RFC: Adjusting the Rules as They Pertain to Moderator Terms and Rotation of Mods

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.

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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:

  1. Continued reduction in political engagement/interest in the post-trump era.
  2. Post-COVID reopening and resumption of in-person work, causing posters to re-engage more fully with life outside of UP.
  3. Sitewide rancor based on factors other than mod structure (e.g., personal grudges, political disagreements, etc.)
  4. 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.

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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.

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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.

I don’t have the power to veto or filibuster this as far as I know. I am Commenting on the proposal, which I believe is appropriate. I am saying that meb seems to pick two months to make it the most palatable to those who want the status quo. I mean, he said that outright as far as I can tell. And indeed, as my rhetorical example of one month shows, it’s really not possible for him to pick a shorter break term and have it be a plausible proposal. Now, if pacify or assuage or reassure or something else is a better word than appease to describe that, whatever, sure. But that’s what he’s doing and I’m saying that’s too close to the status quo for me.

I dunno, it’s probably owned by a de facto partnership.

It sounds like discouraging similar threads might be a good thing in this case.

Maybe. I did delete a sentence in there because I didn’t want to distract from my main point. It was something like, probably no one would contest it anyway. If Simp sold the domain for $1500, we’d all just let it go.

What’s up your butt, man? You’re vague aggression has been so consistent since you came back.

Nothing. You literally want there to be threads here about who people are going to turn on next? I can’t imagine you think a thread like the one Victor described would be fruitful to this place as a whole.

Edited to be nicer @cassette

Is that what you think I want? How about you make a statement instead of been vaguely aggressive.

I mean he quoted what he was referring to in the post in question. It seems pretty clear.

All the votes.

Participation is down off post-election highs, which should be expected. The toxicity brought in by the CoC didn’t help either.

I don’t know what else there is to say. You asked, “what if similar threads are ongoing?”

Well, earlier in this very thread Victor confirmed there are. And the content he described in those threads isn’t something I think would be beneficial to the board.

That has nothing to do with me or what I said. I’m more annoyed at the overall pattern. He disappears for a month and then comes back to make weird passive aggressive one-liners.

I actually do think think one month or even one week is meaningful. It creates the presumption that the mod moving on is normal rather than a slap in the face to them.

He quoted Victor and accused cassette.

Multiple lower volume/lurkers have posted exactly what their problems are with this community, but since it directly contradicts what the COC want, we have to pretend it’s a big mystery.

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