Current Affairs Moderation

[dahamsta]

I won't be commenting personally in here any more.

In future, if I issue an instruction to someone in-thread, it's as a moderator and it's to be either taken on board or challenged in the Support forum (http://foot.ie/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=63). Challenges in-thread will receive infractions, suspensions or bans.

[osarusan]

Not sure if this is what you want to hear, but I'm interested in a lot of what you have to say about the issues in Current Affairs. Couldn't you just differentiate between your personal opinions and moderating comments by saying "mod speak" before the latter? That way you could continue to do both things (if you're interested in personal posts, that is)

We've had this discussion before with other moderators, and I don't think being a moderator should mean you can't comment just as a normal poster also.

[John83]

You do seem to be a fairly interested and opinionated poster in this section. As an alternative to osarusan's suggestion, if you feel you can't post and moderate even-handedly at the same time, you could choose not to personally moderate this section - reporting posts like a normal member if you feel someone's stepped out of line.

[dahamsta]

I unsubbed from the Politics forum on Boards.ie ages ago, I just didn't get around to doing it here until now. I appreciate your comments but moderation is more important than my input, and the trolling and exteme views are getting worse and obviously need moderation. I just want to make the separation crystal clear.

[jebus]

That's a shame, you genuinely seem to have an interest in a lot of the issues raised in here and are able to back your arguments up

[BohsPartisan]

I unsubbed from the Politics forum on Boards.ie ages ago, I just didn't get around to doing it here until now. I appreciate your comments but moderation is more important than my input, and the trolling and exteme views are getting worse and obviously need moderation. I just want to make the separation crystal clear.

I'd agree with what Osarun said there (you might be surprised to hear). I don't post a lot but I dip in and read from time to time and I agree with some of your recent contributions. Not that that's important in the great scheme of things, the more important thing is that personally I feel that the worst type of censorship is self censorship. If you've got something to say, say it.

[thischarmingman]

I may not post in here that often but I do enjoy reading it, I think you should be able to say something if you want to.

[dahamsta]

Basically I'm taking over as mod in this forum as I don't like the direction it's taken, and since the moderation that's required here needs to be strict, I'm not going to leave myself open to accusations of bias resulting from philosophical disagreements.

I always wanted the Foot.ie CA forums to be moderate in nature, an alternative to the other forums where you have to be right-wing or left-wing, and ne'er the twain shall meet. To me, that's what's wrong with politics.

I'd like to try and guide CA back to what I was hoping for it, and perhaps join in again then.

adam

[CF1989]

can i just pose the question...why is foot.ie so serious? why is moderation so important?

[Rovers1]

Moderation is important in moderation. Now, i may have had 6 cans of Dutch. But, without moderators eg. SLigoman, sligoman and sligoman.The world would explode. You'd be allowed opinion after opinion free to air! Animals would begin to talk (they may soon) and UCD would win the league. Harps would be in Europe every year and Joey Maloney would be Rovers captain

LONG LIVE MODERATION!! eg. Sligoman

[dahamsta]

can i just pose the question...why is foot.ie so serious? why is moderation so important?Remember Johnny Ward's football site, that ultimately caved in on itself? That's what Foot.ie was meant not to be.

[John83]

can i just pose the question...why is foot.ie so serious? why is moderation so important?
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/youtube.png

The internet, unmoderated.

[dahamsta]

A far better answer than mine!

[jebus]

can i just pose the question...why is foot.ie so serious? why is moderation so important?

I also post on unmoderated forums (although every forum bar /B/ is moderated to some extent) and if you want any level of actual debate then it's vital.

Otherwise every thread ends up with loads of laughing smileys and random insults

[Mr A]

On the other hand, /B/ is the greatest forum in history.

[jebus]

On the other hand, /B/ is the greatest forum in history.

If you're a maybe paedophile then yes I'd have to agree

[Mr A]

Harsh. I think you'll find that all forms of depravity feature on there. :)

[Macy]

why is foot.ie so serious? why is moderation so important?
I'm on a few forums and there's definitely a balancing act, but on one of them recently had a knob ruining it, because of the absence of propper moderation, and it was the vigilantes that were nearly worse than the original offender.

I think the balance is generally ok here, some mods are more pinickity than others (one or two overly so, and not even on their "own" forum), but people who fall foul are usually persistent offenders that most are happy to see the back of.

[BohsPartisan]

The key to good moderation is "less is more". People are always going to offend others and as long as that offence isn't inciting hatred or outright bullying then you're entitled to offend imo. Moderators should be there for when their really really needed, not to shape discussion in the way they'd like.

[dahamsta]

As a moderator of 10 years experience, with a 5000 member forum, I respectfully disagree. You can have too much moderation, and too little moderation. The correct amount of moderation is exactly in the middle, with slides to either side when necessary. As in politics, and nearly every other walk of life.

[thischarmingman]

As a moderator of 10 years experience

Out of interest, how old is this forum? When's it's birthday? :)

[Billsthoughts]

As a moderator of 10 years experience, with a 5000 member forum, I respectfully disagree. You can have too much moderation, and too little moderation. The correct amount of moderation is exactly in the middle, with slides to either side when necessary. As in politics, and nearly every other walk of life.

Im always wary of people who qoute their "experience" to add weight to their argument. I think people can read your posts and make up their own minds good bad or indifferent. In my opinion if you want to moderate properly you need to be dispasionate and not take things personally. I think you fail to do this and especially so in the Current Affairs forum where you seem to have a genuine interest in it. The forum is going to be representitive of the people expressing their views on it,people are going to have views that are on opposite ends of the spectrum. You would have more of a positive influence on it by contributing to it than moderating it.

[dahamsta]

Out of interest, how old is this forum? When's it's birthday? :)1st of June 2001 (http://foot.ie/showthread.php?p=2). That's actually the second post, Dodge deleted the first one a year or two ago for reasons best known only to himself. :)

I'm always wary of people that contradict themselves in the space of a single paragraph, so I'll take a pass on replying to that last post.

[dahamsta]

Wahey, thread #1 is back (http://foot.ie/showthread.php?t=1)! Restored from a backup from 2004.

James gets the credit for the first non-dahamsta post (http://foot.ie/showthread.php?t=4) though.

adam

[BohsPartisan]

As a moderator of 10 years experience, with a 5000 member forum, I respectfully disagree. You can have too much moderation, and too little moderation. The correct amount of moderation is exactly in the middle, with slides to either side when necessary. As in politics, and nearly every other walk of life.

The question is, when is it necessary. I'm a moderator on thebohs.com and we have a very relaxed policy which usually works for us.

[dahamsta]

I'm pretty sure there's very, very little extreme moderation on Foot.ie. It's an occasional thing that usually gets blown out of all proportion. We get accused of being nazis on a regular basis, but almost exclusively by complete muppets whose opinions - imho - don't matter. The quality of conversation is way better on Foot.ie than most other sites. Again, imho.

Anyway, all of this is moot, my (general) moderation style and the style I've encouraged isn't going to change in a hurry. Again, I think Foot.ie is proof of it's success.

This thread is supposed to be about moderation in this forum, so if people want to feed back on that, by all means work away.

adam

[thischarmingman]

Wahey, thread #1 is back (http://foot.ie/showthread.php?t=1)! Restored from a backup from 2004.

James gets the credit for the first non-dahamsta post (http://foot.ie/showthread.php?t=4) though.

adam

Prices in pounds...how quaint...;)

[jebus]

So back to the bigger question of what's planned for the 10th anniversary? :)

[John83]

So back to the bigger question of what's planned for the 10th anniversary? :)
A DOS attack on anfearrua.com.