Lads ye need to start advertising for mods

25-10-2022 11:04pm #1

cmon guys

the place is wrecked for lack of mods

if whatever process ye had before was working to decide on worthy mods, it's high time ye admitted that it's now defunct and that the need for people to do the job now far outweighs the need for the old quality control method of slow recruitment that has left us with one and a half moderators.

will ye not consider opening a thread looking for volunteer mods across the site because its a massive downer at the moment to see how easily one or two posters that wreck an entire topic, let alone individual threads- see any public sector related thread for an example but there's plenty more.

put out an open call. forget selecting from a chosen few and waiting. forget months of training or whatever. give thirty decent posters the ban button this week and watch this place start to improve before the end of the month.

Cookie_Monster · 25-10-2022 11:54pm

why would people want to do it though? The calls HQ have made have alienated the community and interaction from the office seems non existent these days. Several current mods have mentioned the current mod tool suite being terrible in comparison also.

Most mods did it for the community they enjoyed being part of,despite the added hassle it brought, it was worth it overall. Now, not so much tbh

endacl · 26-10-2022 12:04am

Why would anybody bother. Boards is over. It just doesn’t know it yet.

Wibbs · 26-10-2022 9:07am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119793833#Comment_119793833

Pretty much this. IMHO it's less about the mod tools and all that stuff and that won't be what finally kills the site. The "office" is incognito, admins are singular and overworked or invisible, so the sense that there's a hand on the tiller is pretty much gone, as is the sense of "community". Because of that many existing mods couldn't be arsed, even if the ability to mod was better.

EmmetSpiceland · 26-10-2022 10:19am

De-modding the “absentee” mods would be a good start.

Beasty · 26-10-2022 10:44am

This is the third thread in the past few months or covering this issue

I pointed out in the last one that I think we need to get some active Admins first. Otherwise it will be largely me with perhaps some input from Niamh and one or two Admins who may drop in on occasion. What that really means is I would be the person with probably a lot more influence over anyone who does get put forward than anyone else

And to date I've had negligible response to the call I did put out in the Admin forum in the first half of August.

Hence I guess I'm going to have to try and put some names forward for Admins as a first step (although we are also short at CMod level and we would probably deplete that resource even more in the short term)

It's been on my mind for months but I was hoping to see a bit more of some of those currently showing as Admins. I guess that's not going to happen and I need to get on with it

26-10-2022 12:46pm

Im not clear on what it means to have influence over "who gets put forward" Beasty.

For Admin or for Mod?

I don't see any problem with getting a pool of candidate mods together in advance.

I think the old approach of getting together behind the scenes and offering the role to a chosen candidate is long behind us, though.

I think it's time for a casting call

Leg End Reject · 26-10-2022 2:25pm

The problem with asking people to volunteer is that responses are likely to come from those who shouldn't be mods.

I'd imagine Boards will just slide into oblivion in time.

Beasty · 26-10-2022 4:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119795062#Comment_119795062

Well if you want clarity. If I have anything to do with it we will not be having any open discussions over who should or should not be a mod or admin

It id not a popularity contest

ohnonotgmail · 26-10-2022 4:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119796090#Comment_119796090

the problem though is that any discussions will only involve the same small handful of people currently working as admins. i can't imagine progress being swift.

26-10-2022 4:09pm

A rotation or limited time Mod might be helpful to encourage those to be more altruistic. The downside is that you lose experience when mods rotate out... but maybe many will stay on.

It seems the new modding tools are not as good as they used to be. It's a bit like the loss of concorde - humanity has gone backwards 😂The old mod tools made the job relatively straight forward before. I don't know what the new mod tools are like, but if it makes the modding 'job' more of a chore/frustrating it's a pity.

growleaves · 26-10-2022 4:24pm

'I think the old approach of getting together behind the scenes and offering the role to a chosen candidate is long behind us, though.'

Mods are chosen at birth and then scattered through distant lands. Beasty roams the earth seeking to identify the chosen ones.

Beasty · 26-10-2022 4:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119796172#Comment_119796172

I'm somewhat grounded at present as I'm heading into Manchester Arena for a Deep Purple gig

I'll see if Ian Gillan's available.

I turned down Ozzie due to his behaviour with bats. Doesn't sit well with our Coronavirus Forum

I checked out the Australian Pink Floyd in Bath last night. Alas they seemed a bunch of frauds as only 1 of them seems to be Australian

26-10-2022 4:49pm

appreciate the clarity beasty!

im not saying all applications be merely rubberstamped before swift approval and im not even sure how a popularity contest would work

im pointing out that the current situation has the site absolutely bollixed and inaction (and indeed the old method of selection) is not going to sort it

we need mods and we need modding to happen and i think its clear that there's space to consider a wider net in seeking the required resources

26-10-2022 8:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119793842#Comment_119793842

the level of self-awareness amongst the circle-jerkers is low.

Quantum Erasure · 27-10-2022 9:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119795618#Comment_119795618

https://search.google.com/test/amp

...

osarusan · 28-10-2022 9:41am

The impression I get from from various ex/inactive mods is that this went from being a place where volunteers could be bothered to mod the place, because of the sense of community made it worthwhile, to a a place where loads of those volunteers couldn't be bothered to mod the place, because there was a dwindling/absent sense of community that made it worthwhile.

Quite a sad thing to see from the outside, and for mods who invested a lot of time and effort, must be very frustrating.

Furze99 · 28-10-2022 10:08am

Problem with modding is threefold I think: time it takes, that it inevitably puts limits on how you express yourself and your 'relationship' with other poster plebs.

thefallingman · 28-10-2022 10:26am

isn't it a non paying job, i would assume that's the big issue. Pay peanuts get monkeys, pay nothing get ......

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 28-10-2022 10:51am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119793833#Comment_119793833

There's an office...??

Beasty · 28-10-2022 11:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803549#Comment_119803549

There is one employee - Niamh. Whether she still has access to an office I don's know, but when I make references to the "office" it's generally referring to her and/or Odhran.

28-10-2022 11:59am

i wasn't hoping for this to be a rehash of every complaint about the new platform or the difficulties in being a mod.

I was merely hoping to find out whether there had been a consideration of any changes to the methods of seeking new mods given the changes in everything else over the past few years and the clear lack of hands on deck to help out beasty recently.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 28-10-2022 12:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803842#Comment_119803842

Interesting. I was under the impression that there may have been a half-dozen or so before the revamp, but haven't really though about it in terms of an "office" (in the non-physical sense).

bucketybuck · 28-10-2022 12:02pm

As a general rule, the first time you discuss a problem it may be perfectly fair to point out that there are no easy solutions.

If a year later still nothing has been done, then it is the decision makers that have become the problem.

Beasty · 28-10-2022 12:44pm

Again I am repeating what I have said in other similar threads, but it's only a month or two ago that mods started receiving notification of reports. Before that we had to go looking for them which was not so difficult for those of us actively modding CA and Coronavirus as the majority of reports came from those two forums

I personally wanted to see the impact of additional mod tools before concluding whether mods had not been active because of lack of such tools. It's only now that we are starting to see more activity from the mod team. It's still the case that all the reports in the two forums I mention above do get dealt with. And I know there ate some forums with little or zero mod activity. Many may not need any for now, but if I see a number of reports from a particular forum or thread I will try and have a look and indeed have stepped in on a number of occasions

Yes it's far from ideal, but again as I have mentioned a few times I am trying to get some input particularly at Admin level which can hopefully get us with more active and efficient moderation across the site

Beasty · 28-10-2022 2:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803866#Comment_119803866

Before Mark died it was basically Mark and Niamh on reduced hours during the pandemic. I think they had one developer - now they can call on the time of a developer from Vanilla, but that resource is a lot less than the equivalent of a full time employee

There was certainly an office when part of Distilled Media, but that was shared with other parts of that organisation

I suspect it makes no commercial sense to rent any office space as this is certainly a "business" that lends itself to remote working. Alas I don't think it's a business that lends itself to making a profit though

Princess Consuela Bananahammock · 28-10-2022 3:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119804700#Comment_119804700

Yeah, me neither. I'm honestly not sure what the long-term goal of boards.ie is given that the revamp seems to have reduced traffic, which can't be good for advertisers. I mean - is it to maintain the current size, develope back up to previous levels or go in a different direction.

Thanks for the input htough.

endacl · 28-10-2022 3:30pm

Has anybody told facekicker it’s probably safe to rereg?

29-10-2022 11:37am

Is it no longer part of distilled media? 😨

Wibbs · 31-10-2022 8:54am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119807690#Comment_119807690

Hasn't been for a while now. Distilled bought into Boards for the Adverts part of it, stripped that out of it and offloaded Boards..

Witcher · 31-10-2022 2:29pm

The Legal Discussion forum is essentially un-moderated and has been for over a year now. Reports simply aren't acted on anymore, which is true of most areas of the site tbh but some are glaringly obvious.

Lads ye need to start advertising for mods

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