Mod tools growing with user 'tools'
So, new here and looking around but haven't seen this addressed yet (though could be wrong! Happy to be linked if I missed something)
One common failure I've seen in online communities of various sorts is that moderation tools don't get grown in parallel with user tools and abilities, rather they lag behind, and are often in the end built by third parties. This is the case with Reddit, but also in a bunch of other areas (e.g. online gaming, admin tools were often built to basically provide functionality that users realised were needed but makers did not).
I get the impression there are plenty of reddit mods here, so can we discuss what are the key features needed to moderate communities that would be better built in than coming from third party tools (RES, toolbox) . A lot of these aren't needed with 100 users but with a million they become pretty crucial.
My initial thoughts:
- Something not dissimilar to the automod
- Group user tagging (shared tagging visible to all mods, tags can be linked to specific discussions/comments)
- Ability to reply as a 'tilde' not as an individual
- Ability to have canned responses/texts (for removals, for replies to user contacts)
- Some sort of ticket-like system for dealing with user contacts to mods (take inspiration from helpdesk ticket systems)
- (added) space per tilde for storage (tags, notes, bans, canned text etc) of reasonable size.
Plenty more to add I am sure but wanted to open the discussion.
I agree they'd probably be needed at some point, but reddit had millions of users before some of those tools appeared out of the woodwork. So I think for the time being, with such a small user-base, that we don't need quite as many fancy tools built in. I think the dev time would be better suited to growing the platform for general usability first.
Yes, but the issue is if you wait on this stuff, by the time you need it, it is kinda too late and you end up with third party stuff and hacked together options.
Yes certainly general usability is the priority but my point was, build the development of these things into the development plan so that they appear alongside the user tools as the platform scales up.
Also, if you have these on the roadmap you avoid technical decisions which would make these things needlessly harder to implement later.
E.g, a user tagging system is created for peopel to add personal tags, but it is bound to the account and stored tied to the account in such a way that it can never be shared with other users, so later when group tagging is needed a second, parallel system needs to be created.
Or another example, from Reddit, each sub has a veeeery limited amount of space on their wiki, which is often used as the 'database' for various shared tools. You don't need to build all the tools on day one but making sure that each tilde has sufficient space to store such data at an early stage makes a lot of sense.
So like i said, my suggestion is to get the roadmap for these tools started in parallel with the main roadmap so they can co-evolve, not be a painful afterthought.
I really hope mods won't be as important as on reddit, and won't have as much power. After years on Reddit, I'm convinced mods are needed, but I'm also convinced giving them too much power and importance creates unwelcoming communities (StackOverflow, anyone?).
So instead of blindly replicating all of reddit's mod tools, I hope care will be taken to keep moderation to the minimum, as a last resort when community policing fails.
Yeah. I see a lot of people assuming tildes is going to be a replication of reddit and organised/managed the same way.
Hopefully the userbase here will be mature enough to largely self moderate and behave like adults. Moderation will be necessary, but I don't see "fiefdoms" under the control of an "in group" developing. Or at least, I hope that kind thing doesn't develop.
The whole idea of creating fiefdoms seems to be part of the design of ~. In the docs, Demios talks about how long standing memebers of a group need to have more power than new members in order to maintain group culture.
The idea appears to be more fluid though, where more people have some power, and you need to be an active member of a community to have influence over it.
I think this is the really critical bit. On reddit, you often end up with moderators that seem to do nothing but moderate, which I think feeds into the whole "mods are Nazis" line that people like to peddle – it can feel like the mods are a totally separate group of people from the users that actually post to and read the subreddit. Hopefully, Tildes will encourage/enforce that moderators (or whatever they end up getting called) should interact with the p̶l̶e̶b̶s̶ rest of the users and browse the group like everyone else, so it doesn't feel like you're being censored by a faceless group of people you've never talked to.
Activity is crucial, in my opinion. For instance, I don't participate in ~games, and probably never will, so I have no business moderating it.
Your say that, it's all context dependant. Facelessness has its place too, e.g. avoiding mods being stalked and abused for decisions unpopular with small but vocal community minorities. E.g. If you are giving planned parenthood style advice on options for pregnancy, you don't really want to attract the extreme end of the pro choice movement. Or if you have to say deal with such people being abusive, get tagged as the individual doing it.
Collective responsibility (cabinet style) can have benefits.
There is a difference between being moderated anonymously by the active members of a community, and a clique of "ivory tower" moderators enforcing their ideas arbitrarily over said community. The importance of avoiding the latter is what the OP was discussing, I believe.
By "fiefdoms" I meant a semi closed group of people moderating all, say, book groups or whatever.
This will not happen. Tildes will reach Eternal September at some point, after going public.
It doesn't have to. You could make it a bit challenging to get an account, for example (like a ten day waiting period, maybe?). I'm sure others can come up with creative ideas to avoid that problem.
Of course Tildes needs to grow, but what I think we want is growth in high quality users, not sheer volume.
A waiting period is still a public site though, and there are some sites that do it already.
Staying invite-only might help against Eternal September, but would limit growth.
I think there is a balance to strike. Yes the 'power' of moderators is something to consider. Reddit is a set of autocracies (it is not a free speech zone in any way). Some of the functions can be managed in other ways through community policing, but some things I'm talking about are tools that let the policies of a tilde be enacted, whether they are based on community consensus or autocratic imposition.
Communities will have norms, and rules. It is sensible to have things that support those, to the extent that are needed. Lets take soem examples. On Reddit, which tilde is a sort of successor too (clearly) mod power to remove content and ban users is a very touchy thing. So yes, consider carefully what tools are created to support this.
In contrast, have you used the (enhanced?) modmail? . Its basically just still PMs, with an archive fucntion. In whatever form tilde takes it will be important for users to talk to moderators of a tilde in some structured way. People will have questions, will want to make suggestions, complaints. If you include, from an early stage, a ticket based system here, you allow for this to be much better structured. A ticket can be categorised, assigned, updated, transferred, escalated, closed and reopened. At present on reddit you have PM-threads which have the option to be archived, after which they fall into a pit of almost-unfindableness. And if you hit archive by accident, its gone and the chance of another mod seeing it in a high traffic community is veeeeery low.
Mods should be admin secretaries not all powerful gods, but they need to have the tools that let that happen.
I think based on the people starting ~, you probably won't have to worry about mod tools being neglected. A lot of the discussion I've seen so far has been about the overall systems for encouraging good interactions and punishing bad ones, including the trust system and increasing auditing (and modding) abilities as your trust increases. It feels like (to me) there won't be as much of a distinction between "user" and "moderator," more of a continuum.
But still, discussion is good :)