Politics needs another moderator

Overheal

Jack Bauer: No, I'm done. I don't do that anymore. Leave me alone to help these orphans and blog about my ideals.

CTU Director: But we need more help, people are dying. There's bombs and ****. The Hungarians are close to building the bomb. And the Prime Minister of Canada is implicated!

Jack Bauer: .... DAMNIT! All right. I'll do it. Make me a Counter Terrorist Agent again

/thunder in the distance

CTU Driector: Great, I'll file the paperwork, let's do this!



































"....we wish little Timothy's kitten a speedy recovery.

In other news, Los Angeles has been wiped off the map. We're still piecing together how this came about but one thing is clear: CTU tried to bring back Jack Bauer roughly 2 weeks ago but apparently the paperwork was never filed.

Now here's Ollie for the weather,

'RADIOACTIVE RAIN!'

Thanks, Ollie!"

meditraitor

Ok, let go of my arm.... I'll do it./

nesf

gandalf wrote: »

bump

Tis being worked on. Should be sorted in a day or two, all things going well.

To be explicit, we've feedback on two options, we're waiting on feedback on a third. Once we get that we'll start asking people and after that, if they're dumb enough to say yes, we should have some new mods.

RoundyMooney

The byelection will be sorted before this is

Overheal

Thats cold.

Scofflaw

We're also back up to strength at the moment (barring GuanYin), so we have slightly more time to consider who works best.

cordially,
Scofflaw

gandalf

Scofflaw wrote: »

We're also back up to strength at the moment (barring GuanYin), so we have slightly more time to consider who works best.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I would say that 4 mods on a forum that has the throughput of politics is far from full strenght. And then when you factor in that two of the four are site admins and the other two are cmods we see that their attentions are diluted even further. You need at least 2 additional mods who are dedicated to politics to be added at least.

Again I would suggest you take on some temp mods as well to help clean the forum up and ensure that one line wonder threads and trolls are nipped in the bud rapidly. They will also allow for additional bandwidth for the immediate future of the By-Election, EFSF bailout, additional potential by-elections and maybe general election.

Insect Overlord

gandalf wrote: »

I would say that 4 mods on a forum that has the throughput of politics is far from full strenght. And then when you factor in that two of the four are site admins and the other two are cmods we see that their attentions are diluted even further. You need at least 2 additional mods who are dedicated to politics to be added at least.

Again I would suggest you take on some temp mods as well to help clean the forum up and ensure that one line wonder threads and trolls are nipped in the bud rapidly. They will also allow for additional bandwidth for the immediate future of the By-Election, EFSF bailout, additional potential by-elections and maybe general election.

Look up

nesf wrote: »

Tis being worked on. Should be sorted in a day or two, all things going well.

To be explicit, we've feedback on two options, we're waiting on feedback on a third. Once we get that we'll start asking people and after that, if they're dumb enough to say yes, we should have some new mods.

gandalf

Insect Overlord wrote: »

Look up

I saw that but then Scofflaw posted their update. So my post is in reaction to that. Do you have anything further to add to the debate bar two words?

Insect Overlord

gandalf wrote: »

I saw that but then Scofflaw posted their update. So my post is in reaction to that. Do you have anything further to add to the debate bar two words?

I was going to offer my services as a temp. mod, just to deal with spam/personal abuse/other obvious things. However, they're clearly aware of some good candidates and are in the process of appointing them. Scofflaw's update should have reassured you that they're not rushing into hasty appointments, and that the current team is strong enough to deal with any issues in the interim. That's how I felt about it anyway.

Apologies if my brevity came across as flippancy.

gandalf

When you consider part of the problem that a number of regular posters on Politics including me have is we do not feel the mod team is of significant strength to "deal with any issues in the interim" then you can understand my response to Scofflaw.

Nodin

Its hardly so dire a situation as to require 'Drama'.

Personally, I take a wary view of those too eager to get their hands on the levers.

RoundyMooney

I don't want to talk for him, but Gandalf was a mod before, a damn good one actually

I'd agree that over eagerness would raise a few red flags, but he drifted into the sights in relation to stepping up here temporarily, so I don't think we need to worry that he'll bring anything but balance.

@overheal, not cold, slightly satirical, but not cold. There was a blockage in the pipes somewhere, but coming from the lads at the coalface, it seems to be cleared. About time, in fairness, it's not a good thing to leave one mod carrying the can (through no fault of his colleagues, I might add).

nesf

RoundyMooney wrote: »

@overheal, not cold, slightly satirical, but not cold. There was a blockage in the pipes somewhere, but coming from the lads at the coalface, it seems to be cleared. About time, in fairness, it's not a good thing to leave one mod carrying the can (through no fault of his colleagues, I might add).

The issue is that it takes time, quite a lot of time, to appoint new mods due to the system used. This is out of the control of both the CMods and the Politics mods and there's not much that can be done about it, we have to work within it. It takes more time than normal because we're looking at appointing three mods not just one.

We're trying to put in place a more permanent solution than just temporarily appointing a few mods (which is a solution I don't like and have never liked it because it disrupts the running of the forum unnecessarily).

gandalf

What disrupts the running of the forum is the plague of rubbish posts that have started to appear in greater frequency and that been dealt with slowly because of mod bandwidth issues.

I have had contacts from quite a few regulars on there saying they are either posting less or considering not posting there again because the quality of debate has degraded dramitically over the last few months.

For me personally it is painful as I spent alot of time moderating that forum in various guises for nearly ten years with the aim of keeping the debate at a high level.

This thread was started a month ago now and frankly I am disappointed at the sluggish response from the powers that be.

nesf

gandalf wrote: »

What disrupts the running of the forum is the plague of rubbish posts that have started to appear in greater frequency and that been dealt with slowly because of mod bandwidth issues.

I have had contacts from quite a few regulars on there saying they are either posting less or considering not posting there again because the quality of debate has degraded dramitically over the last few months.

For me personally it is painful as I spent alot of time moderating that forum in various guises for nearly ten years with the aim of keeping the debate at a high level.

This thread was started a month ago now and frankly I am disappointed at the sluggish response from the powers that be.

The forum is a very different place now than it was four years ago because a) the site is bigger and more normal people use it and b) more average joes care about politics since the recession. The average poster today on the forum is a lot less informed than the average poster several years ago.

No amount of moderators will change that. The forum has changed from something quite niche to something closer to AH. I don't like that anymore than the next old timer but it's the nature of the beast with politics in this country at the moment.

nesf

nesf wrote: »

No amount of moderators will change that. The forum has changed from something quite niche to something closer to AH. I don't like that anymore than the next old timer but it's the nature of the beast with politics in this country at the moment.

I can't agree with that, I was a reader of politics for a long time before I put my toe in. It could be that there needs to be a bigger "Iron Fist" approach taken for a couple of weeks. I know from my experience as a moderator, to have a high standard of debate or posting, you sometimes need to remind people of where they're actually posting. As much as I enjoy AH, it would frustrate me and make me leave boards if the community turned into an, "It's ok in AH, so it should be fine here" approach.

I said it before, but the politics forum works (or more importantly, should work) on a different level. You should educate yourself on the matters - by reading and following threads, or looking at other research, before joining in.

It's really not hard to do. You have the internet at your disposal.


\edit: As for the long wait for new mods, I totally understand these things take time, but it should be looked at in the future, ie: the drafting in of temp mods to help out.

gandalf

Nesf if that is the prevailing attitude among all the mods who have stewardship over politics then the battle is lost and I am extremely frustrated and disappointed with them.

Scofflaw

gandalf wrote: »

Nesf if that is the prevailing attitude among all the mods who have stewardship over politics then the battle is lost and I am extremely frustrated and disappointed with them.

Gandalf, I agree with your point in respect of moderation capacity being a fundamental issue, but on the other hand we're not going to set the forum back to what it was back in the day, because what nesf says is also true. We had the same deluge of posters during Lisbon 1 and 2, and the same results in poster quality terms, despite having full (and slightly different) mod teams present.

When interest in politics spreads out beyond those who are regularly interested in politics, the level of discussion will necessarily decline, because there will be far more people who simply have no idea how things work, or what is possible or reasonable in real life politics, and whose views on politics have been shaped by tabloid media, TV, and fiction.

Even if some of the older hands are unhappy with the deluge, the forum isn't being run for their benefit, and the only way of retaining the previous standard of debate is to come down hard on anyone who doesn't meet those standards. For the reasons given above, that essentially means preventing posting by anyone whose interest in politics has only been sparked by the current crises, which is a lot of people.

Had we done the same thing during the Lisbon debate - and believe me when I say it was enormously tempting - it would have rendered the forum completely useless to the general public, since it would have been reduced to the handful of posters who have any idea of how the EU actually works.

Whenever the current exciting events have run their course, the forum will naturally die down again to smaller and far higher quality discussions. For the moment, though, anyone who is asked to moderate the forum is being asked to moderate the existing forum at the existing levels of public and uninformed interest, rather than trying to impose a set of standards appropriate to the normal low - if better informed - levels of political interest this country suffers from.

As for delays in the process of adding new mods, I can safely say that it's not because I'm enjoying the work load. We've already shortcut the consensus process a bit more than is entirely proper, but there's only so much it can be speeded up.

cordially,
Scofflaw

nesf

Papa Smut wrote: »

I can't agree with that, I was a reader of politics for a long time before I put my toe in. It could be that there needs to be a bigger "Iron Fist" approach taken for a couple of weeks. I know from my experience as a moderator, to have a high standard of debate or posting, you sometimes need to remind people of where they're actually posting. As much as I enjoy AH, it would frustrate me and make me leave boards if the community turned into an, "It's ok in AH, so it should be fine here" approach.

I said it before, but the politics forum works (or more importantly, should work) on a different level. You should educate yourself on the matters - by reading and following threads, or looking at other research, before joining in.

It's really not hard to do. You have the internet at your disposal.


\edit: As for the long wait for new mods, I totally understand these things take time, but it should be looked at in the future, ie: the drafting in of temp mods to help out.

No amount of Iron Fist will change a bunch of uninformed posters into a bunch of informed ones. Only time and a wish on their side to improve will change that.

The issue is this: Before people approached the Politics forum like you or I would like them to. They decided they'd like to learn more about Politics and started reading threads and getting an idea of the issues and how things worked (this is how I and many, many others started out in the forum). The thing is now, everyone is coming in with an opinion not a wish to become informed about Politics so the signal to noise level has dropped due to the sheer volume of new posters outweighing the older more established posters.


New moderators will be good in that they'll help cut down on the worst of the noise but they can't change all the poorly informed posts into well informed ones, nor should they try to.


The issue at its heart is this: Politics has gone from being a niche topic, only talked about by those who take an interest in it to something everyone is talking about. This lowers the tone. There's not a whole lot you can do about this.

nesf

gandalf wrote: »

Nesf if that is the prevailing attitude among all the mods who have stewardship over politics then the battle is lost and I am extremely frustrated and disappointed with them.

It's my opinion, I don't speak for the team as a whole.

nesf

Edit: I should preface all analysis by me as coming from a depressed person. So don't be surprised if my analysis is pessimistic about the future. :pac:

gandalf

Talk about throwing in the towel lads :rolleyes:

You seem to forget Scofflaw that I was modding Politics for years and was there when events like 911 happened which brought in a deluge of new posters. The policy has always been to cut the crap out quickly and it paid dividend in a forum that people respected and those who wanted to debate posted in. If the forum was one that people were intimidated to post in then so be it. As you can see from some of the replies in this thread when they did their response was considered.

The current mods only have stewardship of the forum from the linage of people who moderated before them and tbh you are letting them all down displaying this attitude. The politics forum should not be in place for every user to pop in fire off a smart arse remark any current issue, that's what after hours is for. It IS your duties as mods to ensure this doesn't happen.

You might as well let the forum go to the dogs and become like another politics forum that is Irish and become a mess of incoherent tripe.

Quite frankly if you have given up in this way then I believe neither of you are fit for purpose as moderators of a politics forum that is supposed to uphold a high level of debate. Sorry if that is too brutal for you but that is how I see it. There seems to be a unwillingness or fear to clamp down on things in there and I cannot figure out if its because you don't have the bandwidth, the desire or if it is now the policy from higher ups to "dumb" down boards more to make it more "marketable".

I know one thing I was concerned about the politics forum when this thread started, now after the interaction from 50% of the current active moderation team I am extremely concerned with the attitude and with the feeling that you have already capitulated to letting the standards slip.

FlutterinBantam

Nodin wrote: »

Its hardly so dire a situation as to require 'Drama'.

Personally, I take a wary view of those too eager to get their hands on the levers.

Agreed, nobody want's agendas and single issue prejudices shoved down their throats.

tbh

gandalf wrote: »

I saw that but then Scofflaw posted their update. So my post is in reaction to that. Do you have anything further to add to the debate bar two words?

you're not mod yet.

Scofflaw

gandalf wrote: »

Talk about throwing in the towel lads :rolleyes:

You seem to forget Scofflaw that I was modding Politics for years and was there when events like 911 happened which brought in a deluge of new posters. The policy has always been to cut the crap out quickly and it paid dividend in a forum that people respected and those who wanted to debate posted in. If the forum was one that people were intimidated to post in then so be it. As you can see from some of the replies in this thread when they did their response was considered.

The current mods only have stewardship of the forum from the linage of people who moderated before them and tbh you are letting them all down displaying this attitude. The politics forum should not be in place for every user to pop in fire off a smart arse remark any current issue, that's what after hours is for. It IS your duties as mods to ensure this doesn't happen.

You might as well let the forum go to the dogs and become like another politics forum that is Irish and become a mess of incoherent tripe.

Quite frankly if you have given up in this way then I believe neither of you are fit for purpose as moderators of a politics forum that is supposed to uphold a high level of debate. Sorry if that is too brutal for you but that is how I see it. There seems to be a unwillingness or fear to clamp down on things in there and I cannot figure out if its because you don't have the bandwidth, the desire or if it is now the policy from higher ups to "dumb" down boards more to make it more "marketable".

I know one thing I was concerned about the politics forum when this thread started, now after the interaction from 50% of the current active moderation team I am extremely concerned with the attitude and with the feeling that you have already capitulated to letting the standards slip.

I don't forget that you have previously modded Politics - I'm pointing out that the current mod team takes a different view to yours of what the forum should aspire to be. I'm also aware that there are regular posters who support that view - it would be highly surprising if there weren't.

We haven't been asked to "dumb down", and in the longer term the intention is not to do so - it is to take the current interest and work with it, rather than cracking down on it simply because it is largely uninformed interest by the lights of those with a regular interest in politics. The irremediable will be weeded out, and the remediable encouraged to become more informed - and doing that faster than at present is indeed a matter of bandwidth. The result will hopefully be a larger and informed pool of posters.

I regret that that seems an unworthy goal to you, or too risky - I accept that there is a possibility that we may simply lose our informed posters without improving the uninformed, but I think that's a risk worth taking.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote:

Even if some of the older hands are unhappy with the deluge, the forum isn't being run for their benefit, and the only way of retaining the previous standard of debate is to come down hard on anyone who doesn't meet those standards. For the reasons given above, that essentially means preventing posting by anyone whose interest in politics has only been sparked by the current crises, which is a lot of people.

Had we done the same thing during the Lisbon debate - and believe me when I say it was enormously tempting - it would have rendered the forum completely useless to the general public, since it would have been reduced to the handful of posters who have any idea of how the EU actually works.

In fairness,you don't know what happens when you clamp down on drivel to make way for intelligent debate because it appears it doesn't happen much anymore and hasn't happened for a long time.
It's incredibly frustrating to read through some of the drivell now let pass on the forum in this moderation light era.
I appreciate it's a difficult and busy forum to mod,I modded it for a few years as you may know.I remember times when there were 100's on the forum and busier clusters eg Bush being re-elected and general elections.
Thats not a new phenomenon.
Not every newbie or irregular poster on politics is a muppet.It appears to me to run at 20 to 30% of the irregulars.
If they can't debate with decorum,you should send them packing back to after hours.
I'd start instigating bans.
Back to that basic.You never lose good posters and never lose good boardsies of which there are many regulars on the board.You don't lose the decent passer by either,in fact you probably attract them.
At least they never left in my day modding there.
There are lots of common man/common woman posters who stick to debating the post and not the poster and who don't post drivel thankfully.

Scofflaw

Deleted User wrote: »

In fairness,you don't know what happens when you clamp down on drivel to make way for intelligent debate because it appears it doesn't happen much anymore and hasn't happened for a long time.
It's incredibly frustrating to read through some of the drivell now let pass on the forum in this moderation light era.
I appreciate it's a difficult and busy forum to mod,I modded it for a few years as you may know.I remember times when there were 100's on the forum and busier clusters eg Bush being re-elected and general elections.
Thats not a new phenomenon.
Not every newbie or irregular poster on politics is a muppet.It appears to me to run at 20 to 30% of the irregulars.
If they can't debate with decorum,you should send them packing back to after hours.
I'd start instigating bans.
Back to that basic.You never lose good posters and never lose good boardsies of which there are many regulars on the board.You don't lose the decent passer by either,in fact you probably attract them.
At least they never left in my day modding there.
There are lots of common man/common woman posters who stick to debating the post and not the poster and who don't post drivel thankfully.

At the moment I'm issuing permabans at a rate of several per day. I've already agreed several times that there is a capacity issue, but it's being addressed, and no amount of people being impatient will change the speed with which that happens.

cordially,
Scofflaw

gandalf

I would understand your impatience tag if we were pursuing this after a couple of days. The initial post was nearly a month ago and was acknowledged by you on the 18th.

Maybe you should be priming the forum for the long term goals now rather than putting it on the long finger.

Scofflaw

gandalf wrote: »

I would understand your impatience tag if we were pursuing this after a couple of days. The initial post was nearly a month ago and was acknowledged by you on the 18th.

Maybe you should be priming the forum for the long term goals now rather than putting it on the long finger.

The only way that could have been done is if I'd taken all the decisions by personal fiat.

cordially,
Scofflaw