How to Moderate in a Fair and Consistent Manner

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Found this interesting:

Our experiences in moderating a forum: What's best, not what's new

Moderating a forum is fairly straightforward: knowing what you want, deleting entire threads that aren't going anywhere, correcting the spelling of the word "it's," fixing URLs, deleting individual contributions that fail to advance the thread. It helps to have experience writing and editing (and reading student papers, refereeing journal articles, reviewing manuscripts and grant proposals).

As clearly indicated to potential contributors, we do a lot of deleting--only about half of all submitted contributions survive for more than a month. This doubtless hurts a few feelings but substantially raises the quality of the board. Very few published contributions are edited at all, other than silently to correct spelling, update an URL, or to delete a sour note in an otherwise good answer. Our view is that every contribution to Ask E.T. should advance the analytical quality of the thread. We particularly seek to avoid the chronic internet disease of "All Opinions, All the Time." The idea is to have an interesting and excellent board on analytical design that serves the content and the readers, not a board logging every attempt at publication. We also are ruthless in deleting contributions with incivilities, rants, taunts, and personal commentary on other contributors.

The forum is named "Ask E.T.," and my interests are reflected in my contributions, selection of topics, and editorial decisions. Sometimes I don't answer a question because our contributors have already produced good answers, or I don't have any idea of the answer or don't have anything to say just now.

A lot of implicit editing now comes from potential contributors themselves, as they see the style of this board and what good contributions look like. This is a very important point, for as more and more good contributions have accumulated over time, less and less editing has been needed because contributors can tell what it takes to get published here.

We are fortunate in having several star authors, who make smart and interesting contributions. They are occasionally identified as a "Kindly Contributor" to acknowledge publicly my gratitude for their writing.

For some boards, a bozo filter may prove useful by automatically deflecting certain trigger words. My friend Philip Greenspun constructed a filter at photo.net which bounced all those who misspelled the word "aperture," on the grounds that they did not know much about photography.

It may be a good idea to post some notes about your editorial policies near the place where potential contributors submit their efforts.

Five people are involved in the part-time (very part-time) management of this forum: Dariane Hunt (web designer), Elaine Morse (my design assistant), David Rodriguez (programmer), a very wise anonymous external reviewer, and myself.

So moderating a forum is fairly straightforward and not all that time-consuming--if you have excellent contributors, some editorial skills, a clear idea about what you want, and the ability to make quick final decisions. It takes much more effort to answer questions, start new threads, and add new material to the website.

-- Edward Tufte, August 11, 2003

more advice here:

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000fT

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Interesting discussion.

I also moderate on another site where every single post is read by a moderator before it gets posted. If we don't approve it, it doesn't get posted. We will generally either reject it outright or send it back to the poster and suggest they re-write it, generally to correct 'bad attitudes' and inappropriate language. We have no flame wars, no insults, no problem posters. We do have interesting discussions, informative answers and courtesy for all. Even the political discussions that do get posted - they need to be on topic to the forum's focus - are intelligent and courteous. We started to moderate every post after several flame wars erupted and they nearly destroyed the site. Now, we get complaints of censorship but the site owner states "It's my playroom. If you want to play here, you have to observe the rules - and I make the rules". Those who wish to participate are happy to play by the rules and the site has a lot of members.

It is a lot easier to moderate than Visa Journey because there are no posted 'surprises' and no opportunities for someone to post personal attacks, insults, nasty comments or to promote racism, violence, sexism or any of the other isms.

Unfortunately, the way Visa Journey is set up, I don't see this happening.

[TBoneTX 45,291]

the way Visa Journey is set up, I don't see this happening.

It would take 27.4 gazillion moderators working at least 24 hours/day to keep up with the volume of posts here.

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

Most of the people here that get posts removed , post just to see how long before their post is removed. Those people should have every post moderated. Other sites allow moderation by ID

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Most of the people here that get posts removed , post just to see how long before their post is removed. Those people should have every post moderated. Other sites allow moderation by ID

I think that is a great idea as well. I don't know if the site software is set up for partial moderation but it would certainly be effective for dealing with the known habitual offenders

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Most of the people here that get posts removed , post just to see how long before their post is removed. Those people should have every post moderated. Other sites allow moderation by ID

That's the part of the OP that I thought was worth looking into. Habitual offenders, and by offenders, I mean those posters here who habitually come into threads adding nothing to the conversation and whose primary motivation is to derail a thread or troll, should be more closely monitored by the Mods. And the concept of having 'bozo' filters that could help alert Mods when such poster(s) are active in the forums. That would dramatically cut down on the number of posts that require administrative action as well as making the report button less of a 'necessity' when more often the report button is used selectively by members who only report on posts from people they don't particularly like while ignoring or not reporting every TOS violation they see. Let's be honest - if every TOS violation in P&R were reported, the whole subforum would become a ghost town. It is far more effective then to approach moderating that subforum toward keeping posts which stay on topic or at least are following along by adding to the conversation in a contributory manner that supports the OP.

Edited September 11, 2012 by Commie Appeaser

[JayNarl 3]

an I please have a moderator who is a higher admin please write me, or a few moderators. Thanks.

Justin

[Kathryn41 3,205]

an I please have a moderator who is a higher admin please write me, or a few moderators. Thanks.

Justin

Please check your Personal Messenger.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

That's the part of the OP that I thought was worth looking into. Habitual offenders, and by offenders, I mean those posters here who habitually come into threads adding nothing to the conversation and whose primary motivation is to derail a thread or troll, should be more closely monitored by the Mods. And the concept of having 'bozo' filters that could help alert Mods when such poster(s) are active in the forums. That would dramatically cut down on the number of posts that require administrative action as well as making the report button less of a 'necessity' when more often the report button is used selectively by members who only report on posts from people they don't particularly like while ignoring or not reporting every TOS violation they see. Let's be honest - if every TOS violation in P&R were reported, the whole subforum would become a ghost town. It is far more effective then to approach moderating that subforum toward keeping posts which stay on topic or at least are following along by adding to the conversation in a contributory manner that supports the OP.

Be careful what you ask for.

[웃 910]

On another forum they have "secret forums" that are invisible until you have a certain number of posts (maybe 1000).

They also have an "anonymous" forum where anyone can post whatever they want and their screen name appears as "anonymous" (and only the moderators can see the actual screen name).

[SMOKE 1,426]

I think that is a great idea as well. I don't know if the site software is set up for partial moderation but it would certainly be effective for dealing with the known habitual offenders

an IP ban is very effective too. if someone doesn't heed repeated warnings & suspensions, boot'em.

whats being suggested here is nothing more than a license to stalk & censor people's opinion. it would invite the abuse of privileges the admin has given to people he trust to not be biased.

Edited September 12, 2012 by SMOKE

[Darnell 8,478]

IP ban is a feature of this here web portal software

[one...two...tree 2,762]

whats being suggested here is nothing more than a license to stalk & censor people's opinion. it would invite the abuse of privileges the admin has given to people he trust to not be biased.

The report button, while a noble idea, has been a failure. I have had several Mods state that if a violating post is not reported, then they cannot possibly know about it. So what happens all too often is that active members will selectively report the posts they don't like and ignore other violating posts. It happens all the time. Heck, we even have Mods actively posting in threads that contain violations and not do anything about them. However, setting up 'bozo' filters that would alert Mods would remove the bias that selective use of the report button has. It would then be up to the Mods as to what appropriate action should be taken.

I don't think that it would be beneficial to go after every conceivable violation, especially when looking at the context of the entire post or series of posts within a thread. The general purpose of having TOS in the first place should be considered when deciding what kind of administrative action taken, if any. But in any case, this nonsense of selectively hitting the report button needs to stop, especially when some Mods actively post in threads and take the position that they don't need to take any administrative action until someone hits the report button. That whole scheme has turned the purpose of TOS on its head.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

an IP ban is very effective too. if someone doesn't heed repeated warnings & suspensions, boot'em.

whats being suggested here is nothing more than a license to stalk & censor people's opinion. it would invite the abuse of privileges the admin has given to people he trust to not be biased.

I 've actually noticed a few people missing for quite awhile. Me thinks they either got tired of being edited/thread banned or they were booted permanently

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I 've actually noticed a few people missing for quite awhile. Me thinks they either got tired of being edited/thread banned or they were booted permanently

Some of them got jobs and some have employers that now log all the websites their employees visit while at work.