Smods & Cmods... Too much work?

Baz_

This is not really feedback, and more of a suggestion (as an aside, maybe we should either rename this forum to Feedback/Suggestions, or just add a Suggestions forum. I'm always a bit hesitant to make suggestions in the Feedback forum.).

Considering how much extra work it takes for the Smods and Cmods to do their job and the fact that the amount of time they have to do the extra work doesn't increase accordingly, perhaps it's time that the individual forums that they are also supposed to be moderate (in this same limited time) be reassigned to other users of boards.

This would have the advantage that new moderators could be introduced in some forums (with some forums adding to the workload of non cmods and smods:)), and also that these new moderators would have experienced Cmods and Smods to back them up on decisions that they are unsure about making, increasing the overall experience of the moderators on the site.

This is just a minor suggestion, and it may not even be seen as a problem by the smods, cmods or admins. I have no complaints either, and have not noticed any bad moderating about the place, but I thought that perhaps this might be a useful idea and would in any case make an interesting discussion.

Shabadu

Is this some sort of long winded way of saying amp test?

Asok

If you try to take my forums I'll cut you ....cut you deeeep

Baz_

shabadu: no - I wouldn't have the time

asok: don't you pretty much have all the forums as it stands now anyway?

Baz_

RopeDrink wrote:

As for SMods and CMods, well, I personally feel that the above mentioned suggestion should be left to them.

Agreed, but...

RopeDrink wrote:

If they felt it was too much work, they'd mention it themselves,

...this thread was to generate discussion, give an idea (I personally feel that having more mods would make boards a better place), and also I was thinking in the way of "what if they just haven't thought of it yet?".

Talliesin

SModding and CModding is considerably more work at the moment than usual due to search being turned off during the week. This is temporary and does not need long-term measures.

Moderator workload is continually looked at by the moderators themselves and by the admins. The degree to which people are already burdened is a factor that affects these decisions, though it tends not to be as big a factor as what else the mods in question have going on in their lives.

Moderators communicate amongst themselves as to when they are going to be particularly busy due to work/family/other commitments, internet issues, holidays and so on.

Really, the whole issue of how well people are able to deal with their workloads is one of the most common things discussed in the moderator forum.

Fobia

Well, I can't speak as an SMod or a CMod obviously, but I'll offer my thoughts anyway.

Firstly I think Ropedrink is right in that, if an SMod or a CMod feels he/she has too much of a workload, they'll ask for more mods on the Moderator board.

As to the general idea, I think it's unnecessary. The small "pet" forums that SMods/CMods don't generally require much modding. So SMods/Cmods can concentrate on their "more important duties" without leaving their forums in the dark. The only forums that need alot of moderating are the popular ones, and the current problem with those is not a lack of moderators (well, I guess that's debatable, this is just my opinion), but rather a lack of set-in-stone guidlines to moderating that particular forum. This issue arised on After Hours and seems to have been combated.

Basically, SMods and CMods may have too much work, or they may not, but I don't think the solution is taking their pet forums and giving them to new moderators, rather, it's adding more SMods/CMods (that is, as I say, if they feel they have too much of a workload).

My 2 cents.

amp

test

Gordon

amp test

It's possible that the problem exists but I haven't seen any obvious examples of it, any at all actually. Although I don't mod PI as much as I did previously we added two extra mods for the forum in addition to Bru and I for such an occurance.

Talliesin

Baz_ wrote:

asok: don't you pretty much have all the forums as it stands now anyway?

This is probably worth mentioning:

The degree to which I would intervene in the category for which I am CMod is less than that for the forums I am mod. The degree to which I would intervene as SMod is less again. With my SMod hat on I will only deal with something if:

1. A sitewide rule rather than a forum rule has been broken (Spam and advertising in particular).
2. A user is being consistently abusive across multiple forums and categories.
3. A dispute on one forum is being taken into another forum where it is off-topic (e.g. we once had an argument in the martial arts forum spill over into parenting - really, wtf?)
4. A moderator has asked for people to keep an extra eye over the forums they mod for a while.
5. There is no moderator available to take action, and I've reason to believe their won't be for a while.
6. It's a comedy-focused forum and it strikes me as funny to ban someone for a few hours (A couple of the comedy-focused private forums I'm in, the moderators forum, but not the Cuckoo's Nest following the Amp / Talliesin Cuckoo's Nest Armistice).

As such being SMod is not quite the same as being mod for 500+ forums, which your comment above seems to suggest you may think, as the amount of work per forum is less than that a mod has in their own forum.

People will generally become CMod or SMod only if they are experienced moderators already, as such they will tend to have a degree of fondness for their own forums and that's part of what motivates them to work to help boards. It also at the same time motivates them to ask for help with the moderation if needed. You don't have to have an interest in a particular forum's topic to moderate it, but it helps. Even in the cases where a moderator says they are going to be offline for a while an SMod with a particular interest in that forum will probably keep a closer eye on it than the other SMods (though I did manage to use my lack of interest in Fashion / Appearance to my advantage during my "reign of terror" there ). As such replacing them in that role takes away one of the reasons they are working in a CMod and/or SMod role in the first place.

I'm annoyed enough that my Paganism moderatorship doesn't show up in my list since I became Religion / Spirituality CMod (it was my favourite ).

WhiteWashMan

Talliesin wrote:

1. A sitewide rule rather than a forum rule has been broken (Spam and advertising in particular).
2. A user is being consistently abusive across multiple forums and categories.
3. A dispute on one forum is being taken into another forum where it is off-topic (e.g. we once had an argument in the martial arts forum spill over into parenting - really, wtf?)
4. A moderator has asked for people to keep an extra eye over the forums they mod for a while.
5. There is no moderator available to take action, and I've reason to believe their won't be for a while.
6. It's a comedy-focused forum and it strikes me as funny to ban someone for a few hours (A couple of the comedy-focused private forums I'm in, the moderators forum, but not the Cuckoo's Nest following the Amp / Talliesin Cuckoo's Nest Armistice).

actually, i have noticed you closed a number of threads because you deem a thread unworthy of the publics attention.
i have also seen you ban users that you just dont like.
and every now and then you threaten to ban people 'just because you can'. i think amp recently was a case in point.

but thats just what ive seen.

oh, as for the original suggestion, i dropped all of the forums i mod recently as i just dont have the time. instead i cat mod 2 catagories, but that doesnt take a lot of time.
modding takes up far more time because you have to patrol and read everything. you are a front line person. cat mods merely respond to moderators, or deal with any of the usual things that pop up in a catagory (spam, personal abuse etc).
as far as im concerned, smods should do less again. its not a position of 'power', its a bloody admin position. why smods feel the need to wander about banning people, when a mod can do it, i have no idea.
and why they feel the need to lock threads, when really, it should be up to a mod to do so, is beyond me.


in fact, here is one post that i read recently from you, which is possibly the most obnoxious and heavy handed moderating i have seen in a long time. if this was a mod, id ask for them to be disposed of quite frankly.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=305335

i mean seriously, what sort of behaviour is that? although, at post #15, it would appear that im not the only one who thinks you abuse your 'powers'. personally, id have you removed.

WhiteWashMan

by the way, im pretty pissed off with the recent 'gordan's ban the idiot' thread being moved to the smod forum, when it was a public debate in a public forum.

its not an smods position to move something like that into a private forum. at least learn to use the copy function.

amp

While I found Gordons Ban the idiot post funny, I do think the powers gone to Talliesin's head. Watch how I get banned from the Religion Section:

Pagenism is a stupid, useless out of date religion!

Gordon

I think Regi moved that thread.

Boston

I kinda agree with wwm here. I don't think it's just john, and I do think it's a result of Smods having to take up allot of the slack now that the admins seems to be largely preoccupied. That said I have only seen Smods acting like mods on the feedback forum, no other to my knowledge.

amp wrote:

While I found Gordons Ban the idiot post funny, I do think the powers gone to Talliesin's head. Watch how I get banned from the Religion Section:

Pagenism is a stupid, useless out of date religion!

You're one to talk about it coming to peoples heres. You had the exact same ****e on your own forums. Post here, get banned, you used to be into your pre emptive banning if i recall.

Talliesin

WhiteWashMan wrote:

actually, i have noticed you closed a number of threads because you deem a thread unworthy of the publics attention.

I don't recall that. The closest to that I can think of is closing threads on feedback on something that's already been discussed to death.

WhiteWashMan wrote:

i have also seen you ban users that you just dont like.

I have never done that. I have however developed a dislike of people I have banned for the reason I've banned them.

WhiteWashMan wrote:

and every now and then you threaten to ban people 'just because you can'. i think amp recently was a case in point.

That was in the Cuckoo's Nest. I've also suggested making porno films with nurses and candystripers uniforms in a hospital staffed by monkeys. I have no real intent to do either. Nor do I really have an order in for human clones made from skin tissues taken from Sarky. It was a Cuckoo's Nest post and should be read as such.

WhiteWashMan wrote:

why smods feel the need to wander about banning people, when a mod can do it, i have no idea.
and why they feel the need to lock threads, when really, it should be up to a mod to do so, is beyond me.

I agree, I don't do so except in the cases mentioned above (incidentally those System forums, such as this one, where only the admins are moderators all fall into case 4 permanently). If I ban someone for a site-wide rule (e.g. posting illegal material, which is something we desire particularly fast responses to - I think this has happened twice) I leave the duration of the ban in the hands of the moderators in question.

WhiteWashMan wrote:

in fact, here is one post that i read recently from you, which is possibly the most obnoxious and heavy handed moderating i have seen in a long time.

That would be the one where I said "I'm going to be obnoxious and heavy handed until we have the moderation here sorted out". Yes, I was obnoxious and heavy handed there. As it was it was more bark than bite that was needed (the single ban was withheld by the moderator appointed later that day).

The fact is if you don't count the Spammers, pornography publishers and duplicate accounts (which have always been subject to immediate sitebans when discovered) the number of bans I've given as an smod is in single figures, and all of those where following complaints by moderators.

amp

LiouVille wrote:

You're one to talk about it coming to peoples heres.

It's hard to debate with you when you can't even use the english language.

You had the exact same ****e on your own forums. Post here, get banned, you used to be into your pre emptive banning if i recall.

Not my forums. Posting to a Post here, get banned thread is not a pre-emptive ban. You used to be a moderator if I recall.

Hobbes

WhiteWashMan wrote:

by the way, im pretty pissed off with the recent 'gordan's ban the idiot' thread being moved to the smod forum, when it was a public debate in a public forum.

its not an smods position to move something like that into a private forum. at least learn to use the copy function.

I was wondering where that got to? Whats the deal? I can't even read the post.

Baz_

WhiteWashMan wrote:

by the way, im pretty pissed off with the recent 'gordan's ban the idiot' thread being moved to the smod forum, when it was a public debate in a public forum.

its not an smods position to move something like that into a private forum. at least learn to use the copy function.

Hobbes wrote:

I was wondering where that got to? Whats the deal? I can't even read the post.

Me too, I thought that thread was leading to interesting and useful places (like this one, I'm happy to say), and I think it would have been a useful discussion for users to point at in their "set my people free" complaints, which (although rarely) sometimes are warranted.

As happened in that other thread, I find myself in agreement with wwman, and if I was a better point maker, I would have made some of his points. In my mind I had the idea that as moderators move up the hierarchy that they should take more of a back seat role where it comes to actual moderation in their forums, and provide more of a support role to those below them.

/me waits for movement of this thread

amp

Talliesin wrote:

I have never done that. I have however developed a dislike of people I have banned for the reason I've banned them.
That was in the Cuckoo's Nest. I've also suggested making porno films with nurses and candystripers uniforms in a hospital staffed by monkeys. I have no real intent to do either. Nor do I really have an order in for human clones made from skin tissues taken from Sarky. It was a Cuckoo's Nest post and should be read as such.

That doesn't stop you from posting non-cuckoo's nest posts in the TCN. Take threatening to sitewide ban me for example. How is that a TCN post? I read it as trying to bully me into looking elsewhere while you banned people for your own personal amusement.

As such, I have no faith in your Smoderating abilities.

WhiteWashMan

Gordon wrote:

I think Regi moved that thread.

fair enough. still should have been left in the public forum as a public debate.

Talliesin

amp wrote:

That doesn't stop you from posting non-cuckoo's nest posts in the TCN. Take threatening to sitewide ban me for example. How is that a TCN post?

Because it was nonsense posted purely for amusement value.

amp wrote:

I read it as trying to bully me into looking elsewhere while you banned people for your own personal amusement.

I honestly didn't expect you to take it seriously.

amp wrote:

As such, I have no faith in your Smoderating abilities.

Well, it seems my comic delivery failed, if you thought I was being serious.

WhiteWashMan

Talliesin wrote:

I don't recall that. The closest to that I can think of is closing threads on feedback on something that's already been discussed to death..

its not your place to do that though really, is it. if only the search function was working...

Talliesin wrote:

I have never done that. I have however developed a dislike of people I have banned for the reason I've banned them..

well, i cant tell you when you take a dislike to people.

Talliesin wrote:

That was in the Cuckoo's Nest. I've also suggested making porno films with nurses and candystripers uniforms in a hospital staffed by monkeys. I have no real intent to do either. Nor do I really have an order in for human clones made from skin tissues taken from Sarky. It was a Cuckoo's Nest post and should be read as such.

while making porn with nurses may be considered a humourous past-time, threatening to ban someone 'just because you can' would probnably be seen in a different light, considering you actually have the power to do so, and iirc, you have done so in the past. it must also be noted that yourent known for your sense of humour, so perhaps people may miss the punchline sometimes.
maybe you ought to think about what you post in future, especially if you hold an smod position, where you are constantly perceived as being overzealous and power mad. and it isnt just me and amp that have noticed. after all, you have had your own number of complaint threads on the feedback forum, and a number of other people had said likewise in conversation. the opinion of your modding abilities may be lower than you would like them to be. now, that doesnt make you a bad person. personally i have never met you that im aware of, but im sure youre lovely and wed enjoy a good beer together. i was quite unsure why you were choosen in the first place until i realised why the smods were chosen out of all the people. i dont think it was the best way, but hey, no one listens to me anyway!

Talliesin wrote:

That would be the one where I said "I'm going to be obnoxious and heavy handed until we have the moderation here sorted out". Yes, I was obnoxious and heavy handed there. As it was it was more bark than bite that was needed (the single ban was withheld by the moderator appointed later that day)..

why not just tell me, as the cat mod?
why do you feel its your place to lay down the harsh law of the land.
perhaps we need to define the roles of all the mods again, and this time, really have it from the admins, because quite frankly, there seems to be some confusion, although maybe i have it all wrong?
although im sure if i recalls vevores first post on this, his idea was that smods would back up the admins in times of crisis, such as a spam rampage, an ad rampage, or someone just being completely obnoxious, rude and insulting. for me that does not mean modding forums, handing out local forum bans, closing threads that are deemed unworthy (even if discussed a million times before).

again, maybe im complately in the wrong here, in which case, i will hold my hands up.

Talliesin wrote:

I
The fact is if you don't count the Spammers, pornography publishers and duplicate accounts (which have always been subject to immediate sitebans when discovered) the number of bans I've given as an smod is in single figures, and all of those where following complaints by moderators.

then why arent my second account banned?
or amps?
or mercs?

again, i dont follow your career, so i have no idea, it just appears that every now and again i come across a thread where you have banned someone (although, why a mod cant ban someone from their own forum, is waaaay beyond me. perhaps you are a mod icon?), or closed a thread.
in fact, the only reason i have even maneitoned you in this thread is because you have stuck your head out over the parapet many times that you have been noticed. again, not only by me.

tbh, i think its time the admins actually got involved at this point. im not going to sit here and hammer smods, or cmods or mods, or users. i have made my point that i think some people are over active.
perhaps the admins want this.
personally, i think it goes against 'the spirit of boards.ie' that was originally set up. while i am very aware that we can all get a little over-involved at times (and me personally very involved fat too much of the time) i think sometimes a reminder is needed that it is in fact, only a game show...

Talliesin

WhiteWashMan wrote:

it must also be noted that yourent known for your sense of humour

I always thought I was funny.

Shabadu

In before lock/move

amp

Talliesin wrote:

Well, it seems my comic delivery failed, if you thought I was being serious.

I'm no professor of comedy but where was the punchline in "It could still happen" in a thread about my access to Prison, which you then removed? You did actually do that. Where was the comic delivery there?

Just because the TCN is an off-topic forum doesn't automatically provide you with the "I was only joking" defense.

If you think an essential quality of being an Smod is to amuse yourself by banning people without warning then you should probably resign.

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

WhiteWashMan

Talliesin wrote:

I always thought I was funny.

Talliesin wrote:

woody pre-emptively banned from all religious forums because due to gross and blatant bigotry on the basis of religion..

i would also like to add this as a fine example of overzealous abuse of power.

i am not sure why you can consider banning someone from an entire catagory because they dont have the same belief as you, and you then accuse them of being bigoted.

in fact, you never even entred into a debate to discuss his viewpoints, merely banned out of hand, because you didnt agree with him.

it is not your place to do it!

i suspect its something to do with putting down your beloved paganism forum, rather than anything else tbh.

Nevyn

Bad Talli no more sugar or coffee for you . :rolleyes:

regi

I'd really like this airing of dirty laundry to be taken offline, perhaps to the mod forum?

I'm getting extremely bored of it.

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.