wrongplanet election?

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I'm not dismissing people simply for being prolific. I just think that quantity is no substitute for quality, and the fact that someone has the time and inclination to make 15-20 posts per day doesn't mean they are any more valuable to the site than people who make only 50 posts per year. They certainly shouldn't be held to a lower standard of conduct simply to prevent them from getting bored and leaving. If anything, excessive posting by a minority of users may do more harm than good -- if new users get the impression that this board caters to a small group of prolific but acrimonious people then they won't feel comfortable joining in the discussion. How many members have we lost because they posted three or four times and went totally unnoticed among the daily crap-flood? I have personally started coming here a lot less often, mainly because the quantity of posts went way up and the quality went way down, and my instinctive reaction when overwhelmed is to withdraw.

The fact that people come here for different reasons does complicate things. It would be simple if WP was just a support site or just an adult-content site or just a chat site, because then Alex could tell the others to just go away. We have many people here of different ages and seeking different experiences, which makes moderation all the more important, particularly when it comes to enforcing the division between all-ages content and "adult" content. Most of the complaints over moderator censorship seem to revolve around whether or not removed content was really inappropriate for the site. When there are 13-year-old kids lurking around the site, references to sexual acts/organs or off-site links to adult material are simply not acceptable. It's a bit harder with humour, as there is a fine line between and tasteless versus offensive remarks, and adults have a different sense of humour than children. By far, though, the toughest problem the mods face is how to deal with groups of members who have long-running feuds that spread out all over the board. These tend to escalate until eventually someone goes way over the line, gets warned (or punished), claims provocation as a defense and then complains about moderator bias. This is a typically aspie problem, as we all think we're right.

Well, I don't think of the moderators as a "cosy little club", but you're welcome to nominate as many would-be mods as you wish. I'm not sure what an election would accomplish, though -- if you nominate two equally-qualified people and ask the members to choose between them then you are doing yourself a disservice because either they should both be mods or neither should be mods. If one of them becomes a mod then WP loses either way.

What do you think is the minimum appropriate level of social ability for a mod, bearing in mind the requirement to be able to recognize subtle trolling and cut it off diplomatically when possible? At what point should a person's "Joined:" or "Posts:" statistics trump their actual abilities? Why don't you just nominate some of these excluded people and see what happens?

On the Internet, they are synonymous


What's your point?

I know. You were dismissing prolific posters you deemed non-customers.

Let's get back to this point:


You've still skirted around the subject; I'd like to know if it could be discussed by you lot.


You miss the point. It's not just the fact that someone's elected, it's the fact that they've not got a job for life, so to speak, and that you're including people who might otherwise not get a chance — you are creating more of a community spirit. As it stands, all you lot have to do is keep each other and Alex happy to ensure you keep your position. Naturally, some of you will have the integrity to look beyond your own self-interest, but the system doesn't really encourage that, does it? If you rotate fresh people through it will keep you on your toes, and stop people like me calling it a cosy little club. There's plenty of room for flexibility in what I've said; for example, it may be beneficial to limit the period to 6 months in order to get a higher turnover. Naturally, you lot would stay as the permanent staff, though you may decide that some of the elected members are useful and that you can use them to replace natural wastage in the main cadre.


Those are valid points, but they don't mean you cannot use some of what Hecate or I have suggested, if you wanted to. For example, it's obvious that some of your existing moderators aren't too hot when it comes to communicating with members in an official capacity; however that doesn't mean they don't contribute to the decision making process in a useful and objective manner behind the scenes. If you recognise peoples strengths and weaknesses, you can utilise them more effectively, and that can be extended to people who might be elected from a short list. If somebody doesn't have tact, they can still contribute behind the scenes; just don't let them loose with the PMs! (and I've absolutely no wish to be on that list, btw)

Just bringing up arbitrary stuff like correlating the value of post count with length of stay is really no argument against what's been suggested — it can be reconciled if you have the will.

I'm sure you lot are more than capable of making something like this work if you want. I'm pretty sure those of you who have AS will see the benefit in giving an opportunity to somebody who might not otherwise get the chance.

Apparently not.

As for the voting part of it, rarely is it so cut and dry as to not require a good discussion. Sometimes a very lengthy discussion.

In addition, whenever a subject is brought up, that mod proposes what guideline it is going against. And then either mods disagree or agree, oftentimes both if it's a more difficult decision to make, and then the final tally is taken.

It's an incredibly rare occasion when we don't discuss something thoroughly. And usually that is in regards to something like a member having an oversized avatar.

If a warning is proposed regarding a particular member for a particular post or posts, we don't take it lightly. It's not a quick decision to be made. And if, by the end of the day, the subject hasn't been discussed thoroughly enough for satisfaction, the decision will often be held over until the next day or the next round of mods comes on.

This isn't a perfect science. But we do try our best. Again, please ask questions. We want you to know as much about the procedures as possible, especially those regarding advisories, warnings, and bans since those are often the most relevant to you.

Seeing as my posts seem to be so biting and offensive, getting me into trouble with the mods and seeing as i have friends here who i dearly love their posts, i guess i will have to wait on the outside of the site in the cold, helplessly looking in at the gathering and merryment with big juicy posts filled with compliments going around to all but I and the other forum orphans, just waiting for one of the "customers" to take pity on this "non-customer" vagrant, giving me a figurative scrap off the table in the form of a pm and a warm virtual hug keeping me satisfied until i get the forum chills and my presence withers away and dies.

I guess you could call me Oliver Twisted. Friends and admirers, i hope we can meet elsewhere, sometime in another forum but until then i guess this is goodbye. Goodbye.

Ah, Indeed. And we will one day come across your bleached bones, destined for some virtual charnel-house in cyberspace, and someone will utter: "Alas, poor eamonn! I knew him, ye WP moderators: a fellow of infinite jest..." and Jetson will say: "piss-off, he was a non-customer"

I know im not really here anymore and risk a sound thrashing from the workhouse "authorities" but i had to LOL@ that , Ascan dear fellow. Cough, cough, eughhhhhh

:: And with that he breathed his last and died peacefully with the look of a fallen angel::

I have received correspondance from respected forum member poste-ante (dont ask noob, he's from before your time but is well repected by us veterans) and have decided to stay thanks to his very encouraging voice of reason. I guess im back so worry not thy fair ladies i am staying to rid this valley of trolls in my everlasting quest for justice. For Queen and country, Bottoms up, Tally ho and all that malarky.

Stiffens the sinews, old sport.

Just in the nick of time too.

I didn't dismiss anyone. I simply said that there will always be people who come to a web site and are dissappointed by the rules they find there, and that being a prolific poster doesn't mean someone is exempt from those rules.

The post that started this thread was not about long-time members feeling slighted by the selection of more junior members to moderate. Hecate said that there was dissatisfaction over rule enforcement and that moderator self-selection would lead to an imbalance. I defended the rule enforcement and said that it's normal for a site to develop a unique character by drifting away from the balanced, neutral middle-ground position through the positive reinforcement of trends via self-selection. You won't see Amy or Gareth from AFF moderating on here for the same reason you won't see a Republican campaigning in the Democratic Primaries.

I didn't skirt around the subject. I said that you were free to nominate people. I also said that this is Alex's site, and therefore whatever you or I can suggest is ultimately nothing but a suggestion.

The rest of your suggestions were about the mechanics of an election and the terms of office. Those are moot points until Alex has been given a list of nominations and has agreed that an election is even neccessary. For all I know, Alex could look at your list of people and appoint *all* of them, thereby avoiding the need for an election.


That is a completely different issue. You are essentially saying that if an election isn't neccessary for pragmatic reasons then we should hold one so that individual members can personally benefit. I'm not against the idea of empowering people, but would want to consider all of the different ways that might be accomplished. Handing out the authority to delete posts to someone who is not emotionally stable or who has serious communication difficulties may not be the first approach on my list.

You are skirting around it. You are part of the management of this place; you have direct access to Alex; your position gives you credibility in the eyes of Alex. If you lot (the moderators/ admin) were to discuss this and come up with a workable suggestion, I'm sure he'd listen — he seems reasonable enough. Because of the structure of this place, it requires YOU to get things moving, IF you want.

You see, all you have to do is say: "no we won't discuss it", or: "yes we will".


I used them to demonstrate how a certain mechanism could achieve certain goals.


Perhaps if you re-read my above posts it may be clearer. And if you do re-read them you'll notice that the mechanics I suggested — that you dismiss as mute points — actually address that problem.

You are trying to paint the picture that these reasons for having some democratic process are all mutually exclusive. You're obviously smart enough to know they're not, so why are you doing it?

There are a number of equally valid reasons for some democratic process. This is Hecate's original statement:



Even limited democracy, as I suggested, will go some way to preventing this. It will help prevent you actually conspiring, and help prevent the perception that you are actually conspiring. Of course, that can only be achieved throught the additional mechanism I suggested: limited terms of office for the elected ones. In fact, this does connect with the dissatisfaction felt by some long time members: that you are consciously trying to exclude them. You may know that's not the case, just as you may know that you carefully and conscientiously debate punishments; but the rest of us don't!

Look, I think I've made my point reasonably clearly. Yeah, there are obvious problems that may need to be tackled; but they are not insurmountable. All you — that's to say the ruling elite — have to do is discuss it. Some of you are self-confessed geniuses, so I'm sure you'd have no problem getting to grips with the practicalities of that. If you believe you have something that is workable, you present it to Alex for his decision.

i think jetson's main point makes most of this discussion moot - alex set up the system for appointing moderators, and it would be his decision whether or not to change the system, and not the mods themselves. therefore it's a little pointless to ask the mods to consider this, as it wouldn't be our decision, anyway. alex has executive power over everything, even to the point of overturning mods' decisions, if he chooses. (i do take your point about mods' "influence" with alex, although we don't run the site, he does, and we have far less power than people seem to assume).

may i suggest moving further discussion to the "mods' questions" thread, to keep everything in one place?

well, i wasn't really expecting anything to change as a result of this thread- i just thought that it might make an interesting topic. at best, i was hoping that a more realistic suggestion would arise from the discussion.

Ascan is probably correct in thinking that a desire to change the organizational structure of the moderation team would be taken more seriously if presented by the mods, though.

Note to Ascan/Hecate: The question of how to prevent improper moderation *has* been discussed in the moderator forum. Unfortunately, the need to respect each member's privacy makes it hard to be transparent. Aside from direct elections of moderators, we have also considered creating a jury to review decisions from a non-involved perspective. If we did go with elections or a jury, the list of nominees would have to come from the grass roots in order for them to have any independence and credibility, as any list of nominees coming from the mods could be seen as self-serving.

What would happen when Alex inevitably disagrees with the elected mods/jury? In "real world" politics, veto power is limited because the government requires the assent of the governed. Alex's position will never be open for election, and his veto power is unlimited. If he allows the mods to tell him what to do then he is surrendering control of his own site and yet still liable for its content. If he continues to play the role of benevolent dictator (as he has done thus far) and overrules the mods, then those who are elected will feel their position is undermined. At least with appointed mods there is little question as to where everyone stands.