or user actions (silencing or blocking) moderators should post a note explaining what the action was and the reason for it in the Log of Key Moderator Actions thread.

This gives members visibility into the moderation process and an opportunity to discuss it or raise objections if they feel the moderator has acted improperly.

  1. I would also propose that we plan to revisit this issue at some point to discuss as a group whether this process has achieved its goal of reducing forum toxicity and drama, if there are any problems with how it has been implemented, and if any changes (including abandonment) are desired.

So that said, unless there is vehement objection to this course of action, or somebody brings some new consideration to the discussion, I’m personally going to consider this settled and go back to enjoying the forum in my usual ignorable way. Cheers! :beers:

P.S. Several of the topics that came up in this thread all centered around the moderators: how they become moderators, who should be a moderator, how long a moderator should be a moderator, and others. I think that is an “area of opportunity” for further discussion, perhaps in a different thread, but I’ll let someone else take the lead on that. :grin:

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I’m generally reluctant to separately document every hidden or edited post. That’s a fair bit of busywork for a pretty modest action when anyone can already see what happened. Bans are more substantial, rarer and less visible as who who pulled the trigger or even that a poster was banned at all, so it’s much more reasonable to expect documentation there. Deleted posts are in between, but as those are atypical for moderation, so I’d be more open to the requirement.

I did on occasion with the old software, when you could enter decimal values for ban durations. Pretty sure @kerowo ate a few, like, seven second bans. Never anything serious or lengthy, obv.

[censored] nabbed quite a few in his day, but nothing too crazy.

Mostly for kicking your ass at the micro limit hold 'em forum games… Well, that’s how I remember it anyway…

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Is the bolded true though? I know there have been several, maybe many, instances were posters have become upset because their posts were edited or hidden for reasons they didn’t know or understand. And from the bystanders’ POV, there’s no way to see why/how a post was hidden or who did it (that I know of).

So, at this point the documentation step is something I’m proposing as a response to multiple posters asking for it, in this thread and in past discussions of this issue. It hasn’t been “formally” proposed and voted on like we did in this thread, so I don’t know that I would consider it a “requirement” as of now, but…

Respectfully, I’m a little disheartened that you are pushing back on this. I think this is a time for the moderators to demonstrate a good faith commitment to transparency and fairness. If the duties asked of the moderators are too onerous for you, perhaps you should consider stepping aside as a moderator?

If the community expects that level of paperwork for a thankless volunteer position, sure, I’ll step aside. You’re just making it that much harder to get anyone to want to do it.

Why? There have been pretty much zero instances of unfair treatment by mods, and hardly any mod actions at all for that matter.

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I think the mod actions should be documented. Extractions should be documented in the title as well. Like, keed did not start a thread about Trump not trying a coup and it shouldn’t look like he did.

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Because there is a sizeable number of regular posters who are convinced that the mods are biased, and more than that, that the mods exercise their mod powers in a biased way.

Now, I personally am not convinced of that, having not seen evidence that substantiates the claims. But an effort toward increased transparency should help people with those concerns be more likely to accept the new moderation practices as legitimate.

Also, wasn’t a consistent theme in this thread is that moderation actions were rare? Doesn’t that imply that documenting these rare actions shouldn’t be too much of an ask?

Look, I don’t want to fight about this. The idea for this level of documentation wasn’t even mine to begin with. But I’m trying to make a bridge between the two camps (“yes, we should moderate more” vs. “no, we shouldn’t moderate more”). That’s all.

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I’ve been trying to stay out of this thread as much as possible, even as some stuff was being said about me. There was pushback from others, which I appreciate, thus I’m not going to go too hard in the paint on any of it and I’m avoiding direct replies or quote posts that might blow it back up.

That said, there was a significant mischaracterization of one part of the PM convo. I posted screen shots in the thread that lead to the triple ban, they speak for themselves. I won’t link to it, it’s in French BBV, I’ll just get on the record that I do not agree with part of fidget’s characterization. It’s not that important at this point, so I’ll leave it there. People who want to go see it can probably find it.

On the topic of the gimmick account which I was (hilariously) accused of starting as a false flag, I just want to say I did not do that and I would never use a gimmick for untoward reasons. I have made three or four gimmicks that I recall, none were ever used to try to win an argument or support my own view point in an argument - that’s like cheating or something if you ask me. My gimmicks have either been attempts at humor or an account to lurk on.

I feel like the accusation has been roundly disproven by others, and Mike’s been dragged enough for it, so I’ll lay off any further comment on that episode.

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Originally I agreed with @SensiblePerson, but I think Wookie makes a good point, so I think a reasonable compromise is below, someone can correct me if I’m wrong:

Any time a post is edited by a mod or deleted by a mod, there’s a saved trail of that all the mods can see, right? Assuming that’s the case, there’s no need to document every single instance. If someone wants to complain about it, they can start a thread in About the Forums and ask for the details to be made public, which the mod can then do - other mods can confirm or screen shots can be provided.

This should limit the paperwork, while still protecting the community from over-modding. I think that’s reasonable, anyone disagree?

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Sounds like a decent adjustment to me, provided the technical means actually are in place (the “saved trail” you reference above).

Right, a mod would have to confirm that. I’m working off memory from back when I was a mod.

I think you’re right about mods seeing the history. I don’t think documenting actions is too much paperwork. If it is, just do less modding. There’s no quota on any mod to do a certain number of actions.

Right, so all the mods can see what words were deleted.