Is more moderation the answer?

[Darth Fanboy]

With the understanding that creating new mods is not as simple or quick as we would like it to be, and with the understanding that those selected would be at the board owner's discretion.

In the "How do YOU see the board?" thread, multiple users including myself stated a belief that a greater and more effective moderator presence

Do you think that an increased moderator presence and improved enforcement of the current rules is the key to fixing the problems we have been having as of late?

For the purposes of this discussion and poll, if we could limit the scope of this thread to whether or not more mods and/or more moderation is the ideal fix for our problems. This isn't about the Senate, this isn't about the current mod staff (as I've said repeatedly, I appreciate the unpaid work they do.)

[Coyote]

I'm with the idea that more Moderation is good. Two or three Mods per forum, depending on activity rate (N&P would require more), spread out over different time zones to provide full coverage, will go a long way to addressing some of the problems. There should also be enough Mods per forum so that it does not become a tiresome, aggravating chore that falls on their shoulders and will lead to "whack-a-mole" frustration and absenteeism.

If forum moderation is low-pressure enough that the mods still feel like they are having fun as participants, then they'll continue to make a showing and serve.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

We need more moderators. It's been pointed out before, if you add up all the active mods and divide by the number of forums, you find out that we have slightly less than one mod per forum right now.

[Vendetta]

More moderators and more active enforcement of rules regarding ratio of content to ad-hominem, support for arguments, and me-too posting.

[Darth Fanboy]

If anyone who votes no would care to voice their opinion, I think it would be beneficial for this discussion. I have not read any opposition to increasing the size of the mod staff and this input could be valuable.

[DaveJB]

Although I don't think more moderators will really fix the problems in the board's culture per se, more are definitely needed IMO. Even taking into account that SWvsST is dead and PST running slowly - and I think that at least the latter will get busy again when Trek XI arrives - the current moderation staff seems stretched a bit thin at present.

[Napoleon the Clown]

It couldn't hurt. And if what GrandMasterTerwynn said is accurate, we certainly need more active mods. That being said, I don't think it'd solve even most of the problems. But it would at least make it easier to stop full out flame wars from even getting started in the first place.

[Metatwaddle]

RI has suggested this several times already, and he asked me to post it again:

Five step plan for improving the moderation:
1. Make all mods supermods
2. Assign each mod one or more forums as his or her primary responsibility. In other words, if he or she spots a problem in another forum, he fixes it, but his job is to patrol his forums and enforce the rules, keep flamewars from getting out of hand, and when necessary, challenging debaters on logical fallacies.
3. Increase the number of admins and give them the responsibility supermods currently have; i.e., patrol the entire board, looking for trouble.
4. Give mods the ability to issue short (>24 hrs) temp bans for rule violations. Admins have the ability to issue temp bans from 25 hours to 3 days. Longer temp bans, titling, and perm bans must be voted on by the Senate, except in narrowly defined "instant ban" situations (major rules violations, commercial spamming, that kind of thing)
5. Once all the current active mods have been assigned and you've promoted your new admins, fill out the staff from the ranks of the Senate and the board at large. I've already made my recommendations in the mod forum, though we'll almost certainly need more.

FWIW, I agree with this - I think it's been mentioned that this is one of the largest forums run by only one person. We're also an active forum that tries to maintain a high level of discourse, and posters are often champing at the bit to give their opinions. That's a combination of circumstances that leads to the necessity of having very active, involved moderators, and I don't think we have enough of that right now.

[Vendetta]

I'd also chime in here to say that I agree with Sea Skimmer that more use of temporary bans, individual board restrictions, and probationary periods as punishment rather than nothing in between a silly title and outright banning should go hand in hand with this.

[Singular Intellect]

I'll pipe up as well and say more moderation sounds like a good idea to me. After all, this isn't a community where we'd be paying a higher tax bill for more 'police', so I don't see how it could hurt to have more moderators, so long as they are qualified and do their job effectively.

[Sea Skimmer]

I think we need more moderators mainly to just tell people to knock it off when they are straying into unacceptable territory. It its not helpful when because of inactivity moderators can only respond AFTER we have a ten page shitfest in which many people are guilty of rules violations, and yet the senate will decide after ten more days to only punish one of them. In other words, more moderator presence should hopefully reduce the need for moderator actions like bannings. I certainly don’t think we need more rules, we already have ones covering everything that matters, but they are most certainly not enforced equally.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think individuals ultimately have to take personal responsibillity for their actions, because some problems are not and cannot be covered by the rules. I also think that this board is stagnating and suffering from a lack of identity, direction, or new ideas with both the Star Trek vs Star Wars debate, and now, most of the big political debates seeming to be largely dead. Solutions to these problems have to come from the population as a whole, and those at the top can at best simply encourage the board to move in certain directions.

However, their do seem to be some cases where rules are not being properly enforced due to lack of moderation. I don't want to see some huge shit storm followed by calls for more and stricter rules (which will likely increase the stagnation problem), when the issue could have been dealt with by enforcing some of the existing rules.

I also second the idea of using options in between titling and permanent ban.

[Darth Fanboy]

Ok, so the vote is now 29-6.

Is there anyone who has voted "No" that honestly believes we do not need more moderators? Or are people voting No because they don't think it is the only solution required?

[Solauren]

I like the multi-suggestion post above by Metawaddle/RI

Especially the Temp Bans.

Sometimes, people just have bad days, don't realise it, and go off the handle. Temp Bans for minor things would give them a chance to 'cool down' so to speak.

Is there anyway to track the number of times someone has been hit with the temp-ban hammer? That would be useful.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Ok, so this vote seems like it will go through. Now to answer the big question: Who is willing to take time off to moderate this forum?

[Darth Fanboy]

Is there anyway to track the number of times someone has been hit with the temp-ban hammer? That would be useful.

It has not been too often, I can only recall 3 off the top of my head and all three of those people are longtime users not under the ban hammer currently.

I like the idea of a "more temp bans" with less scrutiny of the mod staff required to implement them also.

[Coyote]

Ok, so this vote seems like it will go through. Now to answer the big question: Who is willing to take time off to moderate this forum?

Well, Hotfoot and I moderate this forum ( ); we need people to moderate more of the entire board.

I think "more moderation" is, hands-down, the issue that would see to most of our problems. It is a point of view that seems to be consistent with nearly everyone.

We need to start throwing out names for nominees.

[Aaron]

We need to start throwing out names for nominees.

Alright then:

• Lonestar
  Broomstick
  Publius
  Ma Deuce
  havokeff

[Coyote]

I can certainly support those choices; any more?

Some people will need to be nominated by 3rd parties; either they don't want to come off as egotistical, power-hungry types, or even better, they may just not realize that their peers hold them in confidence.

[Darth Fanboy]

Draw some names from those in the Senate who volunteered when the call went out last month. People willing to do the job should be considered.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

We need to start throwing out names for nominees.

Alright then:

• Lonestar
  Broomstick
  Publius
  Ma Deuce
  havokeff

There is a Mod recruitment thread in the Senate which has . . . five applicants so far. So, I'll bump that thread in the Senate, and suggest that we have something a bit more structured than folks just tossing out names and hoping the named people would be willing to do the job should the Powers That Be elect to make them mods.

So, from the Senate thread:

OK, folks. Wanna be a mod? Post here. We need three pieces of information from you:

1. Your interests. Please be specific--list all forums and how much you participate in each one. Also, tell us if there is a forum you absolutely do not want to moderate, or (this is critical) one you feel you cannot or should not moderate.

2. Your availability. This is obvious.

3. Your time zone. Ideally, the most active forums will have moderation most of the day.

If you feel that someone else would make a good moderator, make your case here. Heck, if you're not a Senator and you feel you are mod material, make your case here. If you are sufficiently articulate about it, and your reasoning is sound, I (or, perhaps, another Senator or a mod) will bump it up to the Senate thread for more admin/moderator exposure. What they'll do from there, I make no promises. Obviously, if you're already a Senator and want to apply for mod-ship, you should post in the Senate thread.

[Coyote]

New Moderator nominations thread here.

[Connor MacLeod]

Its not so much "more moderation" as I see it, ,we need more moderation in certain aspects of the board, like N&P. Alot of other forums (esp the sci fi ones) are either self moderating or not nearly as active enough to require all that much attention (and if they do, the Admins/supermods can probably be relied upon to get involved. But its really REALLY rare for me to see big conflicts pop up in PSW, PST or even OSF.)

But a good reason for more moderators is that not everyone can devote lots of time to the board, so you need alot of moderators to offset that, I think. Noone should be expected to devote their life or time to this board, and I think in the past that seems to have been the case.

[Stark]

I think we need more moderators mainly to just tell people to knock it off when they are straying into unacceptable territory. It its not helpful when because of inactivity moderators can only respond AFTER we have a ten page shitfest in which many people are guilty of rules violations, and yet the senate will decide after ten more days to only punish one of them. In other words, more moderator presence should hopefully reduce the need for moderator actions like bannings. I certainly don’t think we need more rules, we already have ones covering everything that matters, but they are most certainly not enforced equally.

Absolutely. It's terrible that someone can start with smallish infractions in some debate, drift into permban territory, and THEN be taken for punishment. Letting people hang themselves by breaking rules is fine, but showing up AFTERWARD and thinking you're doing a good job because one person invovled was perm-banned is broken.

To be honest, I very rarely see moderation from the forum moderators at all. I remember doing so a lot when Nitram was more active, and Hipper too, but many forums can deteriorate into backbiting flamewars and then an admin or supermod comes in to clean it up. I don't frequent some of the more 'hot' forums, but I've been in dozen-page shitstorms and not seen any moderation. Do the moderators have a clear understanding of what they should be 'moderating'? I'm not sure I'd know how do so in a board like this.