How to Moderate

Trojan

Interesting read from http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006036.html#006036 as seen on /. :

Some things I know about moderating conversations in virtual space:

1. There can be no ongoing discourse without some degree of moderation, if only to kill off the hardcore trolls. It takes rather more moderation than that to create a complex, nuanced, civil discourse. If you want that to happen, you have to give of yourself. Providing the space but not tending the conversation is like expecting that your front yard will automatically turn itself into a garden.

2. Once you have a well-established online conversation space, with enough regulars to explain the local mores to newcomers, they’ll do a lot of the policing themselves.

3. You own the space. You host the conversation. You don’t own the community. Respect their needs. For instance, if you’re going away for a while, don’t shut down your comment area. Give them an open thread to play with, so they’ll still be there when you get back.

4. Message persistence rewards people who write good comments.

5. Over-specific rules are an invitation to people who get off on gaming the system.

6. Civil speech and impassioned speech are not opposed and mutually exclusive sets. Being interesting trumps any amount of conventional politeness.

7. Things to cherish: Your regulars. A sense of community. Real expertise. Genuine engagement with the subject under discussion. Outstanding performances. Helping others. Cooperation in maintenance of a good conversation. Taking the time to teach newbies the ropes.

All these things should be rewarded with your attention and praise. And if you get a particularly good comment, consider adding it to the original post.

8. Grant more lenience to participants who are only part-time jerks, as long as they’re valuable the rest of the time.

9. If you judge that a post is offensive, upsetting, or just plain unpleasant, it’s important to get rid of it, or at least make it hard to read. Do it as quickly as possible. There’s no more useless advice than to tell people to just ignore such things. We can’t. We automatically read what falls under our eyes.

10. Another important rule: You can let one jeering, unpleasant jerk hang around for a while, but the minute you get two or more of them egging each other on, they both have to go, and all their recent messages with them. There are others like them prowling the net, looking for just that kind of situation. More of them will turn up, and they’ll encourage each other to behave more and more outrageously. Kill them quickly and have no regrets.

11. You can’t automate intelligence. In theory, systems like Slashdot’s ought to work better than they do. Maintaining a conversation is a task for human beings.

12. Disemvowelling works. Consider it.

13. If someone you’ve disemvowelled comes back and behaves, forgive and forget their earlier gaffes. You’re acting in the service of civility, not abstract justice.

Boston

Can I be unbanned Trojan from events, I Promise to be good, and Amp doesn't mind.

Trojan

Amp who?

C'est fait.

Trojan

Ok, perhaps ce n'est pas fait:

"The requested URL /vbulletin/modutils.php was not found on this server."

Boston

How odd

Boston

ecksor says its working now.

Boston

Hey trojan, Regi told me to ask you to unban me again, thanks;

DeVore

An excellent set of guidelines. Its been a long time since I read something that insightfull on the internet (excepting everything on Boards, of course )


DeV.

WhiteWashMan

oh, still alive are you?

Boston

Hey WWm coudl you unban me from events, pretty please;

WhiteWashMan

Boston wrote:

Hey WWm coudl you unban me from events, pretty please;

done

Boston

You're a star, thanks.

DonkeyStyle \o/

14. Allow your users to have custom avatars without having to subscribe.

Evil Phil

15. Just because you moderate a forum doesn't mean you cannot partake in a discussion. Disagreeing with somebody is not oppression.

Beruthiel

12. Disembowelling works. Consider it

by far my fav
though they don't explain how to do that over the net!

po0k

I'm sure Hobbes can cook up some sort of Firefox extension to do your dirty work.

asoktools.xpi

Gilgamesh

Beruthiel wrote:

12. Disembowelling works. Consider it

by far my fav
though they don't explain how to do that over the net!

there must be some script for the CD ROM drive of the viewer to open, them get him to place certain bodyparts in it and then force close it again by script,

Beruthiel

Gilgamesh wrote:

there must be some script for the CD ROM drive of the viewer to open, them get him to place certain bodyparts in it and then force close it again by script,

invent it!
I'm sure you would make a fortune!!

Evil Phil

Damn right, the interactive pr0n possibilities make the mind boggle.

Gilgamesh

Evil Phil wrote:

Damn right, the interactive pr0n possibilities make the mind boggle.

wouldn't a force feedback joystick be 'filling' that gap allready hehe

po0k

take the ball out of your iFeel trackball....*unf*