This goes along with my thinking about a lot of politics, but I think people are alienated from so many things because they don’t feel any ownership. Cause and effect. Ownership will cause obligation. The path we’ve taken where moderation or administration have been an honor rather than a duty has caused alienation. People are alienated.
5 Likes
I don’t remember you asking me. I think every single person here should be a mod.
If they say they’re too busy then stop posting here imo.
The analogy of a house share is apt. Don’t want to do any cleaning? Maybe find somewhere else to live.
1 Like
Everyone is theoretically willing to be a mod if they just get to make decisions to the best of their ability and move on with their lives. Not everyone is willing to behave in a way to reach the 2/3 threshold to be approved as a mod and then maintain that support once their character and integrity are questioned when people don’t like their decisions.
3 Likes
Then maybe they shouldn’t be making so many decisions.
No one will be modding in isolation, and as sky has shown you really don’t have to do much if you don’t want to.
I’m a believer that the system we’re putting together will reverse this trend and move it more towards being viewed as a duty that someone is serving as a member of the community.
2 Likes
My reply in December was
which is exactly how I generally feel about people who are overly keen to mod.
Regs having to do it unless they’re fucking dying or something (perhaps as a part of posting rights) is a different kettle of fish.
We shouldn’t be codifying things that limit the will of the community.
We already have a six month term rule. If the community wants to keep re-electing someone over and over they should he allowed. Making it do a minority uses rules to block the will of the people is very Republican.
Wookie is up for vote in august. If he wants to be a mod and the guy receives overwhelming majority vote yes he should be a mod. We don’t need to be protected from this.
We need to be protected from people trying to sneak in rules to mute the power of the community to benefit a few.
The current mechanics allow the community to limit mod terms if the community decides to do so. We don’t need rules to do any of these things. They are all currently possible.
1 Like
You think that is what Meb is doing?
An RFC is sneaking?
4 Likes
So my question was, why not make the break one month? It has such an obvious answer that it seems to be rhetorical. Obviously if a moderator was six months as a moderator and took one month off and was moderator for six months again, then took a month off, then such a rotation scheme is unlikely to actually drive any change in the forum. There isn’t going to be any fundamental change in the forum with this new moderation scheme, there won’t be new moderation schemes arising and new ways to deal with conflict in the forum. No chance for a new culture to take root and flourish.
So my question of, why not a month break is (properly) treated as rhetorical. It’s the same as the current system. Well, you’re proposing just double the break of that ridiculous rhetorical proposal I presented. And again, the same objections: it’s too short a break to really drive any change. So you’re saying that I’m just left with the existing system if I oppose your two month proposal. Well, in my view what you’re proposing is too close to the current system to be worth doing at all. So I’m indifferent between your proposal and the current moderation scheme.
1 Like
The most persuasive complaint about the consecutive terms, despite re-election by 2/3 of the forum, is incumbency/status quo bias. Why isn’t a minimum of two months long enough to sufficiently remove that bias?
1 Like
I think you’re confused about who is demanding to be appeased here. Most folks in this community are OK with the status quo and aren’t really making any demands. On the contrary, voting into existence any kind of mandatory break for moderators (even the ones who continue to maintain 2/3 community approval) would seem to be appeasing a different group of posters entirely.
6 Likes
That doesn’t seem right to me. Site content is grinding to a halt. Dissatisfaction with the status quo is harder to measure than what you imply here.
3 Likes
The irony in this kind of statement is unreal. The appeasement here is for you. The vast majority of the forum is fine with current mod structure.
This is a thesis. What is your evidence? My evidence against is the fact that participation is in a death spiral.
1 Like
So you’re quibbling over a slightly wrong word choice? Who cares? My meaning is clear.
If I’m wrong here I’ll take it back, but hasn’t the mod structure here basically always been the same? We went from mods4lyfe to mods that have to be “re-certified” every so often, so not much of a change.
But Trump is gone. There’s a change.
1 Like
I don’t entirely disagree, but if we’re going to discuss evidence then let’s at least be cautious about asserting causality vs. correlation. Other factors potentially explaining reduced participation, for example:
- Continued reduction in political engagement/interest in the post-trump era.
- Post-COVID reopening and resumption of in-person work, causing posters to re-engage more fully with life outside of UP.
- Sitewide rancor based on factors other than mod structure (e.g., personal grudges, political disagreements, etc.)
- Previous migration of highly prolific posters (e.g., nunn, cuse, etc.) who - whether you agreed with them or not - certainly contributed to posting.
Are certain people posting less because they’re frustrated with the modding structure? Sure. But since we know that’s a minority of users, it’s hard to attribute forum attrition primarily to that vs. the collection of other factors above.
That said, I don’t have an issue with rotating mods and this is more about data integrity in general. For the record, I’ll commit now to rotating my own theoretical mod position in 3 months if there’s anyone to replace me.
6 Likes
I didn’t really think that’s what I was doing. That’s fine if it was a sloppy word choice, but if it wasn’t, it really colors your whole point. Indeed, if you reconsider who is being “appeased,” then it makes as much sense to say: “Why not make the break a year? 5 years? I’m sure that would be even more palatable to those you’re looking to appease.”
Anyway, I’m not sure that I would vote for this, but I agree with @anon29622970 that this could be a good way to prove that a different system could work. So, if I assume you’re acting in good faith, then I confess to being kind of confused about why you’re preemptively filibustering or vetoing it or whatever.
1 Like
I don’t think that is the most persuasive complaint. As meb himself says, this is a moderation scheme to facilitate a shift to a more community-based moderation environment where as many people as possible participate in moderation. Where people rotate through and just take a turn doing the job.
These are the persuasive reasons from where I stand. A two month break and a six month term doesn’t seem like a long enough cooling down period. If the mod is burned out it doesn’t seem like a long enough break. And if highly active moderators (the only ones who are likely to push forward with an election after two months) want to be moderators 3/4 of the time, it seems less likely to get more people involved. To me a two month break is self defeating and antithetical to the very premise of the proposal.
I agree the other factors are also important. But I would quibble with the wording in this quote. I don’t think it’s a minority of users. I didn’t count, but I keep being told there were 50+ people in the Captains PM thread who were having a conversation that they felt they couldn’t have on the main forum. So that was, what, 1700 posts or so across 4-5 days? That’s got to rival the total number of posts on the forum across the same time frame.
What if similar threads are still ongoing… There is a lot of content that has been disallowed or discouraged by the current system.