Politics needs another moderator

Wolfe Tone

dr.bollocko wrote: »

You're suggesting we propose a NAMA style subforum or bad forum to move substandard AH style threads to that relate directly to the recession?
I would be wholly opposed to such a move.
Idiots need to be given an education and moved on. Not a platform for their raving.

You are telling people to take it to politics, as it stands they would be likely to open a very similar thread in politics, which will be locked. I think that should be addressed.

Scofflaw

southsiderosie wrote: »

I don't think the Politics 101 questions are the problem. The politics forum can be a place both to learn and debate; certainly I have learned quite a bit about Irish politics since checking in here regularly. And I don't think the forum should be a place where people are afraid to ask questions.

That said, the biggest problem I see right now is that threads are started and there is basically no room for discussion. Someone makes a strong statement, there are no links (this in particular is driving me crazy), there is no framed question or larger issue, and so all you can say is "YEAH!!!" or "huh?". To me, this is what is killing the forum - certainly, let's have a discussion about clientelism in Irish politics, but what kind of debate can you have around "Jackie Healey Rae is a tosser"?

I understand that these are extraordinary times, that people want a place to vent, and that it may be reassuring or comforting in a way to vent with other presumably like-minded people. And I appreciate that it takes time for newbies to pick up on the norms of the forum. But norms have to be enforced - and quickly - from the time of thread creation, and this is impossible given current traffic and active modding. Based on the Gogarty debate, and other discussions I have seen on the site, it seems like Dev & Company have worked very hard to make this a place for lively and informative political debate, but the failure to address the modding situation in a timely way is threatening the status of the forum at a time where it could and should be stepping things up a notch or two.

I have to point out again that our preferred mod list was only finally processed on Saturday. We will hopefully have two more mods in short order - we still have no word on backup mods.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Yitzhak Rabin

I'm an occasional poster, but long time reader of politics and I also want to just echo what gandalf and donegalfella have said here. I think that its all well and good to relax the standards in order to bring in more people and make the forum and attractive place for newbies to post, but when it gets to the level where that leads to the more articulate and seasoned posters finding the place impossible to have a decent discussion in, then it has definitely gone too far.

I think there is definitely a case to be made for temporary moderators, but what should also be emphasised is that the posters there need to start reporting the silly one-liner OPs, and 'funny' replies. Having access to the reported posts forum, it is the same people constantly reporting posts, if we could get everyone on board to report the BS posts, it would definitely make it easier for the mods.

Although my preference for a solution would be to make the rules very strict, and issue no-warning week long bans to posters who start sub-standard OPs or one-liner witty AH style retorts. However, a possible compromise could be if we have a sub-forum, where only people who have demonstrated that they can engage in meaningful discussion can post. It can be available for anyone to view, but just let people who have proven themselves in the main forum posting privledges. The bar doesn't have to be particularly high, and I'm not suggesting any sort of elite club, it just means that it would cut out the amount of people with less than 10 posts starting incoherent, ranting, pointless OPs. The already established 'political debate' forum could be used.

Its not my preference, but if you are insisting on continuing to have a relaxed attitude to the standard of OP, then it could be a compromise?

dr.bollocko

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

You are telling people to take it to politics, as it stands they would be likely to open a very similar thread in politics, which will be locked. I think that should be addressed.

In general terms the discussion in a usually light hearted manner of issues such as our recent announcements are welcomed in AH. This can be seen by the presence of a number of threads in After Hours on these topics. The more specific nitty gritty stuff however needs to be moved on to the appropriate forum. They currently threaten to take over After Hours so that prompts a proportionate moderatorial reaction.
There has been no outright ban on discussion however a number of threads have been curtailed to attempt to redress the balance.

Bottle_of_Smoke

dr.bollocko wrote: »

You're suggesting we propose a NAMA style subforum or bad forum to move substandard AH style threads to that relate directly to the recession?
I would be wholly opposed to such a move.
Idiots need to be given an education and moved on. Not a platform for their raving.

I think it would do the latter and not be the former.

The politics forum was great in itself. It isn't a place for educating idiots, you have to be able to post reasonably to post there. Thread starting has strict guidelines.

Some "idiots'' would tire of just raving, the ones who tire of it will move onto the politics forum, the ones who continue to rant would never last in the politics forum anyway.

Scofflaw

...and issue no-warning week long bans to posters who start sub-standard OPs or one-liner witty AH style retorts.

Scarily, that's what I already do. I have someone complaining in Feedback that I banned 22 posters in an hour on Saturday - not quite, but the fact that someone can believe that indicates the level of banning that's currently already in operation. The thread closure/merging/deletion rate is also very high.

I think there is definitely a case to be made for temporary moderators, but what should also be emphasised is that the posters there need to start reporting the silly one-liner OPs, and 'funny' replies. Having access to the reported posts forum, it is the same people constantly reporting posts, if we could get everyone on board to report the BS posts, it would definitely make it easier for the mods.

That is an issue. Another issue is the question of whether to delete anything that's worthless, or infract it and leave it so people can see it?

Although my preference for a solution would be to make the rules very strict, and issue no-warning week long bans to posters who start sub-standard OPs or one-liner witty AH style retorts. However, a possible compromise could be if we have a sub-forum, where only people who have demonstrated that they can engage in meaningful discussion can post. It can be available for anyone to view, but just let people who have proven themselves in the main forum posting privledges. The bar doesn't have to be particularly high, and I'm not suggesting any sort of elite club, it just means that it would cut out the amount of people with less than 10 posts starting incoherent, ranting, pointless OPs. The already established 'political debate' forum could be used.

Its not my preference, but if you are insisting on continuing to have a relaxed attitude to the standard of OP, then it could be a compromise?

It's a good thought, but there seems to be a reluctance to create sub-forums at the moment.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Wolfe Tone

Admins have basically said no new forums in the immediate future. Look at the forum requests forum..... huge backlog.

gandalf

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Fair enough. I agree with you tbh, but one could easily gather from your posts that you are pissed that you were not appointed a mod, a mistake assumption I am sure.

I have already said on numerous posts on this thread that becoming a mod full time is something I never want to do again (unless they want to pay me for it). I did offer to do it on a temporary basis as others did. If the mods want to appoint the others and leave me to the side I have no problem with that but I do want to see some action to increase the bandwidth in there to take account of the situation over the last few days, the upcoming by election, budget and then probable General Election in the new year.

Wibbs

Scofflaw wrote: »

Rather more will come in handy, since it's in train. I have to point out that as far as I know, we haven't had any word from the Admins on the use of temporary mods, and we've only had one of our mod choices approved in the last couple of days. And we do bump the thread fairly regularly.

Given this thread, actually strike that, given the huge political decisions that are going on in this country that will directly impact all of us and are bound to get more Boards time in the next few months and beyond(and have been for at least 6 months), the approval process needs to be sped up for this kinda thing.

This is a bigger and more long lasting trend than the Henry handball, or even the passing of Gerry Ryan of last year and temp mods were fired into AH(with the nice side effect of having Dr Bollocko back). Plus it effects a whole forum's direction and moderation. Rather than aiming at Scofflaw(one of the best mods on this site) and having him come in here and reply when he's already under enough mod pressure, the delay in the process is more at issue IMHO.

There are enough very good existing mods who could help here. Knowledge of politics hardly required, indeed may even be preferable. People have offered and I'm quite sure if people were asked in the mod forum many more would come forward. All people who are apparently trusted already, all "safe pairs of hands" if that's what's at issue. The admins are naturally online a lot(and a few seem to be working like bloody slaves to be fair) and are doing spam checks/sitebans/IPing reregs etc, so if the forum mods fire up a name, particularly if they're a mod already, a simple and speedy yes or no should be suffice. So I really don't see what the delay is. Not when it's been going a month+ and a fair few other mods in other smaller forums have been approved in that time. Mostly "virgin* mods too(no snickering down the back:)). The approval process just comes across of late of being rudderless. The forum is suffering from it and so are good mods like Scofflaw who put a lot of time and effort into it.

One part of feedforward's original remit was to try to address things like this where we could allow as much as possible for sudden stresses on the system and the existence of this thread and the situation in the Politics forum shows me at least this whole mod approval mechanism needs to be looked at anew.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Wibbs wrote: »

There are enough very good existing mods who could help here. Knowledge of politics hardly required, indeed may even be preferable. People have offered and I'm quite sure if people were asked in the mod forum many more would come forward. All people who are apparently trusted already, all "safe pairs of hands" if that's what's at issue. The admins are naturally online a lot(and a few seem to be working like bloody slaves to be fair) and are doing spam checks/sitebans/IPing reregs etc, so if the forum mods fire up a name, particularly if their a mod already, a simple and speedy yes or no should be suffice. So I really don't see what the delay is. Not when it's been going a month+ and a fair few other mods in other smaller forums have been approved in that time. Mostly "virgin* mods too(no snickering down the back:)). The approval process just comes across of late of being rudderless. The forum is suffering from it and so are good mods like Scofflaw who put a lot of time and effort into it.

+100

No need for new politically aware permanent mods, some experienced politically uninterested temporary mods would do just fine

Scofflaw

Wibbs wrote: »

Given this thread, actually strike that, given the huge political decisions that are going on in this country that will directly impact all of us and are bound to get more Boards time in the next few months and beyond(and have been for at least 6 months), the approval process needs to be sped up for this kinda thing.

This is a bigger and more long lasting trend than the Henry handball, or even the passing of Gerry Ryan of last year and temp mods were fired into AH(with the nice side effect of having Dr Bollocko back). Plus it effects a whole forum's direction and moderation. Rather than aiming at Scofflaw(one of the best mods on this site) and having him come in here and reply when he's already under enough mod pressure, the delay in the process is more at issue IMHO.

There are enough very good existing mods who could help here. Knowledge of politics hardly required, indeed may even be preferable. People have offered and I'm quite sure if people were asked in the mod forum many more would come forward. All people who are apparently trusted already, all "safe pairs of hands" if that's what's at issue. The admins are naturally online a lot(and a few seem to be working like bloody slaves to be fair) and are doing spam checks/sitebans/IPing reregs etc, so if the forum mods fire up a name, particularly if their a mod already, a simple and speedy yes or no should be suffice. So I really don't see what the delay is. Not when it's been going a month+ and a fair few other mods in other smaller forums have been approved in that time. Mostly "virgin* mods too(no snickering down the back:)). The approval process just comes across of late of being rudderless. The forum is suffering from it and so are good mods like Scofflaw who put a lot of time and effort into it.

One part of feedforward's original remit was to try to address things like this where we could allow as much as possible for sudden stresses on the system and the existence of this thread and the situation in the Politics forum shows me at least this whole mod approval mechanism needs to be looked at anew.

To be honest, that's been - for me - one of the most frustrating things about the whole business. Personally, I'd prefer to see a process where CMods can approve new Mods, or at least bring them on board on probation, with the Admins having a post-facto veto. You'd need to formalise certain of the rules with respect to expected levels of infraction etc, and you'd have to be clear that the initial period was probationary and liable to Admin veto - but it would certainly speed the process up by moving it down the chain.

On the other hand, with respect to CMods, I still think the DR forum was a mistake - it's far more combative than the original PM process, and I can't see that it adds anything useful to the process - the kind of poster that would spray their disagreement across several forums still does exactly that.

In other news, now waiting for the Admins to push the button on kickoutthejams, and confirmation from Papa Smut that he's still up for the job. So, more bandwidth now coming on stream.

cordially,
Scofflaw

nesf

gandalf wrote: »

Hack !!! WTF I am an ordinary person who has an interest in Politics and who appreciates somewhere where I could have had a discussion with others where half the content didn't consist of an online lynch mob.

With regard to the upturn in people coming onto the forum that was predicted and you guys turned down the offer from experienced mods to bolster your numbers. So it is a bit rich blaming the sudden upturn of interest.

I meant hack in a nice way, i.e. you and I have been debating Politics for a long, long time.

We're seeking to put permanent mods in place and see how that works out before putting in temporary mods. This has gone a lot slower than we like but our hands are tied by the system, we can't appoint mods by fiat.

gandalf wrote: »

Again you guys seem to think I and others want a really high bar set. That is not the case. What is needed is nonsense threads dealt with quickly rather than being left until there are four pages of replies giving the impression to new posters that the post that started those threads are deemed of appropriate quality.

Fair enough, I misinterpreted your position.

gandalf wrote: »

Having given hundreds probably thousands of man hours moderating the Politics forum maintaining standards I have every right to complain when I see those standards waning.

So basically your answer is to shut up and stop complaining, maybe I should commit suicide as well That kind of attitude landed us into the mess our country is in and if I see something wrong I will continue to point it out to you all.

If the fact I am posting on a thread in feedback is annoying you how about you petition the admins to "silence" me then.



That thread was started last night.

No, my answer is to stop complaining at us, who disagree with you and direct your energy towards talking to the people that can overrule the mods on this. We're all annoyed by how slowly this has progressed. We are keeping you all in the loop to the greatest extent possible, reporting every bit of progress we make on appointing new mods. Continually complaining about it doesn't help anything.

Overheal

Wibbs wrote: »

One part of feedforward's original remit was to try to address things like this where we could allow as much as possible for sudden stresses on the system and the existence of this thread and the situation in the Politics forum shows me at least this whole mod approval mechanism needs to be looked at anew.

I agree in part. I'm not sure that the Mod approval process is going to be a topic for Feedforward, and not for specifically a discussion for the Moderators and admins themselves to take up. One thing we could look at however is executive power (so to speak) in a high stress high traffic period of overflow. A good past example might have been the Henry goal against Ireland when AH and several other forums saw a dramatic surge in muppetry.

Those things can't be reacted to (properly), they have to be planned for.

Scofflaw

Overheal wrote: »

I agree in part. I'm not sure that the Mod approval process is going to be a topic for Feedforward, and not for specifically a discussion for the Moderators and admins themselves to take up. One thing we could look at however is executive power (so to speak) in a high stress high traffic period of overflow. A good past example might have been the Henry goal against Ireland when AH and several other forums saw a dramatic surge in muppetry.

Those things can't be reacted to (properly), they have to be planned for.

Which suggests two things to me - pre-approved temp mods who can be called in by the Mod team for the forum, and that the regular users shouldn't simply throw up their hands and expect the mods to "sort it out".

We're volunteers, we're usually regular contributors, and we do rely on the support of the other regular contributors - we're not paid employees. If people object to posts, report them, because it slows everything down if we have to trawl through every thread for posts regular users might be finding objectionable but haven't reported because they're sick of all the objectionable posts. If people want the moderation team to be able to handle crises, suddenly depriving them of their support base the moment a crisis hits is the last thing regular posters should do.

cordially,
Scofflaw

nesf

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I wasn't trying to caricature it, I was trying to simply state the two poles of disagreement.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

My point is, he has given his feedback, we have given an answer and are trying to fix things. Continued posting and giving out about things is only going to get under our skin because we are doing everything we can to bring on new mods right now. If we had said there isn't a problem, I'd completely agree with continued complaining, thing is we've agreed there is a problem and are trying to change things.

donegalfella wrote: »

I don't see the reason for this dismissive attitude. As a Soc Cat Mod, you should be listening to the concerns of long-time regular posters (and former mods), rather than telling them to go off and complain to the founder admins if they want to see anything changed.

There is an unfortunate air of arrogance emerging on this thread, as if the Politics forum were the fiefdom of a small group of people, who will run it as they see fit, without taking on board the concerns of the wider community.

We have listened. Otherwise we wouldn't be trying to add three new mods to the forum! The mods do run it as they see fit cogniscent of the wishes of the wider community. There is disagreement on this thread about the way to do things, it's not just a simple every Politics poster is saying to do X.

We disagree with the idea of a bunch of temp mods being added to take an iron fist approach to the forum. We prefer the idea of bring permanent mods in first and seeing the effect of that before more drastic measures are taken. Yes, this is pretty much us running it as we see fit, but that's kind of how things work.

Overheal

Of course not, if I'm reading I'm reporting. The doubtful thing is reading when the S:N is so damn high and with regards especially to Politics Main there's only so many threads I can actually follow. Sniping is the easiest to spot though, I can keep an eye out.

I don't doubt that there needs to be a group of available temp "crisis" mods but a question which should be topicised in Feedforward is how do we set that up, who are they and what are their remits? Do we simply say any mod in a forum when **** hits the fan has the power to infract while a select few have the power to ban? And then those with the power to ban how do you from a technical and logistical standpoint differentiate those moderators to the user, if say I was made a temp mod of Politics I'd need to be given those privileges, they'd show up under my name and even under normal circumstances people would expect that I would be the one to contact when there was a problem with the forum...or in a crisis how quickly could a temp-mod's privileges be activated even with the pre-approval already done when that authority might hinge upon the online status of 2 or 3 admins? you can see that is another topic in itself and I could think of at least half a dozen separate approaches.

Wibbs

Overheal wrote: »

I agree in part. I'm not sure that the Mod approval process is going to be a topic for Feedforward, and not for specifically a discussion for the Moderators and admins themselves to take up.

Why not? It's an unduly slow and unwieldy process as evidenced here. Quite a number of other mods including newbie mods were approved for smaller forums in the interim, while Politics which is one of the highest traffic forums and therefore one of the most important to this site was left hanging. As were it's mods. Now the reasoning that every care must be taken because of the responsibility of the position is understandable when it comes to new people, but if existing mods are in the mix for a post, I really can't see how that's nearly the same issue. So far in this case two out of the three that have been finally approved are existing mods that one presumes the forum mods and cmods approved of. Surely at that point it's "OK lets run with those and we'll get back to you on the new person".

One thing we could look at however is executive power (so to speak) in a high stress high traffic period of overflow. A good past example might have been the Henry goal against Ireland when AH and several other forums saw a dramatic surge in muppetry.

Well the executive power would rightly lie with Dav and Darragh in the Boards office, I would have thought?

Those things can't be reacted to (properly), they have to be planned for.

agreed. Hence my suggestion for FF.

As for temp mods, maybe an easier way out of that would be "Mods for hire". A few people who are already mods willing to help out and voted by their peers to be the go to guys and gals should the need for temporary shoring up occur. Saves the issue of temp mods then having to leave when the crisis passes, which seems to be the (understandable) sticking point about temp mods.

Overheal

Wibbs wrote: »

Well the executive power would rightly lie with Dav and Darragh in the Boards office, I would have thought?

I meant in that A forum mod doesn't have the permission to infract users in other forums. This despite the fact that technically every moderator has the vBulletin permissions and capacity to infract a post in any thread in any forum.

Wibbs

Gotcha. Then the mods for hire idea still has legs in that case. As they would be preapproved to be added to any forum under pressure. All it would take is an admin, any admin to flick the switch without a round robin back and forth discussion about suitability or waiting for absent admins(in the very real cases of real life impinging) to add their yay or nay.

FlutterinBantam

Is this a run of the mill politics forum we are discussing or a forensic examination of how to debate complex issues on the head of a pin.

You have lost the run of yourselves lads, the ordinary punter will run a mile from a forum like this and leave it ripe for single issue pedants to condense pedantic circular arguments to total boredom.

What you will have is the pack dogs who will unload on anything against their agenda, and bully and harass the genuine poster to the point of ridiculous detail.

Take another look folks and realise that the forum is for normal political discourse and will wither and die if succumbed by the parameters which i see proposed.

Time for a bit of cop on lads.

Overheal

Personally I think we're not talking about normal times in Politics and any strict measures will need to be reviewed inside of a few months time when its settled down.

Which reminds me that Politics and indeed After Hours need to look at some kind of fallback system, almost immediately, if today's news is hinting at what I think it's hinting at.

Nodin

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I wouldn't be bothered with a "snide insinuation" as I rarely take the time to be that subtle. Its clear from the context of my previous remarks exactly what I'm getting at.

New moderators are coming online, slowly but surely. Continued kibitzing by certain parties is unnessecary and unhelpful. Its not the sack of Rome thats going on here.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Lockstep

Hey folks, I've just been modded.

If you have any suggestions or comments, please, please, feel free to PM me.

Hopefully, I can get ahold of the learning curve quickly.

Nodin

kickoutthejams wrote: »

If you have any suggestions or comments, please, please, feel free to PM me.

.

Get a stress ball, and remember that yes, they will all hate you, no matter what you do.

FlutterinBantam

Just don't let vested interests, and single issue groups take over the forum

dr.bollocko

Good choice. Welcome along Mr. TheJams.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Wibbs

Go on ye boyo. You poor poor bastid

Wolfe Tone

Best of luck!