Mods need to step up in Politics Forum

nesf

Des wrote: »

What about a "High Brow Political Discussion" Sub Forum?

Is there enough interest to make it worthwhile though? Or will we end up with a dead forum with the same 10-15 users arguing around in circles from well entrenched positions?

_blank_

nesf wrote: »

Is there enough interest to make it worthwhile though? Or will we end up with a dead forum with the same 10-15 users arguing around in circles from well entrenched positions?

At the risk of sounding glib, why not "suck it and see" - it doesn't cost anything to make a new forum, if it works, yipee, if it doesn't, remove it again.

nesf

Des wrote: »

At the risk of sounding glib, why not "suck it and see" - it doesn't cost anything to make a new forum, if it works, yipee, if it doesn't, remove it again.

No action comes without cost, if we create a special forum, everyone who doesn't get access is going to resent it and that'll create problems for us on the rest of the forums and the moderating of them. Some animals are more equal than others etc.

Permabear

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nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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How? We all agree that we'd like standards to be higher. But I've yet to see a good way of doing it that makes sense.


And we didn't argue a trickle down theory, we argued that standards would naturally lower as politics became a subject that the general public were interested in.

Permabear

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nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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That would create a nightmare though, with a very, very long list of accusations of bias, bans being challenged and so on. We're talking about banning well over 100 posters here at an absolute minimum. Also such an approach could inadvertently ban potentially good posters once they got bedded in.


I think Politics has had its Eternal September and I'm at a loss of a clean way of sorting it out.

Permabear

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nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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It wouldn't just be the mods, it'd be the CMods and Admins who'd also have to bear the weight. I appreciate you're offering a solution, I'm just poking holes in it because I see issues.

It also runs against the boards.ie unofficial philosophy of the posters make the forum, not the mods.

Sunnyisland

Everyone should be able to post in the politic forum if they want and it should be up to the mods there to impose bans or infractions on posters who don't come up to politics standards what ever they are ?

It seems some people would like a bit of elitism there ? There is enough of that around thanks.

Soldie

I agree that the mods should be a lot more strict. There are too many trolls and low-quality posters. I've reported a blatant troll twice in the last week or two and nothing has been done about it. I barely contribute to the forum any more because of the abundance of drivel.

We've tried swapping the mods around and accommodating certain posters with the Café forum, but it's clearly not working. Let's get serious about stamping out the nonsense before the last remaining good posters give up.

Also, the organisation of the forum/sub-forum needs to be cleaned up.

It was good catching up, guys. See you all here again in around 3 months.

nesf

realies wrote: »

Everyone should be able to post in the politic forum if they want and it should be up to the mods there to impose bans or infractions on posters who don't come up to politics standards what ever they are ?

It seems some people would like a bit of elitism there ? There is enough of that around thanks.

Soldie wrote: »

I agree that the mods should be a lot more strict. There are too many trolls and low-quality posters. I've reported a blatant troll twice in the last week or two and nothing has been done about it. I barely contribute to the forum any more because of the abundance of drivel.

We've tried swapping the mods around and accommodating certain posters with the Café forum, but it's clearly not working. Let's get serious about stamping out the nonsense before the last remaining good posters give up.

Also, the organisation of the forum/sub-forum needs to be cleaned up.

It was good catching up, guys. See you all here again in around 3 months.

The above sums up the issue for the mods here.

Sunnyisland

What is low quality posts ?

We no what trolling is and that should be easy enough to stop.

Permabear

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nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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It's a problem, I'm not saying it's a particularly nice problem but we have to consider workload on people because we're volunteers here.

Permabear wrote: »

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There's a line, I'm just not sure where it should be drawn to be honest.

Anyway, the Budget has started, will be back later.

Soldie

nesf wrote: »

The above sums up the issue for the mods here.

Well, not really. I'm against a private/subscription forum. I just think that the moderators should be a lot more strict.

nesf

Soldie wrote: »

Well, not really. I'm against a private/subscription forum. I just think that the moderators should be a lot more strict.

Sure and we have other posters saying they don't want that. This isn't as simple as having only posters coming to us begging for a stricter forum.

Permabear

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Lockstep

Dr Galen wrote: »

As one of the newer Mods on the forum, I'd like to give a few insights, things that I've learned about the place since taking on that role. Some of these things were really surprising tbh, some not so much.

1) There is nothing like the amount of reported posts that I thought there would be. I was figuring that the email reports would be flying in tbh. Thats just not the case. You do get a lot of the same people reporting things in fairness (thanks for that ) but in the main, relative to the number of posts per day, there aren't that many.

2) There are on generally 3 types of post that get reported

a) outright abuse and trolling
b) h/she was mean to me, do something
c) posts that fall into a grey area of either being a bit aggressive/OTT/controversial

3) It is fine and well to talk about standards, but when you are faced with a post on the forum, and you may later have to stand over an action in the DRP forum, you really do have to stop and think. Also, if you want a Mod to impose an editorial policy on the forum, then find a new one, because I won't ever be doing that.

One of the greatest things about that forum is the mix of people posting there. We have people from all walks of life, posting from all over the world. People have to allow a bit of give and take.

4) In most debates that turn into arguments, one side is often as bad as the other

5) There are groups of posters, from various political persuasions, that not only dig trenches, in preparation for war, but actually permanently reside in said trenches. That is one of the most difficult things to moderate.

6) A little bit of thought before posting would go a long way in many posters cases.

7) I really really really detest petty name calling, e.g. baby-killer, hippy, student leftie, scum(bag) etc, etc, etc, etc

8) We could rewrite the charter tomorrow, replace the whole thing with one line. The Golden Rule of boards.ie - Don't Be A Dick.

9) There are some brilliant minds posting on that forum. People that I totally disagree with, people that I totally agree with, people that are somewhere inbetween. They have passion, insight, smarts and even when i disagree, i love reading their posts.

10) It's great fun tbh, and I'm really glad to have been asked to help out

This.

It's a hard place to moderate as often it's unclear if a person is trolling or genuinely being a dick.

Bill and Ted's motto is probably best for the forum: Be Excellent to One Another.

nesf

Permabear wrote: »

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More that it's a very big ask for a volunteer team to implement what you're talking about.

Permabear wrote: »

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Sure, I wouldn't argue that but the charter was written in nicer times really. We have an austerity budget going through along with people slowly realising that FG/Lab can't actually magic up no cuts to services and no tax hikes while closing the deficit.

Realistically, right now, we have a very poor signal to noise ratio. This is solely due to a huge volume of posts from people not ordinarily interested in politics getting involved. Your solution means that we ban these people. All of them, and keep banning as more and more join the forum and people rereg to avoid bans and so on. As well as deal with a very hard and harsh backlash against the mods because it'll be the mods setting the bar and literally banning people for their opinions and the way they express them. You're asking an awful lot from the mods and no, adding more mods doesn't solve things as it would be difficult enough getting 5 people to agree to implement a certain standard never mind more than that.

K-9

nesf wrote: »

Sure, I wouldn't argue that but the charter was written in nicer times really. We have an austerity budget going through along with people slowly realising that FG/Lab can't actually magic up no cuts to services and no tax hikes while closing the deficit.

Realistically, right now, we have a very poor signal to noise ratio. This is solely due to a huge volume of posts from people not ordinarily interested in politics getting involved. Your solution means that we ban these people. All of them, and keep banning as more and more join the forum and people rereg to avoid bans and so on.

I have sympathy for that but I don't think he's saying that. New posters are welcome, just not AH type replies, because AH is for that.

As well as deal with a very hard and harsh backlash against the mods because it'll be the mods setting the bar and literally banning people for their opinions and the way they express them.

But that's a pretty standard response now and previously, without a backlash.


I don't really see the answer to this tbh, unless there's a clear line drawn between AH and politics. I suppose the site is getting extra traffic and users and politics is suffering. The "elite" tag that used to be thrown around is no longer valid, not that it ever was, but the distinction between AH and politics is very blurred.

AH political threads used to be for rants and a certain amount of raving, politics for rebuttals and reasoned debate.

It seems the answer from the mods is nothing can be done about it.

nesf

K-9 wrote: »

It seems the answer from the mods is nothing can be done about it.

No, more that a solution isn't obvious.

We have had our Eternal September (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September) and need to figure out how the hell to deal with this.

To achieve what Permabear is proposing we'd basically have to make the Politics forums like the Soccer forum and lock down access for the sake of mod sanity. You could try to do it with an open forum but the influx of newbies on Budget day or an election or whatever would defeat any work done prior to it. Is that what people really want to see?

K-9

nesf wrote: »

No, more that a solution isn't obvious.

We have had our Eternal September (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September) and need to figure out how the hell to deal with this.

To achieve what Permabear is proposing we'd basically have to make the Politics forums like the Soccer forum and lock down access for the sake of mod sanity. You could try to do it with an open forum but the influx of newbies on Budget day or an election or whatever would defeat any work done prior to it. Is that what people really want to see?

Well not that I'd particularly want to see that, but yes, it would work in a way.

Say the Henry handball happened, the clamour posting on AH or wondering how they couldn't post in Soccer would be nubbed in the bud, just to post immediate, reactionary posts.

Posters just posting to react to a Budget or GE would need access and to think about posts.

They can't post, well you've AH for that, actually more freedom of expression than soccer, you can't post about soccer in AH, you can about politics. You can post away about politics in AH, as long as it's within the AH charter.

The soccer and politics analogy doesn't hold up. Soccer is actually harder to gain access to and for good reason! Politics can be discussed on AH, Soccer can't.

Maybe time to start thinking how to get around the problem, not how it's such a problem and can't work?

For those having a problem with it, AH is there.

nesf

K-9 wrote: »

Well not that I'd particularly want to see that, but yes, it would work in a way.

Say the Henry handball happened, the clamour posting on AH or wondering how they couldn't post in Soccer would be nubbed in the bud, just to post immediate, reactionary posts.

Posters just posting to react to a Budget or GE would need access and to think about posts.

They can't post, well you've AH for that, actually more freedom of expression than soccer, you can't post about soccer in AH, you can about politics. You can post away about politics in AH, as long as it's within the AH charter.

The soccer and politics analogy doesn't hold up. Soccer is actually harder to gain access to and for good reason! Politics can be discussed on AH, Soccer can't.

Maybe time to start thinking how to get around the problem, not how it's such a problem and can't work?

For those having a problem with it, AH is there.

It dumps a lot of crap on the AH mods though (speaking as an ex-AH mod from many years ago who used to have to deal with the overflow at elections and budgets ).

I see the merits of a closed forum, I do. I even find the idea appealing in a way. I just don't know if it's what the users of the forum want or need or whether it's a good idea for the site to close off the forum in this way. Honestly a decision like this is way above my pay grade.

Oranage2

Maybe the politics forum could be closed off to people posting similar to soccer and only let certain boardsies post.

A way to gain access is by having a sub forum where people could make threads stating their political views. If boardsies like the persons view then they thank him/her and after gaining enough 'thanks' that person is promoted to post in the main forum.

Also the persons thread could be a place where boardsies could ask the promoted person to debate their view and issues.

If the promoted person isnt doing a good job then you could remove your 'thanks' and if enough people remove their thanks then the promoted person would be demoted no longer having access.

nesf

Oranage2 wrote: »

Maybe the politics forum could be closed off to people posting similar to soccer and only let certain boardsies post.

A way to gain access is by having a sub forum where people could make threads stating their political views. If boardsies like the persons view then they thank him/her and after gaining enough 'thanks' that person is promoted to post in the main forum.

Also the persons thread could be a place where boardsies could ask the promoted person to debate their view and issues.

If the promoted person isnt doing a good job then you could remove your 'thanks' and if enough people remove their thanks then the promoted person would be demoted no longer having access.

We'd get no FF supporters then...

Dades

The idea of a restricted Politics forum is the least bad idea mooted. And I find it an uncomfortable idea. Is the aim of the Politics forum to be the equal of politics.ie, or to be the forum that users of Boards.ie go to to discuss politics?

This mythical "standard" is totally objective. Even the people in here in agreement that the bar needs to be raised would probably disagree on where it is shown 100 random posts from the forum.

If there is to be a restricted forum, then at least leave the majority of sub-forums to the unwashed. Perhaps they won't feel too aggrieved to be outside the walls, and I guess they have to the opportunity to show their worth there before being 'sublimed', never to post in the old forums again.

To reiterate what nesf has said, simply getting medieval on the current crop of poster in Politics would result in an endless stream of outraged PMs and DR threads. And what's more these would usually involve trying to prove trolling, or soapboxing which if done subtly is very difficult to distinguish from a poster that simply doesn't know a lot about politics, which in itself is not an offence.

Lockstep

Oranage2 wrote: »

Maybe the politics forum could be closed off to people posting similar to soccer and only let certain boardsies post.

A way to gain access is by having a sub forum where people could make threads stating their political views. If boardsies like the persons view then they thank him/her and after gaining enough 'thanks' that person is promoted to post in the main forum.

Also the persons thread could be a place where boardsies could ask the promoted person to debate their view and issues.

If the promoted person isnt doing a good job then you could remove your 'thanks' and if enough people remove their thanks then the promoted person would be demoted no longer having access.

Way too elitist IMHO and basically becomes "You need to have acceptable political views to post here"
I'd probably be removed if it came down a "vote for your mod based on their political views" system.

later12

I have to disagree slightly with Permabear here,the problem isn't too few moderators, and given how active some mods are on political threads, it probably isn't a time and commitments issue either.

How would some people go about applying for a private political forum away from the politics forum?

My understanding is that there are quite a few of them on boards.

nesf

later10 wrote: »

I have to disagree slightly with Permabear here,the problem isn't too few moderators, and given how active some mods are on political threads, it probably isn't a time and commitments issue either.

How would some people go about applying for a private political forum away from the politics forum?

My understanding is that there are quite a few of them on boards.

Forum Requests. Tag it as Private, should be accepted I'd guess.