Lads ye need to start advertising for mods

cmon guys

the place is wrecked for lack of mods

if whatever process ye had before was working to decide on worthy mods, it's high time ye admitted that it's now defunct and that the need for people to do the job now far outweighs the need for the old quality control method of slow recruitment that has left us with one and a half moderators.

will ye not consider opening a thread looking for volunteer mods across the site because its a massive downer at the moment to see how easily one or two posters that wreck an entire topic, let alone individual threads- see any public sector related thread for an example but there's plenty more.

put out an open call. forget selecting from a chosen few and waiting. forget months of training or whatever. give thirty decent posters the ban button this week and watch this place start to improve before the end of the month.

Cookie_Monster

why would people want to do it though? The calls HQ have made have alienated the community and interaction from the office seems non existent these days. Several current mods have mentioned the current mod tool suite being terrible in comparison also.

Most mods did it for the community they enjoyed being part of,despite the added hassle it brought, it was worth it overall. Now, not so much tbh

endacl

Why would anybody bother. Boards is over. It just doesn’t know it yet.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119793833#Comment_119793833

Pretty much this. IMHO it's less about the mod tools and all that stuff and that won't be what finally kills the site. The "office" is incognito, admins are singular and overworked or invisible, so the sense that there's a hand on the tiller is pretty much gone, as is the sense of "community". Because of that many existing mods couldn't be arsed, even if the ability to mod was better.

EmmetSpiceland

De-modding the “absentee” mods would be a good start.

Beasty

This is the third thread in the past few months or covering this issue

I pointed out in the last one that I think we need to get some active Admins first. Otherwise it will be largely me with perhaps some input from Niamh and one or two Admins who may drop in on occasion. What that really means is I would be the person with probably a lot more influence over anyone who does get put forward than anyone else

And to date I've had negligible response to the call I did put out in the Admin forum in the first half of August.

Hence I guess I'm going to have to try and put some names forward for Admins as a first step (although we are also short at CMod level and we would probably deplete that resource even more in the short term)

It's been on my mind for months but I was hoping to see a bit more of some of those currently showing as Admins. I guess that's not going to happen and I need to get on with it

Im not clear on what it means to have influence over "who gets put forward" Beasty.

For Admin or for Mod?

I don't see any problem with getting a pool of candidate mods together in advance.

I think the old approach of getting together behind the scenes and offering the role to a chosen candidate is long behind us, though.

I think it's time for a casting call

Leg End Reject

The problem with asking people to volunteer is that responses are likely to come from those who shouldn't be mods.

I'd imagine Boards will just slide into oblivion in time.

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119795062#Comment_119795062

Well if you want clarity. If I have anything to do with it we will not be having any open discussions over who should or should not be a mod or admin

It id not a popularity contest

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119796090#Comment_119796090

the problem though is that any discussions will only involve the same small handful of people currently working as admins. i can't imagine progress being swift.

A rotation or limited time Mod might be helpful to encourage those to be more altruistic. The downside is that you lose experience when mods rotate out... but maybe many will stay on.

It seems the new modding tools are not as good as they used to be. It's a bit like the loss of concorde - humanity has gone backwards 😂The old mod tools made the job relatively straight forward before. I don't know what the new mod tools are like, but if it makes the modding 'job' more of a chore/frustrating it's a pity.

growleaves

'I think the old approach of getting together behind the scenes and offering the role to a chosen candidate is long behind us, though.'

Mods are chosen at birth and then scattered through distant lands. Beasty roams the earth seeking to identify the chosen ones.

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119796172#Comment_119796172

I'm somewhat grounded at present as I'm heading into Manchester Arena for a Deep Purple gig

I'll see if Ian Gillan's available.

I turned down Ozzie due to his behaviour with bats. Doesn't sit well with our Coronavirus Forum

I checked out the Australian Pink Floyd in Bath last night. Alas they seemed a bunch of frauds as only 1 of them seems to be Australian

appreciate the clarity beasty!

im not saying all applications be merely rubberstamped before swift approval and im not even sure how a popularity contest would work

im pointing out that the current situation has the site absolutely bollixed and inaction (and indeed the old method of selection) is not going to sort it

we need mods and we need modding to happen and i think its clear that there's space to consider a wider net in seeking the required resources

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119793842#Comment_119793842

the level of self-awareness amongst the circle-jerkers is low.

Quantum Erasure

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119795618#Comment_119795618

https://search.google.com/test/amp

...

osarusan

The impression I get from from various ex/inactive mods is that this went from being a place where volunteers could be bothered to mod the place, because of the sense of community made it worthwhile, to a a place where loads of those volunteers couldn't be bothered to mod the place, because there was a dwindling/absent sense of community that made it worthwhile.

Quite a sad thing to see from the outside, and for mods who invested a lot of time and effort, must be very frustrating.

Furze99

Problem with modding is threefold I think: time it takes, that it inevitably puts limits on how you express yourself and your 'relationship' with other poster plebs.

thefallingman

isn't it a non paying job, i would assume that's the big issue. Pay peanuts get monkeys, pay nothing get ......

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119793833#Comment_119793833

There's an office...??

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803549#Comment_119803549

There is one employee - Niamh. Whether she still has access to an office I don's know, but when I make references to the "office" it's generally referring to her and/or Odhran.

i wasn't hoping for this to be a rehash of every complaint about the new platform or the difficulties in being a mod.

I was merely hoping to find out whether there had been a consideration of any changes to the methods of seeking new mods given the changes in everything else over the past few years and the clear lack of hands on deck to help out beasty recently.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803842#Comment_119803842

Interesting. I was under the impression that there may have been a half-dozen or so before the revamp, but haven't really though about it in terms of an "office" (in the non-physical sense).

bucketybuck

As a general rule, the first time you discuss a problem it may be perfectly fair to point out that there are no easy solutions.

If a year later still nothing has been done, then it is the decision makers that have become the problem.

Beasty

Again I am repeating what I have said in other similar threads, but it's only a month or two ago that mods started receiving notification of reports. Before that we had to go looking for them which was not so difficult for those of us actively modding CA and Coronavirus as the majority of reports came from those two forums

I personally wanted to see the impact of additional mod tools before concluding whether mods had not been active because of lack of such tools. It's only now that we are starting to see more activity from the mod team. It's still the case that all the reports in the two forums I mention above do get dealt with. And I know there ate some forums with little or zero mod activity. Many may not need any for now, but if I see a number of reports from a particular forum or thread I will try and have a look and indeed have stepped in on a number of occasions

Yes it's far from ideal, but again as I have mentioned a few times I am trying to get some input particularly at Admin level which can hopefully get us with more active and efficient moderation across the site

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119803866#Comment_119803866

Before Mark died it was basically Mark and Niamh on reduced hours during the pandemic. I think they had one developer - now they can call on the time of a developer from Vanilla, but that resource is a lot less than the equivalent of a full time employee

There was certainly an office when part of Distilled Media, but that was shared with other parts of that organisation

I suspect it makes no commercial sense to rent any office space as this is certainly a "business" that lends itself to remote working. Alas I don't think it's a business that lends itself to making a profit though

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119804700#Comment_119804700

Yeah, me neither. I'm honestly not sure what the long-term goal of boards.ie is given that the revamp seems to have reduced traffic, which can't be good for advertisers. I mean - is it to maintain the current size, develope back up to previous levels or go in a different direction.

Thanks for the input htough.

endacl

Has anybody told facekicker it’s probably safe to rereg?

Is it no longer part of distilled media? 😨

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119807690#Comment_119807690

Hasn't been for a while now. Distilled bought into Boards for the Adverts part of it, stripped that out of it and offloaded Boards..

Witcher

The Legal Discussion forum is essentially un-moderated and has been for over a year now. Reports simply aren't acted on anymore, which is true of most areas of the site tbh but some are glaringly obvious.

Beasty

Thanks for that Witcher

I'll try and have a look at recent reports later on

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119815801#Comment_119815801

Can you confirm something for me @Beasty ? If a post is reported do the mods of that forum get a notification that a post was reported?

MrMusician18

I've said this several times on various feedback threads that the site needs more new mods and admins, but you get the same excuses over and over... "We can't appoint moderators because they don't have the old tools" (so it's better to leave the current handful to struggle on their own?) or this classic "We can't appoint them because we can't follow our long winded, arcane appointment procedure under vanilla"...

I mean the site just needs more moderators and diversity in moderation too, so what if a dud choice is made now and again. The work is not exactly securing the national treasury. If someone doesn't work out, demod them and move on. Feelings might get hurt, yes, but who cares.

I've said before that this place has effectively turned into a one man show with one individual as policeman, judge, jury and executioner. It's a legitimate complaint that has been going on for some time. Yes, it could have been argued that the hamfisted platform change caused this, but those in charge can't point to any tangible action they've taken to address the moderation issue. So really it's the people that are obviously the problem.

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119815817#Comment_119815817

It's only been happening recently. However I personally have such notifications turned off as my Inbox would be swamped. I simply look through our reported post forum, Most reports tend to be CA or Coronavirus related, and are quite easy to spot. I also keep an eye out for spammers (those reports are quite easy to spot), but also will have a look if I see something has been reported a number of times, as it may be there are no local mods around

droidman123

You obviously havnt been paying attention to the libellous posts that have been reported on the ryan turbidy thread

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119818332#Comment_119818332

You decide to use this thread to complain about something in a forum I do not moderate where you (and only you) made a single report 2 weeks ago?

This folks is the sort of thing I am getting criticised for!

drogon.

So boards have done what Elon plans to do with twitter ?? Free the bird or board in this case 👀

droidman123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119818343#Comment_119818343

I have reported numerous libellous reports on that thread in the last few months.i wasnt criticising you,i was simply stating a fact.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119818343#Comment_119818343

No, you are not getting criticised for this. You are getting criticised for leaving loads of forums unmoderated because of the refusal to remove inactive and bad mods and appoint new ones. For reasons...

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119817704#Comment_119817704

Just fyi, the PI/RI mods have said they aren't getting these notifications any more - that they did for a while, but aren't any longer - so that may need to be looked at again.

ohnonotgmail

Do the admins know which mods are actively modding? I know there was supposed to be a list of mods for each forum put together but that seems to have disappeared.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119818343#Comment_119818343

close the thread beasty, i didnt start it for you to be castigated for every little thing you cant get around to and that was not at all the intent

i was hoping we might get some idea that the lack of mods was something that was going to see a changed approach from the backroom side of things- but if even that function is something that has been left for you to deal with along with everything else then i may be hoping in vain.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119818873#Comment_119818873

He's not being castigated for the little things - appointing and managing the moderation team is the primary responsibility of the admins.

There is one person trying to do the impossible and do everything here because they won't bring more people on board.

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119818749#Comment_119818749

And I have explained in a number oi threads, including this one, what is happening and my view of how we approach this.

Beasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119818819#Comment_119818819

Again I have mentioned this elsewhere, but until we had reports being notified it was difficult to assess who would be happy enough to pick up modding again.

It appears from one comment here that notifications are not working. So that possibly puts us back to square one, although I have still seen some pick up in activity amongst mods in recent months. Again as I have said on a number of occasions my view is we need to get some active Admins first as otherwise it might me me, Niamh and a couple of others chipping in trying to assess who amongst our hundreds of mods are modding, or intend modding as things get easier. Whether they will get much easier than what we have at present is up in the air though. We have had a number of false dawns on various mod tools ever since the move to Vanilla

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119819123#Comment_119819123

And it's been explained to you how your approach isn't working.

After Hours back in the day had close to 10 moderators it has 1.5 to 2 now. Granted it's not as busy now but more need to be added to AH&CA in short order. L

Really the time for inaction has long passed, it is what, 18 months since the platform change.

Big Bag of Chips

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119817704#Comment_119817704

Report notifications are no longer working. They worked for a while, and I had a rule set up to direct them to a specific folder. The folder has been empty for a while now.

All this is precisely why forums set-ups like this are dying a slow death and why Reddit is growing as it largely self-moderates itself.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119824874#Comment_119824874

it really doesn't. some subreddits are heavily moderated, some not so much.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119825006#Comment_119825006

the actual key point is that the upvote / downvote mechanic takes care of the vast majority of thread situations.