Proposal for moderation: posses

[Crazedwraith]

Or you know, we could just need new moderators. Which we are in the process of doing.

[Bounty]

If you're going to the trouble of setting up this "posse" - including finding people willing and able to take part in it, ensuring they can be trusted, setting up the framework in which they operate and somehow avoiding them being seen as the moderators' secret police - you might as well go for broke and get new mods.

What sort of authority would these people have, anyway? A license to nag? The awesome power of being able to run to a mod when someone is breaking the rules... which is something anyone can do?

[Bounty]

Why does that differ from a PM? With a PM, you have to select just one person to receive the message. Since the who is online list is unreliable, you can't be sure your PM is actually going to be read any time soon.

So... how is that in any way relieved by the posse? Instead of PM'ing a mod, you now have to PM his or her assistant? Or are you going to swamp the forums with these only-two-calories-not-quite-wannabe-mods?

And how would this posse be able to identify itself? The moderators are clearly identified on the main page for each forum; how is a newcomer supposed to know that StarWarsFan88 is a member of a posse with nagging powers and StarGateFan95 isn't?

[fgalkin2]

Anti-Troll Jihad.

Look it up. See how it ended.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Ender]

You know Destruct, I rather like you and have a high opinion of your intelligence and contributions to the board. So I have to wonder what exactly made you decide that this is a good plan.

[General Zod]

Users would still PM real moderators (though the goal of moderation should be to make this never be necessary in the first place). The posse members would be like patrol officers, reading threads like they normally do, giving warnings when they see violations and calling for backup if that isn't enough.

Don't Senators do this already for the most part?

[General Zod]

Afaik, wasn't the ubiqtorate group whose name shall not be spoken supposed to do this type of work, and didn't they fall apart in relatively short order?

[fgalkin2]

Afaik, wasn't the ubiqtorate group whose name shall not be spoken supposed to do this type of work, and didn't they fall apart in relatively short order?

The Ubqitorate WAS the Anti-Troll Jihad, which was renamed. The group that used to do invasions was the AIIF, that one went down in flames in short order. The ATJ/Ubiqtorate was just...useless. Even when they had mod powers in Testing, they were still useless.

As for the proposal itself, you don't need a posse of backseat mods telling troublemakers what to do. There is already a far better tool in your arsenal. It's called a "Report" button, and you don't need to be a part of a posse to use it, either.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Knife]

If we had people willing to do this and the board in general willing to listen to said people, we wouldn't have the problems in the first place to need the people.

[Coyote]

The ATJ /Ubiqtorite eventually got winnowed down to just 4 people: the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and their powers were limited. Once we got Governors (board wide supermods), they were kind of unneeded except for entertainment purposes. Gradually even the Horsemen themselves became less and less active, as trolls got HoS'ed and the board as a pack took to tearing into morons for sport.

While I think Horsemen still exist as titles, that's about it.

[Havok]

Why not just enact the Horseman back into this role. The three that are active are all supermods anyway.

[Knife]

there is it wouldn't be additional moderators - supermods already moderate the board as best they can. You'd be instructing them to do what is already their job.

Indeed.

What I'm trying for is to find a way to get the increased moderator presence most everyone agrees they want, as quickly as possible, which means we need to get new people to help out.

Welcome to the party, the staff, the Senate and a lot of the board in general have been trying.

I'm of course open to other suggestions too. What I've seen is:

a) Wait for the admins to promote more people. This is ideal, other than the wait time. Though it seems Mike is back, so the wait may be over very soon anyway.

Uhm, yeah. Pretty much what most have been waiting for.

b) Assign some people to temporary mod positions without waiting on the admins. (Which is what I'm suggesting here, although I'm much more verbose above.) Obviously has the downside of not actually giving them all the power needed to do the job, so not ideal, but it is something.

One could say that there are already those, older, experienced or even younger but more mature members who do this already.

c) Get the existing mods to work harder. This is asking a lot of the active mod staff, and probably will be pointless to ask of the non-active mods, so I don't think it would work very well at all.

Already happening. How far does one expect a volunteer to go on a passtime before it's work?

[fgalkin]

There is already a far better tool in your arsenal. It's called a "Report" button, and you don't need to be a part of a posse to use it, either.

The rules say otherwise:

Then it would be easier to temporarily ease restrictions on the Report button than to create these "posses." If you tell fucktard to follow the rules, and he ignores you, what are you going to do? Scream at him some more? A mod can actually do something about this.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Phantasee]

b) Assign some people to temporary mod positions without waiting on the admins. (Which is what I'm suggesting here, although I'm much more verbose above.) Obviously has the downside of not actually giving them all the power needed to do the job, so not ideal, but it is something.

One could say that there are already those, older, experienced or even younger but more mature members who do this already.

He's saying that we should let these people do more than they are now, and basically break AR1 without getting in shit. Their actions would be a step up from what they can do now.

Like how the police (mods) are allowed to use lethal force, and don't get busted for murder all the time (which would happen to anyone else). But he wants a group of peace officers, who just give people a whack on the head to remind them to not act like asshats, without getting in trouble for assault.

Edmonton recently started assigning peace officers to our main strip (Whyte Ave) as a way of increasing the presence of the law, but they can't do more than give citations and fines for breaking bylaws (littering, jaywalking, drinking outside, being a shithead). So they're like Police-lite, but really lite.

And of course, if you end up with an actual situation, you use the report button (call for backup from the real police).

He just wants more people to be allowed to use the police frequency, and not have to call 911 (please hold, your call will be answered in the order it was received, assuming the mod you PMed will be online within the next few hours).

[Knife]

b) Assign some people to temporary mod positions without waiting on the admins. (Which is what I'm suggesting here, although I'm much more verbose above.) Obviously has the downside of not actually giving them all the power needed to do the job, so not ideal, but it is something.

One could say that there are already those, older, experienced or even younger but more mature members who do this already.

He's saying that we should let these people do more than they are now, and basically break AR1 without getting in shit. Their actions would be a step up from what they can do now.

and how do you do that? Besides fiat by the admin? And if the general board doesn't? What do you do? How is that different than good posters?

Like how the police (mods) are allowed to use lethal force, and don't get busted for murder all the time (which would happen to anyone else). But he wants a group of peace officers, who just give people a whack on the head to remind them to not act like asshats, without getting in trouble for assault.

lol, we have citizen's patrol that can't shoot a perp the way a reasonable policeman can do. That's what you want, neighborhood watch with a gun. Won't work in RL, won't work here. If they have a gun, they're staff by default. If they don't, then anyone without a 'gun' will chime in. Back seat mods suck.

Edmonton recently started assigning peace officers to our main strip (Whyte Ave) as a way of increasing the presence of the law, but they can't do more than give citations and fines for breaking bylaws (littering, jaywalking, drinking outside, being a shithead). So they're like Police-lite, but really lite.

Cool, advocate mini mods here then if you want a consistent model.

And of course, if you end up with an actual situation, you use the report button (call for backup from the real police).

He just wants more people to be allowed to use the police frequency, and not have to call 911 (please hold, your call will be answered in the order it was received, assuming the mod you PMed will be online within the next few hours).

What part of super mods, mods, Senate and HoC is not covering this?

[Coyote]

I just have to say, that I see the 'posse' model as essentially becoming a sort of 'legally sanctioned dogpile squad'. The law of unintended circumstances will tend to go this way.

[chitoryu12]

I see about zero need for a posse of deputized members. There's no reason why AR1 cannot simply be relaxed to allow members to tell someone when he's spamming, and if he doesn't stop, relax the report button to allow for repeated spamming by the same person to be reported. Simple as that, no extra effort needed.

*goes back to listening to a crappy rendition of "Teen Age Riot"*