Author Topic: (Poll) Should there be a Formal Process for Assigning Forum Moderators?  (Read 10304 times)

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Offline puppies

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Very good points Akado.

Something else that is missed is that this is not public property.

If I go to the movies, and I decide I want to practice my singing during a movie, then I will be shushed.  If I continue to sing I will be removed.  This is neither censorship nor an arbitrary abuse of power.

If I owned a community hall, and I allowed people to gather and discuss things.  It would not be censorship to limit the conversation to what I had specifically laid out. 

If I went to your house, and we're hanging out with your kids and your wife, and I use profanity, or talk about drugs, or my sexual escapades, it would not be censorship to ask me to stop.  If I then started talking about disintermediating the power structure, or voting on acceptable conversation in your house, you would think I was mad. 

The decision on who is to be a moderator should be made by the owner of the resource.  You can ask for an explanation, but you are not owed one. 

I am not trying to stifle discussion, but lets not be those people that get things for free, and then complain about them. 
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Offline fuzzy

None of this matters.

The forum doesn't belong to the community to decide.

What you see is what you get.

Is that the case?  And SHOULD it be the case?  The only problem I personally have is that someone with moderating experience can get into a position of power and get to decide whose speech and actions are "acceptable".  We are currently in a war in the outside world for free speech to be protected...so we can consider this little microcosm a great place to practice fighting for it. 

I personally think the community should own it in some way...and have some level of control over how things are done.  I really actually enjoy the "karma" that is on PPC forums...
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Offline BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode

None of this matters.

The forum doesn't belong to the community to decide.

What you see is what you get.
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Offline Akado

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get more mods and better tools like the warning system I mentioned above them. I honestly don't know what bitsaphire is doing by managing this forum.

Search tool, already mentioned countless times, is also completely useless

I can't say it's completely useless...I've used it on more than a few occasions.  Still there are likely better ways.

It is when for example I want to search for my thread "Exchange Issues Log" or whatever it's called and it returns every single thread that mentions even one of those words. You can't search by post or thread tittle. You can't search in a single section
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Offline BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode

get more mods and better tools like the warning system I mentioned above them. I honestly don't know what bitsaphire is doing by managing this forum.

Search tool, already mentioned countless times, is also completely useless

Search is pathetic in the forum.. the only way to find anything here is to use google to search the forum for what you are looking for.
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Offline fuzzy

get more mods and better tools like the warning system I mentioned above them. I honestly don't know what bitsaphire is doing by managing this forum.

Search tool, already mentioned countless times, is also completely useless

I can't say it's completely useless...I've used it on more than a few occasions.  Still there are likely better ways. 
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Offline Akado

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get more mods and better tools like the warning system I mentioned above them. I honestly don't know what bitsaphire is doing by managing this forum.

Search tool, already mentioned countless times, is also completely useless
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Offline fuzzy

We should have a forum UIA and whomever earns the most tips in that UIA can become a moderator.

Once again luckybit...these brilliant ideas are why I am addicted to your brain.  You think and daydream like I do about this.  Give people the ability to spread their wings!

and @Akado, the problem here is that one person gets to make the decision.  Instead we should have a means by which to disintermediate that power out of one person's hands.  Also, being a forum moderator is a hard job---so mods should enjoy anything that can get the community behind helping them do their jobs to the best of their ability (imho).

I like the idea of colors to mark people (and show them that they are getting close to a ban).  But the big thing for me is the deleting of comments that are "not valuable".  I'll tell you right now as much as I hate tonyk's consistent intent to stomp his boot on faces that I am not (and neither is anyone else) qualified to judge whether his posts may or may not have value in our community.  Restriction of speech is restriction of speech...no real gray lines here imho. :/

I do like some of your ideas though on how to make it easier and better than the current process.  The other cool thing is that just by asking this in the community is that I have someone else who has served as a moderator before (though admittedly 15,000 people is a bit more than I was needing to worry about) who has the experience to give some unique insight based on that experience.  The beauty of bringing the community's valuable members' brains together is stunning...and honestly one of the few things that keeps me going sometimes.
:) 
« Last Edit: December 13, 2015, 09:09:25 pm by fuzzy »
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Offline luckybit

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We should have a forum UIA and whomever earns the most tips in that UIA can become a moderator.
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38PTSWarrior

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I am so busy, hardly find time for this stuff. Leave it to the people who like to do these things.
13 Dec, 6 hours, 20 people

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Offline Akado

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I think people are overreacting... One thing is Theymos banning XT related talk when that matters for Bitcoin, another is deleting spam.

I was a mod on a manga/anime related website with +150000 members and managed on of the sections with the most activity. The crowd was different, meaning content couldn't be +18, but still, if something didn't contribute to a conversation, was just to raise post count, etc, it was considered as spam. Members who talked trash and weren't polite, meaning if someone said a "fuck you", etc, it was considered rude and people would get warnings.

You had yellow and red warnings. Once you reached X red/yellow warnings you would be banned.

It was done and is still being done since 2008.

Why do people keep insisting on the fact that if a useless post is deleted, that is considered censorship? Why is trying to keep the forum clean weed related businesses (attention this is different from a discussion) considered censorship? I don't get it, I just don't get it.

Tbh the forum tools suck around here. Pretty bad. We don't even have that basic system (that i'm aware of) so moderating kind of becomes a binary option. You either ban or you don't. You either delete or you don't. With a warning system implemented you would see the history of this or that member and according to the warnings he already had or if they were recent, he would be punished accordingly.

Problem is mod tasking is not done right in these communities. Half the threads in bitcointalk should be deleted and same thing for members who pump coins and constantly bash others. However I'm mostly certain if someone did that, that person would be considered a cryptoHitler or something. It's not about censorship or not, it's about keeping the place clean and civilized for discussion. That's why most crypto forum suck and you can't have a proper discussion. Because mod duties are not performed correctly and becasue everything is perceived as censorship.

tldr;
on one side, forum tools are useless and can't be used for proper mod duties (that i'm aware of)
on the other side, people complain a lot and can't separate censorship from keeping a place clean and where you can have a proper discussion
That is the reason why bitcointalk is the horrible thing it is now.

Spam: stands for Stupid Pointless Annoying Material/Message.
There's just a tremendous amount of Spam and Flame on all crypto forums and mods do nothing about it. When they do they are accused of censorship LOL. Censorship is an attempt of blocking a possible discussion. Blocking spam and flame is not censorship. I bet you would see a migration from all more "intelligent" so to speak kind of people to a forum where that doesn't happen. Maybe that's what's happening on the new bitcoin forum where all AMAs are hosted now.

Bitcointalk is already hated and known for it's childish threads and members. Eventually if you do nothing you might end up like that.

Now it's your choice to make your forum a place to have a proper discussion or a place to have fun. Of course it can be both but you can have fun without spam, flame, or discussions that are not appropriate. Bitcointalk is known for trolls. Now, do you want your forum to be the same? Sure we're pretty far away from that, but I'm just giving food for thought. It's about creating a "brand" if you want to call it that way. To be known as a civilized community where you can have all kinds of awesome discussions without trolls, flame and spam. That is NOT censorship.

It's also about learning how to distinguish friends and fun from "work". In what I deem a fair mod duty (again, this is my opinion) Tuck would already have potential warnings for Spam. TonyK would have many for not being that polite. NewMine would have been banned many times temporarily, etc. That doesn't make those people useless. Tuck and Tony post interesting and useful stuff, however they can still do it without the rudeness or spam like type of posts. You get me?

Lots of times on the forum I mentioned, people I actually liked and was friend of would be banned. I would set warnings for them, etc. Because they weren't following the rules. It's not because I like this or that person or even if that person is the most intelligent and visionary with great ideas... everyone is subject to the same type of rules.

Now it's up to you to find this tyrannical or prefer everyone to do what they please and turn a place you like into something like Bitcointalk. If BitShares is ever known for that you will never be taken seriously. Look at NxT. The amount of trolls there gave that community a bit of a fame.. even though they still have all kind of smart people there.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2015, 08:52:47 pm by Akado »
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Offline fuzzy

It would be better, in my opinion, to make more explicit a set of Terms of Service in the Registration Agreement. These could be voted on by the Community. And then strictly enforced.

The function of a Moderator would be to enforce those Terms of Service in a straightforward way. The moderator should not have the option to make up his own rules, but simply enforce those voted on by the Community.

Also, the function of Moderator could be time limited, 6 months or a year (or maybe only one month, so the position is less onerous and could be undertaken by many trusted Community members in rotation).

Thank you for your constructive feedback!  Do we have something similar to this at present?  I know, for instance, that I was given an area for beyond bitcoin on the forums but there was no community vote for it.  I am pretty certain the community would have voted yes, but my "certainty" should have no role in this. 
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Offline onceuponatime

It would be better, in my opinion, to make more explicit a set of Terms of Service in the Registration Agreement. These could be voted on by the Community. And then strictly enforced.

The function of a Moderator would be to enforce those Terms of Service in a straightforward way. The moderator should not have the option to make up his own rules, but simply enforce those voted on by the Community.

Also, the function of Moderator could be time limited, 6 months or a year (or maybe only one month, so the position is less onerous and could be undertaken by many trusted Community members in rotation).

Offline fuzzy

I am curious if we have a process for putting people into positions of power to shut down speech on our forums.  Moderators are very powerful positions and I am interested in the community's input on how we can ensure moderators are working in the best interests of BitShares. 

For this reason I am posing a few questions:
1) Do we have a formal process for assigning community members to moderator positions? 
   1a) If so, where is it? 
   1b) If not, should we?  <-------This is the question about which I am polling.
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