Moving More Quickly on Moderation

I know we had a thread on moderators rights already, but given the current situation I think we are at the point we need to start thinking about having a dispute moderator that can deal with issues that go too far.

If Mike wants to appoint a mod, I suggest he does so quickly. Moderation can become a job in itself when there's a lot of people involved on the site, and given he's currently working on the code and features of the site, it's up to him but I think he should appoint a mod - sooner rather than later.

I think the best option for a moderator right now is someone that knows to keep their hand steady and somewhat relaxed until people start getting to the point of excessive cursing in a belligerent manner, derailing threads not made to host drama, threats, doxxing, and targeted harassment. Ideally, we need someone who can stay impartial, but we should acknowledge that we are humans with emotions, so it would be better to have a moderator that can figure out if they made a mistake in a situation so they can adapt and remedy it.

What are your thoughts on having a moderator?

First I think mods need to handle disputes in private. Huge flame wars like what is going on now shouldn’t be acceptable. If you have a problem with someone bring it privately to a moderator. 

I think one or two moderators would be nice 

I think we should start with one, and think about adding a second in a few months. That way we won't have to worry about two potentially conflicting styles learning to moderate at the same time.

Fair enough. I already offered to help out  One super admin would help assist in content management (ie back end stuff) and also oversee the moderator team      

They must be unaffiliated with zeichen.

It's good to know there will be a block function soon but we will need moderation to deal with reports and to intervene when flame wars get out of hand.

I am working on this but it's gonna take some time 'cause it requires a lot of coding and thinking and I still have my daily job and some life away from the computer haha

If you can't give someone direct access to admin functions, you could have someone be a moderator and, when necessary, give you accounts to ban and timeframes for those bans, and threads or posts to be deleted.

The problem is the absence of the interface for those admin functions and that's exactly what I am working on these days. But hopefully I'll finish those ( at least for the forum ) next week and that'll be a good start.

It's more the social role of the moderator that is needed at this point. I don't think you, given what you've said, can do that and work on the coding for the site at the same time.

Oh I see, I am sorry I didn't understand you from the first time. That's actually a damn good idea! I guess that's exactly how we'll do it for starters.

I doubt anyone would trust my ass with moderation, but since ive been on the other side of it to have a good idea of how it could go down to resolve things pretty well.

1) Immediate shutdown of any flamewars or communication with each other

First thing to do that works really well is just have the warring parties shut down whatever war they are flaming in public, with immediate bannign if they dont oblige. Usually the side that feels they are the victim will oblige, and because those who start it in the first place often play the victim card, they will oblige as well. Once all parties involved have quieted down (usually its two main ones), the mod can sort out behind the scenes who fucked up more and whether or not a ban is in order

2) Deletion of the thread the flamewar went down in

Flamewars in threads have a nasty habit of getting bumped again after an extended period of time by people who either want to just stir some shit up, or by one of the original flamers who are trying to score points for some reason after the flamewar ended. Deleting the thread also eliminates the ability of other users to see the drama that went down, and the less drama the better when a situation has escalated too far. 

3) If a ban is in order, give about one hours notice to the parties involved

A straight temp ban from the mod once he makes up his mind can occasionally cause someone in a recent flamewar to lose his shit and try to circumvent a temp ban with an alternate account. Giving them a heads up that you've made a decision and that they have an hour to brace themselves usually pacifies the banned party enough to tie up loose ends in misc conversations they were in, rather then fight the temp ban to the last moment and hold a grudge about it later. 

4) Restraining Orders, maybe. 

RO's can be pretty useful to use, but due to the small nature of the base on this site, it might be a bit early to ban certain users from talking to each other about ANYTHING just because theyve fought in the past. If two users in an RO are in a thread together but are just talking to other people in the thread, it can still cause a hell of a lot of attention between the two. Just one perceived line referring to something vague could be taken as a dig at the other person in the RO and cause them to think it was just violated and that they have a free opportunity to fire back, leading to another powder keg to explode when it might not have even be put there without the RO in the first place. 

RO's do come in handy for members who fight each other repeatedly and show that they just cannot get along with each other. And a violation of a RO can make a setup for another temp ban super easy should another incident happen

I agree with pretty much everything imabench said

<3

A block feature would stop it all before it begins. The whole reason this took off in the first place is because a member started sending out abusive pms to a bunch of members and kept them going, death threats included for some. If such messages couldn't arrive in the first place there wouldn't be an issue. 

where is Airmax?

he hasn't joined.

Lol no it wouldn't. You can't preemptively block someone before they abuse you.

Not to mention you can post a slander hit-piece in the forums with next to zero evidence cited, without ever PMing someone: https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/198?page=1

You're literally contributing to the problem you're attempting to fix xD

Restraining order please. Stop communicating with each other and replying to each other’s post 

Fixing the other shitshow.

And when Mike sees one of the worse trolls here offering advice and then others backing him up, how comfortable should he be about offers of assistance? His hesitation is understandable.

90% of all problems will be caused 10% of members. Mods right now would need no software. But it is us and our duplicitous ways making Mike hesitant. Can you blame him?

No one here is stupid. If you were just on another thread spreading your vitriol and spite, don't come here offering advice about how to make things better. Better you kept quiet.

I agree with 1hard. Will you be appointing a member to act as a de facto authority?

I don't trust anyone but Airmax.

Virt obviously wants it but I don't trust the dude. He's the kind of guy who'll ban you for the smallest things.

since theres no airmax, are you suggesting you'd opt for no mod over a bad one?

There's probably not going to be someone everybody trusts. It will have to come down to Mike's judgment.

That's silly...at least have a vote on it or something.

Would you trust the voters' judgment as much as Mike's?

Depends on how bad the mod is. Right now everything is doing fine. Personally, I enjoy the drama. Keeps the site active. However, we will eventually need a mod. If a bad mod is going to make the site worse then I'd rather have no mods.

Mike can do whatever he wants. Its his site after all. We can however, suggest to him people who'd be great as mods.