Spring Cleaning 2023: Moderation

[yum13241]

When I think about it, you're right.

My other points still stand, and I also believe that this thread as gone a bit OT.

[Hellser]

There is no need to drag Rachael's name through the mud and dirt. Rachael is still part of this Community as a GZDoom Developer. Nothing more.

To clear things up: No, we moderators and admins do not know where you live. What everyone normally sees under a user's profile is what we see. We just have a few more options for moderation.

Don't believe me? Here's a picture.

So, let's stay on topic, shall we? Here's a refresher if the original post is too far away:

---

Hey all. As I mentioned in the previous announcement thread, I want to strike while the iron is hot on making some changes.

Moderation
All forums needs moderators, that's a given. But what does good moderation look like to you?

After about a decade of moderating various internet communities (both on discord and reddit with varying degrees of success, as well as here), I tend to feel like moderators should feel less like cops and more like guides. Which is interesting, because we already have a community guide program which seems to be quite successful. Our moderation process could look more like that both in terms of responsibility and nomination/selection process, so anyone on the blue list is probably a good candidate for moving to the green list.

Additionally, I don't really want to be a sole dictator making 90% of the decisions around here, which is kinda what seems to happen for some reason. It's my considered opinion that the longer a small team is in place without some kind of shakeup, the more entrenched and stagnated things become. At the same time there's often a kind of stigma against moderators stepping down, like it indicates failure or something. I'd like to avoid that here by making team rotations a regular thing, so more of our user base can get a sense of ownership and responsibility.

But, my opinion isn't the only one. I want to have a discussion about it and hear from all of you. The purpose of this thread is to have an open discussion about such things. Specific policies and rules and such will be the topic of a different thread, so lets table that for now. This is an opportunity to get some community sentiment about how the community should be moderated, hear from current moderators and guides whether they want to stay on or take a break, and maybe promote some new mods.

Global Moderators

---

• Enjay
• Hellser
• Jekyll Grim Payne
• YukiHerz
  

Community Guides

---

• Blzut3
• Captain J
• DavidN
• dpJudas
• Enjay
• Gez
• Graf Zahl
• Hege Cactus
• Jarewill
• Jekyll Grim Payne
• Jimmy
• JPL
• Kappes Buur
• KeksDose
• kodi
• Kostov
• m8f
• Marrub
• _mental_
• Nash
• NeuralStunner
• Pixel Eater
• Player701
• RicardoLuis0
• Talon1024
• VitSm
• wolfman
• Xaser
• ZZYZX
  

I'll leave this thread pinned to this forum for 30 days.

Disclaimers: I'm not sure how well this idea will work. This isn't a voting thread, but it could be a good time to talk about who you trust or not. Also please stay on topic and don't get into debates. I know emotions are high right now over some recent decisions, but I really want this thread to stay focused and productive.

[yum13241]

To clear things up: No, we moderators and admins do not know where you live. What everyone normally sees under a user's profile is what we see. We just have a few more options for moderation.

Then how was Rachael able to do the whole "account reactivation" thing by cross-referencing someone's ISP & Location?

phpBB: [Administer user]. Me: Administer WHAT? Drugs? (I'M JOKING PEOPLE)

[Hellser]

We can check your IP. But that renders things moot when you use a proxy or a VPN. Also IP addresses get traded. Where it might say "USA Internet, Essex, Maryland" can be traded to say.. "Canadian Internet, Toronto, Canada". It doesn't pin down where you live. Insanely problematic when you have EU countries sharing internet.

Under normal uses, we have no need for your IP, only when we need to activate a deactivated account or you make burner accounts to shitpost.

Case in example, I lived in Maryland, Dundalk. Essex was a couple of towns away. So, no. IPs can never be tracked to your house. We also have to use a website to check your IP. The forum doesn't do that for us. Getting ones IP is many layers deep in the moderation stuff, so we just don't use it.

[yum13241]

IPs can never be tracked to your house.

I already knew that. I'm just saying it's possible to know the city you live in.

[Gez]

I'm just saying it's possible to know the city you live in.

Not really; because the IP is not all that precise.

I remember back when the Web was young, there were these "images" that people could embed in their forum signature that actually were dynamically generated and used the viewer's IP address (because it required the browser to go to the hosting site to retrieve the image) to make a message. So it was stuff like a cartoon character holding a sign saying "your IP is 12.34.56.78 and you live in Townville, Stateland" and they never got my city right, even way back then, usually placing me in an entirely different region.

[Graf Zahl]

I'm on an ISP that serves several 1000 of square kilometers so these IP services only get the central city right.
At work it's even more extreme: The ISP we use there covers all of Germany so the city they show is totally off

[yum13241]

My ISP says I live in the capital city of Jordan. I don't.

[Redneckerz]

I also believe that this thread as gone a bit OT.

Maybe its time you start that aswell The IP talk can be sidelined, imo.

For everyone who wants to know, i live in ZDoom City.

[RKD]

I tend to feel like moderators should feel less like cops and more like guides. Which is interesting, because we already have a community guide program which seems to be quite successful. Our moderation process could look more like that both in terms of responsibility and nomination/selection process, so anyone on the blue list is probably a good candidate for moving to the green list.

This may be a dumb question, but... is it necessary to differentiate between green and blue then? Can't they just be all "mods/guides/however-you-wanna-call-them"? It's also kinda confusing to see two Moderators in that list being also Community Guides but not the other two. Like... Why? What does it mean? What's the difference? From what I'm understanding, the roles and what we should expect from them is very similar (responsible, reliable and fair people open to debates that helps moderate the site).

About the rotation method, someone said there isn't too much active people (specially right now) to do this type of events and I agree. I don't know if the idea is to have a few people rotating or something more radical like replacing most/everyone after a fixed ammount of time, though. I'm assuming the former makes more sense, since there's always gonna be users wanting to keep contributing as we're seeing in this very thread. I would argue that there would already be some sort of rotation factor if inactive users were taken out of that duty and replaced with active ones.

Lastly, some names in those lists are names I've never read anywhere, not even when I was regularly checking posts every day or two. So far, I've got no idea who YukiHerz is, for example.

[Hellser]

This may be a dumb question, but... is it necessary to differentiate between green and blue then? Can't they just be all "mods/guides/however-you-wanna-call-them"? It's also kinda confusing to see two Moderators in that list being also Community Guides but not the other two. Like... Why? What does it mean? What's the difference? From what I'm understanding, the roles and what we should expect from them is very similar (responsible, reliable and fair people open to debates that helps moderate the site).

Historically, Guides are people chosen to help other users with questions relating to modding for GZDoom. Some moderators fall under both categories: being both a moderator and a helpful hand. Hence why two of our moderators are also guides.

About the rotation method, someone said there isn't too much active people (specially right now) to do this type of events and I agree. I don't know if the idea is to have a few people rotating or something more radical like replacing most/everyone after a fixed ammount of time, though. I'm assuming the former makes more sense, since there's always gonna be users wanting to keep contributing as we're seeing in this very thread. I would argue that there would already be some sort of rotation factor if inactive users were taken out of that duty and replaced with active ones.

I agree that inactive moderators should step down, or at least be contacted to find out why they are no longer active. Is it real life problems? Problems with the current administration team? Lack of overall time or interest in the forums? Let the mod/admin team know. So we can start addressing your problems or concerns, or ask if you want to step down to allow others to shine.

[Kinsie]

I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a moderation action taken by an actual moderator and not one of the now-former admins.

[Caligari87]

Lastly, some names in those lists are names I've never read anywhere, not even when I was regularly checking posts every day or two. So far, I've got no idea who YukiHerz is, for example.

This made me curious and I also had the lingering impression that a lot of the guides were inactive. So I checked through all the global moderators and community guides, and to my pleasant surprise almost all have actually been logging in and/or posting on the forum or Discord within the last 3-6 months, and the ones that haven't been as active here, have been active on our Discord within that time. The pulse of the forums is very slow anyways; it's not unusual for people to not post for 3+ months simply because nothing that's happening pertains to them, and that's okay!

Only one guide (Pixel Eater) has been completely inactive for more than a year, just suddenly dropped off the radar in 2019. I'll DM them on Discord to see if they're still around, but that's the only person I'd consider eligible for just removing outright due to lack of activity.

Something I'm considering is making Community Guides sort of a "Moderator Lite" role. This would provide them the ability to lock threads, issue warnings, and approve new user posts. Basically a few tools to help with the most common issues for putting out immediate fires as they happen. Full moderators would still be responsible for bigger stuff like bans and post removals, but this would give them a little breathing room. One of the common staff complaints over my time here, is that we've never had full timezone coverage so moderators feel they need to be constantly online, and that's just more pressure than it needs to be.

[Enjay]

I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a moderation action taken by an actual moderator and not one of the now-former admins.

I guess that partly depends on what you mean by "moderation action" but any post made by a person with <4 posts needs to get moderator approval, reported posts have to be reviewed, users may ask for posts to be moved or whatever... All of these (and more) need to be done by moderators of some sort but would not necessarily attract much attention. Most times I'm here, there will be a post waiting approval or something. So, most times I'm here I do some moderating, even if it's only to review and approve a post in the queue.

[Gez]

Something I'm considering is making Community Guides sort of a "Moderator Lite" role. This would provide them the ability to lock threads, issue warnings, and approve new user posts.

Post and topic approval is already on the guides' plate.