Got some site feedback? Found an issue? Let us know >>

Announcement about the moderation role

Scroll to see replies

Reply 180

Arkasia

Original post by superwolf

*starts petition to bring back Illusionary as benign dictator*

Please? :puppyeyes:

I'd rather bring back Mad Vlad and let him loose for a while. The entertainment possibilities would be endless...

Reply 181

Champagne Supernova

Original post by Arkasia

I'd rather bring back Mad Vlad and let him loose for a while. The entertainment possibilities would be endless...

I worry about the fee that'd be commanded for that event to occur :sly:

Reply 182

Aph

Original post by Roving Fish

Reading my post back, I missed out the CT part didn't I. :facepalm:

CT have got a rota to check report queues out of hours so they are being checked 7 days a week and at multiple points a day.

One of the reasons that they're doing it is because between the 5 or so of them - they can deal with things more quickly if there's a ****storm brewing. Additionally it improves consistency - sometimes it could have been argued that some sections were moderately more or less harshly than one another. :yy:

I wasn't sure what you ment no.

Still there seems to be an issue and just having mods at least be able to suspend posts that have been reported makes sense.

I guess consistency is a point, but I would argue that different forums have different characters so need different levels of strictness.

Reply 183

Arkasia

Original post by Champagne Supernova

I worry about the fee that'd be commanded for that event to occur :sly:

I'm sure he'd do it for free if he was promised unlimited freedom, and others would happily pay to see it :biggrin:

Reply 184

TornadoGR4

I want to see the CT doing 10 hour night shifts. I want to see TSR running 24/7 like clockwork. 30 minutes for a report to be dealt with at a maximum.

Reply 185

Roving Fish

Original post by Aph

CT are aware of the different levels of banter etc - I promise you that!

We can suspend posts using our new report tool, it's just that we have to actively find that stuff. Positive and negative from that. Positive: Mods get to know their forums by reading stuff and being aware of what's happening. Negative: If it's buried in a fast moving forum there's crap on TSR that shouldn't be. However if people report it, it should be gone (this for some reason doesn't appear to have happened to some of your reports) within a reasonable amount of time.

Reply 186

BurstingBubbles

Life & Style Forum Helper

Original post by TornadoGR4

I want to see the CT doing 10 hour night shifts. I want to see TSR running 24/7 like clockwork. 30 minutes for a report to be dealt with at a maximum.

[video="youtube;btPJPFnesV4"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btPJPFnesV4[/video]

With this playing in the background of TSR HQ :dumbells:

Reply 187

Aph

Original post by Roving Fish

I just wonder how they can really tell the difference if that makes sense. Replying to reports from all over the site all day could destroy a person.

You can see my reports?
But yes, the spam ect. Seems to pop up in the fast moving forums which makes it an issue...

Reply 188

spotify95

Original post by TornadoGR4

I want to see the CT doing 10 hour night shifts. I want to see TSR running 24/7 like clockwork. 30 minutes for a report to be dealt with at a maximum.

^^This. One of my reports is still open a whole day after reporting. Before the change in the moderators roles, thread reports would always be dealt with swiftly.

Reply 189

Reue

Original post by Snufkin

You seem to be one of the few mods who likes this change.

An astute observation :wink:

Reply 190

Aph

Original post by spotify95

^^This. One of my reports is still open a whole day after reporting. Before the change in the moderators roles, thread reports would always be dealt with swiftly.

To be fair in general during office hours it is faster...

Reply 191

spotify95

Original post by Aph

To be fair in general during office hours it is faster...

But even out of office hours post reports have always been dealt with in under 24 hours :yep:

Reply 192

Aph

Original post by spotify95

But even out of office hours post reports have always been dealt with in under 24 hours :yep:

I agree, and that's tge issue.

Reply 193

Roving Fish

Original post by Snufkin

You seem to be one of the few mods who likes this change. Why do you think it is a good idea? :curious:

No matter how you dress it up, if you reduce the number of people with moderator tools then the standard of moderation will go down. I can't believe it has now been a whole day since I reported a post for graphic content and still nothing has been done.

Replacing mods who work for free with the CT (who presumably are going to want paying if they're coming online outside office hours and on the weekend) doesn't make sense to me. I can't help but wonder if there's an ulterior motive for this change.

I would say that I'm more running with it - initially I was negative about the changes but it was obvious they were going ahead. It's better to run with it and look for how you can positively influence the changes than to spend all the time moaning. Yes I've called CT out on a few aspects. No I don't agree with everything.

I've been involved with moderation from a management perspective for a few years both on here, on a gaming community that I admin and also from a spectator point of view on a game called RuneScape. I've seen various kinds of moderation being tested, discussed and implemented.

I agree with the reasoning for looking into changes. The mod role has needed renovating for a fair while, now more so as TSR starts to refocus on being more helpful to students. The best part about the changes from a mod level is that I'm not sitting here, wondering whether to card someone, or not as they'll definitely challenge the card in AAM. Such a waste of time and some of the previous users could be quite abusive for no reason. (We're only volunteers!)

Speaking on a unis level, we're now no longer obliged to deal with Find a Flatmate pre-moderation crap and all that. This has allowed us to focus more on repurposing our content and forums - are you sick of hearing about the changes to Student Accommodation etc which are coming up soon yet? :wink:

Also we can spend more time handling advice - granted, you cannot see this from my profile at the moment - that's because I've been helping get to grips with the mod changes behind the scenes.

Obviously TSR is a larger place than just unis, a more policing focused role has been more appropriate and effective in other sections prior to the changes. Like I said in an earlier post, this was brought up and argued to death before it was public. I think that it'll be interesting to see how the first couple of weeks go in these fast moving forums and I'm more than willing to reposition my thoughts if it all goes to **** there.

Some people might suggest that the mod role is now just being a CA with a few more tools. On a permissions level - yes. In regards to what we do - no. CAs are great for the smaller forums that don't really need a mod - it's not generating enough traffic for instance. The individual university forums utilise CAs in a number of cases. Mods have more influence within the direction of TSR drawing on their experience and expertise of their section/the site. In the future, I can see the CA role changing in the near future (not a spoiler, just a foresight) to either be obsolete or focused as working with the rest of Team TSR. Additionally, mods go through extra training and vetting before they become a mod - it took myself around 3 months to go from telling CT I was interested to actually getting the purple.

There are some questionable changes that have occurred - the report queue is great for reactive modding, however it encourages mods to go out and do more than just sit on a queue all day. It means that we can get to know the community and not be an us vs them affair. Recently it seemed the other way round - CT would do the interacting with the community whilst the mods did the 'hard work'. It's strange not having it, but it's nice not to have to deal with it. In the case of the Welcome Lounge earlier... We're still waiting to get our procedures and guidelines together as we've only had the tools for less than a week. It's all a new experience!

We shall have to see how this works out with CT at the helm of those queues. I've not had issues so far, but it's frustrating to see some people waiting a long time for their report to be dealt with - these cases are hopefully few and far between. CT are dealing with these over the weekend and into the evening. They have a rota to check the moderation and have said that they'll review the workload in the future and see whether the way in which they work needs to change or anything.

One of the main things about this change to the mod role is that it's such a shift in the way it works, that it's hard for members to process it. The mod team is now more a community facilitation role. The CT a more community management role. This does make sense if you let go of any previous TSR moderation understanding and is done by a few places.

In RuneScape, a multiplayer game, there are player moderators who have a kind of advanced report which mutes the player (makes them unable to chat) for up to 72 hours - this is then brought up to their player support team who review the post. That's effectively what we do now. We come across stuff and advanced report it if needed and the post is removed pending CT review.

We'll see how it goes and I'll be happy to alter these in future if anything changes. :smile:

Reply 194

mr tim

Still a report that I have reported a day ago is still open (although dealt with few hours ago). Think there should be better planned on that now.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 195

Mad Vlad

Original post by Arkasia

I'd rather bring back Mad Vlad and let him loose for a while. The entertainment possibilities would be endless...

Original post by Champagne Supernova

I worry about the fee that'd be commanded for that event to occur :sly:

Original post by Arkasia

I'm sure he'd do it for free if he was promised unlimited freedom, and others would happily pay to see it :biggrin:

My consultancy rates are £210/hr+VAT and I operate on a T&M cost structure. Believe me when I say, banning people isn't anywhere near as satisfying as kicking their skull in.

Reply 196

Arkasia

Original post by Mad Vlad

My consultancy rates are £210/hr+VAT and I operate on a T&M cost structure. Believe me when I say, banning people isn't anywhere near as satisfying as kicking their skull in.

That's sort of what I was hoping to see.

Reply 197

Snufkin

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Roving Fish

snip

I hope the uni forums do get even better, so let's see what happens. I suppose my main worry is that this is the first step to moving all moderation off-site and using external moderation companies.

Original post by Reue

An astute observation :wink: