Date: March 1st, 2007 6:45 AM Author: Trip stag film
Alright guys, I just spent the past seven hours doing a complete overhaul of the thread and post management system. When rachmiel designed the original tools it was with the assumption that only me and him would be using them, so they left much to be desired and weren't really suitable for letting other people use them.
Anyway, the tools have been completely redesigned. Here is how it works now:
1) Moderators can move threads between school-related and off-topic at the click of a button (this is unchanged from the previous system).
2) Moderators do "soft deletes" of threads. This means that when a moderator hits the delete button, the thread disappears off the board, but is still stored in the database. If the thread was deleted by mistake, rachmiel and I can restore it by just going into the database.
3) Moderators can no longer edit anyone's posts -- the only people who can do edits are me, rachmiel, and Boondocks (and of course the person who made the post).
4) Instead of editing posts, moderators can now do "soft deletes" of individual posts, meaning that when they hit the delete button the post will disappear from the thread, but can be restored by rachmiel or myself if it was deleted by mistake. Eventually we'll create a feature so mods and the original poster can see the removed posts so that mods can restore the post if the original poster edits out whatever was wrong with it (e.g. removes an outted poster's name).
5) I've created a database that keeps track of every single action a moderator does. So, if a thread or post disappears, we'll know who was responsible. Eventually I'm going to create a special page that only moderators can access so that all moderators can see every change made by all other moderators, with the hope that moderators will self-police themselves based on their actions being known to their peers.
Now, for what's going to be expected of moderators. It's pretty straightforward: moderators will move threads that have been misclassified, get rid of spam, and enforce the anti-outing policy. In other words, routine stuff that needs to get done but rachmiel and I simply can't do ourselves anymore. Anything beyond that routine stuff will have to get approval from me and/or rachmiel depending on the request (most likely rachmiel). If mods remove stuff they shouldn't, just email the contact address with the details and rachmiel or I will restore it.
So, with all that out of the way -- any nominations? Just to be crystal clear, this isn't a popularity contest: if 100 people nominate WhitePride he still won't be made a mod, and if 100 people say to demod NYCFan he'll be a mod if he wishes to remain one. Similarly, there are a few people rachmiel and I are likely going to invite to be mods even if their names don't appear here because we know they are reliable and trust them to do a good job.
Obviously some people are going to be disappointed no matter who gets chosen, but I want to reiterate that this site is not changing any of its policies, but is just delegating some work to reliable people who want to volunteer, and anyone who goes on a power trip and decides to unilaterally create new policies or make exceptions for friends and refuse to stop *will* lose their modship (the whole point of this is to reduce our workload, and my workload isn't going to be reduced much if I have to manually restore dozens of wrongly deleted threads from the database every day).
When mods get selected, their monikers will be posted in a mod thread I'm going to create later today, so there are not going to be any secret or hidden moderators or anything like that. You guys can feel free to use that thread to report threads or posts that are within the mods' jurisdiction.
Feel free to nominate people or to volunteer here. Not sure how many people we're going to take, but at the very least I'd like to gauge interest and get people's feedback on this whole system.
Date: March 1st, 2007 7:05 AM Author: Umber persian dilemma
I'll go ahead and nominate/volunteer myself. I spend plenty of time between the college and grad boards (with regular forays to the law side) and I'm not too controversial.
Date: March 1st, 2007 8:08 AM Author: sinister son of senegal
1. BIG CHANGES
2. I nominate more feces guy
3. Please, for the love of christ, if you are not going to do anything about aznazn and people who get off on posting the word nigger, and if you're not going to create an ignore poster feature, at least create a third level of filtration so that the utter garbage nonsense spam that 95% of us dont want to see can be excluded. Hence
-school-related
-off-topic
-garbage mode
That way your mods can put all aznazn sewage and all the threads that so cleverly feature the word "nigger" and maybe one or two other selected categories of garbage/spam posting prominently in that third category, no free speech is impinged upon and the rest of us normal folk can get back to enjoying this board.
Date: March 1st, 2007 9:02 AM Author: Curious Gaped National
This "garbage mode" is a good idea. I like the off topic stuff (like the ladies and lunch threads) but the racist spam that has no purpose other than to use offensive words is pretty useless to me (and I assume most other people).
I agree. Also, no one WANTS to read the garbage, so why would anyone ever post something to go in that mode? The mods would have to move a whole bunch of shit over there, which would make more work for them.
Plus then there's the issue of pissing off the flamers by moving or deleting their threads and as a result, they go flame- and spam-crazy.
Date: March 1st, 2007 9:50 AM Author: Alcoholic sanctuary knife
Why even have a garbage mode? Nobody would be in garbage mode if all it does is filter out racist threads and azn. They will just resort to posting in the wrong topic and you're going to have to delete all the resulting spam.
Why tiptoe around it when you can just delete it altogether? It's not about censoring the topic (blacks are bashed everywhere on this board no matter what); It's about eliminating that spam of like 50+ nigger threads in one day. All by the same one or two posters.
Deleting threads is really stepping into dangerous territory. I really feel for GTO on this issue, because in many ways he'll be condemned for it by posters no matter what he does.
Date: March 1st, 2007 10:12 AM Author: sinister son of senegal
"Why tiptoe around it when you can just delete it altogether?"
This place has been around for 3 years and GTO has never done this for reasons of free-speech and libertarianism or some bullshit. I guess that's his prerogative. I'm just trying to offer a palatable alternative that might actually improve the content on this board.
As far as intentionally posting spam in non-"garbage" mode, I realize this might be resorted to but 1) the new mods can just send them to the appropriate filter ("garbage") and 2) GTO has said in the past intentionally and maliciously posting nonsense in school-related is grounds for deletion.
Date: March 1st, 2007 11:42 AM Author: citrine wagecucks locus
alternatively, what about a limit ot the # of threads you can start within a given period? i dont really think there's a need to post more than (for example) 5 new threads per minute,
a double limit would be even better - 5 per minute, and 10 per 15 minutes
Date: March 1st, 2007 11:23 AM Author: Trip stag film
Notice that it's a nominations thread, not a volunteer thread. Not going to preclude people from volunteering, particularly when the volunteer is someone that I trust like Joe Caltech, but nominations are obviously going to carry a lot more weight when it comes to people I don't know on a personal level.
Date: March 1st, 2007 3:08 PM Author: Vigorous ceo nowag
WHY?? It's a no loss prospect. you don't have to come to the board more. It's just that when you're on the board you have the ability to moderate. we're going to have to start a grass roots conscript rowam campaign.
Date: March 1st, 2007 3:17 PM Author: Sickened Set Travel Guidebook
Beecause I have a job, have some complicated stuff going on outside of my job, and generally don't have the ability to do anything more than a very half-assed job at moderating.
I'm also not sure I want to be tied to the board any more than I already am, or that I have the energy to take the sort of shit that GTO does.
Date: March 1st, 2007 11:30 AM Author: Amber naked reading party therapy
Well the problem is that I think anybody who would be good/fair at the job would recognize that it would be rather boring with not much to show for it. In fact (as somebody suggested above) I would have to assume that anybody particularly interested in the job would have some ulterior motive for wanting it.
I obviously have the time to invest in some board-related stuff (my blog, PPP list, etc.) but those are things that I find independently interesting/useful and it's always nice to know I can just drop them if I get bored.
Date: March 1st, 2007 11:33 AM Author: Swashbuckling self-absorbed volcanic crater theater stage
Not to mention that moderators will inevitably come under heavy fire--and most of the balanced posters have already revealed a lot of personal information about themselves. A dangerous combination . . .
Date: March 1st, 2007 12:01 PM Author: Trip stag film
Oh, you'd be able to drop this too. I'm expecting high turnover, and actually I'd prefer if there was a lot of cycling in if only to prevent some sort of elite poster class from developing like on LSP and LSD.
Date: March 1st, 2007 11:32 AM Author: racy rusted locale digit ratio
great choices
I recommend checking out the recent thread on the SullCrom associate for indicators of potential candidates -- these people seem to "get" where the natural line between a fun thread and a bad joke lies.
Date: March 1st, 2007 3:11 PM Author: Dark appetizing mexican
He is? He's like the nicest, sweetest, least controversial person on this board. Along with rowan, shiveringjenny and the Boondocks he's one of the only people on this board that I'd trust with this job. Everyone else has their own agenda.
Date: March 17th, 2007 2:12 AM Author: Fighting parlour
yes, any uncritical supporter of israel needs to rethink his position. one hint you've gone too far: if you find yourself making excuses for their bombing orphanages. I feel bad about the holocaust, too, but justice would have been better served had they demanded part of saxony from germany.
Date: March 1st, 2007 6:08 PM Author: Cerise titillating dysfunction
hi grate!
I disagree with this piece of hagiography. Besides TALC's allegations of anti-semitism, grate has engaged in his fair share of racist and sexist b.s. on the board, and has his own agenda as well.