Dropping science on your moderator bias..... um...w0rd!

copacetic

interesting stats, wonder is the fact that more infractions leads to more bans part of th the cause or just the effect?

It certainly seems that warnings and infractions lead to bans, or at least don't seem to diffuse situations?

DeVore

Gordon wrote: »

The eyes of Sauron were on the hacker of 01/10.

The hacker has more to worry about than Sauron.

Yes user are beginning to understand the rules, and it seems like a lot of people like having some form of rules around here.

So, where are all those people who were swearing this place had become colditz??? That it was freer in the "good old days"

Whereeeeeeaaaaaaareeeeeeeyouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu???


DeV.

tallaght01

An awful lot of us just stopped bothering.

But the reason you have such wild fluctuations is because of the scale you're using. You're talking about differences in twentieths of a percent being represented as huge swings. On a different scale it would be less stark.

It doesn't bother me a bit. It's your business, and you should run it your way. But graphs like this are very difficult to interpret.

Some people went a bit mental in 2009. BUt aside from that, the figures have remained relatively stable, at first glance.

DeVore

You obviously don't understand the graph then. That percentage is the percentage of bans etc to total posts. Since the number of posts per month is very very large, moving that by 0.2% takes a swing from 200 bans/warnings to over five times that at 1000 bans/warnings.

So quite pointedly, what you are saying is not only inaccurate and wrong, it is in fact exactly the opposite of what the reality is. For the graph to move even on notch on the y-axis, say from 0.10 to 0.15 takes an increase of quite a bit....about 200 extra a month. Considering were currently running at about 500 for warnings, that means a fairly drastic increase to see only one notch movement.


I've supplied the raw data behind it too, so you can see for yourself.

DeV.

tallaght01

DeVore wrote: »

You obviously don't understand the graph then. That percentage is the percentage of bans etc to posts. Since the number of posts per month is very very large, moving that by 0.2% takes a swing from 200 bans/warnings to over five times that at 1000 bans/warnings.

So quite pointedly, what you are saying is not only inaccurate and wrong, it is in fact exactly the opposite of what the reality is. For the graph to move even on notch takes an increase of quite a bit.


I've supplied the raw data behind it too, so you can see for yourself.

DeV.

I think the point is that you were (rightly) trying to get away from raw numbers, as you're not comparing like with like, so there's no point in now reverting back to raw numbers to exlpain the differences in percentages.

So you looked at percentages, and the changes are tiny.

But, like I said, you don't owe me or anyone else an explanation of what your volunteers do. But that graph isn't as convincing as some seem to think.

I just noticed it, and tought I'd point it out.

For the record, the bio+med mods and the SDMA mods (the forums I read) are lovely. Even our dearly departed Locum-motion

DeVore

*beats head off keyboard*

I AM TALKING ABOUT THE PERCENTAGES!!

I've tried to clarify my post. I really can't do any more. The Changes in the percentages are small because the divisor, the number of posts is huge. It's quite correct to show it at that scale because to move the graph on that scale takes a tremendous movement in the number of bans/warnings.

DeV.

tallaght01

DeVore wrote: »

*beats head off keyboard*

I AM TALKING ABOUT THE PERCENTAGES!!

I've tried to clarify my post. I really can't do any more. The Changes in the percentages are small because the divisor, the number of posts is huge. It's quite correct to show it at that scale because to move the graph on that scale takes a tremendous movement in the number of bans/warnings.

DeV.

I know the point your making, so you can spare your head.

The point is that you're either talking the about raw numbers, which don't compare like with like, or percentages. So you chose pecentages. The percentage changes are tiny, but represented on a scale that suggest they're very big.

The point of using the percentages was to avoid having to use the raw data. Lots of things can be represented on % scales that have big numbers. But tiny %changes are still tiny changes.

Anyway, like I said, just a passing comment. You obviously don't agree. But I'm sure you'll agree it's not worth a long debate.

flahavaj

I think the big dip in mod can be directly related to the tital u-turn in behavious on the PW forum the last 6 months or so. What used to be an absolute minefield and a regular pain in the mods/admins respective holes is now an oasis of tranquility.

I'm only half joking too. That forum and its complete transformation should be held up for all to see as an example of the many benefits of even handed, friendly, ego-free moderation.

The Recliner

pickarooney wrote: »

A red card doesn't actually do anything so it's symbolically redundant. Warn and ban - simple and to the point.

Not entirely true though

A red card carries a point which contributes to a temp site ban if the user earns enough of them in a short time so they ahve their uses and diffferences

Eliot Rosewater

You could also use these stats as a kind of benchmark to see how naughty or nice of a poster you have been.

For the last month, there was a moderator action (warning/infraction/ban) for 0.32% of all posts (from the spreadsheet). Thus, an average poster with 1000 posts should expect to have roughly 3 wrist slaps. I, with 1600+ posts, would expect to have 5. (I've only 1, though I have been warned by mod posts "on thread" a number of times and gotten in more silly spats than that datum infers.)

Of course that's terribly inaccurate: I realise that infractions were only introduced a few years in, and that a lot of bans go to spam posters who aren't really community members, and shouldn't count when evaluating average normal user behaviour. It's still interesting though, warts and all.

DeVore

You would have to have posted your 1000 posts IN THE MONTH IN QUESTION to expect 3 disciplinings.

What you COULD say is that if you have 1000 posts, on average over your lifetime on boards, you should expect to have gotten 3 disciplines in that time. (I think this is what you are saying).

DeV.

pickarooney

...and the average poster with 10,000 (I mean, of those with 10,000 ish posts, take the average) should have 30 disciplines and probably have been sitebanned for cumulative cardings, but realistically I think the more you post the more likely you are to know the rules and not get punished.

Eliot Rosewater

Very true!

Further to the above I decided to ploy the total "documented" mod actions (warnings + infractions - bans) in one graph. It doesn't say anything more than the original graphs do, but, given there's only one plot, it makes the point a little clearer. I omitted the months where ban data wasn't available.



(Plotted using old school Gnuplot )

(I've a hangover today from dirty Aldi beer, hence the effort put into this!)

Ghost Train

Well here's a graph of warnings plus infractions as a percentage of number of posters

didn't include bans because if advertising and spam are are part of the ban numbers I don't see how it reflects on moderation

FarmerGreen

It could of course be due to posters temperament being affected by the weather
http://www.statusireland.com/data/charts/Mean-Monthly-Rainfall-Dublin-Airport.jpg

Nevyn

There are posters which have never been banned or infracted/warned.
I have no infactions at all.

And there are some who in the first few months get a few and that it, there are those who
after being on the site a few years then wander into the more stricter forums and then hit a new learning curve and then you have those who troll for the hell of it and have a a huge ammount of band and infractions and seem to just like running the gauntlet.

So trying to average out infactions/bans per poster just doesn't work, it usually tends to be a % of 'bad apples' rather then the average poster.

Nevyn

FarmerGreen wrote: »

It could of course be due to posters temperament being affected by the weather
http://www.statusireland.com/data/charts/Mean-Monthly-Rainfall-Dublin-Airport.jpg

I think what you are seeing is the fall off in posts from those in college,
every year this happens and then you have the seasonal September effect
and also as the evening get darker and people stay at home more they will look for entertainment which has a low cost.

But I get bans being down, infractions seem to head people off at the pass as it were and often infractions are given for a first offence, where as before the infraction system was in place a ban would be given.

I do think that boards has started to see it's own small verison of the
Enternal September* effect as broadband has reached most households,
but other then the drive by posters a lot of the new sign ups get the learning curve in between 3 weeks to 3 months.



*

Usenet originated among universities, where every year in September, a large number of new university students from the Northern hemisphere acquired access to Usenet, and took some time to acclimate themselves to the network's standards of conduct and "netiquette". After a month or so, these new users would theoretically learn to comport themselves according to its conventions. September thus heralded the peak influx of disruptive newcomers to the network.[1]

In 1993, the online service America Online began offering Usenet access to its tens of thousands, and later millions, of users. To many "old-timers", these "AOLers" were far less prepared to learn netiquette than university freshmen. This was in part because AOL made little effort to educate its users about Usenet customs, or explain to them that these new-found forums were not simply another piece of AOL's service. But it was also a result of the much larger scale of growth. Whereas the regular September freshman influx would soon settle down, the sheer number of new users now threatened to overwhelm the existing Usenet culture's capacity to inculcate its social norms.[3]

Since that time, the dramatic rise in the popularity of the Internet has brought a constant stream of new users. Thus, from the point of view of the pre-1993 Usenet user, the regular "September" influx of new users never ended. The term was first used by Dave Fischer in a January 26, 1994, post to alt.folklore.computers:[4]
“ It's moot now. September 1993 will go down in net.history as the September that never ended. ”

Terry

flahavaj wrote: »

I think the big dip in mod can be directly related to the tital u-turn in behavious on the PW forum the last 6 months or so. What used to be an absolute minefield and a regular pain in the mods/admins respective holes is now an oasis of tranquility.

Pfft.
It's entirely down to my presence there. I might not post much, but I'm always watching. Always watching.

I'm only half joking too. That forum and its complete transformation should be held up for all to see as an example of the many benefits of even handed, friendly, ego-free moderation.

Dude's not wrong.
There's only about 1 reported post a week, and that's usually just someone asking for a spoiler warning in a thread title.

Gimmick and Bounty Hunter, along with the regular users, deserve all the praise there. It also help that quite a lot of the people who used to cause trouble there are now sitebanned.