Ride Along With A Mod

December 19, 2024 3:44 PM

I think a lot of the community doesn't understand how busy Mods are in their day to day shifts. It would probably be good for mod/community relationships to give a few users a chance to shadow a mod for a shift or two, so that we can get a better idea of the workload that mods are under, which would probably allow the community to take a step back and give the mods some breathing room. Is there any chance of that?
posted by bowbeacon to MetaFilter-Related at 3:44 PM (78 comments total)

Excellent idea! Probably should be on the runway given one of the major motivators for the move to non profit is having some community members take on volunteer modding roles.
posted by lucidium at 4:14 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

I call shotgun

Neat idea, and yes crucial if we're ever going to convert to volunteer modding
posted by phunniemee at 4:16 PM on December 19 [5 favorites]

While I like the idea in theory, isn't it possible this would expose personal information about users to people who shouldn't really be seeing it? (can you tell I come from HIPAA-world?)
posted by mittens at 4:20 PM on December 19 [8 favorites]

I picture them playing Minesweeper most of the time.
posted by Lemkin at 4:21 PM on December 19 [3 favorites]

That isn't helpful, Lemkin.
posted by skynxnex at 4:24 PM on December 19 [8 favorites]

While I like the idea in theory, isn't it possible this would expose personal information about users to people who shouldn't really be seeing it?

I can’t imagine that’s a major part of the job. And if it is, I’d suggest that it’s a piece of tooling that could be identified as an improvement for the new site. Moderating a message board shouldn’t expose anyone to personal information that isn’t public, except in the very extreme cases of hacked accounts or whatnot.
posted by bowbeacon at 4:30 PM on December 19 [10 favorites]

I'd assume cameras are involved.
posted by clavdivs at 4:48 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

While there shouldn't be any non-public personal information stored, there are other things in the mod interface that are intended to be mod-only, like user notes or communications between mods and users.

This is something we'll have to figure out eventually, when we move to volunteer moderation. But we don't have any structures in place for that yet.
posted by expialidocious at 5:07 PM on December 19

What is your goal here? Maybe put some of that energy towards achieving your doubtless magnificent alternative vision of the site instead of spending it all on shitting-while-screaming.
posted by praemunire at 5:11 PM on December 19 [6 favorites]

Seems like the goal is to better understand what being a mod is like. I think that's a good goal, worth putting energy toward. What's your goal coming in to this thread with so much animosity? The site is demonstrably dying a slow death. Do you not think an alternative vision is warranted?
posted by donnagirl at 5:22 PM on December 19 [9 favorites]

...wait, do other people not scream the entire time they shit?
posted by lucidium at 5:27 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

What's your goal coming in to this thread with so much animosity?

Not to see several hundred comments unleashed by an obviously bad-faith and mean-spirited post.

I'm down with pointed criticism, I'm down with people leaving the site in frustration, even, but the random nastiness is just pointless.
posted by praemunire at 5:35 PM on December 19 [9 favorites]

Torn between linking to the “Sandra, that was mean” Simpsons gif or going with the classic Admiral Ackbar
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:41 PM on December 19

Well, I'm sure that you running in here hot to go will go a long way towards accomplishing that. Did you click the link? I think it's informative.
posted by donnagirl at 5:41 PM on December 19 [3 favorites]

What is your goal here? Maybe put some of that energy towards achieving your doubtless magnificent alternative vision of the site instead of [...too much grar to even quote, sorry]

That's too far, praemunire. I mean, sure, I get that this proposal might look carefully put together to frame out some of the underlying motivation (one half of which was then framed back in by the first couple comments, the other half still unspoken), but I think the proposal really does have merit, if there's some way of doing it without full-on screensharing. I don't think there's any harm in considering it at face value, and if you're looking for users to treat the mods with more respect, I think we could do the same for each other by not immediately assuming the worst.
posted by nobody at 5:43 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

H-O-T-T-O-G-O.gif

I think a shadow shift is a really nice idea.
posted by Night_owl at 5:43 PM on December 19 [1 favorite]

The site is demonstrably dying a slow death.

People keep saying this, and it might yet prove out to be true, but while the site stats show an ongoing slow decline in Ask comments (but not, notably, in Ask comments per question), there's not really a declining trendline at all for either comments or posts on the blue for the past three and a half years. Or is my eye missing it?
posted by nobody at 5:49 PM on December 19 [7 favorites]

I should probably keep my mouth shut, since I haven't been covering myself with glory over the last hour, but when has that ever stopped me.

I'm not sure a user report about how hard they see the mods are working will matter if there isn't evidence that the work is producing a better site.
posted by Lemkin at 6:04 PM on December 19 [8 favorites]

I don't think you're missing anything, nobody. I think people formed their "this site is dying a slow death" impression back in the late 2010s (when it was true) and haven't looked at the numbers since, so they haven't realized that the situation has changed somewhat. The blue has been very steady, both in comments and posts, for the past four years. One can argue that without new blood it will die a slow death, but "it will die a slow death" and "it is dying a slow death" are different (unless you're one of those "we start dying the moment we are born" people).
posted by Bugbread at 6:07 PM on December 19 [3 favorites]

I formed my current opinion about the site's health this year. The stats at that link are most telling in the number of new users participating ("first active"). Without new people, the site cannot survive from either a financial or a content standpoint, in my opinion. Particularly so if moderation policies and practices continue to drive off previously committed members
posted by donnagirl at 6:13 PM on December 19 [7 favorites]

Not to see several hundred comments unleashed by an obviously bad-faith and mean-spirited post

The part about several hundred comments I totally understand - that last thread was a tough slog of a slug-fest, although necessary, I think. I didn't (and don't) take this post to be obviously bad-faith and mean-spirited, however it's possible that I'm naive and oblivious. I took this from the point of view that we don't actually know what a mod shift looks like, which seems pretty one-sided. I think that it's a great idea with good intention. Further, I also feel that this should happen on yearly basis as part of the quality assurance.

I also agree that at the end of the day, observing what the mods are doing isn't going to change how anybody feels about the results of what the mods do - we're well beyond that point now, and for very valid reasons.

Thanks for those stats. Pretty and informative!
posted by ashbury at 6:16 PM on December 19 [6 favorites]

The blue has been very steady, both in comments and posts, for the past four years.

Brass tacks: With current trends, how long will there be money to pay the hosting bill?
posted by Lemkin at 6:17 PM on December 19 [5 favorites]

Brass tacks: With current trends, how long will there be money to pay the hosting bill?

Barring gross mismanagement, that won’t ever be a problem. A site like this can be hosted for $2k a year, after a switch to a reasonable software stack.
posted by bowbeacon at 6:21 PM on December 19 [3 favorites]

This meta wasn’t in bad faith. I legitimately can’t imagine the work the mods are doing. I want to learn. In good faith. And I think it’s a pretty easy ask. Lots of professions offer ride alongs. I legitimately think I’d gain a better understanding of the challenges.
posted by bowbeacon at 6:24 PM on December 19 [8 favorites]

The quantity of recent MeTa comments on the mods, and the excruciating level of detailed criticism, leaves me in no doubt that this ask is pointless. Under other circumstances: sure.

We've had truckloads of evidence from a core group that the mods are incompetent and/or malicious, lazy, disengaged, etc. and this comes across as (charitably) tone deaf or just outright trolling. Unbelievable.
posted by ginger.beef at 6:49 PM on December 19 [5 favorites]

Maybe a ride along would provide insight as to why mod updates on important matters are provided in closed threads where no one but mods can respond and almost no one will see them.
posted by donnagirl at 6:50 PM on December 19 [10 favorites]

> We've had truckloads of evidence from a core group that the mods are incompetent and/or malicious, lazy, disengaged, etc.

I think someone self-derided themselves as the "tone police" in an earlier thread and I know this will be seen as it, but I don't think it is: Repeating such personal attacks without linking and providing evidence that this is true, at least a little bit, poisons the discussion and is not how I want this community to speak amongst and about itself.
posted by skynxnex at 6:56 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

Nah. 1,000+ comments in one thread, I'm not biting. Have fun, Brain Trust.
posted by ginger.beef at 6:59 PM on December 19

Have fun, Brain Trust.

Respectfully, I prefer to be referred to as the Screaming/Shidding.
posted by phunniemee at 7:01 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

...wait, do other people not scream the entire time they shit?
Well, that would be better than shitting every time they scream, I guess.
posted by dg at 7:03 PM on December 19 [4 favorites]

I don't think this is a great idea. I wouldn't want anyone watching me while I do my job. If it was a stranger, I'd have to spend a good chunk of time explaining not only what I do but the context, as well. If it was a co-worker, I'd probably have to spend less time on context, but still a lot of time explaining what I was doing. If it was my boss, I'd probably have to do some of both but also worry about looking like I was providing value.

But I understand the motivation behind the question. A lot of people are clearly curious about where a quarter of a million dollars goes on a site that, as has been noted many times before, only has about a dozen comments deleted per day, and doesn't have enough comments per day that would require more than a couple hours to read. Maybe it can just be answered with a list.
posted by jonathanhughes at 7:36 PM on December 19 [9 favorites]

I would also hate to be shadowed as I worked.
posted by Bugbread at 8:14 PM on December 19 [4 favorites]

Take your disgruntled masses to work day. I don’t think it would actually be useful in any way. I imagine that even loup could pretend to work for a few hours if they knew someone was watching. Plus, there could be sensitive info in those piles of subpoenas that need to be processed every day.
posted by snofoam at 8:28 PM on December 19 [7 favorites]

snofoam, I understand your frustration but there’s a very large post just behind us that’s filled with cynicism and anger. Do we really need to do that again?
posted by ashbury at 8:41 PM on December 19

There is a 0% possibility this post is in good faith. It is coming from someone who posted that "The staff has to go. Every one of them. Anything less will doom new Metafilter." on Dec 3rd. It's obvious that your concern is not that the community just doesn't understand how busy the mods are in their day to day shifts but rather that you have concluded that the mods are slacking and are passive aggressively challenging them to prove otherwise.
I'm somewhat agnostic on the mod workload, I will say that in most professions there's someone who will waltz in and proclaim that the job is easy, the prices are a ripoff and their friend can change those brake pads/generate a marketing campaign/whatever for like $25. Having said that, some of the modding staffing and structure is probably a legacy of when the site was much busier. I don't think modding is the primary reason that MeFi is shedding users, but when things go sour between users and a mod it's highly visible and therefore looms large in our perception of "what's driving people away from MeFi."
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 9:09 PM on December 19 [22 favorites]

As mittens said, this is tricky because they routinely deal with private emails, IP addresses, non-public user notes, and other sensitive content which would be hard to redact in any kind of screen-sharing setup. FWIW, the transition board requested a breakdown of mod coverage and tasks (which we got) and to sit in on a staff meeting. The latter didn't happen because scheduling challenges have shifted them from all-hands meetings to one-on-ones, but we've had a Zoom with some of the mods, a few with loup, and sat in on a call with kirkaracha regarding the redesign (some details of which he later shared here).

Absent some kind of hours-long livestream, a good middle ground could be sharing more of these kinds of operational details like what moderation workflows look like, combined with pursuing more transparent, user-visible actions like comment-hiding or a mod log (though I'd avoid publishing mod shifts since that highlights coverage gaps; any modlog should be a ~daily update rather than real-time with timestamps for the same reason). Personally, I'd also recommend doing podcast episodes with each mod talking about their approach and perspective on the site -- both to explain the role and help get to know them as members -- as well as revolving who's responsible for minding MetaTalk (per thread or weekly/monthly) so it's not all on one person all the time.

community members take on volunteer modding roles

This is not possible in general because you can't have volunteers doing the same work as paid staff, even in a non-profit. All-volunteer mods are legally OK but aren't exactly a cure-all and bring their own set of challenges. You could also have a lesser tier of users with a subset of tools (think weighted flags or control over single threads), but there would have to be a strict delineation between them and staff, like the difference between Reddit mods and sitewide admins.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:01 PM on December 19 [10 favorites]

I understand your frustration but there’s a very large post just behind us that’s filled with cynicism and anger. Do we really need to do that again?

Have the conditions giving rise to the cynicism and anger been addressed in any way at all? Because I suspect you will continue to see it pop up everywhere as long as the issues that cause it are still in play.
posted by Dysk at 10:06 PM on December 19 [11 favorites]

you have concluded that the mods are slacking and are passive aggressively challenging them to prove otherwise

Look, responsibility and accountability are fundamental to building and maintaining trust within a community. And if a member of this community, which is predominantly made up of North Americans and is busiest during North American regular working hours, has concerns regarding responsibility and accountability, it's something that should be considered with all the respect and seriousness it deserves.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:38 PM on December 19 [3 favorites]

I can't believe it took me that long to get the joke. Well played, Alvy.
posted by Bugbread at 3:54 AM on December 20 [2 favorites]

(though I'd avoid publishing mod shifts since that highlights coverage gaps; any modlog should be a ~daily update rather than real-time with timestamps for the same reason)

Are we worried that people might break in if they know there isn’t a mod on duty?
posted by snofoam at 4:18 AM on December 20 [4 favorites]

My unsolicited advice for the metafilter staff team is to go back to having meetings with the whole staff. Seriously, in an org with pretty flat structure in term of hierarchy and authority, you are really better off all talking together so that tasks and problems don’t keep getting shuffled around.
posted by mai at 5:07 AM on December 20 [5 favorites]

One of the major motivators for the move to non profit is having some community members take on volunteer modding roles.

No, I don't think those two were ever mentioned together early in this process.
posted by NotLost at 5:41 AM on December 20 [5 favorites]

A lot of people are clearly curious about where a quarter of a million dollars goes on a site that, as has been noted many times before, only has about a dozen comments deleted per day, and doesn't have enough comments per day that would require more than a couple hours to read.

It seems like they’re not curious; they’re suspicious.
posted by Lemkin at 5:45 AM on December 20 [2 favorites]

I think you’re right, mai, and am wondering if there is a time zone problem preventing this. If it’s just about not having enough money to pay for overlapping coverage, I would be very happy to sacrifice, say, 6 moderation hours per week for the sake of getting everyone on the same page on a regular basis.

How is the board operating at this time? As far as I’ve been able to piece together, the Foundation exists as a corporate entity with basically no assets, and the LLC still has all the money. Is that right? What needs to happen for that to change? Do we need to file that paperwork for tax exemption before it can happen?
posted by eirias at 6:05 AM on December 20 [1 favorite]

From https://metatalk.metafilter.com/26527/MeFi-Site-Update-December-2024 --
MetaFilter LLC has been formally donated to MetaFilter Community Foundation.
posted by NotLost at 6:13 AM on December 20 [3 favorites]

I have submitted a post to discuss potential volunteer modding.
posted by NotLost at 6:15 AM on December 20 [2 favorites]

Thank you for your efforts and the updates Rhaomi. I would encourage some lateral thinking around:

This is not possible in general because you can't have volunteers doing the same work as paid staff, even in a non-profit.

If you need both paid and volunteer, differentiate the work and titles. Call paid mods "admins" or "mod supervisors." Something Awful has been doing this for two decades. Reddit regularly replaces volunteer mods of subreddits with paid employees when the volunteers do not do what Reddit wants them to do.
posted by theclaw at 6:21 AM on December 20 [5 favorites]

From Fact Sheet #14A: Non-Profit Organizations and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) --
Volunteers
The FLSA recognizes the generosity and public benefits of volunteering and allows individuals to freely volunteer in many circumstances for charitable and public purposes. Individuals may volunteer time to religious, charitable, civic, humanitarian, or similar non-profit organizations as a public service and not be covered by the FLSA. Individuals generally may not, however, volunteer in commercial activities run by a non-profit organization such as a gift shop. A volunteer generally will not be considered an employee for FLSA purposes if the individual volunteers freely for public service, religious or humanitarian objectives, and without contemplation or receipt of compensation. Typically, such volunteers serve on a part-time basis and do not displace regular employed workers or perform work that would otherwise be performed by regular employees. In addition, paid employees of a non-profit organization cannot volunteer to provide the same type of services to their non-profit organization that they are employed to provide.
posted by NotLost at 6:30 AM on December 20

Fan-freaking-tastic, NotLost. Thank you! This is big enough news that I would personally love to see it on the blue somehow. A banner more specific than “December update”? A brief FPP? Don’t want to derail more important tasks, just don’t want more out of touch people like me asking this question in other threads :)
posted by eirias at 6:37 AM on December 20 [1 favorite]

Good point. I will ask for it to be added to the banner.
posted by NotLost at 6:41 AM on December 20 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Let's experiment! Keep in mind that I haven't read this thread yet!

I made two TikTok videos just talking about the work I'm doing this morning (Friday, December 20, 2024. They're a bit verbose, at 20 minutes total, but hey, it was an experiment.

Part 1 and Part 2. It may surprise some of you to find out that I'm not a polished speaker or communicator, so just keep in mind that this was an experiment decided on by me in the middle of the night and I didn't consult with anyone about doing it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:14 AM on December 20 [29 favorites]

Brandon, that's awesome. Thank you. (I have only skimmed through the first one, but I promise i'll watch them.)
posted by bowbeacon at 7:37 AM on December 20 [3 favorites]

Brandon, I haven't watched yet but thank you.

Rhaomi, you wrote

FWIW, the transition board requested a breakdown of mod coverage and tasks (which we got)

Could that breakdown be made visible to site members in general? We're currently trying to compile a similar breakdown in the thread about the possibility of volunteer modding.
posted by trig at 8:01 AM on December 20 [3 favorites]

We got cameras.
posted by clavdivs at 4:06 PM on December 20

It can fluctuate, but there are currently five mods and two developers. In addition to moderation, Loup (~26 hrs/wk) handles management, payroll, bill pay, and policy, Brandon (18) and Taz (18) do social media and communication, Thyme (25) does the BIPOC Board, and Gnifti (15) does miscellaneous clerical/tracking stuff. As for devs, frimble (up to 25) maintains the current codebase and kirkaracha (up to 15) is working on the redesign. Jessamyn was in charge of taxes and other annual paperwork, which passes to us. Overall mod coverage is a little over 100 hours a week, though some of that is spent on non-moderation tasks.
posted by Rhaomi at 5:03 PM on December 20 [9 favorites]

Thanks, Rhaomi.
posted by trig at 8:28 PM on December 20

I think it's kind of telling that so many folks have been raging for the last... well, however long... about how the mods don't do their jobs and what the mods should be doing with their time and it reached such a fever pitch that we go this here MetaTalk thread, posted in bad faith tho it was..

And so Brandon took time out to try to help answer the question -with a little experiment - a twenty minute video! I thought that was cool and interesting. And yet apparently the people clamoring for a look behind the curtain apparently can't be bothered to actually watch it, because this thread is crickets, so I guess it wasn't that important.

So, again, it's like, do you want a thing or do you just want an outlet for your anger.
posted by kbanas at 5:34 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]

I watched it. I was the one who asked. I truly appreciated it, and said as much in the thread. Should I have sent flowers?
posted by bowbeacon at 6:17 AM on December 21 [3 favorites]

kbanas, I've confirmed the following five people as asking for this:

* bowbeacon (the initial asker)
* phunniemee
* donnagirl
* nobody
* ginger.beef

Of those:
* bowbeacon said "Brandon, that's awesome. Thank you."
* phunniemee has not responded in this thread, but has been active elsewhere on the site
* donnagirl has not responded in this thread, but has been active elsewhere on the site, making positive statements: "This is a truly solid update and a lot of hopeful progress. Thank you for that, to everyone involved."
* nobody has not responded in this thread, but has been active elsewhere on the site, making positive statements: "Whoa, congrats everyone!"
* ginger.beef has not responded in this thread, and has not been active elsewhere on the site, either.

So it looks like out of 5 people, 1 hasn't been active period since their comment. Of the 4 that we can use to gauge response, only 25% have responded positively to Brandon's comment, but 75% have responded positively to the site's progress as a whole. Only 25% have been active after BB's comment but haven't been positive.

Honestly, I think the other movement has been just such a big and unexpected leap in progress that it has overshadowed this completely. But considering that 75% of the people in the usable data set have either praised this or praised MeFi's other progress, I don't think it follows that the people in this thread didn't want it, they just wanted an outlet for their anger.

Don't get me wrong, there absolutely are people like that. They just don't happen to be, for the most part, the people in this particular thread.
posted by Bugbread at 7:00 AM on December 21 [2 favorites]

My dumb tagging mistake was addressed halfway through the second video, as I realized to my horror!
posted by mittens at 7:18 AM on December 21

Hi I'm sure this is great but I'm not engaging with TikTok!
posted by phunniemee at 7:21 AM on December 21 [4 favorites]

To be fair, it is 20 minutes over two videos, so that can be a lot. TikTok was just an easy to do without thinking too much.

In the future doing it on YouTube would better or just doing a podcast.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:36 AM on December 21 [4 favorites]

kbanas, I've confirmed the following five people as asking for this:

A gratitude audit! I love it!
posted by paper chromatographologist at 7:37 AM on December 21 [4 favorites]

I am absolutely not complaining about the medium, I can trust other folks that what you've shared is interesting and cool. Progress and openness is the right direction. My silence was called out as being shitty though, so here I am!

In the same way that someone saying "I don't engage with google products" would be an unproductive response to "hey we created a temporary first pass at a mod log here on this google sheet," I didn't think it was necessary to share.
posted by phunniemee at 7:39 AM on December 21 [5 favorites]

I did not ask for any of this

I did watch some of Part 1 mainly because Brandon made the effort and I was curious

Where have I commented to leave you with the idea that I think we should have a better picture of what the mods do?
posted by ginger.beef at 8:44 AM on December 21 [4 favorites]

To Bugbread's comment, just for the record, since it calls me out by name: if anyone bothers checking my comment history (not saying you should), or even looks closely at the overall tenor of the comment I kinda regrettably left above, I would say I'm clearly not among those who could be called "raging" -- but at some point fairly recently I did decide to make more of an effort not to totally dismiss all of the more ragey group's opinions just because I react so badly to the way a lot of them are delivered. So...despite being able to see the potential bad-faith angles with this thread (and even spelling that out above), I decided it would be more...valuable if it could be considered at face value. (But really, if I dig deep: I was probably also just entertaining a knee-jerk reaction against whoever's presently being the most aggressive, and the usually 'ragey' crowd -- if it's fair to call them that --was being so polite here!)

And then my browser setup seems to block TikTok pages, and I'm pretty much a full-on TikTok abstainer anyway, so I wasn't going to look into figuring that out. I did think about asking for a YouTube link, just out of curiosity, but then didn't end up bothering. Is it easy enough to export from TikTok? I'd watch.

(Hm, not sure I really needed to leave this comment, either. It's a little anti-eponysterical, to go on quite like this!)
posted by nobody at 12:27 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]

But one last thought, on the ridealong proposal itself: this earlier comment from Bugbread really hit home, since I would probably quit a job before being forced to spend a full day with even an assistant watching, let alone a potentially adversarial stranger. But I figure not everyone would necessarily be so averse. (See: reality TV, half of youtube, etc.)
posted by nobody at 12:29 PM on December 21 [2 favorites]

I wasn’t suggesting anyone should be “forced” to do anything, to be clear. I asked if it would be possible, in order to gain a better understanding of. And then Brandon largely obliged. If that’s “ragey” or “bad faith”, then sure, I guess.
posted by bowbeacon at 1:01 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]

I see that -- didn't meant to imply otherwise.
posted by nobody at 1:22 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]

Sometimes peope deploy words like "tone policing" when what they seem to mean is "shut the fuck up"

Words mean things, and how a person expresses anger is meaningful. Katallus said it, I'm just repeating things at this point. For my part, I don't see how a person can advocate for the dismissal of the mods then come back and propose a ridealong.

We can take what appears to be positive signs from the past day and move on, I guess I'm hoping the uglier and angrier tone stays in the past. If that's tone policing, well

I'm pretty sure any community can only sustain a level of turmoil and fractiousness for so long. I also think many MeFites are happily posting to the blue, green, purple, with no desire to engage in the grey, and no strong views either way. It's a mistake to think a group of MeFites represents the community, though no-one would deny their passion for the community

I'm hopeful for the future and I appreciate the passion of others
posted by ginger.beef at 1:28 PM on December 21 [2 favorites]

(To clarify: I'd meant this comment not to say "I now think this is a bad proposal because..." but rather "I could see it being not unreasonable to turn the proposal down because...")
posted by nobody at 1:29 PM on December 21

We could make the "ride-alongs" optional for any given mod.
posted by NotLost at 1:44 PM on December 21

ginger.beef: "Where have I commented to leave you with the idea that I think we should have a better picture of what the mods do?"

I was casting the net wide to include anyone who said there could potentially be a circumstance in which this was a good idea. In your case, I put you in the "not absolutely against this idea under all circumstances" camp because of this comment:

"The quantity of recent MeTa comments on the mods, and the excruciating level of detailed criticism, leaves me in no doubt that this ask is pointless. Under other circumstances: sure. "

nobody: "To Bugbread's comment, just for the record, since it calls me out by name: if anyone bothers checking my comment history (not saying you should), or even looks closely at the overall tenor of the comment I kinda regrettably left above, I would say I'm clearly not among those who could be called "raging""

Yeah, sorry, I think I gave the wrong impression in my comment. I didn't mean "here are 5 people who have both 1) raged and 2) demanded a ride-along," but simply "here are 5 people who have indicated >0% interest in perhaps under some circumstances having a ride-along". I didn't mean to imply that you raged.
posted by Bugbread at 1:50 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]

Thanks Bugbread, for the clarification

I should think the phrasing, taken in context, would exclude me but not a big deal.
posted by ginger.beef at 2:14 PM on December 21

I made two TikTok videos just talking about the work I'm doing this morning (Friday, December 20, 2024. They're a bit verbose, at 20 minutes total, but hey, it was an experiment.

Thanks for this, Brandon!

Since it was brought up earlier in the thread, I also vote for using YouTube if you do more videos.
posted by night traveler at 10:29 AM on December 22 [5 favorites]

I had more time today than usual, so I watched both videos. I think you (Brandon) managed to give a good idea of what your work day is like, both in terms of activities but also the smaller decisions you're taking along the way and how you take those. Thanks for sharing!

As a quick, spontaneous response to the proposal, this was great. If we'd do this more often, I think the videos would benefit from some editing and/or having speed controls. (The latter is a point in favor of YouTube, I guess.)

For those who don't do video, here's what I recall:

(98% of the video shows Brandon, not his screen, in view of privacy/security)
- moderation requires coffee (seems legit)
- shift starts by marking oneself as 'on duty' in the admin panel (which appears to be some kind of dashboard)
- first action of the day is posting the site update, which Brandon drafted earlier and has been reviewed by mods
- after that, he considers the anonymous posts which are still queued and selects one of them to review and subsequently post
- there is a metatalk thread about a mod ride-along (yeah, that's this one) which Brandon keeps an eye on throughout the rest of his shift
- a request for waiving the sign-up fee is considered
- Brandon reviews several flags:
-- a missing US politics tag, which gets fixed
-- a thread is flagged as 'offensive/sexism/racism'; Brandon checks the thread and finds nothing objectionable
-- someone flagged a thread for getting 'yucking someone's yum' behavior; Brandon finds that this is indeed happening, without any comments that clearly cross the line, so leaves a moderator note reminding people to just move on if it's not their thing

(I hope I didn't forget anything important or misrepresent anything. For juicy details like which threads exactly I'm referring to and what Brandon's preferred brand of peanut butter is: go watch the video!)
posted by demi-octopus at 12:13 PM on December 22 [13 favorites]

Don't forget the professional white background, as expected. That was surprisingly interesting.
posted by lucidium at 8:00 AM on December 23

Brandon, those ridealong videos were great! Wouldn't mind more sometime.
posted by michaelh at 10:42 PM on December 23