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Ad Hominem and Multiple Posts

Eraserhead said:
Not really, because IJ is limiting it to the top 100 posters as they are the main ones who fit the commitment criteria. That limits you to 100 candidates.
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OK then how to do you decide between the 100? Or are you proposing that we get 100 mods on board?

Of course some of the 100 posters aren't good candidates for moderator status, most mods are already in that 100, some have previously declined, some will decline but that would still leave you with perhaps 50.
 
The top posters is not a good way to choose a mod. Other than longevity, top posters share nothing. IMO, most (including myself) would probably not be candidates for moderation. In fact, as I scan the members list, I don't see many on the first 2 pages that I would think would be good mods.
 
Eraserhead said:
So then on the "rules" front remove every poster whose been banned or timed out from the possibilities, and maybe set a low post deletion threshold.

Then you should have a much smaller list.
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If you took that criteria I would not have become a mod. Now I am not big headed enough to suggest that some equally as good or even better would have take the position but there is more to this site than post count. After all post count does not equal quality.

We are slowly building up a set of guidlines, how is this really different to the guidelines we have. As you whittle it down further you need more guidelines.
 
xUKHCx said:
How many to add? We wouldn't want to add a huge amount because it would then create other problems. Also who is to say there is hesitancy we have said we are working on the matter, everything else so far is conjecture by people who do not know the background information.

As said before it is something that has been worked on for quite some time now and this whole discussion seems a little premature from my view point.
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The discussion came about due to the number of members who've noticed the issues with moderation. I've expressed my concerns privately in the past, but since it's now being discussed publicly I thought I'd add my voice to the others who are concerned.

It seems that the number of moderators ought to be in some way proportional to the size of the forum, and natural attrition should be considered, or you're asking fewer people to do more work.

We are not trying to find the perfect people it is just you gave an idealistic view of how things should be done and gave the opposite side in terms of the real life situation faced on here.

Like with any job there are a large number of potential candiates some better than other, some equal. Just because they are equal doesn't mean there are positions for them.

As you said there are perhaps 10 people in this thread alone, spread that out and you could easily find 100 if not 10x that number of people who fit the criteria. What makes one stand out above the other? You have to have some criteria to further reduce these numbers.
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As above. The forum has grown even as the number of active moderators has declined. This is what members are noticing. I don't pretend to know how many moderators the site needs, but it clearly requires more. I'm not saying that every qualified person should be appointed. Far from it. What I'm saying is that it should not be difficult to find qualified people.

Everything in life is politics why should it be different here, especially with a large group of people from different countries and cultures.
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Speaking of everything in life... I assume most of us have been called upon often to work on teams with people whom we may not particularly like. If I refuse to work on a team with someone for personal reasons, who then is the non-team player?
 
xUKHCx said:
If you took that criteria I would not have become a mod. Now I am not big headed enough to suggest that some equally as good or even better would have take the position but there is more to this site than post count. After all post count does not equal quality.

We are slowly building up a set of guidlines, how is this really different to the guidelines we have. As you whittle it down further you need more guidelines.
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Sorry, I deleted that post as I didn't think it was a good post :eek:. And you are a good mod xUKHCx :), but that is the sad part of arbitrarily cutting the members, but that is life as you don't have unlimited time to make decisions.

xUKHCx said:
but that would still leave you with perhaps 50.
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Then you use some arbitrary but defined criteria to reduce the number further, but if you can't agree on something ultimately you reduce the candidates by lot (i.e. you pick a subset randomly).
 
Eraserhead said:
Not really, because IJ is limiting it to the top 100 posters as they are the main ones who fit the commitment criteria. That limits you to a maximum of 100 candidates.
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I wasn't trying to set any limits. I was suggesting that the top 100 posters might be a good place to start, if commitment to the forum and an understanding of the rules of the forum were criteria. And FWIW, I believe these to be useful criteria.
 
IJ Reilly said:
I wasn't trying to set any limits. I was suggesting that the top 100 posters might be a good place to start, if commitment to the forum and an understanding of the rules of the forum were criteria. And FWIW, I believe these to be useful criteria.
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Sorry for misinterpreting you :eek:.
 
IJ Reilly said:
As above. The forum has grown even as the number of active moderators has declined. This is what members are noticing. I don't pretend to know how many moderators the site needs, but it clearly requires more.
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And as said it is something we are working on. We have said quite a few times that it has been worked on and that something should happen soon making this whole discussion moot,

IJ Reilly said:
I'm not saying that every qualified person should be appointed. Far from it. What I'm saying is that it should not be difficult to find qualified people.
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It is not difficult to find the qualified people we agree on that part but we have to limit them down some way. Limiting them down in how beneficial they will be seems to be a good way. (and yes there is more to it than that)


IJ Reilly said:
Speaking of everything in life... I assume most of us have been called upon often to work on teams with people whom we may not particularly like. If I refuse to work on a team with someone for personal reasons, who then is the non-team player?
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That is a different situation. As you have said there are lots of potentials and we get to pick the new recruits as members of the team as a whole. Why would we pick someone who as a general the team does not like when there is someone else out there is amicable or we feel would fit as a personality within the group. When you hire people for jobs this is a criteria so why can't it be one here, its just we as a team get extra say in the matter.


Eraserhead said:
Then you use some arbitrary but defined criteria to reduce the number further, but if you can't agree on something ultimately you reduce the candidates by lot (i.e. you pick a subset randomly).
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Why not use some criteria that attributes value to a candiate or a candiates abilities, i.e. there personal likes and posting habits, there timezones. I feel you can waste forever and a day trying to come up with different criteria just for the sake of different criteria.

The critieria I listed was not a full set and hell was just off the top of my head of some of the things we look for. We try and look at the picture as whole and if a good candiate doesn't have all the criteria they will still be considered.

edit:

IJ Reilly said:
I wasn't trying to set any limits. I was suggesting that the top 100 posters might be a good place to start, if commitment to the forum and an understanding of the rules of the forum were criteria. And FWIW, I believe these to be useful criteria.
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Of course these are criteria.
 
xUKHCx said:
That is a different situation. As you have said there are lots of potentials and we get to pick the new recruits as members of the team as a whole. Why would we pick someone who as a general the team does not like when there is someone else out there is amicable or we feel would fit as a personality within the group. When you hire people for jobs this is a criteria so why can't it be one here, its just we as a team get extra say in the matter.
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Obviously you should not choose someone with major personality defects. Among the people I've interacted with on these forums, very few of the longtime members fall into that category -- and this includes people with whom I've had real, substantial disagreements over the years. Keep in mind, all of this discussion is in response to the supposed difficulty in finding suitable people to moderate.

Why not use some criteria that attributes value to a candiate or a candiates abilities, i.e. there personal likes and posting habits, there timezones. I feel you can waste forever and a day trying to come up with different criteria just for the sake of different criteria.

The critieria I listed was not a full set and hell was just off the top of my head of some of the things we look for. We try and look at the picture as whole and if a good candiate doesn't have all the criteria they will still be considered.
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One of the suggestions I made early on was almost precisely what you say here. Organizations benefit when abilities are recognized and utilized and suffer when they are not.

I am making suggestions based on my experience with the forum, and a few drawn from experiences in life. Sorry if you think I'm wasting your time.
 
xUKHCx said:
Why not use some criteria that attributes value to a candiate or a candiates abilities, i.e. there personal likes and posting habits, there timezones.
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Eraserhead said:
Then you use some arbitrary but defined criteria to reduce the number further, but if you can't agree on something ultimately you reduce the candidates by lot (i.e. you pick a subset randomly).
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I agree that you can use other criteria that can be defined and applied to multiple candidates. See the bold above from my previous post.

The point is if you can't agree criteria to split the candidates you should assume they are all equal and then reduce by lot, but it is a last resort.
 
Who selects new mods, is it the other mods or just Arn? If it's all the other mods, then I think you may end up with a group-think problem eventually, as they would only approve of someone who is like them and not every mod here in MR's past has been stellar.

So, I would actually be happier if Arn was the sole person to choose Admins and Moderators for the forum (based on recommendations), because he's the only person who knows the entire history of the site, and what did and what didn't work in the past. He's also very intelligent and has proven he knows how to run a great website.

On a slightly different topic...

On a forum I once managed, I assigned mods to particular forums, which allowed them to become better familiar with the "atmosphere" and users of that forum. If the forum was about a topic the mod was interested in, I noticed the forum was better moderated as a result. This system worked well for us. It also meant we needed more mods to cover all the forums, which meant we always had the right number of mods at all times. While the mods recommended people for new mods, I ultimately made the decision myself to be sure we got a good variety of people and not just online friends of other mods.

We also implemented 1 year terms for mods, which I could either renew or not at the end of that term. Most of the time, the mods decided this for themselves, either to stay on for another year, or go back to being a regular member if they were burnt out. Term limits assured we had a team of mods who were dedicated to the job at hand, with enough turnover to keep things fresh and moving along with little stagnation.

Just a few suggestions you may want to ponder for MR.
 
Trajectory said:
So, I would actually be happier if Arn was the sole person to choose Admins and Moderators for the forum (based on recommendations), because he's the only person who knows the entire history of the site, and what did and what didn't work in the past. He's also very intelligent and has proven he knows how to run a great website.
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Pardon me if I'm extremely wrong here, but it seems to me that arn likely participates in the forum as a whole less than the moderators. I would imagine that running the entire site, including advertisements, homepage, page 2, etc, consumes more time than he spends on the forum. As moderators are probably more active in the forum section of the site, I would imagine that they are better able to analyze the qualities that certain members bring to the forum.
 
The thread was closed while we cleaned up after rules violations and caught up with complaints we received about specific posts.

As always, members are welcome to give us general feedback in public or in private. For reference, see How to send messages to moderators.

Anyone with concerns about moderation of their own posts should use the Contact form so we can address their concerns privately. We do not share details of disciplinary actions with anyone other than the forum member involved.
 
tobefirst said:
I just wanted to note that I reported a post in this thread and it was dealt with immediately.
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Most of the time that I report a post, it has been dealt with quickly.

A couple of times there were exceptions. I went back and re-read the post and realized that I may have been incorrect. I've also conversed with God/Mods on issues.

As I have said, MR is one of the best forums that I have been on. I know a couple of other forums might be considered better, but they are very limited in their scope. Hypothetically, let's say they are about guns, the M16A1 in particular. You would not be able to post or start threads about M16A2, AR15, CAR15, or any other closely related weapons let alone non gun related topics. It is the M16 or bust. Yet, here at MR, in addition to the Mac related threads we have community, PRSI, and others. IMHO, this creates a much better community feel to it.

rdowns said:
The top posters is not a good way to choose a mod. Other than longevity, top posters share nothing.
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Agree about top posters. Post count in general indicates longevity but there are exceptions. Recently we have new members who have posted a lot and thus have risen to the top 100 rather quickly. While others of us have taken many years.

IJ Reilly said:
The OP admitted to having been a member some years ago, under a different name. I presume this was the reason for his banning.
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Oops. Seems like that has been happening more as of late.



As for me I used to be sashimi. But I could not hack laying on that cold plate all the time. So I changed to sushi so now I have a small bed of rice to lay on. It's much nicer, softer and warmer. :)
/joke
 
sushi said:
Agree about top posters. Post count in general indicates longevity but there are exceptions. Recently we have new members who have posted a lot and thus have risen to the top 100 rather quickly. While others of us have taken many years.
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The point about being a top 100 poster is that it shows commitment to the site.
 
Eraserhead said:
The point about being a top 100 poster is that it shows commitment to the site.
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Commitment, or that we should be committed. :p ;) :D

On a serious note, if one person joined in January 2003 and has 9,000 posts, and another joined in January 2008 and has 10,000 posts, which is the more committed?

I guess I don't see post count as commitment. Plus, since PRSI posts are not counted, maybe there are those who post there allot who do not show up in the overall 100 top posters.

Anyhow, just don't see post count as that important of a measure.
 
I thought it showed we were a bunch of sad gits with no life... :eek:


EDIT: Ignore me. I can't read... :eek:
 
Agreed. Commitment cannot be determined by post count alone.

There are a number of different factors.
 
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