Gang of Mods: [chanting] We are the mods! We are the mods! December 17, 2024 3:25 PM Subscribe
New rule proposal: Moderators should not be able to moderate threads posted by themselves.
If there ever is a transition to volunteer moderation in the distant future, presumably those moderators would also be users. In the interest of openness and to avoid moderating in a self-serving way, moderators who have started a thread on MetaFilter, AskMe, FanFare, etc, would be unable to delete or edit comments posted by other users on that same thread. This would probably have to be waived for MetaTalk by nature of that subsite's function.
Ideally it would be implemented in the software: if [ moderator = OP ] then [ modAction = disabled ], so to speak.
We see users all the time attempting to "moderate" their own AskMe or FPP by thread-sitting and becoming argumentative, pushing back against criticism (constructive and not). It is a common human tendency to try to do this sort of face-saving or narrative control. With the opportunity to craft a new site, we could include a feature that raises the bar on this aspect.
Alternative proposal from the Nothing Matters timeline: All users are able to moderate their own threads.
If there ever is a transition to volunteer moderation in the distant future, presumably those moderators would also be users. In the interest of openness and to avoid moderating in a self-serving way, moderators who have started a thread on MetaFilter, AskMe, FanFare, etc, would be unable to delete or edit comments posted by other users on that same thread. This would probably have to be waived for MetaTalk by nature of that subsite's function.
Ideally it would be implemented in the software: if [ moderator = OP ] then [ modAction = disabled ], so to speak.
We see users all the time attempting to "moderate" their own AskMe or FPP by thread-sitting and becoming argumentative, pushing back against criticism (constructive and not). It is a common human tendency to try to do this sort of face-saving or narrative control. With the opportunity to craft a new site, we could include a feature that raises the bar on this aspect.
Alternative proposal from the Nothing Matters timeline: All users are able to moderate their own threads.
I'm surprised anyone needs to hear this. Though I have noticed it happening, so clearly someone did need to hear this. Perhaps there should be some training for the mods? I think the the idea of implementing it in software is a mistake. If, for example, a flood of repugnant comments appear in a thread when the only mod on duty is the one who posted the thread, are they supposed to wait until another mod comes on duty?
posted by GeckoDundee at 4:02 PM on December 17 [2 favorites]
posted by GeckoDundee at 4:02 PM on December 17 [2 favorites]
I think maybe allowance could be made to close the thread temporarily at the discretion of the mod on duty. I doubt this would need to come up a lot -- the post which I suspect prompted this was kind of a special case.
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:38 PM on December 17 [1 favorite]
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:38 PM on December 17 [1 favorite]
You'd have to turn off comments by the mod too, wouldn't you, to avoid thread-sitting? Which would be...odd.
posted by mittens at 4:39 PM on December 17
posted by mittens at 4:39 PM on December 17
I don't think that's necessarily the case.
The root cause here, though, is loss of trust in the mod team to make fair judgement calls when it comes to deletions, and that's not a problem easily solvable. Still I think this is a reasonable and clear policy as far as it goes.
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:41 PM on December 17 [2 favorites]
The root cause here, though, is loss of trust in the mod team to make fair judgement calls when it comes to deletions, and that's not a problem easily solvable. Still I think this is a reasonable and clear policy as far as it goes.
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:41 PM on December 17 [2 favorites]
Mod note: Yes, going forward if a mod makes a regular user type post on the site, then they should flag another mod to take a look about moderating the thread or tag someone in the Slack if it's super urgent.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:42 PM on December 17 [6 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:42 PM on December 17 [6 favorites]
Really good proposal. Because if I were a mod, everyone who told me to get a heated mattress pad would be in jail now permaband and while personally satisfying it's probably not a great move for the site as a whole. Let's start now.
posted by phunniemee at 4:45 PM on December 17 [11 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 4:45 PM on December 17 [11 favorites]
veryone who told me to get a heated mattress pad would be in jail now
I feel like maybe this requires some explication? Just, y'know, out of non-prurient interest?
(insert additional upspeak tone here)
posted by aramaic at 5:15 PM on December 17 [1 favorite]
I feel like maybe this requires some explication? Just, y'know, out of non-prurient interest?
(insert additional upspeak tone here)
posted by aramaic at 5:15 PM on December 17 [1 favorite]
(Presumably the heated mattress pad reference is to this thread.)
posted by JiBB at 5:19 PM on December 17 [3 favorites]
posted by JiBB at 5:19 PM on December 17 [3 favorites]
Oh, well, see, I just use a regular heating pad that’s like 12x18 inches. That way, your extremities can stay pleasantly cool while your core gets warm and comfy. Heated mattress pads heat up your whole self so you wake up feeling like pie filling, and that’s no good.
In college, I lived in a room so freezing cold that dry bedsheets felt wet until you blitzed them with a hair dryer. So, alternatively: Hair dryer.
Isn’t Brandon the only mod who posts or comments regularly? I’m all in for the proposed request, although it feels like it’s not something that’s happening every day.
posted by mochapickle at 5:47 PM on December 17 [1 favorite]
In college, I lived in a room so freezing cold that dry bedsheets felt wet until you blitzed them with a hair dryer. So, alternatively: Hair dryer.
Isn’t Brandon the only mod who posts or comments regularly? I’m all in for the proposed request, although it feels like it’s not something that’s happening every day.
posted by mochapickle at 5:47 PM on December 17 [1 favorite]
This proposal seems clear, straightforward, and makes a lot of sense, even if it's very minimally applicable.
So much so that I assume it was approved for MeTa because it’s pretty reasonable, and narrowly focused. That way, it'll be easy for BB and other mods to agree on and implement as an unwritten rule right away (even if it'll eventually be forgotten and no longer adhered to after a while, probably by springtime). It's an easy win for the mods – meanwhile, any critique aimed at them will come across as outsized and unreasonable, memoryholing the broader issues of distrust and unreliability that got us here.
Or that critique will be called off-topic, given that this thread's narrow focus means that it won’t be the right place to address all the other, bigger and more existentially necessary questions that have been submitted to the MeTa queue recently but are conspicuously being left unposted (either without explanation or with only spurious justification). (Fortunately for the mods, this policy as described above includes a carve-out that will enable them to cull off-topic comments in this very MeTa! Whew.)
posted by knucklebones at 5:58 PM on December 17 [6 favorites]
So much so that I assume it was approved for MeTa because it’s pretty reasonable, and narrowly focused. That way, it'll be easy for BB and other mods to agree on and implement as an unwritten rule right away (even if it'll eventually be forgotten and no longer adhered to after a while, probably by springtime). It's an easy win for the mods – meanwhile, any critique aimed at them will come across as outsized and unreasonable, memoryholing the broader issues of distrust and unreliability that got us here.
Or that critique will be called off-topic, given that this thread's narrow focus means that it won’t be the right place to address all the other, bigger and more existentially necessary questions that have been submitted to the MeTa queue recently but are conspicuously being left unposted (either without explanation or with only spurious justification). (Fortunately for the mods, this policy as described above includes a carve-out that will enable them to cull off-topic comments in this very MeTa! Whew.)
posted by knucklebones at 5:58 PM on December 17 [6 favorites]
We are the Rockers! We are the Rockers!
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:45 PM on December 17 [3 favorites]
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:45 PM on December 17 [3 favorites]
Was this the most pressing issue pending in the MeTa queue? Or simply the next in line?
posted by Lemkin at 6:52 AM on December 18 [3 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 6:52 AM on December 18 [3 favorites]
ftr i submitted this 17:01:15 UTC Monday, December 16, 2024, otherwise known as noon eastern US time
posted by glonous keming at 7:04 AM on December 18 [2 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 7:04 AM on December 18 [2 favorites]
Was this the most pressing issue pending in the MeTa queue? Or simply the next in line?
Just going in order, there's just one in the queue for tomorrow.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:34 AM on December 18 [1 favorite]
Just going in order, there's just one in the queue for tomorrow.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:34 AM on December 18 [1 favorite]
Mod note: #summary gangofmods december2024 moderation
-members agree that moderators should not moderate threads they've created outside of MetaTalk
-staff agree that moderations should not self moderate threads they've created outside of MetaTalk. If there is an issue, the staff member should flag it with note, or if it's an emergency, notify members in the Mod Slack. ]
End response for December 18, 2024.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:48 AM on December 18 [2 favorites]
-members agree that moderators should not moderate threads they've created outside of MetaTalk
-staff agree that moderations should not self moderate threads they've created outside of MetaTalk. If there is an issue, the staff member should flag it with note, or if it's an emergency, notify members in the Mod Slack. ]
End response for December 18, 2024.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:48 AM on December 18 [2 favorites]
Just going in order, there's just one in the queue for tomorrow.
Is the date relevant to the topic of that one? Or is there a reason for delaying it?
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 9:15 AM on December 18 [5 favorites]
Is the date relevant to the topic of that one? Or is there a reason for delaying it?
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 9:15 AM on December 18 [5 favorites]
Or is there a reason for delaying it?
Back in the day, we were assured there was no cabal.
These days, who knows.
posted by Lemkin at 1:24 PM on December 18 [5 favorites]
Back in the day, we were assured there was no cabal.
These days, who knows.
posted by Lemkin at 1:24 PM on December 18 [5 favorites]
knows what.
posted by clavdivs at 1:27 PM on December 18 [3 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 1:27 PM on December 18 [3 favorites]
the trouble i've seen
posted by glonous keming at 3:02 PM on December 18 [4 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 3:02 PM on December 18 [4 favorites]
I thought I knew the trouble you'd seen, but then a while back you mentioned your ghost parents, and, well, did...did you all die together? Or are ghost children all born from ghost parents, in which case silly self-centered humans have been getting that wrong for thousands of years (and we really owe you an apology)? Please advise. I'd google it myself, but...you know.
posted by nobody at 3:49 PM on December 18 [6 favorites]
posted by nobody at 3:49 PM on December 18 [6 favorites]
I guess that's really a separate MeTa, how we treat our ghosts.
posted by nobody at 3:54 PM on December 18 [6 favorites]
posted by nobody at 3:54 PM on December 18 [6 favorites]
I had human parents and then I got ghost-adopted. I'll tell you guys a story about my ghost-in-laws someday but typing is hard
posted by B_Ghost_User at 6:50 PM on December 18 [6 favorites]
posted by B_Ghost_User at 6:50 PM on December 18 [6 favorites]
Dear Metafilter community,
I have received multiple emails from a Mefite who is concerned that my repeated reference to a certain mod's use of the word permaband [sic] may make people who are disabled or speak English as a second language feel othered and that my actions may inadvertently hurt these groups of people as a protected class. It has been suggested that this is as much a protected class of language as respecting someone's pronouns, which I do take seriously, so I wanted to make a statement.
I hereby bear full responsibility for my actions in front of my community and promise publicly that I will never make repeat reference to a misspelling that you make unless you have happened to make this misspelling multiple times during a copy and paste bullying campaign you have engaged in from your position of relative power against another user. If that happens to be the scenario in question, all bets are off.
Yours, &c
posted by phunniemee at 4:48 AM on December 19 [15 favorites]
I have received multiple emails from a Mefite who is concerned that my repeated reference to a certain mod's use of the word permaband [sic] may make people who are disabled or speak English as a second language feel othered and that my actions may inadvertently hurt these groups of people as a protected class. It has been suggested that this is as much a protected class of language as respecting someone's pronouns, which I do take seriously, so I wanted to make a statement.
I hereby bear full responsibility for my actions in front of my community and promise publicly that I will never make repeat reference to a misspelling that you make unless you have happened to make this misspelling multiple times during a copy and paste bullying campaign you have engaged in from your position of relative power against another user. If that happens to be the scenario in question, all bets are off.
Yours, &c
posted by phunniemee at 4:48 AM on December 19 [15 favorites]
Mod note: Is the date relevant to the topic of that one? Or is there a reason for delaying it?
It's been a general practice to not overload Metatalk with contentious MeTas, particularly over holidays, weekends, or when there's not much staff around.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:31 AM on December 19 [1 favorite]
It's been a general practice to not overload Metatalk with contentious MeTas, particularly over holidays, weekends, or when there's not much staff around.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:31 AM on December 19 [1 favorite]
and that's accomplished by...posting on the Thursday 6 days before Christmas instead of the Wednesday 7 days before Christmas?
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 10:47 AM on December 19 [4 favorites]
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 10:47 AM on December 19 [4 favorites]
Let's be honest, there may be plenty of staff, but there's no time that anyone but you is "around" MeTa, so that general practice has a very outsized silencing effect.
posted by donnagirl at 5:46 PM on December 19 [4 favorites]
posted by donnagirl at 5:46 PM on December 19 [4 favorites]
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posted by tivalasvegas at 3:55 PM on December 17 [1 favorite]