Volunteer Queue Moderators Wanted

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

In order to prevent spam, vandalism and abusive posts by new members, I recently made a change to the forums that requires new members posts to be held for moderation until they have a certain number of posts. However, this is leading to a lot of posts held for moderation. I would like some established members who understand the basic idea behind the forum rules to volunteer to be queue moderators who can at their own leisure check the queue and approve/disapprove posts based on whether they follow the forum rules. I won't have time to keep up with this at the moment as I am putting my focus at this time on improving site efficiency and the backend and speeding up the server. Please PM me or respond to this topic if you would like to have queue moderator status. Thank you!

[Fanman]

Hi Scott,

I'd be willing to be a moderator, if you trust me. As I think it would also help me learn to curtail my own argumentative tendencies. If you read my recent posts, I am certainly now more in-line with the forum rules, and the warnings you've given to me have aided me in that respect. Anyway, give it some consideration. Thanks.

[NeoTheseus]

What are the requirements? How many posts do you have to have under your belt? What field of knowledge, expertise, or education is required? This sounds interesting though...

[Daedalus]

I am interested in being a queue moderator for this website. I am a relatively new member, however I have examined and am comfortable with the rules. I am available on weekends at random points and am certainly able to quickly and professionally moderate for this site. If you are uncomfortable with me as a new member moderating for you I completely understand, however, if you are okay with me doing so I will be available whenever i can at your request.

[Steve3007]

Perhaps you should allow a fixed amount of time for anybody who is interested to nominate themselves as a moderator, and then publish this list of candidates and allow another fixed amount of time for other posters to vote for one or more of them.

As long as the number of candidates and votes is reasonably large then hopefully that would mean a reasonable chance of the moderator(s) being broadly acceptable.

Perhaps moderators could even have a fixed "term of office" after which another vote is taken.

[Calrid]

There's no chance you are going to accept some nobody but I have moderated on several sites, I also am a member of at least a dozen.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

What are the requirements? How many posts do you have to have under your belt? What field of knowledge, expertise, or education is required? This sounds interesting though...

I will let you try it out if you want. Do you want to? How often do you login?

-- Updated 11 Dec 2013 12:25 pm to add the following --

Perhaps you should allow a fixed amount of time for anybody who is interested to nominate themselves as a moderator, and then publish this list of candidates and allow another fixed amount of time for other posters to vote for one or more of them.

As long as the number of candidates and votes is reasonably large then hopefully that would mean a reasonable chance of the moderator(s) being broadly acceptable.

Perhaps moderators could even have a fixed "term of office" after which another vote is taken.

At this point I don't think I have time to wait. The queue is filling up fast. Perhaps a vote could later be used to come up with full-fledged moderators as opposed to queue moderators. In any case, do you want to be a queue moderator Steve? I'll make you one if you want.

[DarwinX]

I would like to cast a vote that both Fanman and Spiral Out would both be unsuitable as moderators because of their communistic tendencies, abusive comments and consistently tyrannical outlook. Note - It is always people who least deserve power who seek it most. Beware the devil wears the mask of a saint.

[Thinking critical]

I would like to cast a vote that both Fanman and Spiral Out would both be unsuitable as moderators because of their communistic tendencies, abusive comments and consistently tyrannical outlook. Note - It is always people who least deserve power who seek it most. Beware the devil wears the mask of a saint.

That's it DarwinX, pack your bags......you are out of here "kidding"

[Steve3007]

Scott:

In any case, do you want to be a queue moderator Steve? I'll make you one if you want.

Thanks Scott but to be honest I don't think I can guarantee to devote enough time to the role to do it justice.

[Calrid]

I'd put myself in the queue but I am far to clever to do something pointless and without reason, and for no pay and which means nothing, and only earns the scorn of the gods. So I wont if it's all the same to you, as far as it goes I Think Sysiphus has covered all the angles.

You're wasting your time anyway the user base rules forums, it's just a pity you don't realise it, but you will. OK it's not communism and it's not democracy but you will learn what it is in time, unless you are a troll and hence retarded.

Hey if you don't learn become a moderator that rock wont push itself.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Is anybody else interested in this?

[Misty]

Is anybody else interested in this?

Is it possible to advertise outside the forum pool for moderators? I think pulling from the forum pool lowers the quality of this forum and causes conflict.

Misty

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Is anybody else interested in this?

Is it possible to advertise outside the forum pool for moderators? I think pulling from the forum pool lowers the quality of this forum and causes conflict.

Misty

I understand your concern, Misty, but...

I really doubt people who aren't already on the forum are going to volunteer to moderate it.

Moreover, I'm not sure how such people could be vetted. Right now, I can determine if someone understands the forum rules and adheres to them based on their previous posts.

At this point, I'm simply looking for queue moderators who approve or disapprove the pending posts in the queue which are by very new members. I would not give them full moderator status--at least not until the moderator demonstrates that they can appropriately judge whether a post is rule-breaking or not.

Alternatively, if someone wants to contribute a significant sum of money to pay for a professional moderator/editor, then I can assist in the hiring of such services. As it is, the site does not bring in enough revenue to afford such a thing, especially when there are some long-time members who have invested much time making hundreds if not thousands of posts that follow the rules and who have shown that they can judge whether a post is rule-breaking or not by their usage of the report button (i.e. sending in reports of rule-breaking posts but not too many reports on non-rule-breaking posts).

It shouldn't cause much unwanted conflict. If the moderator starts deleting posts that are not rule-breaking, that can easily be brought to my attention and I can remove their moderator ability. Rather, any conflict that arises is probably from people who have posted a rule-breaking post and had it moderated that are complaining. That is conflict we want and that is some sense unavoidable. I have to deal with this myself on this forum all the time. For instance, many times two different posts from different sides of an argument will go at each other in a rule-breaking way, when I delete posts by both of them and notify each of their deleted post with a warning, often they both come back at me claiming I am biased.

Or just look at the the pile of personal attacks made against me and my own moderating ability because I deleted a user's post in which the user had written about another member:

• 1 - "you're gullible"
• 2 - "you want to live in a magical world"
• 3 - "You need to grow up"
• 4 - "you know nothing of anything"
• 5 - "you are nothing"
• 6 - "You are a tiresome little kid that doesn't want to learn"

My deletion of the post containing the above has caused a lot of conflict.

I won't post all the things the member said about me because he felt the above shouldn't have been deleted, but you can find it in the feedback section. Of course, these are the kinds of accusations said to me and other moderators. Often times in PM and generally in response to the deletion of a post that other members do not see since it was deleted. Deleting posts causes conflict any way we go about it. But at least we are working to keep these kinds of personal-attack-ridden conflicts off the main board so the other members can enjoy the discussions without being victim to such flames and distracting personal remarks and personal conflicts.

I'm not just posting this for only your benefit, Misty. I want anyone who does volunteer to moderate the forum to understand that the kinds of people who post rule-breaking posts (e.g. the kind of people who say such petty off-topic insults to other members online in the midst of the debate, the above list only being a tiny sample), are also likely to start conflict and go after the moderator in such a personal way. Indeed, to be an effective moderator one must be think-skinned.

[Lacewing]

I'm willing to consider being a queue moderator to help new people get through the initial joining stage faster... as long as I won't have to constantly wade through an overwhelming flood of disrespectful crazy garbage. If you approve of this idea, please let me know what's involved and what's typical to expect... and we can decide if it's a good fit. Thanks.