Mods

_Kaiser_ wrote:

Look, we've been here before (both myself and others in numerous feedback threads) and it's always the same. The Mods pile in on these threads backing each other up and seeing nothing wrong while reminding us they're volunteers, the Admins come in with the HR spiel, and the thread dies a death.

This is a bit of a catch 22 though Kaiser. If we don't engage we are ignoring you, if we engage we are piling on.

We don't have a rep that can speak for all of us with one voice, so if you want the opinions or discussions of mods, you have to accept multiple takes imo.

Pter wrote: »

This is a bit of a catch 22 though Kaiser. If we don't engage we are ignoring you, if we engage we are piling on.

We don't have a rep that can speak for all of us with one voice, so if you want the opinions or discussions of mods, you have to accept multiple takes imo.

With the exception of yourself in fairness, so far the only responses are:

- I can do what I want
- We're unpaid volunteers and so can't be expected to provide quality service
- What issue? There's no issue.

When the response is that there's nothing to discuss, where do you go from there?

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

True enough, but it has to start with a standard and consistent approach from the Mods that is appropriate, fair and transparent to the users. Once you have that, it takes care of the "pick and choose" aspect as the answers will be the same.

We don't need draconian rules to achieve this - this is a discussion forum and the goal should be to keep a thread open unless it has to be closed for legal reasons, re-reg trolling, or as a last resort.

The general principle of "don't be a dick" should hold and be guided by what are general common sense principles (and obvious baiting or other nonsense should be sanctioned accordingly) and the rules of the charter. Deal with the problem posters, don't restrict an otherwise valid discussion.

But Mods need to realise and appreciate that they have a position of responsibility and accountability that needs to be borne in mind whenever they take action or indeed post on a forum they also Mod. They aren't like other users and double-standards should not apply. Think before ye post or take action.

I referee in my spare time as well. Have done for 8 years now.....and even with a very defined set of rules, extensive referee training and very clear expectations around responsibility and accountability, there is HUGE variation in rule interpretations between referees. And its the #1 complaint that referees hear. Now i can only interpret the rules as i think are correct. I cant interpret them how someone else would; and yes when im playing and a call goes against me that i dont agree with it is very annoying, but one has to respect the call and keep playing within the rules.

I think its a matter of course that you are going to have different approaches from different individuals where any kind of arbitration or rule enforcement is being done.

I dont think thats to say mods don't try to reflect, improve and do a better job as they go on.....in fact i know that they do.....but i would, respectfully, suggest that your expectations around how uniform mod decisions can or will be needs a looking at.

All,

I'm reading through the responses above, but don't have the time to properly write a response to the various points raised at the moment. Will come back to this later on today or this evening however.

Cheers

rgossip30 wrote: »

How about a poll to vote or your favourite mod would it be allowed ?

No-one would know who to vote for cause they keep changing their names.

I'm going to step in and try and see if we all can move forward from the events of the last few days.

Firstly if there is a charter to adhere to why wasn't it used properly and if it has, changes should be made or alternatives made and have the mods be made aware of these.

I personally got no notification of my banning until I logged on to the site and saw what had happened. First time for everything I suppose

I understand we are all humans and we can make mistakes but at the end of the day we all want the same thing and that's rules apply to everyone and not just pick and choose who to discipline or not.

I agree with some of what your saying but sometimes the constant moaning that Mods are unpaid is tiring, I agree it's not a nice job but if you don't like the conditions you can always leave. I love only some mods

@Shoesdaychild & Grandeeod - that’s enough. Please don’t bring your differences into Feedback.

dudara

Because you were instructed by me to leave this topic alone. Please do not post on this topic again.

dudara

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

So, I've been reading the various responses from the various Mods since my last post and it's predictably and disappointingly pretty much as expected, namely:

- What issue?

- You're being unfair/unrealistic

- We're volunteers, not customer service

"What issue?" - Unless, I've missed something, nobody denied there was any issue. Steve denied the system is perfect, and that's the closest I could find. In fact, the only person who has said this is you here. You made that statement yourself and trying to pass it off as something a mod has claimed. Misleading and best and dishonest at worst.

"You're being unfair/unrealistic" - Yes, yes you are. I've explained why already but I'll elaborate on that below. In the meantime, BdC gave his own very good reason here, which you didn't acknowledge.

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

.. in other words, the same responses as last night.. with lots of mods thanking each other to validate each post from their colleagues.

Some mods agree with points made by other mods. Big deal. Amount of thanks doesn't quantify anything. Do you actually have a point to make here?

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

So, let's set out the issues as I see them:

- Inconsistent moderation

- Hugely variable mod quality (leading to the first point)

- Lack of awareness of the impact of the Mod role, the impression certain actions and behaviours can give, and no real care for these points either

- An absence of a genuine willingness to listen, engage and change in response to the feedback from the user base (not helped by the aforementioned chorus of Mods thanking each other whenever issues are raised in this forum - it's very easy to think all is fine when that's all you see).
Putting it back on the user in each case to "justify yourself" is an easy answer and shows that same lack of self-awareness among the Mod team. Maybe a better approach might be to have a chat among yourselves honestly and see if there is any merit to a point raised? (did ye discuss the debacle last night for example? If so, what was the outcome?)

"Inconsistent moderation" - already explained here. Answer completely dismissed by you here. I've asked for suggestions here, but you ignored them.

"Hugely variable mod quality (leading to the first point)" - According to you. Mods come from different backgrounds. Some are new mods, others have experience from modding other forums. But nobody comes in to mod AH fully prepared for what modding entails. That much was acknowledged by you.

"Lack of awareness of the impact of the Mod role, the impression certain actions and behaviours can give, and no real care for these points either" - You're going to have to explain that a bit more. I can only speak for myself and mods I mod fora with, but I wholeheartedly deny that mods are unaware of the impact of their actions. When making tough decisions, we always consult with one another. Sometimes threads spiral out of control and the easiest way to resolve the matter is to temporarily close the thread to deal with reported posts, but that's in lieu of any backup. There is rarely a one-size-fits-all approach to fast moving threads and it's easy to get things wrong.

"An absence of a genuine willingness to listen, engage and change in response to the feedback from the user base" - Nonsense. I'm always open to feedback. As pointed out to you above, I've asked for suggestions from you and you ignored my request. Feedback works both ways.

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

BUT.. Boards has evolved far from its origins as a site for Quake players to the largest discussion forum in Ireland and a commercial enterprise which depends on its profile and the content generated by users in order to market itself as a platform to other companies and advertisers.
Without those users the site is dead, and it would befit some of the team to remember that in how they interact with them and their own actions as Mods.
As such, the defence that "we're unpaid volunteers" doesn't hold, nor does arrogant condescension that "I can do what I want". All it does is highlight how unfit for purpose the current selection process is, which from what I can tell is "we like what s/he posts and they have a clean record" - but with no consideration for whether they're actually suitable for the role in the same way that not everyone is suited to be a people manager or manager in general.

"we're unpaid volunteers" - this does hold. Just because you choose to dismiss it doesn't make it any less relevant. Moderating in our spare time severely restricts the amount of time we can put into it. Shouldn't be difficult to understand.

"I can do what I want" - who said that? Please quote this person because I don't see it and it looks like you're making stuff up again.

"we like what s/he posts and they have a clean record" - You've managed to misrepresent dudara's post here and managed to make it sounds akin to collecting 50 tayto packets. You left out the bits about being a good contributor having cop-on, which I hope you agree, would be important requirements. You also left out the bit where it's reviewed by CMods and admins. You've brought in age and background. What exactly do you mean by background? That's too ambiguous. Please elaborate on that.

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

A complaint above is that I'm expecting customer service - well, why not? You're engaging with users in a support and oversight capacity and expecting users to respect that. Seems only fair that there should be some awareness of what that involves and a clear and transparent charter of what users can expect, not just how they should behave. Do Mods get any actual training, or is it PM's, some (often pretty old) charter guidelines and a FAQ sheet? (I'm not being smart - I genuinely don't know seeing as the whole process is shrouded in mystery and I've never been a Mod - but a lack of transparency in general is another often raised point here). If ye were volunteering with the Samaritans you'd get training. Why not for what is ultimately representing a commercial site?

Why not customer service? Because moderation is not customer service. Blue in the face from telling you that. Why don't you understand that? They're not the same bloody thing! Look up those terms in a dictionary. Just because you think they should be the same thing doesn't automatically mean they are the same thing.

There's no training course, in case you're wondering. When appointed mods, mods are given a thorough guideline, a mod FAQ, and a mod forum where they can ask questions about the various tools available to them. At the start, mods are encouraged not to action posts, but to observe what other mods are doing. It's more a form of hands-on training/mentorship. If you have suggestions to improve on that process, we're all ears.

But comparing it to The Samaritans? Come off it. The Samaritans save people's lives ffs. Boards mods don't. Awful, awful analogy.

I prefer Pter's analogy here, where he gives up his spare time to referee games. Does he get it right every time? Probably not, but he tries he best with what he has available to him. Does his local community-owned pitch have the resources to provide linesmen and a TMO? Probably not. But what are you gonna do if Pter doesn't ref to the standards you expect; complain to the FAI/IRFU?

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

It strikes me also that a lot of the problem may be too many Mods. Given the lack of consistency, wide latitude (because ye are doing the site a favour), and general unaccountability in addition to the point above, it's not really a surprise then that Mod actions and opinions vary hugely - about the only thing you do seem to agree on is that there isn't a problem with this.

Are you suggesting that one way to raise the standards of moderation is to reduce the number of moderators? I don't follow. Is your point 'too many cooks'? If so, I disagree.

Because we do this in our spare time, forums like AH need a lot of mods to provide as much coverage as possible. It has happened that reports have gone untouched for 12+ hours with chaos ensuing. We've taken on two willing more mods recently so hopefully that will change.

In AH, we let each other know if we're going to be offline for an extended period like holidays etc. But sometimes, we're just not online.

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

The bottom line here is that yes Modding is a generally thankless and no doubt frustrating job.. but as Autosport mentioned, if you don't like the conditions you can always step down, right? Especially as you're not getting paid for it.
Ultimately I'm not really saying anything new here that hasn't been highlighted numerous times by many other posters in the past. Yet, despite this and promises of change, we still see solo runs like last night resulting in unnecessary and unwarranted actions, user confusion and dissatisfaction, and threads like this because some of us DO expect better - we freely give our time and contribute a lot as well after all!

I don't get why you're repeatedly asking/suggesting/reminding us about stepping down. I'll step down if I feel myself unfit to mod or if I just don't want to do it any more, and countless others have done that already. The conditions aren't perfect but they are what they are and I don't see that as a reason to step down.

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Now, rather than telling me it's all in my head, or quoting a snippet of the above and ignoring the rest, why don't you take this away for the night, have a chat among yourselves and see if maybe there ARE some things ye could be doing better here. Better yet, how about proactively inviting feedback (good AND bad) on an ongoing basis and using it as a platform for improvement and showing the users that their input IS appreciated and acted upon.

We already consult with each other when we need advice. We have a charter to adhere to in an effort to stay consistent. There is a multilayered process whereby new mods are chosen. But sometimes, going by your posts in Feedback, you'd swear mods do nothing but open mod tools and mash buttons at random before slapping each other on the back.

As said, we're open to feedback. But the feedback needs to be constructive and needs to work both ways. You can start by actually addressing the questions put to you. And when you do that, please quote the posts where the questions are in an effort to be more constructive. Wall of text quoting makes it really, really hard to follow. And the irony of quoting your entire post is not lost on me.