If the mod contribution is just based on reviewing past behavior, that may or may not be sufficient. Imagine a poster who has an exemplary record and is super nice and well loved, but who is maybe so nice that they would be loathe to take any action for fear of hurting feelings.
If that sort of feedback is expected to be included in the review, it seems reasonable to codify that advisory role in the selection process. As written, it looks like it's more about just looking at their infraction history and behavior issues rather than other issues like coverage, personality, and so on. It's not about reifying the mods, it's about acknowledging their unique perspective and harnessing it in a non-binding manner. (Fair enough about the veto idea.)
If the idea is that the mods will just say all of this stuff publicly during the community discussion, I think them being human might get in the way of this. If someone is really well liked, but unsuitable for some reason, are we sure that the mods are going to engage in what might be seen as publicly shitting on the nice popular person?
ElJeffe on
Would you say I had a plethora of pinatas?
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
0
QuetziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User, Moderatormod
Isn't that the consultation point that Tef already mentioned? What would you be looking for beyond consultation (outside of stuff like vetoes or requisite approval (which is just an indirect veto))?
Yeah I would not anticipate that mods would need to give their feedback publicly, I'm not sure we are in space where that can end constructively and I'd be 50/50 that we'd ever get to a point where that feedback would ever be given publicly, despite it being an incredibly powerful transparency mechanism.
What you're describing about posters being too nice, that is a foundational sort of management dynamic. We can very reasonably assume that the CoRe board is aware of this dynamic and could factor it into their decision making. When I said, "The mods inherently have a significant influence on mod selection, by nature of their role and position in the hierarchy." this is really good example of that at play; the mods could and probably will flag this concern in their consultation period.
As a bit of an insight into future decisions, if we do decide some sort of mod rotation is a good idea (this is still just one idea, and is in no way set it stone), we would want to do it so only a portion of the current mod cohort would rotate out. This is beneficial for many reasons, but relevant here is that it allows for coaching of new mods around these sorts of pitfalls. (incidentally, another good example of the inherent influence of mods - you get to train the mod teams and integrate them to your way of thinking)
I recognize that a more formal document on moderator selection will be coming later, so whether or not it's explicitly spelled out in this doc is probably not super important. Like I said, if the moderators have an advisory role in new moderator selection that is spelled out in the relevant document, that's cool. This particular document, as written, didn't appear to say that (though it may have been implicit, or maybe I'm just bad at reading), which is why I brought it up.
ElJeffe on
Would you say I had a plethora of pinatas?
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
It’s a perfectly reasonable call-out, I’ve taken a note for revision to explicitly mention mods as a consultative resource during the board vetting of candidates.
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
edited February 2
A collection of thoughts I've had after reading the proposal:
1.
I've reviewed the document and found it unclear in the same way that many have called out already:
the distinction between unilateral (non-punitive) thread kicks and peer-reviewed (punitive) thread kicks.
These sound like different actions as explained in the thread and therefore both of these really need to be declared separately within the table with an explanation as to how they are different (even if we don't know what points might be attached).
As it stands this really isn't made clear enough in the current version of the document.
The document should be self-contained, and not rely on seeking further information from a thread that will be sunk and erased in a few weeks (!!).
2.
One of my chief concerns with respect to timeliness is how it intersects with hours of activity.
We know from the data that there's a quiet time of day of about 6 hours where only a small proportion of posts go up. The dead time, when the US is largely asleep (and a minority of non-US based posters are awake).
I also know from experience that (on rare occasions) events occur during that period that require moderation, and that in the past this hasn't occurred until hours later.
Bearing in mind that mod selection/election may give us only minimal coverage for this period, I'd favour a system where a solo mod has a broad array of tools to act, including kicks and points 'to be determined later'. I think it would be better to be able to say 'this has earned punishment, we just haven't decided how severe yet' than say 'just wait until your father gets home'.
3.
One thing that isn't mentioned (and to be fair I'm not certain it is necessary) is thread relocation.
Under the proposed adopted structure, with the more formalised topic category subforums, there may come times where it would make sense to move a thread to a different subforum.
This is clearly needs a moderator to action it, but is it a moderation decision, or a community one?
It probably should probably be done with consultation with (or at least notification to) the thread.
But is this a unilateral mod action? A peer-reviewed one? Does the community get a say? How?
I'm not certain how frequent this may come up, but is it something that needs discussion and capture in regards to decision making process?
Or is it more an ad hoc each-situation-is-different and lets see how the community evolves in this brave new world once we start getting examples to deal with, rather than trying to plan for future hypotheticals?
4.
We probably need to have a discussion at some point regarding the holiday forums, which some people look forward to and come back for, and some people think is the worst part of being on the forums.
As a Forum Governance decision, the closest analogue for having this discussion would be 'Creation, deletion, renaming, or relocation of subforums', which requires a Community Supermajority.
However, we actually had a survey on forum structure, etc. We haven't conducted any discussion or indicated one way or another whether the holiday forum returns at the end of 2025, which some people would be for, and some people would be against. We likely don't even need to have this discussion for months.
What bucket does this conversation / decision fall under, and what should the threshold be?
5.
On a final note, as someone who has only ever earned Joke infractions (and thought every one was hilarious), is there room within this structure for non-serious mod action? A bit of whimsical moderation can help both let off steam, humanise moderators, and build community (although done badly can do all of the opposite, also).
I don't know if there's a moderation equivalent of a whoopie cushion, but on occasion a bit of constrained abuse of power can (applied appropriately) be hilarious. (e.g. Once had my profile title changed to 'SILENCE YOUNGLING' and locked after I replied that to someone else).
That's unbelievably cool. Your new name is cool guy. Let's have sex.
+1
minor incidentpublicly subsidized!privately profitable!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
I’m not against fun. In fact, Delz and Dibbit and Zonugal and I have all specifically had a few conversations about ways to bring more dumb, fun shit to the forums. My concern with (5) is that it’s easy for joke moderation actions to cross over into feeling infantilizing and condescending.
I think it’s possible to thread that needle as long as the intent is crystal clear, and that joke moderation actions are never used in any remotely serious, tense situation (trying to “defuse” tension with a joke infraction has a high chance of backfiring).
My gut feeling is that keeping stuff like that mostly constrained to events and holidays (the classic “insufficient holiday cheer” infraction, for example) is probably a good baseline. That said, I don’t think the usage and limitations of joke infractions needs to be codified. That’s about as “dissecting the frog” as you can get. I’d rather see mods who are simply on the same page and well coached about that sort of thing.
Hell, New Jersey, it said on the letter. Delivered without comment. So be it!
I’m not against fun. In fact, Delz and Dibbit and Zonugal and I have all specifically had a few conversations about ways to bring more dumb, fun shit to the forums. My concern with (5) is that it’s easy for joke moderation actions to cross over into feeling infantilizing and condescending.
I think it’s possible to thread that needle as long as the intent is crystal clear, and that joke moderation actions are never used in any remotely serious, tense situation (trying to “defuse” tension with a joke infraction has a high chance of backfiring).
My gut feeling is that keeping stuff like that mostly constrained to events and holidays (the classic “insufficient holiday cheer” infraction, for example) is probably a good baseline. That said, I don’t think the usage and limitations of joke infractions needs to be codified. That’s about as “dissecting the frog” as you can get. I’d rather see mods who are simply on the same page and well coached about that sort of thing.
regarding only things like silly games and jokes - I find the various mod games we did play and similar to be extremely fun, but should exist only within an opt-in framework. I think it's worth codifying that much even if it doesn't have anything explicitly to do with mods themselves.
+1
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
I’m not against fun. In fact, Delz and Dibbit and Zonugal and I have all specifically had a few conversations about ways to bring more dumb, fun shit to the forums. My concern with (5) is that it’s easy for joke moderation actions to cross over into feeling infantilizing and condescending.
I think it’s possible to thread that needle as long as the intent is crystal clear, and that joke moderation actions are never used in any remotely serious, tense situation (trying to “defuse” tension with a joke infraction has a high chance of backfiring).
My gut feeling is that keeping stuff like that mostly constrained to events and holidays (the classic “insufficient holiday cheer” infraction, for example) is probably a good baseline. That said, I don’t think the usage and limitations of joke infractions needs to be codified. That’s about as “dissecting the frog” as you can get. I’d rather see mods who are simply on the same page and well coached about that sort of thing.
regarding only things like silly games and jokes - I find the various mod games we did play and similar to be extremely fun, but should exist only within an opt-in framework. I think it's worth codifying that much even if it doesn't have anything explicitly to do with mods themselves.
It's a space where having joke punishments might give more latitude. For instance, if we had Avatar overlays (a technical feature I don't know if it exists), the insufficient holiday cheer punishment could be having a Santa Hat placed on your avatar and unable to remove it, rather than a points thing.
I mean I'm definitely off in brainstorm blue sky thinking space here. We probably don't need a decision matrix for mod actions that don't yet exist.
Similarly, on reflection, I don't think there needs to be a large carve out for 'a mod may give you a unilateral overly severe punishment as a joke', which is the only way this discussion makes sense. Plenty of lowstakes options for making people get a little razzed for posting in the Thursday thread on a Friday.
I think joke moderation can work, as long as it's made explicit that if the recipient doesn't find it funny, they can privately ask to have the moderation undone and have their wishes respected. It probably wouldn't be necessary very often, but anybody who doesn't like a mod is going to basically find any jokes that mod makes to be unfunny mod overreach practically by definition, so it'd be cool if such a person could undo what they might perceive as having been victimized.
Would you say I had a plethora of pinatas?
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
I’m not against fun. In fact, Delz and Dibbit and Zonugal and I have all specifically had a few conversations about ways to bring more dumb, fun shit to the forums. My concern with (5) is that it’s easy for joke moderation actions to cross over into feeling infantilizing and condescending.
I think it’s possible to thread that needle as long as the intent is crystal clear, and that joke moderation actions are never used in any remotely serious, tense situation (trying to “defuse” tension with a joke infraction has a high chance of backfiring).
My gut feeling is that keeping stuff like that mostly constrained to events and holidays (the classic “insufficient holiday cheer” infraction, for example) is probably a good baseline. That said, I don’t think the usage and limitations of joke infractions needs to be codified. That’s about as “dissecting the frog” as you can get. I’d rather see mods who are simply on the same page and well coached about that sort of thing.
regarding only things like silly games and jokes - I find the various mod games we did play and similar to be extremely fun, but should exist only within an opt-in framework. I think it's worth codifying that much even if it doesn't have anything explicitly to do with mods themselves.
It's a space where having joke punishments might give more latitude. For instance, if we had Avatar overlays (a technical feature I don't know if it exists), the insufficient holiday cheer punishment could be having a Santa Hat placed on your avatar and unable to remove it, rather than a points thing.
I mean I'm definitely off in brainstorm blue sky thinking space here. We probably don't need a decision matrix for mod actions that don't yet exist.
Similarly, on reflection, I don't think there needs to be a large carve out for 'a mod may give you a unilateral overly severe punishment as a joke', which is the only way this discussion makes sense. Plenty of lowstakes options for making people get a little razzed for posting in the Thursday thread on a Friday.
See this is where things can get dicey. I have a lot of feelings about changing my avatar because I used it as my only way to express myself for over a decade across many forums. Changing it would hit extremely badly for me unless I gave some explicit consent. Yeah I could easily undo it, but I would much rather not have to ask to have it undone. That hits a different pain point for me. I think an opt-in for joke infractions would be the safest way if it is going to go beyond a zero point warning with a goofy message.
Would it be possible to code in an extra zero point infraction specifically for use in jokes? Maybe with some customizable text fields that the mods could play with? In addition to being potentially kinda fun, it would also be a specific infraction type that could be filtered out if mods need to do a history check on someone.
Also, is there a way to disable the mods' ability to change avatars on a per user basis? So a user could check "allow mods to change avatar" and if that box isn't checked, a mod would be unable to change the avatar for joke purposes. (Admins would still be able to, of course.)
Would you say I had a plethora of pinatas?
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
0
ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User, Moderatormod
it sounds like inventing a whole lot of hoops for a few potential chuckles
Allegedly a voice of reason.
+11
QuetziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User, Moderatormod
If I do a moderation joke on someone that I do not have a very good sense of how they'll take it, I'm likely to send them a PM immediately afterwards just to say, "Hey, let me know if this is uncool, I'll reverse it."
I know that's not a perfect solution, and some people might still feel awkward about it, but I feel like it's a pretty decent start.
So, although I'm on the Governance Committee drafting these proposals, this post doesn't reflect any sort of agreed on Governance Committee consensus or anything like that.
For fun games and community activities, I don't think that any of the formal moderator action proposals would preclude the community doing something like that in a no-consequence forum game even if it sort of uses moderator tools or abilities. I don't think what kinds of activities we could have or how they would take place is something that needs to be enshrined in governance documents and trying to do so is a bit bikesheddy for what we're trying to do with Governance and the number of more serious things we need to get in there.
Although I would say possibly something about allowing CoRe community members to opt out / have to opt into those sorts of activities if they wish might be a meaningful bullet point. I personally wasn't a huge fan of some of the games played in the past, in one game getting 'kidnapped' and not able to just participate normally in the forums because of a game I never opted into and would have preferred to opt out of.
I do think it should be very clear that the light hearted fun game stuff is separate from 'real' moderation actions. Having gag warnings and so-on that are otherwise indistinguishable from real warnings seems like a good way to confuse and upset people. I think that moderation actions - warnings, points, and so-forth should be delivered in a professional and no-nonsense manner, at least for the foreseeable future.
Having seen some of the discussions (that this isn't really the place to rehash here) I think what seems as fun and quirky moderation to lower the temperature or playing a bit as a little exasperated or crotchety mod doesn't always come across as fun or quirky. When someone is a bit heated already and not feeling good about the moderation action that can feel like a put-down or condescending and lead to bad feelings towards moderators. I probably would not support mods adding light hearted commentary or custom 'fun' messages to real warnings or infractions just due to the likelihood those would not be consistently received in the manner they might have been intended.
+1
FishmanPut your goddamned hand in the goddamned Box of Pain.Registered Userregular
I’m not against fun. In fact, Delz and Dibbit and Zonugal and I have all specifically had a few conversations about ways to bring more dumb, fun shit to the forums. My concern with (5) is that it’s easy for joke moderation actions to cross over into feeling infantilizing and condescending.
I think it’s possible to thread that needle as long as the intent is crystal clear, and that joke moderation actions are never used in any remotely serious, tense situation (trying to “defuse” tension with a joke infraction has a high chance of backfiring).
My gut feeling is that keeping stuff like that mostly constrained to events and holidays (the classic “insufficient holiday cheer” infraction, for example) is probably a good baseline. That said, I don’t think the usage and limitations of joke infractions needs to be codified. That’s about as “dissecting the frog” as you can get. I’d rather see mods who are simply on the same page and well coached about that sort of thing.
regarding only things like silly games and jokes - I find the various mod games we did play and similar to be extremely fun, but should exist only within an opt-in framework. I think it's worth codifying that much even if it doesn't have anything explicitly to do with mods themselves.
It's a space where having joke punishments might give more latitude. For instance, if we had Avatar overlays (a technical feature I don't know if it exists), the insufficient holiday cheer punishment could be having a Santa Hat placed on your avatar and unable to remove it, rather than a points thing.
I mean I'm definitely off in brainstorm blue sky thinking space here. We probably don't need a decision matrix for mod actions that don't yet exist.
Similarly, on reflection, I don't think there needs to be a large carve out for 'a mod may give you a unilateral overly severe punishment as a joke', which is the only way this discussion makes sense. Plenty of lowstakes options for making people get a little razzed for posting in the Thursday thread on a Friday.
See this is where things can get dicey. I have a lot of feelings about changing my avatar because I used it as my only way to express myself for over a decade across many forums. Changing it would hit extremely badly for me unless I gave some explicit consent. Yeah I could easily undo it, but I would much rather not have to ask to have it undone. That hits a different pain point for me. I think an opt-in for joke infractions would be the safest way if it is going to go beyond a zero point warning with a goofy message.
To be explicitly clear, I definitely was not suggesting anyone's actual Avatar would be itself changed, but rather decorated or framed. I was more envisaging if there was an Avatar frame customisation drop-down option in the profile settings which included "Red, Orange, Black, Santa Hat, Christmas Wreath, Halloween Bat, Wooden Frame" -type thing.
I don't know if this is a meaningful difference, I just wanted to be clear I wasn't actually picturing someone changing the actual Avatar, although the visual and emotional impact may be of negligible difference.
I am not sure if this is the correct document to place such a thing, but i would like to see the reason for bans of actual members explained to the community, codified. The current sticky threads do a poor job, and i think forcing the mods to explain their reasoning both helps to reinforce the rules and culture, as well as act as a watchdog against the mods to make sure they are acting in a way that is in accordance with the community. I am not sure this is the actual place to put such a thing though.
If you're a moderator you shouldn't use your mod powers for jokes. If you want to be funny online don't be a mod.
I think mods are part of the community and should be able to be themselves.
With the size of the community having maybe a dozen prominent and active posters be mods they need to be able to just be themselves as themselves. Every post shouldn't be a chilling effect what is this mod saying thing.
Acting as a moderator needs to be a clear thing that is happening, and otherwise a moderator should be no different than anyone else in their posts. If a mod decides to dive into some dumpster fire and say things that would get anyone infracted, they should get infracted as well.
Edit - the Xenforo forums make this much clearer and more obvious than PA Vanilla
If you're a moderator you shouldn't use your mod powers for jokes. If you want to be funny online don't be a mod.
I think mods are part of the community and should be able to be themselves.
With the size of the community having maybe a dozen prominent and active posters be mods they need to be able to just be themselves as themselves. Every post shouldn't be a chilling effect what is this mod saying thing.
Acting as a moderator needs to be a clear thing that is happening, and otherwise a moderator should be no different than anyone else in their posts. If a mod decides to dive into some dumpster fire and say things that would get anyone infracted, they should get infracted as well.
Edit - the Xenforo forums make this much clearer and more obvious than PA Vanilla
I think you might be misunderstanding me? I’m not suggesting that mods can’t “be themselves” and participate in the community, I’m saying that they shouldn’t be handing out joke infractions, changing people’s names/avatars/otherwise using the mod tools to mess with people for comedy.
Not really talking about the difference between official mod actions and personal posting either, I think that’s well understood.
If you're a moderator you shouldn't use your mod powers for jokes. If you want to be funny online don't be a mod.
I think mods are part of the community and should be able to be themselves.
With the size of the community having maybe a dozen prominent and active posters be mods they need to be able to just be themselves as themselves. Every post shouldn't be a chilling effect what is this mod saying thing.
Acting as a moderator needs to be a clear thing that is happening, and otherwise a moderator should be no different than anyone else in their posts. If a mod decides to dive into some dumpster fire and say things that would get anyone infracted, they should get infracted as well.
Edit - the Xenforo forums make this much clearer and more obvious than PA Vanilla
I think you might be misunderstanding me? I’m not suggesting that mods can’t “be themselves” and participate in the community, I’m saying that they shouldn’t be handing out joke infractions, changing people’s names/avatars/otherwise using the mod tools to mess with people for comedy.
Not really talking about the difference between official mod actions and personal posting either, I think that’s well understood.
Not every mod action needs be against a person.
To pull an example that's occurred in the last 12 months, a mod has locked the Thursday thread on a Friday then unlocked it 6 days later.
This is clearly a use of mod powers, isn't directed at a single person, and also a blatant unilateral violation of the thread lock guidelines being discussed in this proposal.
I'd also classify it more as 'playing along with the joke' than 'making someone the butt of a joke'.
Now, it might still be something people don't want as forum moderation.
But I do think a discussion on moderation style is largely beyond the scope of the topic of discussion on decision making.
That's unbelievably cool. Your new name is cool guy. Let's have sex.
+2
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited February 3
Let the forum cops blow off some steam what can go wrong?
How about we don't go there.
If they wanna make some jokes they can do it the standard way as a normal poster. Any jokes involving their mod powers should get the mod immediately infracted. It is not acceptable behavior considering the history of mod abuse on this forum.
I know I know blank slate, new forum blah blah that isn't how humans work, I'd like some recognition of this fact. Please don't trigger trauma for a few chuckles they're really not worth it. You can be a fun community mod without even once touching those mod powers for a lol.
I know this is an extreme position, but that's how poisoned this well is. It is going to take serious work to unpoison it, so we have to deliberately take the extreme opposite position to achieve that. In another place, at another time, without that history, I'd probably be in favour of it.
But on the new CoRe? Now? After everything that has led to this? No.
I think it helps if we can get away from framing moderators as "cops". It's a fraught metaphor that, especially on this forum with the general position on law enforcement, drives a narrative of moderators as bad guys who are in opposition to forumers rather than being community volunteers willing to do a hard job for effectively no reward.
Would you say I had a plethora of pinatas?
Legos are cool, MOCs are cool, check me out on Rebrickable!
+8
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I think it helps if we can get away from framing moderators as "cops". It's a fraught metaphor that, especially on this forum with the general position on law enforcement, drives a narrative of moderators as bad guys who are in opposition to forumers rather than being community volunteers willing to do a hard job for effectively no reward.
Mod power jokes directly contradict our stated values. In a non adversarial environment there is no need for them. We don't need special power based jokes to be friends with our mods. If you allow them, you are invoking an adversarial framing automatically. Why do you need to joke about your power with those that don't have it? I can see no reasonable excuse to do that that doesn't automatically raise concerns about the power being invoked. "It'll be a bit of fun" is nowhere near good enough: this is such a trivial reason that we can just live without it comfortably and sidestep all issues. It has no weight whatsoever compared to the costs.
I consider the very idea of forum mod power jokes to be an invocation of the long standing toxic and hostile attitude of moderators that has occured in the history of these forums over the last twenty years, a kind of unconscious leftover, an appeal to tradition. We used to do it. It's history right? Well no, it's bad history. We should never do it again. That is why I used the framing "forum cops". It was intentionally and seriously chosen as a hostility invoking phrase in this particular case to deliberately evoke the matching extreme ethical concerns, to demonstrate the ridiculousness of suggesting it. I knew exactly what I was doing. It was not an accident. Everything we are aiming for is so that we can construct an environment where moderators aren't thought of like this: where they're thought of as community helpers, not cops. Why on earth would you even think about doing anything that even looks similar to something from that previous environment, where authoritarian jokes were thrown around as a big haha. I can't believe I even have to point out how problematic that is regardless of good intentions.
We cannot do this thing. And if we do this thing, that is my red line. I will not post in an environment like that after helping construct those values. That is a hypocrisy too great to bear.
Morninglord on
+1
ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User, Moderatormod
i am on team moderation tools should be used for moderation
there's just not enough benefit to me for a few jokes that outweighs the inevitable fallout when someone oversteps the line. it's playing with fire for laughs
Allegedly a voice of reason.
+17
QuetziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User, Moderatormod
edited February 3
Personally I find that the construction of mod powers must only be used for explicit mod activity helps reinforce the dichotomy between mod and poster and therefore makes the mods feel more more like cops, not less.
Like, I'm not going to draw a line in the sand about it, but I've almost always found mod pranks to be fun and humanizing; I'd like for them to stick around. Yes, there's a potential for them to be harmful, but we should trust in the rest of our improvements (better rules, moderator selection policies, community oversight) to negate/minimize that harm and provide for better redress if it does occur.
Personally I find that the construction of modv powers must only be used for explicit mod activity helps reinforce the dichotomy between mod and poster and therefore makes the mods feel more more like cops, not less.
Like, I'm not going to draw a line in the sand about it, but I've almost always found mod pranks to be fun and humanizing, I'd like for them to stick around. Yes, there's a potential for them to be harmful, but we should trust in the rest of our improvements (better rules, moderator selection policies, community oversight) to negate/minimize that harm and provide for better redress if it does occur.
Everything listed in KD01 as a Moderator Action is a punishment of some form. It is explicitly treating the mod team as cops. What I don't see is anything in any of our documents (so far) that have grants the mods any kind of discretion or trust, it seems like an attempt to engineer things to the point that trust isn't needed.
I understand feeling that it can be difficult to trust the mod team after the past few years, but I think the whole effort will fall apart if we try and build systems that cannot be gamed versus simply empowering our mod team with some discretion and trust.
I think there are too many ways Mod jokes can go wrong; it's extremely fraught with making someone feel like they're the butt of the joke rather than a participant in a funny goof.
Yes this is the kind of shit Tube would do, it would be better if we dropped the worst parts of that whole shtick.
+1
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User, Transition Teamregular
The perspective I will offer, as my own and NOT as an official position from the Transition Team, is that we do need to make the mod position attractive as its a volunteer position?
We should strive to remember that we actually want, and NEED, users to volunteer as mods for Coin Return, and casually identifying mods as forum cops doesn't really polish that volunteer role, ya know?
We can construct the tightest set of community rules that have ever functioned for a forum, but they will have failed if no user wants to step up and accept being a mod.
+14
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited February 3
I have genuine trauma attached to "harmless pranks" that in actuality amounted to physical violence and bullying for my entire school life, that left me isolated for most of my childhood and unable to trust people fully even into my 40s. I'm not going to publically reveal all the different daily abuses that lead to this because a lot of it is quite painful, but the authority figures in my life dismissed it as pranks.
The continuous minimisation of this extremely serious and genuine attempt to point out that maybe your harmless fun ain't as fun as you think for other people is causing me to get extremely upset. "Casually identifying" jesus christ.
My opinion of the idea that mods need a little pranky prank as a perk of their position is unprintable. I would prefer we had no fucking mods.
I survived this place in the old days by avoiding all the areas where the mods had their little pranky pranks, and not trying to rock the boat or speak up on major issues. But now you've voted to mash everyone together for the greater good and now people are seriously suggesting mod abuse of power as a perk of the position. And for some stupid reason I decided I'd publically speak up during this whole transition. I'm starting to think I should have just left at the start. All of this makes me feel extremely vulnerable. And let me tell you I will react very fucking badly to any kind of prank. Oh boy you have no idea.
You want me to trust you that people can be trusted with the ability to abuse power for a prank? You know what the only people I tried to trust did do during the times of "harmless pranks" part of my life? They'd give me words that indicated I could trust them and then run off and tell my secrets to the bullies for social clout. No I don't think anyone here will do that. But that shit leaves a scar.
I don't know why this would be helpful for attracting talent tbh.
Supporting mods and having a solid rules document would do more to encourage good modship than letting them give out 0 point infractions for insufficient holiday cheer. Largest problem for the longest time was not having the backing of an administrator of sorts so that mods weren't getting endlessly harassed for doing mod things that are always relatively unpopular. They're less cops and more janitors and bouncers, sometimes people don't like being bounced.
The input on non-serious mod actions from everyone is appreciated and heard - the Governance Committee will discuss this amongst ourselves as well as with other parts of the Transition Team to make sure it's being appropriately addressed in the right places.
I'm not sure if this is something that will be part of Governance decisions or need to appear elsewhere but it's clearly a sticking point.
My personal $.02 is that 'official' mod actions should be clear and conducted in a professional manner, and if there are fun forum games and pranks that should be something separate from the moderator tools used to manage the community and conversations.
I think everyone has largely spoken their piece on this and shared their views so going more into the weeds on this is getting away from the discussion around KD01.
forum games should probably be opt in in the future too, just fyi
+1
smof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
I once got infracted by Rankenphile for getting his character killed in my XCOM LP, and I found that pretty funny. On balance though I don't think I would find the forum lacking if things like that never happened.
If I were a CR-mod going to joke-infract smof for killing me by Friendly Fire in an XCOM 2 LP I would probably check with smof by PM first and then make sure it's noted heavily it's a joke with smof's consent.
I think it helps if we can get away from framing moderators as "cops". It's a fraught metaphor that, especially on this forum with the general position on law enforcement, drives a narrative of moderators as bad guys who are in opposition to forumers rather than being community volunteers willing to do a hard job for effectively no reward.
I think that if you don't want people to think of mods as cops, one of the worst ideas is to simply tell them not to do that. you got a three strikes rule in place currently. sorry, that's cop shit.
I think it helps if we can get away from framing moderators as "cops". It's a fraught metaphor that, especially on this forum with the general position on law enforcement, drives a narrative of moderators as bad guys who are in opposition to forumers rather than being community volunteers willing to do a hard job for effectively no reward.
I think that if you don't want people to think of mods as cops, one of the worst ideas is to simply tell them not to do that. you got a three strikes rule in place currently. sorry, that's cop shit.
The current mods weren't involved in the creation three strikes system. It isn't and was never meant to be permanent, it was something the TT came up with in about a week during a period of profoundly low faith that the community would survive, and it was meant to keep us from tearing each other apart until we could lay a better foundation.
As a framework it did run up on some problems, but by that point we were already working on a better permanent system, so we didn't really have attention for coming up with a better band-aid.
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If that sort of feedback is expected to be included in the review, it seems reasonable to codify that advisory role in the selection process. As written, it looks like it's more about just looking at their infraction history and behavior issues rather than other issues like coverage, personality, and so on. It's not about reifying the mods, it's about acknowledging their unique perspective and harnessing it in a non-binding manner. (Fair enough about the veto idea.)
If the idea is that the mods will just say all of this stuff publicly during the community discussion, I think them being human might get in the way of this. If someone is really well liked, but unsuitable for some reason, are we sure that the mods are going to engage in what might be seen as publicly shitting on the nice popular person?
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What you're describing about posters being too nice, that is a foundational sort of management dynamic. We can very reasonably assume that the CoRe board is aware of this dynamic and could factor it into their decision making. When I said, "The mods inherently have a significant influence on mod selection, by nature of their role and position in the hierarchy." this is really good example of that at play; the mods could and probably will flag this concern in their consultation period.
As a bit of an insight into future decisions, if we do decide some sort of mod rotation is a good idea (this is still just one idea, and is in no way set it stone), we would want to do it so only a portion of the current mod cohort would rotate out. This is beneficial for many reasons, but relevant here is that it allows for coaching of new mods around these sorts of pitfalls. (incidentally, another good example of the inherent influence of mods - you get to train the mod teams and integrate them to your way of thinking)
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1.
I've reviewed the document and found it unclear in the same way that many have called out already:
the distinction between unilateral (non-punitive) thread kicks and peer-reviewed (punitive) thread kicks.
These sound like different actions as explained in the thread and therefore both of these really need to be declared separately within the table with an explanation as to how they are different (even if we don't know what points might be attached).
As it stands this really isn't made clear enough in the current version of the document.
The document should be self-contained, and not rely on seeking further information from a thread that will be sunk and erased in a few weeks (!!).
2.
One of my chief concerns with respect to timeliness is how it intersects with hours of activity.
We know from the data that there's a quiet time of day of about 6 hours where only a small proportion of posts go up. The dead time, when the US is largely asleep (and a minority of non-US based posters are awake).
I also know from experience that (on rare occasions) events occur during that period that require moderation, and that in the past this hasn't occurred until hours later.
Bearing in mind that mod selection/election may give us only minimal coverage for this period, I'd favour a system where a solo mod has a broad array of tools to act, including kicks and points 'to be determined later'. I think it would be better to be able to say 'this has earned punishment, we just haven't decided how severe yet' than say 'just wait until your father gets home'.
3.
One thing that isn't mentioned (and to be fair I'm not certain it is necessary) is thread relocation.
Under the proposed adopted structure, with the more formalised topic category subforums, there may come times where it would make sense to move a thread to a different subforum.
This is clearly needs a moderator to action it, but is it a moderation decision, or a community one?
It probably should probably be done with consultation with (or at least notification to) the thread.
But is this a unilateral mod action? A peer-reviewed one? Does the community get a say? How?
I'm not certain how frequent this may come up, but is it something that needs discussion and capture in regards to decision making process?
Or is it more an ad hoc each-situation-is-different and lets see how the community evolves in this brave new world once we start getting examples to deal with, rather than trying to plan for future hypotheticals?
4.
We probably need to have a discussion at some point regarding the holiday forums, which some people look forward to and come back for, and some people think is the worst part of being on the forums.
As a Forum Governance decision, the closest analogue for having this discussion would be 'Creation, deletion, renaming, or relocation of subforums', which requires a Community Supermajority.
However, we actually had a survey on forum structure, etc. We haven't conducted any discussion or indicated one way or another whether the holiday forum returns at the end of 2025, which some people would be for, and some people would be against. We likely don't even need to have this discussion for months.
What bucket does this conversation / decision fall under, and what should the threshold be?
5.
On a final note, as someone who has only ever earned Joke infractions (and thought every one was hilarious), is there room within this structure for non-serious mod action? A bit of whimsical moderation can help both let off steam, humanise moderators, and build community (although done badly can do all of the opposite, also).
I don't know if there's a moderation equivalent of a whoopie cushion, but on occasion a bit of constrained abuse of power can (applied appropriately) be hilarious. (e.g. Once had my profile title changed to 'SILENCE YOUNGLING' and locked after I replied that to someone else).
I think it’s possible to thread that needle as long as the intent is crystal clear, and that joke moderation actions are never used in any remotely serious, tense situation (trying to “defuse” tension with a joke infraction has a high chance of backfiring).
My gut feeling is that keeping stuff like that mostly constrained to events and holidays (the classic “insufficient holiday cheer” infraction, for example) is probably a good baseline. That said, I don’t think the usage and limitations of joke infractions needs to be codified. That’s about as “dissecting the frog” as you can get. I’d rather see mods who are simply on the same page and well coached about that sort of thing.
It's a space where having joke punishments might give more latitude. For instance, if we had Avatar overlays (a technical feature I don't know if it exists), the insufficient holiday cheer punishment could be having a Santa Hat placed on your avatar and unable to remove it, rather than a points thing.
I mean I'm definitely off in brainstorm blue sky thinking space here. We probably don't need a decision matrix for mod actions that don't yet exist.
Similarly, on reflection, I don't think there needs to be a large carve out for 'a mod may give you a unilateral overly severe punishment as a joke', which is the only way this discussion makes sense. Plenty of lowstakes options for making people get a little razzed for posting in the Thursday thread on a Friday.
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See this is where things can get dicey. I have a lot of feelings about changing my avatar because I used it as my only way to express myself for over a decade across many forums. Changing it would hit extremely badly for me unless I gave some explicit consent. Yeah I could easily undo it, but I would much rather not have to ask to have it undone. That hits a different pain point for me. I think an opt-in for joke infractions would be the safest way if it is going to go beyond a zero point warning with a goofy message.
Also, is there a way to disable the mods' ability to change avatars on a per user basis? So a user could check "allow mods to change avatar" and if that box isn't checked, a mod would be unable to change the avatar for joke purposes. (Admins would still be able to, of course.)
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I know that's not a perfect solution, and some people might still feel awkward about it, but I feel like it's a pretty decent start.
For fun games and community activities, I don't think that any of the formal moderator action proposals would preclude the community doing something like that in a no-consequence forum game even if it sort of uses moderator tools or abilities. I don't think what kinds of activities we could have or how they would take place is something that needs to be enshrined in governance documents and trying to do so is a bit bikesheddy for what we're trying to do with Governance and the number of more serious things we need to get in there.
Although I would say possibly something about allowing CoRe community members to opt out / have to opt into those sorts of activities if they wish might be a meaningful bullet point. I personally wasn't a huge fan of some of the games played in the past, in one game getting 'kidnapped' and not able to just participate normally in the forums because of a game I never opted into and would have preferred to opt out of.
I do think it should be very clear that the light hearted fun game stuff is separate from 'real' moderation actions. Having gag warnings and so-on that are otherwise indistinguishable from real warnings seems like a good way to confuse and upset people. I think that moderation actions - warnings, points, and so-forth should be delivered in a professional and no-nonsense manner, at least for the foreseeable future.
Having seen some of the discussions (that this isn't really the place to rehash here) I think what seems as fun and quirky moderation to lower the temperature or playing a bit as a little exasperated or crotchety mod doesn't always come across as fun or quirky. When someone is a bit heated already and not feeling good about the moderation action that can feel like a put-down or condescending and lead to bad feelings towards moderators. I probably would not support mods adding light hearted commentary or custom 'fun' messages to real warnings or infractions just due to the likelihood those would not be consistently received in the manner they might have been intended.
To be explicitly clear, I definitely was not suggesting anyone's actual Avatar would be itself changed, but rather decorated or framed. I was more envisaging if there was an Avatar frame customisation drop-down option in the profile settings which included "Red, Orange, Black, Santa Hat, Christmas Wreath, Halloween Bat, Wooden Frame" -type thing.
I don't know if this is a meaningful difference, I just wanted to be clear I wasn't actually picturing someone changing the actual Avatar, although the visual and emotional impact may be of negligible difference.
PSN:Furlion
I think mods are part of the community and should be able to be themselves.
With the size of the community having maybe a dozen prominent and active posters be mods they need to be able to just be themselves as themselves. Every post shouldn't be a chilling effect what is this mod saying thing.
Acting as a moderator needs to be a clear thing that is happening, and otherwise a moderator should be no different than anyone else in their posts. If a mod decides to dive into some dumpster fire and say things that would get anyone infracted, they should get infracted as well.
Edit - the Xenforo forums make this much clearer and more obvious than PA Vanilla
I think you might be misunderstanding me? I’m not suggesting that mods can’t “be themselves” and participate in the community, I’m saying that they shouldn’t be handing out joke infractions, changing people’s names/avatars/otherwise using the mod tools to mess with people for comedy.
Not really talking about the difference between official mod actions and personal posting either, I think that’s well understood.
Not every mod action needs be against a person.
To pull an example that's occurred in the last 12 months, a mod has locked the Thursday thread on a Friday then unlocked it 6 days later.
This is clearly a use of mod powers, isn't directed at a single person, and also a blatant unilateral violation of the thread lock guidelines being discussed in this proposal.
I'd also classify it more as 'playing along with the joke' than 'making someone the butt of a joke'.
Now, it might still be something people don't want as forum moderation.
But I do think a discussion on moderation style is largely beyond the scope of the topic of discussion on decision making.
How about we don't go there.
If they wanna make some jokes they can do it the standard way as a normal poster. Any jokes involving their mod powers should get the mod immediately infracted. It is not acceptable behavior considering the history of mod abuse on this forum.
I know I know blank slate, new forum blah blah that isn't how humans work, I'd like some recognition of this fact. Please don't trigger trauma for a few chuckles they're really not worth it. You can be a fun community mod without even once touching those mod powers for a lol.
I know this is an extreme position, but that's how poisoned this well is. It is going to take serious work to unpoison it, so we have to deliberately take the extreme opposite position to achieve that. In another place, at another time, without that history, I'd probably be in favour of it.
But on the new CoRe? Now? After everything that has led to this? No.
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Mod power jokes directly contradict our stated values. In a non adversarial environment there is no need for them. We don't need special power based jokes to be friends with our mods. If you allow them, you are invoking an adversarial framing automatically. Why do you need to joke about your power with those that don't have it? I can see no reasonable excuse to do that that doesn't automatically raise concerns about the power being invoked. "It'll be a bit of fun" is nowhere near good enough: this is such a trivial reason that we can just live without it comfortably and sidestep all issues. It has no weight whatsoever compared to the costs.
I consider the very idea of forum mod power jokes to be an invocation of the long standing toxic and hostile attitude of moderators that has occured in the history of these forums over the last twenty years, a kind of unconscious leftover, an appeal to tradition. We used to do it. It's history right? Well no, it's bad history. We should never do it again. That is why I used the framing "forum cops". It was intentionally and seriously chosen as a hostility invoking phrase in this particular case to deliberately evoke the matching extreme ethical concerns, to demonstrate the ridiculousness of suggesting it. I knew exactly what I was doing. It was not an accident. Everything we are aiming for is so that we can construct an environment where moderators aren't thought of like this: where they're thought of as community helpers, not cops. Why on earth would you even think about doing anything that even looks similar to something from that previous environment, where authoritarian jokes were thrown around as a big haha. I can't believe I even have to point out how problematic that is regardless of good intentions.
We cannot do this thing. And if we do this thing, that is my red line. I will not post in an environment like that after helping construct those values. That is a hypocrisy too great to bear.
there's just not enough benefit to me for a few jokes that outweighs the inevitable fallout when someone oversteps the line. it's playing with fire for laughs
Like, I'm not going to draw a line in the sand about it, but I've almost always found mod pranks to be fun and humanizing; I'd like for them to stick around. Yes, there's a potential for them to be harmful, but we should trust in the rest of our improvements (better rules, moderator selection policies, community oversight) to negate/minimize that harm and provide for better redress if it does occur.
Everything listed in KD01 as a Moderator Action is a punishment of some form. It is explicitly treating the mod team as cops. What I don't see is anything in any of our documents (so far) that have grants the mods any kind of discretion or trust, it seems like an attempt to engineer things to the point that trust isn't needed.
I understand feeling that it can be difficult to trust the mod team after the past few years, but I think the whole effort will fall apart if we try and build systems that cannot be gamed versus simply empowering our mod team with some discretion and trust.
Yes this is the kind of shit Tube would do, it would be better if we dropped the worst parts of that whole shtick.
We should strive to remember that we actually want, and NEED, users to volunteer as mods for Coin Return, and casually identifying mods as forum cops doesn't really polish that volunteer role, ya know?
We can construct the tightest set of community rules that have ever functioned for a forum, but they will have failed if no user wants to step up and accept being a mod.
The continuous minimisation of this extremely serious and genuine attempt to point out that maybe your harmless fun ain't as fun as you think for other people is causing me to get extremely upset. "Casually identifying" jesus christ.
My opinion of the idea that mods need a little pranky prank as a perk of their position is unprintable. I would prefer we had no fucking mods.
I survived this place in the old days by avoiding all the areas where the mods had their little pranky pranks, and not trying to rock the boat or speak up on major issues. But now you've voted to mash everyone together for the greater good and now people are seriously suggesting mod abuse of power as a perk of the position. And for some stupid reason I decided I'd publically speak up during this whole transition. I'm starting to think I should have just left at the start. All of this makes me feel extremely vulnerable. And let me tell you I will react very fucking badly to any kind of prank. Oh boy you have no idea.
You want me to trust you that people can be trusted with the ability to abuse power for a prank? You know what the only people I tried to trust did do during the times of "harmless pranks" part of my life? They'd give me words that indicated I could trust them and then run off and tell my secrets to the bullies for social clout. No I don't think anyone here will do that. But that shit leaves a scar.
"Just trust me bro it'll be different this time."
Words like that are worthless to me.
Supporting mods and having a solid rules document would do more to encourage good modship than letting them give out 0 point infractions for insufficient holiday cheer. Largest problem for the longest time was not having the backing of an administrator of sorts so that mods weren't getting endlessly harassed for doing mod things that are always relatively unpopular. They're less cops and more janitors and bouncers, sometimes people don't like being bounced.
I'm not sure if this is something that will be part of Governance decisions or need to appear elsewhere but it's clearly a sticking point.
My personal $.02 is that 'official' mod actions should be clear and conducted in a professional manner, and if there are fun forum games and pranks that should be something separate from the moderator tools used to manage the community and conversations.
I think everyone has largely spoken their piece on this and shared their views so going more into the weeds on this is getting away from the discussion around KD01.
I think that if you don't want people to think of mods as cops, one of the worst ideas is to simply tell them not to do that. you got a three strikes rule in place currently. sorry, that's cop shit.
The current mods weren't involved in the creation three strikes system. It isn't and was never meant to be permanent, it was something the TT came up with in about a week during a period of profoundly low faith that the community would survive, and it was meant to keep us from tearing each other apart until we could lay a better foundation.
As a framework it did run up on some problems, but by that point we were already working on a better permanent system, so we didn't really have attention for coming up with a better band-aid.