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.
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…
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 ( ) 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” .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.
Can’t help but notice that out of two people who quoted others imperfectly I was the one that was highlighted. The chosen one!
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.
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.
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.
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.
We had this discussion over and over again. Not that many replies from other community members even while we let these discussion on the frontpage for some time. Other members seem to be okay with the way this forum is moderated and how new mods are chosen. Same for how and when we act as mods. We don’t touch over 99.9% of all replies.
Great… [quote=“happybeing, post:45, topic:5812”]
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.
[/quote]
Great…so do I.[quote=“happybeing, post:45, topic:5812”]
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
[/quote]
You are seriously telling me that the current system is the best we can think of to make modding as accountable and transparent to the Community as possible?
Really? I think I can argue against that position quite easily - :[quote=“happybeing, post:45, topic:5812”]
we don’t know what the community view is on this
[/quote]
No, we don’t…I can make a good guess though… [quote=“happybeing, post:45, topic:5812”]
because I think we already have a good system
[/quote]
I don’t…[quote=“happybeing, post:45, topic:5812”]
and I don’t believe electing mods would improve it.
[/quote]
I believe it would…if nothing else it would give them some legitimacy to hold the power to affect freedom of speech etc.
All arguments against my position appear to be based on the “Benevolent Dictator” principle. “Nothings happened to me yet”, “It only affects a small minority” etc etc…
let the hustings begin…
It’s a problem because it repeats something that is not true - which he and I discussed and corrected at least twice before - and which he leads people to think might be true by saying - if that was true then I would blah blah.
This is subtle, and may just be his way of getting to make another point rather than deliberately makes, but he does things like this all all the time (including again today) and if not corrected they litter the forum with misinformation, and if he’s not picked up on it, they get worse and more frequent until they can’t be ignored.
This is why I disagree with your next statement…
[Note: the post was not removed]
This approach works most of the time, and is a lot easier on us mods I can tell you, but it only works if people:
don’t post stuff that is misleading or otherwise problematic often
people respond to requests to change their approach and improve what they post when asked
I’ve been around this garden many times now with @janitor. It’s exhausting and takes too much time and energy, so as I explained earlier, I think it needs to be resolved - between him and me and the other mods. Your views are welcome, but really it needs @janitor to engage with this discussion.
I would like to hear what @janitor thinks of what I said, I think his input is needed to find a way of resolving this. But either way I don’t think ignoring what he does will work - as you are suggesting in this case - because it always ends up escalating.
Not really when it comes to choosing new mods IMHO. We have a group of 9 volunteers. We pick new people who mostly show up themselves by flagging spam, being active members etc. So when the community votes for a new person and it doesn’t fit with the others, that’s a real problem.
I think the community needs to have a vote to decide whether to elect mods, but at this point we first need to hear the arguments for and against, so let’s have the debate!
.which provides a much smaller audience to address to garner support.