Pre-moderating the forum....

sh_o

Pre-moderating a forum on the internet - is this a good idea or not? If the forum was giving legal advise, should it be moderated and by whom? Should all posts be moderated or just the initial post?
Discuss :-)

Nevyn

pre modding is a pain in the nouse if all the posts are premodded.

Tom Young

Should we pay the moderators a fee per post too? Say 50 cent

hullaballoo

Pre-modding isn't really viable in the context of this forum given the constraints on the current moderators' time (including myself). Myself and besty are simply too busy to have the forum working smoothly if posts were to be pre-modded.

The problem is closer to that addressed in the other thread re the name change. We can cope with threads looking for legal advice well enough. The trouble is that there isn't enough traffic in here that comes within the charter guidelines. If we were to pre-mod threads, the forum would die a death. Even if threads are illegal, it's better than no threads at all.

I'd like to see some people, who have the time and interest, discussing substantive law in a more academic sense. It's also impossible to stop people looking for legal advice here - so I don't think a name-change would even cut it.

sh_o

Ok, so for the purpose of legal discussion and debate, if we assume that boards had unlimited resources and also time.....

sh_o wrote: »

Pre-moderating a forum on the internet - is this a good idea or not? If the forum was giving legal advise, should it be moderated and by whom? Should all posts be moderated or just the initial post?
Discuss :-)

seamus

sh_o wrote: »

Ok, so for the purpose of legal discussion and debate, if we assume that boards had unlimited resources and also time.....

Well it would then really depend on what kind of community one wanted to inspire and what kind of threads one wanted on your forums.

If every post was pre-moderated for all forums, people would very quickly get bored and go away.

For forums where someone is asking a question or requesting help, then pre-moderating isn't so horrible - people would be content enough to wait for their thread to appear and for the answers to come in. You don't post urgent questions on the internet.

For forums where you have debate, pre-moderation can't work. Part of the appeal of the online debate is that your post appears instantly for all to see and in chronological order - as the posts mount up, the debate evolves. If every post was pre-moderated, then 20 people may respond to one post, then they get approved and suddenly there are twenty posts all berating one poster. Then people pick and choose which of those twenty to respond to, there's a pasue before all those repsonses get approved and very quickly it all becomes a boring, tangled mess. Debates without pre-moderation show some logical progression with most people responding to one of the previous five posts. So debate would die.
Imagine a real-world debate where one speaker records his oration and plays it. Then all the other speakers record their responses and play them one after the other without a pause in between each. Then they all record new counter-points to each of the various tapes that were played and again all of those tapes are played consecutively. Yawnfest.

The irony being that where people are asking for advice is normally where pre-moderation would be overkill. Where people are looking for discussion provides the biggest legal minefield, but if you pre-moderate it the discussion will die.

On this forum, I don't see the need for pre-moderation. The volume of threads and posts is moderate at best and the regular readers are pretty vigilant about reporting stuff that may cross the line (thanks guys!).

johnnyskeleton

hullaballú wrote: »

I'd like to see some people, who have the time and interest, discussing substantive law in a more academic sense.

Moved to humour forum.

Tom Young

I thought my offer of 50 cent per post would give a trainee lawyer a modest income Just joking. I'd tend to agree with Hulla on the academic aspects of the law and the more technical parts of, say charges, res judicata, precedent etc.

Tom

johnnyskeleton

Tom Young wrote: »

I thought my offer of 50 cent per post would give a trainee lawyer a modest income

It's a princely sum indeed.

Tom Young wrote:

I'd tend to agree with Hulla on the academic aspects of the law and the more technical parts of, say charges, res judicata, precedent etc.

Tom

Let's all start as many technical legal threads as we can and see what happens? At the very least it will discourage the "I don't know what the petty sessions act is" type poster.

Tom Young

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

At the very least it will discourage the "I don't know what the petty sessions act is" type poster.

Shivvers!

'He were innocent I say, innocent!' :cool: