Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Purpose of the ignore lists? (Why can't we ignore a moderator?) [MERGED]
- Thread starter revmacian
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You accidentally missed the important ‘if’ when selecting the portion of text to respond to.
I didn't miss it, it just didn't apply to what I originally commented on (which was then quoted).
Perhaps a somewhat more accurate reply would have been to say that the particular hypothetical is different and unrelated to what I was commenting on with that analogy.
Yep, ok. Conditionals are an integral part of any statement they’re used in. Non-native speakers learn early and quickly just how crucial they are. Native speakers are inately aware of conditionals and know that if they are minded to generate false indignation they could dishonesty ignore them. I’ve never used the ignore function on here because I think you have to remain aware of how individual posters operate and how they try and influence a conversation for better or worse.
Last edited:
That's not the way it works here. We consider the volunteer staff to be users first, moderators or administrators second. They were asked to become moderators because they showed themselves over time to be helpful and courteous in their interactions with other users. We hope in fact that they will continue to participate in discussions.
It may well work in other ways on other sites. But this is how we want it here.
That's not true, and it strikes me as very unfair, given the fact that moderators take the time to participate in the community. When we post as regular users, we do so because we have a tech problem we need help with, we can help with someone else's tech problem, we find a thread discussion interesting and want to participate, etc - just like other users. You are supposing something about how another user views his own posts here.
It's not controversial - it's simply a matter where not everyone agrees with you. I personally disagree that the software "should" allow it, and am not at all sure that it would be allowed even if it did.
Yes, when moderators aren't posting as moderators, they are regular users. This has already been established in this thread. And yes, there is a system in place to distinguish their official posts from their regular user posts: official posts are prefaced with "MOD NOTE:" The content of such posts has to do with moderation or the rules, not with the thread topic. Those posts are easy to spot. There is no confusion here in my opinion, and no confusion of this type has been raised in this thread.
No, you do not have to read everything they write - that's up to you. You can see from the avatar and username to the left who has written a post.
I disagree that it isn't "right". Rather, it's just the way it is on this particular site. I see from your posts that you find it frustrating, but that doesn't mean it's not right.
You've misunderstood a bit. Moderators never moderate threads where they're involved in the discussion as regular users. That's good management. It would be immediately apparent to other moderators and to the administrators if a moderator moderated in a thread where he was a participant. As an example, I've had complaints about moderation I've done through the years. In those cases, I ask Doctor Q or HexMonkey, who also are administrators, to review my moderation and respond to the complaint. The point isn't whether or not I would be able to be impartial - that doesn't matter. It's about the fact that we don't want there to be any question at all about whether or not the review was impartial. The only solution is to have someone else deal with it.
We have over one million registered users - in that perspective it's maybe not such a high number
We do have stricter rules than many other sites, though, so if you compare with other sites I can see that the number could be high.This seems unfair. When they have their "regular user" hat on, they need to be able to be just that - regular users. And regular users certainly don't have to leave a discussion simply because someone else in the discussion doesn't like their posts (as long as the posts are within the rules, of course). Since they go through a very long vetting process before they become moderators, the chances that they will violate forum rules in their posts is almost zero. They are chosen for among other reasons the level-headedness they've displayed throughout the time of their membership, so their posts are basically very polite.
Yes, even a polite post can anger or frustrate some, if the viewpoint shared is very different from one's own viewpoint. It depends how well you (not referring to you personally here) handle reading other viewpoints. But as another user in this thread pointed out, that's life, and there's no ignore button for that. If a post written within the rules frustrates me, I think the responsibility is on me as to how to deal with it. I can't expect a system to be put in place so that I won't get frustrated by those posts.
I don't think that not being able to ignore moderators is a problem. They give of their free time to the site, and are held to extremely high standards - which they deal with gracefully. The fact that their posts can't be ignored is just how it is.
Thank you - my thoughts exactly
[doublepost=1551198117][/doublepost]@annk
I appreciate your comments and perspective.
I disagree with a lot of it also.
But..I really feel like we've worn this topic out and @Weaselboy, as a moderator, had landed the thread at a nice place of "peace" where we'd seen lots of sides of this and many of us can just agree to disagree. I just don't have much more/new to add that wouldn't be just arguing different sides, as has already been done.
Cheers
Last edited:
Seriously?
I very much doubt it.
They are volunteers, and I get the sense that a fair bit of time and work is involved in moderating the forum to the stated (and preferred) standard.
That is not to say they don't get things wrong on occasion - they are human - but I doubt very much that this position is sought for the cachet.
You don't think it's even possible?
C'mon - you know it's possible
Wait...I was misunderstood there I think..
I didn't mean to imply that they pursue the position FOR the caché - I agree, that would be silly.
I simply think it's possible that some enjoy the caché and power that comes with it.
That's just sort of human nature.
It's nice to be able to control things (moderate), even a little bit, have influence (can delete, etc) and post with that "moderator" next to a name which some will interpret to mean "knows a lot", "experienced", "the authority", etc.
When people see it (the moderator tag), it can change perception in the minds of some users and that isn't necessarily lost on the person with that tag next to their name.
Last edited:
I'm not against that and in some ways I can see the value in such a move. Its more work in some respects and the administrators have long said that we are members first and moderators second. We also want to have a workflow that won't make life more difficult to manage the site but also find more volunteers when the time comes.
I used to frequent a site that the moderators were picked, not for their dedication and helpfullness but rather the wealth of their knowledge. it set up an odd dynamic when you disagreed with them.
I can only speak of my knowledge and experience, while I've been a mac user for a very long time, I'll be the first to admin at how little I know and how much I learn from other members. The moderator/staff indicator is not there to show how wise I am (because I'm not), but that I help out from time to time.
Bingo - exactly.
That was sort of my point above.
Even if it's not true, many normal forum users will always have a perception about Moderators being sort of "the gurus", "the knowledgable ones", perhaps more "in the know" than others, "an authority", etc.
I don't blame the moderators at all - it's just sort of par for the course with being one and having the tag attache to everything you say all over the forum.
[doublepost=1551207875][/doublepost]
Thank you for saying that. Despite the complexities of it, I definitely see many benefits of it also.
And arguments I've seen about "no user should 2 accounts - against the rules" would seem to be rules that need not apply to a situation involving moderators.
Life is full of different rules for different people, especially if it makes sense to address an issue the best.
No, not really.
Depends on your age and character, and how you measure status, cachet, prestige or whether this is what you mean by status, or whether your professional life already more than adequately fulfils and satisfies these needs.
Besides, one volunteers - or is volunteered - to be a moderator. It is not a paid position.
Reading the various feedback threads here, I'd say that being a moderator is hard work, very time consuming, and can be a quite difficult - and fairly thankless - position at times, not least as your judgment may be called into question.
Your own framing of "Depends on your age and character" is essentially saying that it is possible, and it just depends upon some factors.
Being a volunteer or unpaid or something being hard work or time consuming or difficult..
Those are all things that don't have really anything to do with the perks and potential caché and/or benefits that do come from being a moderator.
If anything, those drawbacks you laid out might be things some would deal with and accept in exchange for the benefits and potential caché or upsides, whatever one thinks of those.
It's really difficult to claim something is 100% not possible.
Why not just argue that you feel it's very unlikely?
From there we would probably just disagree on the likelihood either way.
Last edited:
Let us agree to differ, but no, I don't think what you have argued is the "cachet" of being a moderator is what motivates those who become (or are asked to become) moderators.
From what I can see, most choose to do it to help with running the site and feel privileged to be able to do so.
Besides, I'm not entirely sure what "perks" or "benefits" accrue from holding a position as a moderator.
As for the presumed "cachet", I'm not saying it is impossible to feel this, - just rather unlikely for adults who hold jobs have families, and other responsibilities.
Granted, I might have felt this when I was a teenager (perhaps in a similar way to how one might have been chuffed to have been appointed a prefect at school), or undergrad; but, not since then.
There we can finally agree.
It's not impossible...and I certainly hope it's unlikely...
I don't think we really need to converse if you can't even posit that it is possible for someone to be interested in the job because of a sense of cachet it may appear to provide.
I still remember a post comment on slashdot after they added a self-moderation system (every day some small percentage of the active users would randomly be given a handful of moderation points to apply as they saw fit, and you had to specify one of several tags when applying a point - insightful, funny, off-topic, etc. - and then users could set a minimum level to show - browsing at score:5 was a great way to see a handful of interesting viewpoints without slogging through a thousand comments, similar to the way articles here show top-scoring comments)... someone commented: "I like how readable the threads are at score:2, but I miss seeing my own comments."
I really think this topic is being over-complicated. If you generally have a problem with someone where you don’t appreciate their ‘Online’ personality, candor or overall indifferences of what type of person they portray themselves as, then just move on and ignore them, just as you would in real life if there was someone that you work with, or you frequently would see on a daily basis, you just tend to not talk or converse with that individual, life_moves_on......
Even being if you can’t ignore a moderator, why does it matter? You can A.) Simply ignore that user by not commenting/responding to that member in the selected thread , B.) Not participate in the thread at all or C.) Leave the site entirely and/or D.) All the above.
I mean, it’s part of life where we’re going to encounter individuals where we just don’t appreciate their criticisms, feedback or what type of person they are, and it’s no different then if this wasn’t an online forum. There are a plethora of members who I don’t agree with their demeanor towards others/or opinions, I don’t need to necessarily ignore them with the ‘ignore feature’, when I can just simply alienate/not communicate with that person.
Even being if you can’t ignore a moderator, why does it matter? You can A.) Simply ignore that user by not commenting/responding to that member in the selected thread , B.) Not participate in the thread at all or C.) Leave the site entirely and/or D.) All the above.
I mean, it’s part of life where we’re going to encounter individuals where we just don’t appreciate their criticisms, feedback or what type of person they are, and it’s no different then if this wasn’t an online forum. There are a plethora of members who I don’t agree with their demeanor towards others/or opinions, I don’t need to necessarily ignore them with the ‘ignore feature’, when I can just simply alienate/not communicate with that person.
Last edited:
It's not a matter of your opinion being popular or not. I probably wouldn't be reading MacRumors at all if the ignore button wasn't there - there is a contingent of users here who feel the need to dump bile on nearly every post about how horrible Apple is (if your only reason to come here is to rain on the parade on every single thread, that's more like griefing, and it's not helpful), so I've blocked a number of people who are relentlessly anti-Apple (and I do mean relentless - it's not that you made a mean comment, it's that you make an endless stream of annoying comments - I get that you're bitter, but you're not constructive, so please go away - maybe try SamsungRumors). And I've blocked a number who've made it very clear that they have abhorrent ideas about how to run the country and how to treat fellow humans, where it's abundantly clear that we'll never change each other's opinions (and the annoying parts are mostly not on the topic of Apple and their hardware/software). Blocking is an attempt to lower the toxicity level of the forum low enough that it's worth it to me to continue visiting MacRumors (and it helps me to avoid responding to off-topic comments that I should not respond to). Otherwise I'd go somewhere else.I know my opinion won't be a popular one in a thread of this nature, but I still maintain that forum life is easier without the ignore button. There is no out of context posts or replies, no questions about who can or can't ignore who and it is an even playing field for everyone
The bit about out-of-context posts is a non-starter. For me it was a one-time learning problem. Once I understood what was happening it was no longer troublesome. I know how to click "show ignored comments" if I feel sufficiently motivated.
(Note, after the first sentence of my reply, the numerous uses of "you" in the above are not directed at SDColorado whatsoever, but rather at the collection of users who vex me.)
A proper fix, though it would take software changes to implement, would be for moderators to have an "am being a moderator" flag that they could toggle on/off - figuratively putting their moderator hat on - so, posts they make as themselves are treated like any other, they can be ignored, etc., while anything done while their moderator hat toggled on would show to everyone, overriding ignore lists and such. Similar to how you do most things as a normal users, but use "sudo" when you need to fix system-level things (anyone running their normal login with the admin bit set is being very risky).
I figured that after I saw the comment about Samsunrumors. I was like what? Oh wait, I have never owned anything Samsung other than a couple SSD's and a couple of appliances
I do have to say that after posting the above comment, I was really tempted to add my first ever user to the list last night, but it was actually the opposite scenario. An Apple fan just dumping childing and churlish comments on a thread. My phone was blowing up for hours because I follow the thread. There are those types of posters on both sides
Anything is possible; I just don't see how it's at all relevant.
It seemed to me that the implication was:
- Some moderators enjoy a perceived status of being moderators
- Enjoying a perceived status associated with being a moderator is negative.
The only thing that's relevant IMO is that the moderators mod according to the rules and policies on MacRumors, and are polite and within the rules when posting as regular users. That's what we expect, and as far as I can see, it's what they all do.
We've added a sticky with information that explains the ignore function. It's a general info sticky, not a thread whose purpose is to continue the discussion we've had here, but the discussion did make it clear that we didn't have enough info on the ignore function in the rules or the FAQ.
So thank you for this thread - it showed us an area of the rules/FAQ that needed improvement.
So thank you for this thread - it showed us an area of the rules/FAQ that needed improvement.