Greater Transparency

[Awesomeness Reeker]

From the BBQ thread "let's talk about this": homefan.proboards24.com/index.cgi?board=bbq&action=display&thread=1156127561&page=1

admin said:

bh said:

On a side note, if personal issues etc play a role in this then there ought to be a dispute mechanism. In fact, I'd go as far to say that an entire board ought to be created upon the move to deal with such issues should they arrive. It shouldn't be an open forum to all posters but rather only to mods, GMs, admins and relevant parties to discuss the issue at hand, with temporary access to that board (and no other board, including the mods board) given to these parties. Surely this is within the software's capabilities? What this would do is basically create a temporary 4th class of priviledges: Poster > this access > mods/GM > admins that would not only ensure an open dialogue but would quell concerns by many of any kangaroo court actions being conducted secretly and would furthermore benefit the boards as a whole.

From a software standpoint, that is possible. But remember we're only going to be here for a few more days.

Once upon a time someone at FanHome mentioned the idea of a board of posters that get a say in certain parts of the site like punishment and stuff like that. Sort of like you just said. I don't know how Ty feels about this but I'd be interested in discussing such a committee...if you guys want to talk about it. maybe post a thread on the Help board, so we don't hijack this thread with discussing that issue here.

[nesince92]

If that's possible with the new software, I think there's great merit to the idea.

[TestSubjekt]

I think it could be a good idea. I don't know how other mods feel. I don't remember how the original idea was received at FanHome back in the day.

But just because we didn't do it somewhere else doesn't mean we can't try new things here. As I've said many times the reason I started an alternative here was because that other place wasn't feeling like FanHome anymore. It's the posters that made the site great, not the owner. So I think the posters should get a bigger say.

An idea I just had while taking my dog for a walk was we let those that donate to the boards sit on this commitee...? maybe it will be an bigger incentive to donate? I dunno. Just a thought.

[Awesomeness Reeker]

I don't like the idea of tying a cost to access. I don't think it should be a permanent distinction, but rather a temporary one as I outlined. If the donation should get you anything it should be something like images in your sig or a larger avatar or something like that.

[BroadST]

I like the idea of the seperate board for anyone involved in a discussion that shouldn't be in the open forum. It would make it so much easier to talk about it rather than trading PM's back and forth with the poster and an admin. I know as a mod, I would be in favor of it, if its possible. We wouldn't need it all of the time, but it would come in handy, IMO.

[TestSubjekt]

bh said:

I don't like the idea of tying a cost to access. I don't think it should be a permanent distinction, but rather a temporary one as I outlined.

I wasn't suggesting it be a permanent distinction either, but rather whoever donated that month sits in on the panel. But I think I see your point since I think only two mods have donated thus far. No difference from what there is now, as far as your transparency goes.

If the donation should get you anything it should be something like images in your sig or a larger avatar or something like that.

That's an interesting thought.

[jeffbear]

admin said:

It's the posters that made the site great, not the owner. So I think the posters should get a bigger say.

While I agree with this in concept, I'm not at all sure what we're looking at in terms of real world application. For example, in my years as a CM on Scout almost all of the long drawn out disputes I've been involved in regarding disciplinary measures came from users who frankly just couldn't accept that they'd ever done anything wrong ... regardless of the fact that typically at least two other CMs and one or more of their "home board" mods had agreed that they had before the disciplinary action was taken in the first place.

In nearly every instance where the disciplinary action became permanent, that move was caused by the user abusing one or more of the CMs who had simply enforced the Community Standards and/or abusing one or more of the boards in general ... by spamming the site with multiple crude user names and the like. I man, there's just no way I'd show my Mom some of the stuff I've been called over the years simply for being bold enough to actually suspend a regular poster ... or even just editing or deleting a post.

IMO, at some point in the chain of command somebody just has to put their foot down and decide what actions are and are not acceptable from our users. Seems to me that a committee approach to this kind of judgement is liable to yield changing results whereas one person as final arbitor is likely to be more predictable ... and thus repeatable.

See ... here's the rub. At the time a user sets up an account, they are vastly more willing to commit to submitting to the authority of the rules and regulations of a board community than they are when they cross the line at some later point. It typically seems to boil down to a problem submitting to authority ... and it seems to me that this won't really change whether it's a lone authority figure or a committee of peers making the decision.

[TestSubjekt]

But if it's a committee of his or her peers also making the call, wouldn't the general population be more knowledgable towards a posters punishment as opposed to thinking it's just another Nazi Power monger CM?

[jeffbear]

admin said:

But if it's a committee of his or her peers also making the call, wouldn't the general population be more knowledgable towards a posters punishment as opposed to thinking it's just another nazi CM on a powertrip?

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I'm cynical after too many of these battles ... but I just can't shake the feeling that it won't help as much as it would seem. Again , I think the root problem (at least when things go REALLY off the track) is the willingness to submit to authority ... and I'm not sure that changing that authority to a committee of one's peers makes it a whole lot better.

Now, I'm talking about the big meltdown scenario here. For smaller disputes over interpretation between two reasonable adults ... yeah, this seems like an efective way to make things fair.

And FWIW, I filed a copyright on the term "Nazi CM on a power trip" about a year ago. You owe me a buck and a half

[TestSubjekt]

And FWIW, I filed a copyright on the term "Nazi CM on a power trip" about a year ago. You owe me a buck and a half

as opposed to thinking it's just another Nazi Power monger CM?

;D

[BroadST]

Well, for the most part, for the bigger perma bands that have been done, most have been disscussed by many mods (some involved and some not involved) on the mod board. I don't think that should change unless half the mods dissagree. For the most part, we have always come to agree, at least on the hockey mod boards.

What I thought we were talking about is situations like we have on the BBQ board where we are trying to find some common ground, or we have a situation that is not so clear cut. I don't think banning someone for clear cut baiting, flaming, or calling out a mod or CM should be open for discussion other than the standard PM.

[TestSubjekt]

freezepop said:

I don't think banning someone for clear cut baiting, flaming, or calling out a mod or CM should be open for discussion other than the standard PM.

Well.......

Do you consider calling out a mod/CM to be posting a thread instead of sending a PM about a decision that said mod/CM had made? Starting off small...Let's say it had no nasty language. Just simply asked why was my thread closed? Why was my post deleted?

I know that some feel that is calling them out. Try that on the Jays board and you'll get banned...that is if you can get onto the Jays board in the first place That's what got us started here.

Then also you have to consider that some of the troublemakers at Scout.com were only banned from some of the team forums or areas where they did their stuff, and not their home teams board. What happens with them?

I know that the proboards software (unless I'm missing a trick) isn't capable of banning by forum. You can suspend them from the whole site or ban them from the whole site. I'm not sure what the specs are on vbb and what it's capable of.

[BroadST]

Well, I guess I have to get used to thinking of an entire site rather than just hockey because I have gotten used to the way things were handled.

I don't consider asking why a post was deleted or edited calling out a mod but I see your point. When someone would do that to me as a mod, I would then delete or edit the post and follow it up with a PM to the person explaining the problem. That seemed to have worked most of the time. If the person then flipped out, usually it was someone that was causing problems to begin with anyway.

As far as the trouble makers and their own boards, over the last few months, I know we started to also ban the poster from their home board which seemed to pack a bigger punch.

Geez, who runs the Jays board, Hitler?

[TestSubjekt]

It's too easy for me to bash Scout.

I'd rather focus on learning from the many mistakes made there in the past and try to make our community the best sports community on the net.

[BroadST]

admin said:

It's too easy for me to bash Scout.

I'd rather focus on learning from the many mistakes made there in the past and try to make our community the best sports community on the net.

Could NOT agree with you more!!!

[Awesomeness Reeker]

When I used to post at Satannet, there was somewhat of an initiation process that users had to deal with before being granted full access to the boards. Basically, you would start off with access to the introductions only board and their version of a BBQ board. How you conducted yourself would be weighed in by the mods and admins (kind of like the karma system), so if you proved to be a lurker or a nuisance, after 2 weeks your account was deleted, but if you accumulated a positive number of points, you would be granted access to more boards and two weeks after that, total access to all board besides the CoS members board and mods/admin board. This would seem to quell some of the concerns of jeffbear and I imagine some others, and I can almost assure that this would ensure for more intelligent conversation. It's a process that could be automated so the labour involved would be front-ended at best. While this does depend on ethical behaviour by the mods and admins, I think most of us trust the lot of you since you would make your decisions based not necessarily an autocratic rule but with input from other members as has been displayed even on these boards so far.

[jeffbear]

admin said:

I know that the proboards software (unless I'm missing a trick) isn't capable of banning by forum. You can suspend them from the whole site or ban them from the whole site. I'm not sure what the specs are on vbb and what it's capable of.

Frankly I consider that to be a good thing. IMO we got into too much troube at Scout by allowing ourselfs to think we were dealing with problems by banning posters only from the team boards where they caused problems, yet allowing thm to remain on their "home board" as if nothing had gone wrong. The only time we ever sent a strong message was when we started to suspend posters from their home board as well as from whatever board they had flamed on.