Is this forum too moderated?

[1995hoo]

I thought you guys had more backbone than you do.  I guess that's why you are "roadgeeks" (and I'm not.)

Comrade:
I will ask that you NOT lump us all together as you appear to be doing. 

Oh, and it's "Road Scholar", thank you very much. 

If "bugo" isn't a roadgeek and isn't a Road Scholar, does that make him a viatologist?   

[Alps]

I thought you guys had more backbone than you do.  I guess that's why you are "roadgeeks" (and I'm not.)

Comrade:
I will ask that you NOT lump us all together as you appear to be doing. 

Oh, and it's "Road Scholar", thank you very much. 

If "bugo" isn't a roadgeek and isn't a Road Scholar, does that make him a viatologist?   

I go by "highway enthusiast," myself. FWIW

[formulanone]

I'm more of a well-wisher. Okay...probably some form of roadgeek.

[NE2]

Whatever you call it, the important thing is to keep in mind the difference between those here for geeky reasons and those here for political reasons.

[vdeane]

The is the least moderated forum I'm on.  That said, the moderation is much more visible; what would be handled silently on most forums is emblazed with purple text for all to see here.  I think that's where the over-moderation perception comes from.

And bugo, using separate posts does not give the posts any additional meaning.  It just spams up the forum.  It's not email.

[corco]

Nine separate posts just hinders readability- I logged in when that went down and my entire recent posts list was filled with your replies to the same thread. That doesn't help me know what's going on, and I immediately saw that and was like "that's not going to go over well." It just harms readability.

You might ask "who cares?" to that, but if readability goes down, quality of discussion will go with it. It's the same reason chatspeak is frowned upon- it makes it harder to read which inevitably lowers the quality of discussion. It's not that nine posts in a row is bad, it's the effects of nine posts in a row, and what happens if that becomes acceptable. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and I think it's drawn appropriately 95% of the time here.

Go look at the rest of the internet- a lot of it sucks. If you like the unmoderated style of MTR, that's still there, but personally I like this a hell of a lot better.

Have you ever participated in a forum that has moderators elected to fixed-length terms?  If not, then what prompts you to think election of moderators would not be of any value, or would lead to more pot-stirring?

Honestly, I haven't. The way I look at it is that there's no reason for moderation to be discussed beyond a semi-annual airing of grievance thread like this one if it's being done effectively. Maybe I'm really off mark here, but I feel like too much discussion of moderation just creates a situation where everybody spends all their time thinking about the moderators. I would also worry about it turning into a popularity contest of sorts. I'd rather have them be invisible and go somewhere else if I don't like them. That said, I realize I've never actually experienced it so I could be totally off mark.

[1995hoo]

Nine separate posts just hinders readability- I logged in when that went down and my entire recent posts list was filled with your replies to the same thread. That doesn't help me know what's going on, and I immediately saw that and was like "that's not going to go over well." It just harms readability.

....

The material in boldface is an excellent point. I didn't see all this happen, but I use that "recent posts" feature quite a bit and if I see multiple posts by several users in the same thread, it suggests there's probably a good discussion going on (whether I then view it depends on what it is, of course).

I'm sure some people don't use that feature and don't care, just as on another forum the moderator was surprised when several of us said we wanted him to restore the feature that shows a different icon for threads in which you have posted. He just assumed people know where they've posted in the past (not necessarily valid when someone resurrects a long-dormant thread). But the fact that one user doesn't use a feature doesn't mean he should ruin its use for everyone else.

[J N Winkler]

Honestly, I haven't. The way I look at it is that there's no reason for moderation to be discussed beyond a semi-annual airing of grievance thread like this one if it's being done effectively. Maybe I'm really off mark here, but I feel like too much discussion of moderation just creates a situation where everybody spends all their time thinking about the moderators. I would also worry about it turning into a popularity contest of sorts. I'd rather have them be invisible and go somewhere else if I don't like them. That said, I realize I've never actually experienced it so I could be totally off mark.

I have had some experience with elected moderators with SABRE and I think the idea works quite well in practice.  The popularity-contest aspect is lessened by confining electioneering to an Elections and Canvassing board on the forum which is visible only during a defined campaigning period and is moderated by the SABRE president (in his capacity as elections officer), not by the moderating team.  There is a reasonable compromise between turnover and retention, so the "talent pool" (people with the skillsets required to moderate effectively) gets deeper in time while institutional memory is not lost.  In most years there is healthy competition for posts.  Moderators are answerable to the Site Manager (head of the moderating team), and can also be removed by a confidence vote, resignation, or failure to re-elect.  This makes members of the forum more willing to heed moderators since they can see that they have a democratic mandate, and it also gives them recourse in situations where a moderator is being blatantly unreasonable or is using his position to further personal grudges.  It also gives members of the forum a chance to see if they can improve the way things are run.  Not all good ideas come from above; if existing management sort of likes an idea that you suggest to them but is not willing to break routine to try it out, then the idea doesn't get tried unless you get elected to do it yourself.

To be perfectly honest, I am not seeing a lot of pressure right now for election of moderators on this forum, because it has been working quite well so far as a benevolent dictatorship.  The moderators are also further along on a learning curve and I would say that, overall, moderation is more effective now than it was a year or two years ago.  But I still argue that election of moderators (if run according to a well-designed process) would be a positive development because it provides a mechanism for accommodating normal turnover of moderators without favoritism.  (Some people just get tired or busy, don't want to bother with post merges, etc.)  When an existing moderator decides to retire, who gets handed the brass ring?  Can you request appointment as a moderator, or is merely asking sufficient to get you blackballed?

There are also some aspects of forum governance which are far from transparent.  For example, it is widely known that this forum has an equivalent of the SABRE Committee board, where difficult problems of moderation and member behavior are discussed in confidence, but nobody seems to know how the membership of this committee is formed.  (In SABRE this information is available to all members since SABRE Committee is encoded as a membership category on our phpBB board.)  And as far as I know, the only two ways to figure out who is a moderator on this forum is to read the moderator listings for individual boards or to look for a "Moderator" or "Global Moderator" tag in the profile information to the left of a given member's posts.  This means that when a person with moderator authority, such as Steve, chooses not to be identified as a board moderator and not to wear a "Moderator" tag, people don't know he or she is actually a moderator unless they are reminded by someone in the know.  In SABRE moderators are clearly distinguished by the color in which their screen names appear, by an office-held tag immediately underneath, and by being listed on a management page which is reached by an easy bread-crumb trail from the main page.

[realjd]

Whatever you call it, the important thing is to keep in mind the difference between those here for geeky reasons and those here for political reasons.

Are you talking R vs D politics or nerd-grudges within the roadgeek community? I'm here to satiate my nerdy interest in roads but, not being active in the greater roadgeek community, I have no idea if it's cliquish or not.

[deathtopumpkins]

There are also some aspects of forum governance which are far from transparent.  For example, it is widely known that this forum has an equivalent of the SABRE Committee board, where difficult problems of moderation and member behavior are discussed in confidence, but nobody seems to know how the membership of this committee is formed.  (In SABRE this information is available to all members since SABRE Committee is encoded as a membership category on our phpBB board.)  And as far as I know, the only two ways to figure out who is a moderator on this forum is to read the moderator listings for individual boards or to look for a "Moderator" or "Global Moderator" tag in the profile information to the left of a given member's posts.  This means that when a person with moderator authority, such as Steve, chooses not to be identified as a board moderator and not to wear a "Moderator" tag, people don't know he or she is actually a moderator unless they are reminded by someone in the know.  In SABRE moderators are clearly distinguished by the color in which their screen names appear, by an office-held tag immediately underneath, and by being listed on a management page which is reached by an easy bread-crumb trail from the main page.

Simple: the staff board is viewable to all moderators (local or global) and admins. As for how to tell who is and who is not a moderator, Steve is the only one of us (to my knowledge) who has a custom 'position'. Though, protip: The stars below a person's name indicate their 'position'. Red = staff, blue = regular member, green = DOT employee.

[rickmastfan67]

And as far as I know, the only two ways to figure out who is a moderator on this forum is to read the moderator listings for individual boards or to look for a "Moderator" or "Global Moderator" tag in the profile information to the left of a given member's posts.  This means that when a person with moderator authority, such as Steve, chooses not to be identified as a board moderator and not to wear a "Moderator" tag, people don't know he or she is actually a moderator unless they are reminded by someone in the know.  In SABRE moderators are clearly distinguished by the color in which their screen names appear, by an office-held tag immediately underneath, and by being listed on a management page which is reached by an easy bread-crumb trail from the main page.

There is one other way to find out who has mod power.  When you look at the left, look at the colored stars.  All Mods/Admins have red stars ().  The more stars, the higher power they have to do stuff here at the forums (like have access to the forum SMF source files.)

[InterstateNG]

This place isn't moderated enough in my opinion.

[NE2]

Whatever you call it, the important thing is to keep in mind the difference between those here for geeky reasons and those here for political reasons.

Are you talking R vs D politics or nerd-grudges within the roadgeek community? I'm here to satiate my nerdy interest in roads but, not being active in the greater roadgeek community, I have no idea if it's cliquish or not.

I'm talking those like CP and Beltway who primarily discuss the politics of road-building.

[hbelkins]

Whatever you call it, the important thing is to keep in mind the difference between those here for geeky reasons and those here for political reasons.

Are you talking R vs D politics or nerd-grudges within the roadgeek community? I'm here to satiate my nerdy interest in roads but, not being active in the greater roadgeek community, I have no idea if it's cliquish or not.

I'm talking those like CP and Beltway who primarily discuss the politics of road-building.

As someone who sees some of the inner workings of this every day, it's one of the more fascinating aspects of the process. And one of the most frustrating, too, I might add.

Simple: the staff board is viewable to all moderators (local or global) and admins. As for how to tell who is and who is not a moderator, Steve is the only one of us (to my knowledge) who has a custom 'position'. Though, protip: The stars below a person's name indicate their 'position'. Red = staff, blue = regular member, green = DOT employee.

I still think it would be a really good idea if everyone was known to everyone else, especially the moderators, by their real names. I know who Steve is, and US 71, and rickmastfan (How many people know who Rick Mast is?), and a few others, but I have no idea who you are.

I thought you guys had more backbone than you do.  I guess that's why you are "roadgeeks" (and I'm not.)

Comrade:
I will ask that you NOT lump us all together as you appear to be doing. 

Oh, and it's "Road Scholar", thank you very much. 

I have no problems with the term "roadgeek." There is actually a "Roads Scholar" program offered by the University of Kentucky's Kentucky Transportation Center. KYTC's equipment operators and local government road crew workers and officials can take the course. Geek, scholar, enthusiast, hobbyist, I"ll answer to any and all of them. With one exception...

I thought you guys had more backbone than you do.  I guess that's why you are "roadgeeks" (and I'm not.)

Comrade:
I will ask that you NOT lump us all together as you appear to be doing. 

Oh, and it's "Road Scholar", thank you very much. 

If "bugo" isn't a roadgeek and isn't a Road Scholar, does that make him a viatologist?   

Post of the day!

[US71]

At the risk of pulling back the curtain too far, Moderation is a regular topic on the Moderator Board (got to be a better way to say that). Who has gone too far, who deserves another chance, etc. And we don't always agree, so anyone who thinks we're lockstep is wrong.  So moderation is a sticky situation.

On some of the SCA boards I moderate, one person will complain I'm too lenient while another complains I'm too restrictive on the same topic. Sometimes, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. 

[deathtopumpkins]

Simple: the staff board is viewable to all moderators (local or global) and admins. As for how to tell who is and who is not a moderator, Steve is the only one of us (to my knowledge) who has a custom 'position'. Though, protip: The stars below a person's name indicate their 'position'. Red = staff, blue = regular member, green = DOT employee.

I still think it would be a really good idea if everyone was known to everyone else, especially the moderators, by their real names. I know who Steve is, and US 71, and rickmastfan (How many people know who Rick Mast is?), and a few others, but I have no idea who you are.

Probably because while I've been on this forum since its inception, I was never active in the roadgeek community until then, and don't currently have the ability to travel to road meets so I have yet to attend one. I've only met a handful of you in person.
I try to be open about myself though, and do prefer being addressed by my real name (Connor - my Facebook page is linked to my profile so I figure anyone who wants to actually find out my name and what I look like can click on that) rather than deathtopumpkins.

You know this got me thinking... you bring up a good point. Maybe we should consider a sticky post in the Welcome board or something listing who the moderators are with maybe a quick blurb.

[kphoger]

I think the moderation on here is just fine the way it is.  Moderators take an active interest in keeping the forums on topic, yet also reveal themselves as human beings with the ability to cut a guy some slack.

If they were to take even earlier and more decisive actions to prevent thread drift, personal attacks, abusive language, and the like, then I would simply take that as part of their job to keep the forum tidy and friendly.  If they moderated much less than they do now, then squabbles would get more out of hand than they do now, and I would likely lose interest in reading all the blather (as, I assume, others would lose interest in reading my blather).

The only moderation I question the slightest bit is the wholesale deletion of posts when things get heated.  I understand that doing so prevents people from replying and continuing the war, but I have to think there's a less intrusive way of doing so.

AARoads politburo combined all the posts into a single post, which removed all of its meaning

How, exactly, did combining your posts, without otherwise altering what you had typed, remove all of its meaning?

[seicer]

^That'd be nice.

As a FYI - maybe I can give an answer to the multiple replies being separated out. It's downright difficult or impossible to do combined replies if you are on a smartphone or a tablet - this forum package (SMF) and others just simply cannot handle it.

Just looking at the site on a desktop, the interface is very out-of-date but that's a reflection of SMF and not of AARoads. It's not simple, and when you are trying to use your fingers to pinch and zoom, and to try to embed anything, or bold text - it's just not a good situation. That said, it also makes it hard to do more than one reply in a post because that would require copying the contents of a reply, pasting it into a third-party text writing app, replying to another post and copying its contents, pasting it into a third party app, (repeat as many times) combining it all when you are done and then re-pasting it.

I just tried to do it with this thread via my iPad and gave up after 10 minutes of trying to do three joined replies. I won't even attempt with the iPhone.

[hbelkins]

Probably because while I've been on this forum since its inception, I was never active in the roadgeek community until then, and don't currently have the ability to travel to road meets so I have yet to attend one. I've only met a handful of you in person.
I try to be open about myself though, and do prefer being addressed by my real name (Connor - my Facebook page is linked to my profile so I figure anyone who wants to actually find out my name and what I look like can click on that) rather than deathtopumpkins.

You know this got me thinking... you bring up a good point. Maybe we should consider a sticky post in the Welcome board or something listing who the moderators are with maybe a quick blurb.

There's one person on this board -- won't mention who -- that I had interacted with for years on MTR, on Roadgeek and via exchanges of private email, and have actually met in person -- but I had no idea who he was until recently. Once I made the connection, it was easy to see that he was who he is.

[Beltway]

At the risk of pulling back the curtain too far, Moderation is a regular topic on the Moderator Board (got to be a better way to say that). Who has gone too far, who deserves another chance, etc. And we don't always agree, so anyone who thinks we're lockstep is wrong.  So moderation is a sticky situation.

On some of the SCA boards I moderate, one person will complain I'm too lenient while another complains I'm too restrictive on the same topic. Sometimes, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. 

I grumble about it at times, but overall this group is an order of magnitude better forum than MTR on Usenet.

[rickmastfan67]

You know this got me thinking... you bring up a good point. Maybe we should consider a sticky post in the Welcome board or something listing who the moderators are with maybe a quick blurb.

I think there is a mod that can add a staff page to the site.  I'll have to double check the mods at SMF, but I'm pretty sure there is such a mod.

EDIT: Found it.  If Alex thinks this is a good idea, I'll go ahead and see what needs to be done to get it to work with the Button Copy theme.

[deathtopumpkins]

As a FYI - maybe I can give an answer to the multiple replies being separated out. It's downright difficult or impossible to do combined replies if you are on a smartphone or a tablet - this forum package (SMF) and others just simply cannot handle it.

This is a very good point. I frequently browse (but rarely post on) the site on my phone, and even if you have a reply long enough that you have to scroll it becomes essentially impossible. I generally get around this by waiting to write a long post until I'm back on my actual computer, but if you were to post multiple times because you were doing it from your phone and it would be too difficult to multiquote, that would definitely be excusable, because it's a perfectly valid excuse.

The issue with the whole multiple post thing is where the line is drawn - making 9 consecutive posts from a computer just because you can is not acceptable, whereas making several consecutive ones from a phone because it's too cumbersome to combine them most likely is perfectly acceptable.

You know this got me thinking... you bring up a good point. Maybe we should consider a sticky post in the Welcome board or something listing who the moderators are with maybe a quick blurb.

I think there is a mod that can add a staff page to the site.  I'll have to double check the mods at SMF, but I'm pretty sure there is such a mod.

EDIT: Found it.  If Alex thinks this is a good idea, I'll go ahead and see what needs to be done to get it to work with the Button Copy theme.

Sweet. Now lets just see how long until he notices this post... 

[Duke87]

I still think it would be a really good idea if everyone was known to everyone else, especially the moderators, by their real names. I know who Steve is, and US 71, and rickmastfan (How many people know who Rick Mast is?), and a few others, but I have no idea who you are.

This is one aspect of this board which is unusual: we are a small, tight knit community, and many of us know each other in real life. Most forums do not typically go along with any real world interaction.

This certainly affects how this place is moderated, and the very fact that this thread is even permitted to exist is clear proof of that. How many forums do you know where the membership can freely and openly discuss site policy? Most sites operate on the philosophy "here's how it is, if you don't like it there's the door" and would not permit such discussion.

FWIW, it seems to me that most moderation is cosmetic (fixing broken quotes, etc.). You have the occasional heated discussion and the occasional troll that needs smiting, but we're good at playing nice, especially by internet standards.

[rickmastfan67]

You know this got me thinking... you bring up a good point. Maybe we should consider a sticky post in the Welcome board or something listing who the moderators are with maybe a quick blurb.

I think there is a mod that can add a staff page to the site.  I'll have to double check the mods at SMF, but I'm pretty sure there is such a mod.

EDIT: Found it.  If Alex thinks this is a good idea, I'll go ahead and see what needs to be done to get it to work with the Button Copy theme.

Sweet. Now lets just see how long until he notices this post... 

Alex and I talked this over a little bit ago and that mod is now installed.   To access it, either click here, or click on the new tab up top titled "STAFF LIST".

[bugo]

I thought you guys had more backbone than you do.  I guess that's why you are "roadgeeks" (and I'm not.)

You asked for opinions and people are giving them. If you don't like the opinions, then don't read the thread.

Rooty tooty, fresh and fruity.