Should moderators be Validated

Corsendonk

davoxx wrote: »

if we can suggest methods, perhaps a logic test and a personality test might be good for determining mods?

Why not add in a Garda background check and unannounced drug testing.:) The fact is apart from checking your posts and the details you supplied when signing up to the site the the only real validation process is the age old Irish one of turning up for drinks or knowing some of the mod/admins through the grapevine and they vouching for you. It works most of the time and its a cheap system to run.

When the Feed Forward system starts to work then you can start to think about having a proper validation programme in place for mods. As yet we can't get buy in from the Boards HQ for Feed Forward due to a variety of unknown reasons so any official Mods validation programme is pie in the sky for the foreseeable future.

LoLth

I'd be of the opinion that anyone, no matter how squeaky clean, intelligent, logical etc , can become a dick as soon as anonymity gets injected into the situation.

The mods are selected based on their input and interaction while on boards.ie. I dont know the majority of their real names, I dont know where they are from or their religious or sexual preference, I dont know a lot of their genders. To me, none of that matters. the only metric that counts is how they interact with other users and the boards.ie community during their time as a user.

Additional modding duties, cmodship etc would then be based on their performance as a mod and not whether I had a laugh when I met them for a beer one night.

@mods: dont go getting ideas, i still hate you all, I just find you slightly less hateful than others

Gordon

davoxx wrote: »

if we can suggest methods, perhaps a logic test and a personality test might be good for determining mods?

If you create them, they will be looked at, I can assure you of that. If you don't create them, it won't happen. So, it's all in your hands now. Really looking forward to see what you create

davoxx

Corsendonk wrote: »

<does not matter, poster left boards>.

huh? why post and then close your account?

when the going gets tough, make a smart comment and leg it?

davoxx

LoLth wrote: »

I'd be of the opinion that anyone, no matter how squeaky clean, intelligent, logical etc , can become a dick as soon as anonymity gets injected into the situation.

no i think they've always had anonymity, but once they get a little power, then they become full blown dicks ...

nesf

Beruthiel wrote: »

I would like to confirm that.

I very rarely read the Politics forum. When us Admins are choosing a new Mod for that forum, the persons politics are never discussed and would not be known by most of us.
We would also not know if you are male or female, what colour you are, your religion or lack there of, your sexual preference or your age.
We don't care.

The requirements for choosing a mod have to do with having a level head, half a brain and cop on.
That's it.

May I just note that when discussing potential Politics mods, someone's politics is discussed. Mainly because we like to have a balance of left and right wing mods so as to not let there be a perception of bias in the moderating. We've never excluded someone because of their politics but we have been keen to (in the past) recruit another left wing mod because of a lack of left wing mods in the forum, for example. Lockstep for instance was very welcome because we wanted a Labour man on the team to represent the left alongside Scofflaw's support of the Greens. I'm an ex-PD and represent the centre right and so on. Having a balance of views when it comes to forming the rules is crucial to ensuring that no one side is oppressed.

The most important thing in a Politics mod is the ability to agree to disagree with others of opposing opinions and not be belligerent in bashing the other side all the time. That's the main thing we look for in a mod.

nesf

Can I bluntly state that the day this site ever requires me to suppress my personal views because of being a mod is the day I stop being one. I'm a right winger but not hard right, I'm a parent, I support the Irish language, I'm a geek and a gamer. If i'm not allowed reflect these things in my posting I'm no longer interested in posting here.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

nesf

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

There was at the time iirc.

DeVore

nesf wrote: »

Can I bluntly state that the day this site ever requires me to suppress my personal views because of being a mod is the day I stop being one. I'm a right winger but not hard right, I'm a parent, I support the Irish language, I'm a geek and a gamer. If i'm not allowed reflect these things in my posting I'm no longer interested in posting here.

Here here.


I'll give an example that springs to mind. Permabear and I have a strong disagreement on the OWS movement. That is because he is wrong. But Permy is also a mod. I'll argue all day with Permy about his opinions but I expect him to moderate taking care that his own opinions get in the way as little as possible. At the same time, I would never expect him to toe some sort of "party line" ... how the hell would that work?

OP. I strongly disagree that it is "our job" to verify people's attributes. If you meet mates in the pub and someone brings along a person you dont know and they tell you they are a doctor, do you expect the barman to come over and demand his medical license?



DeV.

DeVore

Ruthie, how many times has someone on the admin team gone "XYZ mod is *female* .... really??". You can replace female with your choice of source of prejudice.

Its one of the cool things I like about the site, we have the almost perfect blind-selection system which genuinely seems to throw up good candidates regardless of personal circumstance. I think we had an 14 year old mod once and he was more level headed then most adults I've met in my life.

We've had female admins for a long long time, gay admins, c-mods, almost certainly different races, religions, creeds etc (I dunno, never asked, we just dont care really )
Regi is british ffs And then of course, there was Gordon.... and Ruu...... both of whom defy classification.

I wonder in fact how many of the mods are non-irish come to think of it...

DeV.

nesf

DeVore wrote: »

Ruthie, how many times has someone on the admin team gone "XYZ mod is *female* .... really??". You can replace female with your choice of source of prejudice.

Its one of the cool things I like about the site, we have the almost perfect blind-selection system which genuinely seems to throw up good candidates regardless of personal circumstance. I think we had an 14 year old mod once and he was more level headed then most adults I've met in my life.

We've had female admins for a long long time, gay admins, c-mods, almost certainly different races, religions, creeds etc (I dunno, never asked, we just dont care really )
Regi is british ffs And then of course, there was Gordon.... and Ruu...... both of whom defy classification.

I wonder in fact how many of the mods are non-irish come to think of it...

DeV.

I mean, you even have a mod who admits to have been a PD!

K-9

nesf wrote: »

I mean, you even have a mod who admits to have been a PD!

The novelty mod!

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

DeVore

Exactly.

DeV.
ps; you are still wrong.

LoLth

quite a large rewind on this thread as it veered quite sharply off topic. This thread is for feedback on "should mods be validated". It is not "mod X did Y or Poster A said B in forum C".

If there is no more to be added to the original topic then the thread should be left alone.

thanks

LoLth

MungBean

LoLth wrote: »

quite a large rewind on this thread as it veered quite sharply off topic. This thread is for feedback on "should mods be validated". It is not "mod X did Y or Poster A said B in forum C".

If there is no more to be added to the original topic then the thread should be left alone.

thanks

LoLth

A lot of what you deleted was very much relevant to the topic.

LoLth

what I read was your objection to permabears post followed by a description of that particular users posting style.

that has next to nothing to do with mods being validated but instead has more to do with mods behaviour outside of their own forum.

There may have been some relevant points but to be honest, it would have taken a lot of editing to carve out the relevant info while being equitable in removing the rest and even then there is a risk that mor eof one side would be left than the other. Easiest and in this case best, recourse is to reset to before the sidetrack happened.

Yourself and permabear are free to continue posting in this thread but please try to keep it on topic and avoid focussing on the specific instead of the general.

Problems with users posting style / mod decisions should be discussed with the mods of the forum or the cmods. Feedback is not the place for it.

DeVore

While we dont allow mods to disrupt other forums (they are, after all, still users), they are free to express themselves within the usual confines of our rules.


What that has to do with their moderating ability... I dont see.

This thread is about validating moderators or more accurately, the OP wanted to talk about the mods validating users. Thats so unworkable I'm not surprised the thread went off topic almost immediately.


DeV.

K-9

When appointing a mod, posting behaviour in all categories are taken account of? Yes?

Say you got banned for racist posts in AH chances are you aren't going to be a mod.

Whereas if a mod gets banned for repeated racist posts in AH or politics, it takes ages to get them demodded.

There's a certain double standard there.

DeVore

Can you point out a mod who has "repeated racist bans" from AH? Otherwise what you are claiming to be reality is delusion.

We have most certainly demodded people for their actions outside their forums. The truth is that its few and far between and we dont name and shame them.

The odd moderator "step down" is a polite way for them to leave before pushed. But its quite rare and I think thats just the facts rather than bias.

DeV.

K-9

DeVore wrote: »

Can you point out a mod who has "repeated racist bans" from AH? Otherwise what you are claiming to be reality is delusion.

We have most certainly demodded people for their actions outside their forums. The truth is that its few and far between and we dont name and shame them.

The odd moderator "step down" is a polite way for them to leave before pushed. But its quite rare and I think thats just the facts rather than bias.

DeV.

WalshB I think was the name.

I very much doubt I was delusional DeV and you shouldn't throw that line out.

DeVore

Sorry, I meant no pejorative but it *is* the opposite of reality. Given that you have struggled to remember one mod which fits, in reverse its pretty insulting to me to have my integrity accused of knowing bias. lets agree to let the language slide.


I'll look into WalshB as we actually look into just about all serious complaints, in quite some depth.... thats the reason for perhaps some of my/our frustration. it has pretty much always turned out to be a jackanory being told by a disgruntled user.

DeV.

K-9

DeVore wrote: »

Sorry, I meant no pejorative but it *is* the opposite of reality. Given that you have struggled to remember one mod which fits, in reverse its pretty insulting to me to have my integrity accused of knowing bias. lets agree to let the language slide.


I'll look into WalshB as we actually look into just about all serious complaints, in quite some depth.... thats the reason for perhaps some of my/our frustration. it has pretty much always turned out to be a jackanory being told by a disgruntled user.

DeV.

DeV, I didn't struggle to remember one mod, I didn't want to name him, that explains my reticence. I really didn't want to name him as I thought it was unfair. I suppose even DeV can jump to conclusions on Feedback!


I didn't think it was fair to name him. I'd have rathered PM'ing you but unfortunately I though I had to, given the perjorative nature of your post. Apologies to WalshB.

I accept your apology.

Hopefully you'll investigate and see why I wondered he lasted so long. I thought he got far too much leeway as a poster, never mind a mod.

Edit: Can we stop the mud slinging now. I don't think I've doubted your character in anyway. Please reciprocate.

DeVore

Cool, no worries.

DeV.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Dades

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Dav's post as to why at the end of that thread makes for interesting reading in current context.

davoxx

Dades wrote: »

Dav's post as to why at the end of that thread makes for interesting reading in current context.

Screw the rules, I have "poo to fling" ... or something ...

is it just me, or does anyone else find the Dav's post contradictory? .....

i'm so not going to be a mod after this :P

K-9

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Yeah. That wasn't the issue I was on about. We know he was demodded, 12 bans and 13 yellows later.

Zaph

paraguay99, I've deleted your post because it has nothing to do with the topic being discussed. Any more unnecessary digs at individuals will result in an infraction and/or ban.