Moderator Performance (was Mods not Gods)

invincibleirish

DeVore wrote: »

The soccer forum is probably our most severely moderated forum, and certainly our most complained about in terms of feedback over the year and yet when we ran a survey there only recently, it turned out that the majority of people actually felt the mods were bang on.


DeV.

They did?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055732327

What do you think of the Soccer forum Moderation...?

Should be very harsh 10 4.95%
Should be harsher 17 8.42%
Just right 69 34.16%
Should be more relaxed 68 33.66%
Should be a lot more relaxed 38 18.81%

By my reading of this a clear majority of people who voted expressed a preference for SF moderation to be relaxed, but was it?.

Furthermore, after the events surrounding the Helix ban fiasco (another modnot god issue) there appeared to be a move by the boards nomenclature to allowing ordinary SFers to give feedback, yet the above thread was promptly shut in early December as it had 'served its purpose'.

seems things haven't really changed at all tbh.

ynotdu

Well since Soccer is not a matter of life or death ,it is more important than that! Will not insult anybody by quoting the source!

Really the Soccer forum being a 'request' thread is a joke!
I would not even ask to be allowed into a forum.
Catch a grip,It's a beautiful game,but it's only a game!!!!!!!!
Jeez look at the forums people get into without a request!

Spiritoftheseventies

chompy wrote: »

I have yeah, I've seen some pointless, bull****, ego driven arguments on both sides.

So, extend the review to users too?

How would it work?
The user (abuser) who gets repeated bans/reprimands has their history of posts examined to determine 1.are they consistently malicious, 2.has their behavior changed since being "informed" of their abuse, 3.the extent of their involvement in degenerated threads, 4.do they instigate trouble then sit back and watch the show, 5.were they the victim of thread abuse themselves to make them kick off, 6.are they just an innocent person, 7.how big a difference does it actually make.
Just a few ideas.

I understand there are different levels of punishment for infractions, has anyone ever had their ip blocked?

Had their ip blocked? I would think that is last resort. probably for people who post very malicious stuff

Rev. BlueJeans

Like the camel ( a horse designed by committee-according to Alec Issigonis), boards, despite the benevolent dictatorship cliche, is and was subject to much input and prodding through the years-mainly admin/mod discussion, and one a few cases to be fair-user input too.

The over-riding answer to everything seems to be to add more rules. In most cases anyway.

Look at the ludicrous situation on AH where all NY discussion thread were pigeonholed into a sticky, and where the Henry incident was closed down en masse a while back, as just two examples, on one forum.

Look at Politics and sub fora-on the other hand, which to me at least seems to be an oasis of calm these days, since mods stopped sticking their oar in every two minutes. The likes of nesf there and scofflaw (even though the chap inexplicably signs his name to everything;)) are likeable, prolific contributors themselves, and mod in a light handed, yet omnipresent manner.

Those charged with soccer are running with the system already in place, so I wouldn't blame them for maintaining things-but the whole setup seems to me to be totally overcomplicated to say the least.

DeV's comment that everyone is happy there is both misleading and inaccurate. That's another days work though (soccer and the community feeling on it), and merits a thread in its own right.

It does illustrate though, that user opinion is often ignored, even on the part of those who do take the time to submit feedback in any manner open to them, I still hold that most people don't, out of apathy or because there isn't a clear way to do so.

Spiritoftheseventies

Rev. BlueJeans wrote: »

Like the camel ( a horse designed by committee-according to Alec Issigonis), boards, despite the benevolent dictatorship cliche, is and was subject to much input and prodding through the years-mainly admin/mod discussion, and one a few cases to be fair-user input too.

The over-riding answer to everything seems to be to add more rules. In most cases anyway.

Look at the ludicrous situation on AH where all NY discussion thread were pigeonholed into a sticky, and where the Henry incident was closed down en masse a while back, as just two examples, on one forum.

Look at Politics and sub fora-on the other hand, which to me at least seems to be an oasis of calm these days, since mods stopped sticking their oar in every two minutes. The likes of nesf there and scofflaw (even though the chap inexplicably signs his name to everything;)) are likeable, prolific contributors themselves, and mod in a light handed, yet omnipresent manner.

Those charged with soccer are running with the system already in place, so I wouldn't blame them for maintaining things-but the whole setup seems to me to be totally overcomplicated to say the least.

DeV's comment that everyone is happy there is both misleading and inaccurate. That's another days work though (soccer and the community feeling on it), and merits a thread in its own right.

It does illustrate though, that user opinion is often ignored, even on the part of those who do take the time to submit feedback in any manner open to them, I still hold that most people don't, out of apathy or because there isn't a clear way to do so.

Must say Scofflaw the best mod I have come across. Knows his stuff and he is fair as well.

Rev. BlueJeans

He is, and it should be remembered that there are many many more like him-without embarrassing people by naming names, but their dedication to the communities, to helping others, and cheering us all up by dispensing a bit of humour now and then, among many other attributes-is a great thing.

star-pants

Just regarding IP blocking, it's not something that can always be done / something that would be done remotely lightly. I'm not even sure if it *has* been done.
IP isn't just one person, a few people can share an IP address so is it fair to block all those people just for one being a twit?

ynotdu

star-pants wrote: »

Just regarding IP blocking, it's not something that can always be done / something that would be done remotely lightly. I'm not even sure if it *has* been done.
IP isn't just one person, a few people can share an IP address so is it fair to block all those people just for one being a twit?

Hi Starpants it is becoming more common for an individual to get a unique ip address.

There is another layer of banning by MAC address,like everything else it can be circumvented but takes a bit more work than most would bother with!:)

If You have been affected by this post please send euro50 to PO box

i

i will fix it for ya:pac::pac::pac::)

Rev. BlueJeans

Any fool can post through a proxy anyway.

Xavi6

ynotdu wrote: »

Well since Soccer is not a matter of life or death ,it is more important than that! Will not insult anybody by quoting the source!

Really the Soccer forum being a 'request' thread is a joke!
I would not even ask to be allowed into a forum.
Catch a grip,It's a beautiful game,but it's only a game!!!!!!!!
Jeez look at the forums people get into without a request!

I can only assume that you didn't research the reasons for the access request system before you dismissed it. Feel free to correct me though.

ynotdu

Xavi6 wrote: »

I can only assume that you didn't research the reasons for the access request system before you dismissed it. Feel free to correct me though.

OK you stand corrected.

Xavi6

ynotdu wrote: »

OK you stand corrected.

So if you do know the reasons then what exactly is your problem?

Time Magazine

star-pants wrote: »

Just regarding IP blocking, it's not something that can always be done / something that would be done remotely lightly. I'm not even sure if it *has* been done.
IP isn't just one person, a few people can share an IP address so is it fair to block all those people just for one being a twit?

It has been done. Cloud even banned Cork for a while and, I think, China was banned for a good while.

I'm not kidding.

Xavi6

Time Magazine wrote: »

Cloud even banned Cork for a while and, I think,

I always wondered when the best time to be on boards was and now I know.

Cabaal

bayviewclose wrote: »

Had their ip blocked? I would think that is last resort. probably for people who post very malicious stuff

Given most ISP connections have dynamic IP's then blocking their IP is pretty useless

Spiritoftheseventies

Cabaal wrote: »

Given most ISP connections have dynamic IP's then blocking their IP is pretty useless

What's a dynamic IP?

star-pants

bayviewclose wrote: »

What's a dynamic IP?

Click here

Spiritoftheseventies

Rev. BlueJeans wrote: »

Like the camel ( a horse designed by committee-according to Alec Issigonis), boards, despite the benevolent dictatorship cliche, is and was subject to much input and prodding through the years-mainly admin/mod discussion, and one a few cases to be fair-user input too.

The over-riding answer to everything seems to be to add more rules. In most cases anyway.

Look at the ludicrous situation on AH where all NY discussion thread were pigeonholed into a sticky, and where the Henry incident was closed down en masse a while back, as just two examples, on one forum.

Look at Politics and sub fora-on the other hand, which to me at least seems to be an oasis of calm these days, since mods stopped sticking their oar in every two minutes. The likes of nesf there and scofflaw (even though the chap inexplicably signs his name to everything;)) are likeable, prolific contributors themselves, and mod in a light handed, yet omnipresent manner.

Those charged with soccer are running with the system already in place, so I wouldn't blame them for maintaining things-but the whole setup seems to me to be totally overcomplicated to say the least.

DeV's comment that everyone is happy there is both misleading and inaccurate. That's another days work though (soccer and the community feeling on it), and merits a thread in its own right.

It does illustrate though, that user opinion is often ignored, even on the part of those who do take the time to submit feedback in any manner open to them, I still hold that most people don't, out of apathy or because there isn't a clear way to do so.

Yes there is so much traffic on it soccer forums that i say it must be hard at times to mod it. But a few more sub forums i think would be a good help.

Conor

star-pants wrote: »

Just regarding IP blocking, it's not something that can always be done / something that would be done remotely lightly. I'm not even sure if it *has* been done.

It has been done.

Currently, our practice is to rate-limit troublesome IP addresses, not block them. This is only done for spammy networks, people trying to spider us too fast or people trying to DOS us. It's not done for individual users because it's too hard to reliably nail them down without inadvertently blocking innocent users.

ynotdu wrote: »

Hi Starpants it is becoming more common for an individual to get a unique ip address.

The reverse is currently true. This may change in future (with IPv6) but right now, static IP addresses are quite rare and getting rarer. We can see this quite clearly in the database.

ynotdu wrote: »

There is another layer of banning by MAC address,like everything else it can be circumvented but takes a bit more work than most would bother with!:)

You can only block MAC addresses of devices on the local network or which are bridged from another network. No boards.ie user has a MAC address that would fulfill those criteria.

Rev. BlueJeans wrote: »

Any fool can post through a proxy anyway.

Google: X-Forwarded-For. Not all proxies are equal.

nesf

Rev. BlueJeans wrote: »

Look at Politics and sub fora-on the other hand, which to me at least seems to be an oasis of calm these days, since mods stopped sticking their oar in every two minutes.

Missed this, you're looking at it the wrong way around. We're not "sticking our oars in" precisely because it's been an oasis of calm. If it wasn't calm then we'd be sticking the oar in more etc.

auerillo

nesf wrote: »

Missed this, you're looking at it the wrong way around. We're not "sticking our oars in" precisely because it's been an oasis of calm. If it wasn't calm then we'd be sticking the oar in more etc.

I am guessing that the reason politics mods are not now so active is that so many posters no longer post in the politics forums due to excessive over moderation and apparently biased moderation in the past, as evidenced by their own words in this post http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=57241022&postcount=13 .

No one I know on boards now contributes there for that reason, and I haven't even looked at those threads for months or longer. It's a shame, but a fact of boards life.

Spiritoftheseventies

auerillo wrote: »

I am guessing that the reason politics mods are not now so active is that so many posters no longer post in the politics forums due to excessive over moderation and apparently biased moderation in the past, as evidenced by their own words in this post http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=57241022&postcount=13 .

No one I know on boards now contributes there for that reason, and I haven't even looked at those threads for months or longer. It's a shame, but a fact of boards life.

I think moderation on Political boards is essential really. They did an excellent job during the Lisbon debate.

BuffyBot

auerillo, this isn't a place for you to re-hash your personal grievances. The debate here is a general, non-specific one, so please keep it that way. That applies to everyone too

Offy

I love to see this tactic been used, its a great diversionary tactic. A poster makes a complaint and you turn it back on them thus making a mockery of the idea of complaining. By doing this you are making the whole complaint process nothing more than a PR exercise, it become totally devoid of functionality. You simply ignore the complaint, its been used on Boards for years now. Thank Boards, I now use the same tactic in work to great effect! It never achieves a result to the given problem but more often than not it stops the complainant in their tracks. If Boards adapted an effective complaint process it would involve solutions and as the same complaint has been made for years now I can only assume the complaint process is totally ineffective.
So heres an idea for Boards. If a mod is found to be banning members for no good reason then publicly issue a warning or ban to the mod in question. Make the mods live by the same rules as the members. To be very honest I believe the mods should behave better than ordinary members. The saying ‘Led by example’ comes to mind.
As to helpdesk lol after been a member for so many years I wouldnt bother using helpdesk. I see it as a waste of time.
In saying all that I still think Boards is a great site but no matter how good anything is theres still room for improvement. Just my two cents worth.
*Now lets see who the flamers are*

Darragh wrote: »

Podman, you have (a) experience of being a mod, and (b) obviously a bone of contention about this.

How do you think the process should work?

So, user x has been banned from a forum for trolling, let's say. Repeated trolling. he's been warned already, does it again anyways. Comes to Feedback and complains about the moderator who banned him. What, ideally, would happen from there?

If there's a better process than what we have in place for helping our 550+ volunteer moderators keep their forums clear of spam, nuisance posts and posters and irrelevant, incendiary, unhelpful posts, I'd really appreciate your input of making it happen.

There are good mods, there are bad mods - same as posters. So, as OP of this thread, what's your feedback on how it should work?

Cheers

Darragh

Rev. BlueJeans

nesf wrote: »

Missed this, you're looking at it the wrong way around. We're not "sticking our oars in" precisely because it's been an oasis of calm. If it wasn't calm then we'd be sticking the oar in more etc.

I'd hold that the lack of incendiary modding there of recent times is the biggest factor of all.

The fact that, in light of the ill-feeling and anxiety that's out there now, that the forum is pretty much an oasis of calm, is a reflection of both yourself and cordially, scofflaw, who are striking a great balance between active participation in contentious debate, and keeping that same debate on the rails.

It's a pleasure to post there these days

nesf

Rev. BlueJeans wrote: »

I'd hold that the lack of incendiary modding there of recent times is the biggest factor of all.

You're only saying that because you can't see all the posts we've deleted and users banned recently.

It's quiet but that's mostly because the news and media is quiet. Next referendum or election and it'll be crazy busy for the moderators all over again. The forum is cyclical like political life itself.

Rev. BlueJeans

Oh I agree, we don't get to see the hidden work-and it is cyclical (Nice brought out a lot of ranting last time, for example).

Point being, it's being done, and without fuss, or for the most part complaint.

That's a sure sign that it's been done properly in my book.

sceptre

nesf wrote: »

You're only saying that because you can't see all the posts we've deleted and users banned recently.

*sceptre counts the 66 yellow and red cards he's issued on the Politics forum since January 1 and reckons it's partly because of all the snow and going outside less, given that this is about 15% of his total from last year*

Rev. BlueJeans

You should count the number of complaints as a result, surprisingly few of any consequence, I'd opine. Bang up job.

It's not about having to carry or swing the stick, as we all agree that's a necessity. It's the manner, in some cases, in which it is carried and swung.

Guffawing about banhammers, drawing people out, antagonising them. That kind of thing.

nesf

sceptre wrote: »

*sceptre counts the 66 yellow and red cards he's issued on the Politics forum since January 1 and reckons it's partly because of all the snow and going outside less, given that this is about 15% of his total from last year*

That you actually know how many infractions you've handed out since January 1st worries me deeply..