Cutting through the BS - The Story so far………

This whole debacle about modding came about following a comment by Happybeing explaining how a recent crop of mods had been chosen by existing mods. When questioned about why there was no Community inclusion in this process, the explanation given by Happybeing was that no direction was given by either Maidsafe or the Community, so he (maybe with others) chose who was to be a mod themselves. Happybeing said he was happy to take responsibility for everything that occurred from this point, (which suggests it was his decision alone– otherwise why take responsibility).
This is the point at which my argument begins and pertains to. It is clear I think, that mods claims that I am singling out 1 person unfairly is false, as he has taken responsibility for it himself.
I would argue that the Community should have been consulted at this point on how to best recruit mods – not just go ahead and do it.
This debate had become very contentious and a number of complaints have been made from users concerning this and other modding issues with some proposing reform.
The Meta category was taken from the front page during such a heated debate. The reasoning given by mods was that in their opinion it was a distraction to users and the Category was now seen as less relevant to the Safe Network than anything else.
Understandably, (among this particular freedom of speech loving, anti-authoritarian Community) I think, this action raised a few eyebrows and turned up the heat. Once my eyebrows had returned to the front of my head, I saw this action as misguided and not thought through politically or from a PR point of view really, I saw it as a mistake – it left an understandable impression that need not have been left (just my opinion). If you look at it in political terms, there were 2 opposing camps about how forum governance should be run. Effectively, all arguments against the current incumbent mod regime would henceforth be given less prominence and the arguments heard by fewer people – fact.
There have since been a number of incidents of mods moving posts critical of modding to off-topic. This has been complained about by more than myself (as the mods know full well, despite constantly trying to reduce this issue to just myself complaining). In fact my recent suspension was started by a new user complaining about the same thing. This was initially denied by mods and I was told to get my “facts straight” and stop repeating falsehoods – this was despite clear evidence that it happened, though this was just brushed over. Again, it gives a bad impression, an impression that mods have no right to complain about people being left with – they created it, it’s a result of their seemingly authoritarian actions. You can’t complain about a reputation……it’s a result of your deeds.
Anyway, we’ve now had suspensions of users arguing against the current system and the constant repetitive claim that the system has around 99% support (we are making a fuss of nothing). Supporting “evidence” for this has been offered in the form of “likes” given to some threads on the main page – highly dubious in itself as there is no “dislike” button….how come the likes figures aren’t taken from the views figures then by the same flawed reasoning all those viewing but not liking must therefore dislike it? It also completely ignores the fact that this whole line of argument is completely undermined by the fact that the opposing “party” and argument does not have the same audience/prominence due to the previous mod action of removing Meta.
So, anyway, scooting forward to today, I have been trying to look at ways to make the modding more transparent/accountable to community etc. I am now told that this is something that could be addressed after launch……maybe. The reasoning is that it would be a distraction to Devs, not enough people on forum etc – I think this may need exploring a bit further though. Is continuing like this less of a distraction and what do devs have to do with modding in any case. All they have to do is not read Meta….lol….its not on the front page.
I am also told that I would need maybe 20 people to support reforming the modding system to be able to effect change. The place to do this is the Meta category, which reduces the chances massively though due to mod actions………this leaves an impression. :smile:

3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Do we want a Community run/owned forum “in spirit” or would we rather that be “in fact”?