This sounds extremely familiar from, well, all of my experiences working for massive companies and asking for a $.50 raise every couple of years.
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ResetEra Tech Thread (Report Bugs Here)
- Thread starter Cerium
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This sounds extremely familiar from, well, all of my experiences working for massive companies and asking for a $.50 raise every couple of years.
This is a good post.
And yes, I do think a thread should actually be made. It doesn't seem like many bugs are being posted here at the moment but there should be a bug thread and a feedback thread. There just isn't a feedback thread at the moment.
As to the finances....it comes up because the staff make it an issue. I agree that it isn't something we can really constructively engage with as we know nothing, the staff apparently knows nothing, and we're both unlikely to know anything. But, it is not users that have made this an issue. I believe that should be noted. Similarly, upthread when I talked about stepping away. I believe Saturday was right that I should not have been so blunt about it. But again, it is staff that made it an issue. It is incredibly hard as a user to engage staff when they talk about their difficulties and not go places that staff is uncomfortable discussing and to not step over lines perhaps better not crossed. To me that mostly speaks to staff really needing to talk more on their own end about these issues and how to sort them out and not bring them constantly before the community so that they aren't such a central part of the community relations problem. As does the whole talk about how the roll out was a managerial nightmare for them. Even saying this I feel I might be being too blunt, but I do get the impression that there is not only a communication problem with the community but inter-managerial.
But yes, the main thing is opening dialogue along the lines Disclaimer has been mentioning.
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First, thank you Delphine for the post and the response.
I think it's clear now that the impact of the change was difference to how you imagined it and the response might have taken you back and slowed down the communication.
I feel like transparency is very important and would improve the relationship between users and staff. It was one of the founding principles of this forum.
The tags implementation was something that a lot of people had issues with (me included) and a thread before then being finalized so we could discuss it would have been useful for the staff and for the users. There's a lot of smart people here, some with backgrounds in design that could've helped improve this feature from day one. Instead it was released without even an announcement.
I think the response and how things escalated from there has been explained very well by other posters here. Handing out bans when people are frustrated is a bit too much since the same type of disagreements between two regular users would probably be overlooked (we see some terrible exchanges in gaming side every day).
I understand how this is a tough job and without pay as well but the users also want the best for the website so we also care about how moderation is being executed.
A general feedback thread would be important. Same moderation as everywhere else and not because tensions get high.
Transparency regarding finances would also be great since I believe this is, above all, a community.
I think it's clear now that the impact of the change was difference to how you imagined it and the response might have taken you back and slowed down the communication.
I feel like transparency is very important and would improve the relationship between users and staff. It was one of the founding principles of this forum.
The tags implementation was something that a lot of people had issues with (me included) and a thread before then being finalized so we could discuss it would have been useful for the staff and for the users. There's a lot of smart people here, some with backgrounds in design that could've helped improve this feature from day one. Instead it was released without even an announcement.
I think the response and how things escalated from there has been explained very well by other posters here. Handing out bans when people are frustrated is a bit too much since the same type of disagreements between two regular users would probably be overlooked (we see some terrible exchanges in gaming side every day).
I understand how this is a tough job and without pay as well but the users also want the best for the website so we also care about how moderation is being executed.
A general feedback thread would be important. Same moderation as everywhere else and not because tensions get high.
Transparency regarding finances would also be great since I believe this is, above all, a community.
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The big difference seems to be that here you dont even get paid at all for your labor.
Well, yes. Just saying the argument that they're "bleeding cash" and can't pay anyone is a pretty bog standard excuse.
Moderators in general shouldn't be active members of the forum as a rule, because shit gets personal real quick. On a small forum with a few dozen users sure, community moderation works. On a large forum with tens of thousands? God forbid a moderator says something someone disagrees with once in a topic where they're just engaging in regular discussion, there's ammo there forever. If you want transparency fine, it should be in the ban messages and the history of the user should be public in case anyone wants to make an issue of it. But you can't aim for complete transparency when the moderators/admins of the forums are active participants with personal stakes in it, because their presence and activity will be weaponized the second there's a complaint. Forum "personalities" should never be mods simply because of who they are, either. The way the current site administration is structured is not built for long-term success, because the users have their knives out 24/7. I say this as someone who has run a handful of large sites before myself, it's a fucking nightmare.
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It's so sad that after the events of 2017 that led us here, with all the talk of transparency and moving forward, this is where we're at in 2020 on Era.
Minority communities have gone and those left are given discussions that go nowhere, and even simple things that should be an easy fix and win for the administration, are dealt with in such a passive aggressive way towards the community.
Minority communities have gone and those left are given discussions that go nowhere, and even simple things that should be an easy fix and win for the administration, are dealt with in such a passive aggressive way towards the community.
Just stopping by to mention this site's user experience has taken a nosedive from several bugs, at least for Safari users on iOS 13. Not only have previously reported issues not been fixed, but there are a slew of new ones. If there is anyone who can take a look please do, because it's actively chasing me (and perhaps others) away from this place.
1. When opening a thread in a new tab, it automatically goes to page 2 or the most recent post.
2. The quick post editor at the bottom of the page is broken. Just trying to select different spots to type text in will actually clear out or move previously entered text. It makes editing a complete nightmare.
3. Worst of all now, the entire page in threads seems to randomly refresh. This refresh loses where you are in the page (yet doesn't bring you to where you should be). The kicker is that if I'm in the middle of a post like in point 2, it actually clears out the entire message box. If I refresh the page (browser refresh, not Era's nav button) a whole bunch of the typing will return, but not all of it.
1. When opening a thread in a new tab, it automatically goes to page 2 or the most recent post.
2. The quick post editor at the bottom of the page is broken. Just trying to select different spots to type text in will actually clear out or move previously entered text. It makes editing a complete nightmare.
3. Worst of all now, the entire page in threads seems to randomly refresh. This refresh loses where you are in the page (yet doesn't bring you to where you should be). The kicker is that if I'm in the middle of a post like in point 2, it actually clears out the entire message box. If I refresh the page (browser refresh, not Era's nav button) a whole bunch of the typing will return, but not all of it.
An unread thread? You can force it to go to the OP by opening it in a new tab using the "go to first post" button to the top right of the thread in the list.
That works around it, not a great solution though especially when it's so small and right next to the ignore or "last post" buttons. Plus I'd have to remember if I read that thread already.
The thing that irks me is that this only happens when I open in a new tab/background. I like to browse the front page and open all the threads I'd want to read in the background and then I can go through each one and close out when I'm done.
It's frustrating because it works normally every other way. And even when the preview of the page comes up before I click the open in new tab/background option, the preview shows the correct placement. Then once the page actually opens it jumps to page 2 or last post if a single page thread.
I think this is technically more iOS's fault. When you open a thread it takes you to the first unread post, but the preview iOS does as you open a new tab counts as opening the thread, then when you actually choose to proceed it reloads it again in the tab, so your next unread post is the next page/end of the thread, if that makes sense. I'm not sure if the forum can tell the difference between a view request of a thread being just the preview tab load and the new tab load. I got around it by just turning that preview load feature off in iOS since I never really got much use out of it, so that could be an option for you.
I respect that you took the time to respond in detail to what's going on here, but I do want to join others in pushing back against this part of your post. I honestly find it very worrying that a staff member is presenting what happened in that thread in a revisionist manner; is this how other staff have really portrayed that to you?
That thread is an early example of an unfortunate pattern of behavior that this site's moderation keeps doing and does not seem to ever learn from. Many times a user has made rightful criticism of the staff, and instead of a staff member participating in the discussion and trying to correct any potential misinformation other users have about it before punishments happen, people are left alone to demand answers and then an an extremely harsh ban just silently lands down on the critic. Meanwhile the staff always seems completely unprepared to deal with the reasonable backlash that occurs afterward, as users wonder what the hell just happened and want to know why someone got silenced like that. Then a staff member eventually comes in, but is usually super vague about what happened in a way that does nothing to help calm things down, often to the point of sounding like they're just trying to cover for the mess they made due to being overzealous even if this is not actually the case. In the past, and happened in that thread to my memory, this was frequently made worse by having other staff members in such threads just joking around while people were shocked and trying to get meaningful responses on what was happening. I feel we've at least gotten less of that, but that's about the only improvement I've seen and it's not much of one.
Now, that's definitely not to say that some people don't participate in such discussions in bad faith or push for negative outcomes. For example, there have totally been times when there was backlash over the staff not being harsh enough to bigoted posters... and you totally had people chiming in with "yeah, the moderation needs work, they banned me for [casually being a bigot]". There are definitely countless people whose issues with moderation are just that they're required to do the bare minimum when it comes to being respectful or thinking even slightly critically about media. I'm not denying that those people exist, and I know It's not easy to have that kind of site-wide discussion productively and avoid the thread being derailed by people like that. But... I honestly do not feel like the staff has ever really made a genuine effort to engage with critical users in a way that did not seem patronizing or, like, outright paternalistic in a very frustrating way, and this happens even when staff actually do walk back their mistake. Beyond maybe the _ Era Meetings. And while I'll always be hopeful... I don't think enough has been improved thanks to them and they've certainly been happening very rarely. And it's 1000% not my place to speak for Asian Era, that is not a community I belong to so do not take this as anything more than my opinion, but- I personally am not exactly encouraged by what I have seen the staff say in the current thread.
I'm responsible for a team of 80+ IT people and have implemented many, many changes over the years. The highly negative responses to change from them dropped dramatically when I started sharing my plans with them, getting their feedback in smaller pilot groups, and recording all feedback formally after the change was implemented. If you want people to buy-in, you need to allow them to weigh-in.
My suggestion echoes another comment from earlier - roll the change back, give people a chance to make suggestions, and provide options for those who don't want tags cluttering up the website.
My suggestion echoes another comment from earlier - roll the change back, give people a chance to make suggestions, and provide options for those who don't want tags cluttering up the website.
This actually makes perfect sense. I wonder if you can turn the peek off at an OS level? It's not something I find myself using much, if at all.
You can turn off the preview, yes. I turned it off pretty much immediately, seemed like a pretty useless feature to me.
Pretty much how I feel. I will also add that the staff is overworking themselves by creating the problematic situations themselves. Then after shit has hit the fan, they refuse to take the simplest path to calm things down by merely communicating with folks.
As has been mentioned several times since this site's inception, there are posters on this site who run and build websites for a living and have repeatedly offered a helping hand. Take advantage of that feedback.
It's also been a few days since I asked this and I still haven't gotten a response:
The thread list does not load in a normal way in mobile Safari for me so I alleviate issues by sticking close to a minimalist experience as possible. Is it that hard to imagine that some people prefer that? Especially when there are issues that I've brought up that will seemingly never be addressed.
Nice, thanks yeah I've just seen you can disable it in the preview itself. I'd never noticed it before.
Just to clarify, you mean 80+ users or 80+ IT people within your team's structure?
I understand the intention of tags, but the fact there is (currently) no plans to allow users to disable them is inherently an issue in accessibility, especially when the site struggles on mobile as is without adding an assortment of clutter to the screen. I personally don't see the use of tags because I can use my common sense to deduce what is news, rumour or simply someone's opinion. I'm not even sure why there was a need for OT tags considering it is ingrained into the OT title etiquette, but honestly if the option to disable is made available then no one can complain about it being a part of the site. Not giving people options means you are forcing them into something they may not actually like/utilise which seems really counter-productive to the ethos of this site.
It's cool that you can filter forums by tags now, so that you can see for example all news thread on a glance without the OT clutter in between. It's a nice QoL improvement, even if I likely won't use it much or at all.
I really don't see any reason why the tags need to displayed next to the thread titles, though. The icons aren't necessary for filtering purposes and, as you said, when reading the forum they aren't really helpful for anything either. I have to read the thread titles anyway and even more clutter is not something the forum needs. I already dislike the ignore button that I regularly hit accidentally.
Of all the things said in this thread about lack of communication from staff, I don't think this is really the most important statement to clarify and reply to, especially when it's your first interaction with the problem.
The tags being so large, different colours, colour style(shaded/not shaded) and fonts(or is it just bolding?) is messy, distracting and unnecessary for the stated purpose. They overwhelm. Making them smaller, one colour, one colour style, and one font(or not bolded) for both dark/light might clean up their appearance. The tags should be significantly smaller than the text for the Thread Title. Make them as unintrusive as possible.
Why would staff reply? They've successfully shunted the problem into a completely unrelated thread on a barely used sub-forum. Keep protesting in official protest zones. The rest of the forum will be fine.
First of all, I want to thank all of you for answering and participating in this discussion. I know I'm answering late, I had a pretty busy and exhausting day (trying to build a new PC from scratch, which failed splendidly but that's another story), but rest assured, I kept track of this thread closely, and read the many replies that were shared in here. I'm glad to see my post was mostly met well, and I'll try to keep engaging with that mindset and approach in the future. I also thoroughly understand that the backlash was a lot about the way we communicated about this feature, and I'm sorry I didn't emphasize more on this aspect in my initial reply, but I definitely took it into account. We made a mistake not putting up an announcement thread, because we lacked proper planning for it, didn't make the time to create one, and that's on us. Hopefully we can try and fix that kind of things.
We are going to release an update about the tags very soon, and I was honestly wondering about how best to handle that. Part of me wants to go ahead and create a Tag Feedback Thread already, so that people can freely go on it and share their opinions and suggestions (which in turn would also help clear this thread a bit and maybe refocus it on general tech things), or if it would be OK to wait a tiny bit (I think it's a matter of days, but I can't promise anything either?) for us to create it then when the update is released? Rest assured, the feature getting its first update doesn't mean we won't keep on listening to feedback, in order to slowly but surely make it as best as possible Just testing the waters here, I personally feel we could wait until the update, but I certainly do not want to make people feel like they are silenced either, this isn't my goal at all (and in the meantime, users are definitely welcome to engage here still, I'll keep an eye on posts and will answer to them whenever possible too). Whichever path we go on, I'll create a Tag Feedback Thread whenever it's best, and will use a site-wide notification in order to promote it as stated before!
EDIT: When I wrote that paragraph last night, the timeframe of the update was still a bit blurry, but it has now become imminent, so I'm definitely leaning towards the former option. We're currently working on the Tag Announcement/Feedback thread for this imminent update as we speak.
I see the idea of a General Feedback Thread came up often in the answers too. After some considerations, I'm now thinking on it more intently. I do understand the need for a place to exist, for many to be able to express themselves in order to raise concerns. As long as those concerns aren't deeply rooted in unnecessary hostility, I'm leaning in favor for a fair line of communication to exist as well. I'm brainstorming ideas about it, and already gathered some from different people. Some rules would need to be established for it to be its own thread without overlapping nor parasitizing other existing tools like Contact Us form, used for ban appeals, mostly. The way I'm envisioning it, I also will handle it solely, at least at the beginning. That way I can set the tone, and hopefully allow for users to feel safe enough to voice their concerns, suggestions and feedback. I'm absolutely up for suggestions about this, and I have my DMs open for anyone willing to share ideas about how best tackle this in a smooth way, I'll carefully read it all and hopefully come up with a solid enough plan for this to happen. I hope so.
I have seen people expressing doubts and frustration about the Contact Us form, and yes, we are acutely aware of how slow things can be on that end. I must be precise though, that we do read all of them, for sure. Whether we answer them depends on a lot of things, but oftentimes, those mails being answered later than we'd like just boils down to us being understaffed, and therefore lagging a lot behind a huge queue of mails to deal with. This is something we aim to deal with, by hiring new staff that will help alleviate the overall workload enough for some of us to fully dedicate our time to dealing and answering those mails. I'm incredibly sorry that this is frustrating to many, I fully understand, and this is something we intend to improve in the future as well.
Which brings us to a topic that was discussed a lot too, about staff remuneration. I do not know a lot about how much revenue Era does, and that has, quite frankly, never been a huge point of interest of mine in the first place. That been said, the current gist of it all seems to point out that our financial earnings were definitely impacted by Covid-19 in a negative way. That's the extent of my knowledge here. However, it is also clear that Era is nowhere near a big enough website to be able to outsource professional moderation. We very clearly can't afford those, we're not the size of Twitter or Facebook and never will be. Another point here being that whatever money the site makes also would be nowhere near enough to properly remunerate our staff. The salaries would be extremely meager, to the point they don't even justify the heavy administrative hassle of going through the entire process in the first place. Not to mention, and that might surprise some people here, that some in our staff team, even in admin ranks, definitely expressed that they do not wish to be paid at all. Partly because the pay would be so ridiculously insignificant to begin with, and partly because most of us never decided to be part of this team because of money. It's out of passion and love, most and foremost. I know it sounds cheesy, but it is still the truth. Money would be a nice bonus, but it being or not being part of the equation wouldn't impact my will to take on my duties as staff.
Another thing making this fairly difficult to establish would be, how to pay people, how to quantify what they bring to the team, and best reward that? As of right now, we simply can't. Our current moderating style allows for people to partake whenever they want and most importantly can. Whenever they're willing to dedicate time for it. We do not wish to clock people's hours, nor to try to strictly and coldly quantify their input. And if they do need a break or two, they simply just take them, without any judgement for it. We're very laid-back, in essence. Some weeks, my contributions are plenty. Others, it's barely non-existent, because I didn't have as much time or because I needed a break. That flexibility is essential to our staff team in order to be able to take care of each other, of our health and our personal lives, and we do not wish to judge people based on their different levels of productivity (or lack-thereof), and we are not going to start now.
Overall, I'm always torn about seeing people raise this particular subject up. I know for most it comes from a genuinely good place, because they see the work we do, and think it ought to be rewarded. I appreciate that a lot. But part of me cannot help at times to wonder what other reasons there might be. Would being paid make any of the hardship, exhaustion and mental anguish we can go through more justifiable and acceptable? If so, I'm wondering why, genuinely, because I do not think any amount of money would justify it in the slightest. What we do is not so dissimilar to Customer Service most of the times, and I'd like to believe most people on Era who ever had to interact with someone doing customer service, would do so in a fair and respectful enough manner, and not treat them like less than simply because at the end of the day, they're getting paid for it anyway. Yes, getting some financial compensation probably would be nice. But I sincerely doubt it would help me much with the things I have been feeling repeatedly as part of the Era staff team. It would be nowhere near enough a good incentive in the first place, and many people in the staff team feel the same way here.
Upon reading my post draft, Snormy wanted to share their input on that particular subject, and agreed for me to include it here, hopefully it will help seeing the many layers of this subject:
Lastly, I hope my way of answering to this thread doesn't make people feel unheard. I don't use the quote function because there are so many posts to quote from, at times overlapping each other, that it probably would look like a cluttered mess if I tried to answer each and everyone of you. Rest assured, I read every post, and take notes of which particular topics are being repeatedly raised, often by different users, in order to answer them properly. I do so as well in order not to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people I have to answer to, but if that is a point of contention, I'll then try to quote more people in the future. Making people feel unheard is definitely not my intention and never will be. Thanks for reading yet another one of my novels, and for taking the time and energy to engage with me. I appreciate that a lot.
We are going to release an update about the tags very soon, and I was honestly wondering about how best to handle that. Part of me wants to go ahead and create a Tag Feedback Thread already, so that people can freely go on it and share their opinions and suggestions (which in turn would also help clear this thread a bit and maybe refocus it on general tech things), or if it would be OK to wait a tiny bit (I think it's a matter of days, but I can't promise anything either?) for us to create it then when the update is released? Rest assured, the feature getting its first update doesn't mean we won't keep on listening to feedback, in order to slowly but surely make it as best as possible Just testing the waters here, I personally feel we could wait until the update, but I certainly do not want to make people feel like they are silenced either, this isn't my goal at all (and in the meantime, users are definitely welcome to engage here still, I'll keep an eye on posts and will answer to them whenever possible too). Whichever path we go on, I'll create a Tag Feedback Thread whenever it's best, and will use a site-wide notification in order to promote it as stated before!
EDIT: When I wrote that paragraph last night, the timeframe of the update was still a bit blurry, but it has now become imminent, so I'm definitely leaning towards the former option. We're currently working on the Tag Announcement/Feedback thread for this imminent update as we speak.
I see the idea of a General Feedback Thread came up often in the answers too. After some considerations, I'm now thinking on it more intently. I do understand the need for a place to exist, for many to be able to express themselves in order to raise concerns. As long as those concerns aren't deeply rooted in unnecessary hostility, I'm leaning in favor for a fair line of communication to exist as well. I'm brainstorming ideas about it, and already gathered some from different people. Some rules would need to be established for it to be its own thread without overlapping nor parasitizing other existing tools like Contact Us form, used for ban appeals, mostly. The way I'm envisioning it, I also will handle it solely, at least at the beginning. That way I can set the tone, and hopefully allow for users to feel safe enough to voice their concerns, suggestions and feedback. I'm absolutely up for suggestions about this, and I have my DMs open for anyone willing to share ideas about how best tackle this in a smooth way, I'll carefully read it all and hopefully come up with a solid enough plan for this to happen. I hope so.
I have seen people expressing doubts and frustration about the Contact Us form, and yes, we are acutely aware of how slow things can be on that end. I must be precise though, that we do read all of them, for sure. Whether we answer them depends on a lot of things, but oftentimes, those mails being answered later than we'd like just boils down to us being understaffed, and therefore lagging a lot behind a huge queue of mails to deal with. This is something we aim to deal with, by hiring new staff that will help alleviate the overall workload enough for some of us to fully dedicate our time to dealing and answering those mails. I'm incredibly sorry that this is frustrating to many, I fully understand, and this is something we intend to improve in the future as well.
Which brings us to a topic that was discussed a lot too, about staff remuneration. I do not know a lot about how much revenue Era does, and that has, quite frankly, never been a huge point of interest of mine in the first place. That been said, the current gist of it all seems to point out that our financial earnings were definitely impacted by Covid-19 in a negative way. That's the extent of my knowledge here. However, it is also clear that Era is nowhere near a big enough website to be able to outsource professional moderation. We very clearly can't afford those, we're not the size of Twitter or Facebook and never will be. Another point here being that whatever money the site makes also would be nowhere near enough to properly remunerate our staff. The salaries would be extremely meager, to the point they don't even justify the heavy administrative hassle of going through the entire process in the first place. Not to mention, and that might surprise some people here, that some in our staff team, even in admin ranks, definitely expressed that they do not wish to be paid at all. Partly because the pay would be so ridiculously insignificant to begin with, and partly because most of us never decided to be part of this team because of money. It's out of passion and love, most and foremost. I know it sounds cheesy, but it is still the truth. Money would be a nice bonus, but it being or not being part of the equation wouldn't impact my will to take on my duties as staff.
Another thing making this fairly difficult to establish would be, how to pay people, how to quantify what they bring to the team, and best reward that? As of right now, we simply can't. Our current moderating style allows for people to partake whenever they want and most importantly can. Whenever they're willing to dedicate time for it. We do not wish to clock people's hours, nor to try to strictly and coldly quantify their input. And if they do need a break or two, they simply just take them, without any judgement for it. We're very laid-back, in essence. Some weeks, my contributions are plenty. Others, it's barely non-existent, because I didn't have as much time or because I needed a break. That flexibility is essential to our staff team in order to be able to take care of each other, of our health and our personal lives, and we do not wish to judge people based on their different levels of productivity (or lack-thereof), and we are not going to start now.
Overall, I'm always torn about seeing people raise this particular subject up. I know for most it comes from a genuinely good place, because they see the work we do, and think it ought to be rewarded. I appreciate that a lot. But part of me cannot help at times to wonder what other reasons there might be. Would being paid make any of the hardship, exhaustion and mental anguish we can go through more justifiable and acceptable? If so, I'm wondering why, genuinely, because I do not think any amount of money would justify it in the slightest. What we do is not so dissimilar to Customer Service most of the times, and I'd like to believe most people on Era who ever had to interact with someone doing customer service, would do so in a fair and respectful enough manner, and not treat them like less than simply because at the end of the day, they're getting paid for it anyway. Yes, getting some financial compensation probably would be nice. But I sincerely doubt it would help me much with the things I have been feeling repeatedly as part of the Era staff team. It would be nowhere near enough a good incentive in the first place, and many people in the staff team feel the same way here.
Upon reading my post draft, Snormy wanted to share their input on that particular subject, and agreed for me to include it here, hopefully it will help seeing the many layers of this subject:
Lastly, I hope my way of answering to this thread doesn't make people feel unheard. I don't use the quote function because there are so many posts to quote from, at times overlapping each other, that it probably would look like a cluttered mess if I tried to answer each and everyone of you. Rest assured, I read every post, and take notes of which particular topics are being repeatedly raised, often by different users, in order to answer them properly. I do so as well in order not to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people I have to answer to, but if that is a point of contention, I'll then try to quote more people in the future. Making people feel unheard is definitely not my intention and never will be. Thanks for reading yet another one of my novels, and for taking the time and energy to engage with me. I appreciate that a lot.
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An announcement is being drafted, with other parts of the feature set being tuned. While some people might like hot pink for thread tag colors, this probably isn't going to mesh well with the site. But it is the other site staff doing that, not me.
I do back-end technical work which enables adding various features for the site. Putting together feature designs, over-seeing development, documenting and describing features for public consumption, is frankly not an easy task and is the sort of project management skillset which is not quick to pickup and even harder to hand over to a new set of people. And not something I do.
The problem is the whole thread tag feature has no feature flags, there are flags around individual bits but there is no "off" button for what people are complaining about. For B-Dubs to actually remove the feature, it would require removal of data. Or hacking away at quite a few display templates. It is probably less work (and faster!) to fix the coloring to make them less obvious.
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Delphine I think with the tags feedback thread, and a general feedback thread, I think the OP needs to be very, very clear that hostility will be harshly moderated, and only constructive criticism should be posted, and if users don't have anything constructive to say, then they should refrain from posting. Examples of things that have happened before should only be used to demonstrate how things could be done differently going forward
The fear is, like with the last time, that things could escalate again into hostility and people dragging up things that have happened previously, and these feedback threads should only exist as a means to provide feedback for how things can be improved going forward, and not used as an excuse to air grievances from the past or to outright attack staff
The fear is, like with the last time, that things could escalate again into hostility and people dragging up things that have happened previously, and these feedback threads should only exist as a means to provide feedback for how things can be improved going forward, and not used as an excuse to air grievances from the past or to outright attack staff
You can't just ignore the ways that people have felt bothered by staff decisions for the past 3 years and expect that to create a feedback thread that gives you anything meaningful. You have to be aware of where things have gone wrong previously in order to actually know how to adjust or what user's like or don't like. And the hostility that was in the original feedback thread was again, from an admin popping in to threaten a perma ban for someone providing that same constructive criticism you're pushing for.
I wasn't in that thread, but even if it was a admins fault, I don't think we'll get anywhere if people use the feedback thread as an outlet for hostility
If people want a thread to yell at staff and tell them all the times they messed up, it will obviously be locked and they'll probably not be open to doing this again. I think we can trust users to be frustrated but to use that frustration to post constructive feedback
The point is, that's what users were already doing in the previous thread. No one was yelling at staff, no one was bringing up weird bans for bigotry they got, it was just constructive feedback that an admin stepped in to slap down and threaten for bringing up. And this thread is repeatedly used as a way of pointing the finger at users by the current administration to say how feedback can't be in an open thread, so it's not like people expect them to treat a new thread any differently. The old thread had a massive amount of rules for posting, and users followed them. You need to look more at staff and ask why they can't look at feedback without threatening bans, and address that more than anything.
I mean, yes, I agree that no one should derail the thread and cause issues with it, but that kind of goes without saying. I guess I just don't see why this one incident that happened a few years ago with probably a different staff make up (since staff turnover is so high) is such a big deal in the context of improving relations going forward. I mean, it's possible they have learnt from that thread, just like they have learnt from telling everyone to "knock it off" about the tags issue to offering up a feedback thread
If it happens again, then yeah, well done for calling that, you were finely attuned to the threat of a staff kamikaze thread derail. I know that's happened a few times, but it generally doesn't, so hopefully a feedback thread existing will provide users with a way to provide feedback when/if that happens again
I'm just saying I'm happy to meet staff halfway, and to try and push for a forum that works better for staff and users, and if there are users who don't think that's possible, then a) it's weird they're still here and b) they probably don't have anything constructive to add to any feedback thread
Thank you again Delphine for the feedback. I think waiting for the improvements makes sense of they are imminent. I just hope the feedback thread is a place open to feedback instead of "deal with it" attitudes we have seen. It's okay if people don't like it even after the changes. Responding with hostility will lead nowhere.
I think, for a general feedback thread to be created, the mods need to be prepared that there will be a lot of complaints up front. People have had issues with this or that for years. Of course the tone should be respectful but threatening with bans or closings the thread because of momentary hostility isn't the way to handle it. Those people who care can lose their temper but they do so because they care about the forums.
Of course bad actors should be warned but there has to be a distinction between a bad actor and a good user who is just frustrated with how things are.
In the end I hope that this was a learning opportunity. Honestly, Delphine, your answers have been great and transparent but other mods and admins haven't shown the same spirit and that concerns me.
Regarding pay, I understand where you come from. I think transparency regarding the forums finances would be good overall but at the same time the logistics to set up a payment scheme might be hard and if mods don't want it then might not be worth it.
I think, for a general feedback thread to be created, the mods need to be prepared that there will be a lot of complaints up front. People have had issues with this or that for years. Of course the tone should be respectful but threatening with bans or closings the thread because of momentary hostility isn't the way to handle it. Those people who care can lose their temper but they do so because they care about the forums.
Of course bad actors should be warned but there has to be a distinction between a bad actor and a good user who is just frustrated with how things are.
In the end I hope that this was a learning opportunity. Honestly, Delphine, your answers have been great and transparent but other mods and admins haven't shown the same spirit and that concerns me.
Regarding pay, I understand where you come from. I think transparency regarding the forums finances would be good overall but at the same time the logistics to set up a payment scheme might be hard and if mods don't want it then might not be worth it.
I don't think anyone thinks that if mods are paid, then the mod experience is wonderful. Or that it undoes the stress of the job. It doesn''t do that with any job I've ever had. That doesn't mean, however, it isn't something to show and gain for hard work.
It is also going to keep coming up if concerns keep getting met with "we're unpaid volunteers, what do you expect?" Like that isn't the way the community is framing the issue--that's one of the ways the staff is framing the issue. When that's brought up, you get answers to various aspects of that problem, including the unpaid volunteer aspect. If you all don't want it discussed, don't bring it up.
And no, I don't think the majority of consumers want to be jerks. There are consumers who are jerks, yes. There are going to be those on Era. They are never going away. But don't conflate people with actually grounded grievances and concerns with those who are jerks. That doesn't mean you won't have negative experiences with the former--you probably will, but do not take it out on them.
If you have ever been a consumer, which you have, you've probably had a host of bad experiences with people providing a service. And you've probably realized that the person on the other end isn't necessarily out to get you but the system is not meeting your needs and they are frustratingly unhelpful--perhaps because there's nothing they can personally do! This is the experience being described in here ad nauseum by users. Just as you'd ask us not to demonize the staff because of poor user experiences, do not demonize the users because of poor staff experiences.
It is also going to keep coming up if concerns keep getting met with "we're unpaid volunteers, what do you expect?" Like that isn't the way the community is framing the issue--that's one of the ways the staff is framing the issue. When that's brought up, you get answers to various aspects of that problem, including the unpaid volunteer aspect. If you all don't want it discussed, don't bring it up.
And no, I don't think the majority of consumers want to be jerks. There are consumers who are jerks, yes. There are going to be those on Era. They are never going away. But don't conflate people with actually grounded grievances and concerns with those who are jerks. That doesn't mean you won't have negative experiences with the former--you probably will, but do not take it out on them.
If you have ever been a consumer, which you have, you've probably had a host of bad experiences with people providing a service. And you've probably realized that the person on the other end isn't necessarily out to get you but the system is not meeting your needs and they are frustratingly unhelpful--perhaps because there's nothing they can personally do! This is the experience being described in here ad nauseum by users. Just as you'd ask us not to demonize the staff because of poor user experiences, do not demonize the users because of poor staff experiences.
I definitely think something at risk of being left behind is that the core of the problem wasn't that people disliked tags. That's what started it but the main issue a lot of people had was that attempts to discuss the tags were being locked and moderated without any post explaining why from staff. It was heavy moderation without any communication.
Personally, I'm newer here than many, but I'm not anywhere close to new to forums and internet communities, and I've seen that sort of thing many times. I'm not making a judgement call on any of the staff as people, but I think they handled that situation very poorly. It was my first time seeing that here as I'm newer but there was an undeniable amount of people popping up to say it's always been like that and they dislike the way some mods handle things.
I don't think just making a feedback thread about this one issue will solve the problem, because the extremely heavy moderation of this issue creates an atmosphere where users feel afraid to speak up or voice their feelings because they don't want to anger the staff and be banned (truth be told, this forum hands out bans like candy in a way I've never seen before). As someone who has been staff on forums before, both large and smaller, I know from experience that a lot of the time since users don't see all the behind the scenes discussions and how much effort they put in, it's easy to assume it's not happening. If someone asks a question, the mods discuss it behind the scenes, then lock the thread without a word, all the user sees is they asked a question and the thread got locked.
I think communication could be better. It may seem like a small and simple thing but sometimes saying "hey, we're reading feedback and discussing this, we'll have a response once we reach a conclusion" goes A LONG way. That in addition to dedicated feedback threads would help communication feel more like actual communication. People like to feel like even if they don't know what's going on behind the scenes, they know SOMETHING is and it's being taken seriously. A feedback thread would be moderated as normal, but it may also help if some mods didn't assume by default that all criticism is in bad faith and had maybe slightly less itchy trigger fingers on that ban button.
Ultimately it's the staff's call on how to handle this, but this is my take (and I know it's not worth much, but I had feelings on it so I said it).
Personally, I'm newer here than many, but I'm not anywhere close to new to forums and internet communities, and I've seen that sort of thing many times. I'm not making a judgement call on any of the staff as people, but I think they handled that situation very poorly. It was my first time seeing that here as I'm newer but there was an undeniable amount of people popping up to say it's always been like that and they dislike the way some mods handle things.
I don't think just making a feedback thread about this one issue will solve the problem, because the extremely heavy moderation of this issue creates an atmosphere where users feel afraid to speak up or voice their feelings because they don't want to anger the staff and be banned (truth be told, this forum hands out bans like candy in a way I've never seen before). As someone who has been staff on forums before, both large and smaller, I know from experience that a lot of the time since users don't see all the behind the scenes discussions and how much effort they put in, it's easy to assume it's not happening. If someone asks a question, the mods discuss it behind the scenes, then lock the thread without a word, all the user sees is they asked a question and the thread got locked.
I think communication could be better. It may seem like a small and simple thing but sometimes saying "hey, we're reading feedback and discussing this, we'll have a response once we reach a conclusion" goes A LONG way. That in addition to dedicated feedback threads would help communication feel more like actual communication. People like to feel like even if they don't know what's going on behind the scenes, they know SOMETHING is and it's being taken seriously. A feedback thread would be moderated as normal, but it may also help if some mods didn't assume by default that all criticism is in bad faith and had maybe slightly less itchy trigger fingers on that ban button.
Ultimately it's the staff's call on how to handle this, but this is my take (and I know it's not worth much, but I had feelings on it so I said it).
First off Delphine just want to say I appreciate you taking the time to respond again.
Just want to note here that people are bringing it up be because staff bring it up, as noted by the poster above with the "we're unpaid volunteers, what do you expect?" We as a community are reacting and responding to the staff on this point. So the question of why is monetary compensation deemed an important factor should really be directed internally, towards the volunteer staff.
My 2 cents though. You all have a difficult and time-consuming job with this site, as it's not some niche site tucked away in the corner of the internet. I can understand the frustration of some staff with having to deal with a lot when they aren't even getting compensated. Working for free when it's a rough as hell situation sucks, but the flip side there is that everyone going in knows it's a volunteer position, so some staff using the unpaid volunteers line as a shield of sorts when addressing meaningful community criticism feels off to me. If not being paid is an issue then volunteers should take that issue to the powers that be.
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Based on staff posts, staff positions on this site feel like a guaranteed ticket to burning ones self out. People have provided plenty of excellent feedback on how proper, open communication can help alleviate lots of stressers and issues before they even begin, and this is the huge takeaway staff should be leaving with...
but I want to piggyback on someone's comment earlier that opening staff/mod positions to a larger pool of applicants could really be helpful, if that's not how it's already done.
Specifically I'm thinking of a building up of the numbers to make a rotating staff feasible. For example if we have 30 mods now the goal could be to double that number and then have half on an A schedule and half on a B schedule that rotates quarterly. This would give the volunteers a much needed break to relax and recharge before rotating back in, because again it is a taxing job. Just spitballing here.
I also thought Orlok's comment about moderation being active members of the forum was an interesting one that I hadn't seen discussed before. Maybe something to think about there?
Just want to note here that people are bringing it up be because staff bring it up, as noted by the poster above with the "we're unpaid volunteers, what do you expect?" We as a community are reacting and responding to the staff on this point. So the question of why is monetary compensation deemed an important factor should really be directed internally, towards the volunteer staff.
My 2 cents though. You all have a difficult and time-consuming job with this site, as it's not some niche site tucked away in the corner of the internet. I can understand the frustration of some staff with having to deal with a lot when they aren't even getting compensated. Working for free when it's a rough as hell situation sucks, but the flip side there is that everyone going in knows it's a volunteer position, so some staff using the unpaid volunteers line as a shield of sorts when addressing meaningful community criticism feels off to me. If not being paid is an issue then volunteers should take that issue to the powers that be.
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Based on staff posts, staff positions on this site feel like a guaranteed ticket to burning ones self out. People have provided plenty of excellent feedback on how proper, open communication can help alleviate lots of stressers and issues before they even begin, and this is the huge takeaway staff should be leaving with...
but I want to piggyback on someone's comment earlier that opening staff/mod positions to a larger pool of applicants could really be helpful, if that's not how it's already done.
Specifically I'm thinking of a building up of the numbers to make a rotating staff feasible. For example if we have 30 mods now the goal could be to double that number and then have half on an A schedule and half on a B schedule that rotates quarterly. This would give the volunteers a much needed break to relax and recharge before rotating back in, because again it is a taxing job. Just spitballing here.
I also thought Orlok's comment about moderation being active members of the forum was an interesting one that I hadn't seen discussed before. Maybe something to think about there?
Thanks for the lengthy response, Delphine. Regarding Snormy's input:
Personally I wonder if this is something that can be combined with more user input. As things are, users seem to have no say whatsoever in mod appointment. In fact I still see new mods pop up whose names and even avatars I don't immediately recognize. I can't claim to roam the entire forum and I'm mostly active in gaming OTs. I do actually read a lot of general discussions in both Gaming and EtcetEra however, so this can't just be my own myopia.
First and foremost I think that, at the very least, new mods should be properly introduced. This doesn't have to involve a lot of fanfare; a one-line post in a central (locked) announcement thread would suffice. Something like: "Hello everyone, given the upcoming US elections and the often heated discourse surrounding them, we are happy to announce <user name> is joining our team to help us better manage discussion and deal with reports."
Secondly, would it be an idea as well to involve users in the process? It would both lead to a larger mod team, hopefully a smaller workload for each individual moderator and it makes users feel involved and listened to. I admit I don't actually have a clue how to best tackle this at the moment, but at the very least I think it's worth consideration.
Lastly, and I know I said it before and I know you guys don't appreciate ban whining. But I see Killrog got banned yesterday for continued hostility towards the staff (and like BDS, duration pending) and I want to reiterate: you have to STOP framing criticism as hostility and banning people for it, no matter how harsh. The staff is not beyond reproach. Your powers and authority aren't a divine right. In a best case scenario, on a forum that values transparency and democracy, the staff's authority is legitimated by the user base it manages. Challenging this authority must not be, and cannot be a bannable offense.
Imagine people getting arrested on the streets because they angrily demanded a politician to step down. How would that look to you?
At the most give someone who is clearly worked up a 12-hour ban to cool down. Even then this decision must be made to protect the thread from derailing and the user itself for potentially taking it too far, and not because the staff took offense to what the user said.
I have already seen other people raise the possibility of expanding the staff earlier in this discussion. I thought it was a very good idea to 'hire' more people and put mods on rotation, so they can take extended breaks every few months or whenever their situation in real life requires it.
Personally I wonder if this is something that can be combined with more user input. As things are, users seem to have no say whatsoever in mod appointment. In fact I still see new mods pop up whose names and even avatars I don't immediately recognize. I can't claim to roam the entire forum and I'm mostly active in gaming OTs. I do actually read a lot of general discussions in both Gaming and EtcetEra however, so this can't just be my own myopia.
First and foremost I think that, at the very least, new mods should be properly introduced. This doesn't have to involve a lot of fanfare; a one-line post in a central (locked) announcement thread would suffice. Something like: "Hello everyone, given the upcoming US elections and the often heated discourse surrounding them, we are happy to announce <user name> is joining our team to help us better manage discussion and deal with reports."
Secondly, would it be an idea as well to involve users in the process? It would both lead to a larger mod team, hopefully a smaller workload for each individual moderator and it makes users feel involved and listened to. I admit I don't actually have a clue how to best tackle this at the moment, but at the very least I think it's worth consideration.
Lastly, and I know I said it before and I know you guys don't appreciate ban whining. But I see Killrog got banned yesterday for continued hostility towards the staff (and like BDS, duration pending) and I want to reiterate: you have to STOP framing criticism as hostility and banning people for it, no matter how harsh. The staff is not beyond reproach. Your powers and authority aren't a divine right. In a best case scenario, on a forum that values transparency and democracy, the staff's authority is legitimated by the user base it manages. Challenging this authority must not be, and cannot be a bannable offense.
Imagine people getting arrested on the streets because they angrily demanded a politician to step down. How would that look to you?
At the most give someone who is clearly worked up a 12-hour ban to cool down. Even then this decision must be made to protect the thread from derailing and the user itself for potentially taking it too far, and not because the staff took offense to what the user said.
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80 on my team, 10,000+ end users we support. The lessons we've learned cover organizational change aspects for both the team and our customers. It's impossible to make everyone happy, but there are things that help smooth the process considerably.
Wow that is ridiculous. Terrible move by Apple there, but at least it works. Thanks for that recommendation!
Thanks for continuing the discussion, Delphine.
I concur with every sentence of these posts.
The above courses of action, coupled with other ideas of involving the community, such as Beta Feature Feedback/Workshop & General Feedback threads -- again, stickied in EtcEra, not hidden away in Announcements -- would go a long, long ways toward restoring the community-staff relations, reducing the stress on moderation, and reducing the stress on the entire community by eliminating the stressors that have given rise to fiasco after fiasco.
We can fix this place and repair relations. None of ideas and fixes being talked about are remotely out of reach, or even overly challenging to implement. Would love more engagement, though. User engagement in this topic is inherently limited by virtue of it being a thread about a year-old site update in the unwatched Announcements section.
I concur with every sentence of these posts.
- If the moderation team needs relief -- as Delphine's quote by Snormy indicates -- and privately contacting individuals to volunteer isn't yielding sufficient numbers, then open moderation volunteering to the public, such that we can create a large enough team to relieve overworked members, ideally bring down response times, and democratize the process.
- This should have been policy from the very beginning, considering the forum began as a migration point for the community, by the community; however, all we can change is the future.
- I think you'd be surprised by how many members would be more than willing to contribute and help ease your burden. While not all might be qualified or desirably tempered, and there might be occasional bad faith actors to weed out, there really would be an abundance of support. Hell, I certainly wouldn't mind helping moderate, or discussing CM ideas with Delphine.
- Punitive actions in this thread need to be reversed, full stop. While those posters, in some cases, were responsible for the maligning tones they took, what is more pertinent to the situation at hand is that the staff's heretofore policies and behavior (from antagonism, to inappropriate actioning, to deafening silences), coupled with a lack of feedback venue for literal years, is the root cause of the mounted tensions, heightened emotions, and yes, even the conspiracies members are accused of -- because talking to an authoritative wall engenders frustration and suspicion, not trust. Warn said posters if you must, but keep your privilege and the power dynamics between staff & members firmly in mind, and let them take part in the feedback process. It is your responsibility as the keyholders of policy to assuage members' festering frustrations and doubt by action and word -- not punish them for emotionally lashing out about a place they care enough about seeing restored to write paragraphs and get emotional about in the first place.
- Keep this in mind, too: despite my repeated pleas for staff -- be they admins or mods -- to take part in this discussion, only Delphine has. Perhaps that's a collective choice; I don't know. She has made two wonderful posts so far, but those are two posts that are outnumbered at a 2:1 ratio by members' bans in this thread. The stained optics of that should be clear to anyone. If the goal is to create an environment where members feel safe in bringing up their concerns and mustn't need to walk on eggshells, that needs to be maintained, regardless or even especially when that's calling for a staff member to take responsibility for their tonedeafness.
- Because really, I'd like you all to consider what this place is like from a member's perspective. All too often it seems like staff -- despite occasional lip service to understanding the power dynamics in their favor -- do not fully comprehend this. You have an abundance of tools at your disposal, and yet you reach more and more quickly and comfortably for the "lengthy ban" option. While that's appropriate for extreme cases such as bigotry or harassment -- to make the community safer -- it is not appropriate in a topic such as this, with the community in an emotionally heightened state such as this, unless the circumstances are extreme. Warnings exist. Short time outs exist. Thread time outs exists. Utilize them. And better yet? Use your words and talk to them to defend yourself, rather than your power. I don't care how frustrated you are -- so are members. But members can't ban you.
- Keep this in mind, too: despite my repeated pleas for staff -- be they admins or mods -- to take part in this discussion, only Delphine has. Perhaps that's a collective choice; I don't know. She has made two wonderful posts so far, but those are two posts that are outnumbered at a 2:1 ratio by members' bans in this thread. The stained optics of that should be clear to anyone. If the goal is to create an environment where members feel safe in bringing up their concerns and mustn't need to walk on eggshells, that needs to be maintained, regardless or even especially when that's calling for a staff member to take responsibility for their tonedeafness.
- I want to touch on something else here, and it is not going to be a comfortable comparison. It'll seem incendiary, but keep the conciliatory tone I have struck in this thread in mind when I assure you it is not meant as such, but rather to act as an instructive mirror: the "mods are cops" phrase.
- This is not rhetoric that I subscribe to -- it is hurtful, and indeed the scenarios of a diverse public forum's management and the human cost & racial prejudice of real life policing couldn't be more different. But I would like to illustrate for a moment why it takes root, because from the perspective of a member, it is all too relevant to the topic of power dynamics.
- What are some of the broad behaviors of cops that are thankfully being decried today, and their behavior in the face of it?
- #1: Using the most extreme tool as a first resort, rather than a last.
- #2: Closing ranks in secretive and defensive posture when faced with public scrutiny.
- #3: Talking about how bad they have it, how they're the most oppressed members of society, despite wielding power over others.
- #1 and #2, I think, should be instructive of how not to operate a Club of Power, and are eminently applicable in this situation. Just look at how many situations on Era have been escalated by such behavior. #3 is only a problem with regard to Era, I think, when it is used as a shield from scrutiny, as it has sometimes been, but certainly staff members' volunteering and overworked statuses should be kept in mind by the userbase -- and the latter, at least, we could take steps such as the above to fix.
- With regard to a General Feedback thread's operation, I think various steps could be taken to maintain a safer and cooler-headed -- but honest -- space for everyone.
- Restrict the thread from non-member viewing, as has recently been done to keep certain other threads from prying eyes.
- Restrict posting within said thread by join date or to a certain post count, say >1000. Unideal to disenfranchise people from direct participation, but the more that can be done to protect the space from bad faith actors while allowing for honest communication, the better.
- Be kind, empathetic, measured, and conciliatory -- as staff. Be receptive to criticism, especially in controversial scenarios (everyone makes mistakes, and you do not always know best). Create that atmosphere where members develop trust and will follow suit.
- Exercise exceptional punitive leniency therein. While harassment of particular staff members obviously isn't okay, and a constructive tone should be maintained as much as humanly possible, there are, as I've said, years of baggage to unpack, and it will not be a comfortable process at the outset. But it will become better over time, policy willing!
The above courses of action, coupled with other ideas of involving the community, such as Beta Feature Feedback/Workshop & General Feedback threads -- again, stickied in EtcEra, not hidden away in Announcements -- would go a long, long ways toward restoring the community-staff relations, reducing the stress on moderation, and reducing the stress on the entire community by eliminating the stressors that have given rise to fiasco after fiasco.
We can fix this place and repair relations. None of ideas and fixes being talked about are remotely out of reach, or even overly challenging to implement. Would love more engagement, though. User engagement in this topic is inherently limited by virtue of it being a thread about a year-old site update in the unwatched Announcements section.
What a highly difficult and obtuse site feature, I feel for you folks trying to adapt that in making it work. Though my system admin side wants to know why it wasn't tested in all conditions before rolling out, and having accessibility options other than ignoring all tagged threads. Just seems really weird for any site changes, be it amateur or not.
To follow on from the point Disclaimer made regarding hiring new mods from the community:
I recently got a tag, which was pretty cool and I was thrilled to get one, but since then, if ever I see a poster who I think is helpful or informative or someone who always seems to be on the ball with certain subjects, I PM a mod and suggest that person also get a tag for their contribution to the community.
I've seen some of the users I'd put forward get tags after I've recommended them, and while probably not the sole reason, it's probably helped mods consider that users contribution to the forum
I think new mods should work the same way, in that you should have to be nominated by other users, as opposed to volunteering directly. I think an announcement could be made asking for users to PM one of the current mods with users they think would be good mods, and why
I think asking for people to volunteer themselves could lead to a) too many requests, and b) users who want to be mods for the power/influence over others, whereas having to be nominated would maybe weed those people out, and show the community that a number of people on the mod team were selected by the community for the position based on months or years of good posting
Again, that is only if any change to how mods are hired is considered. Overall I think more mods and mods being on a rota would help staff as it would allow staff to take breaks away from their role if they need to for their own sake
It sounds like being a mod is a lot of work and stress, so doing that for in some cases years at a time, alongside having work and family life to consider, is not healthy
I recently got a tag, which was pretty cool and I was thrilled to get one, but since then, if ever I see a poster who I think is helpful or informative or someone who always seems to be on the ball with certain subjects, I PM a mod and suggest that person also get a tag for their contribution to the community.
I've seen some of the users I'd put forward get tags after I've recommended them, and while probably not the sole reason, it's probably helped mods consider that users contribution to the forum
I think new mods should work the same way, in that you should have to be nominated by other users, as opposed to volunteering directly. I think an announcement could be made asking for users to PM one of the current mods with users they think would be good mods, and why
I think asking for people to volunteer themselves could lead to a) too many requests, and b) users who want to be mods for the power/influence over others, whereas having to be nominated would maybe weed those people out, and show the community that a number of people on the mod team were selected by the community for the position based on months or years of good posting
Again, that is only if any change to how mods are hired is considered. Overall I think more mods and mods being on a rota would help staff as it would allow staff to take breaks away from their role if they need to for their own sake
It sounds like being a mod is a lot of work and stress, so doing that for in some cases years at a time, alongside having work and family life to consider, is not healthy
In the interests of our user's safety, this is not a viable option: as staff we have access to personally identifiable information as such a vetting process is necessary to ensure that anyone who comes on board is trustworthy and responsible. The well-being of our members is our upmost priority, and this is something we won't compromise on, even if it means having fewer staff and longer wait times for responses.
As Community Manager, Delphine asked that she lead the discussions in this thread so we've given her space to do so. What may have appeared as inaction was her agonising over her responses and going through many proof-reading sessions which other staff assisted with. This took place over the best part of an entire day because she was determined to get it right and I think given the positive reception to her posts, she was successful in this endeavour.
Of course that's the priority, but I don't see how one necessarily precludes the other. Yes, an open thread about it would create an impractically large influx of applicants, but in no way was I intending to suggest that the vetting process be reduced in whatever form petitioning the community took.
Staff feeling overworked is a problem to examine, regardless.
That's what I figured and hoped was the reasoning, but it needed to be asked and known nonetheless. In this case, and perhaps in the case of a prospective General Feedback thread, maybe that's for the better.
From what we've been told, only admins have access to people's email addresses used and it isn't exactly difficult to hide the only other identifying information with Xenforo's tools.
I'm not sure exactly what the moderators expectations are on this site. You repeatedly bring up the idea of being unpaid volunteers as a defense, but when people say you should be paid, you say you don't. You repeatedly talk about how overworked you all are, but you won't even accept applications from people on the forum. They have to be chosen by staff and brought up by staff to even be considered. It's then mentioned how hard it is to find people through this method, because you're essentially cold calling people about a position that they might not be interested in. Like, there are very simple solutions to these issues but you all constantly dig in your heels that the current methods are the only way and work best, despite multiple admins coming forth to say how they had to go to therapy over the site and lose sleep over it.
Yes. It is baffling.From what we've been told, only admins have access to people's email addresses used and it isn't exactly difficult to hide the only other identifying information with Xenforo's tools.
I'm not sure exactly what the moderators expectations are on this site. You repeatedly bring up the idea of being unpaid volunteers as a defense, but when people say you should be paid, you say you don't. You repeatedly talk about how overworked you all are, but you won't even accept applications from people on the forum. They have to be chosen by staff and brought up by staff to even be considered. It's then mentioned how hard it is to find people through this method, because you're essentially cold calling people about a position that they might not be interested in. Like, there are very simple solutions to these issues but you all constantly dig in your heels that the current methods are the only way and work best, despite multiple admins coming forth to say how they had to go to therapy over the site and lose sleep over it.
We don't have full access to what is going on staff-side so maybe we're missing something, but it seems like you all have internal problems you need to sort out. If you don't like our solutions, find your own. If you don't like us talking about it, don't talk about it to us. But you need to solve them. For your own sake and ours. Things do not need to be this bad. Please think about how to do things better so that the needs of staff are actually met.
And you also need to solve the problems with us. That would in itself go a long way to making your lives better. Not perfect--better.
I would like some clarification on this matter, surely moderators shouldn't have access to any identifiable information, what's the reason they would? There's a good few moderators, it would concern me if all of them could look at my personal email or IP or something that could be used to potentially dox me. At most only admins should have this access, and even then I doubt they all need it (considering there's been an increase in the number of admins lately).
From what we've been told, only admins have access to people's email addresses used and it isn't exactly difficult to hide the only other identifying information with Xenforo's tools.
I'm not sure exactly what the moderators expectations are on this site. You repeatedly bring up the idea of being unpaid volunteers as a defense, but when people say you should be paid, you say you don't. You repeatedly talk about how overworked you all are, but you won't even accept applications from people on the forum. They have to be chosen by staff and brought up by staff to even be considered. It's then mentioned how hard it is to find people through this method, because you're essentially cold calling people about a position that they might not be interested in. Like, there are very simple solutions to these issues but you all constantly dig in your heels that the current methods are the only way and work best, despite multiple admins coming forth to say how they had to go to therapy over the site and lose sleep over it.
Gotta agree on those two posts, there's some weird flip-flopping around those questions, despite the nice posts from Delphine about the other issues.
And sorry for the derail as well, it seems it became the de-facto feedback thread even though it shouldn't, and just raised more questions in the end. Gave my opinion on the tags previously at least.
Is there are reason that you can't just add a toggle to user control panels somewhere that sets .label{display:none;} in the css or even seperate site themes with said CSS class set?
Doesn't seem like it should be some big super technical issue to solve....
Doesn't seem like it should be some big super technical issue to solve....
I don't have a positive reception to Delphine's post, just to clarify to Windrunner.
(And note that I'm allowed that—I'm not misinterpreting moderation, or making conspiracy theories, or whatever else; I'm allowed to feel about a message in any number of ways.)
And there's a variety of reasons for that. Ultimately, unless talks involve clear and concise steps towards change that are understood by the community in full, then talking just becomes a performance.
Lastly, when talking about transparency (a word that has used a lot here throughout the years), there needs to be accountability.
And to me, accountability should be an apology to those harmed, and a plan to do better. I think it would go a long way if it felt like any of the talks being had or the altercations happening three years in, bore some sort of result. But it often doesn't.
It feels like we're having the same conversations three years in. And that should be cause for major introspection—Not pretty words. Not committee decisions; just a genuine show of introspection, and communication with the community that reconceptualizes moderation and takes into consideration the power discrepancies.
And that includes figuring out how to prevent (or have a plan for) burnout and not having mods feeling like they have to destroy their health, meanwhile animosity grows.
(And note that I'm allowed that—I'm not misinterpreting moderation, or making conspiracy theories, or whatever else; I'm allowed to feel about a message in any number of ways.)
And there's a variety of reasons for that. Ultimately, unless talks involve clear and concise steps towards change that are understood by the community in full, then talking just becomes a performance.
Lastly, when talking about transparency (a word that has used a lot here throughout the years), there needs to be accountability.
And to me, accountability should be an apology to those harmed, and a plan to do better. I think it would go a long way if it felt like any of the talks being had or the altercations happening three years in, bore some sort of result. But it often doesn't.
It feels like we're having the same conversations three years in. And that should be cause for major introspection—Not pretty words. Not committee decisions; just a genuine show of introspection, and communication with the community that reconceptualizes moderation and takes into consideration the power discrepancies.
And that includes figuring out how to prevent (or have a plan for) burnout and not having mods feeling like they have to destroy their health, meanwhile animosity grows.