Come on, James. You’re just knocking down strawmen. Sure, that’s a lot easier than actually engaging with what we do and why and arguing for a positive alternative, but when you present your position as one dependent on a caricature of reality that is plainly not the case, you make your position look out of touch at best.
ILP isn’t a nation, and I’ve explicitly relied on the fact that I’m not smarter than anyone else to justify my actions. Don’t exaggerate or flourish, talk in concrete terms about what you think we’re doing wrong and what and how specifically you would do better.
You answered my question and though you seem to not know it, I answered yours. You don’t need to go through that song and dance of yours. You obviously aren’t going to change anything until someone changes it for you.
Many people would make even worse moderators than are now in place.
Many of the remaining have no desire to be moderators.
None of the now-remaining will act so impartially that no-one complains, nor will posters cease complaining about being victimised when they are impartially moderated.
Any voting system would be a lot of work to implement, could easily be rigged (are there any internet votes that have validity anywhere?), and in any case would lead to populism and a fair chance of more favouritism. Democracy has never cured playing to the popular vote.
What’s your better suggestion, James? You seem to have failed to offer one; speaking of course as one of his “hirelings”, the only take-home message I get from this thread is that Carleas should choose someone in advance that you approve of.
Which, I should say, is not an inherently unreasonable complaint. James is probably right that if he were a part of the moderator selection process, the moderation would tend to be moderation of which he approves. It’s a lot easier to appreciate a system where new moderators are selected by a committee when you’re on the committee. And, to the extent that democracy is valuable, it is valuable because everyone’s on the committee. The problem is only in putting it into practice in the online context where people come and go. Case in point, Impious just came back. I’ll be damned if that guy hasn’t been banned at least a dozen times, and today he just strolled in. Even a post count or seniority cutoff doesn’t solve the problem: there have been at times several prominent posters who have prominent alter-egos. Open democracy with broad suffrage falls apart when there’s no way to relate a vote to the preference of an individual. We’re left with a realistic best of using a committee of people who have established their reputations in and connection to the community.
Voting would be the worst option for choosing mods at pholosophy forum (considering that it is a true philosophy forum, neither social nor a socialist one in disguise). Though, there is absolutely no harm in consulting with senior and ragular posters.
The only thing that is required on the behalf of the owners, is just to keep an eye on the diffeent sections of ILP, to judge how discussions on different sections are going on. I agree that it is almost impossible to satisfy all. Still, the quality of the moderation can be easily judged by the noise of that section.
If too much off topic posts, personal comments, trolling, complaints and even bans are happening in one particular section in comparision of the others, it imples that there must be something wrong with the moderation there.
A smart and wise moderator should be able to prempt things and interrupt before things go out of the hands.
Secondly, the key to successful moderation is to strike the right balance between the underuse and overuse of the power; wisdom.
Having said that, posters should also understand that mods do not get any monetary rewards for their time and effort. It is their obligation to the posters. Let us not forget the limitations of the owners and staff.
If we, the posters, are so much concerned about the quality of the moderatin of the ILP, why should we not contribute a little to ILP, in order to enable it to hire professionals to run itself?
The second option is to rely on ads, though it would perhaps somewhat mitigate the status of ILP.
Please understand that i am not saying all this keeping any particular poster or moderator in my mind. It is merely a general comment.
I only wanted to know one detail concerning why things have become so poor. That question has been answered. But if you are actually interest in a “better way”, the following should apply. It is more about how to govern any group through screened “governors” or “moderators”.
The following is a basic outline of what is abstractly required in order to govern a group for any purpose. If only one person had any authority, he would have to do all of those tasks and have all of those dedications and virtues. If only two people are available, the tasks should be divided up by skill keeping skill B separate from skill D. The best design is to have four people chosen by skill, each screened for appropriate virtues and dedication.
Being new to you, this probably seems very complicated, but in actual practice is almost too simple. It is an abstract process that is so simple that molecules actual perform the duties outlined such as to form living beings.
What all four people have to do is be willing to document in detail what they are doing and why. That documenting must be open not only to each of those four “offices”, but also to the group at a “class A” level, “class A” being distinguished primarily by membership dedication.
Person A is the input portal to the decision making team and primary journalist. All concerns, suggestions, or complaints go through that person merely to be documented properly. This person generates a situation report. And as long as it is openly documented, that person can minimally screen input so as to not waste the time of others. But that person may not screen input that is about or concerns that person or position.
Person B is the site strategist who cleverly plans out how the priorities are to be accomplished. Again open documentation is required such that anyone can easily see why things are being done as they are. This person handles the hope and threat assessments so as to form a “map” of what needs doing and why. He also must be willing to openly debate any challenges to his plans, moderated by the system analyst.
Person C is in charge of getting the job done concerning anything that could be classified as “labor” rather than “decision-making” or “reporting”. He examines the strategy “map” in order to see what needs doing and makes his best effort to get it done as per specification.
Person D is responsible for “quality control” of the governing/moderating system. He watches for every detail to ensure that all is as per specification. He does not wait to be informed that something is going wrong. He should be aware of anything going wrong before it becomes an issue and act accordingly. And nothing pertaining to members is “legal” until he has approved it.
Note that there is nothing concerning whether there is to be any voting. Such decisions are the domain of the strategist, but must be openly explained in precise detail. Usually there will be some things open for vote and some not.
Any decision can be challenged by any class A member via debate. The system analyst is the logician moderating the debate between the strategist and the challenger. The stated group priorities must be the focus of the debate and final determiner to settle the challenge. The challenge must be concerning a rationality involving the stated priorities. Any issue involving the priorities and thus the operation, plans, or individual decisions may be challenged. And the moderation must comport to those same priorities. The winner of the challenge is the one who has presented the stronger rationale for accomplishing the priorities. The strategist must then comport to the dictates of the win.
What is critically important is the detailed open documentation concerning all actions and most importantly why they are being done. One need not worry of suspicion as long as valid reasoning, open for debate, is being documented for future concerns.
You are used to having moderators assigned by forum rather than by type of duty, but the “better way” is to have them assigned by skill involving decision making. It all becomes quite simple once your mind settles on it. Due to the process, the owners and members can see a clear picture of exactly what is causing what because the strategies and situations have been documented. In a sense it is more scientific, modern, and systematic. Depending on the skills of the strategist and the resources available, the priorities, whatever they were, Will be accomplished.
Sanjay - I agree with your bolded section, but disagree with your underlined section. Some fora will always have more digression and friction than others. Politics and religion will be harder to moderate than science and mathematics, moral philosophy harder than classical logic. However, I think we would agree that the best moderators should be directed to the worst boards, other things being equal.
James - it looks interesting, I need more time to read it through. My first impression is that you’re not going to increase the willingness of good candidates to commit to a moderator role by increasing demands on documentation and bureaucracy, but maybe I’m misunderstanding the process.
Is that how you would hire your employees - appeal to who ever you could get to take the job? If so, I suspect that you are in the wrong business. You only get what you go to the trouble of ensuring. If you aren’t ensuring that it will get better, you can be sure that it will get worse. It’s one thing to start small with scraps so as to build up, but another to start with scraps that bring you even further down.
If you aren’t doing it right, you’re doing it wrong.
If there are more positions than there are qualified people willing to fill them, that’s what happens. Given that there’s a shortage now, making a voluntary job more unattractive and time-consuming is not the way to go, and certainly not to raise the quality of the prospective pool.
There are two reasons for unwarrented noise; subject and given or perceived liberty ( Both for posters and moderators).
You rightly said that classical logic discussion would be more organized than politics. That is because of the subject.
Subjectwise, i think that SG&E forum would be hardest to moderate. Then comes R&S and then ST&M, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy and last is Sandbox.
This should be the decreasing order according to subject. And, it also plays out in that way, more or less.
But, the main problem is about the given and pereived liberty.
Because, posters use to take the liberty for granted and misuse it. That is precisely why most heated encounters use to happen in Off topic section, though, subjectwise, it sould come last in the list.
OH, look closely at this language of induction of Off Topic.
Does it not subtly suggesting posters that they are more free here to raise their tone?
And also, does it not indirectly effect the mindset of the moderator, because a moderator has to maintain different degree of moderation for Off Topic and ragular forums?
To avoid this, i would like to advice the owners of ILP to eliminate Off Topic section and keep all that simply into Sand Box. If posters want to get personal, rant house is there.
This would help in two ways. Firstly, ILP would need one less modeator and secondly, posters and moderators would not have to post and moderate differently.
I already explained what to do if there are too few. And when the job fits the skill, the only thing perceived as “work” is the documenting itself. The minds that naturally function in those positions don’t see their thinking part as “a job”, rather merely having fun with what they do best. But like sitting on the crapper, the job isn’t done until the paperwork is done, else things get pretty shitty (as they have). The documenting IS the “job”. And it seriously doesn’t take that many key strokes.
This is a philosophy site. People are supposed to enjoy thinking, not just taking a dump on the members.
And another thing to consider is that in all matters, what you are not willing to do for yourself, a machine Will be designed to do for you. And eventually it will be a requirement upon you, leaving no need for you… regarding any matters. Do you really want a machine moderating you?
Your solution was to make the (too) few people available cover all the roles, and add documentation tasks. It’s not really a solution that addresses the problems of the moderators, as much as it may address the desires of some posters.
While I don’t frequent all of the boards, I don’t see any moderators who enjoy taking a dump on the members. I see people volunteering their time to keep out spam and, with varying degrees of success, keep the discussions flowing civilly.
The machine will be designed or not and imposed or not, regardless. That has absolutely no material bearing on the decision of how to moderate a small online members’ forum like ILP in 2014.
On a provisional basis [lasting a month, say], set up a new forum moderated by James. Let him choose the subject and let the discussions begin.
Let us then see how he himself might warn and ban folks “in reality”. Only it won’t really be. It won’t be in that he is not able to actually ban folks. But he does get to apprise us of why he would have warned folks about particular things and why he would have banned them had they not heeded his warnings.