[arg_discuss] [sig] Moderation

[Andrea Phillips]

On Dec 13, 2005, at 1:19 PM, Adam Martin wrote:

> From the founding proposal for the SIG:
>
> "Fully moderated mailing list, open to all subscribers - simple  
> charter on the website (c.f the list of topic areas from above),  
> moderation to keep things moving along, and encourage splitting  
> threads into new topics, etc."
>
> Today, it became clear that two of the three list moderators were  
> interpreting this completely differently :). Which in turn made it  
> obvious that we don't have any official policy on this, and that  
> nothing at all is said about this to new joiners to the list.
>
> So, the question now is: what do we want to do about moderation?

To foster a little more discussion, I thought I'd lay out a couple of  
strategies we could use and solicit opinions on them. There are of  
course the two ends of the spectrum:

A. No moderation whatsoever. This leaves us open to trolls and off- 
topic conversation, the most worrisome variety of which would be "Hey  
can you tell me how to solve (random hard puzzle)?" This way allows  
the most conversation, but also the most noise. This has the  
disadvantage of being against our charter. ;)

B. Significant moderation. All posts are read for on-topicness, tone,  
and factual content, and may be edited or sent back for revisions  
before being posted. This would result in a very high-signal list  
where every single post will be relevant, though the total number of  
posts might be somewhat lower. There is also the potential for some  
human bias in what gets posted and what doesn't.

Besides that, there are a number of a la carte moderation tools we  
could use in between these ends of the spectrum.

1. New member moderation period. Existing members would all be given  
a pass-through so posts go up right away. We would require that all  
new members joining be moderated for their first few posts (call it  
five?), and then they would be configured so their posts would  
automatically pass through. This would leave the overall flow of  
conversation between existing members pretty free, while preventing a  
lot of the noise that happens when a new member hasn't got the hang  
of the list yet. Kind of an enforced lurk period.

2. Moderation for everybody as per B, but with a less stringent set  
of guidelines; only spam, obvious trolling, personal attacks, or ARG- 
playing would be rejected, and nothing would be edited.

3. Moderation as per 2, but with an intermediate set of guidelines.  
Posts could be rejected for being too off-topic, or if they need to  
be split off into a new thread, or if there are other administrative  
concerns. (There are actually a number of policies in between we  
could use, and if we decide this is the right path, then we can  
perhaps write up a policy on what would be rejectable and why.)

3. Moderation of individuals as they prove troublesome; spam, obvious  
trolling, personal attacks, and ARG-playing in the list would all be  
grounds for this.

4. Moderation by means of private email. Rather than using the list's  
admin interface, we could perform moderation by simply quietly  
sending email to list members when there is a problem (stay on topic,  
split the thread please, play nice with your brother.) This is very  
nice, but has the disadvantage of being after the fact.

5. Moderation by means of posts to the list. As per 4, but everyone  
would see, and perhaps learn from others' mistakes. This would also  
apply a little bit of peer pressure to problems of off-topicness, etc.

If anybody has any other suggestions for moderating policies we could  
use, please post. :)

Soooo.... what do we think?


--
Andrea Phillips
http://www.perplexcity.com
http://www.deusexmachinatio.com