Thoughts on the future - moderators, membership

[epo1]

This is all very cosy and a welcome respite after the shock news from TMF but let us be realistic.

This will remain a very cosy place as long as it is just the diehard refugees from the Fool but who will pay the bills? Who will inject fresh blood and expertise?

If the site doesn't get well known then it will die off. If the site gets well known then spammers and trolls will arrive and they will drive down the quality so much that people stop contributing.

All this is obvious. Moderators are essential as are contributions to cover operating costs, but how? Ads might help and encouraging users to make Amazon purchases through a lemonfool link will provide income at no net cost to the user. Perhaps sponsorship by one or more broking houses?

The most successful discussion site I am aware of is Metafilter, it's funding model is simple. Anyone can read posts (and see adverts) but to contribute or create posts requires that you become a paid member (the one-time cost is low, perhaps $5), members get posting rights after 7 days I think and can opt out of adverts. Any breach of site rules (spam, self-promotion, excessive discourtesy or rudeness) causes your membership be terminated without appeal on the first offence. Yes you can sign up again and wait and yes it will cost you another $5. Metafilter has a pool of moderators who work full time.

Another model I have seen has contributions from new users held in a queue pending moderator approval before going live, but after gaining sufficient reputation they can post directly. Slashdot and hacker news are user-moderated. Slashdot has a reputation system whereby people are graded by the number of votes they have received, users can filter their feeds so as to only see posts from those with a certain level of reputation. People with downvotes eventually disappear because their contributions never get seen. Hacker news penalises those with a poor reputation by degrading their experience by introducing delays, this becomes so intolerable that those individuals simply go away.

And there is still the messy issue of preserving the TMF archives.

This site is sterling work by stooz and clariman but it is only a temporary measure. I have extensive IT and web expertise and am happy to work between contracts (as is presently the case) on setting up a more solid home.

[LemonFool]

I run a small forum using similar software to this, i.e. SMF - Simple Machines Forum.

On my forum, certain members have 'Board Moderator' status.

This means that they moderate a specific board and have certain privileges but only on the board(s) for which they are board moderator. Privileges include, making posts sticky, locking threads, editing any post, deleting any post etc. Regular members do not have these privileges.

Perhaps certain members here should have board moderator status for particular boards which 'belong' to them.

For example, Luni, Tortoise100, Pyad and I'm sure others that I can't think of at the moment.

You could have global moderators as well, but they are a bit general and not really enough on their own.

[wickham]

There's a good option for registration. Under Spambot countermeasures Admin can set a question which requires a specific answer. Incorrect answers can have another question in rotation. This defeats spambots but not clever human spammers.

I'm an Admin of a phpBB board (we_universal style). One post subject to approval is normally enough to sort out genuine posters, and the forum can be set to allow posting without approval after one post has been approved and the member logs in the next time.

[wickham]

Regarding moderators specific to boards and post approval, I would point out that there's nothing more irritating for a new member who wants to make a comment or answer a question than to have to wait hours or days for his post approval, by which time things have moved on and his post is irrelevant or already answered. Post approval should ideally be within one hour.

I think it's generally better for moderators to moderate all boards or have at least three or four for each board to avoid a single moderator being unavailable because he's asleep, ill or on holiday.

[LemonFool]

Hi Wickham

My board moderators do not have to approve posts, new members or otherwise. I agree that would be tedious.

As I said above, they have certain privileges like making posts sticky, locking threads etc.

Their purpose is more to govern the appearance of their board and make it more purposeful, bit like an editor.

It works.

[wickham]

On the forum I administrate the spambot countermeasures have been completely effective but we have had human spammers who answered the special questions correctly and then spammed adverts or photos of pretty girls, so keep post approval as an option in case there is trouble!

[Itsallaguess]

Hi Wickham

My board moderators do not have to approve posts, new members or otherwise. I agree that would be tedious.

Hi LemonFool,

Without wanting to sound at all controversial, can I ask if you're anything to do with 'this' board?

If you are then absolutely fine, but it's not entirely clear at the moment, and if you're 'not', then I think your username might cause some regular confusion over time, especially if you are a board-owner elsewhere and discuss things like the above, which may sounds as though you mean 'this place'.

I think it might be akin to someone popping up on the TMF boards with the TMFxxxxx moniker, and not being anything to do with the board itself.

I hope this doesn't come across as any way being disrespectful, but you must surely have thought about this when you took your current username?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[LemonFool]

Hi Wickham

My board moderators do not have to approve posts, new members or otherwise. I agree that would be tedious.

Hi LemonFool,

Without wanting to sound at all controversial, can I ask if you're anything to do with 'this' board?

If you are then absolutely fine, but it's not entirely clear at the moment, and if you're 'not', then I think your username might cause some regular confusion over time, especially if you are a board-owner elsewhere and discuss things like the above, which may sounds as though you mean 'this place'.

I think it might be akin to someone popping up on the TMF boards with the TMFxxxxx moniker, and not being anything to do with the board itself.

I hope this doesn't come across as any way being disrespectful, but you must surely have thought about this when you took your current username?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

No I'm nothing to do with setting up this forum. Good point. I will ask stooz to change my user name to Stonge.

[Clariman]

Hi Wickham

My board moderators do not have to approve posts, new members or otherwise. I agree that would be tedious.

Hi LemonFool,

Without wanting to sound at all controversial, can I ask if you're anything to do with 'this' board?

If you are then absolutely fine, but it's not entirely clear at the moment, and if you're 'not', then I think your username might cause some regular confusion over time, especially if you are a board-owner elsewhere and discuss things like the above, which may sounds as though you mean 'this place'.

I think it might be akin to someone popping up on the TMF boards with the TMFxxxxx moniker, and not being anything to do with the board itself.

I hope this doesn't come across as any way being disrespectful, but you must surely have thought about this when you took your current username?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

No I'm nothing to do with setting up this forum. Good point. I will ask stooz to change my user name to Stonge.

Thanks both. I was going to discuss names with Stooz. Lemonfool - I'd appreciate it if you could change your name to avoid any confusion. I think that it would make sense if we reserved Lemon and/or LEM in name titles for any 'officials' (wow that sounds grand for a new website).

Cheers
C

[Itsallaguess]

No I'm nothing to do with setting up this forum. Good point. I will ask stooz to change my user name to Stonge.

I do appreciate you taking that view LF, and I'm sorry to have had to raise the issue with you, but very glad also that you can see the point I was hoping to make and that you've taken the same view yourself.

Kind Regards,

Itsallaguess

[Raptor]

Clariman.

OK so we get moderators/auditors with prefix of LEM..... Would that mean someone i.e you, would become LEM_clariman. I ask as if it were me I would like to post as a "normal" contributor and keep that side away from any moderator role I would have.

BTW if I was a "new" member and had not posted before, it would be "restrictive" to have to wait for a moderator to "approve" me. As has been said things move on fast here and by the time approved may no longer be current. Now as to whether "new" members need to have a restriction on when they can post, i.e a week, more sensible.....

Raptor.

[wickham]

Clariman.

BTW if I was a "new" member and had not posted before, it would be "restrictive" to have to wait for a moderator to "approve" me. As has been said things move on fast here and by the time approved may no longer be current. Now as to whether "new" members need to have a restriction on when they can post, i.e a week, more sensible.....

Raptor.

I do agree that this forum is going to be busy, so post approval puts a lot of pressure on moderators to approve posts quickly to avoid annoying members. If posts aren't subject to approval, spam posts will probably be from Russia and China and are posted overnight, so the posts are visible until a UK moderator logs in at breakfast and deletes them, but this is a less urgent function, although some undesirable posts might be missed until someone reports them.

I don't think new members should have to wait until they can post at all, this also infuriates new members.

The forum I administer has passed the initial rush of new memberships and has only one or two posts to approve daily as new member registrations have slowed , but it looks as if post approval will be too onerous for this busy forum. Moderators will just have to catch posts after they are visible.

[UncleEbenezer]

Hi LemonFool,

Without wanting to sound at all controversial, can I ask if you're anything to do with 'this' board?

IMHO LemonFool has done this board a favour, by highlighting the point I make in the "Identity theft" thread and others have made elsewhere.

Longer-term, I agree with everyone, it would be best to remove the potential for confusion by a name change.

[Stonge]

LemonFool signed out.

Now appearing as Stonge.

Apologies for the unintended potential confusion.

[robbelg]

LemonFool signed out.

Now appearing as Stonge.

Apologies for the unintended potential confusion.

The honourable thing.

Have a rec

[gbjbaanb]

Thanks both. I was going to discuss names with Stooz. Lemonfool - I'd appreciate it if you could change your name to avoid any confusion. I think that it would make sense if we reserved Lemon and/or LEM in name titles for any 'officials' (wow that sounds grand for a new website).

Cheers
C

You don't need to prefix usernames like that, on most forum software, including this one, admins and mods names show up in different colour.

[robbelg]

You don't need to prefix usernames like that, on most forum software, including this one, admins and mods names show up in different colour.

I think its a good idea for admins & mods to have an official id "LEMusername" and a private id "username" - as they did on TMF

[DiamondEcho]

I don't think regular posters [Lemons!? ] here should be named and identifiable if also assuming a mod-role. IME there is nothing to be gained from that; on the contrary. Rather have two IDs accessible for mods, their 'regular one' for their day-to-day stuff, and then a collective and shared 'Mod' one. After all if your post is mod'd it matters zero which mod does it.

Give Lemons [no, it sounds wrong, but I fear it will come into being] an avenue and right to appeal modding [to an Admin?], which gives comfort to regulars that new-mods aren't going rogue with their new powers. In parallel give mods a private sub-forum in the background to highlight and discuss anyone brewing up problems, so any more contentious decisions can be further depersonalised and arrived at collectively.

IME having a clear 'user rights/responsibilities' rules structure in place, in plain language rather than legal jargon, will itself reduce anti-social behaviour by a veeery large degree. Oh, that, and people not feeling ModX is pursuing a personal witch-hunt against them... trust and respect and people being aware of the 'Report this post' button => greater and better self-regulation + less work for mods.

[Cligga]

Have a rec

Sidestepping the topic a bit, but how does that work - or was it a virtual rec by robbelg?

Cligga

[Cligga]

Ah, have just found Clariman's tentative plans post and that recs are currently being worked on. So much to absorb!

Cligga