About the new "guidelines"

[anon40790172]

Thanx for the long reply and all your ideas for change. These are very clear to me now.

@Tonda

One idea that would ease my mind is to have all mods publicly share their decisions and objections to a ban.

A ban list in META is discussed before. I’ll ask @ moderations if we want to do that. I’m personally in favor of it. Don’t know about the rest.

@Tonda

Another issue is the backseat moderation rule. I haven’t seen any harm come from this. I mean isn’t the flag function a form of this? We’re a community.

We indeed didn’t have any problem with it so far. But this forum is growing very fast. We want to be prepared for maybe 4000 or 5000 users here in the coming year. It means that 1 person starts to cause a flame war in a topic, and someone else replies in that same topic that he shouldn’t do that because it isn’t in line with the FG. Instead we want people just to Flag the posts so we can handle it.

@Tonda

The anti bump rule might cause someone to hesitate to revive a topic. The wording should be adjusted to inform that revival is only allowed if they have genuine interest. Doing it solely for the purpose of bringing the topic back to the top is prohibited. The post must add to the discussion or request clarification.

You clearly get what this rule is about, maybe we should change the words indeed. I’ll ask the others.

@Tonda

Derailing a topic should only be considered as such if more than 40% percent of the members’ comments in a particular thread is off topic. To make this easy to enforce, the algorithm will naturally be applied to the back end. A small off topic function will be added to the GUI and only available to the mods. To maintain balance and accountability, the user should be informed in an automated way of who flagged it as off topic and how close they are to the percentage allowable.

Way to complicated IMO. When we have a topic about structured_data and someone jumps in and starts politics or the price of Safecoin in that topic and others reply, that’s derailing. It’s going off-topic in a more extreme way. We probably act stronger on this than just some discussion going mildly off-topic without people really intent to do that.

@Tonda

Causing unrest is sometimes acceptable IMO. Like you said, a whistle blower will bring the issue to the community. The anti unrest rule contradicts this. Making it unacceptable to do so.

What you say would imply that with the attacks in Brussels nobody was allowed to post a news article in off-topic because it would cause some unrest with people. This is not the case. This is again to prevent the more extreme stuff, like a new user that jumps on our forum and start to make false claims about whatever to drive the price of Safecoin up or down with false statements.

@Tonda

Like SAFE e-mail, we should be allowed a certain amount of strongly emphasizing words.

This is so much work. We would have to follow individual members all the time and count exactly what they say and do.

@Tonda

The joking threats rule is too much. We all have a different sense of humor. This is the sterility I wrote of previously.

This is again to prevent the extreme cases where people make a threat and it’s really unclear whether or not they’re joking. Like we have 2 new members from France that live in the same area, they get into a heavy debate here in a topic and 1 says: “We’ll stop this discussion here but I know where you live ;-)”. In that case we might see a Flag from someone and use this rule. It all has to do with interpretation.

@Tonda

Porn links should be clearly labeled. We should strengthen the use of proper judgement. We’re not babies. Stop padding the room.

We reached a clear consensus that this forum is family friendly. So no swears and no links to nsfw allowed.

@Tonda

My reasoning for exposing the private correspondence was to give the community insight into the mentality of the mods on the matter.

Like @happybeing already asked, what if a mod posted a PM with a user knowing about this? We would get criticized for it quite loud I think.

One thing I would like to add is that all rules in the Forum Guidelines need to be interpreted by mods when we do our work. When someone thinks we made a mistake a Flag or Pm to @ moderators is the way to go.

Thanks again for all the points. Like I said I’ll take 2 of them to @ moderators and see if we change/add or not. I’ll let you know.

[dirvine]

What I feel everyone needs to also keep remembering is that the mods are normal users as well. So a separation of those duties is good, but they are just another one of us lot really. So the mods as a group are not different from users (and many times need to be normal users, we should help them be that) they are users performing much more work and having to tread across broken glass in bare feet many times. They will (I hope) make lots of mistakes and remedy them (seems to happen) and they will make decisions some of us don’t agree with.

I know everyone knows this but I just want to thank these users who do that often thankless task on behalf of the rest of us. I also want to thanks the vocal users as well, they both make it a great place to share ideas and thoughts.

Long may the to and fro continue and with the mutual respect that always appears to surface through the discussions.

When a group becomes “them” the we fail, so lets all realise there is not “them” there is just us but lots of different kinds of us and that’s incredible, so I think we are very lucky and I hope it continues as long as possible.

Cheers mods and all the pushing and pressuring to make sure we are OK people. It’s very cool.

[happybeing]

Thanks for the reply @Tonda I’m afraid I won’t be able to answer it as fully as I’d like because I need to be spending less time on moderation related stuff and more, like you had to, on other things . I hope you and your family are feeling better.

Thanks for explaining why you posted private conversations (I’m not sure you explained that in your post - I didn’t have time to read every word I’m sorry). You have not addressed my other points, or felt it warranted an apology on your part. So I remain unsatisfied with you, and unable to trust your judgement. Why should I engage in a private conversation with you again? You broke trust and are ignoring the effect on me. In some ways it was a small mistake - nobody died - but your response to my objections is what is more troubling. I hope you will reflect on this, because it is a problem for me.

For the record, if you had asked, and honestly explained why you wanted to share our conversation, I would have considered your request.

Coming to your suggestions around the guidelines. I too had reservations, but didn’t voice them, about several of the new guideline the points you raised (backseat moderation, bumping for example). It remains to be seen whether these are problems though in the way you describe - I doubt it myself, which is why I didn’t comment on them when they were prepared. I think the impact of the guidelines is not just about the details, but more how we use them, and that’s probably why you also focus on transparency. I’ve already explained the problems I see with that.

I think, correct me if I’m wrong, that you agree we need moderators. If so, we need them to have a way of working that is sustainable and that is what the mod team - who know what is involved in moderation (ask @jabba if you want independent insight) - are working towards here.

Setting guidelines that are blurred or onerous to follow (e.g so many profanities allowed in a given period) creates a problem for users and moderators, and would be unsustainable - we’ve tried that. Surely that’s obvious after my explanations - we have clarified and simplified the guidelines, and streamlined the moderation process because this was a problem. It wasn’t working. I explained some of the ways we tried to address this, because we want an open collaborative community owned forum, but it has not worked.

You don’t seem to accept this or be able to take it on board, so I have a suggestion. If you want an independent voice who also understands what’s involved in moderation, maybe invite @jabba to consider your suggestions and work with him to produce something that could work, and is more acceptable to you.

You and I both want this to be a place of creativity. Maybe you want that to be a higher priority than the things I prioritise - a workable moderation system.

On creativity, I also have an understanding of what fosters creativity (from experience and study), and yes it includes chaos. I find a staged model quite useful and chaos is necessary in that (also cf. 5 rhythms for its importance). But first, before true chaos, one needs to feel free to enter into it, to let go boundaries, and ironically that requires others to hold boundaries for you, in order to create that safe space - both for you and those around you. Someone who acts without boundaries in the absence of a safe space becomes a danger to themselves and others. You see us as oppressive, I see us as fostering a safe space. We disagree a bit over where and how the boundaries should be set.

I think we also differ in what we believe the purpose of the forum is and who we want to be able to engage here. I think you want the forum to be as ground breaking as SAFEnetwork, take more risks with it, while I want it to bring as many people into the SAFEnetwork community as possible. This may be wrong, that’s fine - I’m just speculating openly there - and trying to put your mind at rest and help dispel some of your incorrect symptoms about me and the team (by which I mean the labels you’ve applied, and the assumptions you’ve made about our attitudes and motives - e.g around pornography).

Very few people on the forum seem to share your concerns or your views about what it should be like. That’s my guide here, always has been. We don’t have many votes, but we do listen, and being a moderate is a great way to ensure you read and tap into everyone’s point of view, and have all your own judgements and preconceptions, prejudices, etc challenged and dispelled.

Every mod on this team reflects and discusses this and much else with the other mods, (as well as being active members of the community). Another thing that takes time but is not seen. This is one of the things that we as mods are privileged to enjoy, and which ensures we grow and improve. It’s marvellous

So while you may “suspect”, it is not my own personal view of how a forum should be run, or an attempt to create a littler empire etc as some like to portray (mods are like North Korean dictators etc.) I’d happily step down - I hope to step down before long. This is hard work.

We consider all constructive suggestions. We always do. So thank you for those.

Speaking generally, the suspicions, labelling, and abuse that we receive - which I’ve not heard you criticise when thanking an ally for comments which include such abuse - is an unfortunate downside that makes this a tough role (and why we’re addressing it in the guidelines). If you want mods with sensitivity, rather than psychopathic power hungry personalities, you need to recognise that we need protection too, when respect is not forthcoming. Thankfully this is still rare, but I expect it will get more frequent as the community grows (just look at the abuse on twitter).

So I would like you to think more before you act and remember we are human beings trying to do something to help this project, because we are like you, and believe it is worth supporting.

We are not self serving dictators, and we listen to everyone who has a view here. Some though, feel they are so right and we so wrong, that if their view doesn’t prevail, we must be evil or unworthy. This is rubbish, and it is evident from the community response to us as we go about our work.

[Jabba]

This thread was made for me! I’m grinning ear-to-ear at the prospect of having my say lol.

Spoiler alert, I basically agree with all of you

Ok, so on any other forum in the world these rules would pass without question and for good reason. Unmoderated forums are usually a nightmare and rarely last for long.

However, this isn’t any other forum. We’re all decentralists of one kind or another here. Most of us agree that centralised power is a bad thing and dominion inevitably causes harm. I’m not at all surprised that users on this forum hate the idea of rules/laws or enforcers of dominion.

Moderation is thankless and really hard work. Mod’ing a forum is like a black hole that sucks in all your time. Most people don’t see half of what you do - if you do a decent job - so most don’t realise how much time you’ve saved them reading junk… time they’d never get back and now you won’t either because you had to read it to realise it should not be there. Time is precious, that’s really all we have, the gift of not wasting time should not be underestimated imo. Thank you mods xx.

However, the gift of laughter is also precious… thank you tonda xx, if you stick your giraffe ears on happybeing I think you’ll hear tondas feelings and needs pretty clearly - remember, there is no judgement or criticism, only tragic expression of unmet need. You know what I’m on about ;), don’t be angry with him, he’s just worried because he loves this place so much. He doesn’t like rules or censorship. He wants the forum to feel free and to be allowed to express himself and make all of us laugh. I agree with him for sure, even though I also agree with you too and appreciate how much hard work you put in. I would spend less time here if I felt it had become sterile, if harmless wanking jokes were removed in excessive use of moderation etc. I would also spend less time here if it degenerated into chaos. His comments about you being self-righteous were unwarranted and untrue, but you have the power to rise above that violent communication to see what lies underneath… it’s always just please and ty remember - easy for me to say ofc, I’ve not just been insulted ;). He is just blaming you as the likely source of something he sees as a threat, it isn’t actually personal, even though it feels that way. You really ought to take it back tonda imo, it’ll make it easier to move on and it was out of order

I think there might be a way to satisfy all parties here though… or most at least.

Instead of a long list of rules why not have one simple rule that gives the mods the freedom to make all of our lives easier and better… “Do no harm” and make them accountable to it too? If you do something that harms the forum, the quality of it or our experience then there is potential to be moderated. Then, we just need some kind of accountability to temper moderation and make the mods slightly wary of being flamed because they are accountable to the same hippocratic imperative if they go off the rails - removing basically harmless things, or harm the forum themselves with trigger-happy moderation. We could have a ‘moderation’ thread where anyone can raise their concerns about any moderation and we are all free to discuss it and poll for consensus if we think a mod needs to lighten up or ease off at any point. It’s not perfect, but given the size of the community and characters of the mods I think that would suffice for accountability. If we really don’t like how they respond to community concerns in the moderation thread, we can just revisit the topic of accountability and ways/means to enforce it then can’t we? As the mods rightly say, they’re not fascist dictators. I’m not sure we need a perfect system of accountability atm, as long as it’s 100% open/transparent so we all know what’s going on.

It seems that this would be simplest to me… I’m sure some will petition for total transparency and mods to post all of their actions in the mod thread or something, but the reality is that moderation is already so time-consuming that we really shouldn’t do anything that adds bureaucracy to it imo.

Keep it simple I reckon. Rules are patronising and restricting. Some people get anal about following the letter of them and the spirit gets forgotten. Most of Tonda’s concerns are fair imo, a long list of rules could represent a threat to the community feel and spirit. But, mod’s do need freedom to make our lives better… at least until the magic of Seneca’s Decorum is realised and we can all just choose to be each other’s mods or not - you genius Seneca

Does that sound like a reasonable solution? If it doesn’t I’m sure we can find some kind of compromise that we can all accept/tolerate… I’ve never been surrounded by so many smart people as in this forum, if we can’t do it no one can

EDIT: I remember what my dad always used to tell me… the price of criticism is offering a sound alternative. If you don’t like what I’ve proposed please try and improve it rather than just flaming me… I know tensions run high in threads like this

[anon40790172]

Thanks for the long post.

@Jabba

Ok, so on any other forum in the world these rules would pass without question and for good reason.

Yeah so true, I challenge everyone here who wants us to be more open, accountable, democratic or whatever to go to this Linux Mint Forum and criticize the moderators in a topic. Or to make a post about politics, or a even a post about SAFE and what it’s all about. Just forget it. You don’t have a change. Same for almost all the other forums we showed in the last Forum Update. What about having a poll for new guidelines on the Bitcoin Reddit? Just give it a try and post link here please.

I like Linux Mint Forum and most of the others. They’re so great and organised and you go there, ask your question or do your search and you get what you want.

On the other hand I like it even more that our forum is way broader than just technology. I like the off-topic as well and and I also like the fact that people see members as some sort of family as someone here once said. I have that feeling as well. I like to hang out here, learn about SAFE, party when we have a testnet and everybody celebrates. It’s really great! I also like the fact that everyone here can come up with a proposal for changes to guidelines etc. I’ve read 2 proposals here in this topic which I’ll pass to @ moderators as I promised earlier today. And we seriously talk about these things.

[Jabba]

You guys do a brilliant job! I rarely see spam and I have never noticed any excessive moderation. Nor have I been censored even though I’ve walked the cheeky line once or twice. It’s a harder line for you guys to walk than us and rare to find a group of mods who are relatively consistent and intelligent with their decisions. Props to all of you!

I do appreciate what you do bro… much love for it! People here are just more wary than most about the idea of authority… and they’re scared the bias of moderators, or blanket rules without consideration of circumstance or scale will be projected into their lives. I think if we all have a place to voice concerns openly people will see how rare it is for you guys to make questionable decisions and how fair you all are about what concerns we bring to the table.

[anon40790172]

@Jabba

It seems that this would be simplest to me… I’m sure some will petition for total transparency and mods to post all of their actions in the mod thread or something, but the reality is that moderation is already so time-consuming that we really shouldn’t do anything that adds bureaucracy to it imo.

I would seriously not have a problem with all actions being showed to the rest of the members. We don’t have anything to hide IMO. But, that’s the theory. In practice I would feel the need explain why we did what we did as well. Otherwise it wouldn’t be fair. But this gives us a couple of problems:

• It shows publicly that a member was in a bad mood and said some nasty things for example. It could say something like: “Deleted a reply by userABC where he insulted another member by comparing his mother to a cow”. Now we could leave out the insult but then people here would ask: “Why was his reply deleted, what did he say?”. So now everyone here on the forum can see that userABC made a nasty reply including all the details. As we have it today, we would just delete the reply as fast as we can, send him a PM and say we don’t want to see that again. We’ve seen this before (no insults with cows so far ;-)) but people got mad, said something bad and next day gave us a PM saying they were a bit emotional and overreacted. That way it’s not public for all to see and fixes the situation as well.

• It’s time consuming. We have a Log with all actions. I removed some spam and a bot account yesterday. But the Log is full of data like IP’s and emails etc. So when we post that list here, we would first need to edit that all out. Otherwise we would have personal data all over the place. Here’s a screenshot of the Log. Even though it was a spambot I deleted out IP and email as well.

[Jabba]

Yes i agree, the moderation thread I’m proposing should just be a place for us to discuss moderation decisions we take issue with openly. I don’t think we need to catalog every decision made. Just a place to call attention to our own concerns if mods are being too heavy-handed and the community would like to see a slightly lighter touch in any given areas. This will be obvious to those who are edited and have a problem with it, everyone doesn’t need to know every decision for us to have a place to say when we are not happy.

The main point being that I think the rules and what they represent (rigid, thoughtless, mechanical decisions) is what has upset people… maybe they aren’t necessary? We’re all grown-ups and perhaps it would be better for everyone to consider if what they were doing was harmful in any way first (mod or member) rather than just to reflect on a list of rules with simple yes or no answers for acceptability.

[anon40790172]

@Jabba

I don’t think we need to catalog every decision made. Just a place to call attention to our own concerns if mods are being too heavy-handed and the community would like to see a slightly lighter touch in any given areas.

Everybody is free to do that. META is open for topics like that. But a Flag would be even better IMO. Just giving us a notification that they don’t agree with a decision we made. We always reply over PM.

@Jabba

The main point being that I think the rules and what they represent (rigid, thoughtless, mechanical decisions) is what has upset people… maybe they aren’t necessary?

Some might indeed be strict and won’t ever be used. But we’re growing quite fast. Just 1 rule that says: don’t be harmful or anything like that would bring up a lot of discussions. People would ask why we deleted a reply, what was harmful about it, why is somebody else allowed to say A but I’m not allowed to say B? We prevent this by having a clear list of rules. Some we probably won’t ever need, but on the other hand, it doesn’t hurt anyone as well.

[Jabba]

@anon40790172

We always reply over PM

Yes but that leads to a one-way, dominionist dialogue… I don’t like it / here’s why i did it / i still dont like it / tough. But when it’s open the mod is forced to question themselves in front of many other people and can be swayed by the opinions of other members and mods. The thread provides and incentive for mods to think about the harm they do too because it will be a hassle to post defense, so there will be greater incentive for them to leave things up if possible, to avoid having to defend the decision. The more defensible and obvious the decision, the less the mod has to worry about having to respond and waste time explaining themselves etc.

@anon40790172

Some might indeed be strict and won’t ever be used. But we’re growing quite fast. Just 1 rule that says: don’t be harmful or anything like that would bring up a lot of discussions. People would ask why we deleted a reply, what was harmful about it, why is somebody else allowed to say A but I’m not allowed to say B? We prevent this by having a clear list of rules. Some we probably won’t ever need, but on the other hand, it doesn’t hurt anyone as well.

That’s rather the point I think someone should be able to ask why they couldn’t say X or Y so we can get the best quality of decisions. If you just say ‘no swearing’ then people can’t say or may have removed pretty harmless things. I for one think it is more damaging to the forum and community to have the word ‘shit’ removed when it appears. I like that we can have some light swearing and it changes the atmosphere. I would like somewhere to voice those concerns and establish an intelligent and open dialogue about how far those kinds of decisions should go. If I had a thread to do that then I don’t think the mods or the community need rules or lists of acceptable behaviours. Mods just obviously remove the C word if it comes up, it offends lots of people, we know that. If people want to question it they’ll find lots of community members will do the mods defending for them imo. If they don’t then maybe the mod was wrong…?

[Jabba]

Really. I think a moderation thread would be fantastically interesting and educational, as well as practical. I think we’d all learn a lot about what is in the best interests of the forum and why. I think we’d have loads of fierce, controversial and enlightening debates about tiny things.

I don’t see that as a problem. I’d love it personally. Loads of well-thought out and passionate opinions to learn from and adapt to… geek heaven

[anon40790172]

@Jabba

That’s rather the point I think someone should be able to ask why they couldn’t say X or Y so we can get the best quality of decisions.

Our old forum guidelines were way more open. “Please avoid this, please keep in mind that…”. We took quite some heat when we deleted replies. We even took heat if we just asked people in a polite way if they could please remove their swear from a topic we pointed to. That’s why we now have quite some strict rules. And there’s still room for interpretation. “The shit is hitting the fan for Bitcoin” is quite different from “What you say is total shit”. When it comes to f-words we’re very strict, but for other words there’s interpretation.

@Jabba

I like that we can have some light swearing and it changes the atmosphere. I would like somewhere to voice those concerns and establish an intelligent and open dialogue about how far those kinds of decisions should go.

Feel free to start that discussion. But that actually is adding more rules to the guidelines. I would like to be able to make an interpretation as well.

@Jabba

If I had a thread to do that then I don’t think the mods or the community need rules or lists of acceptable behaviours.

You would be surprised . We can have the greatest topic with all members agreeing on what is and what isn’t allowed and within days we would have some people stepping over all the lines.

[anon40790172]

@Jabba

Really. I think a moderation thread would be fantastically interesting and educational, as well as practical. I think we’d all learn a lot about what is in the best interests of the forum and why. I think we’d have loads of fierce, controversial and enlightening debates about tiny things.

Yeah, a lot of debates indeed. Let’s start with the question, what should mods share in that topic? Which actions and which not? This isn’t clear to me at all. And again, just saying: “removed a reply by userABC” isn’t enough. So that would mean a lot of work explaining we removed reply 23 in topic Y because it wasn’t in line with the FG due to the fact that bla bla bla.

And another point to make, we had 350 views on our Forum Update topic. 20 people liked the post. Some people made replies in that topic and 2 new topics were started here in META about the new FG. How many people take part in these discussions? In 3 topics I count 6 members that don’t fully agree with the new guidelines. And for the rest it’s mods replying. That doesn’t mean we don’t take it serious, because we do. But to me it shows that the great majority here are okay with how this forum is moderated. Not so strange though, because we’re not that different than other forums and communities.

[Jabba]

@anon40790172

We even took heat if we just asked people in a polite way

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to defelct some of that heat in a public forum with helpful members like me jumping in to defend your actions before you even had to?

@anon40790172

Feel free to start that discussion. But that actually is adding more rules to the guidelines

I don’t want to add any rules, I don’t think we need any at all really. I want us all to grow and mature together by learning from each other in a discussion thread that prompts us all to question what is harmful to the forum. Perhaps this would make less work as instead of having to continually edit one person they might be given the opportunity to learn exactly why what they’re doing is harmful and perhaps the mod doesn’t have to be the one to explain that to them either?

@anon40790172

within days we would have some people stepping over all the lines.

But then you just edit those posts as you would normally. What I’m actually proposing is just that you guys continue moderating exactly as you are, disband the list of rules entirely and we can discuss it if we think anyone is over-modding anything or being heavy-handed. Isn’t that much simpler and easier really? You just keep doing what you’re doing, so do we, but there’s a place we can go if we feel you’re going too far… other than that, you have carte blanche to do as you wish… as if we’d all ‘chosen’ you all as mods in Senecas system, but if we want to un-choose you we instead have to sway consensus with sensible and persuasive arguments.

It at least seems worth a try to me, what have we got to lose by experimenting?

[anon40790172]

@Jabba

It at least seems worth a try to me, what have we got to lose by experimenting?

Ha, great question. But to be honest I still think it adds a lot of work. Again, what should we share in META with users and what not? If we had one rule that said: “Don’t harm the forum or users in any way”. Why is a swear allowed or not? Why is going off-topic in a post harmful? Where do we draw the line? That’s the point I see. It would make things more unclear. I think user here (and on all the other forums) are better off with a simple set of rules to follow.

[Jabba]

People use the same arguments for laws, but personally I disagree.

I don’t see how it would create more work… I’m basically saying keep doing what you’re doing, just give us a place to discuss what you’re doing and listen to us if the weight of consensus or argument is strong :). As long as you guys keep listening to us, everything will be ok and we don’t need rules. Newsflash, almost no one reads them anyway ;). We only use rules to justify actions without the need for argument/discussion, they don’t actually get used for guidance really. I’d be more likely to read Ts and Cs than forum guidelines. What I’m saying is there is always room for argument and discussion. It’s still a private forum and you can do what you want at the end of the day, but if the community don’t feel heard on matters of forum moderation you will alienate them. Trust me. I ended up having to make player-mods and make them accountable to the community as well as to me. There are strict rules in gambling, so we had to have some rules, but they did us no favours at all. What made it work with a community of tens of thousands of active players on at any one time (in our hayday) was the effective moderation of players who didn’t want to get flamed, but were also bright enough to see where the line was… just like you guys. The community became of common mind about what was acceptable and what wasn’t through discussions… on a poker forum full of angry gamblers and immature young dudes it was a miracle. I still had to weigh i and throw the ‘private forum no free-speech’ slap around occasionally, but it was remarkably rare.

I still don’t think rules are necessary myself, but I absolutely think moderation is. Forums don’t work without moderation and it is both a thankless task and very hard work. I don’t think you should be shackled by rules or bureaucracy. I think you should be free to make judgement calls for everything as long as we can all keep an open dialogue going about what kinds of things we all think ought to be moderated. If you don’t give the community some ownership of those decisions then you do run the risk of annoying/alienating some of them.

Just my thoughts, you know I love what you guys do and I’d subscribe to all of your edits on decorum

xx

[anon40790172]

@Jabba

I think you should be free to make judgement calls for everything as long as we can all keep an open dialogue going about what kinds of things we all think ought to be moderated.

META is very open to all discussions and proposals about moderation. We also could say, no rules, we just moderate in a way we feel good. I think that wouldn’t change that much. But we got quite some requests from people asking: “Which rule in the guideline prevent me from doing this or that”. And as you’ve experienced, modding takes a lot of effort and time. I was surprised by it. But I think we’re doing fine now. Two new mods are doing great. And the guidelines are so clear that most of the time we see something, act on it and send a PM and we’re done. If we didn’t had rules we might see more investment in slack, asking each other is this okay, or that? Now it’s just go for it. Gives me time to enjoy the forum and read the topics again. But thanks for the replies here, it’s appreciated. BTW, I just joined this forum. lot of familiar faces .

[Jabba]

@anon40790172

If we didn’t had rules we might see more investment in slack, asking each other is this okay, or that?

Or we might find that both posters and mods develop a much better idea of what was acceptable together and where the lines blur and why/how those things should be dealt with. Then maybe there’d be fewer questions in slack and a generally better and more consistent understanding between mods and the community together?

I’ve hijacked this thread with my opinion enough now anyway.

Just sharing my thoughts… I have no objections to the guidelines, like I said, I don’t read rules, rules are not for me, I just try not to cause any harm or offence and then I do whatever I like. It has worked for me so far

[happybeing]

Thanks @Jabba for joining the discussion, I’ve been hoping you would because you said you had much experience of moderation and have the unique position to view this from (being both an-ex moderator and now a regular user of this forum).

We as mods still have a lot to learn, we learn all the time, and this has been a valuable part of the evolution of the forum, the system of moderation and how we work individually and as a team of moderators.

I’m not sure I understand your suggestion of a moderation discussion topic, because this is already provided for under the new guidelines (in Meta), and has been going on from day one - we just haven’t said in a specific topic - or have I misunderstood what you’re suggesting there?

Users have always been free to discuss moderation and raise concerns over specific actions or behaviour of a particular moderator. We ask them to raise this first using @moderators in a PM, but there’s nothing to stop them raising an issue in Meta. We’ve taken a lot of this on board, while obviously also leaving much of it out !

Some time ago we decided to keep this in meta and off the front page - because we believed it was at times getting in the way of the majority of users’ needs when there were heated discussions - frequent posts on multiple moderation topics pushing other discussions out of view. The little scamps here were prone to posting in multiple topics and to bump those posts back up the front page to spam, sorry, amplify their concerns …so off the front page it went to the inevitable screams of foul play, censorship and Kim Jong Il.

Earlier we used to respond to points about moderation in topic, which was obviously unhelpful.

So how we allow discussion on moderation has evolved from no constraints, to a proper time, place and I hope, more respectful discussion. It still takes up a lot of moderator time (I’ve spent several hours this last two days on this, and plenty more last week, and so have the other mods). But I hope once we have a sustainable system, and the community has seen it bedding down and working, we will need less changes, and less discussion. I hope we’ll always be able to have feedback and discussion because I think it is important. But we have to find a way to keep it at a manageable level.

On your other suggestion - ditching the do/don’t rules - in favour of everyone trusting members to mostly know what’s ok, and for members to trust moderators to act reasonably and accept their decisions unless they’re getting some way from acceptable (including odd mistakes I hope… who me? ).

Well, this is something I would love - I even hinted at this in one of our many internal discussions on moderation earlier today. Wouldn’t it be better if as moderators, we had an internal set of guidelines but could use our discretion, and users we’re accepting of that? Why yes!

The problem for me is that this idea is what we have been striving for since I began as a moderator, and it has been beyond me and the team that has gradually developed over the last - getting on for - two years. The problem is that here people don’t adequately trust or respect moderators or moderation. Would they anywhere if they were allowed to dispute and discuss the things that they personally object to?

What happens is that we end up with those very few who are affected by moderation feeling it is ok to do all sorts of things, and endlessly post things that are in dispute, incorrect, personal attacks, misrepresentations, nasty comments and accusations, about us as individuals and as a team. We’re hypocrites, evil (North Korean) dictators, have personal grudges … heck, they’ll be calling us the government next

This is not tennable. We either have to spend hours responding to this stuff, or we have to rule it out when it is anything but respectful genuine discussion, and it rarely is when an individual gets a bee in their bonnet over moderation. That’s just human. Its why humans have developed the many systems we have, and yes those systems can go horribly wrong. Including here - I don’t deny it - the moderator team could go bad, but I can assure everyone, that has not happened yet, and I would be amazed if it could happen with even 50 percent of the current team in place. This team is amazing IMO.

So, those kinds of responses from a few forum members are completely understandable - I totally get why some people behave like that towards us given the freedom to do so.

I’d love it if the forum could be run in a way that meant this kind of freedom was manageable because the system and team was much more trusted by everyone. I’m sure most do trust, but it will never be everyone, and especially not everyone on the day we do something they don’t like. Everyone has a sensitive issue, a bug bear, or a hot button that we will inevitably trigger.

And we must also remember that the freedom here can be deliberately abused by members. There will always be individuals who act for other reasons, and we have to be able to deal with all eventualities, without having to explain, justify or get into big discussions when a handful of people feel strongly or feel wronged and so on.

Big feeling across the community? Different matter, of course we can listen to that. And of course we’ll engage in those discussions. Somehow we need to draw a line between these, and individuals will always object to us drawing the line with them on the other side.

Not drawing that line adequately will make us open to trolling (again cf. twitter, also evil agencies etc.). But as I’ve said several times now, even without that which is coming, it is already unsustainable. We need to also be ready for massed ranks of the uninhibited or a handful of deliberately and intelligently disruptive. Even our small, no tiny really, community (we are still pretty small beer compared to what is coming I hope) of passionate advocates has proven unmanageable on the current basis. I believe this forum is currently vulnerable and that’s the main reason I don’t feel able to step down for the time being.

Some mods have been stretched to breaking point a few times over the last few months, and so something has to be done to address this. Any suggestions need to take this fully into account.

TL;DR I don’t think we can do things as openly and discursively as people want with this forum software or a team of volunteers who have been stretched for months now, and with an ever more rapidly growing forum in prospect.

We’ll certainly listen and consider sincere requests for specific changes, but so far the proposals have seen a handful of responses, including some rather reactive and so not easy to incorporate into what we’ve proposed, or are contrary to the aims of the changes as I’ve explained, or not possible with the forum software.

[Jabba]

Ok, I hear you and get your points. They are all completely fair and reasonable, as always!

I have another suggestion which might help but it’s a bit late now so will pop on tomorrow when I’ve slept on it.

Big love to you though bro, we all owe you a debt of gratitude for all the work you put into these forums. We all want what’s best for this place, our passion can easily lead to things getting heated when we disagree. It’s not nice being unappreciated when you work so hard for such a good cause though, so hippyhug, I appreciate you and all you do.

/kizzles