(Meta) Moderation guidelines?

[agentsteel53]

I think the priority has to be on creating a climate in which the "banhammer" is rarely, if ever, necessary.

That's a very good point.

when I was an admin, I banhammered the troll/4chan/fark/somethingawful contingent of the internet pretty mercilessly.  Somehow, they come here very rarely, and I sincerely hope that it stays that way... I don't want this forum to turn into an endless stream of "cats with captions", "demotivational posters", and "pedo bear".

[hbelkins]

Did someone say Sonic upthread?

Mmmmm. Sonic. Footlong chili cheese coneys and tater tots. Mmmmmm.

[english si]

Snip typical Winkler long, but brilliant discussion of the topic...

Speaking as a current Assistant Site Manager of SABRE, a former president and long time member of the steering committee, Mr Winkler speaks a lot of sense here about moderation and resolving disputes. He is very good at that. He also sums up what we've learnt on SABRE well.

<really obvious hint>You want this guy helping with the running of the forum</really obvious hint>

Obviously the set up here is a bit different to SABRE - which couldn't really be run by Brad, who's website caused the site to to set up, so it got taken over by someone, who suggested elections and such like to allow some legitimacy to his role (this developed into a constitution that had lots of good stuff like separation of powers, elected officers, right to recall, limited powers for moderators - hard to believe it's British and not American. The constitution evolved, and got a complete rewrite in 2007, to be a lot clearer). Alex, of course, provides the set up via his website, and that makes things differently. However that doesn't mean some general membership involvement in picking moderators/admins isn't a good thing.

Do we have problems with bureaucracy?  Yes.  But on the whole the frictional loss is low and the standard of discussion is high.  In comparison to AARoads with 16 moderators, 100 members, and about 82,000 posts over two years, SABRE has 4 moderators (Site Manager and his or her three assistants), about 150 active members, and close to 500,000 posts over 10 years.

But don't forget that SABRE also has about 16 on committee. It has about 5 admins (Pres, SM, ASMx3) plus several appointed roles (Secretary, Development Team, etc) and elected roles (2xChat Mods, Treasurer), plus a few "ministers without portfolio" people. We've flirted with bureaucracy, but have developed a healthy dislike for it. Then again, the committee still generates a large amount of discussion, but it doesn't bother those outside of it much.

[J N Winkler]

Nope.  Sonic the Hedgehog.

Here is Sonic and friend attempting to cross the Autobahn:

[corco]

The problem then is how do you set up some sort of democracy? How do you objectively determine who gets voting rights? You can't do it on post count, because that's not really a good metric for whether somebody is a contributor to the community or not. You don't want to do it based on whoever is "respected" because that's not objective. The only way to do it that I can see is by giving everybody who is registered a vote, but is it fair that mightyace (for example) should only get as much voting power as PhilJones, a guy who registered last month with no posts?

I suppose you could establish a formal society and charge money, which would effectively make AARoads Forum its own organization where AARoads just leases web space to that organization, but that may not be a branch Alex wants to make, and I don't know that many of us would be willing to spend a significant amount of money.

I don't have any experience with SABRE, so I'll take your word for it, but I have been in several internet communities over the years and have yet to see anything but a totalitarian authority function in a way that leaves the members happy (the notion being that if the members disagree with the policies, they leave, leaving only those who are happy with the policies) in a situation where no money is changing hands. Assuming the totalitarianists are fair people, as I believe the admin team here is, then their interest is in keeping people happy, and if they are corrupt, so what?

I still maintain that while the democracy method may work there is definitely more than one way to skin a cat. Another baseball-related community I am part of (the one where you get called an idiot if you're an idiot) functions really, really well- they compare themselves to a bar. I feel like a good online forum should be like a good bar. I wouldn't walk into a bar and ask for voting rights on who the bartender is. I can positively contribute to the bar by going in, having a beer, and making good conversation. As time progresses, I would begin to feel like part of the bar, but I still would never ask for voting rights on who the bartender is, but I would begin to care about the bar. I would know that I could full well begin acting like an asshole and be kicked out and the bar would continue without me. I would begin to love the atmosphere of the community and strive to maintain it, but on the flipside if an asshole bartender replaces the cool guy who used to work behind the counter, you know what? I could get up and leave. Assuming the bar wants business, they would replace the bartender once they realized all their regulars are gone at their own accord. The regulars come back and the cycle repeats.

Feeling ownership to the forum may work in some cases, but in my mind that's a bad thing. I don't think that under the current structure anybody but Alex should feel ownership to the forum (and maybe that structure needs changing). This isn't my forum. I'm here, but if I got booted five minutes from now I would be able to go on without the forum and the forum would be able to go on without me.

The bad sense of entitlement I referred to that's developed is exactly that. It feels horribly, horribly wrong for me to call for ownership and say in something I have no ownership of. I feel like if everyone would just think of themselves as a guest in somebody elses home when they post here and accept the resulting consequences of that there wouldn't be any problem. It's entirely an attitude. If there were a problem, they'd leave.

When the first fallout happened last May, a lot of people claimed they "owned" their individual posts. That's the bad sense of entitlement I'm referring to. As soon as you post, you should be giving your post up to the community. It's not your post anymore. You have no ownership over that post whatsoever beyond credit in citation. If you're individually-minded, you think of the post as yours. If you're community-minded, you think of the post as a contribution to the community. The latter builds healthy communities. The former does not.

[J N Winkler]

The problem then is how do you set up some sort of democracy? How do you objectively determine who gets voting rights?

You just establish a rule and stick to it.  On SABRE you acquire eligibility for Active Membership after you have been a forum member for 30 days, but it is not automatically granted.  You have to ask the Secretary for it.  The electoral roll is recompiled annually, before the officer elections, and retention on the roll is generally based on activity over the previous twelve months (typically measured by post count during that period).  The Secretary however has wide discretion to eliminate registrations which have "gone dead" (member has not posted in the last 12 months, etc.) as long as there is adequate publicity so that members can say they want to stay on the roll.

Membership is not linked to cash support for the forum.

I suppose you could establish a formal society and charge money, which would effectively make AARoads Forum its own organization where AARoads just leases web space to that organization, but that may not be a branch Alex wants to make, and I don't know that many of us would be willing to spend a significant amount of money.

We have had variations of this discussion in SABRE over the years.  Personally, I think it is a bad idea to raise questions of charging money until the society is firmly established and it is clear that there is a cadre of members prepared to help support the forum financially.  SABRE became active around 2001 but was on MSN Groups, which is a free service, until 2005.  From 2005 until mid-2010, we basically paid for domain registration and a budget hosting package.  The expenses for these were modest and were met by SABRE Committee through an annual contribution (generally around £5 to £10 per year spread over about 20 people, with students and the unemployed exempt from contributing).  We outgrew our former hosting provider and are now on a more expensive package, but had a successful donation drive.  Current financial planning operates on the assumption that there must be enough money in the kitty to keep the forum going for at least six months, and fundraising is planned accordingly.

We don't encourage large donations because we don't want there to be a question of buying influence.  We also don't encourage standing orders (at least for now) because a large number of them could result in our being overfunded and then getting lost in arguments on how to allocate the excess money.

In any case, there is no reason the adoption of democratic methods has to be linked to a particular financing or ownership structure for the forum.  There just has to be a decision by the final authority, ideally after wide consultation, that elections will happen according to a defined framework, and that the results will be followed.  In our case the constitution was established during the MSN Groups era and voted on by referendum.

I don't have any experience with SABRE, so I'll take your word for it, but I have been in several internet communities over the years and have yet to see anything but a totalitarian authority function in a way that leaves the members happy (the notion being that if the members disagree with the policies, they leave, leaving only those who are happy with the policies) in a situation where no money is changing hands. Assuming the totalitarianists are fair people, as I believe the admin team here is, then their interest is in keeping people happy, and if they are corrupt, so what?

I wouldn't characterize this forum as totalitarian.  Instead, it is run by people who have been given plenary powers.  Totalitarianism implies an intent to exercise minute control over people's lives as they relate to the forum, which I do not think has been the case with the current management team.

I still maintain that while the democracy method may work there is definitely more than one way to skin a cat. Another baseball-related community I am part of (the one where you get called an idiot if you're an idiot) functions really, really well- they compare themselves to a bar. I feel like a good online forum should be like a good bar. I wouldn't walk into a bar and ask for voting rights on who the bartender is. I can positively contribute to the bar by going in, having a beer, and making good conversation. As time progresses, I would begin to feel like part of the bar, but I still would never ask for voting rights on who the bartender is, but I would begin to care about the bar. I would know that I could full well begin acting like an asshole and be kicked out and the bar would continue without me. I would begin to love the atmosphere of the community and strive to maintain it, but on the flipside if an asshole bartender replaces the cool guy who used to work behind the counter, you know what? I could get up and leave. Assuming the bar wants business, they would replace the bartender once they realized all their regulars are gone at their own accord. The regulars come back and the cycle repeats.

I think there are a number of problems with that model.  I don't know the forum of which you speak, so I will assume the bar analogy is valid in all essential respects, and go from there.  First, there is rarely just one bar in a community.  The ready availability of acceptable substitutes leads to competitive pressure, and that promotes the speedy correction of problems (e.g. removal of the asshole bartender).  Where are the competitors to AARoads?  MTR?  It is a shell of its former self (post count way down on a day-to-day basis), and has no ability to handle rich content.  Yahoo Groups?  Too fragmented and also not able to handle rich content.  Roadgeek?  I'm not a member, so I have no direct experience of it, but tend to doubt it can handle rich content.

Another factor is that not all of the punters want a spit-and-sawdust bar, which is basically what you get if you have a shoot-first approach to moderation.  The punters that don't want it have to settle for less if their desire to be part of a community is stronger than their desire to stay away from a spit-and-sawdust bar.  But why should they have to settle for less?  Why shouldn't the AARoads forum have broad appeal and a sense of communal ownership?

Feeling ownership to the forum may work in some cases, but in my mind that's a bad thing. I don't think that under the current structure anybody but Alex should feel ownership to the forum. This isn't my forum. I'm here, but if I got booted five minutes from now I would be able to go on without the forum and the forum would be able to go on without me.

The problem with attributing moral ownership, as distinct from legal ownership, to a single person is that it is the collective effort of the forum members that gives the forum value.  People are more likely to give the forum meaningful gifts of their time and cognitive effort if they feel those will be respected and that they have some protection from arbitrary treatment.  If power-trippers are given free reign, the ultimate result is a Hobbesian mess which may just barely fit in a niche of the market for leisure time, but does nobody any good.

Nash equilibria are actually quite unpleasant--you can usually outperform them by adopting strategies of cooperation.

The bad sense of entitlement I referred to that's developed is exactly that. It feels horribly, horribly wrong for me to call for ownership and say in something I have no ownership of. I feel like if everyone would just think of themselves as a guest in somebody elses home when they post here and accept the resulting consequences of that there wouldn't be any problem. If there were a problem, they'd leave.

That analogy doesn't work.  If you were a guest in someone else's home, the host not only would not insult you, but would also not permit anyone else to insult you, and moreover would not invite other people who might reasonably be expected to insult you.  Anyone can open a browser and sign up for an AARoads forum account; you generally have to wait to be invited before you can go to someone's home.  People also keep coming to the AARoads forum even though it is abundantly clear that they will rub elbows with other people whom they would not invite into their own houses.  Given that this is the case, why not make the best of it by giving everyone a say?

[corco]

You've gone a long way to convince me that democracy is probably a good course of action. Good points, all of them. I think I actually agree with you now that in this situation a more democratic solution is better in this instance. What works in other places may not work here, and your ideas seem like good ones, and I can see where the more authoritarian type of control may not work in this instance.

The community I'm thinking of has many other options- if you don't like the place I post at, you can go to the newspapers, one of the other blog/forums, or the official site (the MTR of the bunch). In the road enthusiast community, I agree that the community is small enough that we do need one cohesive site and a democratic approach is probably the best way to accomplish that.

[aswnl]

Even when mods are not being chosen on a democratic basis, having active mods is quite good.
In case of a thread derailing, a mod can close the thread, or replace it to a special part of the board invisible for everyone except mods/admins.
They can discuss whether 'removing' was a good decision, and can choose to place it back without a certain number of unwanted postings. Works very well at 'my' forum.

@corco: freedom of speech means someone has the right to say he would want to break a law.
That's not a reason at all to delete what he's written. No matter how tasteless his remarks are.

[corco]

@corco: freedom of speech means someone has the right to say he would want to break a law.
That's not a reason at all to delete what he's written. No matter how tasteless his remarks are.

yeah, that's what I was advocating so I'm not sure what your point is.

[Alps]

Dave (US71), please remember to point out in purple text what changes you've made as a moderator.

[US71]

Dave (US71), please remember to point out in purple text what changes you've made as a moderator.

It was so minor, I didn't think anyone would notice

[Alps]

yeah but... now we REALLY don't notice. (:

[US71]

*message removed* 

[US71]

All I did was change one word so a post made sense. Didn't seem to be worth putting up a fuss to say I changed it.

[Alps]

And folks, this is what we go through as moderators!

[J N Winkler]

And folks, this is what we go through as moderators!

A couple of questions here:

*  Was it necessary to handle the previous transaction (reminding David to notate changes in purple) in public?  If so, why?

*  Getting back to H.B. Elkins' original question, do you have the right to supervise other moderators?  If so, what is your job title?

[Alps]

Regarding my comment, I sort of wanted to bring it out in public to let y'all know that we do try to show our edits in purple so that it doesn't look like we're operating behind the scenes.  Sometimes we don't, but usually we do.

Regarding your comment on HB's question, I must have missed it being directed at me, but my role (which I call "Covert Ops") is basically the same as a global moderator, certainly as far as the general membership is concerned.

[J N Winkler]

Regarding my comment, I sort of wanted to bring it out in public to let y'all know that we do try to show our edits in purple so that it doesn't look like we're operating behind the scenes.  Sometimes we don't, but usually we do.

A simple declarative sentence would have sufficed for this purpose.  It was not necessary to pull someone else up short in public to do it.

Regarding your comment on HB's question, I must have missed it being directed at me, but my role (which I call "Covert Ops") is basically the same as a global moderator, certainly as far as the general membership is concerned.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes:  who watches you?

[6a]

Regarding my comment, I sort of wanted to bring it out in public to let y'all know that we do try to show our edits in purple so that it doesn't look like we're operating behind the scenes

Is it so necessary for the moderation staff to be tasked with making such minor edits (like the one US71 refers to?). I must confess a bit of bewilderment at feeling a small army of copy-editors following me, as it's just not something I'm used to.

[Alps]

Yeah, usually we let small errors go by, mainly correcting broken links, broken quotes, wide images, etc.  Sometimes if someone's language is particularly difficult we may try to help with it.  Some moderators moderate too finely though.

Winkler - There are admins in charge of the forum.  I'm not an admin.

[rickmastfan67]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes:  who watches you?

The Admin crew does.

[Scott5114]

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes:  who watches you?

To some degree, Alex watches all of us. That's not to say that he observes and notes every mod or admin action that is taken, but when a staff member does something egregious, then he is typically alerted to it and becomes involved in finding a resolution, up to and including revoking their position as a staff member.