Volunteer Queue Moderators Wanted

[Lucylu]

I'd vote for Lacewing and Steve and Misty! Plus Spectrum and NewMe if you can get them.

Maybe you could get a philosophy student to do it, if you advertised in a Uni. They might want to do it to put it on their CV. But as you said, it would be difficult to know if they would be any good. I suppose you could ask them to supply a reference eg from their tutor to say that they have good communication skills and ethics etc.

Good luck!

[Lacewing]

Thanks for the vote of confidence Lucylu!

I realize I may not actually be an appropriate choice... as I'm not scholarly or conventional or inclined to follow too many rules/standards. (I've been half-expecting Scott to boot me from the site at some point... for breaking some code of conduct.) So I won't be offended if he declines my offer. I know I'm sort of "out there" most of the time, not really operating on a typical channel (it seems), not offering "proof" of anything, and maybe having too much fun questioning the edicts of religion. Perhaps that's a disruption to some agenda. Hey, can I put all newbies through a trial period of answering my "If you were a god..." question? Heh heh. (That was fun!)

[WordsOfWisdumbass]

"....any conflict that arises is probably from people who have posted a rule-breaking post and had it moderated that are complaining."

Have a completely new member, with no ties, allegiance, or bias existent, anywhere, start off in the role!
I have viewed a single thread -- from 2010-11 -- and then registered, and this request was the first that popped up, ironically. Although the concept of a 'moderator tech' proving their worthiness and understanding makes perfectly logical sense, it is not entirely outrageous to think about the reasons a new member would be a great choice. The rules are black and white, and both new and established members are potentially equally capable of enforcement or infraction of them, in theory. As a matter of fact, a new member has probably given the rules a thorough reading much more recently than someone who may have joined months or years ago.
This is a tongue-in-cheek proposition, of course, but with roots in a few very sound principals, so if any consensus forms around those roots, feel free to nurture and prune to fruition.
(Bonsai? BONZAI! First learn stand, Noobie-san.)
Perhaps this would be an ideal way for a neophyte to prove themselves; being especially attentive to the ideals of fairness and 'for-benefit-of-all' espoused by the forum's rules would be important to their onboarding process, so as to successfully establish new acquaintances while concurrently not-rocking the boat.
Thank you for listen--reading. ~These have been the Words Of Wisdumbass.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Okay Lacewing, I have made you a queue moderator. I will send you a PM with more details.

I am still looking for volunteers.

[Lacewing]

Hey look everybody! I have a new title under my name! Wheee!! Do I get a badge... or a funny hat to wear?

If a bunch of crazy posts start getting through the queue now, don't blame me... 'cause sometimes EVERYTHING sounds crazy, and I try not to discriminate.

[Empiricist-Bruno]

Scott, one of the rules of this forum is to read all the posts in a thread before making one’s post. Now as a queue moderator, I may not have the interest in reading a long series of posts in a thread of no interest to me just to make sure that the new person who posts appears to have done that himself/herself. This means I may not want to moderate some new person's posts depending on the length of the thread in which that person posts. For this reason, would it be a good idea to tell new bloggers to try to make their comments on threads that have few posts? Or should Queue Moderators simply omit this one rule? Also, how tough are moderators supposed to be? For instance, if I hadn't capitalized Queue Moderators in the text that I just wrote, could I still let this pass? Some grammar rules aren't always picked-up by a spell check. Should I delete a post for that reason, even if the rest seems perfect? Am I required to use my own judgement on this?

[Lacewing]

Empiricist-Bruno, we'll see what Scott answers to your questions... but I can tell you that I'm certainly not doing any of that detail. All I do is check the post to ensure that it's understandable (enough) and not blatantly offensive/inappropriate. It has been a quick and easy task to stay on top of (so far). There are typically only a few to a half-dozen each day. The only "denials" I've issued have been for duplicate posts... which probably result because the person thinks their first one didn't go through (when they don't see it displayed right away).

It's super simple... especially for queue moderators who are already checking in once a day... because then the queue doesn't get a chance to "build-up". And it really would be good to have several queue moderators assigned to this task so that it's covered when other queue moderators step away for awhile... which I will be doing.

You'll also get the "Queue Moderator" subtitle below your name... although I asked Scott to remove it from mine, as the presence of it made me feel "too responsible" for whatever I might say on the site... and I wanted to feel free to speak without being viewed as a "representative" or "self-assigned-authority" of any sort.

[Artimas]

You'll also get the "Queue Moderator" subtitle below your name... although I asked Scott to remove it from mine, as the presence of it made me feel "too responsible" for whatever I might say on the site... and I wanted to feel free to speak without being viewed as a "representative" or "self-assigned-authority" of any sort.

That is a good point. I have given thought on doing moderation, but I don't view power as a gain for me, I view power as a gain for all of you. Distribution of power is key. Politics have it wrong. =P

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Scott, one of the rules of this forum is to read all the posts in a thread before making one’s post. Now as a queue moderator, I may not have the interest in reading a long series of posts in a thread of no interest to me just to make sure that the new person who posts appears to have done that himself/herself. This means I may not want to moderate some new person's posts depending on the length of the thread in which that person posts.

When moderating the queue, I generally do not read the whole topic. I may read the OP to judge if it is on-topic. So the short answer is ignore that rule.

Generally, the rule about reading the topic comes up not in approving posts but when either posts veer off-topic through many posts (because people join the topic and only read and respond to the latest posts without appreciating the main context of the topic) or because members respond to a line of discussion that started with or contains some rule-breaking posts. Depending on the nature of the rule-breaking posts and the dependency of the replies on the rule-breaking posts, often times the entire thread of discussion needs to be deleted (e.g. all replies in the topic made after the rule-breaking posts) even if someone wouldn't have realized they were violating the forum rules if they hadn't read all the posts and if not reading the posts was not prohibited.

Also, how tough are moderators supposed to be? For instance, if I hadn't capitalized Queue Moderators in the text that I just wrote, could I still let this pass? Some grammar rules aren't always picked-up by a spell check. Should I delete a post for that reason, even if the rest seems perfect? Am I required to use my own judgement on this?

You can use your own judgement. Generally, I would let a few typos or common grammar mistakes (e.g. incorrectly ending a sentence with a preposition) go, especially the kind of typos or mistakes a person would be likely to miss even after proofreading once through. As a rule of thumb, I am simply trying to judge if the poster used a spell-checker and then proofread the post at least once through after writing it, which is usually fairly easy to tell.

When in doubt, though, I encourage you to lean towards being more strict. This is especially the case in the moderation queue, when the poster can simply repost a fixed version of the post, as opposed to the main form where you have to delete a post they may have already received replies.

[Hog Rider]

I'm puzzled to get this as a PM.

I thought you'd have had plenty of offers already.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

I'm puzzled to get this as a PM.

I thought you'd have had plenty of offers already.

This isn't a PM.

[Hog Rider]

I'm puzzled to get this as a PM.

I thought you'd have had plenty of offers already.

This isn't a PM.

I get it. As it appears on the top page of the User Panel I thought it a PM.

So have you got any volunteers. I'm on most days if you haven't

[Empiricist-Bruno]

When in doubt, though, I encourage you to lean towards being more strict. This is especially the case in the moderation queue, when the poster can simply repost a fixed version of the post, as opposed to the main form where you have to delete a post they may have already received replies.

Thanks for the clarifications. One more question: if we doubt that the person will be able to figure out by himself/herself the reason why we delete his or her post, should we/could we pm a note or a clue to that person, such as, "The grammar on your post's title needs a little improvement."? Otherwise it may be impossible for them to figure out what is wrong and they may get discouraged.

Never mind, I just found out that the deleting process does seem to allow the Queue Moderator to send feedback to the new person that posts. That's fantastic. I would like to add here that I never received any comment explaining me why some of my posts were deleted when I was on probation. Furthermore, I think new people should be instructed to save their posts in their drafts folder, just in case they get deleted by Queue Moderators if they want to save their posts.

[Finvaara]

I will happily assist with moderation as soon as allowed.

[Funenjoyabledays]

I'd like to help as a moderator too.