Moderation Suggestion <3

[Twigley]

Maybe them having to follow up with a mail would make them have to come up with real reasons - thus making them look at their own rules and stop with the contant moderation.

 

[atsanjose]

That atsan you must figure out yourself.

i dont intend to learn finish grammar

 

[harriergirl]

http://www.bushtarion.com/forums/showthread.php?p=37251#post37251


In summary I take back the word "every" but if a post is deleted or disappeared, we should get an explanation.

 

[Dark_Angel]

Unfortunately this suggestion would be far too time consuming.


Its far more efficient for the user to simply message a mod and ask why their post has been unapproved. We don't usually get such requests, as most people know why their post has been removed.

:cough: Bullshit :cough:

it takes literally nothing to pm a user. I know how busy the mods are and again I call absolute and utter bullshit.

You are not here to worry about your ego's, your time or what you should and shouldn't do.. You are a moderator to help Azzer and Azzer's playerbase is asking for a reasonable accomodation regarding the forums.

To brush the suggestion off so lightly is an example of why the suggestion needed to be made in the first place. YOU VOLUNTEERED YOUR TIME...quit complaining if we are asking you to do what you volunteered for.

Ok here's an example for you.

Just yesterday I unapproved 17 posts from the "

Grats to RRR for winning | R31" thread.

The reason they were unapproved is because they had nothing to do with the topic of the thread. The conversation had gone wildly off topic and turned to centre around antinoobkiller; boasting about his amazingness - countered by at least 5-6 individuals telling him he either sucked, or sacastically agreeing with him.

Now - Antinoobkiller was informed that his posts had been unapproved - because he was the cause of the massive topic-change and was provoking trolling/flaming and off-topic posts.

The rest of the users were not.

People can assume one of two things if their posts dissapear (without the reason being mailed them):

One - The post was determined to be spam / off-topic

Two - The moderator who picked up on this did not decide the post merited a warning/infraction for being spam / off-topic.

-

This suggestion is, IMO, pedantic and somewhat tedious. Scenerio: A user replies to a thread they consider to suck'. They reply with nothing but a "Fail" image. This post is clearly spam. The user knows that its spam.

Informing them its spam is a waste of time. Just as it would be a waste of time to notify 99% of people who've had their post removed.

In short - People just have to trust that individual moderators are making the right calls. In fact, people don't even have to trust that much. Because each and every moderation decision is logged, and in most cases discussed by the entire moderation team.

Another example.

I yesterday removed a number of posts I determined to be spam from the Help sub-forum. The thread was regarding the use of colour in user's posts. A number of users replied with what I regarded to be quite spammy, useless responses, but that in retrospect - and after discussion with the rest of the moderation team, I concluded to be "fine". These posts were re-approved.

To conclude - trust the moderation team to do their job properly. From time to time a mod makes the wrong call, as described above, but more often than not this is picked up on by another mod, and the situation is resolved.

 

[Alcibiades]

having debunked the 'every response message' idea DA, would you care to turn your thoughts to the automated system? We all have and we'd like to hear the viewpoint from a 'moderator who is wildly oveworked'.

I believe there is some mention of it in this thread, and garrett started a new suggestion thread himself.

 

[Dark_Angel]

having debunked the 'every response message' idea DA, would you care to turn your thoughts to the automated system? We all have and we'd like to hear the viewpoint from a 'moderator who is wildly oveworked'.

I believe there is some mention of it in this thread, and garrett started a new suggestion thread himself.

Please don't put words in my mouth, I've not once said mods are overworked. I said this suggestion would be a waste of moderator's time - IMO, not practical.

-

As for the automated system. I'm not sure there's a plugin for vbulletin that incorporates Garrett's suggestion.

In principle it sounds harmless - but I'm still dubious as to whether more than a handful of people want to be informed every time their post is removed. IMO, switched on people can have a pretty decent guess at "why" anyway. Indeed I think we'd have picked up this was a bigger problem if we had more demands from users, asking why their post(s) were removed.

 

[CFalcon]

Edit: yes I see that now Alci, I just got on and was working down the suggestions threads, no need to ram it down my throat. The point still needed to be made, I get the impression certain people are only reluctantly accepting automation and would still rather have PMs for everything.

It would seem to make sense that if you want to pursue why your post was moderated, then you need to know who moderated it.

But to demand the mods write a small letter after each action they take seems unnecessary. I had a post unapproved the other day, and really I can understand why that decision was made, even if I may feel it was a little harsh. But really, if I'd received a message telling me why it was moderated I'd frankly feel my intelligence had been insulted and the mod's time wasted.

Generally speaking most people here aren't idiots, and 95% of the time it will be perfectly clear to them why they had a post moderated. It seems unnecessary and patronising to demand the mods PM for every action, just to cover that 5% where people aren't sure. It would seem like a much fairer division of labour to ask people who are really concerned to cover that 5%, of which again only a fraction of which will care enough to follow it up. And I'll bet the majority of those people are in the anti-admin crusade brigade, who are honestly being rather petty about this.

In conclusion: man up.

 

[Dark_Angel]

Generally speaking most people here aren't idiots, and 95% of the time it will be perfectly clear to them why they had a post moderated.

QFT - And this is probably the same reason why vbulletin doesn't contain functionality for what harriergirl is proposing here.

 

[Alcibiades]

having debunked the 'every response message' idea DA, would you care to turn your thoughts to the automated system? We all have and we'd like to hear the viewpoint from a 'moderator who is wildly oveworked'.

I believe there is some mention of it in this thread, and garrett started a new suggestion thread himself.

Please don't put words in my mouth, I've not once said mods are overworked. I said this suggestion would be a waste of moderator's time - IMO, not practical.

-

As for the automated system. I'm not sure there's a plugin for vbulletin that incorporates Garrett's suggestion.

In principle it sounds harmless - but I'm still dubious as to whether more than a handful of people want to be informed every time their post is removed. IMO, switched on people can have a pretty decent guess at "why" anyway. Indeed I think we'd have picked up this was a bigger problem if we had more demands from users, asking why their post(s) were removed.

There was a large intimation that mods are/would be overworked earlier in this thread. or perhaps another one similar to this topic, they've been sprouting like mushrooms recently.

Anyways, this thread can be locked since almost everyone here harriergirl included has altered their opinion to a desire for an automated system. Surely you can move along also?

http://www.bushtarion.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2743

Generally speaking most people here aren't idiots, and 95% of the time it will be perfectly clear to them why they had a post moderated.

QFT - And this is probably the same reason why vbulletin doesn't contain functionality for what harriergirl is proposing here.

Doesn't contain functionality, but if you'd read that other thread i've posted above you'll see Azzer addresses the issue.

Perhaps some system where if one of your posts is moderated you get an automatic notification of who moderated it. It would seem to make sense that if you want to pursue why your post was moderated, then you need to know who moderated it.

See above link posted for DA.

This thread can probably be profitably locked since the suggestion is no longer considered viable by anyone except for a few people who continue to think their two cents is required to flog to death an already dead horse.

 

[tobapopalos]

Generally speaking most people here aren't idiots

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

 

[BlackWolf]

Can someone show me one message where someone has disagreed with automation system instead of personal mailing?

It seems that some people are making their own conclusions out of air. I have not ever said automation is bad. I think it is very viable way. BUT while we do not have that automation I think if persons post is deleted,moved or altered they deserve to get explanation. And yet it still is not that big deal to message them...

Or in this 17 posts case that DA so funnily brought in as "example" why you just didnt remove those posts and leave INSTEAD message telling how you removed 17 posts due them being offtopic. So if person sees his message has dissapeared he would know why and who did it. Would have taken whole 1 minute of your time.

I must say tho despite of all this bittering of mods and how they do their work, that there also are some mods who think making these kind of posts is part of their job and I bow to them of the good work they do.

 

[Weeble]

We have been told before (by Azzer) that we should moderate in a very ubiquitous way, ie, invisibly. We should moderate as necessary in such a way that it doesn't draw attention to it - if that means silently removing a large number of posts without leaving a message within the tread stating why then so be it.

The main idea being that 50 forum user don't want to know when 17 posts were removed for 'spam'. It's not interesting, they'd rather get on with the actual discussion at hand.

I'm still trying to work out how an automated system would know why a post is being hidden and send a relevant message; otherwise it'd just be sending "Your post has been removed. For further reasons, please contact a moderator" which 95% of recipients wouldn't bother doing.
It all seems fairly pointless really...

 

[harriergirl]

obviously it's not pointless or a great number of the playerbase wouldn't be asking for it and the subject wouldn't have come up

Azzer has already agreed to look for further tools

Why are you still arguing so hard ?

 

[Alcibiades]

It seems that some people are making their own conclusions out of air. I have not ever said automation is bad. I think it is very viable way. BUT while we do not have that automation I think if persons post is deleted,moved or altered they deserve to get explanation. And yet it still is not that big deal to message them...

Or in this 17 posts case that DA so funnily brought in as "example" why you just didnt remove those posts and leave INSTEAD message telling how you removed 17 posts due them being offtopic. So if person sees his message has dissapeared he would know why and who did it. Would have taken whole 1 minute of your time.

BlackWolf, you are perfectly correct. Instead of just having the posts vanished without a trace you could spend another 60 seconds and leave a message saying 'Please keep this on topic blahbitty blah blah' Sure many of us know or can guess what happened to the posts but it'd be nice if there was a reassurance there.

*shrug* If this is too time consuming for you lot, there are others willing to take your place.

 

[pinpower]

Alci, as Weeble says we have been specifically asked not to leave messages such at that on threads and instead "silently" edit/moderate things.

Edit: We have no problem with doing so, but dont think its our own lazyness or w/e. We're just doing what we're supposed to

 

[Enrico]

Well seems the users would prefer to know when a Moderator has unpublished/moved a post. If it is a number, there should be no problem for the mod to just put edit the last of the post being unpublished/moved, or post a quick notice himself.

With the number of posters and users I would be surprized if there is more than 20-25 post a day needing moderation, and with 10 moderators or what it is, that should not be a horrible strain on the moderators, after all, they have volunteered their time for the job, it's not like it was thrust upon them!

 

[Alcibiades]

Alci, as Weeble says we have been specifically asked not to leave messages such at that on threads and instead "silently" edit/moderate things.

Edit: We have no problem with doing so, but dont think its our own lazyness or w/e. We're just doing what we're supposed to

Fair enough. But it seems that Azzer has changed his mind and would support an automatic modding function... Now i may be putting words in his mouth, and heaven forbid i should do such a thing, but *if* he supports an automatic modding system, it would naturally, and logically follow that he might not mind if Mods left a short message when they delete a large number of posts, ones that aren't obviously flames or just spam spammity spam spam.

If a topic has gone wildly off topic, remove the 17 posts (in the example) and leave a little note saying "Try to stay on topic guys" or something like that. I can't think of any logical reason not to do something like that, it's polite, it's short, it's not invasive and it's pretty much to the point. It also covers all the bases with the playerbase since they know why, and where the posts have gone. It happened on the old forums (when threads ever got modded) and you, pinpower, have done it more than once. So why can we not use this rather simple, easy, favourable system?

 

[harriergirl]

Alci, as Weeble says we have been specifically asked not to leave messages such at that on threads and instead "silently" edit/moderate things.

Edit: We have no problem with doing so, but dont think its our own lazyness or w/e. We're just doing what we're supposed to

It's true that Azzer has asked that the moderators not spam up the threads with posts explaining where stuff went. I agree completely that a simple note in the thread would suffice. I have no probs with the current moderation staff ( I mean yes there could be improvments but i'm not on a witch hunt) I honestly would like to see the forums to be more user friendly, that is my only motivation here. I would like to please ask the mods to take a step back and not take the suggestions so personally.

/me passes peace pipe.

Lets just have a meeting of the minds pl0x

 

[Garrett]

"Your post has been removed. For further reasons, please contact a moderator" which 95% of recipients wouldn't bother doing.
It all seems fairly pointless really...

I'm sorry it seems pointless, but to me you hit exactly the point. Just the wrong side of it, imo. An automated system for notification of post changes so the user knows and 95% of the time doesn't need to come to you/azzer/public forum posts and rehash this stuff all over again later. The suggestion was designed to help stave off future headaches. (of course there will always be some, but reduction is better) As this subject, especially as of late, keeps rearing it's head. More importantly it makes it friendly to the newbie user.

Which I thought everyone was in agreement, we need more of them. If we don't make room for them, then how does this community expect to grow? You can't just continue telling the locals to be quiet and expect new voices to rise from nowhere. Really this is about making forums an overall better place to hang out. At least that's where my intent lies.

Also, I wouldn't bother with making automation overly complicated/ inplausible and make it "Your post has been edited/moved or removed. Most common reasons fall under sections 'x','y', or 'z' in the Forum Rules/Guidelines (link). For further information please PM a moderator."

Generalities used properly can be good. Automation is better than having to PM individually and is tons better than having to keep in mind 'if your post is gone, there is a reason'. Especially since that is posted no where in the rules for the new users.

Yes it's ok to be hopeful for people to use common sense to a point, but some people lack it. Also what's common for 1 person from 1 part of the world is completely foreign to someone else. It is absolutely silly to expect a new forum user/game player to automatically come preloaded with our unwritten/common sense rules.

In this sense, our forums are completely hostile to people who want to be new users.

 

[Weeble]

If the intention of a system is just to provide users with automatic feedback when a post of theirs is removed then, yes it could be useful. Saying that, however, you have to look at the occasions where a post may be removed either accidentally, or pending further investigation. If that post is then reapproved/re-unapproved/etc, the user in question could end up just getting spammed for no reason with messages. As long as a decent enough system can be found then sure - I never said I was against such a thing, just that it seemed a bit odd for an automated system to tell users their post was hidden (without giving a reason) just for them to come back and question it.