Helping the Moderators

[Commodore]

Just a little proposal I thought of (even though I'm sure it will be soundly rejected, but whatever) while messing around with my YouTube channel:

Every time any member complains about moderators not doing enough, the common defense moderators throw out is that there simply isn't enough of them to be able to monitor every post. If that really is the problem, then why not allow us regular members to help lighten the load a bit by taking a page out of YouTube's playbook?

YouTube, as I'm sure you are all aware, does not moderate the comment sections of any videos on the site. The sheer amount of videos and comments posted makes it impossible for them to do so. Basically the same problem the moderators here at CFC claim to have, just on a much larger scale. YouTube also does not have any rules governing the content of one's comments. They regulate videos, but not comments. Any moderation of comment sections is left up to each individual channel which can apply their own rules and determine how strictly they wish to enforce those rules.

I say we do something similar here. Basically scrap large sections of the current site rules, and give thread creators moderator privileges over the threads they start and let them determine the rules and overall tone they want the thread to take. I also remember a moderator saying Xenforo allows them to ban people from specific threads, so such an ability would work perfectly for the system I'm talking about.

So with members policing their own threads, what role would the moderators have? Well, they would be policing what types of threads can be created much like YouTube polices what types of videos can be uploaded. This would drastically reduce the work load for moderators since they would only have to worry about monitoring the subject matter of the thread instead of having to worry about sifting through each individual post for rules violations.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I can see problems with this.

A huge part of moderating involves interpreting the shades of grey. Some things are obviously against the rules: ethnic slurs, anything that trips the autocensor, advocating suicide/self-harm, threats...

But there are the grey areas of what, exactly, constitutes trolling? I have my definitions of trolling, but they won't be the same as other people's definitions of trolling. OTOH, I'll tolerate things some other people won't.

This will lead to inconsistency, and I foresee appeals to the moderators to referee issues of why something is trolling in one thread but not another, and although I'd like to think well of people here, it's quite obvious that there are some combinations of posters who just rub each other the wrong way - constantly. Are you suggesting each person ban such people from their threads, even though they may be quite interested in the thread topic?

Consider:

Poster A: I want to post in the Ice Cream Cone thread, but can't.
Moderator: Poster B has banned you from posting in that thread.
Poster A: Okay, then I want Poster B banned from my Pizza thread.
Moderator: (goes in search of the nearest headache remedy)


I'm not saying that I always agree with how the moderators moderate and there have been some extremely frustrating situations where a poster has been skirting thisclose to the letter of the line and it may be obvious that trolling is going on to everyone but the moderators. That said, the ignore feature exists for a reason, and with the XenForo version, there is little chance of accidentally running across an ignored person's posts... unless you have email notifications, in which case their posts will turn up if an unignored person happens to quote them.

In such cases, if the quoted material contains something that is a rules violation, I've notified the moderators. Trolling is trolling, regardless if the target sees it or not.


It would be nice if a thread didn't have to have Red Diamond status (I loathe the "Real Discussion" designation; that's insulting to the OPs of non-RD/non-serial threads, implying that real discussion is not going on there) for the staff to apply the rules regarding blatant trolling. Some things are just rude anywhere.

 

[Commodore]

Consider:

Poster A: I want to post in the Ice Cream Cone thread, but can't.
Moderator: Poster B has banned you from posting in that thread.
Poster A: Okay, then I want Poster B banned from my Pizza thread.
Moderator: (goes in search of the nearest headache remedy)

Those posters wouldn't have to go to the moderator, the thread creator would just have the ability to ban members from their thread just like a YouTube content creator can ban specific people from making comments on any of their videos. Also like YouTube, there would be no mechanism in place to appeal the decision a thread creator makes on who gets banned and who doesn't, thus no headache for the moderators. The moderators' only job would just be making sure threads that are created are appropriate for the site and subforum it is located in.

Another reason there would be no appeals to moderators is because, as I suggested, the forum rules should be gutted and should be reduced to only govern what types of threads can be created. Any other "rules" would be set by each individual thread creator.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Those posters wouldn't have to go to the moderator, the thread creator would just have the ability to ban members from their thread just like a YouTube content creator can ban specific people from making comments on any of their videos. Also like YouTube, there would be no mechanism in place to appeal the decision a thread creator makes on who gets banned and who doesn't, thus no headache for the moderators. The moderators' only job would just be making sure threads that are created are appropriate for the site and subforum it is located in.

Another reason there would be no appeals to moderators is because, as I suggested, the forum rules should be gutted and should be reduced to only govern what types of threads can be created. Any other "rules" would be set by each individual thread creator.

I honestly think that what you are proposing will result in chaos. Every OP getting to moderate their own thread would result in wildly inconsistent things happening, and the fact is that forum software simply isn't set up to allow individual moderation of individual threads. Moderators have access to moderate in specific subforums, or possibly everywhere (usually called global moderators, although CFC uses a different term). I really don't think what you're proposing is technically doable, even if the staff were to agree with it.

 

[Commodore]

I honestly think that what you are proposing will result in chaos. Every OP getting to moderate their own thread would result in wildly inconsistent things happening, and the fact is that forum software simply isn't set up to allow individual moderation of individual threads. Moderators have access to moderate in specific subforums, or possibly everywhere (usually called global moderators, although CFC uses a different term). I really don't think what you're proposing is technically doable, even if the staff were to agree with it.

Well technical limitations would be quite the issue, yes. However, I don't think it would be chaos as the system kinda polices itself. Thread creators who are either too strict or too lax will find their threads dying quickly as no one will want to participate, just like on YouTube. Channels that either disabled/censored comments or created especially toxic communities (even by YouTube's standards) have pretty much died out. I think the same would happen here. It would be chaos for a while, but eventually things would all just kinda even out. Once that happens the moderators would be on easy street. No more reports, infractions, bans, or infraction/ban appeals to deal with anymore. All they'd have to do is make sure Neo-Nazis or ISIS aren't using this site to give themselves a platform...and keep the spambots out.

 

[Flying Pig]

From my end, the most useful thing that I can see people doing to help the derators is reporting posts. There are a lot of you and comparatively few of us - it makes things much easier to have material that needs attention pointed out to us.

 

[Ryika]

give thread creators moderator privileges over the threads they start

By the love of all the gods I don't believe in, please no. It's already bad enough to have trigger-happy mods defend rules that are designed for 5-year-old kids, but at least you can point the finger at them and hope the administration does something against them if they start acting completely unreasonable. Giving simple users who are not accountable to anybody moderation rights would surely only lead to more biased decisions and moderation that is designed to make the OPs side look stronger than it is. Open discussion would suffer because of OPs that want to push their narrative and ban people because they disagree with them, even if (or in some cases "especially if") they have good arguments to back their position.

Forums are meant to be places where honest discussions can take place, that's their main function, which is quite different from places like youtube, which is mostly about giving a creator control over their personal space. A thread is not a "personal space", it's a space for open exchange of ideas and conversations of all members of the forum, and nobody should be elevated over everyone else just because they created the thread.

I'm against it with every fiber of my body.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Honestly, this can't happen even if the mods and admins were in 100% agreement with Commodore. From a technical stance, what he is proposing is not possible unless each thread was made into its own subforum and each OP was put into some sort of moderator-type usergroup.

I have serious disagreements with some of the policies here, but even I wouldn't do this on any of the forums I run. No sensible admin would.

 

[Bootstoots]

FWIW, we're talking seriously in staff about adding new OT mods. It's gotten to the point where we're finalizing a list of possible new victims volunteers and will start asking people shortly. So this is a thing that is going to happen pretty soon, likely within the next week or two, even at a site where staff decisions move at a glacial pace.

The current number of mods, their activity, and their relative levels of burnout (which is big in my case) has been making effective moderation pretty spotty, and we clearly need more. When we get our new initiates, and they have brought the requisite drinks to the staff fridge, the pendulum will swing back towards stricter enforcement to some extent or another - it always does when new mods are added, as they learn the ropes and overall moderation activity increases.

As for a system where OPs have much more control over their own specific threads, we might consider moving a little bit in that direction, but not as far as is suggested here. It happens fairly often that an OP starts a discussion that veers off into territory the OP dislikes, after which they often request thread closure. We rarely grant this unless the thread turned into a trainwreck and not just went in a direction the OP didn't like, although sometimes modtext may be used to put the thread back on track if it got threadjacked. We may consider making more use of the thread ban feature, but I definitely wouldn't want OPs to be able to use it in their own threads - there would be a lot of people who would be threadbanned for simply disagreeing with the OP. OTOH, in certain cases (e.g. "Ask an [X]" threads), we do give the OP and designated responders more control than usual because the thread is meant to be a place where people share their experiences as an [X], and not for opening debates for or against [X]. There might be some room for being a bit more like this in other threads too, and concrete suggestions for how and when to move in this direction, without going too far (such as allowing OPs to threadban people or delete their posts) would be welcome.

 

[Commodore]

I'm actually starting to swing around to the thinking that more moderators and stricter moderation aren't the answers to this site's problems. I'm starting to think that maybe the rules of this site don't really mesh with what people now expect from the online communities they frequent. I've heard it said that one of the problems this site is facing is that forums in general are dying out. I don't agree with that as I see new forums popping up all the time. I think what is dying however, are strictly moderated forums. For better or worse, people simply don't want to be a part of communities where they have to censor what they say and I think CFC is going to have to start embracing that if it wants to survive. That means loosening up the rules significantly and maybe even getting rid of things like the autocensor.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The "expect more strictness with new mods" is something that I know will aggravate some issues, since the new ones won't know where some of the shades of grey are. Of course some things will always be against the rules. But there are a lot of people here whose first language is something other than English, or they're from an English-speaking country with different slang terms. There's confusion over ethnic slurs (a situation cropped up years ago when an American poster reported someone for using the term "Canuck" to refer to Canadians; the Canadians' collective reaction was "huh?").

That said, something has to be done, since it's obvious that not all the mods listed for OT are actually doing anything in OT - just the three I mentioned before.

For better or worse, people simply don't want to be a part of communities where they have to censor what they say and I think CFC is going to have to start embracing that if it wants to survive. That means loosening up the rules significantly and maybe even getting rid of things like the autocensor.

I wish you could see what that looks like on the Star Trek forum I belong to. It's really not nice to report or comment on something and if the admin doesn't like you, she used the "c-word" at you, or another admin would tell a poster he considered annoying to "f-off" (this happened in their QSF subforum - Questions, Suggestions, and Feedback). Mind you, the swearing is equal-opportunity in one of the subforums there; if people are going to throw that at me, I'm going to dish it back (the role of doormat is something I refuse to play). It's revealing which staff members enjoy dishing it out but don't like to take it.

This is not what I want CFC to become. We're better than that.

The above said, it's a good idea to have a periodic review of the autocensor list and add or drop terms as makes sense to do so.

 

[Commodore]

This is not what I want CFC to become. We're better than that.

We may be better than that, but being better than that may very well cause the death of this site.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think the crucial reason against doing this would be that there are relatively few OT posters anyway (and, consequently, posts). I really doubt there are more than 100 regular posters in OT. Which isn't that much, considering there are (i think) 4 OT mods?

One can already not see threads by people on ignore, and can only see their posts in other threads (including his/her own) only if choosing to.