Transparency is nice, how about randomness, rotation, and counterpowers? ( conspiracy )

submitted by a9sdd8nas90

For example, you ask voluntary users to tick a check box stating they are volunteer for modding, and then every now a lottery happens and they can get selected to mod a sub for say a week. Similarly, some volunteers could get selected for a counter modding function, they could reinstate removed content, or give bad moderators blames which could lower the probability of being selected for moderation... Shares the burden + is representative + prevents lockouts... I invent nothing, Athens was governed this way for a century. What do you think?

The_Oracle

This is interesting, after the transparency discussion I was trying to think of a way to elect new moderators, someone who really wants to be one seems like the last person who should be if you see what I mean, those who crave power are usually the people who are most likely to abuse it once they have it, so a random selection of moderators seems like it could be a good idea.

However I'm going to play devil's advocate and state a few drawbacks to this method, the first being the one Lysergia pointed out, that it seems like it would be a nightmare to code, although I have no experience of this myself. Secondly if someone was selected who had neither the time nor the inclination to actually carry out their responsibilities, or a crisis of some kind arose that was beyond their abilities as a first time moderator, that would present a problem for the wellbeing of this sub. Your suggestion of opting into the lottery would solve some of this but not all I fear, for example if you opted in to be considered but were selected on the week of a university deadline, or an unforeseen real life emergency that takes up your time. If the way around this was to transfer your duties to someone else for that week that would seem to undermine the randomness of the selection process. My final thought is that a counter modding function is a little pointless to give to only a few people, I think all users should have the ability to question moderator decisions and use OWNtheNWO's idea of some sort of up voting system to reinstate deleted material or even remove a moderator if there were serious violations, obviously with some caveats about the users that can vote on these things such as a certain number of posts or a length of time subscribed so that the system cannot easily be gamed.

Those are my thoughts for now anyway, as someone with no practical knowledge of coding I have no clue how easy or hard it would be to implement your ideas or any others that are being suggested, I do think total moderator transparency is a very good starting point for now but it would be interesting to implement some democratic voting systems, especially ones first used by the fathers of democracy.

a9sdd8nas90

someone who really wants to be one seems like the last person who should be if you see what I mean

I absolutely do, it's the essence of sortition, prevent the most eager to get an edge from their eagerness.

that it seems like it would be a nightmare to code

Nothing the people behind voat can't handle, there is no hurry though, and indeed moderation logs and current moderation teams can do a fantastic job for a long while before anything more involved is required, i'm sure there is more urgent.

if someone was selected who had neither the time nor the inclination to actually carry out their responsibilities, or a crisis of some kind arose that was beyond their abilities as a first time moderator, that would present a problem for the wellbeing of this sub. [...] for example if you opted in to be considered but were selected on the week of a university deadline, or an unforeseen real life emergency that takes up your time. If the way around this was to transfer your duties to someone else for that week that would seem to undermine the randomness of the selection process.

That's what the blames and countermodding would be for, of course a refusal would induce a new random draw (perhaps they would give credentials to a friend but that's not the ideological and political lobbying level we are concerned with anyway), also there is no pressure to only have one moderator per sub, if one turns out inactive the blow is quite minor, and it only lasts so long, and perhaps counter moderation could be entrusted to verify activity if it ever becomes a problem. Definitely no passing the poke though, i agree it completely breaks the purpose and opens the door to corruption, redraw or leave the rest of the moderation team as is are the only options.

My final thought is that a counter modding function is a little pointless to give to only a few people, I think all users should have the ability to question moderator decisions

All users are allowed to check in for moderation, i never meant a select few, the counter mods would be drawn from the same pool of volunteers, once you get drawn to moderate a sub, another once to moderate moderators, and instead of scrutinizing user content, you scrutinize moderator behaviors. It's almost a feedback loop, it reinforces in moderators the behaviors they would expect from moderators.

The_Oracle

All salient points, thanks for replying so extensively and I'm completely with you on this idea, the only thing I would still question is the counter modding, even if they are drawn randomly and have the task of moderating the moderators I think this could be done by all users all the time, I'm not sure specific counter moderators would be needed at all if all subscribers had the ability to see changes made or posts deleted, if there was total transparency a system could be put in place to vote on these changes by established users and keep the moderators in line.

a9sdd8nas90

ah i see what you mean, literally open up the role to all users, depending on what their actual function and power(s) are, it can certainly be a reasonable line of thought

CeciNestPasUnComplot

I think it's important to figure out the motivation.

I was having a discussion with my friend and we were wondering why somebody would want to be in law enforcement. Especially nowadays with their unpopularity gaining traction.

I personally dislike telling anybody what to do. It just makes me feel icky inside. So how do you find a moderator who only wants to keep things organized in a cohesive and consistent way, while also having no ulterior motive or agenda? On message boards there's nothing more infuriating to me than double standards and a lack of continuity in censure and punishment.

Is there a solution? Do you either have an impossible fantasy moderator, devoid of human nature, or do you have no moderator at all?

Tleilaxu_Ghola

OK, I already do not like this 20 karma points to upvote a topic. I can't upvote this because I am new. That sucks ass.

OWNtheNWO

Prevents, or at least deters shill vote spam accounts, you actually have to participate and get link and comment points before you can influence the site.

Tleilaxu_Ghola

Yeah....but I'm a serial upvoter remember..;-]

a9sdd8nas90

so am i but i actually like it, increases the e-value of votes, now it's a deserve game haha

Tleilaxu_Ghola

Is the source code for voat open source? It seems kind of obvious it is based on reddit's source. I guess I don't know enough about this place right now, so sorry if my question seems kind of stupid..

Lt_Leeks

I concur, this is a really interesting way to handle moderation. Also maybe not have the ability to comment, or if you comment it can only be once per thread unless you are involved with the banning. I could still see large groups "raiding" the threads and witch hunting mods. I feel like if you limit the commentators it can keep these logs from being full of toxic speech.

OWNtheNWO

or if you comment it can only be once per thread unless you are involved with the banning

Indeed, prevent flame wars, w/e.

OWNtheNWO

That's what I mean by a public mod log, the easiest way to do this is for the Voat servers to create a mirror sub /m/conspiracy that has a slightly different format where it shows the post, the removal and the reason given. There is no moderation of this sub, there is no down votes in the sub, there is no way to post new threads in the sub, only comment, only up vote, it's simply a list of all the removals from the sub and a way for the board constituency to appeal the removal without having to sway the mods hands. Same voting rules apply that already apply to the rest of the site and I'd say even make it more stringent some way, like you can only put in so many vote appeals, say 10 separate in a 24 hour period or something like that (not well thought out atm).

May be by default all /v/'s should contain a ticker on the side bar from /m/ as well to make sure that everyone is always aware of what's being removed.

Tleilaxu_Ghola

I think one of the things that could be considered, depending on how flexible and sub-specific things can be, is to allow a sub to require a deletion to be checked off by another moderator in the sub. In some subverses, like this one for example, deletions can be very controversial sometimes, so to alleviate some of this a sub could require removals to be approved by 2 mods. Or maybe make it based on karma, I know /v/Conspiracy over on reddit recently had this issue come up where a mod deleted a post from an established poster and it created a big stink. That way low/no-karma shill and troll accounts could have obvious posts in violation of the rules deleted by one mod, but if you have enough karma built up in a sub with an obvious positive posting history, then a deletion requires 2 mods to approve it.

OWNtheNWO

I think anything that adds another layer of accountability is positive, may be they need a majority of mods and in the case where a sub only has two mods both have to agree?

Tleilaxu_Ghola

I can only imagine what the one guy who is coding this place is thinking right now with this reddit exodus bombarding his inbox..lol Poor guy.

OWNtheNWO

He obviously saw what was coming.

OWNtheNWO

The only issue is vote gaming could override removals, but with the way they already have the vote system set up here, it will make it a lot harder to exploit.

OWNtheNWO

Pretty much, gotta eat an elephant one bite at a time, start with a public mod log system, possibly with the ability for sub users to override a removal by upvoting? I don't know about the second half there but it's an idea I've been kicking around since yesterday.