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Patrick
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Joined: 28 Aug 2005
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Location: Harbinger, NC, U.S.A.
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Triumvirate
Joined: 10 Sep 2005
Posts: 262
Location: New York, USA
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 Posted: 4/29/2008, 10:53 am Post subject: |
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On one of the communities I'm a moderator at we do edit user posts, and it makes things a lot more difficult to deal with for several of the reasons you mentioned. Documentation is a problem, though not he biggest of them. I think the biggest problem lies in the fact that you will have someone quote a post that violates the guidelines and then you spend extra time trying to work your way through all of them to get rid of each time that happened.
It is a lot of extra work for not that much payoff in the end.
I've been thinking about adding into my staff guidelines that if a post is mainly okay, but still violates the guidelines in some way that it should still be removed but they should add to the PM sent that the user is welcome to re-post the message without the violations.
That will let the moderators decide which posts this is the case with and which are better off just removing and contacting the person without the extra line in there.
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Patrick
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Location: Harbinger, NC, U.S.A.
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| Posted: 5/13/2008, 1:45 pm Post subject: |
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I removed the post below from this thread in error.  Sorry for the confusion.
Thanks,
Patrick
| Twill wrote: |
I'm a little late to the conversation but I seem to take the exact opposite approach to violations...I actively refuse to allow my mods to delete or remove posts.
I actually wrote a post about it a while back on my private blog (don't expect much, my blog is a private brain dump )
The gist of it runs along the lines of:
- I don't own this community, it owns itself.
- By extension I don't own the knowledge which it creates.
- Deletion is the ultimate form of censorship and as such represents my control of knowledge and information.
- Editing, while it will change the exact content can maintain the essence of what is said allowing the community to create itself and it's own history
From a pragmatic point of view this obviously has implications:
1) People hate having their stuff deleted and inevitably complain.
2) It leads to a different documentation flow which can be managed relatively easily (with the use of certain forum hacks).
3) It implies a slightly different role and responsibility for the mod team.
4) It shows your community that when they cross a line, action is taken at the same time as it shows what that line is.
Now, to address Patrick's specific points in his blog post:
Sloppy documentation
There are hacks (especially for phpBB3 and vBulletin) which will keep copies of all edits made to all posts forever. This keeps full documentation even when users edit their own posts, later claiming they didn't make a mistake (which is a very useful thing to have anyway)
I also find that I end up with fewer complaints and "I demand an explanation you forum nazi" comments (being in gaming, I deal with a much younger and "excitable" crowd than some)
Harder mistake correction
If you have the tools to track post edits, this is not a problem (I know vB and phpBB3 have MODs to allow this...the phpBB MOD is still in development I believe)
Yes, I will concede that the editing of multiple replies is a pain in the rear end, but in the interest of guiding rather than dictating to a community, I am willing to go through that extra work and ask my mods to do the same.
Staff members aren't proofreaders
I agree completely about not being proofreaders. But your point here seems to imply that moderators will correct and more importantly improve a post and move on. I'm not buying the "improve" part and that is where I think we differ the most.
First, the proofreader comment: Mods are supposed to read all posts to see if they are ok anyway, so in essence, they ARE proofreaders - in the "move it" model, they simply send it back to the author and have to say "this is what was wrong with it, slap on the wrist for you!"
In the "edit it" model, you do the same thing but you just tell them what was wrong in a different way - you tell them in a public arena and in PM.
Now, the "improve" part: I am not a fan of dry and "boring" mod actions (again, being in gaming, the dry method of moderation just doesnt work for my userbase.). In this vein of things I ask my mods to "give as good as you get" in most situations. If you are dealing with a problem user who is mocking another user, edit their post to be mocking back at them rather than "improving" it.
| original wrote: |
| You are a weenie n00b. |
| dry edit wrote: |
| Welcome to the community, new person! |
| my edit wrote: |
| I have absolutely nothing worthwhile to say so I compensate for my shortcomings by spamming other users. |
So, by editing in this way there is a social aspect to the punishment which shows others what went wrong (the user was spamming) and corrects the OP (there is also a PM that is sent).
As long as you maintain a sense of humour in your posts, this form of moderation works fairly well...but only in certain types of communities. I find I get more respect from users who see mods as "cool" rather than "mod-stick-up-the-bum" and sadly, this is one way to do that.
Recognizing the value of posts
Editing over deleting maintains the flow of the thread (which hopefully hasn't gone off track at this point, and if it has, just split the garbage off to a new thread and lock it) and maintains some of the integrety of the author.
It is also, in my eyes, a much less harsh form of punishment - some is changed but not all.
Anyhoo, sorry if that didn't flow, I'm posting here while I'm supposed to be at work so this is a rather rushed post
I'd love to discuss this further though.
Have a good one
Twill |
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Triumvirate
Joined: 10 Sep 2005
Posts: 262
Location: New York, USA
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| Posted: 5/13/2008, 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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Twill,
That's an interesting way of doing things. I think the great thing about managing communities is even if there are different styles there are always things to take away from how each person deals with things.
I think the difference comes in your original 4 points, which I (somewhat disagree with.) To put it down one by one:
1. Participation in my communities is a privilege I extend freely to anyone. Like any privilege it can be taken away (if it becomes necessary to do so, for instance by violating the rules.)
2. Basically I agree with your above statement, I don't lay claim to anything other than what I write on the community.
3. Censorship is not a bad thing. Censorship because of bias is certainly not the ideal, but "censorship" that is, removing something that brings no value to the discussion (i.e "You're an idiot.") is a reasonable way to maintain a positive atmosphere.
4. Sometimes the "essence" of what is said does not need to exist because the post is rude/offensive/whatever. (To put it in an example we probably all know, yes you have the right to free speech in the USA, but that doesn't mean you can yell "FIRE" in a movie theater (when there is no fire, obviously.))
In your style I see a similarity to the way Blizzard runs the World of Warcraft official forums. In that the moderators/community team are allowed to openly "joke" with the users. Of course, the problem is often these jokes are mean/harsh.
In my personal opinion I would take much more offense to having my post edited and publicly mocked than I would if it was just removed entirely and I was told what the problem was.
What happens when a moderator edits a post to read something which is just as rude/offensive as what was edited in the first place? Does that moderator then get edited in a mocking fashion? At what point does it stop?
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Twill
Joined: 11 May 2008
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| Posted: 5/18/2008, 10:58 am Post subject: |
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Triumvirate,
You have some very good points and I agree with/have run into problems with several of them myself, however, I do believe that a community must be guided and not pushed (can you ever push it anyway, really?)
On your points:
1) I run a forum for a commercial site. So while your participation in the (not "my") community is a privilege, should I too tightly revoke that privilege then I lose business.
There is also a lot of "emergent community" which comes out of letting things go a bit - for example, one day someone posted a game of "mafia" in our forum and it began to look a lot like spam from some of our more "eager" members. It was borderline infringement of the rules because of the content and spammyness of it. However, with a little bit of coaxing and editing, rather than deletion, we now have a mafia community which actually drives people to our site and keeps them there while their interest in our product may not have initially kept them that long.
3) Yes, you can try to force a certain tone but I think that is bad for the atmosphere in some cases.
It may also be the different demographics and purposes we run our forums for, but I don't think imposing my version of "value" is the right thing to do. As you say later "when does it stop"...who decides what is valuable and what is not. Should you decide or should your community decide? (I am aware that the last statement runs the risk of a lambdaMOO style breakdown, but again, it depends on design and other control mechanisms)
4) I agree, sometimes the essence shouldn't be kept, but you can make that decision on a case by case basis and you should never remove the fact that someone said something.
I am actually having a big problem with my most active mod right now doing exactly that - crossing the line into insulting. Sadly I have been busy with other work and have let it slide and it has very quickly done damage to the community which is going to take months to repair. At the same time, I still believe it to be a valuable tool when dealing with young trolls in particular. As long as the post remains respectful, you and the rest of the community can have a lot of fun and use social engineering to keep people in line rather than corporal punishment.
Indeed some people do take offense to having their posts edited, but I've found that, in the communities I manage at least, more find that deletion is worse.
I am always looking to change and improve my ideas and learn from people who have more and different experiences than I, so thank you for your reply, I hope we can keep it going
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