Proposal: Simplify Moderation, Accept it or Vote on it

wow…lol… :smiley:

There need to be more people here and moderators keep coming up with ways to shut people down. It is so bad. How is this network supposed to attrack interest? Examine this current small group’s lack of knowledge more closely and make better arguments in better categories? You should take off the front page anything to do with a practical application b/c the threads there say “we have no idea what we’re talking about and no idea we have no idea what we’re talking about, but we are going to go on and on anyway” Didn’t the programming team just lose a major developer for being so closed off? holy mackrel. You are being very stubborn controlling and it is very bad for Maidsafe

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yeah idk about the moderation process.

i always saw it as against SAFE core ideals (100% freedom of speech for all people, etc)

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Really good to see others noticed the dynamic of the threads involving community discussion about important security concerns leading up to the discussion being dragged out of plain community sight. All the mod actions/arguments only heighten and actually illustrate the danger of a self-appointing clique without community consensus directing conversation. Why take off main page after those particular discussions at that particular time, immediately and without discussio? People on here need to wake up and smell the coffee I think.

Absolutely spot on …:smiley:

This forum is probably the biggest advertisement for the SAFE network outside of the maidsafe.net site. New people are coming here every day to find out about this (super important… potentially life saving for some) project but when they arrive a lot of what they see is people with their ego’s hurt, arguing about irrelevant political ideologies, complaining about moderation etc.

The current system isn’t perfect, and I’m glad there are people who speak out for improvements but if they aren’t generally accepted then there has to be a bit of acceptance of that. The sheer number of posts about this topic recently appearing on the home page have been sabotaging the forum a bit IMO and that’s not cool.

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Luke is right about why we needed to move meta.

Moving Meta Discussions

Meta is for established members to discuss forum issues. It probably should never have been on the front page, but had been relatively quiet for so long it wasn’t previously an issue.

We moved meta from the front page because (as with off topic previously) it was blotting out anything about the network itself - which would not help new visitors find what they want, or anyone returning to catch up with what’s happening with SAFEnetwork.

This is primarily a place for people to learn about and discuss SAFEnetwork, so regardless of meta discussions, off topic and anything else, as moderators we continue to make that our priority.

We didn’t do it to stop discussion - and clearly that continues. Yes it makes these things less prominent, so it’s a compromise.

How Should We Make Changes?

The OP is a proposal for how to make changes, with the aim of clarifying moderator and member responsibilities, and reducing moderator workload, ready for when things get really busy.

Rather than placing absolute power in anyone’s hands, it also formalises what has been the principle behind his things are run since I became a moderator: that the community as a whole get to decide how things are done here. Not a “clique”, whether moderators, or vocal members, but everyone with equal say.

What Else Should Mods Be Doing?

@kirkion I don’t know why you say “if the mods don’t want to deal with [recent complaints]”. What else do you think we should be doing?

We read the complaints, answer them, the community discussed them, and I made a proposal to the community for a new way to deal with them because of the workload.

On that, we can now (in this topic) discuss & refine, we can gauge support, form a concrete proposal and put it to a vote. This is how to get change within a community - propose, discuss, put forward something concrete that can be voted on.

I’ve suggested that process more than once to those wanting change, but so far nobody has followed through like this with any of the complaints themselves, or the things they say they want changing. If you want elected mods, put it to a vote. If you want mods to wait until a post has ten flags before we act, put it to a vote. Or create a package of proposals and put that to a vote.

I’ll be more than happy to abide by the decisions of the community, but I’m not willing to go ahead on the basis of things that haven’t been put forward in a way that demonstrates more general support.

During this process we’ve realised that we do need to consider ways of reducing the amount of work involved in moderation - so this is exactly the right time to form such proposals and get the community to choose how to go forward.

If people complain, want change, but can’t get to the point of putting something concrete to the community so we can gauge support, such as a poll. What else do you want the mods to do?

[BTW I have no problem with you tagging me in a post, and no idea why you thought I might]

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As I read it, the proposal is saying that having people be able to complain about the moderation without going through a formal process is bad. It is bad because it takes up too much of the moderators time. Well if the objection is that it takes up too much of the moderators time, then if you guys are too busy then don’t respond. If getting notifications if interrupting your day, then mute them, and make a rule not to ping the admin/mods in those sorts of issues. That was what I meant by apologizing for tagging you in my original post.

My response to the proposal is that if someone has an objection, having a formal process is not going to stop them from complaining. Moving things off the front page, (a move that happened REALLY fast btw), is about the best you can do. But having a formal process is not going to stop troublemakers from complaining and taking up time, but it will make it more difficult for honest discussion to happen about moderation by people trying to follow the rules.

When I saw @warren’s thread, I honestly didn’t think I was going to agree with him or any points made on his side. But I read through the posts and some of the arguments particularly the points by @Seneca and @neo made me think that there was something work exploring and discussing here. The original thread was not closed, or flagged or treated in any way that would have put me on notice that it was off limits for me to keep talking about it. At the same time my take on the issue was not the same as the OP, so in the interests of not being off-topic, I started my own thread.

So as far as the proposal, I think that shunting mod complaints off the front page deals with the issue of allowing new users to have a landing pad. And I think that if dealing with a complaint is frivolous, a waste of time, or just too much for the mods to deal with on top of their real lives that week, then they should just ignore the complaint until they have the bandwidth to deal with it. That to my mind is a far more practical solution than trying to come up with a formal process for changes, because then instead of having to take the time to explain the original mod to the disgruntled person, you are going to have to deal with those complaints PLUS objections to the formal process. It won’t really save any time, unless you get everyone who is on here to agree to a strict version of those rules and flat out ban people who disagree with them.

Given that one of the whole points of this forum is to serve as a landing pad, a “loose ties” community for new users, many of whom are coming to us from a bitcoin, libertarian, anarchist, anti-statist, decentralized perspective I don’t think that is going to work. It won’t actually save the moderators any time, and they will end up just ignoring complaints, anyway.

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@kirkion thanks for clarifying.

What you suggest, essentially mods don’t need to get involved in individual complaints is one part of my proposal above. The other is to clarify this, and provide clear process instructions for those who want something changed.

I’ve no wish to stop people raising issues. This is important for feedback and improvements, or just generally keeping us on our toes.

It can become abusive and disruptive though, when taken to far. So we probably need to have a threshold so people can’t just keep complaining again and again about an issue, or a recurring issue, if they aren’t willing to take it to community, or if they do, but the community decides against their proposals.

The problem is how do you enforce this? Just having a process for community decisions won’t fix this, in order to actually see the amount of time the mods have to spend, you will be forced to ban the people who disagree.

The abusive and disruptive to the community at large is taken care of by the removal from the front page. If someone tries to raise these issues in uncategorized, then the guidelines already in place allow the mods to move the threads, and take further action if a user starts spamming the category system.

As far as abusive and disruptive to the mods, my point is its only abusive and disruptive if you engage with it. Set your notification permissions high, only check that part of the forum when you are “on the clock” so to speak and move on with your lives. Essentially, unless someone else has already done the work of putting together a vote, if its too burdensome, then don’t do it.

I’m referring to the forum and the project rather than with respect to the mods.

Maybe existing guidelines will be adequate for keeping this in check - I’m thinking out loud all the way in this topic (right from my original reply to your topic!). If not, then this can be covered by adding to the guidelines. They already require a lot of judgement calls, so this would be no different.

Thanks for your input :smile:

It should be worthy of SAFE

Seneca’s seems amazing.

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You can say that again…and all the run up to that decision being made is there in Black and White for the Community to decide for themselves the motivation. As we are constantly told how mods carefully deliberate every decision, my questions is how long was this considered for, by whom and what were the deliberations?
It is ridiculous to say the forum was being “sabotaged” by 3 threads that sprung up within Meta with legitimate concerns and community discussion taking place. It is a completely specious argument.
So at the moment mods can effect really big changes at the drop of a hat without any community input whatsoever - yet if the community wants a change it has to jump through all kinds of hoops etc - this is entirely back to front.
If people are too busy to mod, then don’t mod and recruiting extra “hands” of their own choosing (not the community’s opens themselves up to accusations of clique forming behaviour.
Beware the Arista!..( at 2.30 mins) …lol

Just got what I think was some kind of verbal warning (not sure) by PM for using “lol” too much. This is something I’ve already addressed and gone out of my way to accomodate mods with (smikey faces etc( - even though in any case it speaks to tone, which I’ve already asked not to infer as a reminder to mods that tone should not be inferred from posts - according to the forum guidelines.
Address the argument, not the tone isn’t it…or am I completely wrong here?

I’m almost always on mobile, but can still quote properly (as above) so I expect you can too.

It’s slightly trickier bringing a quote from another thread, but not much, and it makes the discussions clearer and easier to follow - particularly when things are not spelled out clearly which I often find with your posts. So if you could do this it would be good for the forum and improve the discussions.

If you or anyone else is not sure how to do things like this, on mobile or not, post a question in the “beginners” category. The trick I use for quoting another thread is to start a reply in that thread and copy the quoted text from the edit box. Then abandon that post, return to the post I’m composing and paste the copied quote in there. Discourse handles that quite well.

Moderation: PS rather than delete your post I’m replacing the expletive with xxx, here and in the original. The form you used is borderline rather than against guidelines, but I have been asked to treat that form the same way, and think it’s easier, though I know its debatable - if anyone objects we’ll need to have a community discussion and try to firm up the guidelines.

Well, you’ve heard from at least 3 longstanding community members over a period of time in regard to aspects of moderation, how recruitment worls,etc, none of which seems to have changed anything from our perspective - but I too would like to know the broader community’s opinion, maybe this would help.

Yes, the evidence would seem to support this view… :smile:

I wouldn’t really, as I’ve discussed at length, read things here, followed links etc and I’m still confused. Not surprising when it is also admitted to be “complex”, and "not yet fully modelled!..lol

He didn’t though did he? He asked if it would. It appears he is being warned retrospectively for past demeanors - not the actual post here. The public warning was unnecessary in my view.

I think this is a good idea - not in the way you probably think, but to suggest elections for each mod position. Incumbent mods will face challengers to their seats individually and can occur at regular intervals. If accepted by the Community then the community forum owner ( :smile:) can decide whether to adopt the new system or not. Whatever the answer, the Community will be more informed.
I will open a thread in Meta to discuss these and other plans and to run a campaign - obviously the goal of gaining support for any plans to change the modding system is severely hindered by Meta being taken off the front page by the “Old Guard” :smiley:.which provides a much smaller audience to address to garner support.
Anyway, not ready for elections yet as campaigning to do first.
So to all mods…don’t get too comfortable…the revolution is nigh. :smiley:

  1. Can’t help but notice that out of two people who quoted others imperfectly I was the one that was highlighted. The chosen one!
  2. It is not true that quoting on all mobile devices is easy. It is quite difficult to quote even text from the same page because there’s not just one, but two known bugs (most likely related to JavaScript on iOS):
  • text usually cannot be selected, either correctly or at all, so one has to reload the page and use various other workarounds just to make a simple quote
  • selected text pops up the Quote menu, but on top of that also the browser right-click menu which sometimes partially, sometimes fully covers the Quote button. Usually a good way to get around that is to unselect and try again, which returns you to the first problem.

Additionally there are other problems (such as the misbehaving “compose” window. Quoting from another topic is possible, but not simple.

I’ve explained the reasons for my intervention with @janitor already above. You’ve agreed with his complaint about it, but haven’t challenged the reasons I gave (and nor has he although I did ask what he thinks about them).

Are you disagreeing with me on those points, and implying his behaviour is ok? Or are you of the view that I’m not describing it accurately? Or?

I’ll be happy to explain further why I think it needs to be addressed, and again we can take it to the community for advice if we can’t resolve it together.

I certainly welcome this, and hope you will this time take it to a vote, because then we’ll be able to get a proper understanding of community feeling.

Regarding not being on the front page, we can address that, so just let us know when you are ready and I would suggest we can have it pinned there.

As we have explained, Meta was taken off the front page because the number of topics at the time was pushing topics about SAFEnetwork out of view. It wasn’t done for the reason you suggest. If the community don’t want me or any other mods to be mods I certainly don’t want to be one.

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I didn’t say it was easy, and I explained how I do it.

I’m surprised to learn it’s hard to select text on iOS. I’m on Android (but a tiny screen), and believe me it’s taken me a while and plenty of lost edits and curse words to figure out how to do this. I also have muscular problems to fight with.

Anyway, please try, it makes a difference to the forum when people make an effort to write completely and clearly, provide links, context, quote with references etc.

Why do the mods always take things so personally?..lol. You asked for community feedback, so I’m giving you some. How does suggesting democratic elections of mods cause such emotive and defensive responses?
Surely, as I have said many times, the recruitment of mods should be decided by the community - not mods. Why do you fight me tooth and nail on this and why do mods try to make it personal all the time?
All I’m basically asking is is the current system the best system we can think of to make modding more accountable and transparent to the community - I say not.
It appears the present system is like some kind of “Creation Story”, whereby the Genesis mod chooses others in his own image. I’m arguing for a more Community based system - whatever form that may take.
I think I also covered reasons why the modding decision in regard to Janitor was wrong too already - if I didn’t cover them all then I’ll check through and add some more.
How about answering both mine and Janitor’s points that it was a question he asked etc and that he didn’t claim what you said he did. These points seem to be the only relevant points and if valid mean the post shouldn’t have been removed - anything else about previous behaviour is extraneous to the decision of whether to warn about that particular post…in a nutshell. :smile:

I didn’t take it personally at all my friend. Honestly, that statement is what I would call integrity.

I have a desire to be a mod only in as much as it is worthwhile for the project and the community, and I believe the community is the best judge of that.

All I’m basically asking is is the current system the best system we can think of to make modding more accountable and transparent to the community - I say not.

I know, I think it is, and as I keep saying, we don’t know what the community view is on this and so I welcome you raising it and hopefully taking it to a vote. I want this process too, so each time you raise it I have encouraged to to make the case and have a vote. I can’t do that for you, because I think we already have a good system, and I don’t believe electing mods would improve it.

I would though like the question to be put, debated and answered.