Yeah, you’re right. Fair enough, it was a hasty post and I didn’t say what I meant.
Not heavy moderation so much as careful moderation is what I mean. The kind of careful (and time consuming) moderation Tom has been doing more or less all along. I also think the vetting Tom did for several years was key to establishing the culture of this site – and that vetting was a kind of heavy moderation, no?
I have no idea what the traffic numbers are, but QT3 seems to have far more people posting regularly than it did a few years ago. There’s been a kind of inevitable decay as the number of people grows. More threads filled with nonsense posts. More people who seem to have no filter whatsoever between reading something and posting a response.
I hate to sound like the guy posting the “kids today” post, and I do agree QT3 is still a great forum, but I’m just expressing a concern that the wheels might come off.
Let me give an example. Metafilter is a site you may have been to, I’ve been posting/reading there for a long time so I’ve got a pretty good idea of it’s history. Metafilter isn’t a gaming site of course, but like QT3 is started small and with a older and pretty thoughtful user base. Also like QT3, it was very gently moderated by one guy (Matt Haughey). MeFi’s popularity steadily grew, the threads became more and more filled with noise and stupid flame wars. There was still a great group of people posting there, but it only takes a handful of idiots to really mess up the tone of the site. Eventually, Metafilter got itself under control by adding additional moderators. The moderators there still practice very gentle moderation, but it’s present enough that it keeps the rabble in line.
Not a great comparison of course, Metafilter is an actual paying part time job for the moderators. Maybe Tom should put a $5 fee on registering like Metafilter did. Heh.
Anyway, like I said, I totally don’t blame Tom for not wanting to do the thankless job of trying to get internet reprobates to act like mature adults. Just bums me out is all.
Agree completely with the above posts, especially the bit about adding another moderator. There’s no reason it should have to all be up to Tom to run this place, clearly that’s wearing him down.
I will miss Tom’s gentle moderation as much as anyone but I think a couple of points need to be stated here.
Tom is tired of this. Doesn’t he deserve a rest?
I think that Tom’s disappointment has not just been with the idiots/trolls but with the rest of us for taking that bait. If we ignore that thread/post, then it will disappear.
Maybe we should practice some self-moderation until Tom gets his mojo back.
Moderation is a job. It’s not a hobby. It’s not fun. It’s thankless and a lot of people you think are your friends turn into raging retard cockmonkeys in private messages.
My nomination would be to create 3 or 4 anonymous accounts (“entity_01”, “entity_02”, etc.), turn them over to people Tom trusts to keep to the general gestalt of the place (and most importantly, don’t particularly WANT the job), and pay them to put in a few hours a day to send/respond to PMs about reported posts and the like. Even a touch, like $1 or something (Google Ads doesn’t pay worth a crap, I think I make 10c a day off the ones on my blog). But enough to reinforce that it’s a job and a service, not a hobby.
Speaking as a relative nobody, I would hate to see Qt3 change. Where else can I get conversations about Werner Herzog, Guided By Voices and SHUMPs all in the same day?
What a depressing way to start the week after a long weekend!
I pretty much want to say exactly what Hanzii wrote, except I can only promise to groan at the podcast coffee schtick.
I loved the reverse filter ploy. I was never a fan of the meme in question, and thought the filter was a pretty brilliant way to pull the rug out from under it.
I’m with you on the whole pathetic cunt/tapir thing – but is it really worth kicking one of the better signal/noise forums into the bin? And besides, where will everyone from c.s.i.p.g.s go now? ;-)
Why not just boot the handful of “vocal people who obviously don’t intend to honor those expectations”? It is your house, after all. For that matter, just make it standing policy to boot anyone that you feel steps over the line, then reinstate them a week later to see if they cool down – PM chains with likely assholes are a pain, and cutting down on them would make it less grating. Ideally the reinstatement could be automated somehow.
You do perhaps the best job moderating I’ve ever seen, and I suspect most of us here would be entirely happy to trust your judgment on such matters.
I’d bet that vetting new users is also part of the drag. This seems like it would be the sort of thing you could foist onto others, or perhaps move to an invitation only approach, at least for a while. This would cut down on the load, while also limiting the number of flameouts that inevitably stem from opening the floodgates.
If that was true the original banning registry thread wouldn’t have been started, actually.
There’s no actual vetting done anymore. He just approves the whole queue every 6 or so months (minus the obvious spammers IIRC). And offers for help in this process have been made previously.
How’s that? I always figured it was just people slowing down to rubberneck flaming wrecks. Pretty harmless until folks started pushing individuals they didn’t like into oncoming traffic.
I don’t think your assertion logically follows at all – it’s hardly the case that someone starting a banning thread means that most posters aren’t happy trusting Tom’s judgement on the matter. In fact I thought that thread made it perfectly clear only a few were upset, and honestly, I could not care less if they left.
There’s no actual vetting done anymore. He just approves the whole queue every 6 or so months (minus the obvious spammers IIRC). And offers for help in this process have been made previously.
Yes, I know. “Letting everyone in” is still nominally a vetting process, and comes with it’s own set of (deferred) headaches – such as having to ban wankers.
I don’t know whether the honorarium would make a difference, but I do think giving some people moderator status without telling everyone who’s a mod is a good idea. The idea is not to make people act civilized when dad’s in the room, the idea is to make people act civilized.
Neither have I, and I don’t think it’s especially surprising. It’s about understanding the culture of the place you are and staying within the social norms. And mostly it’s about treating other people with respect. As long as you’re grown up about it, even if you’re flaming, you’re not going to get scolded.
I like the idea of secret moderators, but only if it was possible to make it so that when a moderator comments or acts in a thread, or a moderator PMs someone, that the username listed defaults to “The Entity”.
Having been both a moderator and forum admin, it is indeed a thankless task. The best moderation is done quietly, with the moderator not making his presence obvious. That’s not always possible or appropriate but for a site like Qt3 I’d think it would work.
I’m not so sure Tom would want to set up such an arrangement, though.
Yeah, that. I know from experience that moderation is a thankless and hard job, but I bet we have enough folks to set up a volunteer rotation or similar. I would hate to be a full time QT3 moderator but wouldn’t mind a few weeks here or there where I know it’s my responsibility to keep an eye on QT3.
On a more serious note, I hate the entire idea of anonymous mods. When I was on the anandtech forums, the anonymous mods often abused their power greatly. Anonymity leads to irresponsibility, IMO.
Bill D barely has time to come and swat down noobs anymore, what makes you think he’d be willing to devote the amount of time necessary to properly moderate a forum?
